Adam Craig’s SSCXWC Tattoo Is Imperfectly Perfect
After Giant cyclocross racer Adam Craig claimed his fourth straight victory at the men’s edition of the 2015 Single Speed Cyclocross World Championship in Victoria, BC, this weekend, he readied himself at local Government Street Tattoo for a familiar experience: receiving the SSCXWC winner’s tattoo. But Craig’s new tattoo stands out from the other three, and not just for its expert artistry: It's misspelled.
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“I was not familiar with the race before,” tattoo artist Chris David told BICYCLING. “At least five people including Adam checked the design before I tattooed it and no one caught it. Oh well.”
Getting the tattoo is an essential consequence of winning the alcohol-fueled, party-heavy race. It became mandatory in 2011, after Rapha-Focus athletes Chris Jones and Julie Krasniak refused to honor their respective wins with ink. Since then, the penalty for refusing the tattoo is being barred from future races.
When women’s race winner Mical Dyck posted a photo of Craig's tattoo process to Instagram, people quickly caught that something was wrong:
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But Rodeo Adventure Labs founder Stephen Fitzgerald (known on Instagram as @velo_steef) saw the silver lining: “Possibly even better than if it were right,” he wrote in a comment on @dlchristopher’s photo of the tattoo. When you’ve won a race this many times—a race that’s only been around for nine years—who cares if your tattoo is spelled right?
Craig, for his part, has taken the whole thing in stride and then some.
"I think it's perfect," he told BICYCLING, "and am about to start a social media campaign to comprehensively redefine the acronym. It'll be hilarious.”
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