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THE RACING CHRONICLES: Somerset Maugham, "Rain": Or Resorting to Form.
I Rain As you know in "Rain" Somerset Maugham tells the story of a woman waiting out the rain on a South Pacific island. Also present is a missionary, his wife, and an assortment of incidental players. As it turns out the woman is a prostitute who is being detained for transport back to San Francisco to stand trial for her crimes- think John Ashcroft going after New Orleans pleasure resorts. To no avail the back players implore the Reverend to let the woman's transgressions slip. Accepting her fate the lady turns to the minister who then spends endless dark rainy nights ministering to her soul; so devoted is he that he returns each morning to his hotel room so spent that his wife fears for his health. Alas when the rain finally stops and the boat can leave the Reverend is found on the beach, dead by his own hand. Seems that his prayers had been answered and he could not bear the shame. Or to take liberty with the kindly lady's take: "people are pretty much the same; some are just not very good at it." How does this relate to cycling? Well, we'll write it; you figure it out. II USA Cycling Thinks You Believe in Tinkerbelle.
The Rich are Different
It is a seminal theme of American literature that as with Jake Gatsby a person can indeed buy a mansion on Long Island but that he will never be "of Long Island." No, life is more the Dreiser character who thinks he is going to be let inside if he just learns how to use the salad fork. Plenty of guys have bought tuxedos only to be found out by the clip on bow tie. So it is hardly a surprise that the Fraternity Brothers at USA Cycling eventually black balled Gerard Bisceglia, the pledge as it were who got them off probation. Why you might as well have expected Duke to let the basketball players come to the Lacrosse Party. The guy never had a chance. He knew how to count money; he returned phone calls; he looked past petty rules; and he actually liked guys who rode bikes. But, even if he didn't like cyclists he would have been fired; he was just plain not "one of them"; you know, he was competent, polite, reasonable and trustworthy. He simply lacked the requisite skills package of pettiness, transparent dishonestly, and ethical flexibility when faced with a personal financial opportunity. Now, the Fraternity has every right to have one of its own kind run the organization. After all, even in Breaking Away the town boy never got to ride in the sorority girl's car. Hey, just admit the guy didn't fit in; didn't get the bathroom jokes; or didn't think that the majesty of metaphor was "a no chain day." No, it is the fairy tales that give away the plot; these ducks just can't keep from quaking out of turn. And it is treating you as rubes and dolts that causes ire. Let's take a look. 2 Steve Johnson has given several interviews that have been obediently transcribed by Velo Fluff and other keenly inquisitive journals. These people live in a coma. It is clearly a tactic of USA Cycling to diminish with faint praise Gerard's achievements. It is well known that at the time he took over USA Cycling was pretty well broke. Now, it has lots of money. It is demonstrably true that at the time he was employed USA Cycling was losing members-and local organizations were, as it were, breaking away. Today the membership is growing. In a normal world this would be credited to Gerard. But, our USA Fraternity boys live in Fairy Land; and so Mr. Johnson presents a nursery story: "the membership has grown because Lance won the Tour." A sweet story indeed is that; but, in the world Self is constrained by his nature to occupy nasty facts sometimes get in the way. Fortunately, Velo Fluff writers get to live in the land of journalists; a place where laziness is rewarded with back stage passes to the pre and post race buffet table. Pleasing Tale I: Membership went up because Lance won the Tour. Therefore, USA Cycling needs to concentrate on the high end of the sport. Nasty Fact: Gerard took over at USA Cycling three weeks after Lance won his fourth Tour. In each of those four years the membership at USA Cycling had gone DOWN. Now, if the Self were to accept Mr. Johnson's logic the above would tend to prove that Lance winning his first four tours actually caused members to quit. This is almost certainly not true but it is no less extant than Mr. Johnson's silly comment that membership grew because Lance won tours five, six and seven. Oh sure, if given enough time Mr. Johnson could spin his Rapunzel hair a more golden color by explaining that the last three wins were better covered on television; but, we'll never know that because the lazy journalists who cover cycling didn't dare ask least they miss out on sitting in Tom Montgomery's suite at the San Francisco Grand Prix.
The programs and success at USA Cycling is all Staff Driven and the Staff and Programs were in place when Gerard arrived. One of the most important programs was getting cycling into the hands of local people. Nasty Fact: Under the prior leadership USA Cycling did away with District Representatives and most embarrassingly USA Cycling could not even get Colorado race promoters to use USA Cycling as sanctioning body. In the real world losing members and races would be a sign of a badly run organization. No, in the Colorado Springs world it is good staff driven programs that drive away racers. Nasty Fact: The same guys who are now running USA Cycling were doing so before Gerard took over. Steve Johnson was in charge of the show. We could go on deconstructing more of Mr. Johnson's silly comments-such as the one that the giant synergy created by USA Cycling's tireless work has caused people to buy bikes of whom some number that has now varied from 1 in 10 to 1 in 1,000 go on to race. This of course is something that could easily be modeled and sampled; just ask new members why they started racing and then compare it to all bike sales. Far better to tell fair thee well tales. Now, perhaps someday the truth of this travesty will come out. And when it does it is 10 to 1 against that it has anything to do with the nonsense that has been put out. Really, in a world where reason has any purchase could anyone sell the notion that a successful CEO would be fired because of BMX-which by the way is what anyway? The Self was not immune to the lure of Peter Pan flying across the stage of a black and white TV. Even the recognition that Mary Martin played Peter did not cause much pause. Why even now when MKA talks yet again about quitting Self works hard to clap him back to life in Fantasy Land. But, hey the gymnast Kathy Rigby married a football player and played Peter; and Mary Martin's son Larry would not even have wanted to get in the bottle with his Dream Jennie; and besides George Bush only wanted to be the Dallas Larry Hagman. Which is all to say that while in Hollywood and Washington D.C. it is fine to play pretend, you really can't clap a person back to life. But, you can apparently lie to cyclists and get the cycling press to play along. After all, it's all about access to the post race party. III Racing is Fun
1 Getting this out of the way, the races at Cerealand and Anderson were well done and mighty fine. However, Steve Gore of Anderson needs to understand that spoiling cyclists has no up side. After all for the Cat I II Race he had lead and follow cars, police protection, a motorcycle, corner guards who were awake, and no one disqualifying riders for taking a leak ten miles from any known place of human habitation. The above picture was surreptitiously taken when the Self wandered out onto the Time Trial Course where Curtis was overheard saying that he was looking for a place in the woods to lube up and go Kentucky on Druber. Time Trials apparently make butt buddies of the otherwise normally psychotic. Just another reason why Time Trials are not real races and you can be certain the Self will be taking precautions to stay even further away from such places. Anyway, Steve's reward for such extravagance was to have like six people show up the next day for the criterium stage. Steve, next year give them a road full of cement trucks, Moorestucky lunatics firing warning shots, and blue shirts with stale breath. You can't give Ballinger Champagne to Cold Duck people. You can't serve caviar to guys who eat at Long John Silvers and you certainly can't serve high end weed to Skoal bandits. But, enough of this fun stuff; let's get to the racing. 2 It is warm, sunny, and Cerealand is about fifteen minutes from the Self's house. Of course there was no way to make the 40 Plus Pizza Boy Benefit Race as it started at the inhuman hour of like 9:00 a.m. How people get up that early is way beyond understanding. So, arrive with five minutes to spare for the thirty plus and am all ready to go but discover that the only helmet in the car is the one that was last crashed. Now, the thing still had some structure but given what the Self falls down about as often as possible, a used helmet is not a good idea. Besides, the Self's head is about the only part of his body that functions in anything close to its intended fashion. This is not to deny that whole sections were not burned through in days long past; but, best as can be determined these were the largely unused or at least unnecessary synapses-those concerned with caring, sharing, and communicating-vestiges equivalent to an appendix. The only time you notice them is when they are about to cause you problems. They should long ago have been scrubbed off like the rest of the redundant and troublesome X Chromosomes. Unfortunately, Terry is an engineer and carried his "stuff" to races. So, we are rolling around at about twelve with the break of eighteen Pizza Boys, assorted Zeroes and Rodents about half a lap up. The conversation is exhilarating and we are all catching up on the brilliant grandchildren, whether to use Vittoria Glue, Tufo Rim Strips, clinchers or tubeless clinchers, rubber or cork brake pads, Aluminum or Carbon or Mixed material frames, half or calf length socks, Gatorade or New Gatorade, slime or Gu. We are just about to address the relationship between VO2 Max and Lactate, Myth or Truth when Sean attacks. He is immediately called to task by his Zero teammates who fear he could single handedly cause the group to close a minute and half gap. Anyway, the whole Zen of it is broken and the Self never did get the lowdown on whether to go with a GPS Computer or simply stick to the computer that hasn't worked for three years. For some reason the Self just has never gotten lost on a one mile circle course; but, perhaps not knowing the elevation changes causes an uneconomical use of the 100 matches that are given out at the start of each race; which seems to beg the question of why people want to light matches during a race when it is seventy out. Maybe the matches are only for Spring Races which the Self doesn't attend. Besides it would seem dangerous to be around a bunch of guys throwing lighted flames at each other. Modern racing seems very complex. Anyway, the race ended and as it turns out Rodent Curtis rode away from the break with O'Brien and eventually won; neither of them had a teammate. Teams are very important at Hooterville Master Races; otherwise there is no one to sit around with in a circle and ride wind trainers; circle jerks just aren't the same when done solo. Well, the first race was so much fun the Self lined up for the Pro I II III IV V Citizen, Women CAT IV Eligible Main Event. We go pretty fast for a while and then we don't and then a couple guys on mountain bikes run into each other and we slow down to yell at a few old people who are driving on the course and then there is a break and then the promoter jumps into the race and then a few more guys fall down and then the guy announcing the race can't count time because reading a clock is apparently not a requirement for being an IU Student and so we race for a few extra laps or at least the field does. The Self had signed on for a sixty five minute race and when the time was up it was time to quit.
What happened is that with a few laps to go the Dog Fish Team-at last a team for whom a nickname would be so much less-went pretty fast and at the same time the break was floundering. So, as it turned out all but two guys from the break were caught and you can look it up but it appears that a New Alternative Life Style Guy won and a Rodent was second. The rest were caught on the closing hill. Cool stuff it was. Now, the Self was pretty flushed with excitement and was moving toward the free soda tent where it was hoped someone would explain why guys in the Cat I race had been talking about starting with a "hundred dollars" to burn up. The Self hadn't gotten a hundred dollars; if so he would sure as heck have been off doing something other than burning it up doing something as silly as a bike race. Besides, as the Self understands the whole thing, the idea was to finish a race without any of the matches; so how the heck could the Self light up a hundred dollars without any fire makers. Racing has become very complicated. Anyway, the Self got side tracked. Right there blocking the road to the soda tent was some huge fellow with three cameras around his neck and a gigantic timing device. He was busy screaming at Kevin from the Rodents. The Self saw an Alternative Lifestyle Guy walking away and couldn't help put observe the cute way the sun was reflecting off his nose ring. Anyway, the large fellow is calmly explaining that Kevin is a bit of a way loser and Kevin is commenting that he is going to remove the Alternative Guy's belly button ornament and this is all just fine but at this time the Self was really wanting a Cream Soda. Ever the calming influence the Self suggests that perhaps Kevin should wait until the next race to compliment the guy on his choice of jewelry and Kevin is just about to laugh when pig face calls him out. Now, at this point Ken from Major Taylor arrives and it just gets so much better. The large guy announces that it just makes him sick to see guys like Kevin sit around at the back of a race and then sprint and that it is no way to race a bike. So, ask the guy why it matters and get back an answer that there is still time for Kevin to become a real bike racer. Well, at this point someone asks why it is that a guy who is a hundred fifty pounds overweight knows so much about how to race a bike. It seemed a reasonable question and fortunately for the questioner the big boned guy could not move all that fast. But, it did cause the Self to miss out on the soda. Besides, the Self is pretty certain that no one got behind him during the entire race. Yes indeed the Self was guarding last place just in case any of the racers dropped any of their hundred dollar start up money. Hey, you never know when a guy will get out without using up his money. This is not Las Vegas. You don't have to go home broke. Regardless, during the conversation the Self pointed out that there was no way he would have missed Kevin being at the back shedding dollars. So, you ask "what caused this dust up?" Well, if the Chronicles wasted time on race reports you wouldn't get to know. Here is the back story. At the start of the race the Earring Guy insisted on placing his bike in front of the start line; this seemed perfectly reasonable being that getting to the first corner in the lead in very important on this course, there being absolutely no place to move up on this two mile four lane loop. Well, it that wasn't enough the guy with the Mister T Starter Kit also had to punch Kevin in the hip in the first turn. Apparently, the guy wanted Kevin to give him some of his hundred dollar starting money so he could buy some sliver polish. (Note; the starting spot didn't help as the jeweled marvel did not finish the race: nasty piercing infection perhaps.) But, what does this have to do with the post race harangue from the camera man. Nothing really, it was just a fortuitous coming together of two disparate events, serendipity as it were. As it turns out the portly gentleman has a directional name that presently escapes-something like North, East, West or South. The guy has son who is a racer and daddy wanted him to be a Rodent; but took much umbrage at being asked to pay a sponsorship fee to get the kid on the roster. Well, the son is a pretty good racer and apparently known by most though not the Self. The son (we'll call him Directional Racer) gets into the break. Also, in the break is a Rodent named House-a House Rat as it turns out. The House Rat decides that he probably can't win a sprint against the break partners and thus figures the best chance is for the break to fail. So he refused to contribute to the break. Now, the Self personally finds such tactics degrading, cowardly, and not in keeping with the essence of sport. But, on the other hand it is close to cheating and well winning by cheating is almost always better than any other way; so, the Self is at best ambivalent here. As noted above the Dog Fish Team blows up the last five laps of the race and when the break is about to be caught the aforementioned House Rat dashes for the cheese with an Alternative Guy. Now, as if it weren't bad enough that the Directional Kid lost to a sinister unsportsmanlike House Rat, much less an Alternative Life Form, it turns out that Kevin dashes in for third. Directional Kid used up all his money and won what the little boy shot. Directional Dad was distraught. So, there you have it, the same old story; boorish parent fan.
Coda The guys at Truesport received some fan mail commenting that it was entirely not on for Druber to make fun of Master Racers and their Teams. It seems that the some teams are in danger of losing their sponsorship. Well, we at the Chronicles agree and we wrote to Druber and told him he should stick to writing about his bathroom habits and vacations to exotic islands. We here at Chronicle Headquarters just never get enough of port a john stories, rum drink mix vomit descriptions and tales of marital bliss. Why it was with chagrin that we had to point out Henry James' notion that what is perceived as love most often turns out be a case off being off balance: romance or vertigo-tricky stuff that. A master racer losing his sponsorship; could truth be that some people hate looking in the mirror and seeing a lost dream mirage. But, all in all we tend to agree. cycling, as life, is way too important to be taken with a laugh- best to frown and nod knowingly.
Billy
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