I can tell you with 100% accuracy that the best way to get motivated to train on a bicycle is to enter a race and then get dropped. After my embarrassing debacle in the CRCA club race Saturday morning, I went for a laid-back ride on Sunday and then took Monday off, although apparently, Saturday is now stuck in my subconcious considering I did a few laps in Central Park last night and never once let my heart rate drop below 175. And I say the embarrassing debacle is stuck in my subconcious as I really didn’t roll into the park last night thinking I was going to go balls-against-the-wall for an hour. It just happened. After a five-minute warm-up, I just couldn’t bring myself to slow down. The plan was to crank through some intervals but instead I somehow turned the entire ride into one long interval.
Aside from trying to asphyxiate myself, I recently read a copy of Johan Bruyneel’s We Might As Well Win manifesto and I can tell you it’s an entire load of hardboiled shit. While Johan Bruyneel may be referred to as a “master” tactician, I have little doubt the man systematically dopes his riders so the book should have been titled We Might As Well Dope And Win.
Wednesday, June 25
Sunday, June 22
Why Bother?
I went into Saturday morning’s race with a plan. If there was one thing I took away from the coaching session I attended earlier in the week with Deirdre Murphy Bader (who you can read about by CLICKING HERE), it was that I had to make sure I had a plan.
“You always need a plan,” she explained, and on Friday afternoon, as my fiancée and I walked through Central Park, I asked her, “Do you want to know about my plan?”
“What plan?”
“The race is five laps,” I said. “The plan is to hang back for the first four laps and stay in the draft. Once we get over the big hill on the final lap, I’ll start moving to the front and I’ll stay as close to the front as I can without knocking myself out. If that big guy is up there, the guy who won the last race, I’ll stick to his wheel and see if I can follow him all the way until we’re near the line and then try to fly around him.”
Doesn’t sound bad, right? Sounds like a decent plan for a guy out there on my own without any teammates and it might’ve actually worked if it wasn’t for the fact that I got dropped halfway through the fourth goddam lap.
As embarrassing as that is to admit, I admit it. I got dropped. Spit out the back like a piece of unwanted trash.
And there I was, thinking I had a plan. There I was thinking, “Hey, I didn’t do so bad the last race. Maybe I can do better this race.”
But no, like a total punk, I got DROPPED. Ugh. How utterly depressing.
How does that happen, though? The last race, I felt good. Felt like I could’ve cracked the top ten if I had paid more attention at the end, so how did I get dropped yesterday?
The field seemed mostly the same, so I was racing against the same guys. Whether or not any Category 4s dropped down to the lower class, who the hell knows, but something odd did happen yesterday morning.
The Women’s class started behind us and apparently a women’s breakaway of four chicks caught and passed us while we were on our third lap. Somehow, this sparked a reaction from the front of the field and from that point on, all the guys on the front of our field seemed intent on keeping up with those four ladies who were hammering the pedals something fierce.
After a lap-and-a-half of having my heart rate pegged at 185 and after watching a few other guys peel off the back, I realized there was no way I could keep up that pace for another twenty minutes, so I sat up and soft pedaled my way to 72nd Street and went home.
That was a seven in the morning. I didn’t have much to say for a few hours afterward considering how pissed I felt at not having finished the race. After a three-hour visit to the beach at Robert Moses State Park with the good-looking Jewish girl with the diamond ring on her finger, we were driving home when I mentioned, “I think I might go for a ride when we get back to the city.”
Which I did. I went out for an hour to dodge the gazillions of ignorant tourists and asshole pedestrians walking in the middle of the street in Central Park. I just cruised. I was the guy who felt like he had been thrown off the horse and then wanted to get back on. Sounds retarded, but it’s true.
Then, while riding over the bridge into Jersey this morning, I had to ask myself, “Why bother racing?” I’ve never been a good endurance athlete, although I do enjoy riding the bike. I enjoy the occasional group ride, but at the end of the day, I’m just not that great going uphill on a bike. I can’t keep my heart rate at 190 for hours at a time and when push comes to shove, my sprint isn’t all that fantastic either.
So why bother with the racing? Why spend the money on the USCF license and more money on joining the CRCA? What’s the point of trying to win a local Category 5 race? I understand the desire to be competitive. That part I get, but why put myself through the disappointment? For the most part, we set up our lives to be disappointment-free, so why go through it?
Despite all my rhetoric, I’m sure I’ll continue to put myself through the disappointment time and time again.
Or maybe I won’t. Who the hell knows.
“You always need a plan,” she explained, and on Friday afternoon, as my fiancée and I walked through Central Park, I asked her, “Do you want to know about my plan?”
“What plan?”
“The race is five laps,” I said. “The plan is to hang back for the first four laps and stay in the draft. Once we get over the big hill on the final lap, I’ll start moving to the front and I’ll stay as close to the front as I can without knocking myself out. If that big guy is up there, the guy who won the last race, I’ll stick to his wheel and see if I can follow him all the way until we’re near the line and then try to fly around him.”
Doesn’t sound bad, right? Sounds like a decent plan for a guy out there on my own without any teammates and it might’ve actually worked if it wasn’t for the fact that I got dropped halfway through the fourth goddam lap.
As embarrassing as that is to admit, I admit it. I got dropped. Spit out the back like a piece of unwanted trash.
And there I was, thinking I had a plan. There I was thinking, “Hey, I didn’t do so bad the last race. Maybe I can do better this race.”
But no, like a total punk, I got DROPPED. Ugh. How utterly depressing.
How does that happen, though? The last race, I felt good. Felt like I could’ve cracked the top ten if I had paid more attention at the end, so how did I get dropped yesterday?
The field seemed mostly the same, so I was racing against the same guys. Whether or not any Category 4s dropped down to the lower class, who the hell knows, but something odd did happen yesterday morning.
The Women’s class started behind us and apparently a women’s breakaway of four chicks caught and passed us while we were on our third lap. Somehow, this sparked a reaction from the front of the field and from that point on, all the guys on the front of our field seemed intent on keeping up with those four ladies who were hammering the pedals something fierce.
After a lap-and-a-half of having my heart rate pegged at 185 and after watching a few other guys peel off the back, I realized there was no way I could keep up that pace for another twenty minutes, so I sat up and soft pedaled my way to 72nd Street and went home.
That was a seven in the morning. I didn’t have much to say for a few hours afterward considering how pissed I felt at not having finished the race. After a three-hour visit to the beach at Robert Moses State Park with the good-looking Jewish girl with the diamond ring on her finger, we were driving home when I mentioned, “I think I might go for a ride when we get back to the city.”
Which I did. I went out for an hour to dodge the gazillions of ignorant tourists and asshole pedestrians walking in the middle of the street in Central Park. I just cruised. I was the guy who felt like he had been thrown off the horse and then wanted to get back on. Sounds retarded, but it’s true.
Then, while riding over the bridge into Jersey this morning, I had to ask myself, “Why bother racing?” I’ve never been a good endurance athlete, although I do enjoy riding the bike. I enjoy the occasional group ride, but at the end of the day, I’m just not that great going uphill on a bike. I can’t keep my heart rate at 190 for hours at a time and when push comes to shove, my sprint isn’t all that fantastic either.
So why bother with the racing? Why spend the money on the USCF license and more money on joining the CRCA? What’s the point of trying to win a local Category 5 race? I understand the desire to be competitive. That part I get, but why put myself through the disappointment? For the most part, we set up our lives to be disappointment-free, so why go through it?
Despite all my rhetoric, I’m sure I’ll continue to put myself through the disappointment time and time again.
Or maybe I won’t. Who the hell knows.
Wednesday, June 18
Coaching Session
So like I mentioned, I joined the Century Road Club Association. Last night I took advantage of one of the free coaching sessions.
You know, you reach a certain point after having ridden for a few years and you think to yourself, “How much is there about riding or racing a bike that I don’t know?” In my case, I’ve been on the bike two years this coming July 4th, so I would have to imagine there’s a shitload I don’t know about racing a bike. Sure, I’ve got some of the essentials in terms of sitting in the draft, conserving your energy, picking the right gear to start a sprint, cadence, intervals, etc., but by no means do I probably know as much as I should.
Hence, the coaching session and this particular session just so happened to be about sprinting and optimal leg speed.
So I show up. Early. I’m always early. I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to being late. I despise being late. I like being on time, which means I’m always a few minutes early to ensure I’m not late. That’s just how that works. If I tell someone I’m going to be somewhere by 1:30, I’m going to be there by 1:30. And if for some reason I can’t make it by 1:30, whoever’s waiting for me at 1:30 is going to know before 1:30 that I’m unable to make it by 1:30. Again, that’s just how that works.
So again, I show up. Three other people show up and the coach shows up. The coach, she’s won races, championships, the whole nine yards. Apparently, she’s been doing this long enough and has won enough stuff to be in a situation to coach newbies like me. She explains we’re going to work on sprinting and, since there’s four of us, we’ll go two-at-a-time, side-by-side. “And make sure you’re in the small chain ring and in your sixteen-tooth cog.”
In other words, she wanted us to spin our brains out.
She sets herself up at the base of a small rise and says, “When you go by and I blow the whistle, get your hands in the drops, get your butt out of the saddle, and sprint for the intersection at the top of the hill.”
I’m paired up with the one girl in the group and she’s never ridden in a group, never sprinted. She’s done a few triathlons, so like the big man I am, I beat the girl with no sprinting experience, although sprinting in such a small girl is something of a tall order. Doesn’t exactly feel natural.
For the next set, we get to move up to the big chain ring and the nineteen-tooth cog. And now we’re doing lead-outs. The first guy leads out the following three. After we pass the light post at the bottom of the rise, it’s a free-for-all.
First time around, the guy ahead of me beats me, yet oddly enough, I notice him downshifting from a cog much smaller than nineteen, so clearly, even though it’s just a training session, he has to win the sprint.
Kind of defeats the purpose of working on leg speed, doesn’t it?
But really, what’s the big deal?
And for the last sprint, the coach has us go all the way back up the road and tells us, “Do whatever you want, but think about what your plan of attack is.”
So we ride up the road and, like the true road cyclists we are, we let the triathlete lead the way as the rest of us sit in her draft. By the time we reach the base of the rise, my cadence is already up to 130, so do I feel like I can just hop out of the saddle and accelerate any faster considering how fast my feet are turning?
Regardless, I gave it a shot, but as soon as one of the guys caught my creeping up on him, he moved to the right and, like a complete douche bag, cut me off. Remember, this wasn’t a race. It was a training session.
At the top of the rise, I pulled up next to him. “You almost hit me back there, amigo.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m sure you’re real sorry.”
This coming Saturday is the next CRCA race. Let’s see how that goes.
You know, you reach a certain point after having ridden for a few years and you think to yourself, “How much is there about riding or racing a bike that I don’t know?” In my case, I’ve been on the bike two years this coming July 4th, so I would have to imagine there’s a shitload I don’t know about racing a bike. Sure, I’ve got some of the essentials in terms of sitting in the draft, conserving your energy, picking the right gear to start a sprint, cadence, intervals, etc., but by no means do I probably know as much as I should.
Hence, the coaching session and this particular session just so happened to be about sprinting and optimal leg speed.
So I show up. Early. I’m always early. I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to being late. I despise being late. I like being on time, which means I’m always a few minutes early to ensure I’m not late. That’s just how that works. If I tell someone I’m going to be somewhere by 1:30, I’m going to be there by 1:30. And if for some reason I can’t make it by 1:30, whoever’s waiting for me at 1:30 is going to know before 1:30 that I’m unable to make it by 1:30. Again, that’s just how that works.
So again, I show up. Three other people show up and the coach shows up. The coach, she’s won races, championships, the whole nine yards. Apparently, she’s been doing this long enough and has won enough stuff to be in a situation to coach newbies like me. She explains we’re going to work on sprinting and, since there’s four of us, we’ll go two-at-a-time, side-by-side. “And make sure you’re in the small chain ring and in your sixteen-tooth cog.”
In other words, she wanted us to spin our brains out.
She sets herself up at the base of a small rise and says, “When you go by and I blow the whistle, get your hands in the drops, get your butt out of the saddle, and sprint for the intersection at the top of the hill.”
I’m paired up with the one girl in the group and she’s never ridden in a group, never sprinted. She’s done a few triathlons, so like the big man I am, I beat the girl with no sprinting experience, although sprinting in such a small girl is something of a tall order. Doesn’t exactly feel natural.
For the next set, we get to move up to the big chain ring and the nineteen-tooth cog. And now we’re doing lead-outs. The first guy leads out the following three. After we pass the light post at the bottom of the rise, it’s a free-for-all.
First time around, the guy ahead of me beats me, yet oddly enough, I notice him downshifting from a cog much smaller than nineteen, so clearly, even though it’s just a training session, he has to win the sprint.
Kind of defeats the purpose of working on leg speed, doesn’t it?
But really, what’s the big deal?
And for the last sprint, the coach has us go all the way back up the road and tells us, “Do whatever you want, but think about what your plan of attack is.”
So we ride up the road and, like the true road cyclists we are, we let the triathlete lead the way as the rest of us sit in her draft. By the time we reach the base of the rise, my cadence is already up to 130, so do I feel like I can just hop out of the saddle and accelerate any faster considering how fast my feet are turning?
Regardless, I gave it a shot, but as soon as one of the guys caught my creeping up on him, he moved to the right and, like a complete douche bag, cut me off. Remember, this wasn’t a race. It was a training session.
At the top of the rise, I pulled up next to him. “You almost hit me back there, amigo.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m sure you’re real sorry.”
This coming Saturday is the next CRCA race. Let’s see how that goes.
Wednesday, June 4
I'm Done
I think I’m done with the NYCC.
Over the course of roughly three weeks, I’ve been on three different NYCC group rides.
The first ride, that was a disaster and you can read about that by clicking HERE.
The following ride, I decided to step up my game and join a B 17/18 ride and while it was somewhat faster and slightly more entertaining than the B16 ride, it still left something to be desired. While the ride leader had the kind of sense of humor I can appreciate in a cyclist—lots of cursing, rude hand gestures, and flatulence . . . which kind of reminds me of Ed Dalton minus the flatulence—the posted average ride speeds were a bit misleading in that the actual average speeds tended to end up a few miles per hour slower than advertised.
I can understand this not being an issue if you’ve got an entire morning / afternoon to kill, but like most normal adults, I usually check the ride start time, the average expected speed, and then calculate when I’ll be home so I can try to schedule the rest of my day. When the actual ride is a lot slower than advertised, it kind of fucks up the rest of the weekend.
Know what I mean?
So with the above two rides under my belt, I attempted to step up my game that much more by joining an A19 ride this past Saturday morning that was scheduled to start at the Central Park Boathouse at 9:15 AM and while I had high hopes, my hopes were again let down. Why?
1. Ride leader shows up around 9:20 and asks us to follow him to 110th Street.
2. At 110th Street, we spend at least fifteen minutes with boring introductions not one of us would be able to remember five minutes later.
3. Time check. It’s now roughly 9:40 and the ride is yet to start. I’m supposed to be home between 12:30 and 1:00 and we have 62 miles to go. We better be doing 19 MPH.
4. On the Jersey side of the GWB, we again stop for a five minute talk from our flaming ride leader who’s sporting not just pink bar tape, but pink cables, pink rims, and pink tires.
5. At the entrance of River Road, we again pause for a minute so everyone can catch up.
6. At the ranger station at the end of River Road, we’re there for at least fifteen minutes while everyone loads up on water.
7. Is the average speed 19 MPH? Not even close, but there are a few guys and one French gal climbing a hell of a lot better than I am, but that usually happens when I ride.
8. By 12:30, we’ve accomplished all of 30 miles out of a 62 mile road, so rather than order a sandwich and have a picnic with the rest of the group—which is clearly what they’re planning on doing when we stop at a tiny deli in the middle of nowhere—I peel off and TT home to reach our apartment by 1:50.
9. I walk in the door, see my fiancee on the couch flipping through a magazine, and calmly explain, “I know, I’m late. I’d done with those guys.”
10. Ten minutes later, I’m showered and we’re out the door to enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Over the course of roughly three weeks, I’ve been on three different NYCC group rides.
The first ride, that was a disaster and you can read about that by clicking HERE.
The following ride, I decided to step up my game and join a B 17/18 ride and while it was somewhat faster and slightly more entertaining than the B16 ride, it still left something to be desired. While the ride leader had the kind of sense of humor I can appreciate in a cyclist—lots of cursing, rude hand gestures, and flatulence . . . which kind of reminds me of Ed Dalton minus the flatulence—the posted average ride speeds were a bit misleading in that the actual average speeds tended to end up a few miles per hour slower than advertised.
I can understand this not being an issue if you’ve got an entire morning / afternoon to kill, but like most normal adults, I usually check the ride start time, the average expected speed, and then calculate when I’ll be home so I can try to schedule the rest of my day. When the actual ride is a lot slower than advertised, it kind of fucks up the rest of the weekend.
Know what I mean?
So with the above two rides under my belt, I attempted to step up my game that much more by joining an A19 ride this past Saturday morning that was scheduled to start at the Central Park Boathouse at 9:15 AM and while I had high hopes, my hopes were again let down. Why?
1. Ride leader shows up around 9:20 and asks us to follow him to 110th Street.
2. At 110th Street, we spend at least fifteen minutes with boring introductions not one of us would be able to remember five minutes later.
3. Time check. It’s now roughly 9:40 and the ride is yet to start. I’m supposed to be home between 12:30 and 1:00 and we have 62 miles to go. We better be doing 19 MPH.
4. On the Jersey side of the GWB, we again stop for a five minute talk from our flaming ride leader who’s sporting not just pink bar tape, but pink cables, pink rims, and pink tires.
5. At the entrance of River Road, we again pause for a minute so everyone can catch up.
6. At the ranger station at the end of River Road, we’re there for at least fifteen minutes while everyone loads up on water.
7. Is the average speed 19 MPH? Not even close, but there are a few guys and one French gal climbing a hell of a lot better than I am, but that usually happens when I ride.
8. By 12:30, we’ve accomplished all of 30 miles out of a 62 mile road, so rather than order a sandwich and have a picnic with the rest of the group—which is clearly what they’re planning on doing when we stop at a tiny deli in the middle of nowhere—I peel off and TT home to reach our apartment by 1:50.
9. I walk in the door, see my fiancee on the couch flipping through a magazine, and calmly explain, “I know, I’m late. I’d done with those guys.”
10. Ten minutes later, I’m showered and we’re out the door to enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Tuesday, June 3
Sunday, June 1
196
I’m back on the racing train and, believe or not, no matter what I might have said in the past (if anything), I love racing my goddam bike.
To back up, though, I believe it was a few months ago when I wrote about possibly joining the Century Road Club Association when I had moved from Westchester to Manhattan and last week I finally took the plunge and shelled out the $58 (or was it $48?) to join the CRCA as a “racing” member.
How utterly exciting.
So after signing on the dotted line and checking out the 2008 racing schedule, it was time to actually race this past Saturday. I got out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4:50 in the AM, washed down a granola bar with a glass of OJ, pulled on the arm warmers (among other things), and hit the road. Lucky for me, the start / finish line was in the park near East 78th Street and considering the lady friend and I live on West 70th Street, I didn’t have to drag my ass all over the city just to make it to a race.
Twenty minutes later, a guy behind a folding table handed me number 196, which I had to pin to the back of my jersey and that meant I had to step aside, remove my helmet, remove my glasses, and then pull my jersey (with rear pockets stuffed with granola bars for the ride over the GWB I had planned after the race) over my head while still wearing my arm warmers and Mellow Johnny cycling cap and lay the jersey on the grass in order to affix the number to the back.
There were plenty of women in the vicinity, athletically built chicks decked out in team kits, and there I knelt, naked except for a pair of skin-tight lycra shorts and arm warmers.
How embarrassing.
Half an hour later, someone blew a whistle and about thirty-five category 5 riders clicked into thirty-five pedals and started a five-lap race around Central Park.
The first four laps? Rather uneventful with a mellow pace. There were times when a random dickwad would hop to the front and take off which would then result with the rest of the field stringing out into a long line, all of our heart rates pounding, but apart from those few occasions and apart from every dickwad trying to blast up the big hill on the north end of the park at twenty-miles-per-hour, it was kind of a mellow race, although please note I say “kind of” a mellow race.
Why was it not completely mellow?
Some kid with three inches of snot hanging from the tip of his nose was having the hardest of times keeping his bike straight every time we blasted over the hill. On one of the five occasions we blasted over the hill, he veered left and as soon as I slipped to the right to pass the brat, he immediately veered right. When I tried slipping to the left, he tilted left himself.
Look, I’m a nice guy and everything, but if you can’t handle your bike because you’re breathing too hard, get the fuck out of my way before you hurt somebody.
So there was that. And there were of course the idiots who really have a hard time holding a line through a sweeping corner, which is unfortunate because, when you think about holding your line, it’s really not all that hard.
And there are the clowns who absolutely need to get to the front so they simply ride over the orange cones lining the side of the street, thereby knocking them into the middle of the pack.
Absolutely brilliant.
And, of course, with roughly half a lap left, the pace picked up and I mean it picked up big time. But that happens in every bike race, right? And just like my last race in Prospect Park, three freaking clowns five feet in front of me almost hit the deck as things started getting crazy.
Now that’s part of the dilemma with these road races. We’re all amateurs. No one’s paying us to race. We don’t make a goddam dime if we win and I’m pretty damn sure all of us have a job to go to come Monday morning, so why in the world would we put ourselves in a situation where any random jackhole might overlap our wheel while we’re doing twenty-eight-miles-per-hour?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I, for one, have zero desire to break a collarbone (or worse) just for the glory of winning a Category 5 local club race so, with Prospect Park fresh in my memory, I kept the pace high but kept my distance by staying twenty or so riders back from the front.
Unfortunately, that turned out to be a mistake.
To reiterate, the start / finish line was atop a short yet mildly steep hill and as we neared the base of the hill, I was still somewhat toward the front, riding along and thinking to myself, I’m way too far back to even think about trying to sprint it out with these guys, but something odd happened.
I have to assume that after thirty miles of riding, some of the guys in the group might have been tired, because as we approached the hill, not everyone was opening up their sprint and I’m looking around thinking, Holy shit, this isn’t as crazy as I thought it was going to be and, Jesus, I actually have some room here.
So I went, but I went way too late and halfway up the hill, with maybe a hundred feet before the finish line, some clown cut off the guy in front of me and that meant I had to tap the brakes and by the time I got going again . . .
Regardless, I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t in the top ten, I was definitely in the top fifteen and while the casual observer might say, “Still, you’re a big fat loser,” I really think I could have cracked the top ten, if not the top five, if not for the guys ahead of me slowing things down.
I know, I know. That sounds crazy, but believe it or not, once I realized I had the room to sprint, I was looking up and again, I know this is going to sound nuts, but I was actually passing guys as I moved up the hill.
Anyway, that was the race. Better luck next time.
To back up, though, I believe it was a few months ago when I wrote about possibly joining the Century Road Club Association when I had moved from Westchester to Manhattan and last week I finally took the plunge and shelled out the $58 (or was it $48?) to join the CRCA as a “racing” member.
How utterly exciting.
So after signing on the dotted line and checking out the 2008 racing schedule, it was time to actually race this past Saturday. I got out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4:50 in the AM, washed down a granola bar with a glass of OJ, pulled on the arm warmers (among other things), and hit the road. Lucky for me, the start / finish line was in the park near East 78th Street and considering the lady friend and I live on West 70th Street, I didn’t have to drag my ass all over the city just to make it to a race.
Twenty minutes later, a guy behind a folding table handed me number 196, which I had to pin to the back of my jersey and that meant I had to step aside, remove my helmet, remove my glasses, and then pull my jersey (with rear pockets stuffed with granola bars for the ride over the GWB I had planned after the race) over my head while still wearing my arm warmers and Mellow Johnny cycling cap and lay the jersey on the grass in order to affix the number to the back.
There were plenty of women in the vicinity, athletically built chicks decked out in team kits, and there I knelt, naked except for a pair of skin-tight lycra shorts and arm warmers.
How embarrassing.
Half an hour later, someone blew a whistle and about thirty-five category 5 riders clicked into thirty-five pedals and started a five-lap race around Central Park.
The first four laps? Rather uneventful with a mellow pace. There were times when a random dickwad would hop to the front and take off which would then result with the rest of the field stringing out into a long line, all of our heart rates pounding, but apart from those few occasions and apart from every dickwad trying to blast up the big hill on the north end of the park at twenty-miles-per-hour, it was kind of a mellow race, although please note I say “kind of” a mellow race.
Why was it not completely mellow?
Some kid with three inches of snot hanging from the tip of his nose was having the hardest of times keeping his bike straight every time we blasted over the hill. On one of the five occasions we blasted over the hill, he veered left and as soon as I slipped to the right to pass the brat, he immediately veered right. When I tried slipping to the left, he tilted left himself.
Look, I’m a nice guy and everything, but if you can’t handle your bike because you’re breathing too hard, get the fuck out of my way before you hurt somebody.
So there was that. And there were of course the idiots who really have a hard time holding a line through a sweeping corner, which is unfortunate because, when you think about holding your line, it’s really not all that hard.
And there are the clowns who absolutely need to get to the front so they simply ride over the orange cones lining the side of the street, thereby knocking them into the middle of the pack.
Absolutely brilliant.
And, of course, with roughly half a lap left, the pace picked up and I mean it picked up big time. But that happens in every bike race, right? And just like my last race in Prospect Park, three freaking clowns five feet in front of me almost hit the deck as things started getting crazy.
Now that’s part of the dilemma with these road races. We’re all amateurs. No one’s paying us to race. We don’t make a goddam dime if we win and I’m pretty damn sure all of us have a job to go to come Monday morning, so why in the world would we put ourselves in a situation where any random jackhole might overlap our wheel while we’re doing twenty-eight-miles-per-hour?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I, for one, have zero desire to break a collarbone (or worse) just for the glory of winning a Category 5 local club race so, with Prospect Park fresh in my memory, I kept the pace high but kept my distance by staying twenty or so riders back from the front.
Unfortunately, that turned out to be a mistake.
To reiterate, the start / finish line was atop a short yet mildly steep hill and as we neared the base of the hill, I was still somewhat toward the front, riding along and thinking to myself, I’m way too far back to even think about trying to sprint it out with these guys, but something odd happened.
I have to assume that after thirty miles of riding, some of the guys in the group might have been tired, because as we approached the hill, not everyone was opening up their sprint and I’m looking around thinking, Holy shit, this isn’t as crazy as I thought it was going to be and, Jesus, I actually have some room here.
So I went, but I went way too late and halfway up the hill, with maybe a hundred feet before the finish line, some clown cut off the guy in front of me and that meant I had to tap the brakes and by the time I got going again . . .
Regardless, I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t in the top ten, I was definitely in the top fifteen and while the casual observer might say, “Still, you’re a big fat loser,” I really think I could have cracked the top ten, if not the top five, if not for the guys ahead of me slowing things down.
I know, I know. That sounds crazy, but believe it or not, once I realized I had the room to sprint, I was looking up and again, I know this is going to sound nuts, but I was actually passing guys as I moved up the hill.
Anyway, that was the race. Better luck next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)