Race Chronicles #13

[Bike/zzflyertop.htm]

The Race Chronicles: Holiday Edition
by Bill Stone
December 23, 1998

Now that everyone has put on a false face upon receiving a really neat self improvement book from the in-laws, taken pictures of the kids playing with their gift boxes, punished the domestic animals for climbing in the tree, and smiled ingenuously while eating dry sweet potatoes its time to bring your anxiety to full angst by reading the year end Race Chronicle. As you know no effort is spared here at the Chronicles to ridicule, demean, alienate, and antagonize. If for some reason you feel left out or weren’t singled out drop us a line and the oversight will be corrected.

For most people the season ended after the Courthouse Tree Race in Greensburg. Didn’t attend this race but was given a full report from Shake. Apparently, a break developed early because Shake didn’t want to ride in the rain with the less skilled guys. Now, Shake can identify his pro friends by the way they wear their socks; however, he has a hard time remembering his race mates even if they wear name tags. Somewhat like Mercer he identifies people as "the guy who used to race a few years ago and never learned to ride close to anyone." So, a lot of time was spent matching such excellent clues with riders, and as close as can be determined it appears that the break contained Maranka (who still can’t ride close to anyone), Savage, Jordan, Davis, and others. Anyway, Shake gets yelled at for asking people to ride an echelon, Jordan makes several attacks, and then there was a sprint and you know who wins. More importantly, Shake gets told by everyone to stop telling them how to ride and that he is nothing but a wheel suck and that nobody likes him anyway. Now, such canards would normally cause Shake to curdle but fortunately he had his headphones playing the new Howling Buzzards disc and thus he was spared. This being excoriated about giving advice seems to be a recurring theme with Shake. At Southeastway he had gently encouraged the head Child Molester to take some turns. After the race Shake was told that his exhortations to action had ruined the sensitive soul’s evening and that in the future he should restrain himself. Told Shake that it was good that the whiners were picking on him for a change when the Head Molester balefully cries "and you mind your own business and why do you make a joke out of everything." After that evening the Molesters spent their Tuesdays posing at the Broad Ripple ride. (At this point the present wooden intellectual way to introduce the next section of this Chronicle would be to write, "this SEGUES nicely into a discussion of where to get training advice. You will never see this word used again in the Chronicles.)

In doing the dull research for this Chronicle several teams bulletin boards were visited. Besides reinforcing knowledge that cyclists are rather dull learned that there was a desire to attend training camps. Cannot imagine why anyone would waste vacation days and pay money to sleep in dorm rooms, eat cafeteria food, and be lectured to by bald headed men. Besides, ample anecdotal evidence exists that these skill camps are a waste of time and even dangerous. A few years ago a friend advised that his recent trip to the Fun in the Mountains Training Center and Holistic Spa had taught him new turning skills. Unfortunately, the skill was only good at slow speeds. Now having the good sense to get out of his way was forced to observe him attempt a right hand turn with his weight on the left side of his bike and his arms turning the bars. Of course he and everyone stupid enough to be behind him fell down. More to his dismay he quickly learned that the Holistic lessons in learning to deal with pain by clean breathing didn’t take the place of morphine and codeine when it came to a broken shoulder. So, you ask,"if these camps aren’t any good then how is a person to learn." Watch the professionals turn a corner. You will note that they all move their bodies to the inside of the turn. (Parenthetically, it is the same move as in skiing- you have to move your weight over your skis, down the hill and to the inside of the turn.) Get a video of a Classic and observe an echelon. Then ask someone who has actually done something in the sport for help. Finally, try to figure out why things happen in a race. Example: In every Cat III race there is a crash in the last lap. Can you explain why this happens? Send your responses to bstone@hsonline.net. The correct answer will be in the next Chronicle. With the money you save on the camp you can buy some genuine hockey puck team wear.

The Hilly Hundred Race marked the absolute end of the racing season. The race was made more exciting by the return of Mike Lantz. Chronicleholics will recall that Mike returned to the cult after a brief journey in early summer to the Danville Criterium. He has now been granted his freedom and is decompressing in Nashville, Tennessee. Mike and Shake dropped God Squad Branner , Puck Moleman, King Rat Novere and all others as they battled for the win. The exact result could not be determined because they crashed into a four-person tandem of disabled veterans as they sprinted for the coke truck. It really didn’t matter because they left without Mercer who left several hours late but would have caught them had the race only been a few miles longer or something.

The second day of the Hilly was more subdued. Was passed early by a group of surgically skilled guys being directed by club president and internet monitor Skippy. They were obviously trying to maintain a high placing in the team competition. Unfortunately, they were disqualified for forgetting to yell "car up" resulting in a sag truck jamming its breaks and spilling cider and donuts on the Vice President in Charge of Food for CIBA. It is rumored that the entire Surgical Team will be forced to put yellow flags on their bikes next year. ( Note to race officials: Would it be possible to make them use those little yellow bumpers that are like curb guards? At least they’d have some warning that they were about to hit the ground.) After being dropped by the Handguys continued to the big climb that replaced the little steep climb that precedes the descent of State Road 35 where someone always falls down. Puck Whitlock had to stop when a lady broke her ten year old chain and fell into a ditch at the beginning of the climb and broke her arm. Naturally, about thirty other people fell down as they gazed over to gawk and pretty soon the Nashville Police Emergency Team had to be called. Unfortunately, the Emergency Truck was being used as a lawn home for pregnant cats so Whitlock had to attend to the lady. Using his Eagle Scout Training he wrapped the woman’s arm in his arm warmers and used his body as a shield to protect her from the falling riders. In a true display of Puck sportsmanship the rest of the group used this as an opportunity to drop him.

After the race Mikey runs into his brother Kevin. Not being terribly interested in Christian Novelists their conversation was of no moment. However, Mikey was heard to say something about 24 and 7. Surely, he was referring to Chicago’s marijuana anthem 25 or 6 to 4, and was just about to join in the conversation when Mikey explained the meaning of the phrase. If you don’t know all the better. Returned to putting hands over ears and rode home playing Cheryl Crow at Grant decibels.

Linda tells me that there are actually people who actually participate in cyclo-cross. Okay, and there are also people who cross country ski. Both involve running and running is not cycling and neither will be covered in the chronicles. However mountain biking is at least somewhat similar to riding a bike and thus it is necessary to cover the absolute final cycling event of the season, Grant’s Annual Holloween Party and Mountain bike Death Ride. This year’s event was help on the opening day of the deer season. As with all these events the day started with everyone saying how they were just there for some exercise and friendship and that no one was interested in riding hard. This ride being no different from every other ride in the world started out at a leisurely pace for about thirty seconds at which point the Army or Air Force guy from Dayton started to go steady and then the mile climb was done in the big ring and people were falling and then Puck Dennis and Ronnie the Rocket and Wheel Brave Weaver went off on their own. Eventually, left with the guy who says he would have ridden with the fast guys but he just had surgery and hadn’t quite gotten his endurance back and he really didn’t suck like the rest of us but was really good and had once ridden with Matt who had just won something and he was only wearing touring shorts because he didn’t want to get his neat two tone Performance ones dirty and he’d ride away from us but wasn’t sure of the route even though he’d ridden knobstone a lot of times or at least once and is Hell going to be full of these guys? There were a lot of deer hunters standing on the trail. They were very courteous and offered to share their Jim Beam. Advised that they had only mistaken one white bike for a deer and hoped they hadn’t scared the young fellow but that they couldn’t understand why a bunch of guys in tight pants wanted to be in the woods because not all hunters were like those in Deliverance and besides they preferred Shania Twain to banjo music and well hunters are even duller than cyclists.

After the race it was off to Grant’s great costume party. Everyone came as a tired biker except spouses who came as surrogate parents of childish cyclists. Dennis is drinking wine and asks to be told again about Law School Days with Dan and Marilyn Quayle. Was explaining than Dan got into school on an affirmative action program for dumb rich kids whose grandparents owned newspapers when one the charming ladies from Dayton advised that she really liked Dan and Marilyn and the principles for which they stood. So, Dennis tells her that it is okay to love stupid people and to admire people who value golf at Pebble Beach, but that he pretty much agreed with Molly Ivans who described Danny Boy as being "even dimmer than advertised." Left these two to debate the theological basis for Bishop Ushers origin of the universe and turned on Geraldo where fittingly Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell were discussing the baseness of politicians. Of course all of you will recall that several years ago Jerry sued Larry for a satirical article that appeared in Hustler. Jerry accused Larry of making him look silly. Larry defended on the basis that Jerry looked silly enough on his own and anyway anyone who didn’t think Jerry was silly wouldn’t be caught dead reading Hustler. In the alternative he defended that anyone who did read Hustler was a person doomed to live in eternal damnation and with whom Jerry would not have to share eternity so it really didn’t matter if such persons thought Jerry was silly. Anyway, Larry won as the Supreme Court agreed that Jerry was not only silly but also fat and that in fact Jerry looked a lot like Larry and that they both shared a semblance to Snotty Newty. Well, this love couple was so successful that they both had a return engagement after Representative Livingston slipped on his own condom after being exposed by Larry as a multiple philanderer. Jerry agreed with Larry that Livingston and all the other sexual predators in Congress should be exposed and hounded from office like the dogs in heat they emulate. So, in this most forgiving time of year it is indeed a miracle that Jerry and Larry have come to champion the same cause.

For those who are missing pro basketball you are referred to Harlan Coben, One False Move. Myron Bolitor is a sports agent and his client is a woman basketball player. Coben also wrote Comeback which is about men’s pro-basketball. This is not to be confused with Comeback by Richard Starke who is really Donald Westlake and whose character is Parker but not like Robert Parker’s Spencer.

Next month a review of training plans and a USCF update. Also, all the latest on efforts to stamp out the use of Coca-cola as a training aid.

Start riding fast again but don’t take chances.

Bill Stone