Bread and Circuses

So first the glorious life of a promoter. I spent some time tonight sorting out emails and getting an accountability of who is owed T-shirts. A bunch of folks failed to pick their pre-paid shirts up at my race. The T-shirt guy may have lost accountability of some, and in either instance some fucker lifted a dozen of them. Nice. So anyhow this is all a mess for a dozen or so people and the losses come out of the club's pocket, or at least half of it does, and we need to make some additional T-shirts to hook up a number of people who bugged me afterwards for shirts. The fuckin' headache that these shirts represent is incomprehensible to me. It's something I spend more time on, for less gain in terms of improvement of the quality of the race, and the profits are functionally nil once I'm done making up for theft loss, and cutting checks to the racers who are now apparently ueber pissed at me for getting T-shirts stolen and not mailing them or whatever after they failed to make the pickup while they were at the race...and now they want refunds and I suck.

I told you it's glamorous.

So anyhow, on to other professional items.

I noticed some comments from a prominent New England crosser ranting on Twitter last week about one of their races not getting UCI C2 status, while the Nacht van Woerden earned top tier status. This struck him as unfair.

If you aren't familiar with it, they raced Nacht van Woerden last Wednesday. Loosely
translated, I think the names mean Night of Scaring the Shit out of Pro Crossers. The course is largely semi-groomed, ill-lit singletrack, where the racers have to bomb out of the groomed grass and light into ill-lit drops terminating in sharp 180's at full speed. The pros find it scary as hell, but sort of exciting. Daphny van den Brand (sigh...) nipped Helen Wyman in the women's field, and Sven Nys took the men's race (with Jonathan Page in 7th).

Then Sunday they raced the SuperPrestige Zonhoven. Zonhoven loosely translated means "like storming the cliffs of Utah Beach except sandy-er and without being raked by machine guns." If we amateurs could recognize 6 nutty features via streaming media, then you can bet there were a dozen heart stoppers on that course.

There's huge irony here and maybe some bitterness as we in the US are reaching for technical excellence, as the Europeans, even in the C2 and higher races, are reaching for circus-like spectacles. So why is that? Why all the insanity in top tier races, when we have technically excellent races that can't get a comparable level of UCI sanction?

I have a theory that this is a bit like what what we faced in rugby about 7-8 years ago (roughly 7-8 years after the sport recognized a full time professional tier). It has to do with growing the TV market, and how that warps decisions about what is permissible, and impermissible on the field of play. Bear with me here.

At the top tier domestically in the U.S., semi-pro clubs with maybe a handful of scantily paid chaps, the refs were damned pedantic about what we did at the tackle - the ballcarrier goes down, then has to release the ball immediately. We didn't get a lot of slack.

How you're supposed to behave at the tackle, in the "ruck," is explained here and demonstrated with crystal clarity:



Notice how fast the ballcarrier puts the ball out once he's on the ground. That's what is expected at the lower level - tackle, set, release. Just fast like that and a failure to get your hand off the ball toute suite results in a quick penalty. That is exactly how the laws of the game are written.

Now watch what a pro can do in an international test match, and focus on what the Welsh player (in red) does at 13 seconds, and how long he takes to produce a set ball:



First, the Kiwis (in black) do a really good job of producing cleanly set ball, real fast. But then did you notice that the Welsh player goes down on the ball, regains his feet, is in the midst of contact, goes down again, and then the ball seems to roll back over 2-3 seconds, and Wales maintains clean possession of the ball? Did you also notice the result of that "cheating" - that Wales were able to launch a scoring attack?

Why are the technical standards looser on the pros - where you'd think tech standards would be tight - than on amateurs?

Treating some top tier events differently under the same set of rules creates different modes of play, and some of those modes of play are more telegenic than others. The amateur style ruck, with quickly set ball, is often disorderly. It is scrupulously fair - and it's a damn sight harder to hang onto the ball because a quick "set" often means the ball is bouncing around and not really still on the ground. It's hard to mount an attack when the thing you need to move and throw and chase, will not hold still long enough for you to place hands on it. In contrast, allowing the player a few seconds to place the ball back in a "continuous motion" permits the tackled ballcarrier to carefully set the ball, resist initial efforts by the defense to steal or poach the ball, and it leads to a more organized, neater, and more effective offensive attack by the ballcarrier's team. And scoring.

So WTF? Where is this going?

It's pretty simple. In allowing the top tier players to "cheat," the officials help create a product that sells well on TV, and to casual fans who aren't as hung up on the rulebook as serious fans.
More telegenic, of course, means more pleasing to the crowd. Allowing slack standards at the ruck is the kind of idea, like the proposal to eliminate offsides penalties in hockey, aimed at convincing casual fans to watch and get invested in the sport. I know a fair number of you are hockey fans, but can you imagine regularly watching 12-10 hockey games? You probably can't, but a lot of casual fans might find it pretty interesting. Purists wouldn't like it but maybe it would draw in more casual fans looking for a diversion, who aren't wise to a more traditional 2:1 defensive battle. In the search for telegenic sports action, the rules aren't the only thing that get crushed. The NFL has singlehandedly destroyed proper form tackling with it's high impact shoulder charge "tackles" and the NBA allows traveling in direct proportion to the marketing power of the star who is walking with the ball. It's all about the Benjamins...

That brings us back to cyclocross.

I suspect that part of the motivation for some of the crazy, mountain bikey features in top level cross (as in these two races, or the whoop-dee-doos at Ruddervoorde) is that perhaps top tier courses feature some unfair, spectacle-creating aspects to create interesting visuals that televise really well. Of course part of the deal is that when you have the best racers in the world collected in one place, you need to have a somewhat selective course - but that only explains basically hard courses, it doesn't explain gimmicks like the 60 foot sand dunes that caused tons of spectacular (but basically safe) endos at Zonhoven or the insane night riding at van Woerden. What explains them, is the need to create a scene that is a little different from the ordinary amateur race vista, to engage the fans and build the business of the sport.

Bart Aernouts (U-23 winner at Nacht van Woerden)
Struggling Through The Ill-Lit Places

Pauwels Makes Like Superman
at Zonhoven

That's my theory anyhow. There could be really petty reasons or maybe substantively good reasons that technically excellent US courses get the cold shoulder from the UCI while technical nightmares in Europe get warmly welcomed into the brotherhood... but it sure looks to me (an admittedly ignorant, total outsider) like somebody is taking TV marketing into consideration.

Some Random Music

Appropo of nothing... The Rev. Horton Heat with one of the better rockabilly / metal mashups. Very clever lyrics here.



Tom Waits has more cool in his cigarette butts, than any of us have in our whole selves.



Oddly enough, that lead to this:

You Don't Know Jack

Ultimately, we don't know jack about what's in another human's heart. We can think we do; they can share stuff with us and we can feel at home with them. But we just don't know what's in the heart's dark corners. I've recently come to grips with a couple of my own dark corners; I can talk about them now. It's not the end of the darkness in me. There are some places you don't want to go. Shit, there are places I'd rather not go right now. The dude that lives in there ain't so pleasant. But sometimes shining the light into those little corners makes us feel better. Maybe in doing so we can help out a friend and let them know they aren't alone, that others have struggled with something like they are facing. Then again, maybe it's a huge buzzkill for the share-ee.

You just never can tell. So if you're one of the friends who shared a deep-dark with me this week, or if I unloaded some of my load of venom on you... thanks for being a part of the week, I owe you one.

Here's a good secret.

There used to be a really great band out of Syracuse called Little Georgie and the Shuffling Hungarians. It is probably the greatest blues/jam ensemble you never heard of. George Rossi featured on the keyboards, and as I recall they had an interesting assemblage of guys and sometimes gals who would play horns and other instruments and provide swinging background vocals. Think Blues Brothers, but without all the comedy. They used to play around the northeast a bit, maybe got down Cajun way (there's a major Syracuse/Cajun connection for some reason...see, e.g. Benny Mardones). I also seem to recall them having a sort of regular gig at Styleen's Rhythm Palace, a place comparable to the Black Cat Club in D.C. or Chapel Hill's Local 509, just more locally focused (more like 509). They weren't cut out for fame & fortune; they didn't fit an easy record company mold. I think they'd do a lot better now with the iTunes Store... but there's no way of knowing.

Li'l Georgie has been out of circulation for a while. I don't know what his deal is but I miss his music badly. He's just good for the soul, right? But lately, it looks like maybe he is going to come out of his cave and share his considerable gifts with us. Gary Frenay - a NY pop legend - has talked him into playing a show at the Auburn Theater on November 24th. Funny, I'll be in the neighborhood around then... I may have to catch it.

[UPDATE: through the magic of Google-fu, I located Li'l Georgie. Here's his blog, and here's the story of what happened to him b/t/w the early Y2Ks, and now. Damn, he's had an interesting life in music; and I'm glad he's playing gigs again. I'll let you know if I hear about any albums.]

So here's what you missed if you never heard Li'l Georgie play on his first go-round, right after the band stood up:



This is what the band sounded like in barely-rehearsed, early, guitar shop-show form:



So-so video, mediocre sound quality... but you can just tell, cant you? If you're feeling a little Doctor John there, I'm with you.

There's a little bit of soul in this impromptu piece recorded a few months ago - maybe there's hope for a full time working reunion?:



Here's what George sounds like now - not sure where this is but he's getting the pump primed for sure:



Damn that's good stuff. And here's a good audio-only sampling. The Ballad of Li'l Georgie may be the best thing on here, but it's all good.



If you like that, there's a lot more here.



So not all my secrets are a buzzkill. Have fun this weekend, and if you're going to be racing cross, I *strongly* encourage you to legit freakout, and Unleash the Fury!

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The Hoogerheide Constant

A few years ago checking out World Cup or SuperPrestige Series CX results, Hoogerheide probably, I noticed something funny. A bunch of racers finished without a time. Or (-1). The best racers in the world were getting their asses lapped. Or pulled. Or maybe they weren't being scored. WTF? If that can happen at Hoogerheide, how can we escape it locally?

I've talked a little here about what we've tried to do with the Super 8 to address scoring and pulling problems. In discussions with promoters around the country, as well as with some of the top local officials (and in their discussions with top national officials) we identified some best practices that can help make the scoring go smoother, result in few lapped riders, and fewer pulled and non-scored riders.

So one thing you will notice is a lot of the Super 8 courses ride long. Pros / Cat 1's can expect to ride 8 minute laps on a lot of them. Cat 4s - not the sandbagging few guys at the front riding 9's but the mid-pack - can expect to ride 9:30's. Now this is not guaranteed - on a dry day you may ride faster; on a wet day slower; and some courses, despite being 3.5km for whatever reason will give you a 6:30 lap, while some 2.5km courses will yield a 9 minute pro lap. But the general rule is longer course, fewer scoring / pulling issues. It's easier for the officials to see who is coming by when they are all spread out, and on a long course, there is less pulling because there is less lapping. It's practically utopian, right?

Well, not exactly.

The long courses seem to come with other problems that we're seeing right now.

We heard about some race length issues at Nittany Cross. That fine race had a few races that went long, causing some scheduling problems for the officials. That's not a Super 8 race but it is in the MABRA region and word gets around. One or two of the races at Charm City - another MAC race - ran a bit long. So then at Tacchino, we had a masters race that got cut short. How did that happen? I don't know, exactly. But here's what I suspect happened.

If you are an official, a key job is to keep the day running on time. It's your job to calculate how long to let a race go, figure out an average lap time, then calibrate the race length accordingly using the lap board, usually starting with 3 or 2 laps remaining.

Cross presents a problem because unlike a crit, where the riders come around every minute or two, you don't see the lead riders for 7 or 8 minutes. Meanwhile, more mundane talents are circulating the course on a 10 minute pace, with a few lollygaggers taking longer than that to get around. Figuring how to make it a 45 minute race is hard due to the lap time variability and the fact that you have few samples on which to base your judgment.

Not only that, but course conditions can change rapidly, the whole race can blow up, or maybe the tete de corse figures out how to ride it and suddenly the lap times drop or rise by a minute or two mid-race.

So it's two laps into the race, you have a 45 minute race, and it's taken 18 minutes. You are administering a 45 minute race. You figure it's muddy, the racers will lose a minute or so per lap as the race goes on. How many laps should the racers do?

How about 4x 9 = 36. That's way too short. But the back markers will be coming in at something near 4x11, or 44 minutes - except for a few who are way back, get lapped and get their race cut short at 3 laps or so. That's right on time for overall length. But it sucks for the guys in front.

5x9 = 45. But the rear guard will be coming in at 55+ minutes. That is way too long. In addition to brutalizing the racers, that only gives the officials 5 minutes to finalize scores and get ready for the next race. This is likely to result in scoring errors as the officials hustle to get the next race rolling, and scribble madly to produce a score sheet reflecting the finish of 100 or 120 racers. Or worse, 60 racers in 4 categories, which is an enormous mess to sort out.

So a responsible official, with an eye toward keeping the day on schedule - because it's just wrong to inconvenience 350 other people to keep 100 people happy, may opt for 4 laps, and cut the race short. A bunch of people get pulled after a very short race, most of the field gets 40 minutes, but then a bunch of people in the front third of the race bitch on facebook about how the promoters are screwing them out of money by selling more slots in the same time period and raking in the big money. That isn't how it's happening, but that's what they think. Meanwhile, the promoter gets bombed with emails about how there wasn't supposed to be pulling this year, or how the officials (or maybe the harried team data entry guy) screwed up the scoring in the earlier race that they left to go long...

When you get right down to it, there's a certain constant of misery that maybe we can't quite get rid of in amateur racing. This is the Hoogerheide Constant - no matter what course of action you pick, there will be a comparable number of hacked off racers. Longer laps just force a different set of unpopular decisions.

I don't know how other series are working on it; the one I'm affiliated with is having some discussions about how to cope with it. But it's clear that in opting for long courses (and other scoring improvements like left side(and sometimes shoulder) numbers, officials stands and the like, we've merely shifted the way the misery occurs. Guys are still getting pulled weirdly, mis-scoring still occurs although in a different way, a few of the races have been too short, and the world remains imperfect. Complicated scoring systems are unworkable, chips only work until they don't - and then you're reliant on a failed piece of technology and your whole results spreadsheet is worthless. And even at the best event in the country, some folks didn't get scored right this last weekend,that's with one of the best scoring teams in the country.

I think I've identified what we're up against.

I submit to you that there is a number - the Hoogerheide Constant - which is the lowest non-zero number of racers in an event who will feel screwed by the race length, pulling activity or scoring. My theory is that you can improve race management a lot, but you will never run a race that has fewer unhappy riders than the Hoogerheide Constant would suggest.

I suspect that other race series in the area are working on dealing with this; grass roots efforts like the Sportiff Series should be able to address it really well because keeping the scale of the race manageable simplifies scoring and the officials' race management duties. Big race series like MAC and increasingly the MABRA Super 8 will have a larger array of problems just by virtue of numbers of racers; there is more ability variance (and lap time variance) in a 125 rider field than in a 70 rider field; and recording all those numbers each lap is roughly twice the work in the larger field. But no matter how small or large the race, I suspect that nothing can eliminate the race management issues faced by promoters and officials. If it happens to pros, it will happen here.

The Hoogerheide Constant: you can't beat it, you can only hope to contain it. And that's what we're working on. Keep griping - respectfully please, not dickish accusations of profiteering - but keep griping because it lets us know where the problems are that we need to keep trying to fix.