Mind Your Own Business.

This is Nik Cee, one of the organizers of Dirty Deeds Cyclocross Series. He's been training pretty damn hard for the 2011 Series, and is pretty much ready to tear the legs off any competition. While he'll definitely get the chance to show his epic strength on Friday night, however, he knows that the Prologue is just for fun, and that a) it's not necessarily about the fastest guys in the race and b) depending on the number of racers, he may not even be competing against the other superfast guys. Because the Prologue is being run over a smaller-than-usual course, it's increasingly looking like we're going to have to split the races up into bunches, and these bunches will be based on a) Category (either Open or CX) and b) order of registration.

I'll explain the latter point in a bit more detail. At the rego desk we hand out numbers in the order that people sign in. If you're first in line, you get number 1, second in line gets number 2, and so on. At the Prologue we'll be breaking riders up so that (for example) numbers 1 - 20 ride against each other, 20 - 40 ride against each other, and so on. We'll keep track of the results, and this will allow us to create grades for the rest of the series - you know, the races that actually count.

So what does all this mean? It means that while we expect you to race as hard as you possibly can - and that we may even reward you for doing so - you should only be racing in these events for fun. If you're taking it super seriously, you should probably wait til the real races begin in a fortnight.

It also means that you have the unique opportunity to tweak the fields a little, so that you can compete in a race that consists solely of your mates / other singlespeeders / drunkards. Just make sure you all register at the same time - it's a simple as that.

We came up with the idea for a Prologue because we didn't just want to have a launch party - this ain't no art exhibition! We wanted to give people an opportunity to stand around and talk shit about bikes and heckle and hang out and get all worked up on candy from the kiosk, with a bit of racing thrown in. More important than the racing, however, is the party. So fill your thermos full of Irish Coffee, put on an extra pair of socks, bring some blankets and a lagerphone, get rowdy and come on down.