Famous zombies, ranked by how well they’d race at Zombie Park
Next weekend the 2024 the AusCycling Cyclo-cross National Series heads to Adelaide for its opening two rounds, to be held at G.S. Kingston Park/Wirrarninthi just west of the CBD.
It’s nicknamed ‘Zombie Park’ for its proximity to the West Terrace cemetery, and has previously hosted two Australian national championships in 2016 and 2017.
In 2024 it’s back on the national calendar for the first time in (we believe) seven years.
In honour of Zombie Park’s return to the highest level of Aussie cyclocross racing, we penned this very silly article. Enjoy.
We’ve all been there: you show up to your local race, take your place on the start grid, look over to your left and see that your fellow racers are all undead. Typical.
You’re too polite to say anything with the race just about to start, but you want to make sure you can stay ahead of your zombie rivals – for both competitive and non-zombification reasons.
However, when you find yourself in this situation you need to know your enemy. To help you out the next time you find yourself in this common situation, use our handy guide of five famous zombies to work out how long you’d last if you were racing these abominations at Zombie Park.
5. The Walking Dead
Although there are several zombie variants in The Walking Dead, these Walkers are the classic shuffling, shambling Zombies from any number of horror movies.
With their low intelligence and slow movement, they make the perfect entry level zombies to pedal away from - even kids on the balance bikes would probably be okay.
Although they’re capable of slowly walking over grassy fields, you’re in more danger of coming to grief if they’re still on the course as you lap them.
4. Shaun of the Dead
Sluggish off the start line, so as long as you can get away cleanly you’ll probably be fine.
Be aware that they’re surprisingly tough – if they can resist being whacked with a pool cue for 90 straight seconds, they’ve probably got enough of a pain tolerance to push themselves to the limit on the last lap.
Get ahead of them early and you’ll be laughing all the way to a nice cold pint at the Winchester.
3. Zombie Shakespeare (The Simpsons)
Slow-moving and easily knocked over by Homer Simpson, so they probably won’t survive long if you start throwing elbows mid-race.
Bonus points for already being in costume though.
2. Zombieland
Now we start getting into the real threats. If your opponent hails from Zombieland, they’ve got enough speed to lay a flying tackle and start eating your face – though we’ve seen worse behaviour in a Men’s B grade race.
Given that you won’t have access to a folding chair (unlike Bill Murray) to handle them, you’ll need to put on a burst of speed on lap one to ensure you stay non-zombified.
Actually, given that they’re still fans of mechanical SRAM shifting, you’ll need to attack them twice to make sure they’re truly out of contention. They call that the DoubleTap.
1. 28 Days Later & 28 Weeks Later
These are the zombies (or as the movies series calls them ‘infected’) to fear – not only can they run at full speed, they’re also hungry enough to eat your whole family and still chase you like nothing happened. With an appetite like that, no amount of handups from spectators will slow them down.
Not sure how they’d handle the Zombie Park Swing Tree, but given how well they handle running downhill and swimming around in a circle these are the zombies we’d least want on a start line next to us.
The good news is that none of these zombies have entered next weekend’s racing at Zombie Park - but you still can!
Saturday: https://entryboss.cc/races/20509
Sunday: https://entryboss.cc/races/20510
Entries close this Wednesday May 22nd at 8:30pm South Australian time (9pm AEST, 7pm AWST). Don’t be late