Donut Lord lays down his sword. Hello, Crits.

After a successful run of nearly a decade, our friends and race weekend partners over at HoS have made the difficult decision to throw in the towel. Sadly, the donut-lord reached his zenith too soon, the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long kind of thing, he now fashions only the finest  of velvet lounge pants w/elastic band. 
There's a lot of love that has been shared over the years from Hell of the South, a litmus of early season form, for some a cruel reminder that it's time to stop eating cheeseburgers for breakfast.  Hell of the South is about as epic as your gonna find around these parts. A road race shat out in deep nasty middle-Tennessee, on gravel and chipped roads with  lumpy sections that would fry your legs and hair-raising bombs that would stain your chamois. We'd be lying if we didn't admit it's been a hell of a race weekend line-up having both HoS & Cedar Hill, and it's honestly, it's gonna be difficult to replace something like that, but keep reading, we're working on that.
We're gonna miss you, sweet nasty Hell of the South (wipes tear from face, continues eating bear claw). 
Thanks for everything, Marshall, Chapeau, 'ol dumpybutt. 

Cedar Hill Crit?

So where's that leave the #LordsofSprint? Obviously a full race weekend is a big attraction for folks and since we're not ready to turn out the lights we figured we'd better get our fannie in motion and work on a suitable replacement. Intense research included speaking with a sports marketing agency who specializes in event management (read: we drank a lot of beer with friends who know people, who work at an agency) as well as doing some regional market research (translation: we called and hung out with peeps who raced Cedar Hill, that lived in other cities, and then we drank beer with them too). The results? Dump the outliers, and things were fairly consistent...

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#LORDSOFSPRINT 2.0
​MOAR CRITS

Pretty straight-forward here. Folks like to race their bikes and get on with their respective bidness, and it's no surprise that folks were really into a weekend of crits versus the hot yoga/time trial combo that we were pitching. As a side-note, we were hell bent on the yoga thing, but someone said "where will we put our bikes?" and well, that ended that fantasy. 

Cliff notes:
Typical caffeine induced search for new venues/dates and a not so random call from Bicycle Jesus who inspired us to meet with the brains behind Red Kite Bicycle Studio. Massive portions of Hattie B's Hot Chicken were consumed & flames retarded with Little Harpeth Brewing mosaic india pale kolsch (shameless sponsor plugs). To the point, finally. 

We're stoked to announce we're sharing a race weekend with the Max Gander Memorial criterium. The dudes at Red Kite Bicycle Studio have been hosting the Max Gander memorial criterium, for a couple of years now. A local kid with grit and determination, young Max would settle right into the middle of a large pack and then rocket forward during a field sprint, that kid had some gusto. Years beyond his age, sadly,  he left us too soon. 
The Max Gander Criterium happens within the safe confines of the Sevier Park festival, which happens every year in a hip little area of Nashville called 12 South, lot's of fancy boutiques, eateries, live music and of course, beer.  The dudes at Red Kite have memorialized their 4 corner watt bomb exhibition in honor of young Max. They've partnered with the 12 South Festival and have been successfully promoting this event for a few years now and it's one heckuva race and  good time. Click thru for race details, 2018 Max Gander Memorial Criterium 

Additionally, there is a small chance the fat man in the red suit drops an open track date down the chimney in hopes of adding a Nashville Speedway twilight crit on Friday, May 4th. We've had some chats with our friends over at the Music City Crits  and we'll know sometime next month. 

Until then -  from everyone at the Cedar Hill Criterium, we do hope your holidays are full of all the things you dream of,  beer and cookies and puppies and unicorns, and pizza and snuggles.
Merry Christmas, Ya'll. 

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PAH RUM PAH BUM BUM