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Spanbauer. It's German for "Chip Farmer". This factoid has nothing to do with anything. Therefore it has the same significance as pre race strategy and being helplessly outnumbered when you're the world's strongest man. You don't need strategy or a team when you can ride national champions off of your wheel. This is what happened: An unwritten rule in Master's racing is that if a break doesn't occur in the first 5 miles of a race, the race will likely end in a bunch sprint, an unthinkably horrifying thought to most master racers. The dynamics of Master's racing are dictated by the presence of teams that make up in numbers by what they lack in talent and on the opposite end of the spectrum, strong riders with little or no team support. When these two factors collide, the result is immediate hard tempo and furious attacks from the time the referee blows the whistle until the group of accountants, attorneys, engineers and doctors who are playing bike on the weekend are completely exhausted and the group of guys with time to train more than 12 hours a week on average form a break that goes up the road. From that point on, the rest of the group is left to contend with the teams who have numbers and block up the roads with their considerable man power. Anyone with the misfortune to not have been alert or in shape enough when the break escapes is doomed to ride the remainder of the race shackled to several members of the large teams if they deign to ride faster than 22 mph for the rest of the day. It's just the way it is. So it went in the Anderson Mayors Cup Road Race. Here is what it looked like.
The astute observer will notice the large number of similar jerseys of two teams. Of course Delta Faucet had 5 in the race and the blue and yellow guys, The Heroes Foundation cycling team had about 11 billion. Eventually riding fast in a close pack becomes far too nerve wracking and riders will decide to attempt solo efforts of going faster than the group. It took all of 1.5 miles for this to occur. The solo attempts, called attacks proved basically futile for the next 3 miles. Too many fresh legs and too many observant riders generally will negate early attacks. It's just the way it is. Also, since the stronger riders are generally the one's launching the early attacks, the less strong riders see the opportunity while they are fresh, to latch on with the stronger riders. The lesser riders will typically lack the speed to make a completely clean break from the riders behind them and result is what The Mentor calls "Field Welding". Field Welding occurs when a strong rider attacks, a lesser rider follows and another strong rider jumps into the fray. Upon seeing this, lesser riders mixed with strong riders will surge forward, creating a single file line with small gaps forming. A race will remain in this formation until the initial attacker decides he won't be going anywhere alone this time and slows down. The gaps close and the group comes back together. The key to avoiding this occurrence early in a race is to be a strong rider who is relatively unknown, perhaps from outside of the region, or to simply be so much stronger than the rest of the strong riders that it doesn't matter who chases you because they'll never catch you anyway. Delta Faucet employed the former strategy in the road race. We have a new rider by the name of Sparkie. Sparkie won the 30-34 USCF National Championship in the points race on the track last August. But, because track is an obscure and esoteric sub culture in the minor sport of cycling no one knows who Sparkie is, unless they reads the press releases, but that is another story. Anyway, knowing this would be the case, Team Delta was able to persuade Sparkie to dress up like a Hubbard for the race. Sparkie didn't want to but when we explained that if he pulled a pair of running tights up over his bib shorts, wore a pair of oven mitts, heavy black cotton socks and put on a pair of Bill Dance brand fishing goggles that Stone Pony brought from combination gas station/bait and tackle shop near his house that he'd likely be able to sneak off the front of the race while the peloton closely marked Tolson, Spanbauer, Clark and Druber. They'd think he was just some Cat 5 master if they didn't notice the stars and stripes on his collar. The strategy worked. Sparkie smartly countered a move of Druber's that got snuffed. No one reacted until he was nearly out of sight. Spanbauer went off after him with a Hero in tow. Another group went off in pursuit including two Deltas, some Heroes and a mish mash of others but with The Worlds Strongest Man pulling Sparkie and the Hero away; it would prove to be a futile effort to catch them. At the end of the first lap, the trio had 3 minutes and the chase group was back in the fold.
Tolson rolled up to me and suggested I was employing bad strategy. "Spanbauer is gonna destroy your guy up there." "I know, but I figure Sparkie is good for at least second if he doesn't kill himself trading pulls and he might even pull off a surprise sprint for the V" "It'll never happen. $10 bucks says Spanbauer drops them both and solos for the V. Hell, let's make it interesting, $20 bucks says that Spanbuaer dumps them both and they eventually come back crying to the peloton." "Nah, I like my guy up there. I think he can hang okay. I'm not gonna chase him down" "Who is it anyway?" "That's Sparkie, National points race champ." Tolson is clearly a man familiar with the obscure world of track racing, owning 17 national track championships himself. He looked at me like I was a weasel in a hen house. "Why, you old shyster, you. You had that dude dress up like a Cat 5 and you fooled us all. You're not as dumb as I thought you were" Shortly after that Tolson attacked, a Hero marked and I got into that group and we made a second break. By the end of lap 3, with the 3 of us combining our efforts to get close to the group of Spanbauer, Sparkie and Neylon, we were informed by the officials that the gap had grown from 3 minutes to 5 minutes. "Jesus, Spanbauer has got to be ripping those guys to shreds. I wonder if he knows this isn't a timed stage race. You think he'll be worn out for the Time Trial? " "Yeah, right" From there, things remained status quo. Spanbauer of course won, Sparkie having buried himself to prove that he is a capable roadie as well as a track racer had nothing left for the finish except a face full of dry crusted salt and spittle and took third. Tolson of course won the sprint out of the second group and I regretfully returned to my slow finishing ways to take 6th. The Heroes formed the filling in their respective breaks. Stone Pony escaped late for 7th and we had 3 in the top 7 for the GC. TIME TRIAL STAGE The
course was 10k. The finish order was like this. In the last two years I've been the 40-44 USCF bronze and silver medal winner in the TT. Spanbuaer put 27 seconds on me in 10k. That's nearly two minutes for a 40k assuming we both hold pace. Crikey. After
the TT stage, the GC order was
It was raining steadily all day and the general hope was that Spanbauer wouldn't show up, not wanting to risk an injury that would render him incapable of performing as an ER doctor or bass player or maybe that he had some prep work for the Kentucky Derby that he needed to attend to. Spanbauer had a commanding lead in the GC. Sparkie was pretty firmly in 2nd but if Tolson won the race, it would leap frog him past Sparkie into 2nd. We wanted to hold that spot and try to keep me in the top 5 and Stone Pony in the top 7. Blah, Blah, Blah. We made pre race plans that conceivably covered all scenarios, but when you're dealing with The Worlds Strongest Man, you can plan all you want but it's much akin to planning to ride out a tsunami on an inner tube. When you're dealing with a force of nature, it's generally up to the force of nature who survives and who doesn't. Stone Pony got into the early (first 5 miles) break and it looked promising. The Heroes used their considerable man power to their advantage to stifle the break killing attempts and the main GC guys were all back in the peloton. The break rode off to a minute advantage and then The Worlds Strongest Man decided he'd been sprayed by enough rainwater off the tires of the Heroes. He moved to the front and for 3 solid laps, he put everyone on his wheel into the hurt locker as he single handedly pulled the break back. In the process he splintered the group and all that remained were the top GC guys and a couple others lucky enough to hang on. I was on Spanbauers wheel the whole time, praying to god that he would fall off his bike or at least turn off the jets long enough for me to breathe and spit the grimy road bilge water out of my mouth.
Once the lead group was caught, we had a 9 rider break that Spanbauer kept attacking and nearly killing but it somehow managed to stay together. With two laps to go, Hero Neylon made and attack that put Delta between the devil and the deep blue sea. If we keep it together, Tolson wins and knocks Sparkie out of 2nd. If we let Neylon go, he takes the bonus points for the win away from Tolson and maybe Road House will chase. They didn't. Neylon hung on for 2 laps for the win, the bonus and enough points to tie Sparkie for 2nd, with the Crit being the tie breaker for 2nd place overall. The Force of Nature of course won GC finishing 4th in the crit. Tolson notched up the field sprint for 2nd and Sparkie pulled of an excellent sprint for 3rd. I took an ill fated flyer on the last lap that might have worked if not for two things. Harry Clark, and the fact that my damn speedometer readings dropped from 36 mph to about 26 mph with 200 meters left to race. Harry did lead out for Tolson and near as I can tell, still had his hands on the tops of his bars when he lead the group blasting past my charred remains. I swear I heard Harry whistling too. Final
GC Next Time, A Short Hiatus from racing, Enough
for now,
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