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Fear
and Loathsomeness Since my return from Elite and Masters Nationals in Utah, I've been silent. I've participated in some bike races but nothing really worth reporting on. Though I'm not a resident of Hooterville, I participated in the Hooterville District Criterium Championships. I went up to Wisconsin for two Superweek Stages, mostly because my good buddy Coxworthy had flown in from San Diego to do several stages. He refused to do the masters races so I ended up racing over my head in the Holy Hill and Lakefront road races though I was in a chase group at Holy Hill with Carlos Vargas, Emile Abraham, Jakob Nielsen and a Columbian National Team member until my chain broke. They all finished in the top 10. I won the 30+ crit at Arlington Heights, and I did well in the Procrit later that same day taking 19th. Next weekend I'll do the Procrit at Elgin and Winfield and Elite Nationals at Downers Grove and so on. However, I'm having trouble being passionate about the racing lately. I confess, I truly enjoy riding my bike, even when it's muggy and blistering hot like it has been in the Midwest for the past month. The roads are melted and heavy, making the effort about 30% greater and my pomade burns my eyes when it mixes with my sweat and runs down my face but I love it none the less. On nice days after school or on weekends when my brother and I were growing up in our poor North side neighborhood of Champaign, IL we used to haul our Schwinn Sting Rays and Huffy Dragsters out of the garage and have bike races with the other poor children around the block or hold simple street sprints up and down the street. The idea of these bike races was to go faster than the next kid. Admittedly, those were simpler times but we never over analyzed the obvious point that to win the race you had to go the fastest. The regular reader of my drivel has no doubt noted my disdain for those who show up at cycling events throughout the Midwest and the nation with the goal, not of going faster than anyone in the race, but only to go AS FAST as the SLOWEST RIDER WHO ISN"T POPPED. I've labeled these riders from time to time as "peckerheads","dickheads" or "feckless weenies". I like "feckless weenie". It's descriptive and accurate. Pekerhead is MKA's word. Dickhead can mean anything from a rude individual to the business end of the male organ. It's too broad. Feckless being defined as "spineless, feeble, weak, useless, of little value" and weenie of course being a "small sausage" - the reader has freedom to draw analogies. I must however add that I do not focus my derision on those racers who simply do not possess the physical talent that will permit anything other than barely hanging on to the lickspittle portion of a race. I empathize; having been in your condition often this season, with your plight. My contempt is aimed at the riders who are strong enough to animate a race, but do not. Rather, these riders prefer at all points to conserve their energies for a blaze of glory final 200 meter dash whether for first or 50th place My thoughts on this subject were agonizingly crystallized at various races in July. On July 15, which was a Friday night race in Terre Haute, IN everyone tried to go faster than the other guys. It was great fun. Eventually with all of the trying to go faster the race ended in a bunch sprint in which the top TX Road Dog, Curtis Tollhouse, went the fastest. I drove home from Hooterville with a good feeling about bike racing. The next day the sun shone brightly and the humidity was high. Lovely Kathy and I drove back to Terre Haute for a master's race and a Pro 1, 2 race. What happened was a Masters cycling event and a Pro 1, 2 race. The day's races had been designated as the Hooterville District Criterium championships. In the 45+ race, I watched as my team mates swept the podium with Billy Redbeard making a heroic solo ride for the V, Johnnie the Mole attacked later to solo to second and Papa Smurpy took the sprint from the decimated field for 3rd. In doing so they had to overcome staggering odds to win over a field of about a dozen riders, of which Team Delta had 5. I did the 35+ race, and not being a resident of Hooterville did not anticipate being a protagonist in the race. However, this turned out to be no race. Less than 20 clipped in and took off. Here is what unfolded under pretext of a "bike race". Tollhouse would go fast and the Turdles and Heroes would try to go JUST AS FAST AND THEN STOP. Stone Pony from CU racing -not a resident of Hooterville would try to go faster than everyone else. The Feckless Weenies would make great efforts to go JUST AS FAST AND THEN STOP. I would try then to go faster than everyone else and the scenario would repeat. Eventually, The Good Dr. went faster than everyone. He rode away. I tried to catch The Good Dr. with Stone Pony and Tollhouse but all that did was provide a fast draft for the Feckless Weenies who were hoping to be brought level with The Good Dr. with little or no effort of their own. At one point, Stone Pony and I, both from Illinois, looked at the Feckless Weenies and reminded them that THEIR State Criterium Championship was "up the road" as they say. No avail. The chase of Tollhouse, Stone Pony and I had reduced the gap to The Good Dr. down to about 5 seconds where at one time it was 20. During the chase the Feckless proved their mettle by not offering so much as a 10 second pull at any point in the chase. 4 of the Turdles crashed and with 10 minutes to go I withdrew from the race. I was immensely frustrated. Partially due to not being able to get clear and bridge to The Good Doctor, but mostly due to the fact that I did not feel an overwhelming compulsion to pull riders who refused to work for their own state championship up to a lone rider who was making a great solo effort to win the race. In two laps after my withdrawal, the gap to The Good Dr. grew to about 35 seconds and there it stayed. He deserved the win. Tollhouse of course won the field sprint for second. My recent articles may give some readers the impression that I don't care about results any longer, that perhaps I've lost some of my fire. Nothing could be further from the truth. If there was any doubt, the bile that burned in my throat and made my belly churn after the master's race gave witness to the fact that the competitive juices still flow. Sure, I won't get bent out of shape and train like a madman any more when I'm not competitive in a National level Elite race, but by God, it chafes my arse no end when people show up to bike races in lycra kits and fancy helmets, wearing cool sunglasses, riding on expensive bikes and FAIL TO RACE THEIR BIKES. Hell, even as a poor child growing up in North Champaign, racing Schwinn Sting Rays and Huffy Dragsters up and down the street with my poor little friends, it was known that bike racing was about trying to go faster than the other kids. Following is the point: Sure, Lance Armstrong drafts and conserves energy until it's needed. But, he's doing a 3 week stage race, not a 30 minute crit! When the race is on the line, he's there with or without team mates trying to go faster than Ulrich, Basso et al. "But I'm a sprinter, my team mates were supposed to pull the break back". Of course, this is a classic Feckless Weenie duck and dodge. I present for evidence the 2002 Ghent Wevelgem classic in which Mario Cipollini, BRIDGED SOLO TO A BREAK, and TRADED PULLS WITH FREDDY AND GEORGE AND STILL WON THE RACE! When the race is on the line, racers with class, regardless of respective strengths do what has to be done to put themselves in a position to win or they blow up trying. So I ask rhetorically, when is a race no more on the line than when a lone rider is 5 seconds up the road with 10 minutes left to race? This winter I'll be gathering signatures on a petition that will be forwarded to USA cycling. The petition will be to eliminate "masters" racing categories under the age of 50, excluding national and state championships. The other option would be to make masters races for categories 4 and 5 only. The hypothesis is that as a racer slows down, they should either stop racing or downgrade to category in which they can compete. It seems odd to me for example at the Arlington Heights 30+ race I staged next to an overweight and hair legged 30 something wearing a replica of Alessandro Petacchi's FASSA BORTOLO Purple Giro d'Italia Sprinters Jersey and black Nashbar shorts. Similarly it is disconcerting to see a 46 year old category 1 former Olympian getting popped in a 40+ race. Something is amiss. It just shouldn't be. The upshot is that too many racers in masters' races are either racing "down" - cherry picking if you will, or racing over their heads. It's a volatile and dangerous mix which begets negative and boring races. After with DNF debacle in the 35+ race in Terre Haute, the joy returned in the Procrit later in the day. The race was active, there were attacks and counter attacks and the race changed complexions on nearly every lap as racers fought not for the wheel just ahead of them but to get up the road into a move that would stay away. Tollhouse continued his hot streak by taking the bunch gallop at the end. Arlington
Heights For the past 4 years the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights has hosted big money crits on a small, tight course with forty-eight or forty-nine corners dispersed over a course barely 300 meters long and about as wide as a single car driveway. Thankfully, the 2005 venue was changed and the course was a reasonable 8 corner crit over 1.2 miles. One 4 block square that all the crashes could occur on and a long rectangle to go fast on. It was a great race course. The 30+ race had a purse of $1500 for 15 places. Sixty riders of vastly divergent ability levels clipped in and watched each other for the first two laps at blazing speeds approaching 25 miles per hour. Finally and mercifully a rider from the Vodka team attacked which caused a mild chase and on the next lap a prime was announced which Crazy Tracy took easily ahead of my team mate Johnnie the Mole who had made an early jump. So, for two laps we raced then it settled back into the typical "you pull", "no, you pull", "I'm not gonna pull, you pull" masters race for another couple of laps. I was going insane. Just then Kenny Labbe - who did a stellar effort in the announcing stand - called out a prime. I attacked and before you could say "Feckless Weenie" an 8 rider break with all teams represented was formed. The break of course failed because 3 of the eight were rotating through and 5 were squatting, shouting encouragement. "C'mon it's splitting up! Faster! Go!" I don't know how those guys can look at themselves in the mirror. I won the prime which turned out to be a set of carbon fiber Bontrager X Lite OS bars that are on Ebay as I write this.
I determined that if the Feckless would not race, I would take the race to them. I began cussing, yelling and attacking like Vino on PCP. It must have been frightening to the small children in the crowd. When I got caught I attacked again and when I got caught I attacked yet again. Counter intuitive as it may be, each time I was caught no counter attack occurred. The Feckless could not even muster the 'nads to counter the only rider who was animating the race. In fact the reaction at the catch was quite the opposite. The field would slow and remain single file. At one time - I kid you not - the race was single file on the backstretch at 19 per. Eventually the belly punches resulted in a feeble "no mas" from the squatters and I was away. Former team mate Big D proved to the Feckless Weenies that a 10 second gap isn't impossible to bridge even for a sprinter as he made a classy escape and joined me off the front. ZellsMACK informed me after the race that he had pulled the Feckless Weenies to within 5 seconds of D and me in the closing stages of the race. All the while the Endeavor Masters (3) and the Proctor Masters (4) sat on his wheel and offered nary a pull. I felt for him and hope that he will take solace in the knowledge that despite their respective lacks of effort, those two teams not only did not win the field sprint but they placed no riders in the top 5 and only 2 in the top 10 between them. In the p.m. Procrit, I missed the primary 7 rider move but got into a 14 rider chase group that nearly caught the break bringing the gap down from out of sight to as little as 4 seconds. Hilton Clarke from Navigators, Josh Carter from Subway, Jeff Schroetlin from Mesa Cyclery and I traded pulls. As Tom Petty said - "God it's so painful when something that's so close can still be so far out of reach." He also said "Oh yeah, all right take it easy baby make it last all night." But the fun had to end after an hour. Endeavor Aussie Karl Menzies fresh off of his Superweek Overall win out sprinted Andy Crater and won the $5000 race taking home $1250. The Endeavor boys took 4 of the top 10 spots. I finished 19th for the next to last money spot. News flash for the Feckless: The wheel sitters all finished out of the money nearly a lap down while waiting for the race to come back to them. The racers who took chances and went across gaps won cash. Most of the time it happens this way. I leave you with a final true story. Two sprinters in my chase group - Hilton Clarke and Josh Carter - worked their asses off to pull the break back. Carter is a fast finisher and he'll admit -not much of a TT guy but he did not excuse himself from the chase. Clarke is strong but also a powerful sprinter. Despite our group having extraordinary sprinters John Puffy Combes, Superweek sprint champ Merriweather Pipp and former elite crit champ Jim Baldardash squatting because they had riders in the front move, these guys went about the job of sacrificing better than even odds for a top 10 and good money. They chose rather to spend energy - burning matches if you will - for an opportunity to sprint for THE WIN. That, my feckless friends, is the essence of being a bike racer.
Flail On, Druber
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