MFG Cyclocross @ Silver Lake

Northwest in Motion has been attending both the MFG Cyclocross and Cross Revolution series this season. Sunday’s Tacko Fall Buffet presented by MIIR was the first dry race thus far. Last week’s Cross Revolution at North SeaTac Park was a bonafide quagmire.

This week’s MFG event honored one of the tallest humans on earth, Senegalese native Tacko Fall. Tacko is 7 feet, 7 inches tall, weighs 311 pounds, and has a standing reach of 10 feet, 2 inches. Tacko played college basketball for the University of Central Florida, and has signed a contract with the Boston Celtics. The MFG series organizers feel inspired by Tacko Fall’s curiosity to come to the US as a 16 year old, his academic standing in college, and his underdog/un-drafted status as he enters the NBA.

They also made this connection to this year’s namesake race: “You’ll need the every bit of a 7’7 athlete’s stride to run the hills, sand, more hills, more sand at Silver Lake. This venue demands a lot of muscle and technique. Numerous tricky turns with multiple lines to choose from. The sand is navigable to those with the speed and technique to master it. You might make up time on the hills, lose it in the sand and downhill…a very entertaining course.”

The high line on the beach seemed to be more challenging than the line along the waterline.

The course at Thornton A. Sullivan Park included long sandy beach sections, steep climbs, and curvy descents.

This Liquid Velo racer was all smiles running up the berm at the end of the beach section.

In contrast to road cycling, cyclocross events are low key and family friendly. New participants are welcomed, and no special bike is required, although in some races knobby tires tend to work better.

Racers accelerate out of the corner into the start/finish area.

Cyclocross is an “off-season” cycling discipline that is a bit of a hybrid between mountain biking and road cycling, and is often referred to as “steeplechase on bikes.” Enthusiasts typically boast about the difficulties on the various courses–sand, mud, and steep climbs that require dismounting–all get bragging rights.