Huffman Challenge

An unfinished expose on the underground sport of racing Huffy bicycles through snow, mud, and the pain of anaerobic exercise.

Prologue, or “What the F**k Were You Thinking?”
All of this is true.  Why lie when what really happened is so much gnarlier, more dangerous?  The Reno Bike Project’s first annual Hurry Cross was somethin’ best told by the captain of Team Surprise Face as a “fun race.  Damn glad it’s over.”  A clear day in the high desert, cold hitting you through layers of gaudy neon spandex and Lycra for some, svelte grey cotton sweat suits for others, and everything else in between deemed race worthy this December afternoon, it was the start of something big.  Down to the frozen mud puddles mixed with snow and sweat and beer - a muddy slush under the author’s feet watching from the switch point in the pits - the air bright and crisply near freezing, electric with anticipation of the unknown brought about after fresh snow.  
The reckless abandon necessary to capture the title of the Huffman Challenge/Huffy Cross/Huffy Masters Invitational is not something learned, but rather a skill set given to those rare few at birth.  A brain wired with the gumption and fortitude bred in those big country, wide open states east of California and south of Wyoming.  The kind of person who’d just as soon shoot some birdshot through your windshield than shake hands and play nice. 
By race’s end, teams were sporting a uniform rooster tail of mud that would have been commonly mistaken for an unwanted, unanticipated projectile s**t – the kind that comes on quick and strong after eating from the wrong taco cart in Oaxaca.  Reno in December is no Oaxaca Mexico.  It’s very much colder, angrier.  More to lose and even less to win.

Some Details, Clarifications, and Admonishments
The start/finish line was down a drainage ditch next to the gravel parking lot.  F****n’ swamp rats, dude – a spectacle of the truly weird.  There’s a keg in the trunk of a gravel blasted Cadillac Eldorado, but no one remembered to bring a tap.  Champagne by André – the two-dollar variety – for teams prestigious enough to place.  Mud for everyone.  The most dramatic pictures show a downhill section taken through the chain link of a baseball backstop.  Better than sliding into fence off an iced out hill than into a set of bleachers made from rusted steel and splintered pine benches with peeling green paint.  Dogs ran along gravel on the top of a berm that separated the course from what would, in wetter times, become a lake.  They paced their owners in spots along the course.  Before it was modified for safety, the sharp left by the backstop was perilous at best.  At worst, it would rape you of your vision on its rusty metal corner.  Race-day temperatures hovered around a steady and constant high in the upper 30’s.  Cold enough to make breathing for air a punishment translating into fits of hacking and coughing I’d only heard before talking with a smoker who’d lost a lung and spoke through a machine attached to their esophagus.  A perfect day for racing kid bikes over a cycle cross course even the ringers thought “not easy.”  Unsanctioned mayhem mixed with an attitude best described as inebriated overconfidence – it was a wonder no one died.


Saturday, the Day in Front of Sunday.
The night before race day, the author was in Truckee, a half-hour ride down Interstate 80 from Reno, drinking five dollar beers in the Bar of America with some friends up from San Francisco.  Up for the first snow of the season, we’d sloped the day away at Sugar Bowl.  A friend of a friend’s step-father’s getaway house on the bank of the Truckee River is where I woke up Sunday morning, hung-over, watching three girls in hotpants and thermals arguing over who is to clean what, when, and how thorough.  Torn, I couldn’t really figure how I would make it away from the sight of so many boy shorts sliding around the hardwood floor in ankle high white socks, but the first annual Huffman Challenge is not something to be taken lightly.  While the girls were at first confused by my unwavering commitment for making the start, they eventually came to understand that, d****t, some things in life just couldn’t be passed up. 
Huffy Cross, along with the likes of kettle corn, NASCAR pit passes, and skeet shooting all fall into this category.  By 10am I was off and back in Reno an hour before I was supposed to be at the unheated warehouse downtown that houses the RBP. 

High Noon, Raceday.
No one knows what to expect at the warehouse.  Loose groups stand outside the shop while inside, teams furiously hammer and wrench their last minute additions and subtractions on and off their bikes, all of which look like they’d been put together by a color blind eight year old with a drinking problem.  Personally, I was surprised at the turnout.  The bright anticipation for what was to come far outweighed any dark thought relating to the weather, air temperature, or personal safety.  Thankfully, my COBRA health insurance policy was paid off in full and up-to-date current. 

Big talk and loose tongues. 
My team’s Huffy was made by Murray.  The Night Shadow.  The gears shifted and both brakes worked in a syrupy harmony.  You would stop eventually, that was for sure.  How long depended on many things, the most important being downhill speed and the possibility of slippin’ on ice. 
On the way to the field, my back wheel almost was torn from the bracket when I tried to torque the bike up a hill.  Thankfully, one of my team brought a wrench and salvaged the Night Shadow from the gutter where I’d left it for dead.  Nothing could keep that bike out of the race, nothing, except the race itself.

A Little History
Here the author cuts to the chase - Huffy history is vague to say the least.  Wrought from many refutable and felonious sources, most will tell you that it’s impossible to hammer down the exact time and place a Huffy Bicycle first met this sort of punishment.  Some are steadfast in the belief that Huffy Cross is the first of its kind, anywhere, ever.  Others believe that Huffy Cross is part of a long tradition stemming from the historic ride of one Jonas Huffman across the country on a bicycle he built with his bare hands from scrap metal and the inner workings of a Grandfather Clock.  This, preposterous as it sounds, is non-the-less true and factual in many respects.  How factual is open for interpretation.  Huffman history exists in a perpetual hazy fog of half-truths and outright lies - most local libraries provide some books on the subject, but thorough documentation, some of the best stuff I’ve ever come across, can be found online. 

The Rules
Twelve laps, first to finish wins.  Teams consist of three individuals and every member must complete at least one lap of the twelve total.  Hydration is key and drinking is encouraged.  Pabst Blue Ribbon, contrary to what anyone may have heard, does not sponsor, encourage, or condone Huffy Cross.  The logo is purely coincidental.  Everyone receives nothing for participating besides pride and an inflated sense of self, the top three finishing teams will take part in an awards ceremony over on those three rocks by the bathrooms next to the backstop that are kinda spaced like an awards podium.  The race is in the X-cross style.  Nothing in the rules states explicitly that full contact between opposing teams is disallowed. 
Chains, knives, firearms, bats, brass knuckles, and live animals cannot be used in any capacity of sabatoge or violence, no exceptions.  Frozen meat and produce, excluding Polish sausages, T-bone steaks, and pomigranites, are allowed.  Slander will not be tolerated in any fashion whatsoever, but trash talking is encouraged.  Spectators will be asked not to touch participants and to please stay out of the way as it will not be known if participants will be in control of their bikes at any given moment.  Lastly, Huffy Cross rules supercede all state laws beginning with the start of the race and ending when the last team crosses the finish line.  Local law enforcement, while appreciated, will only be called upon in the event of an emergency including, but not limited to, riots, conflagrations, or regicide.  First aid is not available.

The Start
A sprint from the start/finish line to the course itself is nearly 100 yards of lung bursting exertion.  Team Gold Fronts, a.k.a. DUI Dads, took the early lead in their matching gray sweatsuits, but were quickly overtaken by the dogged performance of Team Buzzard, one member, unnamed, sporting an eclectic assortment of spandex straight ‘outta 1992.