im - 5/23/2006 11:54:00 AM

Here's how this works: I type "Hey look! The Swedes have a website! SSWC06 is happening!" Then you, in a pavlovian reactionary lather, see only "SSWC06" before shouting something incomprehensible to your significant other as you trip over the dog in your rush to the garage, where you spend half the night drinking and staring at your collection of bikes, deciding which one to turn into a single speed, and the other half of the night stealing stuff from your other bikes to build (but never finish) your dream machine for SSWC, which your friend's sister's boyfriend heard about last year and said was the ultra rad super cool next big thing. You may find it perplexing that rules surrounding this event are scarce but hi jinx are not, but damn them torpedoes! For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, SSWC is code for Single Speed World Championships and is in Stockholm (!) this year. I have been to several SSWCs and have not yet had anything but a good time. This in part owes to its collectively self-appointed stance as an anti-race, and I am something of an anti-racer, so it works out nicely. If you're put off by a lack of gear options, if your heart rate has dropped unacceptably while you've read this, if you think carbon fiber chainrings are a good idea, or if you just really like spandex 'kits' that look just like what your favorite pro doper...erm, make that 'racer'... wears and you don't sense any irony in this, well SSWC may not be the thing for you. But if you feel that riding to have fun as fast as you can muster is the way it should be, there isn't a finer excuse to get your swerve on. No derailleurs or whiners allowed. -----