To The Victor Go The Spoils: Singlespeed World Championships 2025
We are so incredibly stoked, our very own, Chloë Spritz, is this year's winner of the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships!
You can read her write up on her experience below.
To The Victor Go The Spoils: Singlespeed World Championships 2025
By Chloë Spritz
Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships. The most raucous cyclocross race out there, a cheeky rebuke of both UCI and moral standards, SSCXWC has long stood as a bastion of weirdos that for one reason or another choose to live a life free of the need to shift gears. Run what ya brung, grassroots racing at its best, all are welcome as long as you’re willing to forgo the notion of a derailleur.
As a trans athlete in an increasingly hostile political climate it also represents for me one of the only ways to compete for a world title, even if it is a self imposed one that no one really takes seriously. That being said I was all in for a debaucherous weekend and a quest for the ultimate prize, a tattoo declaring me the world champion.
The weekend starts with a Friday afternoon chill group ride to a lakeside beach for a welcome reprieve from the 90 degree weather that plagued this early October weekend in Minneapolis. Following that was race packet pickup, live music, way too many beers for many folks, a guy giving free tattoos next to a dumpster in the alley, and a game of foot down for the first of three challenges that would ultimately decide the location for next year’s race.
To determine the start position of the world championship race on Sunday you had to get “Poochie Buxxx” a currency earned by engaging in bribery, flattery, buffoonery, or winning challenges. The first of these I would earn in a game of foot down that ended with myself in second and Charley Erickson, a fellow Portlander, in first.
As someone taking this event far more seriously than it deserves to be taken, I left the party early to get some sleep before the next day’s events known as the “Feats of Strength”. Saturday morning we were all broken up into groups of twelve and led around the city to four different challenges where we could earn the coveted Poochie Buxxx. My group’s first challenge was a swing bike race around a water tower known as the Witch’s Hat. A swing bike has a pivot on the rear wheel in addition to the front wheel. This was not my strong suit having never ridden one before and I ended up in fourth.
The next feat of strength for our team was a sandcastle building contest cum bike race cum scavenger hunt where we had to go all over the place to find tokens to exchange for tools that would help us build the best sandcastle. Our team of three took top honors for our sandcastle based on artistic merit. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it was a bit not safe for work, and leave it as an exercise for the reader’s imagination.
After a lunch stop where I did some haggling, rowdy jumps from a kicker ramp, sunscreen sharing, and gummy bear bribing to earn some extra buxxx from other teams, we proceeded to ride over to Bare Ass Beach. I’ll let the name speak for itself on this feat of strength.
We decided to hit some mountain bike trails on the way to the final feat. After a good 45 minutes of single track delight we arrived at a three person relay race that involved filling a bucket full of water, riding a short distance with it, and running it back up the hill without spilling. My team took 2nd place and our guide added up all the Poochie Buxxx we earned for the day cementing our start position for the world championship.
Saturday evening we competed in the second hosting challenge, a drag race on a 10 person powered bicycle car monstrosity. Portland did not fair so well in this one, but our Bellingham friends took home the top spot once again. After this I had the honor of getting photographed by Erik Mathy for his “We’ve Always Been Here” photo project. On my way home, all the sudden my front end feels really loose when I come to a stop sign and I realize that the actually bearings of my lower headset had somehow fallen out. I picked up as many as I could find and shoved them back in before pedaling the few blocks back to my host’s house to figure out what exactly had just happened.
When I took my fork out of the bike I realized that somehow my cartridge bearing had completely separated itself, and in a panic I put out a message on the SSCXWC discord to see if anyone randomly had a spare lower headset bearing for my bike. Shoutout to Pete for taking apart the integrated headset on one of his bikes to get me rolling again and bringing the spare to the race Sunday morning. As we dissected what was left of the old bearing we realized something was wrong with my headtube, there was an odd groove and the new bearing refused to seat despite it being the right replacement part. An after race autopsy would reveal that my head tube is bent which must have happened in flight one way or another. We didn’t have many options at the race so after hammering it in a bit with a screwdriver we decided to just put the fork in and I sent it off some wooden ramps I found to try and force the bearing into it’s seat. After some back and forth tightening, jumping, tightening, jumping, it seemed to come to a stop a good 3 or 4 millimeters before it should have. I decided it was good enough for 45 minutes and I had a race to win.
As I nervously warmed up all I could think about was how that bearing just needed to last for 45 minutes. I had trained all year harder than I ever had before and I knew this was year to try and get that coveted tattoo. As I waited at the start line I wondered if I had earned enough poochie buxxx as racer after racer got called up. Luckily I had just managed to earn enough for a front row bike placement in the lemans start. (A lemans start is where you place your bike on the ground and are forced to run over to it when the race begins) To my surprise the whistle was blown without much explanation and caught quite a few people off guard. Luckily I had gone on my once a year run a couple of months ago, so I had trained for this moment. I grabbed my bike off the ground and sprinted it up to speed, mounting just before the hill started to pitch up in earnest. What I haven’t explained yet is that this year’s event took place at a ski hill and the start chute avoided the gentle switchbacks and sent us straight up to the top! As the ground pitched up under my tires I stood and gave it everything I had. Getting to the single track at the top was going to be key to establishing a gap and maintaining it. Going in second wheel or worse would put me at a serious disadvantage with little room to pass for a bit in the segment that suited my bike handling skills the best.
I rocketed to the top and had a few seconds gap already at the entrance to the single track. The key to winning a bike race is to never look back so I put everything I had into every pedal stroke and didn’t concern myself with what anyone else was doing. I was willing to die for this victory and I put all that energy into the pedals. If someone was going to pass me I was going to make them earn it. A non eventful first lap (well non eventful for this race, there was a boat you had to run over instead of the standard cyclocross barriers and a huge kicker ramp with an airbag lander) led back into the hill climb where I started to encounter lap traffic for the first time. This is an event where the standard is party pace with beer hand-ups, $2 bills between butt cheeks, and jello shots hidden inside egg shells are all common place. I carefully negotiated around inebriated riders and the real challenge began, avoiding the spectators, swinging plastic loons hanging from trees over the course, and negotiating the boat that was now full of dudes from Rock Lobster that really didn’t want me to win. One lap to go and I was still in the lead! All the sudden the rider that was way behind me was in front when I popped out of the singletrack. She had cut the entire top section of the course avoiding well over a minute of riding to pop out ahead of me. I’m very thankful for my insta360 camera so I could prove I was never passed. After a chill last lap descent as it started to pour rain I rolled through the finish line as the winner of the 2025 Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships.
After what I can only describe as one the happiest moments of my life, second only to my wedding, I was crowned world champion with a theme appropriate captain’s hat. Oh did I mention I raced this one in a swimsuit? After helping clean up the course for a bit we got back on the party bus and I rushed back to my host house for a quick shower before pedaling across town to go get my tattoo at the Sunday night afterparty.
This year we got to choose our tattoo size, speedo print pattern, and color palette! Usually it’s a you get what you get affair and at least one year SSCXWC was misspelled. I went with a classic all black look with a skull print speedo, because skulls are cool duh.
Huge thanks to Chelli, Renee, Nikki, and Kadence for putting on a fantastic event and making sure it was inclusive. Another huge shoutout to Skadi Sport Psychology for their scholarship, without their help I probably wouldn’t have been able to come, and of course Liz and Ethan for being wonderful hosts and letting me be a basement troll for a few days. Another final thank you to my wife for putting up with my extreme stress levels for the last few weeks! Alright time to get back to work, there’s still more ‘cross races to win.
P.S. The hat stays on and you can’t make me take it off.
