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"There's
a light at the end of the tunnel, you shout,
I
think it's kind of funny I pick up the phone and the caller I.D. tells me it's the Mentor. Druber: What's up? Mentor: You coming over this weekend? Druber: Coming over for what? Mentor: The big Ceraland race, of course. Druber: I forgot that was this weekend. Besides, I've finally given up bike racing. I'm going to become a time trial specialist. I'd take up bowling but I don't like bee hive hairdos', light beer and I don't like cigarette smoke. I'd try a triathlon - I like skinny women - but I'd never come out of the water alive and I hate running. I'm running out of alternatives. Mentor: What? What happened to bring this about? Druber: Two things. First, Elite and Masters Natz filled up so fast I've be wait listed for the road races and crit. All I could register for were the TT's. No sense in me doing anything else this year. Second, I've had my spirit crushed. I'm not good any more. My brother finished second at Sea Otter; I can't even cash a check in a 12 rider 40+ field that pays 7 places. I'm a hack. I can't do it any more. Mentor: Tell me about it. Not that I care but I've got about 10 minutes to waste while I'm waiting for my tire change to finish. The next ten minutes were spent with me trying to explain the bike races I did over the weekend, all the while having my conversation stepped on with thoughts about Barolo, cycling books, Policemen, massage therapists and girls wearing flash dance style aerobics tops. Druber: As I was saying… Mentor: I gotta go, talk to you later. Druber: But I gotta tell someone, I'm going to bust! Mentor:
Gotta go. Click Hillsboro- Roubaix 90 miles of steep, twisty, busted up backroad in the middle of nowhere. There was a North wind at 15-25 mph dropping the temperature under clear skies to 43 degrees at start time. I had my legs all buttered up like a good poser and I wasn't wearing leggings. This was going to be epic. With at least 3 large strong teams from Kansas City, St Louis and Chicago represented I tried my best to swing some deals with the power brokers of the peloton. "What say we take some of your guys, some of their guys and some of my guys and make a rotating pace line about 18 miles in where the road turns back into town and this wind will be ripping everyone into the right gutter?" It was a thought I believed had merit but races rarely turn out the way pre race strategy sessions hope. Besides which, Indianapolis doesn't really rank on the Midwest power meter. Hooterville gets no respect, "Breaking Away" and the NCAA basketball tournament aside. At the whistle 102 riders clipped in and rolled out for a long day. 1 rider blitzed off in a sprint. 2 miles later the Mesa Cycling team from St Louis organized at the front after another 4 or 5 riders attacked. Something was afoot. I rolled forward in the headwind and watched as former Subway rider and previous race winner rider Josh Carter from Mesa attacked. No one reacted. While the peloton had their heads back and eyes closed in a mouth wide open collective yawn, I had an insane notion. This race has always had the impossible early move stick except for once that I can remember. "I'm going too". Before my super ego could shut off the impulse from the Id to my legs, I was out of the saddle chasing Carter who was by that time about 45 sec. up the road. "Dammit Druber you do this to yourself every time! Stop! Turn Around!! What are you going to do for the next 85 miles?" "You didn't learn a damn thing in Park City last year. Conserve! This is an elite field and a long ass race! Conserve you fool!" I must have been breathing too hard to hear my common sense. As I closed the gap to Carter I tuned around and to my surprise and chagrin and hope all at the same time I could no longer see the 4 riders I passed up to this point and I could not see a hard chasing peloton. I was half hoping to see an ABD rider and or two and a rider from Tilford's team. Instead, all I saw as bad pavement and empty bean fields behind me. Carter and the initial attacker were now together about 10 seconds ahead of me. By this time I was so gassed I was struggling to gain any more ground on them so I did what my early cycling tutor Boering taught me to do so many years ago. I dug deep within myself to grab hold of that little extra I needed to catch the two riders up the road. With just a moment's focus of enormous mental energy - mind over matter - I found what I needed and I only had to wait about 5 more seconds before unleashing it. As the two riders ahead made a left turn out of the cross wind into a tailwind, it was time. With abandon I let go of my fury and yelled up the road… "Carter for God's sake please slow down for me!!!" You didn't think I'd end this segment with a mystical piece of bullshit about dipping into the "red zone" and finding the energy to go just a bit faster did you? Carter and Dr. Mark slowed down, I latched on and we spent the next 2 hours and 45 minutes in a self imposed hell while the 8 rider strong ABD train yanked the happy bunch in their draft pursuing us from behind. At mile 64 to be exact with 26 miles of racing left, Carter and I having ejected Dr. Mark who while indeed noble, was weakening and had to be thrown overboard about 10 miles ago, turned around and to our disbelief, our 4 minute gap had shrunk over the last 15 miles to 20 seconds. At the catch, the pel was down to about40 riders. We were hoping for more like 15. Damn. When you're doing lonely duty off the front like that you think of many, many things and you hurt in many, many places. I reminisced about the first time I met Carter. He was 18 years old. We were both sMACKs. Carter was a Cat Three (3) with some promise. I was an oversized newbie master. Carter had a tough time back then pushing a gear bigger than about a 53x17. Today he was taking monstrous pulls and had a 54 tooth front chain ring. I let him have the tailwinds with that. Figured it was to our advantage. I thought about the times I'd dissed Carter for pursuing the dream and how ironic it was that he was now breaking my legs. I thought about how badly my shoulders needed a massage after being pounded by the pavement and wind so severely. I thought about what a dumb ass decision it was for me to not register for the 66 mile master's race and how I'd be nearly done by now if I had. I wondered how it could be that every time I'd take a pull in the headwind, my love for cycling would go away and I'd think about how much better it would be to be spending a day like this with a can of beer in a foam hugger while riding around in a golf car trying to break 80 instead of sitting on this formerly comfortable saddle that was now threatening to flare up another nasty 'rhoid for 90 miles. I even ventured to speculate about how nice it would be to take another trophy from this race, a cool brick epoxied to a steel base. But, instead we got caught. At first the catch was merciful. Guys congratulated us on the effort, teased me about how hard my team worked to pull me back and that was the reason only one of them was left in the group, etc. When we turned out of the headwind into the left to right crosswind the mood soon turned cruel and vicious. The Mentor suggested I write about how no one knows how to make an echelon or something to the effect of "If only these idiots knew how to make an echelon, I could have recovered and won the race." I told him that merely points out the obvious. If everyone would ride the way I want them to, I'd win every race I entered. It's true. However, when survival is on the line, the only instinct a bike racer possesses isn't about echelons. It's all about gutter and not getting popped. 2005 Elite road silver medalist Ben Raby, Grizzled vet Tilford, Jelly Belly Nick Reistadt - break of the day in stage 5 from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara in Tour of California with Jens Voigt and Ekimov - attacked and attacked again in the cross wind with everyone slammed into the gutter. I wasn't able to hang on. I detonated like an Iraqi insurgent at a police recruiting station in. Bagdhad. Just yesterday a Hillsboro area farmer FedEx'd a body part back to me. A mile later when we hit the feed zone guys went up the hill and climbed off their bikes. About 20 abandoned at that point in all I think. Not me though. I'm made of stiffer stuff than that. There is no tougher substance to drive a man forward than a lack of good sense. I did the last lap getting dropped by and chasing what at that point was the 3rd group on the road. Eventually I gave up, fittingly at the very point on the course that to turn around and head back into town was just as far as finishing the course, both would be into the headwind. I limped home. It sucked and I didn't have fun. But isn't that the point? We don't do this because we enjoy it or because it makes us fit. As Mentor reminded me, we race because we're cyclists. The
Finish:
I'd like to imagine that I can be - even with tired legs - competitive with a masters field. At times, in the rare instance that I'm honest with myself - in the darkest places of my psyche, I acknowledge the nagging idea that I prefer racing Pro 1,2 events because it's easier to hide out. I get kudos for riding aggressively, not for winning. In a Masters race, everyone knows my name. I'm expected to do well. Sometimes that's too much pressure so I retreat instead into the lickspittle portion of the afternoon race with the thought of riding aggressively and if all goes well taking a money spot by survival rather than facing the possibility that unless I'm really good I won't place with my own age group. Damn, it's harsh. With that backdrop, I registered having legs heavy with the load of the previous days effort for the 9:15 a.m. masters race hoping not to completely embarrass myself. The legs didn't show up. Instead the legs were shown up by Ethan Hawke Froese. Ethan Hawke was the NCAA road champion back when that meant something. He won on the famed course of 7 hills in Spokane, WA. Hawke took a few years off from cycling and according to some accounts gained a bitter 50 lbs…12 oz of Miller High Life at a time. My friend Jimmy Mac, the toothless Sage of Central Missouri has been filling my ears for as long as I have been a cyclist about the exploits of Hawke. Still overweight, still bitter and nasty showing up for group rides every blue moon severely hung over with mustard and ketchup stains on his moth eaten wool jersey; riding an ancient steel Motobecane with stem mounted shifters and toe clips. His aim was simply showing the cockiest and fittest riders Missouri has to offer to be the sniveling little wankers they are. He'd grind them to dust every time just because he could. I imagined Hawke as a bombastic braggart, very willing to drone on and on about his Glory Days. About the time he beat some punk named Phinney or bridged to a break with Gragus and Schuler and then dropped them both. I imagined him a Boering man whom I would love to meet, simply because he would give me fodder for the Feedzone. Again, I have been disappointed. After the race began, Hawke assumed control and snuffed every attack. Primes were won by others only with his blessing and when the sweetest prime of the day was offered - something that could actually be turned into cash on Ebay - he came around the pretenders and took it by three lengths. He allowed me to take the 4th and final prime for a ball cap and a pair of shoe laces by allowing an attack from the backside of the course "Go ahead Drube, they won't chase you, they'll all be watching me". "Really? You mean it? I wasn't even gonna try? "Go ahead big guy…it's yours". Afterward he steadily chased me down after I'd built a 300 meter gap. I foolishly imagined that with this gap, I could hold out and maybe solo for the V. Hawke didn't know who he was allowing to escape up the road. HAHA! I pulled one over on him! Hawke just sat at the front and turned the pedals over with metronome like consistency and reeled my beleaguered, sorry ass back in after about a lap and a half. I was done. From there, Hawke steadily and powerfully pulled the entire field to the finish. He never complained about the wheel suckers in his draft. He was doing it on purpose to help two team mates of his that haven't won races since they were in their teens. "These guys are better than they think they are and I'm just trying to help them get some results in the masters races." What?! Damn. I can't dislike a guy like that. He's not worried about his own results. He dominates a race so that team mates can do well. Where's the ego? Where's the anger? Where's the bitterness? Where is the need to be prominent? What happened to crushing the competition regardless of the size of the purse? Doesn't this guy know the rules? He was a better man than me, never having entertained a magnanimous thought when it comes to bike racing in my life. I'm ashamed.
Ok, that's all, Druber
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