I watched MNF tonight until the Pats managed to eek out an insurmountable lead. That took about 7 minutes of play. Rex Ryan = mighty big talk for a two-eyed fat man.
As much as I enjoyed watching the Giants crush Washington yesterday, I really don't like seeing the Redskins this down. It's bad football to watch, and it doesn't do the NFC East any good to have two patsy teams to walk over; football teams lose their edge if they're not pushed hard real regularly.
So instead of MNF I watched High Plains Drifter. Hadn't watched that in a couple years. I'd forgotten what a great film it is. Also, what a bunch of complete, irredeemable worthless bastards the townspeople were, except for the little man, and the adulterous kind woman. They were somewhat redeemed.
You know what the difference between me, and the UCI is? If I screw somebody over at my job, there's a pretty damn good chance I'll be held accountable.
You know what another difference between me and the UCI is? If I have a conflict of interest in something I'm working on, particularly a clear and well-known-to-me financial conflict of interest, I recuse myself.
Final question, you know what the difference between me and the UCI is? I've run for club office, so that means as many as 20-30 American cyclists have had a chance to vote on whether I should be running things.
Adam Myerson is a cool guy who's done great stuff for cycling but I don't worship the dude. And the rules is the rules. Still, I think he (and a lot of promoters, and a lot of cyclists) are getting boned by the UCI's selective policy of enforcing some rules against some people without warning, yet giving warning to others who appear to have closer financial ties to UCI management. You'd think that the goal of international sports sanctioning bodies would be to grow the sport, but to the extent I have direct knowledge of what they do - in two different sports now - I am thinking their true purpose is to cartelize their sport and use the sanctioning bodies to protect their own personal financial interests, and to keep their power centralized as the gatekeepers who can enact barriers to entry into the sport. And don't think the national sanctioning bodies are immune from this habit.
I go back and forth pretty regularly in my mind as to whether this is the year amateur 'cross collapses under its own weight. I think it will do fine if we focus on keeping amateur racing fun, and make our events pleasant to attend. I think it will crash down if we let formality and roadie stick-up-the-hindquarters seriousness get piled on top of it. Too much aggro in cross right now; time for promoters to use the off season to figure out how to make it better. I suspect the sanctioning bodies aren't going to be much help here.
6 comments:
You had me from "two-eyed fat man."
FWIW, I've never experienced stick-up-the-hindquarters seriousness in road racing to the degree I have racing cross. This is my rookie season in the sport. Leaving for nationals this afternoon. We'll see if my rookie season is also my last. Because the cool cross racers are the guys I race road with. Too many of the rest are assholes.
You got yer "top down" pressure and you got yer "bottom up" pressure. The two seem to arrive in tandem, but for the average racer, the bottom up pressure is the greater scourge. Fatmarc does a good job with the top down aspects. The bottom up part? I'd guess the scene just has to evolve to adapt to it. Many social/societal things (housing prices, stock market indexes, bars and restaurants, etc) seem to follow a rule of over-growth ("everyone's doing it," "you can't lose," "the lines are out the door") followed by a reversal past the mean ("short sale," "I can't believe we ever like that place," "TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON! TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON!!!"), finally followed by a reversion to some identifiable historical mean trend line. I mean, let's face it, a bar that's great when it's a manageable crowd of regulars then sucks when/because everyone starts going there, so people stop going, it stops sucking, and people start going again. Cross has plenty of capacity to accommodate more growth, it's a question of whether the old guard can handle/adapt to the new, and whether the new can handle one another - mostly the latter. The guys who got here 5 minutes ago often work so damn hard to out-cool/out-cred the people coming in the door. It'll survive.
The UCI on the other hand? Complete douchenozzles.
PS - I do not in any way implied, expressed, or otherwise purport to be any sort of "guard" whatsoever. I've played both roles in the "you kids get offa my lawn" passion play in other things, but not here. I just try to avoid flat tires.
I feel sorry for the guys at the top who could benefit from more UCI races on the East Coast, but in reality, UCI status has nothing to do with whether I go to a race or not. I'm sorry Ski B J has run into some a-holes - my experience has been the opposite. It's been race hard and have a beer with the guy who beat you by 10 feet. And the guys who are really good help the back benchers (like me).
@ Chuck: Guys who saw NORBA rise and fall are anxious - and they've been around forever. Those of us w/t 5-6 years in - who remember being able to register for Cat 4 on the day of - are anxious. Guys who got here last year - are anxious. The fact that a lot of people are anxious means maybe we can preserve the vibe. We'll see.
SkiBikeJunkie - you live in Boulder Jr., or a place that's trying to be like that, right? Where I live there are plenty of Type A assholes and we (I'm one in many ways) are really extreme examples of the breed. Many of us race cross. One side effect of living in this kind of place (The Uff Da: Can't spell Douchebag without D.C.) is that even a lot of us Type A assholes try to emulate mountain bike racers and be cool at cross races because the alternative is horrible and we ride and race in large part to get away from the douchebaggery. True quote from a guy I raced earlier in the year and shoved repeatedly to keep from passing me on the starting straight going into a 90 degree turn: Him: "Sorry about trying to pass you there. You were right to shove me; there was no line." Me: "Yeah. Nothing personal. If I let you by, you were going to crash and if you crashed there the whole pack was going to eat shit." Him: "I'm really sorry." Me: "No big deal. Just racing. See ya next week."
The thing to remember is keep the aggro between the whistles, between the tape, between reasonable bounds, and between yourselves. Once the race is over, time to be friends, have a beer and laugh about it. Beer softball, with fitter athletes.
Tom: I'm totally with you on your analysis. UCI course standards, UCI starting protocol, UCI rules (generally); but skip the UCI sanctioning. Holy crap, does that ever not look like it's becoming Not Worth The Effort for us Type A / Slacker / Low Level D.C. Douchebag Promoters.
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