Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Honor Thieves
A prominent local racer asks on the local listserve, what's the big deal about amateur doping? Does anybody really care?
I paraphrase, but that's the gist of it. Thing is, I know of some folks around here who have doped, and as much as I'd like to think warmly about them in an uncomplicated way, I can't. I can think well of them, sort of, but there is always an issue of trust, same as I can't often ride with people who are bad bike handlers. I can't share in the unalloyed joy of a fellow racer's win, or look on in admiration without having serious qualifications that reduce "Awesome! F888 Yeah!" to "Nice race, I guess." You dope, then the glory you steal is greatly diminished thereafter, even if you do come by it honestly later on.
So I guess I could answer the prominent local racer by saying, I don't care about dopers, other than:
1) it's pretty low to screw your peers out of their moment of glory. It's called "theft of honor." Military folks have some words to describe people who wear awards they didn't acquire legitimately. They aren't flattering.
2) it's really skeevy to betray the trust and respect your fellow competitors have for you. Seriously, most racers I know really really want to win, but also think well of their peers. We all live in the same area, know a lot of the same people professionally and personally, and generally think well of other racers by default until they prove that our trust is misplaced... way to squander our goodwill, guys. The goodwill of one's fellow man isn't really appreciated normally until 20 years after the fact, at which point one feels the bitter sting of self-recrimination for having cut one's self off from fellowship with one's peers, though sometimes in a fast crit the goodwill is appreciated immediately when one needs to scootch in uncomfortably close to avoid getting curbed, and any resistance by the scootch-ee immediately results in a trip over the bars and into the ambulance.
3) it reveals that your self respect is low enough that you're willing to sell the one thing you enter and leave the world with - your reputation - for $125 and a box of stale Clif bars. Most people have their price, shoot, I'm willing to admit that I'd probably sell out a lot of things for the right price, but selling out to win a training crit or some local race that doesn't count to anybody other than the 67 guys racing in it? That is just absurd. Do you hate yourself or something?
4) I don't much like answering questions from family and friends about participating in a sport where outsiders perceive that everybody who plays is involved in #1-3. I accept it used to go on a lot but the rules have changed due to the alarming way doping has skewed competition in many sports. We've realized the error of tolerating it. People who keep doing it now are not in-with-the-in-crowd. They are out step with society and with those of us who race clean - surely the vast majority of us at the amateur level.
5) It's a matter of personal integrity, but your integrity is one of the pegs on which you, and everybody you know, rates you. If you have high integrity, you will be looked up to and admired, win or not. If you do not have integrity, you cannot steal admiration or respect the way you steal wins. Doesn't work that way; respect is something that must be earned, and cannot be stolen, and any admiration we have will be false. Then if the doper is discovered, all that admiration and respect is retracted, wiped out, replaced with scornful derision.
I know these are hurtful comments for people who do, or who have doped. Sorry guys and gals, it's the way it is. You can go back and earn our respect by playing clean, but it doesn't erase what you've done. Please don't look to the rest of us for moral sanction for what you are doing or have done; we are not the ultimate moral arbiters and cannot absolve you of it. Like the choice to pop the pill or stick in the needle, it's your choice, you have to live with the consequences; and just as we onlookers can't undo the doping conviction, the liver cancer or your lost reputation, we can't sanctify the decision by saying it's okay when we all know it isn't.
I wouldn't ask you to lie to me and tell me I'm thin, fast, and dashing; so don't ask me to lie to you and tell you doping, particularly by amateurs who really race only for the honor, is no big deal.
I paraphrase, but that's the gist of it. Thing is, I know of some folks around here who have doped, and as much as I'd like to think warmly about them in an uncomplicated way, I can't. I can think well of them, sort of, but there is always an issue of trust, same as I can't often ride with people who are bad bike handlers. I can't share in the unalloyed joy of a fellow racer's win, or look on in admiration without having serious qualifications that reduce "Awesome! F888 Yeah!" to "Nice race, I guess." You dope, then the glory you steal is greatly diminished thereafter, even if you do come by it honestly later on.
So I guess I could answer the prominent local racer by saying, I don't care about dopers, other than:
1) it's pretty low to screw your peers out of their moment of glory. It's called "theft of honor." Military folks have some words to describe people who wear awards they didn't acquire legitimately. They aren't flattering.
2) it's really skeevy to betray the trust and respect your fellow competitors have for you. Seriously, most racers I know really really want to win, but also think well of their peers. We all live in the same area, know a lot of the same people professionally and personally, and generally think well of other racers by default until they prove that our trust is misplaced... way to squander our goodwill, guys. The goodwill of one's fellow man isn't really appreciated normally until 20 years after the fact, at which point one feels the bitter sting of self-recrimination for having cut one's self off from fellowship with one's peers, though sometimes in a fast crit the goodwill is appreciated immediately when one needs to scootch in uncomfortably close to avoid getting curbed, and any resistance by the scootch-ee immediately results in a trip over the bars and into the ambulance.
3) it reveals that your self respect is low enough that you're willing to sell the one thing you enter and leave the world with - your reputation - for $125 and a box of stale Clif bars. Most people have their price, shoot, I'm willing to admit that I'd probably sell out a lot of things for the right price, but selling out to win a training crit or some local race that doesn't count to anybody other than the 67 guys racing in it? That is just absurd. Do you hate yourself or something?
4) I don't much like answering questions from family and friends about participating in a sport where outsiders perceive that everybody who plays is involved in #1-3. I accept it used to go on a lot but the rules have changed due to the alarming way doping has skewed competition in many sports. We've realized the error of tolerating it. People who keep doing it now are not in-with-the-in-crowd. They are out step with society and with those of us who race clean - surely the vast majority of us at the amateur level.
5) It's a matter of personal integrity, but your integrity is one of the pegs on which you, and everybody you know, rates you. If you have high integrity, you will be looked up to and admired, win or not. If you do not have integrity, you cannot steal admiration or respect the way you steal wins. Doesn't work that way; respect is something that must be earned, and cannot be stolen, and any admiration we have will be false. Then if the doper is discovered, all that admiration and respect is retracted, wiped out, replaced with scornful derision.
I know these are hurtful comments for people who do, or who have doped. Sorry guys and gals, it's the way it is. You can go back and earn our respect by playing clean, but it doesn't erase what you've done. Please don't look to the rest of us for moral sanction for what you are doing or have done; we are not the ultimate moral arbiters and cannot absolve you of it. Like the choice to pop the pill or stick in the needle, it's your choice, you have to live with the consequences; and just as we onlookers can't undo the doping conviction, the liver cancer or your lost reputation, we can't sanctify the decision by saying it's okay when we all know it isn't.
I wouldn't ask you to lie to me and tell me I'm thin, fast, and dashing; so don't ask me to lie to you and tell you doping, particularly by amateurs who really race only for the honor, is no big deal.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Rockburn Cross
I managed to miss Schooley Mill CX on Saturday. I got up at 6:00 to go up there with Seibold and the body wouldn't start operating. My feet hurt from pulling a couple long days on them mid-week (ahh, tendinitis), and I was exhausted. It was that precise moment you get when you slow down after going 6-8 weeks at 100% capacity, and the body just shuts down. So I text'ed Jon and said I wasn't racing, and went back to bed for an hour. I got up, had a leisurely breakfast, then went for about 35 miles of spinning; it was my second ride in two weeks. When I got home I felt decent, and decided that Rockburn was in the cards.
The course was reworked considerably from past years. Gone were the long transit sections in which rest was possible, replaced with some up/down action going up and around the hill near the pavilion. Also gone was the long uphill climb that terminated in gravel. The two downhill sweepers were still there, one mud and one sand. The kickers on the front near the tennis courts were still there, but slightly reworked. And the start? It was fixed, and perfect this year, with a litle bottleneck but still permitting good flow. That's a stylish way to start a race and very fair to the riders Matt - well done!
I was in a big field with over 100 registered for the M 35+ 3/4. I had nothing at all in my legs so hunkered down with the back markers, and worked on trying not to slip back too hard at the start. I actually picked my way up a bit going onto the grass, caught some wheels, and held the snake for a bit. One thing I noticed is that I wasn't hyperventilating and going nuts here. I just grabbed a wheel, spun, and when he hit the tape spun past him and caught the next wheel, surfing up a bit. At that point, I found a spot on the long string and just held onto it. There was some major cheering going on for me, and for a lot of other people. I didn't look up though, I was locked in, finding a zone. Everything seemed quiet, moving in slow motion. My legs are not fast, my gut's an anchor, but I think my mind has finally adapted to cross. The race came at me in Super Slo Mo. It was like spectating. I could see what was happening, articulate it, and act on it before it happened. I don't have the fitness to truly execute but now *I get it. I get it.* The realization of where my mind was hit me when we spun toward the sand pit, as calm and collected as I've ever been in a race. I heard FatMarc say something that made my day, maybe my season: "You can outhandle these guys Jim... pass them!" He said that at a time when I was thinking that; it was the reinforcement that made me understand why the scrum seemed like such a calm place yesterday morning, and why I wasn't breathing hard for a change. Whatever this mojo is, I hope I can hang onto it for a while.
So I did pass a few guys. Unfortunately out-fitnessing them wasn't in the cards so they didn't stay passed for very long. I could give you a lot more details about the race, but it was sort of a depressing backslide from that point forward. I held the string pretty well for about a lap and a half and then just dropped back into no man's land. Eventually, I caught on with a group of 5 or so guys and we had a bit of a fight. Somewhere in there I realized a few things:
Other Coppis rode great on the day, particularly Andrew Welch, who picked up his first MABRA win. He's got rockstar riding qualities.
I also have to do an Ode to Nystrom. He's really influential and a leader (whether they pick him by election, lots, or feats of strength) of the crew that rides around Columbia / Ellicot City / Elkridge / Catonsville. I was riding around the course yesterday and getting a whiff of the Sven influences in a lot of the technical sections. You see, Sven likes to pedal through turns and carry speed. He is smooth and buttery on the course like over-ripe lutefisk, except he doesn't smell as bad. Being influential in that area, a regular St. Francis of Assisi of 'Cross who has given up roadracing to follow The One True Church, I suspect he either designed many of the features on the course, or his minions, er, riding buddies who are used to riding with him, have picked up his taste in cross courses. True to form, you could ride through any of the turns yesterday. Some were tricky, looking like they had no good lines, but having a good line in there if you could find it. But all had lines, if you remembered to keep your spin up. It wasn't "technical-technical," but "cross-technical." Sure, the Sven/St. Francis talk is silly, but the discussion of how the course as Rosaryville was a "typical Tacchino course" makes me think that groups of cross riders wind up developing a common culture. My club's comes from Judd Milne's tastes, and from [correction: I think Sean Groom] who designed our practice course and told us what it was like in Belgium, at least where he rode; and it comes from all the people who join us for the Secret Coppi Cross Practice That Isn't Really Secret each week. Chris and Matt B and friends seem to have a particular notion of what a cross course should be like and although this year's Rockburn course is totally different from last year's, it's has *exactly* the same feel to it, only moreoso, more turns, more technical, more short sections where you ride one section, then do somethign completely different in the next section. I like their taste in course design very, very much. Nice job, Chris and Matt and friends, and mad props on pulling off the back-to-back races with Schooley Mill. And very well put together race with a nice after-scene, Matt B. Fries with Old Bay and Vinegar available as toppings? A+.
The course was reworked considerably from past years. Gone were the long transit sections in which rest was possible, replaced with some up/down action going up and around the hill near the pavilion. Also gone was the long uphill climb that terminated in gravel. The two downhill sweepers were still there, one mud and one sand. The kickers on the front near the tennis courts were still there, but slightly reworked. And the start? It was fixed, and perfect this year, with a litle bottleneck but still permitting good flow. That's a stylish way to start a race and very fair to the riders Matt - well done!
I was in a big field with over 100 registered for the M 35+ 3/4. I had nothing at all in my legs so hunkered down with the back markers, and worked on trying not to slip back too hard at the start. I actually picked my way up a bit going onto the grass, caught some wheels, and held the snake for a bit. One thing I noticed is that I wasn't hyperventilating and going nuts here. I just grabbed a wheel, spun, and when he hit the tape spun past him and caught the next wheel, surfing up a bit. At that point, I found a spot on the long string and just held onto it. There was some major cheering going on for me, and for a lot of other people. I didn't look up though, I was locked in, finding a zone. Everything seemed quiet, moving in slow motion. My legs are not fast, my gut's an anchor, but I think my mind has finally adapted to cross. The race came at me in Super Slo Mo. It was like spectating. I could see what was happening, articulate it, and act on it before it happened. I don't have the fitness to truly execute but now *I get it. I get it.* The realization of where my mind was hit me when we spun toward the sand pit, as calm and collected as I've ever been in a race. I heard FatMarc say something that made my day, maybe my season: "You can outhandle these guys Jim... pass them!" He said that at a time when I was thinking that; it was the reinforcement that made me understand why the scrum seemed like such a calm place yesterday morning, and why I wasn't breathing hard for a change. Whatever this mojo is, I hope I can hang onto it for a while.
So I did pass a few guys. Unfortunately out-fitnessing them wasn't in the cards so they didn't stay passed for very long. I could give you a lot more details about the race, but it was sort of a depressing backslide from that point forward. I held the string pretty well for about a lap and a half and then just dropped back into no man's land. Eventually, I caught on with a group of 5 or so guys and we had a bit of a fight. Somewhere in there I realized a few things:
- I may not be a mountain biker yet, but I'm no longer a pure roadie. I found myself cursing "****in' roadies!" whenever I got caught behind somebody in a somewhat technical section.
- The Paleo diet may be on the menu starting after Thanksgiving. About the third time up this silly left/right/left/left/right hill up to the barriers, I heard a sound in my ears that sounded like screaming. Turns out, it was just my thighs. And yes, they were 100% cramped entirely on the final lap.
- If you're going to put the pass on, you have to do it before obstacles. Unless the guy in front of you is king hell mountain biker himself, he will likely be slower than you.
- If somebody non-technical is in front of you, his brake/accellerate/brake pattern will suck the life out of you. As soon as you realize you're behind a guy like that, drop back, get a rhythm going, be smooth and carry speed to the exit of the technical section, where there's room to pass.
Other Coppis rode great on the day, particularly Andrew Welch, who picked up his first MABRA win. He's got rockstar riding qualities.
I also have to do an Ode to Nystrom. He's really influential and a leader (whether they pick him by election, lots, or feats of strength) of the crew that rides around Columbia / Ellicot City / Elkridge / Catonsville. I was riding around the course yesterday and getting a whiff of the Sven influences in a lot of the technical sections. You see, Sven likes to pedal through turns and carry speed. He is smooth and buttery on the course like over-ripe lutefisk, except he doesn't smell as bad. Being influential in that area, a regular St. Francis of Assisi of 'Cross who has given up roadracing to follow The One True Church, I suspect he either designed many of the features on the course, or his minions, er, riding buddies who are used to riding with him, have picked up his taste in cross courses. True to form, you could ride through any of the turns yesterday. Some were tricky, looking like they had no good lines, but having a good line in there if you could find it. But all had lines, if you remembered to keep your spin up. It wasn't "technical-technical," but "cross-technical." Sure, the Sven/St. Francis talk is silly, but the discussion of how the course as Rosaryville was a "typical Tacchino course" makes me think that groups of cross riders wind up developing a common culture. My club's comes from Judd Milne's tastes, and from [correction: I think Sean Groom] who designed our practice course and told us what it was like in Belgium, at least where he rode; and it comes from all the people who join us for the Secret Coppi Cross Practice That Isn't Really Secret each week. Chris and Matt B and friends seem to have a particular notion of what a cross course should be like and although this year's Rockburn course is totally different from last year's, it's has *exactly* the same feel to it, only moreoso, more turns, more technical, more short sections where you ride one section, then do somethign completely different in the next section. I like their taste in course design very, very much. Nice job, Chris and Matt and friends, and mad props on pulling off the back-to-back races with Schooley Mill. And very well put together race with a nice after-scene, Matt B. Fries with Old Bay and Vinegar available as toppings? A+.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Oh Noes!
Loyal reader less-than-optimal Terry notes in comments below that I haven't posted a lot this week. In particular he bemoans the lack of music.
Well, yeah. Sorry. Thing about a blog, is that unlike a newspaper, when my life blows ass, your reading life gets to blow ass too. So let's tally up what I've done in the 12 days since the Tacchino wrapped up.
>150 hours of work.
>3000 frequent flier miles
>5 pounds
~1 belt notch
2 bike rides
1 major project
+/- 1 huge pain in the ass.
I managed to get the rough draft of an assessment off my desk today and out for staffing around teh workplace. Normally, this kind of project - it's boring legal crap if you must know - takes one person working about 6 months at half time to complete it. It's sort of thinky work - you take a look at a project somebody else wants to do, you think of about 20 legal issues that go with it, and you work through them. If legal reasoning were science instead of art work, you could give it to one person and they could knock it out in three months. I went to school with a guy whose mind worked that way, and I'm sure it served him well when he finished clerking at the Supreme Court. Me? I'm a sitter. As in, sometimes me sits an thinks, and other times, me just sits. I solve problems by doing the initial work, and walking back when I know the answer. I don't know why my brain works that way, I just know that it works best when I leave it alone. I do my job of riding a bike and eating pizza and fooling around, and it goes and thinks. When it's done, it lets me know. Until then, it really doesn't care what I do and it doesn't want to hear from me. If I get pissy and try to make the brain work faster, it doesn't like that much, and thinks about pretty much everything but the task at hand.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the project. So other people I work for decided to compress my project into three months. They didn't ask me about what I'd like to do or whether I was promoting a race that would essentially eat about 80 "free" hours out of the second month of the project. Nor did they ask me if I'd mind being a road warrior for three weeks of the first month of the project.
So this left me with a six month project - it's the project timeline that usually requires six months, not the actual work - condensed to 3-4 months, with two of those months committed to other tasks. I've gotten about 5 months of the project completed using a pell-mell workplan that switches around the proper order in which things should occur. The last month's worth of work - for which I have a full month allocated - will take a month. Back to work as normal, so long as this one other project doesn't go to hell on me next week. I've worked hard in my life, but never quite this hard. If this was manual labor instead of thinky stuff, I'd have worn my fingers to the humerous by now.
When the first draft of my report went out today, it literally felt like a weight lifted off my back. Sadly, the weight on my gut stayed right where it was.
Doesn't matter though. What does matter is I've got a couple races to do this weekend, and despite my evaporating fitness I'm going to sack up and race.
You know why?
Because racing isn't work, that's why. And we have to appreciate everything in life that isn't work.
-----------------------------------
Just 'cuz life's been a little hard, doesn't mean it hasn't been funny.
I'm walking into the Giant last night, post-work at around 11:00 or so, to pick up some milk on the way home. It had just rained, and then the rain stopped and it started to cool. It was one of those nights on which sound carries better than perfectly, as if it was amplified. This woman was walking out of the store pushing a cart and speaking loudly on her cellphone. From across the parking lot I heard her say,
Yeah, people will do anything.
Then today I go into work. I think I've mentioned we've got a Turd Bomber in work - some dude who must stand across the room and just aim for the back wall of one of the stalls. Dude pollutes the joint about once a week. He's foul.
Well, now we got a Pee Shooter. I go in to spend a little quality time on the Throne of Repose. I like the handicapped stall because there's enough room in there to have a business meeting. Then I notice some dude has left the seat down and peed on it. Now, normally, I don't care about such things. I'm a dude. I do a quick cleanup and we're on the way. All these seat covers and fastidious dudes walking around the men's room with a bit of paper towel over their hand when they open the door... well, that creeps me out. It's like they're afraid of Dude Cooties or something. But a little pee on the seat? Naah. Not scary.
But this wasn't a little. It's like he tried to write an Omega symbol on the seat using his own urine.
How do you do that? I mean, I have to give the guy some props - that takes some major accuracy and probably plenty of practice. And why would you do it? It wasn't nasty enough to gross me out but it was a huge logistical problem. I didn't have one of those squeegees they use to mop up the courts at Wimbledon, and I left the industrial wet/dry vac at home... so what to do?
With my being accustomed to the weekly gifts of the Turd Bomber, it'd probably take decaying bodies and E TV reruns to make me freak out. But the Pee Shooter's magnum opus on the seat was just nasty enough that I thought I needed to take myself across the floor to the other bathrooms.
So hey, do you think the Turd Bomber is in a turf war with the Pee Shooter? Do you think Leaving Yesterday's Newspaper Behind Guy will choose sides?
It gets worse though. Even in the depths of the Project-Induced Torpor (PIT), I still felt compelled to check Velo News when I got back to the office. You know what the lead story was? Behind the Scenes: The Making of the New Velo News Home Page. Yep, I shit you not, brah. The big story on the VeloSnooze features hot Java-on-HTML action. No races, no grand tour route announcements, no new models that have increased vertical compliance and lateral stiffness, and no pro riders cattily bitching about their old teams or each other. Just the story behind the story about the web page development.
Seriously.
This can only mean we've entered the Racing Dead Zone. There may be a couple cross races locally or nationally to tide us over until Cross Worlds and the Tour of Oz, but for all practical purposes if you aren't near the top of the local points table you'd best start drinking hard and working on putting on your winter 10 right now, 'cuz the bike culture isn't about to bring you any Christmas gifts over the next 8 weeks.
On the plus side, I did find some music for you. So there's no Friday Morning Music, but maybe you can make do with some Friday Evening Music.
This one sums up how I feel right now, pretty much. It'll get better, but it's going to take some days to recover from this stretch of work, and I think my cycling form has gone the way of the Velo News Substantive Bicycle-Related Stories, at least for this season.
Then there's Faith No More with Epic. They're kind of like a Thinking Man's Rage Against the Machine, which is to say a total non-sequitur. They are pretty funky though.
How about a little Frank Zappa, Stinkfoot. He was pretty unorthodox, but musically brilliant, with amazing lyrics. Oh yeah, and a weird mofo.
Awesome. And here's what I'm going to be doing tomorrow - Riding With The King.
See you at the races.
Well, yeah. Sorry. Thing about a blog, is that unlike a newspaper, when my life blows ass, your reading life gets to blow ass too. So let's tally up what I've done in the 12 days since the Tacchino wrapped up.
>150 hours of work.
>3000 frequent flier miles
>5 pounds
~1 belt notch
2 bike rides
1 major project
+/- 1 huge pain in the ass.
I managed to get the rough draft of an assessment off my desk today and out for staffing around teh workplace. Normally, this kind of project - it's boring legal crap if you must know - takes one person working about 6 months at half time to complete it. It's sort of thinky work - you take a look at a project somebody else wants to do, you think of about 20 legal issues that go with it, and you work through them. If legal reasoning were science instead of art work, you could give it to one person and they could knock it out in three months. I went to school with a guy whose mind worked that way, and I'm sure it served him well when he finished clerking at the Supreme Court. Me? I'm a sitter. As in, sometimes me sits an thinks, and other times, me just sits. I solve problems by doing the initial work, and walking back when I know the answer. I don't know why my brain works that way, I just know that it works best when I leave it alone. I do my job of riding a bike and eating pizza and fooling around, and it goes and thinks. When it's done, it lets me know. Until then, it really doesn't care what I do and it doesn't want to hear from me. If I get pissy and try to make the brain work faster, it doesn't like that much, and thinks about pretty much everything but the task at hand.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the project. So other people I work for decided to compress my project into three months. They didn't ask me about what I'd like to do or whether I was promoting a race that would essentially eat about 80 "free" hours out of the second month of the project. Nor did they ask me if I'd mind being a road warrior for three weeks of the first month of the project.
So this left me with a six month project - it's the project timeline that usually requires six months, not the actual work - condensed to 3-4 months, with two of those months committed to other tasks. I've gotten about 5 months of the project completed using a pell-mell workplan that switches around the proper order in which things should occur. The last month's worth of work - for which I have a full month allocated - will take a month. Back to work as normal, so long as this one other project doesn't go to hell on me next week. I've worked hard in my life, but never quite this hard. If this was manual labor instead of thinky stuff, I'd have worn my fingers to the humerous by now.
When the first draft of my report went out today, it literally felt like a weight lifted off my back. Sadly, the weight on my gut stayed right where it was.
Doesn't matter though. What does matter is I've got a couple races to do this weekend, and despite my evaporating fitness I'm going to sack up and race.
You know why?
Because racing isn't work, that's why. And we have to appreciate everything in life that isn't work.
-----------------------------------
Just 'cuz life's been a little hard, doesn't mean it hasn't been funny.
I'm walking into the Giant last night, post-work at around 11:00 or so, to pick up some milk on the way home. It had just rained, and then the rain stopped and it started to cool. It was one of those nights on which sound carries better than perfectly, as if it was amplified. This woman was walking out of the store pushing a cart and speaking loudly on her cellphone. From across the parking lot I heard her say,
And they were closed, so I couldn't get my medicine for my herps.It was so shocking that anybody would be saying that out loud in public, much less out *really* loud in public, that I almost fell over.
Yeah, people will do anything.
Then today I go into work. I think I've mentioned we've got a Turd Bomber in work - some dude who must stand across the room and just aim for the back wall of one of the stalls. Dude pollutes the joint about once a week. He's foul.
Well, now we got a Pee Shooter. I go in to spend a little quality time on the Throne of Repose. I like the handicapped stall because there's enough room in there to have a business meeting. Then I notice some dude has left the seat down and peed on it. Now, normally, I don't care about such things. I'm a dude. I do a quick cleanup and we're on the way. All these seat covers and fastidious dudes walking around the men's room with a bit of paper towel over their hand when they open the door... well, that creeps me out. It's like they're afraid of Dude Cooties or something. But a little pee on the seat? Naah. Not scary.
But this wasn't a little. It's like he tried to write an Omega symbol on the seat using his own urine.
How do you do that? I mean, I have to give the guy some props - that takes some major accuracy and probably plenty of practice. And why would you do it? It wasn't nasty enough to gross me out but it was a huge logistical problem. I didn't have one of those squeegees they use to mop up the courts at Wimbledon, and I left the industrial wet/dry vac at home... so what to do?
With my being accustomed to the weekly gifts of the Turd Bomber, it'd probably take decaying bodies and E TV reruns to make me freak out. But the Pee Shooter's magnum opus on the seat was just nasty enough that I thought I needed to take myself across the floor to the other bathrooms.
So hey, do you think the Turd Bomber is in a turf war with the Pee Shooter? Do you think Leaving Yesterday's Newspaper Behind Guy will choose sides?
It gets worse though. Even in the depths of the Project-Induced Torpor (PIT), I still felt compelled to check Velo News when I got back to the office. You know what the lead story was? Behind the Scenes: The Making of the New Velo News Home Page. Yep, I shit you not, brah. The big story on the VeloSnooze features hot Java-on-HTML action. No races, no grand tour route announcements, no new models that have increased vertical compliance and lateral stiffness, and no pro riders cattily bitching about their old teams or each other. Just the story behind the story about the web page development.
Seriously.
This can only mean we've entered the Racing Dead Zone. There may be a couple cross races locally or nationally to tide us over until Cross Worlds and the Tour of Oz, but for all practical purposes if you aren't near the top of the local points table you'd best start drinking hard and working on putting on your winter 10 right now, 'cuz the bike culture isn't about to bring you any Christmas gifts over the next 8 weeks.
On the plus side, I did find some music for you. So there's no Friday Morning Music, but maybe you can make do with some Friday Evening Music.
This one sums up how I feel right now, pretty much. It'll get better, but it's going to take some days to recover from this stretch of work, and I think my cycling form has gone the way of the Velo News Substantive Bicycle-Related Stories, at least for this season.
Then there's Faith No More with Epic. They're kind of like a Thinking Man's Rage Against the Machine, which is to say a total non-sequitur. They are pretty funky though.
How about a little Frank Zappa, Stinkfoot. He was pretty unorthodox, but musically brilliant, with amazing lyrics. Oh yeah, and a weird mofo.
Out through the night and the whispering breezes,
To the place where they keep the imaginary diseases...
Awesome. And here's what I'm going to be doing tomorrow - Riding With The King.
See you at the races.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
On the Road Again...
I'm doing some more work travel this week. No entertaining riding stories.
I can say, however, that if you don't have enough mayhem in your own life, one way to really up the quotient is to go to a busy airport with one of those moving walkways and ride down it. Then, when you get to the end of the walkway, take one step off the end of it and stop to ponder which would be the optimum path to the nearest generic shitty airport bar. This will ensure that at least a dozen people behind you plow into your dumb ass and shout at you. This is also a great way to make new friends.
So no ride-y. This is working wonders for my fitness and attitude. Jim grumpy! Jim smash now!
I can say, however, that if you don't have enough mayhem in your own life, one way to really up the quotient is to go to a busy airport with one of those moving walkways and ride down it. Then, when you get to the end of the walkway, take one step off the end of it and stop to ponder which would be the optimum path to the nearest generic shitty airport bar. This will ensure that at least a dozen people behind you plow into your dumb ass and shout at you. This is also a great way to make new friends.
So no ride-y. This is working wonders for my fitness and attitude. Jim grumpy! Jim smash now!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Dreary Me on a Dreary Monday
After a screwed up training week with race promotion, then a week from hell at work, my form is disappearing faster than a bowl of Halloween candy in the breakroom at work. Just evaporating. I'm under the magical 60 CTL mark, which means my race legs are all but gone. I've got some work travel coming up this week so the training is going to be a little goofy, which is why this morning found me out at Hains improvising up a little high intensity sort of workout - 10 all out 30 second efforts on 3-3.5 minute rest.
What does that do for you?
Near as I can tell, it gives you vomity burps. Rumor has it, it's also good for cross fitness. We shall see. Meanwhile, I'm going to recalibrate the Powertap. I think the figures were a bit low this morning - I was chugging into the wind warming up at 25 MPH and it showed me cranking out 155 watts.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Not quite spot on.
So you want some fun? Check this out.
Nice song, huh? That's the Mac v. PC ad theme song. Sounds like baby music. So cute. So gentle. So earnest. Who would write such a thing?
Why, this guy, of course:
Mark Mothersbaugh, of Devo.
Funny the connections in pop culture. And speaking of this, check out the VW ad-related vid by Trio that YouTube threw up on me when I played that Devo song:
I think I used to eat schmalzbrot and get hammered on altbier in the bar in that video...
[Update: It occurred to me that the funniness was probably lost on most of you. I really did used to hang out in a bar or three like that in Germany and get hammered with a bunch of German friends and eat Schmalzbrot, so I have a little German. I also recall a VW ad campaign that featured that song. Cool sounding song, right? But the lyrics? Crikey. The chorus is: "Ich lieb dich nicht, du liebst mich nicht," which means "I don't love you, you don't love me." Then there's a verse that goes, "I know why you ran away, I wonder where you are today." "Da Da Da," of course, is a nod to the nihilist Dadaist movement in art which foisted a lot of garbage modern art upon us, along with many other bad ideas. "Da Da Da" is also a German equivalent of "yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." So the song is about nonsense, smugness, and a sort of self-righteous meanness - schadenfreude - that is prominent in German culture. It's kind of an ugly little song if you start peeling back the layers - a weird choice for a brand that seems trademarked around "Nice."
Here's the commercial - a Superbowl premier ad if I recall correctly - if you don't know what I'm talking about.
It's really curious that this would have been picked for an ad campaign for a car. It's even curiouser and somewhat edgy when you notice that the two guys hanging out are a black guy and a white guy. What's the message here? The only explanation for it is that most of us are illiterate when it comes to fine arts (visual arts, music) and that a lot of people in the creative class (including ad agencies) are pretty damned subversive. It kind of reminds me of attending a friend's high school graduation and the high school band played, according to the program, "Theme Song From Mash." I thought, "oh, you mean 'Suicide is Painless'?"]
What does that do for you?
Near as I can tell, it gives you vomity burps. Rumor has it, it's also good for cross fitness. We shall see. Meanwhile, I'm going to recalibrate the Powertap. I think the figures were a bit low this morning - I was chugging into the wind warming up at 25 MPH and it showed me cranking out 155 watts.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Not quite spot on.
So you want some fun? Check this out.
Nice song, huh? That's the Mac v. PC ad theme song. Sounds like baby music. So cute. So gentle. So earnest. Who would write such a thing?
Why, this guy, of course:
Mark Mothersbaugh, of Devo.
Funny the connections in pop culture. And speaking of this, check out the VW ad-related vid by Trio that YouTube threw up on me when I played that Devo song:
I think I used to eat schmalzbrot and get hammered on altbier in the bar in that video...
[Update: It occurred to me that the funniness was probably lost on most of you. I really did used to hang out in a bar or three like that in Germany and get hammered with a bunch of German friends and eat Schmalzbrot, so I have a little German. I also recall a VW ad campaign that featured that song. Cool sounding song, right? But the lyrics? Crikey. The chorus is: "Ich lieb dich nicht, du liebst mich nicht," which means "I don't love you, you don't love me." Then there's a verse that goes, "I know why you ran away, I wonder where you are today." "Da Da Da," of course, is a nod to the nihilist Dadaist movement in art which foisted a lot of garbage modern art upon us, along with many other bad ideas. "Da Da Da" is also a German equivalent of "yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." So the song is about nonsense, smugness, and a sort of self-righteous meanness - schadenfreude - that is prominent in German culture. It's kind of an ugly little song if you start peeling back the layers - a weird choice for a brand that seems trademarked around "Nice."
Here's the commercial - a Superbowl premier ad if I recall correctly - if you don't know what I'm talking about.
It's really curious that this would have been picked for an ad campaign for a car. It's even curiouser and somewhat edgy when you notice that the two guys hanging out are a black guy and a white guy. What's the message here? The only explanation for it is that most of us are illiterate when it comes to fine arts (visual arts, music) and that a lot of people in the creative class (including ad agencies) are pretty damned subversive. It kind of reminds me of attending a friend's high school graduation and the high school band played, according to the program, "Theme Song From Mash." I thought, "oh, you mean 'Suicide is Painless'?"]
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Some Headline...
For professional reasons, I cannot offer criticism of praise of recent decisions regarding the legal status of alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his friends, who are being transferred by the Attorney General and Department of Defense to stand trial in the federal courts of the Southern District of New York.
As we all know, everybody who stands accused in this country is presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law. As a legal matter, we are required to assume the Sheikh may in fact be an innocent religio-political figure caught up somehow in a police / military dragnet that may have targeted him erroneously, or that there may be some procedural defect in his arrest or detention that results in his being found not guilty. The law presumes innocence until shown otherwise by the prosecutor and police and we would do well to remember that we enjoy those rights too, no matter how benighted we may be, should the results of the trial fail to please us.
That said, I believe that this morning's New York Post captures the feelings of many Americans more accurately than you will see it captured anywhere else.
Say what you will about the unapolagetically tabloid NY Post: there are times when their headline editors sum up a situation better than anybody else on earth. I wish I could be half that direct and concise.
As we all know, everybody who stands accused in this country is presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law. As a legal matter, we are required to assume the Sheikh may in fact be an innocent religio-political figure caught up somehow in a police / military dragnet that may have targeted him erroneously, or that there may be some procedural defect in his arrest or detention that results in his being found not guilty. The law presumes innocence until shown otherwise by the prosecutor and police and we would do well to remember that we enjoy those rights too, no matter how benighted we may be, should the results of the trial fail to please us.
That said, I believe that this morning's New York Post captures the feelings of many Americans more accurately than you will see it captured anywhere else.
Say what you will about the unapolagetically tabloid NY Post: there are times when their headline editors sum up a situation better than anybody else on earth. I wish I could be half that direct and concise.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Got out for the shop ride this morning, a 90 minute cruise in the rain. The legs felt okay despite little or no work during the week, but mainly it was great to be out with the boys and chatting and rolling down the road, troubles behind me for an hour or two. And oh man, what a hell of a week it has been. Work has kicked into overdrive in the last month or so, and combined with the race promotion... well, it's been interesting. I've basically been cramming 80-90 hours of work into my weeks for the last two months, and it ain't been fun; lot of late nights doing race shit or work stuff. Suffice to say, relationships at home are not optimal, and my interior Scotty is telling me she cain't take much more, Captain, that my mental warp drive is about to break down. If I can get through this week it will be okay though, I think. Finished knocking out the Continuing Legal Ed this week, got some business travel and some draft documents due on Thursday, then maybe I can chill for a few days, put it on cruise control up through Thanksgiving. And at a minimum, I can console myself with the fact I don't have it nearly as tough as Kim does right now. Damn, she's a tough little soldier - single mom, 'leet racer... I sure as hell couldn't do that.
So anyhoo, we'll see if I can hang for a few days. I think I can, and it'll ease up then, just a little.
You up for an eclectic collection of tunes? I am.
Caesars - Jerk it out
Caesars | MySpace Video
I know you've heard this before, but it's still good. It has a Cake-meets-Eminem-meets-RATM vibe to it. Flobots, Handlebars.
Totally unrelated, except for the geekery of making nods to every significant internet meme of the last 5 years, Weezer's Pork and Beans. Man, they've been really good, for a really long time. But hey, is it me, or is Weezer what Barenaked Ladies would sound like if they suffered from terminal irony?
How 'bout a little Jamaican dancehall with Shaggy, Carolina.
And one more by Shaggy and Rik Rock, Bonafide Girl. Gotta love a girl with Bonafides.
So anyhoo, we'll see if I can hang for a few days. I think I can, and it'll ease up then, just a little.
You up for an eclectic collection of tunes? I am.
Caesars - Jerk it out
Caesars | MySpace Video
I know you've heard this before, but it's still good. It has a Cake-meets-Eminem-meets-RATM vibe to it. Flobots, Handlebars.
Totally unrelated, except for the geekery of making nods to every significant internet meme of the last 5 years, Weezer's Pork and Beans. Man, they've been really good, for a really long time. But hey, is it me, or is Weezer what Barenaked Ladies would sound like if they suffered from terminal irony?
How 'bout a little Jamaican dancehall with Shaggy, Carolina.
And one more by Shaggy and Rik Rock, Bonafide Girl. Gotta love a girl with Bonafides.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Rough Week
Haven't posted much this week. I've been busy recovering from promoting the race, posolutely crushed at work, and slipping 20 hours of continuing legal ed into the week. Up this morning at 3:00 AM to do some drafting, into work at 7, off to CLE at 9, back to the office at 4:00 for some more work... yeah, I'm dyin' heah.
But good things are happening. For one thing, it's hockey season again. And you know what that means?
It means it's also Hockey Fight Season! And it's not really a hockey fight unless it spans two or three periods, guys get ejected, and the goalies try to kick the shit out of each other. Here's a good 'un for you:
I guess you're expecting some music now, huh? So, now for something completely different. Here's a little Hank. Hank Sr., that is. The Long Gone Lonesome Blues. Great song.
For those of you who are starting to prep for road season with those long solo base rides and whatnot - I'm lookin' at you Betty - here's some Lost Highway by Hank.
That's country. I kind of like classic country - from the early stuff by Hank and Woodie, to the later stuff by Willie and Waylon and Merle. There's a simplicity and honesty to it that's refreshing.
Bluegrass, on the other hand, is not simple. Here's Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, with Foggy Mountain Breakdown. The precision of their playing is really amazing - pitch perfect, and fast.
Bluegrass is funny because it's a periodic pop sensation. You may have been exposed to it a bit in O Brother Where Art Thou. That triggered widespread interest in it. But that was the second big boom of my lifetime. The first one? On the corny Beverly Hillbillies, of course. Check out the amazing banjo licks overlaid on top of Hollywood schlock here:
Man. Pure weirdness. Of course you listen to that song, and you know where these guys got the idea from.
Same song, basically, performed after a couple hefty hits of LSD. Yeah, Dave Matthews can get all progressive political and whatnot, but you're looking at the roots of jam bands here when you look at classic country and bluegrass.
Extra special bonus in that last video: crazy dancing hippie chicks. That's for FatMarc, who I know loves hippies.
But good things are happening. For one thing, it's hockey season again. And you know what that means?
It means it's also Hockey Fight Season! And it's not really a hockey fight unless it spans two or three periods, guys get ejected, and the goalies try to kick the shit out of each other. Here's a good 'un for you:
I guess you're expecting some music now, huh? So, now for something completely different. Here's a little Hank. Hank Sr., that is. The Long Gone Lonesome Blues. Great song.
For those of you who are starting to prep for road season with those long solo base rides and whatnot - I'm lookin' at you Betty - here's some Lost Highway by Hank.
That's country. I kind of like classic country - from the early stuff by Hank and Woodie, to the later stuff by Willie and Waylon and Merle. There's a simplicity and honesty to it that's refreshing.
Bluegrass, on the other hand, is not simple. Here's Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, with Foggy Mountain Breakdown. The precision of their playing is really amazing - pitch perfect, and fast.
Bluegrass is funny because it's a periodic pop sensation. You may have been exposed to it a bit in O Brother Where Art Thou. That triggered widespread interest in it. But that was the second big boom of my lifetime. The first one? On the corny Beverly Hillbillies, of course. Check out the amazing banjo licks overlaid on top of Hollywood schlock here:
Man. Pure weirdness. Of course you listen to that song, and you know where these guys got the idea from.
Same song, basically, performed after a couple hefty hits of LSD. Yeah, Dave Matthews can get all progressive political and whatnot, but you're looking at the roots of jam bands here when you look at classic country and bluegrass.
Extra special bonus in that last video: crazy dancing hippie chicks. That's for FatMarc, who I know loves hippies.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Anatomy of a Race Course
Bill Schiecken asked how my club made the Tacchino happen, and how we made the course at Rosaryville State Park on Sunday. What I told him might be of interest to the promoters, would be promoters, or lovers of race geekery among you.
Rosaryville is a gem of a park close to D.C. that is as nice as it is because it is very well cared for by its stakeholders. The Rosaryville Conservancy operates the park for the State of Maryland, a caterer called Pineapple Alley Catering operates special events at the park's Mount Airy Mansion and caters events like our race, the mountain bikers of MORE (Mid Atlantic Off Road Enthusiasts) do a lot of work on the multi-use trails, and various equestrian groups pour thousands of dollars each year into keeping up the nice turf on the fields we rode on. We are extremely grateful that all the stakeholders agreed to let us have a race there - and yes, getting the "owners" on board with your race is always the first step, and maybe one of the hardest ones.
The basic layout was pretty simple. We were worried because the main field near the pavilion has no dramatic features that jump out at you. Then the equestrian events consultant pointed out some equestrian trail spurs off the fields, and the meadow with the crazy sweeper on it. Ken and Jean Woodrow and I walked and rode around it repeatedly on different days. I spent time meeting with the Rosaryville Conservancy president and their equestrian events consultant, who gave me some great ideas for trail diversions. Then we had a team ride / thinking session out there and found a lot of little features, and tried a bunch of different little loops. We sort of linked the sections together by avoiding the sensitive equestrian areas (with high quality, paid-for grass we didn't want to chew up in a rainstorm) and by looking for interesting ways to do it, on off-cambers, with little turns and so forth.
When things came together with the caterer and a band, it was clear that we could run the course around the pavilion repeatedly and make it extremely spectator-centric. At this point, you know me - I started getting *really* excited and creative.
A bit of play with pen and pad helped us work out that crazy nested loop. Then Ken Woodrow and I nailed down the details last week, riding some sections different ways and then flagging / chalking them for the groundskeeper to cut the grass. We had the groundskeeper cut lines into the grass (for transit areas) and boxes for areas where we'd work out specific features on Saturday (stake and tape day).
You can't totally pre-plan everything on your course. Parts of a course have to fit together and make sense. It's like composing music. There are verses and choruses, and little bits of bridge music. If the parts fit together, you get a song that is more than the sum of its parts. If they don't fit together well... then you get something like Mahler's controversial re-arrangements of Beethoven, which a few people love but which seems out of tune to many people.
The tape job took about 3 hours for the main part of it. The goal was to make riders handle and corner if they had the skills, not to force them to stop and then turn. (I hate losing my flow). Most of the stakes went down according to how we had sketched it out on paper, and Andrew Welch - a fast and fairly skillful rider - test rode corners while MABRACross Technical Director Judd Milne helped us tweak difficult corners and set up a killer pit. He also talked me out of a double hairpin in that bowl past the pavilion, arguing that riders should have more recovery time on the course, a good position that kept that section consistent with the rest of the course.
Setup was made easier by having some pre-cut 3 meter lengths of rope to help the volunteers keep a uniform width through corners and tight spots. On race day the refs had a few tweaks, and noted we were just shy of the regulation distance, necessitating the last minute addition of the powerline loop. We put a lot of thought into that section prior to race day but rejected it as surplus, thinking the course would ride a bit slower and that Woodrow's GPS showed it as long enough. But it was very dry leading up to the race, and when the ref's GPS came up short it meant lapped riders were going to be getting pulled, probably some quite early given the large fields. I truly didn't want that to have to happen; getting pulled early sucks. So I shouted for a handful of members to grab stakes and tape, and follow me. I walked around dropping stakes on the outside of the line we'd looked at earlier, and a couple members walked behind me, taping. Meanwhile, another member pulled the stakes that were on the old line and reoriented them. We measured the width with the pre-cut lengths of rope and staked the inside line, with a member walking behind taping. We added 3-400 yards with two technical turns in about 10-15 minutes, and darned if it wasn't a sweet little section that was pleasant to ride. The refs were surprised we could pull that off.
I wasn't shocked that we did it. We had thought ahead and we knew the terrain really well, and the team members were prepared (as usual) to step up to meet any challenge. I can't say enough good things about my teammates.
The day played out really well. The early morning was chaos; at a new venue you have to dial in a lot of things and the parking / transit to registration issue was tough for us. We were told it's also a problem for the equestrian events and everybody else. We'll improve that next year, I promise! The last minute course change was a major headache too, but by 10:00 AM things had settled down into a routine and the race went on auto pilot, with all the amazingly good Coppi volunteers doing their jobs, and the refs and Lindsey's registration crew managing the actual races. The caterer was rocking by the time the C race got going, so I got to ride a couple laps of 3/4 35+, but the legs were not opening at all so I pulled out and went back to the pavilion.
When I got to the pavilion, the band (the excellent Gallons to Ounces) was setting up, the food was cooking, the beer was flowing, and I could walk around and enjoy the scene. I'd found them via Craigslist ad - I asked for bands, described what I wanted, got a bunch of responses from local bands, checked out their samples, and picked one. I liked this band because their musical style was good, very versatile but focused on jam, funk and jazz, and because the price fit the budget. The vendor came with the Park. Pineapple Alley runs the Mount Airy Mansion and other special events at the Park. I checked out their autumn fest a few weeks ago and found a great couples / family event, with things like Alpaca products vendors, artisanal craft products vendors, and a food tent that pretty much blew me away. Tom Mueller, who is one of the operating partners of the company, seems to be a foodie. He doesn't do things by half measure. That's how we wound up with authentic styled "belgian" sausages (okay, they were German, but what do you think Belgian sausage usually is?) and proper broetchen and mustard, and appropriate frites and beer.
I don't know how we got the other sponsors, other than to say I begged Ommegang, and as part of the Belgian Duvel / La Chouffe / Ommegang beer conglomerate, supporting bike racing made sense to their local distributor. Contes is our team bike shop, and they support the hell out of us with top quality gear and service, so when our races come around they step up big time. The rest of it? You got me. Coppi members worked their magic I guess. So there was a good elite prize list, and lots of nice swag on the line, and a solid catering picture.
Having all this stuff lined up meant everybody was happy, and centrally located. I was able to walk around and if FatMarc is the Minister of Love for Granogue, then maybe I got to be the Chancellor of Cheer at the Tacchino. All sorts of people clustered in the pavilion, with young families near the front, the beer & cheer crew near the back by the band, and a buzz in the area. Team tents lining the course near the pavilion were picnic sites, and I only saw smiles and heard compliments and laughter as I walked around chatting people up.
We thought it would be a good race yesterday but the ingredients came together and added up to something a little better (he said modestly...) than the average race. We'd hoped for that, but weren't sure it would happen. I've had an experience like that at other races here and there - Charm City got me that way one year, Granogue does that repeatedly, the 12 Hours of Lodi did it for me. I hope we created that for other people.
Before yesterday I had never spoken to Greg Faber, a really strong young racer for NCVC, but we sat and had a chat toward the end of the day and I decided I really like his outlook. To paraphrase his comments, for a while he had wanted to beat the world in cross, but days like yesterday made him realize that what he really wanted was to race really well, and to enjoy cyclocross. He said that when he thinks about cyclocross, he pictures days like yesterday as his image of the sport.
I think he is right, and that's the takeaway we wanted to give people yesterday. Train hard. Race your brains out on a course that destroys you. Become the world champion if you want. But have fun. If the people who raced and cheered yesterday did that, I consider it a huge success. My teammates and I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out how to make it fun, then tried to sell it to you guys on that principle - that we would have our normal race, but that we were going to really bring the fun. There wasn't much extra to do to bring the fun, once we figured out how to do it. Put spectators in the middle of the course like Charm City and DCCX do. Have a good food vendor (or get food donated). Thanks for attending, folks - we put together a venue but you people made the scene. The real secret to putting on a good cross race is to make sure that 400 of your closest friends show up with bikes. It's easy once that happens.
Ultimately, our EMT Adrian gets the last word on the race. Adrian had to attend to an 1-2-3 racer who had keeled over towards the end of the race. Steve Stone asked him how the racer was doing. Adrian's response was an instant classic that should become the race motto:
"He'll be okay. He's just exhausted."
Rosaryville is a gem of a park close to D.C. that is as nice as it is because it is very well cared for by its stakeholders. The Rosaryville Conservancy operates the park for the State of Maryland, a caterer called Pineapple Alley Catering operates special events at the park's Mount Airy Mansion and caters events like our race, the mountain bikers of MORE (Mid Atlantic Off Road Enthusiasts) do a lot of work on the multi-use trails, and various equestrian groups pour thousands of dollars each year into keeping up the nice turf on the fields we rode on. We are extremely grateful that all the stakeholders agreed to let us have a race there - and yes, getting the "owners" on board with your race is always the first step, and maybe one of the hardest ones.
The basic layout was pretty simple. We were worried because the main field near the pavilion has no dramatic features that jump out at you. Then the equestrian events consultant pointed out some equestrian trail spurs off the fields, and the meadow with the crazy sweeper on it. Ken and Jean Woodrow and I walked and rode around it repeatedly on different days. I spent time meeting with the Rosaryville Conservancy president and their equestrian events consultant, who gave me some great ideas for trail diversions. Then we had a team ride / thinking session out there and found a lot of little features, and tried a bunch of different little loops. We sort of linked the sections together by avoiding the sensitive equestrian areas (with high quality, paid-for grass we didn't want to chew up in a rainstorm) and by looking for interesting ways to do it, on off-cambers, with little turns and so forth.
When things came together with the caterer and a band, it was clear that we could run the course around the pavilion repeatedly and make it extremely spectator-centric. At this point, you know me - I started getting *really* excited and creative.
A bit of play with pen and pad helped us work out that crazy nested loop. Then Ken Woodrow and I nailed down the details last week, riding some sections different ways and then flagging / chalking them for the groundskeeper to cut the grass. We had the groundskeeper cut lines into the grass (for transit areas) and boxes for areas where we'd work out specific features on Saturday (stake and tape day).
You can't totally pre-plan everything on your course. Parts of a course have to fit together and make sense. It's like composing music. There are verses and choruses, and little bits of bridge music. If the parts fit together, you get a song that is more than the sum of its parts. If they don't fit together well... then you get something like Mahler's controversial re-arrangements of Beethoven, which a few people love but which seems out of tune to many people.
The tape job took about 3 hours for the main part of it. The goal was to make riders handle and corner if they had the skills, not to force them to stop and then turn. (I hate losing my flow). Most of the stakes went down according to how we had sketched it out on paper, and Andrew Welch - a fast and fairly skillful rider - test rode corners while MABRACross Technical Director Judd Milne helped us tweak difficult corners and set up a killer pit. He also talked me out of a double hairpin in that bowl past the pavilion, arguing that riders should have more recovery time on the course, a good position that kept that section consistent with the rest of the course.
Setup was made easier by having some pre-cut 3 meter lengths of rope to help the volunteers keep a uniform width through corners and tight spots. On race day the refs had a few tweaks, and noted we were just shy of the regulation distance, necessitating the last minute addition of the powerline loop. We put a lot of thought into that section prior to race day but rejected it as surplus, thinking the course would ride a bit slower and that Woodrow's GPS showed it as long enough. But it was very dry leading up to the race, and when the ref's GPS came up short it meant lapped riders were going to be getting pulled, probably some quite early given the large fields. I truly didn't want that to have to happen; getting pulled early sucks. So I shouted for a handful of members to grab stakes and tape, and follow me. I walked around dropping stakes on the outside of the line we'd looked at earlier, and a couple members walked behind me, taping. Meanwhile, another member pulled the stakes that were on the old line and reoriented them. We measured the width with the pre-cut lengths of rope and staked the inside line, with a member walking behind taping. We added 3-400 yards with two technical turns in about 10-15 minutes, and darned if it wasn't a sweet little section that was pleasant to ride. The refs were surprised we could pull that off.
I wasn't shocked that we did it. We had thought ahead and we knew the terrain really well, and the team members were prepared (as usual) to step up to meet any challenge. I can't say enough good things about my teammates.
The day played out really well. The early morning was chaos; at a new venue you have to dial in a lot of things and the parking / transit to registration issue was tough for us. We were told it's also a problem for the equestrian events and everybody else. We'll improve that next year, I promise! The last minute course change was a major headache too, but by 10:00 AM things had settled down into a routine and the race went on auto pilot, with all the amazingly good Coppi volunteers doing their jobs, and the refs and Lindsey's registration crew managing the actual races. The caterer was rocking by the time the C race got going, so I got to ride a couple laps of 3/4 35+, but the legs were not opening at all so I pulled out and went back to the pavilion.
When I got to the pavilion, the band (the excellent Gallons to Ounces) was setting up, the food was cooking, the beer was flowing, and I could walk around and enjoy the scene. I'd found them via Craigslist ad - I asked for bands, described what I wanted, got a bunch of responses from local bands, checked out their samples, and picked one. I liked this band because their musical style was good, very versatile but focused on jam, funk and jazz, and because the price fit the budget. The vendor came with the Park. Pineapple Alley runs the Mount Airy Mansion and other special events at the Park. I checked out their autumn fest a few weeks ago and found a great couples / family event, with things like Alpaca products vendors, artisanal craft products vendors, and a food tent that pretty much blew me away. Tom Mueller, who is one of the operating partners of the company, seems to be a foodie. He doesn't do things by half measure. That's how we wound up with authentic styled "belgian" sausages (okay, they were German, but what do you think Belgian sausage usually is?) and proper broetchen and mustard, and appropriate frites and beer.
I don't know how we got the other sponsors, other than to say I begged Ommegang, and as part of the Belgian Duvel / La Chouffe / Ommegang beer conglomerate, supporting bike racing made sense to their local distributor. Contes is our team bike shop, and they support the hell out of us with top quality gear and service, so when our races come around they step up big time. The rest of it? You got me. Coppi members worked their magic I guess. So there was a good elite prize list, and lots of nice swag on the line, and a solid catering picture.
Having all this stuff lined up meant everybody was happy, and centrally located. I was able to walk around and if FatMarc is the Minister of Love for Granogue, then maybe I got to be the Chancellor of Cheer at the Tacchino. All sorts of people clustered in the pavilion, with young families near the front, the beer & cheer crew near the back by the band, and a buzz in the area. Team tents lining the course near the pavilion were picnic sites, and I only saw smiles and heard compliments and laughter as I walked around chatting people up.
We thought it would be a good race yesterday but the ingredients came together and added up to something a little better (he said modestly...) than the average race. We'd hoped for that, but weren't sure it would happen. I've had an experience like that at other races here and there - Charm City got me that way one year, Granogue does that repeatedly, the 12 Hours of Lodi did it for me. I hope we created that for other people.
Before yesterday I had never spoken to Greg Faber, a really strong young racer for NCVC, but we sat and had a chat toward the end of the day and I decided I really like his outlook. To paraphrase his comments, for a while he had wanted to beat the world in cross, but days like yesterday made him realize that what he really wanted was to race really well, and to enjoy cyclocross. He said that when he thinks about cyclocross, he pictures days like yesterday as his image of the sport.
I think he is right, and that's the takeaway we wanted to give people yesterday. Train hard. Race your brains out on a course that destroys you. Become the world champion if you want. But have fun. If the people who raced and cheered yesterday did that, I consider it a huge success. My teammates and I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out how to make it fun, then tried to sell it to you guys on that principle - that we would have our normal race, but that we were going to really bring the fun. There wasn't much extra to do to bring the fun, once we figured out how to do it. Put spectators in the middle of the course like Charm City and DCCX do. Have a good food vendor (or get food donated). Thanks for attending, folks - we put together a venue but you people made the scene. The real secret to putting on a good cross race is to make sure that 400 of your closest friends show up with bikes. It's easy once that happens.
Ultimately, our EMT Adrian gets the last word on the race. Adrian had to attend to an 1-2-3 racer who had keeled over towards the end of the race. Steve Stone asked him how the racer was doing. Adrian's response was an instant classic that should become the race motto:
"He'll be okay. He's just exhausted."
Monday, November 09, 2009
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Tacchino Course: It's Up And Running!
I know a lot of you in the 'cross community will check here to get some intel on the Tacchino Course at Rosaryville State Park. Yep, there are some day-of spots still open, so go get directions to the course and race times, then get out early to register for your race if that's what you're doing.
The weather should be lovely, mid- to upper 60's by mid-day, with a funk band, food vendor, sausage primes, equal (and good sized) payouts for men's and women's elite races, and a course...
Well, the course has something for everybody, as a lot of people who pre-rode it noted.
There is a long fitness test of a slog up a bumpy grass false flat.
There are a couple hills you can rock if you keep your speed up but which will suck the ever-loving life right out of your soul if you don't understand flow and momentum.
There are several handling challenges where, if you over brake or fail to steer smart, you will be gapped.
There are a couple downhills that require cold-cup-of-coffee-at-4:00-AM courage, to put it mildly.
And there is a set of twists and turns around the pavilions and fans that will cause you to simultaneously get dizzy, hyperventilate, smile, and wonder what kind of sick sadistic bastard laid the course out.
The other comment we got from other teams that pre-rode, is that "it's a typical Tacchino course." By that I think they meant it is fast, has some handling challenges, and is physically very difficult. It won't be DCCX difficult, where you just get knocked on your ass quickly and stay there, it's more like the course toys with you and keeps hitting you just hard enough to knock you down, but not out. You can recover just enough between the clearly recognizable sections of the course for it to not feel bad about kicking your ass again in the next section. "You really want to get up, little man? So be it..."
I hadn't thought about how the Tacchino could have a common of character over a period of years despite different promoters and course designers and different venues, but I guess it's true. There's sort of a Coppi attitude about what makes a good cross course and most of us gravitate to it. We tend to try to take advantage of the natural law of the land, eschewing gimmicks in favor of taking the challenges that the venue throws up for us. We don't throw in gratuitous curves, but value momentum, courageous handling at speed (ask everybody who slipped out last year about that), and in tight spots a linking of the corners and a discoverable good line that a mountain biker would recognize as flow. There's always at least one good fast line through any feature we build in, sometimes two, forcing the rider to make a tough choice. It's very fair, but it's very, very ****ing hard.
It's funny how that happens. We aren't consciously trying to design by that philosophy, it's just what we seem to like to ride on in a cross course, even though it is patently unsuited for quite a few of us who will race on it. Maybe that attitude is at the heart of amateur racing itself - few of us will ever be paid to race, but we love racing, and know good racing when we see it, and given a chance, know how to make a good race.
As a promoter I take comfort in knowing that the race is bigger than me or any of the promoters that have promoted it and designed the course in the past. It tells me that we're striving toward some objective notion of The Good. Either that, or we're uniformly bad and just don't know it, in which case ignorance is bliss, and if we aren't enlightened we are at least very, very happy.
Anyhow, the secret intel I will give my readers about how to succeed on this course is:
That is all.
The weather should be lovely, mid- to upper 60's by mid-day, with a funk band, food vendor, sausage primes, equal (and good sized) payouts for men's and women's elite races, and a course...
Well, the course has something for everybody, as a lot of people who pre-rode it noted.
There is a long fitness test of a slog up a bumpy grass false flat.
There are a couple hills you can rock if you keep your speed up but which will suck the ever-loving life right out of your soul if you don't understand flow and momentum.
There are several handling challenges where, if you over brake or fail to steer smart, you will be gapped.
There are a couple downhills that require cold-cup-of-coffee-at-4:00-AM courage, to put it mildly.
And there is a set of twists and turns around the pavilions and fans that will cause you to simultaneously get dizzy, hyperventilate, smile, and wonder what kind of sick sadistic bastard laid the course out.
The other comment we got from other teams that pre-rode, is that "it's a typical Tacchino course." By that I think they meant it is fast, has some handling challenges, and is physically very difficult. It won't be DCCX difficult, where you just get knocked on your ass quickly and stay there, it's more like the course toys with you and keeps hitting you just hard enough to knock you down, but not out. You can recover just enough between the clearly recognizable sections of the course for it to not feel bad about kicking your ass again in the next section. "You really want to get up, little man? So be it..."
I hadn't thought about how the Tacchino could have a common of character over a period of years despite different promoters and course designers and different venues, but I guess it's true. There's sort of a Coppi attitude about what makes a good cross course and most of us gravitate to it. We tend to try to take advantage of the natural law of the land, eschewing gimmicks in favor of taking the challenges that the venue throws up for us. We don't throw in gratuitous curves, but value momentum, courageous handling at speed (ask everybody who slipped out last year about that), and in tight spots a linking of the corners and a discoverable good line that a mountain biker would recognize as flow. There's always at least one good fast line through any feature we build in, sometimes two, forcing the rider to make a tough choice. It's very fair, but it's very, very ****ing hard.
It's funny how that happens. We aren't consciously trying to design by that philosophy, it's just what we seem to like to ride on in a cross course, even though it is patently unsuited for quite a few of us who will race on it. Maybe that attitude is at the heart of amateur racing itself - few of us will ever be paid to race, but we love racing, and know good racing when we see it, and given a chance, know how to make a good race.
As a promoter I take comfort in knowing that the race is bigger than me or any of the promoters that have promoted it and designed the course in the past. It tells me that we're striving toward some objective notion of The Good. Either that, or we're uniformly bad and just don't know it, in which case ignorance is bliss, and if we aren't enlightened we are at least very, very happy.
Anyhow, the secret intel I will give my readers about how to succeed on this course is:
Take up mountain biking and start doing lots of threshold intervals. Preferably by last June, if not by last April.
That is all.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Yeah, You Know What This Is...
Key to course map:
A. Protected area. Stay off the tall grass. There is a trail through here between the parking areas and registration. Stay on the trail.
B. Parking areas. Marshals will direct you.
C. Start / Finish
D. Registration
E. Food, band, spectators, barriers and pits are all in or adjacent to this pavilion.
F. Bathrooms, preferred team parking, and wash pits, if needed.
G. Playland playground, for kids. Or small immature adults.
H. Place on course where your suffering will be at its apex.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Friday Fun Time
First, how 'bout a little cyclocross course? This is pretty close to what the Tacchino is going to look like on Sunday. 
I added the graphic of the rider throwing up, to reflect reality.
---------------------------------------------------------
Time for some music? How 'bout The Killers, Somebody Told Me?
I like that song. It's not great, it's just good. But good has a lot going for it.
Along the same lines, I've always liked the B-52s, Private Idaho. Works on a lot of levels. Me? I'm living in my own private West Virginia. Picks me up, even if it is about one friend telling another that they are a dipshit.
Nice. I think that ages well. So will this one. Please allow me to adjust my pants, so that I may dance the good time dance...
I added the graphic of the rider throwing up, to reflect reality.
---------------------------------------------------------
Time for some music? How 'bout The Killers, Somebody Told Me?
I like that song. It's not great, it's just good. But good has a lot going for it.
Along the same lines, I've always liked the B-52s, Private Idaho. Works on a lot of levels. Me? I'm living in my own private West Virginia. Picks me up, even if it is about one friend telling another that they are a dipshit.
Nice. I think that ages well. So will this one. Please allow me to adjust my pants, so that I may dance the good time dance...
Just Because
"Then, I Peered Into The Eye Of The Behemoth
As A Great Wave Smashed The Vessel"
As A Great Wave Smashed The Vessel"
That picture is of The Most Interesting Man In The World, Sting, in case you were wondering. No, really.
And this is what a bicycle-riding circus bear looked like after test riding the Tacchino course yesterday:
Okay, maybe we shouldn't have made that 180 degree chute quite so hard to navigate...
Register now. Pre-reg closes at Noon on Friday.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Phew!
Been working pretty hard this week getting the Tacchino together, and doing some work at my actual job. Things have gotten incrementally more stressful there and between that and the Tacchino, I'm racking up the non-fitness-helping TSS points. Still, every once in a while, there's a glimmer of fun.
Here's Bill Schiecken with yet another excellent video of a cross race. Yet again, my fat ass is co-starring, at least for the first 4 or 5 minutes. As for Bill, he threw his chain on the start, got held up behind me, then finished on the podium. Not a terrible race, eh?
I did cross practice this AM, sort of. I rode a few laps, one or two at okay speed, nothing special, just hanging onto the tail of the group speed. The Redline was in the shop getting some orthodontics put in, so I was riding Das SurlyPanzerKampfWagen, rigged single. Not ideal for our practice course, particularly on a day when my legs were blown from Monday's longish ride (w.t 90 minutes of subthreshold work) and yesterday's big ring low cadence hill repeats. The sore legs with the stress from all the other crap basically meant I was mentally toasty, and although the legs maybe could have gone harder, my mind sure couldn't have. Still it was great to ride with my pals. They always make the day better, even if it's 40 degrees and the dew has made my feet wet and super cold.
Anyhoo... we're up over 300 registered racers for the Tacchino, and still growing. If you aren't pre-registered yet, get after it, people. I think the M4 race may sell out, and the 3/4 35+ may well break 100. Tremendous showing, folks. Thanks for making this promoter happy; and I hope that my club can return the favor and make you guys super happy too.
Tomorrow is course layout day. KenBob and I will be touring the fields with the groundskeeper, cutting grass and getting the basic layout put together. It's going to be a good one folks. Reserve your spot now.
Here's Bill Schiecken with yet another excellent video of a cross race. Yet again, my fat ass is co-starring, at least for the first 4 or 5 minutes. As for Bill, he threw his chain on the start, got held up behind me, then finished on the podium. Not a terrible race, eh?
I did cross practice this AM, sort of. I rode a few laps, one or two at okay speed, nothing special, just hanging onto the tail of the group speed. The Redline was in the shop getting some orthodontics put in, so I was riding Das SurlyPanzerKampfWagen, rigged single. Not ideal for our practice course, particularly on a day when my legs were blown from Monday's longish ride (w.t 90 minutes of subthreshold work) and yesterday's big ring low cadence hill repeats. The sore legs with the stress from all the other crap basically meant I was mentally toasty, and although the legs maybe could have gone harder, my mind sure couldn't have. Still it was great to ride with my pals. They always make the day better, even if it's 40 degrees and the dew has made my feet wet and super cold.
Anyhoo... we're up over 300 registered racers for the Tacchino, and still growing. If you aren't pre-registered yet, get after it, people. I think the M4 race may sell out, and the 3/4 35+ may well break 100. Tremendous showing, folks. Thanks for making this promoter happy; and I hope that my club can return the favor and make you guys super happy too.
Tomorrow is course layout day. KenBob and I will be touring the fields with the groundskeeper, cutting grass and getting the basic layout put together. It's going to be a good one folks. Reserve your spot now.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Stuff
Been a little bit busy this week, puttin' together a little festival we call Il Tacchino! Little bit of stress at work too, refinanced the house, the usual stuff. I could use a break.
But I've been thinking... Aren't douchebags nominally human? If you cut them, do they not ooze both blood and hair product? So when will somebody stood up for the douchebags?
Well, douchebags, apparently, that time is now.
Speaking of which... I'm not usually one for touting middle eastern modes of justice, but this story was interesting. The headline: "Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling." Hmmm... So what's the deal?
I don't know what a "court of cassation" is but I suspect the the only thing standing between that term and the literal truth about such courts is a missing "t".
So what was the sentence that the appellate court upheld?
Wow.
I don't know about what you guys think, but I'm amazed that the Saudi trial court decided to show such leniency.
But I've been thinking... Aren't douchebags nominally human? If you cut them, do they not ooze both blood and hair product? So when will somebody stood up for the douchebags?
Well, douchebags, apparently, that time is now.
We Are Douchebags - watch more funny videos
Speaking of which... I'm not usually one for touting middle eastern modes of justice, but this story was interesting. The headline: "Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling." Hmmm... So what's the deal?
A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert...
I don't know what a "court of cassation" is but I suspect the the only thing standing between that term and the literal truth about such courts is a missing "t".
So what was the sentence that the appellate court upheld?
tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.
Wow.
I don't know about what you guys think, but I'm amazed that the Saudi trial court decided to show such leniency.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
All Hallows Cross CRP: Giving Cross the Finger
All Hallows is a new event put on by PAX Velo in Hughsville, MD, just a few miles south of Waldorf. I had to go down there yesterday anyhow and made the decision to race the night before. I had no expectations of doing anything grand. The training workload is getting done, but between work stress, re-financing the house and race promoter stress, the Training Stress Balance is underwater, even though the legs are fresh.
At first glance, the course wasn't very impressive, involving a lot of tape in an open equestrian park, with a straight ride through a sand jumping arena. Follow the course around, however, and it leads to a Back 40 comprised of a lot of tractor path double track, and a twisty, rooty wooded section that rivals the more interesting bits of mountain bike trail at nearby Cedarville State Park. The twisty section had serious flow; you could hammer it at full tilt without hitting the brakes, providing you were the kind of person who is comfortable riding little mini-berms, looking for lines well ahead of schedule, and using trees as berms elsewhere. Combined with the open meadow half of the course, the course seemed really nice.
As the C's rolled out, it started to rain, alternating mist with a steady drizzle. The course was already wet, and the fresh rainfall would add quite a bit of squishyness to the front half of it, turning a 100 yard uphill slog on a squishy hill into a 100 yard uphill slog in partial mud. At 10, the Masters 3/4 rolled out with a field of perhaps 50 riders. The uphill grass start was a bit of a PITA. Since I was rolling casually, I didn't bother scrumming for a decent position on the starting grid, but just went as hard as I could from the back.
I kept contact with the long string of the pack for most of the first lap, until the string started to shred. Bill Schiecken apparently dropped his chain at the start, but caught up with me just past the barriers, and stayed there for a bit, so my fat ass will feature in yet another one of his excellent cinema verite vids, if the editing works out and his camera was on. Bill passed me going into the woods and I managed to stay on his wheel for much of the rest of that lap, until the mud hill anyhow. I picked a bad line near the top and ground to a halt, with the rear wheel spinning and had to run 10 yards and remount. Coming through the sandpit I flashed a Rock & Roll hand gesture (I was wearing a KISS jersey. It was Halloween. so no lectures, please...) and didn't pay enough attention to my line, so I immediately stacked it. A few people passed me there. Then something cool happened.
I've heard this axiom that gaps in cross never close, they only open. That has usually been true for me. However... once I got past the second set of barriers on the back of the course, and into this long section of slippery sweeping turns and tractor path, I was able to gap people behind me, and close up gaps to the people in front. I closed a huge gap on a guy in the really twisty section, despite the roots criss-crossing the trail, a 35% corduroy surface. In front of him was a string of several riders all holding a wheel pretty closely. I saw Bill or maybe one of the other Arrow Velo guys up there. I was back in contact with a group that had dropped me. This was simply amazing.
Would it mean anything at all to you if I said I've been dropped from a group in cross, but in three+ years, have never caught up to a group? My inner monologue was voicing the axiom about gaps and laughing like a maniac at that point. The guy I caught was getting gapped himself, however, and when we approached a little sandy uphill turn, I decided it was time for me to make a move on him, and maybe try to jump into the middle of that group, which was moving at an unacceptably slow pace through the woods. (Yes, the mountain biking is paying off in cross, bigtime, that such a move was even a possibility). So I stood up, launched a brief sprint and went rocketing past the guy on the left. I kept on the gas intent on closing the 20 feet to the group really quickly, to carry momentum and maybe get into the middle of it.
Unfortunately, I was on tubulars. This was a bad thing because the tubies just don't hook up as well as the clinchers do at comparable pressure. I think the cloth sidewalls aren't as resilient as rubber, so when the weight comes off them - like during a standing sprint effort - the tread takes longer to bounce back into full engagement with the ground. Whether my theory is valid or not, tubies are slippery under me when I sprint, and what happened next was sheer horrorshow.
As my front wheel crossed a forearm-sized diagonal root, the front wheel slipped out from under me in a flash. I went down really, really hard - like massive big rugby hit hard - and landed on a bunch of roots and rocks. The pain was like a lightning bolt.
I bounced up right away, cognizant of the fact I was laying across the trail and about to get hit. I got the bike off the trail, and then doubled over and hyperventilated a bit. A guy I'd passed stopped and asked if I needed help - evidently it was a pretty spectacular yardsale - and I told him not to stop, it's a race, I'd be fine. Then I tried not to cry.
I took stock for maybe a half minute. I could just about stand. There was something wrong with my left hand, like a broken finger or two, and I kept shaking it hoping the pain would drip out of the fingertips or something. And I could already feel a tennis ball-sized lump on my hip. I decided to quit, but then thought that I'd paid same-day registration fees to race - $20 plus $10 extra - and I wasn't about to quite after 1.5 laps if I could function at all, even if it mean soft pedaling in.
So I hopped on the bike and pushed off, only to realize my chain was derailed, the derailer was in the rear wheel and the chain was munged up between the derailer and cassette, and my STI's were clogged with mud and pointing inwards. So I hopped off, and using my good hand, got the chain unclogged, eventually managed to get it back on the big ring, and gave the derailer a tug. It looked lined up okay... we'd see if it worked. The STI's moved back into position with a few good punches and with a squeeze of the brakes it was possible to flick out most of the mud and leaf bits. While this was going on I lost maybe a minute, maybe two, and several people passed me. Not good!
Remounting, it appeared I couldn't really grip the bar with my left hand. The forefinger and thumb worked and the palm was okay to lean on but bending the ring finger and pinky, and to a lesser extent the middle finger wasn't really an option. So I rode up the hill and onto the course like I was gripping a tiny cup of tea, pinky extended. Very classy, very proper, not teddibly practical for riding over roots.
So at that point, there's only two players left at the table, me and that cyclocross course. It's eyeing me nervously, sweating a bit, trying to look cool. I have no idea what cards are left unflipped, haven't even looked at them, but I'm glaring at the course. It's now personal, and I'm going to beat the course, or go bust trying. I've taken this big stack of chips, and pushed them to the middle. Now we start to flip the cards.
Coming out of the woods it didn't take long to pass back the guy who most recently passed me. I got him on the ride up to the mushy hill. Up ahead of me on the mushy hill, quite a ways up, maybe 50 yards, I saw a tall DC Velo rider, a 55+ racer, I think - James ____? It was a big gap, but maybe I could get him before the end of the race. Figuring he (unlike me) knew what he was doing, I watched his line as he spun up the soul-sucking hill, doing the same thing except mashing it about two gears higher. This closed the gap to about 20 or 30 feet by the time he turned the corner to ride to the sand pit. Coming out of the same corner, I did a standing effort, closed the gap a bit more in the sand, hung it out in the turns onto the start/finish straight, and passed him going up the hill. This wasn't a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, I've got maybe 20 years on the guy, but I've usually been a fader in cross, not a strong finisher - here I was recovering and moving faster. Maybe it was some anger, maybe some adrenaline. Whatever it was, it was working.
The DC Velo guy tracked me pretty closely past the barriers but when we got into the double track, where I could rail the slippery turns and hammer through the woods, he was gone. I cought another guy in the woods, and then had a big gap to my front. In a haze of pain and anger, and positive surprise about this new ability to go faster and close gaps, I just kept my head down and kept grinding, losing the concentration only for about 10 seconds at one point before noticing some slackness, and recovering with a quick standing sprint out of a corner to get the speed and effort level back up.
I was alone from there until starting the last lap. Heading up the finish straight, a cluster of fast riders emerged from the woods. They would have been about a minute or 90 seconds behind me. I wanted more than anything not to get lapped, so I got after it hard from that point on, redoubling my efforts. That caused a few interesting moments. With the rain continuing the corners were really slick, so each corner was risky. I nearly had a second really hard crash in the woods, since with nobody in front of me I was carrying a ton of speed and sliding all over. Then it was out of the woods and into the field, and the guy I had passed right before crashing was maybe 75 or a hundred yards up, turning onto the muddy hill right as I started up the rises to get to the turn. I thought, "there's the carrot" and got after it as hard as I could.
The thought process at this point was pretty funny, the same mindset I go through on hard intervals. "It's two minutes to the finish. I can do anything for two minutes. It's all out until I pass that guy." When I turned onto the hill the carrot was about three quarters of the way up it, and mashed for all I was worth, taking the 55+ rider's smart line. When the carrot turned right off the top of the hill he was maybe 40 or 50 feet in front of me; too far. Coming out of the sand, the race leader caught up to me and asked for a line. I let him take it and told him to go get that next guy. If I was going to finish -1 on the results, I didn't want to be alone, I wanted the carrot to be there too. Coming into the finishing straight, I did a standing effort on the short downhill into the sketchy turn; carrying speed would be important if I was going to catch the carrot. Hitting the tape as I slid around the turn I noticed the carrot was still *way* ahead of me and it didn't seem I could close the gap but I put my head down, shifted up a few times, and went as hard as I could anyhow. I kept my head down and passed him about 6 feet from the line.
Maybe this wasn't an awesome result on the final results. For all I know, it's possible that I was staving off DFL in my class and narrowly avoiding DFL'ing to the 55+ guys. But some things happened that were really positive that really pleased me, particularly after last week's debacle at DCCX. For one thing I've *never* been able to close gaps and bridge in cross, but I was doing that yesterday, finding a way to do it (mainly on bike handling - do I have some aspect of cross I'm strong at? - and grinding not so hard but more consistently than usual). Second, I took some injuries that in the past would have knocked me out of a race but overcame them yesterday. Finally... maybe there were some glimmers of hope coming out of that race. Cross is funny, it takes away and sometimes it gives. Last week, it got a pound of flesh, and I wanted to throw the bike into rush hour traffic on Rock Creek Parkway. Yesterday, it gave me a bit of hope.
The tennis ball-sized hematoma on my hip and the fingers dislocated yesterday are an unpleasant reminder about the race but as I discussed last week, a big part of this is about progress, and the progress will remain after the fingers and hip heal up.
Other Coppis had nice races too, particularly Andrew, who took the 3/4 race, and Steve, who distinquished himself as usual in the M-1-2-3 35+. Not sure what Jeanbean did but I bet it was good. As usual, it was great to see my teammates and friends, and good to see PAX Velo out there with a promising new course. Keep the double track guys - it makes the whole course interesting.
My All Hallows race, in a nutshell:
At first glance, the course wasn't very impressive, involving a lot of tape in an open equestrian park, with a straight ride through a sand jumping arena. Follow the course around, however, and it leads to a Back 40 comprised of a lot of tractor path double track, and a twisty, rooty wooded section that rivals the more interesting bits of mountain bike trail at nearby Cedarville State Park. The twisty section had serious flow; you could hammer it at full tilt without hitting the brakes, providing you were the kind of person who is comfortable riding little mini-berms, looking for lines well ahead of schedule, and using trees as berms elsewhere. Combined with the open meadow half of the course, the course seemed really nice.
As the C's rolled out, it started to rain, alternating mist with a steady drizzle. The course was already wet, and the fresh rainfall would add quite a bit of squishyness to the front half of it, turning a 100 yard uphill slog on a squishy hill into a 100 yard uphill slog in partial mud. At 10, the Masters 3/4 rolled out with a field of perhaps 50 riders. The uphill grass start was a bit of a PITA. Since I was rolling casually, I didn't bother scrumming for a decent position on the starting grid, but just went as hard as I could from the back.
I kept contact with the long string of the pack for most of the first lap, until the string started to shred. Bill Schiecken apparently dropped his chain at the start, but caught up with me just past the barriers, and stayed there for a bit, so my fat ass will feature in yet another one of his excellent cinema verite vids, if the editing works out and his camera was on. Bill passed me going into the woods and I managed to stay on his wheel for much of the rest of that lap, until the mud hill anyhow. I picked a bad line near the top and ground to a halt, with the rear wheel spinning and had to run 10 yards and remount. Coming through the sandpit I flashed a Rock & Roll hand gesture (I was wearing a KISS jersey. It was Halloween. so no lectures, please...) and didn't pay enough attention to my line, so I immediately stacked it. A few people passed me there. Then something cool happened.
I've heard this axiom that gaps in cross never close, they only open. That has usually been true for me. However... once I got past the second set of barriers on the back of the course, and into this long section of slippery sweeping turns and tractor path, I was able to gap people behind me, and close up gaps to the people in front. I closed a huge gap on a guy in the really twisty section, despite the roots criss-crossing the trail, a 35% corduroy surface. In front of him was a string of several riders all holding a wheel pretty closely. I saw Bill or maybe one of the other Arrow Velo guys up there. I was back in contact with a group that had dropped me. This was simply amazing.
Would it mean anything at all to you if I said I've been dropped from a group in cross, but in three+ years, have never caught up to a group? My inner monologue was voicing the axiom about gaps and laughing like a maniac at that point. The guy I caught was getting gapped himself, however, and when we approached a little sandy uphill turn, I decided it was time for me to make a move on him, and maybe try to jump into the middle of that group, which was moving at an unacceptably slow pace through the woods. (Yes, the mountain biking is paying off in cross, bigtime, that such a move was even a possibility). So I stood up, launched a brief sprint and went rocketing past the guy on the left. I kept on the gas intent on closing the 20 feet to the group really quickly, to carry momentum and maybe get into the middle of it.
Unfortunately, I was on tubulars. This was a bad thing because the tubies just don't hook up as well as the clinchers do at comparable pressure. I think the cloth sidewalls aren't as resilient as rubber, so when the weight comes off them - like during a standing sprint effort - the tread takes longer to bounce back into full engagement with the ground. Whether my theory is valid or not, tubies are slippery under me when I sprint, and what happened next was sheer horrorshow.
As my front wheel crossed a forearm-sized diagonal root, the front wheel slipped out from under me in a flash. I went down really, really hard - like massive big rugby hit hard - and landed on a bunch of roots and rocks. The pain was like a lightning bolt.
I bounced up right away, cognizant of the fact I was laying across the trail and about to get hit. I got the bike off the trail, and then doubled over and hyperventilated a bit. A guy I'd passed stopped and asked if I needed help - evidently it was a pretty spectacular yardsale - and I told him not to stop, it's a race, I'd be fine. Then I tried not to cry.
I took stock for maybe a half minute. I could just about stand. There was something wrong with my left hand, like a broken finger or two, and I kept shaking it hoping the pain would drip out of the fingertips or something. And I could already feel a tennis ball-sized lump on my hip. I decided to quit, but then thought that I'd paid same-day registration fees to race - $20 plus $10 extra - and I wasn't about to quite after 1.5 laps if I could function at all, even if it mean soft pedaling in.
So I hopped on the bike and pushed off, only to realize my chain was derailed, the derailer was in the rear wheel and the chain was munged up between the derailer and cassette, and my STI's were clogged with mud and pointing inwards. So I hopped off, and using my good hand, got the chain unclogged, eventually managed to get it back on the big ring, and gave the derailer a tug. It looked lined up okay... we'd see if it worked. The STI's moved back into position with a few good punches and with a squeeze of the brakes it was possible to flick out most of the mud and leaf bits. While this was going on I lost maybe a minute, maybe two, and several people passed me. Not good!
Remounting, it appeared I couldn't really grip the bar with my left hand. The forefinger and thumb worked and the palm was okay to lean on but bending the ring finger and pinky, and to a lesser extent the middle finger wasn't really an option. So I rode up the hill and onto the course like I was gripping a tiny cup of tea, pinky extended. Very classy, very proper, not teddibly practical for riding over roots.
Aunty Mavis Demonstrates the Proper Method
to Grip The Handlears With a Broken Pinky
to Grip The Handlears With a Broken Pinky
So at that point, there's only two players left at the table, me and that cyclocross course. It's eyeing me nervously, sweating a bit, trying to look cool. I have no idea what cards are left unflipped, haven't even looked at them, but I'm glaring at the course. It's now personal, and I'm going to beat the course, or go bust trying. I've taken this big stack of chips, and pushed them to the middle. Now we start to flip the cards.
Coming out of the woods it didn't take long to pass back the guy who most recently passed me. I got him on the ride up to the mushy hill. Up ahead of me on the mushy hill, quite a ways up, maybe 50 yards, I saw a tall DC Velo rider, a 55+ racer, I think - James ____? It was a big gap, but maybe I could get him before the end of the race. Figuring he (unlike me) knew what he was doing, I watched his line as he spun up the soul-sucking hill, doing the same thing except mashing it about two gears higher. This closed the gap to about 20 or 30 feet by the time he turned the corner to ride to the sand pit. Coming out of the same corner, I did a standing effort, closed the gap a bit more in the sand, hung it out in the turns onto the start/finish straight, and passed him going up the hill. This wasn't a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, I've got maybe 20 years on the guy, but I've usually been a fader in cross, not a strong finisher - here I was recovering and moving faster. Maybe it was some anger, maybe some adrenaline. Whatever it was, it was working.
The DC Velo guy tracked me pretty closely past the barriers but when we got into the double track, where I could rail the slippery turns and hammer through the woods, he was gone. I cought another guy in the woods, and then had a big gap to my front. In a haze of pain and anger, and positive surprise about this new ability to go faster and close gaps, I just kept my head down and kept grinding, losing the concentration only for about 10 seconds at one point before noticing some slackness, and recovering with a quick standing sprint out of a corner to get the speed and effort level back up.
I was alone from there until starting the last lap. Heading up the finish straight, a cluster of fast riders emerged from the woods. They would have been about a minute or 90 seconds behind me. I wanted more than anything not to get lapped, so I got after it hard from that point on, redoubling my efforts. That caused a few interesting moments. With the rain continuing the corners were really slick, so each corner was risky. I nearly had a second really hard crash in the woods, since with nobody in front of me I was carrying a ton of speed and sliding all over. Then it was out of the woods and into the field, and the guy I had passed right before crashing was maybe 75 or a hundred yards up, turning onto the muddy hill right as I started up the rises to get to the turn. I thought, "there's the carrot" and got after it as hard as I could.
The thought process at this point was pretty funny, the same mindset I go through on hard intervals. "It's two minutes to the finish. I can do anything for two minutes. It's all out until I pass that guy." When I turned onto the hill the carrot was about three quarters of the way up it, and mashed for all I was worth, taking the 55+ rider's smart line. When the carrot turned right off the top of the hill he was maybe 40 or 50 feet in front of me; too far. Coming out of the sand, the race leader caught up to me and asked for a line. I let him take it and told him to go get that next guy. If I was going to finish -1 on the results, I didn't want to be alone, I wanted the carrot to be there too. Coming into the finishing straight, I did a standing effort on the short downhill into the sketchy turn; carrying speed would be important if I was going to catch the carrot. Hitting the tape as I slid around the turn I noticed the carrot was still *way* ahead of me and it didn't seem I could close the gap but I put my head down, shifted up a few times, and went as hard as I could anyhow. I kept my head down and passed him about 6 feet from the line.
Maybe this wasn't an awesome result on the final results. For all I know, it's possible that I was staving off DFL in my class and narrowly avoiding DFL'ing to the 55+ guys. But some things happened that were really positive that really pleased me, particularly after last week's debacle at DCCX. For one thing I've *never* been able to close gaps and bridge in cross, but I was doing that yesterday, finding a way to do it (mainly on bike handling - do I have some aspect of cross I'm strong at? - and grinding not so hard but more consistently than usual). Second, I took some injuries that in the past would have knocked me out of a race but overcame them yesterday. Finally... maybe there were some glimmers of hope coming out of that race. Cross is funny, it takes away and sometimes it gives. Last week, it got a pound of flesh, and I wanted to throw the bike into rush hour traffic on Rock Creek Parkway. Yesterday, it gave me a bit of hope.
The tennis ball-sized hematoma on my hip and the fingers dislocated yesterday are an unpleasant reminder about the race but as I discussed last week, a big part of this is about progress, and the progress will remain after the fingers and hip heal up.
Other Coppis had nice races too, particularly Andrew, who took the 3/4 race, and Steve, who distinquished himself as usual in the M-1-2-3 35+. Not sure what Jeanbean did but I bet it was good. As usual, it was great to see my teammates and friends, and good to see PAX Velo out there with a promising new course. Keep the double track guys - it makes the whole course interesting.
My All Hallows race, in a nutshell:
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