There are only a few constants in the Single Speed World Championship’s 19-year history: Everyone rides a single-speed mountain bike, Beer is the hydrating beverage , of choice, and the winners, the King and Queen of the SSWC, have to go under the needle and proudly bear the winning tattoo as their podium prize.
Everything else is an ever changing, year-to-year secret.
It’s never held in the same place twice, you never know the route until you start the race, and sometimes wiping out on a trail will earn you a bottle of scotch.
The SSWC, as it is so affectionately called, is a grab bag race that wouldn’t be taken seriously by an outsider. Some of the rumors behind the madness are laughable. But alongside the hobbyist single-speed mountain bikers who make the pilgrimage, even Tour de France and other elite racers compete in this one-of-a-kind race.
It’s a good thing this story about Mike Reardon and Justin Mace’s trip to Italy won’t publish until they’re flying across the Atlantic Ocean to the French Alps, because Reardon’s wife has no idea what her husband is getting into. “My wife? She’s going to be in the spa. We’re going to go ride and she’s going to get a hot stone massage,” he says.