What does this button do? Photo © Sean O'Donnell

About this time last year I went up to Philadelphia to play around with my new video camera at the Bilenky Junkyard Cross, a holiday party masquerading as a cross race or vice versa. This event is nuts and if you have the time, you should definitely check it out. The course winds its way through a working junkyard and includes flyovers, teeter-totters and fluids. Lots and lots of fluids. I shot all day and threw some raw footage of the race up on the Internet. Many, as in tens of thousands, curious people checked it out. That was really cool.

I went back to Philadelphia earlier this year to interview some of the folks who raced and also to talk to the event’s host, framebuilder Stephen Bilenky. After going through dozens of edits, I ended up with an eight minute short film that I submitted to the Bicycle Film Festival. Out of the hundreds of submissions, the Bilenky Junkyard Cross was chosen to travel the world as part of the BFF’s shorts program. That was also really cool.

The one drawback to being part of the Bicycle Film Festival is that I agreed to delay posting the video on the Internet for everybody to see. This bummed me out a bit because I really want to share it with all of you.

With the BFF 2011 winding down and the 2011 Bilenky Junkyard Cross race scheduled for December 18, I figured now was as good a time as any to post the short for all to see.

This was my first attempt at making a short film and it was a ton of fun to make. It was made a whole lot better with the help of several people. Sean O’Donnell and Ryan Dudek strapped on helmet cams for the race, put in a full day of helping with and participating in interviews, and gave great feedback during editing. Linda Mattioni and Kris Molendyke were great sports and added sooo much to the story. For the two festival showing of the film I saw, Kris pretty much stole the show. Stephen Bilenky allowed us to invade his shop for a day and share the story of how Bilenky Cycle Works was started.

I also owe a huge thank you to Peter Nicoll and Bruce Buckley. Peter is a filmmaker by trade and could not have been more giving of his time and expertise. Bruce is a pro photographer who continues to give me tons of insight on what makes a good photograph. I trust his eye more than most anybody else I know. Both of these guys willingly sat through close to 20 edits of this film and helped improve the final product each time.

I hope you enjoy the film and thanks for watching.

Our makeshift film set at Bilenky Cycle Works. Photo by Sean O'Donnell

It’s official! The short film we put together about the Bilenky Cycle Works’ annual junkyard cyclocross race will be shown as part of this year’s Bicycle Film Festival. The first showing is June 24 in New York. This project started in December when we traveled to Philadelphia and filmed the day’s races. A couple months later we returned to the scene and did a day of interviews with framebuilder Stephen Bilenky and a handful of folks who finished the race. The result is a quirky mix of race footage and off-the-cuff interviews.

So far we are confirmed to be part of the New York BFF and the DC program, which happens August 4-7. If you take a look at bicyclefilmfestival.com, the line up is stellar. There is a bike-related film for everybody. Definitely worth a trip to the theater. 

Hope to see you out there. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak at our Bilenky Junkyard Cross film short.

Thanks for watching.

Wes Schempf is not in this video. But he did win at Taneytown.

The 2010 MABRAcross Championship Race took place months ago in Taneytown, Maryland. In all of the tandem and junkyard cross hoopla, the bread-and-butter helmet cam video from that race must have been lost at the bottom of the gear bag. But fear not, it has been revived and is now available for your viewing pleasure.

For a change of pace, this race took place on a relatively dry course. Taneytown is usually a muddy bog. But not this year. That’s not all bad. It’s nice to mix it up every once in a while.

And speaking of mixing it up … what do you get when you combine instrumental tracks from German electro-goth-metal superstars, excerpts from a possibly-past-his-prime Bostonian stand-up comedian and POV video of aging cyclocross racers? I’m not sure. But here it is.

Thanks for watching.

Junkyard bear?

The Internets can’t seem to get enough of the junkyard cross scene. Good thing we had some helmet-cams out on course Sunday afternoon to catch a little more of the action. Thanks to Sean and Ryan of TOMS Shoes p/b Kindhuman Sports for strapping on the cameras and capturing the action. If you missed the first video of the chaos that is junkyard cross, you can check it out here.

For today’s soundtrack, we turn to the smooth sounds of Washington D.C.’s Rattler. You can check them out at www.partywithrattler.com.

Thanks for watching.

Update:

Check out this video Joe Kalucki filmed at the Bilenky race. It is super sweet and I guarantee you that when you get to the thirty-second mark, expletives will leave your mouth. You will then rewind and watch that part again. TRUST ME.

Update Update:

Pat over at Surlyrider sent over a link to the video he put together of the race. The goodness from this day knows no limits. Check it out here.

Yep, tacos and junkyard cross.

The 2010 Bilenky Cycle Works Junkyard Cyclocross took place this past Sunday in Philadelphia. This is not your typical ‘cross race. It’s more work gloves and tetanus shots than embrocation and lycra. The course is exquisitely sketchy, with nails, glass, fenders and all sorts of debris littering the way.

This did not stop over 100 racers in three categories, including a women’s race, from braving the cold morning to test their skills on a Rube Goldberg-esque parcours that featured a daunting yet ridable flyover and an equally daunting teeter-totter. Although there were a couple scrapes along the way, everybody made it through the day unscathed. To the victors went the spoils. Everybody else got tacos and beer. Not a bad day.

For this race we had two helmet-cams in the field. That footage is still in camera waiting to be uploaded and edited. For now, we have an outside the tape view of all three races. Being able to film atop a cargo container full of tire rims and carburetor parts is one of the coolest things ever. Every race should have rooftop seating. And beer and tacos.

Thanks for watching.

Dogs love 'cross.

Rockburn Cross, day two of the Howard County Double Cross, took place November 21. Yes, that was a month ago and we are playing a little bit of catchup here at CXHairs HQ, but this way the video has a tinge of nostalgia to it.

If you have watched the preview commentaries we have been posting throughout the season, there are several themes that come up in almost every episode. One of the most important is to know what you are going to do, before you do it. This is especially true for mud and sand sections. If you are going to run, commit to it early. Don’t decide at the last second.

As you will see, early in lap one, this rule is not followed. And the result is some really nice close-up footage of the grass before the entrance to the sand pit. Lesson learned. Maybe.

Soundtrack is by Nine Inch Nails. When Trent Reznor released the Ghosts albums a couple years back he allowed people to use the tracks in personal film projects. The soundscapes give some nice atmosphere to film projects and as long as you’re not selling the finished product, anybody can use them. Pretty cool on the part of Reznor.

Video from the MABRAcross champs race is still waiting to be posted and the CXHairs action team is out this weekend filming races in Pennsylvania. So it looks like the mothballs are going to have to wait a couple more weeks before we put the lid on the CX season.

Thanks for watching.

The footage is all captured on the helmet-cams, so the quality is more mumblecore than blockbuster, but that’s okay. You all know the drill: cyclocross is punk rock, blah blah blah. In any event, it’s entertaining footage. And the race isn’t half bad either. It was pretty cool having two guys off the front of the race, trading pulls and wearing helmet-cams. That Chris forgot his race bag and is wearing a Route1Velo skinsuit is an added bonus for the home team.

Soundtrack for the video comes from Project X and Death Before Dishonor.

We still have a couple more odds and ends out there to get posted, but the CXHairs.com season is definitely winding down. Great times for sure and we look forward to doing it all again next year.

Thanks for watching.

In MABRAcross Tandem-Cross blood will be spilled. And duct tape will be used to contain it.

In this final installment of MABRAcross tandem-cross, we saw some familiar story lines. The team of Adam Driscoll and Pat Blair (Adventures for the Cure), collectively known as Padam, completed a sweep of the series by winning this final event. The competition definitely kept them closer as the weeks went by, but nobody ever caught these guys at the line. I’m sure they will be lobbying for the inclusion of a tandem-cross MABRAcross Verge Sport leaders jersey in 2011.

In the MABRAcross Championship race, the SingleSpeed Outlaw tandem piloted by David Kegley and Todd Bauer gave the Padam squad a run for their money and may have made it even closer if the race had gone another lap. And the always entertaining Team TOMS Shoes squad did not disappoint as Sean O’Donnell took over the Matt Bartlett seat and helped Chad Bartlett secure the most adventurous ride of the day. The TOMS and SingleSpeed Outlaw teams handled helmet-cam duties for this race. Saturday morning television provided the soundtrack.

Thanks for watching.

The Team TOMS Shoes Bobsled Start

With the meteoric rise in popularity of tandem-cross in the Mid-Atlantic region, we thought it was a good time to give everybody interested in this nascent category a few pointers on how to place high in the standings. For our first installment we caught up with Chad Bartlett and Sean O’Donnell (Team TOMS Shoes p/b Kindhuman Sports) at the MABRAcross Championship in Taneytown, Md., to find out more about their unique bobsled style starts.

Although their technique may seem a bit unorthodox, it put them in position to finish third on the day. Ultimately, though, they were bested in the finishing stretch by a tandem with a nine-year-old stoker and one with a thirteen-year-old stoker after resorting to the same bobsled technique for the sprint.

Thanks for watching.

The Cheat At Schooley Mill

Schooley Mill Cross, day one of the Howard County Double Cross, took place November 20. The course set up dry and fast with a couple more twists and turns than last year. The mud wasn’t there this year, which made this race a bit faster, but the added technical features seemed to keep everything in check.

For our soundtrack today we sliced and diced some beats in the CXHairs lab. Boy, it’s amazing what you can do with today’s technology. My apologies in advance to Bad Brains, Noir, Queen Latifah and Warren Zevon.

Thanks for watching.