Surf City Cyclocross Series is Back with Costume Cross, Free Racing for First-Timers

Surf City Cyclocross returns once again this Halloween for its 44th season and continues last year’s success with two days of racing in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Rock Lobster team will be bringing a double-header weekend to Crest Ranch Christmas Tree Farm in Bonny Doon with something for everyone, including kids racing, tracklocross, live music and camping. And for the cyclocross or #ShortTrackGravel curious, in partnership with Cyclocross Magazine, free racing! (Read on for full details.) The racing is on October 29 and 30, 2022. See the full release below.

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Please join us for the 44th season of Surf City at the Crest Ranch Christmas Tree Farm in Bonny Doon, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This will be a double-header weekend with racing on both Saturday and Sunday. We invite you to stay, camp, and party on Saturday night, October 29.

A Fan Favorite: Costume Race

Sunday is Halloween, which means the famous Surf City costume race. We’ll have special prizes made by Voler Apparel for the best costumes, so bring your best!

Hint: past awards have trended towards group costumes, so get some friends together and be creative!

The Venue

Crest Ranch is perched at the top of the Santa Cruz mountains with 360-degree views. It’s open and sunny, but surrounded by forest. Expect an exciting and fast course with smooth (yes, no gopher holes) dirt tracks, flowy turns, singletrack descents, runups and other fun features that you’ve learned to love (or hate) from a Rock Lobster Team production. Tire choice? We’re not gonna make that call for you, but for the old-school ‘cross racers, you’ll be perfectly happy on your 32mm skinnies.

Camping on Course

Yes, that’s right. There is camping available on Saturday night for only $10. Don’t expect premier manicured campgrounds, but there’s plenty of space to pitch a tent or park a van. We’ll be hanging out in the evening with a bonfire and live music by Hank and Ella and the Fine Country Band, featuring no other than Paul Sadoff himself on lead guitar! If you aren’t able to bring a cooking setup, you can drive 20 minutes down to Boulder Creek to grab food.

Online Registration Open Now

Yes, please register for the event in advance at www.bikereg.com/surfcity. We will be limiting start waves to 100 participants, so your category may sell out! The only way to know you’ll get a spot is to sign up in advance.

Getting to the Venue

Crest Ranch is located at the top of Bonny Doon. It’s about a 35-minute drive from downtown Santa Cruz. If you’re coming from out of town, make sure to check directions in advance and budget enough time to get there. No matter which way you come, there are a few miles of twisty mountain roads that are slower than you think.

Is this event family-friendly?

Absolutely. There is no age too young to get them started on cyclocross. We’ll have kids’ races on both days. Dogs? Sure, as long as you pick up after them.

 

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Free Racing for Beginners

Want to get your friends to try racing? We are offering free entry to anyone who has never done a cyclocross race before—an idea that started in partnership with Cyclocross Magazine. All they need to do is send us an email stating which race they’d like to try and we’ll send them a coupon to pre-register. They can also register for free on race day if categories have not sold out. Why are we doing this? Because we want to grow the sport and we’re not trying to get rich. Thanks to all of our generous sponsors who make things like this possible.

 

 

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More Information

You can check out the website www.cyclo-x.com for details. And stay tuned to the Surf City Facebook page. We’ll also be spreading information through the @teamrocklobstercx and @surfcitycx Instagram accounts.

Bay Area Super Prestige Series

This is race #3 and #4 of the BASP cyclocross series. Check out www.basp84.com for more info, and see the series standings here.

Limited Edition Jersey for Sale

Voler is making a run of Rock Lobster x Surf City jerseys that are available at the link below:

https://www.voler.com/custom/ordering/li/44532

What happened to the Rock Lobster Cup? And why aren’t there more races?

Good question. For those who have been racing cyclocross in NorCal for several years, you may remember some quirky events put on by a ragtag band of enthusiasts called the Rock Lobster Cup. In 2018, we had the opportunity to pick up the Surf City torch and keep this race series going for its 40th anniversary season….so the Cup sort of became Surf City. Historically, Surf City was a multi-race series spanning from September to January, but putting on a bike race is a lot of work and none of us are professionals. As much as we would like to see Surf City grow back into a series someday, we can’t do it without your help. How? By showing up and participating! Bring your friends, bring new people, stay for the weekend and help show us that hosting these events are worth our time!

Thanks and see you there!

Check out some drone footage of last year’s costume race by Lee Slone!