if you’ve been following crankpunk since its inception one whole, very long week ago, you may be mistaken for thinking that i’m a very cranky punk indeed, with not much better to do than set about kicking a ‘once-great’ man when he’s down, but actually i do have a soft center, somewhere, and am a bit of an old romantic at heart.

and as it’s a friday and you’re no doubt fed up with LanceGate, i thought it might be a nice time to show you this little gem. see, cyclocross may be the next hot thing but it’s actually been around a while. here is a film about a cyclocross event from the 1950s that shows a bunch of mentalists trying to ride their bikes over rutted moorland, into waist-high rivers (love the bike-tossing) and through boggy swamps (there’s a swamp in the eastern United States called The Great Dismal Swamp  – what a perfect name for a swamp…)

it’s all accompanied by the words of a bloke who sounds like he’s doing a running commentary at a screening at a bike club, and it’s all the sweeter for that.

keep an eye out at the 3 minute mark, where you can see a prototype MTB with straight bars. the winner, seen at 6 minutes, looks to be on a flier. all in all, a very cool film. cycling for cycling’s sake. looks like fun.

‘and a handshake,’ says the commentator at the end, ‘nice clean sport.’

my, how things have changed! can we all say ‘sssssssshhhhh… please…’