Daryl Hemenway is threatening my life.

I am grinding my way through mud that is six inches deep and I cannot make the bike go any faster.  This is mud as it’s meant to be. Sticky, soul-crushing, leg-searing mud.  A bog.  A wasteland.

Bikes and bodies were not meant to be here.

Daryl’s vein is popping out of his neck and I can see his tonsils. His mouth is a black hole of volume. I’m going to be honest with you – he is putting the fear of god into my heart.  I grip the drops as if my life depends on them and clench my jaw.

Mud like peanut butter under my tires, in my brakes, on my face.  Specks lodged into the corners of my eyes.  Daryl’s voice in my ears.  Menacing.

“Are you going to let me stand here and yell at you like this!!!!?” he is running alongside me.  The tires slip and the bike bucks underneath me.  I am gaining on the woman ahead of me. Fifty more feet of this mud.  Fifty more feet.

I cannot shake the screaming giant. Six-feet-four-inches and two-hundred-something pounds of verbal aggression.

“Goddamit, Swift!  You need to move that bike!! Turn those pedals!!  You better ride away from me RIGHT NOW!”

I look down at the top-tube, become conscious of a long tendril of snot hanging from my nose, and reach into the legs to make the pass. In 5 strokes, the rider is behind me and Daryl’s voice is fading out of earshot.  I hit a patch of grass and relish in the sweet feeling of traction.

Go.

Speed, then brakes.  A large concrete box called “the vault”. Later in the day, the pros will bunny-hop up onto it and then launch off the other side.  In the meantime, the rest of the mortals and I dismount our bikes and carry.

True cyclists are horrified that we willingly participate in a sport which requires carrying the bike over obstacles.

“Why would you do that?” they ask, incredulous.

Luckily, I am not a true cyclist.

I’m a connoisseur of mud.  A suffering aficionado.  A pain fanatic.  A lover of absurdity.  You want me to ride circles through puddles, gravel, and dirt during the shittiest weather that Oregon can dish out?  Where do I sign?

I weave through the crowd, clear a set of wooden barriers, survive the harrowing 90 degree turn past the porta-potties and pedal my way toward The Runup.

Four barriers, one hill, one windmill, and ten drummers.

Thunder and pounding.  A drum line.  A fucking drum line!  Brilliant.  Driving snares and big, big bass.  Heading up over the first two barriers the slow riders in front of me are preventing my progress.

“RUN!!!”

I yell and push a bike out of my way as I make my passes straight through the middle, under the gigantic windmill that has been constructed on the course.  Memories of mini-golf and bad middle school dates flash through my mind. I hate mini golf.  I hate mini-golf.

But now I have no choice.  I am the golf ball.  I have made it through the windmill of doom and now I must ricochet off the far wall and head down the treacherous off-camber mudslide into the hairpin turn.

What is the handicap on this shot, anyway?

I botch the descent for the first time during the race and as I hit the ground, a smart ass with a cymbal gives me an approving (mocking?) CLANG!.  The crowd erupts.  Beer wafts from the wall of bodies as they press against the tape.  I look up the hill but cannot locate the clanging culprit.  Note to self: kill the cymbal dude when finished with post-race vomiting.

Hey, we’re racing here, lady.  Get the hell up, would you?

Gravel straight-away.  A slight climb into a right hand turn.  Off-camber swoop down a muddy hillside. For the past few laps I have watched as those around me ate shit trying to ride it. During their awkward and mishandled remounts, I escaped on foot.

I run it again and make a pass.  At the top, my teammate Mike opens up a bottle of ass-whooping cheering love. My heart rate reaches its maximum state of agony and Mike becomes a little man standing in the middle of my head screaming, “You look fucking awesome today!  You are killing it!!”

Dizzy.  Cross-eyed.  Guts out.  I love you, Mike.  Mike?  Where are you, Mike?  I’m flying away from him.

Back past the windmill and down another slippery off-camber descent.  There is a small boy on the side of the course urging me: “No brakes!  You can do it!!  Trust me!  No brakes!”

I am getting schooled by an eleven-year-old.  In a rare moment of lucidity, I look into his eyes and I’m shocked by the purity of intent that I see there.  He really wants me to ride this like a pro.  He really wants me to let go my fear and descend like a bat out of hell.

This kid, he knows what’s good for me.  I relax my shoulders, ease off the brakes, weave between two wooden poles, and shoot out the other side.  Hard right onto pavement.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

The final lap of the race is a foggy collection of near misses and dramatic chase scenes.  Now I’m on the hunt, now I’m being hunted. I’m ahead, I’m behind, I’m in the middle. I’m barely hanging on and then all of the sudden I’m a steam locomotive, attacking. I breathe in big, sloppy bursts and feel saliva collecting around my mouth.

This is the part where the jaw hangs slack and the scene starts to fade to black.  Go to the bottom of the tank and then continue operating on fumes.  I am no longer conscious of myself.  I am a made up person.  A character, a cartoon, a golf ball, a collection of pain.  Anything but a girl on a bike.

The finish line comes, as it always eventually does, and the legs release their stockpiled shares of blood.  Sanity recirculates throughout the body. The brain stirs and rumbles.  Vision widens.

And the craving kicks in.

Whiskey. Immediately.

Back at the tent the congratulations on my race effort are sincere and the Woodford’s flows.  Bourbon is a recovery drink that only a cyclocrosser could appreciate.  Fiery hot going down.  Warm and sweet in the belly.  Soft and reassuring to the brain.

I consume 22 ounces of very strong, very dark beer and prepare to watch the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships.  The world is getting wavy and pastel and gooey.  This is just the buzz that the SSCXWC requires.

Drum line raging.  10 foot tall wall of bubbles in full effect.  Hot pink spider man racer.  A tattoo-covered girl in a bikini with a cowbell.  Adam Craig look-alikes on a bike with a tag-a-long trailer.  A single-speed tandem.

Everywhere is bunny-hopping mayhem and costumed shenanigans. The windmill is attacking people.  The bubbles are consuming people. It’s getting dark and the crowd is reaching a fever pitch.  Boys are dressed as Hooters waitresses.  Spectators storm the bubble machine with beers in hand and camera phones on the ready.

A bubble machine in a cross race?  Only in Portland.  And only during the SSCXWC.

As I retreat to my team’s HQ, a large man cruises by me through the finish line.  He is naked.  Completely, 100% naked.  And, I’m telling you, it doesn’t look comfortable.

As twenty other innocent bystanders and I are forever marred by this sight, I reach for the bourbon and take a long, hot draw.

The 2008 Single Speed Cyclocross World Championship is in the bag and I’ve just added a single speed ‘cross bike to my 2009 shopping list.