People that race ‘cross like to joke about this time of year being the “off season.” But it really isn’t a joke. It is the off-season, and when the on-season only lasts a little over two months, there is a lot of time to kill. Here at the CXHairs we have occupied ourselves during this down time filming all sorts of bike-related shenanigans. Cross races in junkyards, alley-cat ‘cross races, card-game television ads, training races, trail riding and a whole lot of Just Riding Around.
Much like off-season training, much of this filming is in preparation for cross-season. We are trying out new gear, new techniques, working on skills and fundamentals to make the CX race season look as epiclicious as possible.
So when the second annual DC Midnite Crit rolled around we jumped on the opportunity to shoot some film. Bombing around a deserted one mile loop of downtown DC was too good to pass up. Grainy, sulfur-tinted shots of fixed-gear bikes with federal buildings and the Washington Monument as the backdrop seemed like an interesting contrast that would translate well to film.
It ended up being a great night with a bunch of folks that love to ride their bikes. The race was a fun event. It wasn’t long or necessarily hard, but it got everybody off their couches and away from their computers for a couple hours.
We shot some cool stuff, edited it together, and shared the results with the Internets.
And that’s where the fun began. Shortly after posting, John Watson, curator of prollyisnotprobably.com linked to the video and gave it a big thumbs up. In no time at all the number of eyeballs checking out the action skyrocketed. Sweet.
Hours later, the views spiked again. Curiosity led to a quick check of the embed stats, which led to a queasy-stomached, “uh oh.” The video had been added to the BikeSnobNYC’s web site. Many iterations of “This can’t be good” were uttered. Or maybe it could?
After a thorough read of the post, and a lot of “hey that’s not fair … and you’re taking it out of context …” we realized, this was not bad at all. In the end, the skewering by BSNYC is a run-of-the-mill screed on fixie-kids that really didn’t break any new ground. Making fun of twenty-somethings on track bikes is like shooting dead fish in a really small barrel. Most of it is probably on point, and it made for a chuckle or two. Nothing too damning and something the bikesnob can probably write in his sleep.
And for CXHairs, it doubled the number of eyes watching the video and hopefully sold a couple pairs of socks.
They say the only bad publicity is when your name is misspelled. Thankfully, CXHairs is much easier to spell than Schieken.
What “film” stock did you use for your nu-hipster art project? This post is an even more pretentious rationalizing for how rediculous that video really is. I don’t know what epiclicious means but pretty sure this footage was recorded digitally. And the sound track is cliched.
Awesome, captain.
HALLO TO YUO CAPTIAN AWETSOEM I THINKIGN YUO A IDIOTH DUMBY ADN CANNO BELIEF I EVVEN DOIGN A DEFENDRES ON THE BILL BECASE I HATIGN HIM BUT YUO JUTS A DUMBY HOKAY??????? A WROD CALLS FILMIGN FOR WHAN YUO DO A DIGITALS RECRODIGN EVVEN THUOGH YUO NOT USED FILM IT JUTS HOW A WORDS WORKIGNK HOKAY????? DO YUO GETTIGN IT YAT?????? PLEAS DO THE NEEDFUL ADN STOP BEIGN SUCH A IDIOTH ADN THAN MAYEB YUO CAN BUYIGN SOME ANONSOCX AT http://WWW.ANONCX.COM ADN WE CAN ALL HALF A LUAGHTIGN ABUOT A INNERNETS ADN JOEKS!!!!!!!! HEHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
I love you guys. I still don’t know what epiclicious means.
I made it up. Similar to what you did with “rediculous.” I know, I know, I’m being pretentious again.