RACE CHONICLES: Guest Column
September 6, 1998

Busy this week preparing to try a case. Also, trying to recover from remorse over wife leaving for work trip to Europe. Fortunately, she left detailed instructions on how to feed the cats and water the plants. Anyway, one of the Surgically Trained Guys accepted invitation to guest write the column. Accept no responsibility for his grammar and syntax errors so don’t write in and complain. Direct your comments to Hand Guys’ Website.

Bill Stone

HOLISTIC CYCYLING THE HAND GUYS’S WAY

My name is Marcizioni. We Hand Guys’ like to Italianize our names and make up words. Next year we may Francophile our names. Its all part of the way we infuse fun into a sport whose hardness makes humor a prerequisite for survival.

It’s great to have this opportunity to write for Truesport.com. I think that after you read this column you will agree that Truesport needs more similar uplifting articles as opposed to the self laudatory, divisive, derisive and mostly insulting drivel that has been presented at this site this Summer.

A little about our Team and our philosophy. The Hand Guys are like you. We work hard and we play hard. We have families. We strive for a day when the moral and spiritual values that made our Country a beacon and a goal for oppressed masses once again predominate over the transitory joys of hedonism. We believe that competitive cycling is a microcosm of the efforts it takes to be successful. Teamwork, sacrifice, and dedication are the benchmark values that we try to instill in all our racers. These and the recognition that playing hard is reward enough are the ingredients that have made our salad of life quite bountiful this Summer. Like any garden it took a lot of planning to make the plants and vegetables bloom and ripen at the correct time. I’ll explain.

The planning for this year began in the Winter. Brooksioli was instrumental in orchestrating our early season training. He taught the younger riders that melodious race results would not come unless everyone knew how to read music and sang from the same hymnal. This required extensive classroom work on Saturday mornings; time that would otherwise have been wasted doing silly things such as intervals. It was during these class sessions that the tactics of how not to race aggressively were burned into our collective conscience. These lessons were then taken to the road where everyone had to practice riding slowly at the front of the bunch.

Even before the classroom sessions began the executive committed met and made critical decisions. Because the season is long it was necessary to define Team Goals both short and long term. We had to decide which racers should peak early and late and which races should be targeted and by whom. It was decided early on that the State Park Games would be a major focus. Because the race series ran from Spring to Late Summer the difficulties of keeping the riders fresh for an entire Season weighed heavily on our Road Managers. It was decided that those going for the overall State Games Trophies would stress endurance in the early season. They would also stay away from Criteriums because those short races with turns do not prepare one for the crueling road races that predominate in the Park Series. Also, the inexperience of most criterium racers make these events simply too dangerous. We didn’t want the racers who were focusing on a season long series to risk being subjected to bike handling errors of less goal oriented cyclists. Because of the size of our squadra (as with Mr. Stone we also know Italian words) we had the luxury of having certain riders fresh for each Park Race. So, a rider doing 40+ would not have to do the 35+ race. Now, some of the Guys would do two races on these Park Days and in each race sacrifice their own glory for a teammate. In some cases this went so far as to fall down on the road to split the field. These are the kind of Guys who would take a bullet for you. As Patton said "God I’m proud of these men." As you know our planning worked out well.

It was a long hot summer, but again the seeds planted in the Spring bore fruit. We had decided that long weekends of travel would only tire us out. By plan we avoided sending our team to far away places like Champaign, Dayton, Louisville, and Chicago. Instead we substituted fast CIBA rides and Team Spins. This became particularly important as the Summer progressed and we began to lose riders to accident, expected burn out, softball, and pool parties. The losses to accident were especially troubling as when one of our guys fall everyone on the team hurts. On the positive side I can report that all of the accidents in which our Guys were involved were not any of our Guys’ fault. Riders who hadn’t attended our early season training camps caused them all. Next year we are going to open some of our training sessions to racers from other clubs. These will be the sessions where we talk about bike handling, safety and the need to communicate while moving at high speed. Of course, our tactical and planning meetings will be closed door. We want to extend a special invitation to the Columbus Schwinn Team and in fact we are planning a special "Racing without offensive language and attitude" session just for them. Please come guys; you’ll learn to love yourselves more.

We believe it is important to support the USCF races in our area. Despite what Mr. Stone believes the USCF produces the riders from which we draw inspiration. Sure the organization makes it difficult to put on races what with the many forms that have to be completed. Besides having to pay more for insurance than the Outlaw ABR charges is a small price to pay. After all it costs more to insure races that are held on unsafe courses and it would cost a lot more if the sanctioning officials actually visited the race site in advance. We believe that it is more important to review Bicycling Nation every month than to have cheaper race fees. Where else can you read a magazine with two-month-old news written in stilted English?

What it all boils down to is that this is a sport of tradition and well we are traditional Guys.

Our dedication to tradition dictated that against better judgment we permit some of our riders to attend the USCF Crit Championships in Ft. Wayne. We tried to send our most experienced riders knowing that they would have the best chances to avoid accident and thus not interfere with our season long goals. Tim Davis’ brilliant victory just doesn’t outweigh the burden we all feel over Charlie Clute’s terrible injury. As you know from reading our Race Reports at www.Surgicalguys/race/slow/and/have/fun.com. We intend to boycott this race next year unless the course is changed. We did learn a lesson from this tragedy. We now insist that all courses be reconnoitered at least a week before the event and that if possible all potential participants meet at the course and practice race day tactics. Preparation is the key to race day execution.

Because of our expanding program we accepted some transfers from other teams this season. The former Altered Consciousness guys fit right in, as we knew they would. After all they had been trained by Brooksioli and already knew how to ride slowly through corners. But, there were a few guys who had formerly raced on teams with Chuck Moll and Bill Bedwell. They thought that just because they had ridden with a National Champion that they actually knew something about racing. They did not want to attend classroom sessions and in the early season labored under the misapprehension that getting in a break was more important than bringing the entire field to a standstill. Well, as you might expect the process of bringing these guys around to the Handguys Way was long and somewhat frustrating. However, by the end of the season they too were not able to get out of their own way or the way of anyone else. It was very rewarding to see this transformation.

As the season winds down we are preparing for next year. While goals have not been fully determined there are some matters which we will definitely address. First, we certainly want to see more of these Cat III and IV Masters only races. Hopefully, a lot of our Guys will go to Lexington over Labor Day so that there will be a big turn out. We know it is a long way from home but these races that cater to guys with real jobs and families need our support. Our Masters guys are tired of being beaten by Bob Jordan and Mercer and Freddie and Moll and Kevin Noone and we definitely don’t want to race with the Columbus Schwinn guys much less have to listen these blasphemous malcontents. (Apologies to the really quiet and pleasant guy who rides the Litespeed; He could be a Handguy by dissociating himself from Stone and Enmark.) Second, we want to put on a race next year. However, our doctor sponsors have had their incomes impacted by malpractice insurance rates such that their incomes have dropped below the $20,000.00 a week surgical doctor’s poverty level. So, we don’t know where we will get the money. We have suggested that they start charging attorneys $2,000 an hour for talking with shysters (thanks to Mr. Stone for telling us how to spell this word) about their patients rather than the $1,000 an hour rate which is just not enough to discourage these anti-American, valueless, primordial pond slim, sap sucking miscreants. Third, we want to increase the number of women on our team. We already have Team recruiters talking to the Mercer girls. We really believe that these careers can be salvaged if they stay away from their father and dare we say it the Godless Columbus Schwinn contingent. We promise that we will let you ride as fast you like and we will sell you clothes at only a slight mark up and we will get the bike shop to fix your bike at standard rates and we will not permit our team members to ride behind you and stare at you and well please if not our team then at least get away from the Heathens. Finally, we want to continue to stress to our team members that racing is not the real purpose of our efforts. Taking a lesson from the Women’s Hospital Team we will not be rewarding race efforts in the future. Instead we will award our scarce resources to those who put on frankfurter roasts, skull sessions, and slide shows.

Now, I know that Mr. Stone writes about races he has seen or heard about. We have found that his reports are characteristic of the so-called New Journalism. That is, they purport to present as fact what are in reality liberal thought infected subliminal messages. Because I have studied the works of Reed Irvine I know that that such liberal journalism is not very cleverly designed to soften people into believing that liberals are people too and thus put us right thinking people at ease such that we actually believe what they write. Well, I’m no foil for such pernicious sub rosa attacks on Tory thought. We have a team reporter who presents race results and reports in an unbiased manner free from left wing spin. If this is what you long for then visit our website at www.handsforfreedom/boringbuttrue.com.

Before closing I want to extend a special get well to Dave Fishel. As those of you who read our Bulletin Board know Dave fell down on the Broadripple Ride and broke his collarbone. As always it was not Dave’s fault. We miss hearing your pedals scrape in the corner Dave and hopefully, the sling won’t give you tan lines.

Well there you have it. Please write to Linda and tell her how much you enjoyed this article.

Oh yes. I have a wife whom I cherish above all things in the world and whom I adore even more than Robin Williams as Shawn professed so eloquently to have loved and I would miss a baseballgame for her too but perhaps not an IU game because I may love Bobby Knight more. So, I would not even begin to make a joke about my wife to be read by others. Again, that’s just the difference between us and Mr. Stone and his contingent.

Ride with Pride and keep your inside knee up and out on turns and your body as high as possible.

Marcizioni