M-B-M: HELL OF THE SOUTH

After much delay it's time to light the fuse on the 3rd edition of the Madison-Basco-Madison Spring Classic. Begun back in the spring of 2007, the M-B-M Spring Classic is an homage to the European spring road classics. In other words, grueling course conditions tempered by brutal early spring weather for maximum suffering. Sound good? You damn well bet it does!

The Date: Saturday April 11th (yes the day before Easter, quit whinging)
The Time: 10:00am
The Distance: approximately 100K
The Place: as is tradition, a secret until about a week before, but let's just say Madison Wisco fer now.
The Cost: $6
Registration: keep reading.

As with the last two years, the M-B-M (this year running under the name The Hell Of The South or HOTS from here on in) will start in Madison and then do an out and back course on the H8TR Trail (better known as the Badger State Trail) with an overall distance being somewhere around 100K (62 miles for all you Europhobes out there). The H8TR Trail is a combination of pavement, crushed gravel and eight miles of unfinished railroad bed featuring cinders, weeds, deer carcasses, potholes, downed trees and assorted sizes of gravel. Add to that the weather which last year featured a mix of rain, snow, sleet and stinging ice pellets aided and abetted by a stiff north wind on the return trip and you have a recipe for F-U-N!!!! Sound like your kind of fun? Oh yes it does! Rain date?....ahahahahahahahahahahaahhaha! This is Wisconsin!!!!

There are also highways to cross, bridges and a tunnel. Yes a tunnel, a very long very dark train tunnel so you will need a headlight (no really you will need a headlight) and possibly crampons for the ice in the tunnel. Still with me? Good! We have a couple more things in store just to keep things interesting and to put even more of a challenge in the race. What are they? That would be telling. Suffice to say that even though this is on a level road grade (mostly....) and runs along a finished bike path for the majority of the race (mostly.....) there is an element of danger involved which could lead to injury, damage to bike or even.......getting killed. Mostly it just means using yer head and keeping alert. Last year everybody who started the ride finished the ride and we had a great time doing it.

Competitive? Oh hell yes again! There will be trophies three deep for both men and women plus a DFL trophy for the last person to finish. Hopefully with the aid of sponsors we'll have some damn cool shwag to give away in a drawing at the end. Open catagory for bikes so run whatever though we'd recommend something along the lines of a cross bike, but hell mtn bike, unicycle, single speeds, fixed gear (it happened!) you want to try it be our guests....

So, Kitten Master, how the hell do I get registered for this event? Here's the deal. Starting yesterday February 4th, veterans of the two previous M-B-Ms were allowed to pre-register. Vets will have until next Friday, Friday the 13th to be specific to register before registration opens up to newcomers, upstarts and rookies (there will be another post before the 13th to give details on that). There will be an 80 rider cap. Last year I thought there would only be maybe 30 people interested, we had to cap at 75 to keep things manageable. So 80 it is. We'll give you an email address to register at. Don't register here in the comments, we might miss it. Fees can be payed via Paypal

As always The Madison-Basco-Madison Spring Classic is a nonsanctioned, totally amateur (us, not you necessarily) event that could seriously threaten life and limb so we take no responsibility for injury or mayhem. Mayhem is cool!

This year's amazing, jawdropping flyer is courtesy of Creepyfriendly himself, Jesse Lalonde. Buy him a beer next time you see him and congratulate him on a job well done.

more soon!
the kittens