Holding Court

081413

Holding Court--He is moving like a Tremendous Machine!--What month is this again?

Last Saturday at the Mass Ave Crit I saw a form of awesomeness I can only describe as sublime.  In simple terms, Court Maple lapped a very strong field of masters racers on one of the toughest crit courses in the Midwest.  That is the statement I have heard from many people who were there.  I was there also and I can tell you it was a lot more exciting than that.  You might think it an aggrandizement for me to say this but that performance/clinic/show was Secretariat at Belmont in ’73.  For me at least.  I mean...who the hell does that anymore in masters racing around here?  

I don’t race much and I never get more than one state away if I travel but I have done some hard races and I have raced with some fast guys and most of the time...and I hate to say this...it is pretty boring.  Most races I do or watch are pretty much the same thing, whether it’s a 1,2 field or masters.  Start riding--couple of attacks--bring them back--counter--long solo break--bring it back--counter--small fast group gets away and either 1, stays away or 2, gets caught--three to go and calm before the storm--one to go and ramp it up--sprint for win or minor placing.  We have all done this many times.  We all do it weekly during any of the good “worlds”-type rides in Indy.  Most of us don’t mind that it’s somewhat scripted because, hopefully, most of us race or ride the “worlds” to test our own limits.  I do it because I enjoy pushing myself to see how much I can get out of my body and my mind.  I love the pain and the amazing ability of our minds to disregard it and go harder.  Most people don’t realize how hard you can actually go if you focus and push through that pain.  We are all capable of extraordinary things...in that context.  That we all have that ability, and that the fastest guys are able to harness it is what makes cycling so addicting and in some cases compulsive to many of us.  It’s eery.  It invokes something Higher in the universe.  It is Secretariat or Pele or Bo Jackson.  These are the things that are beautiful in the world.  There are lots of other things that are beautiful but Sport is Play taken to the next level and play is childhood and what is more wondrous than that?  

To see that dude (Mr. Maple) roll down the main straight at Mass Ave in the midst of his escape was inspiring.  Head down, eyes sucked back into his brain and ringed in fire, elbows bent, forearms parallel to the ground, normal Court-smile torn off and tossed to his daughters for afterwards...wow.  Loudest crowd noise of the day and start-line daylight fading quickly to black like a blanket of war-smoke settling over some pockmarked field in Belgium.  No shit...this was the type of environment that makes heroes.  I glanced up at the roof of a building across the street, at one point, and saw Superman throw up his hands in disgust and punch Batman dead in the face before flying off at Mach 4 with Super-Tears raining down over Fountain Square.  He knew he had just lost his mojo and was now just some guy in tights and a cape...like any other hipster in that weird section of the city.  

And to think that behind Court, or at this point more like in front of him, like some sort of bicycle time-warp...a Rosen Bridge?, guys like Weaver and Cox and Boggs and Dean and Brooks and Fritzinger and whoever else were chasing HARD to get back on terms!  Some of the people around me were quite verbal in their criticism of Zipp for so carelessly letting him escape but they were on the sidelines and probably didn’t even know who the hell Secretariat even was.  So their opinions were instantly sucked into the nearest storm drain and eaten by rats.  I think Zipp did everything right.  They sent their strongest sprinter into the break that Court FELL BACK TO after dropping their strongest pursuiter, presuming that the break would stay together with a bit of cooperation by those present (Weaver, Cox, Fritzinger, Maple).  I would have bet on that all day long.  That’s a similar mistake to the one made by Sham’s trainer at Belmont.  Run him hard from the gun and he’ll never make it to the stretch.  Well.............

I have ridden and trained with Court a lot in the past few years.  I know what he is capable of and so I know what to do when I’m with him in small-group situations on the road.  I know I cannot match him toe to toe (or, rather, cleat to cleat).  First of all, he has more natural ability.  Then there is the fact that his pain-sensors were removed accidentally when he had a tonsillectomy as a child.  And if that weren’t enough, he can counter HIMSELF when he is apprehended after an attack.  It’s nerve wracking and painful if he decides it is go-time on Tuesday nights.  These qualities make him deadly in a break of anything less than seven or eight riders.  And that is what doomed numbers two through four last Saturday.  

And now that you are endowed with the proper context of the Mass Ave Criterium Masters 40+ race, you can properly appreciate the aforementioned statement--Court Maple lapped a very strong field of masters racers on one of the toughest crit courses in the Midwest.  And I’ll add this:  You all should have known!  Did you see Indy Crit?  Do you remember the State Championship Road Race?  Did you see Parkview last year?  

And Court, I promise I don’t have a crush on you, man.  Just thought it a worthy subject and a helluva show!  

As for Motion Elite-First Internet Bank, Nick Torrance was second in the 3/4 race after nearly catching Gunnar following his (Gunnar’s) last-lap flyer.  That kid is good.  Both of them.  Nick is steady as a rock in any race he’s in and I look forward to seeing what he can do with the big boys next year.  Paul, Tom, and Turner experienced the wrath of that wretched course in the Pro/1/2 field where I think only about 15% of the field finished.  That was brutal to watch.  Becker is suffering from some mystery illness and we have requested that Hugh Laurie travel to Fishers to help diagnose him.  I know he is not really a doctor but he just seems so damn smart to me that I think he can help.  Schmutte has raced more this year than anyone and currently lies quivering in the corner of the Fit Area of the store...rocking back and forth and muttering loose-associations at his bike, which is very clean.  I think he’s done with the road for this season but has been mentioning Cross during his few lucid moments.  

I am very happy with the team.  It has been extremely rewarding to create this thing and watch it grow.  The guys and gals have been great ambassadors for the sport and for the store and many of them have improved exponentially over last season.  Next season I expect more.  We will be stronger in many ways.  There will be changes.  There will be more structure.  The reigns with be tightened.  It’s been fun having no pressure this year but this is a race team and it’s time to buck-up.  Stand by for some pretty cool developments with several of the teams that Motion supports....

As for me, I am really more interested in my yard at this point than going fast.  We went fast last night (under protest) because RJ came out and decided to do MT intervals at 35 MPH, which was so very fun.  That dude is strong.  Good guy.  Sort of grew up around us and is very humble and accessible.  Anyway that’s it for me.  I would like a vacation now.  

Spring 2013 Bike stuff

052313

"Dark have been my dreams of late...but I feel as one new awakened" -King Theoden

 

Dear ladies and gentlemen of the peloton,

Please let me take this time and regale you with some exciting tales of Spring thus far.  Spring is always a strange time of year for the cyclist.  Some years everyone is super fit and ready to race by March, and some years everyone is sluggish and cold and full of pot-roast.  This year I think that, despite the cold, snowy winter we had a LOT of people ready to throw down early.  We all rode the trainer way too much, listened to the same playlist way too much, and watched so many of the same Sufferfest and Spinervals videos that if I ever see Coach Troy out in the open, I will thrash him good…Ip Man style... with my Wing Chun skills.  (side note:  see that movie, Ip Man…AWESOME fight sequences and Ip Man was the teacher of Bruce Lee)  But seriously, all that trainer time and pent-up aggression has manifested as fast and motivated guys and gals who are ready to rip.  And there have actually been quite a few Team Heroes members racing so far this year...and getting good results!

So back to Spring.  Spring is a time when hibernating beasts wake up and begin looking for something to kill and eat…and also for someone to mate with.  We will be dealing with the former in this post.  For the latter please speak to any one of my employees, each of whom is single unless you count their bikes...and I think that they do.  So, bike stuff:  I think by now that everyone knows we have a new developmental team.  We initially called them the Cranky Carnivores because that is how recently awakened-from-hibernation beasts are generally characterized.  We recruited most of them from Bloomington, where they had been living communally in an abandoned quarry and surviving through the generosity of a kind old bearded savant named Festis who fed them raw muskrat and beet-juice.  And although not formally trained in the art of bike-racing, the boys had a sort of natural “pack-awareness” from the constant need to hunt (muskrat are crafty and fast).  They were also very fit from the beet juice.  Soooooooooooooo…we rounded them all up in nets (using beets as bait) and hauled them up to Fishers, along with a few strays we caught in West Lafayette, Noblesville, and at Marian College, plunked them down on bikes, gave them some kits and lime-green helmets and called them Motion Elite-Heroes p/b First Internet Bank (THAT name is real, by the way).  After they learned the concept of turning pedals in a circular motion, the rest came easily to them and they started winning almost immediately (four wins and counting and some Cat-2 upgrades in the works).  Also Ben Schmutte is undefeated at the venerable Hammerfest this year.  So please keep a lookout for the boys in blue and green this season…should be very fun!  And much thanks to the very kind sponsors who have donated much to the cause:  First Internet Bank, Driver Solutions, Indianapolis Gastroenterology, Scopelitis Garvin Light Hanson & Feary, BioVelo Fit, and the Heroes Foundation.

More on Motion Elite in a separate post later.  

So here are a few random observations/thoughts about some random things I’ve randomly thought about and observed this Spring: 

1.        I cannot do high-volume, high-intensity training for two months straight and expect to get anything out of it except dead legs and a pissy attitude. 

2.       Chris Welch Jr. will soon be faster than any of us will ever be ever in our lives and he is only 14.

3.       I used too much nitrogen on my lawn last fall and this spring and now I have to mow every 8-10 hours or I can’t see out of my windows.

4.       Hammerfest is really hard still.  And now with the Elite guys showing up it is more explosive.  I have yet to finish with the lead group on a ride on which I used to be a main protagonist.  Some of this is overtraining (dead legs the past three weeks) but those guys are freaking fast!

5.       The Fat & Skinny Tire Fest up at Winona Lake is the most pleasant, fun, accessible, atmosphere I have ever experienced in a bike race/festival.  Rob and Nancy Gast of Trailhouse Bike Shop are such great people!  Try to make it up next year if you have never been.

6.       Vince and Cindy Todd did a wonderful job with the Heroes Gala this year.  Really impressive stuff and it really inspired me to do more for the foundation.  I was blown away.

7.       I am continually amazed, grateful, blessed, and humbled by the people who support the store.  We are six years old now and things are going well.  It’s probably wrong that I take the store so personally but I really believe that this is what God led me to do and this place feels like an extension of me.  I am certainly not perfect, and am frequently grouchy, but I promise you that my intention is to create a sense of family and belonging here and all are welcome. 

8.       Every once in a while I feel like the roof may fall on us because of all the bikes we hang from the ceiling.

9.       Today, for the first time in almost a month, I felt real, honest power when I rode…so watch out.  I might be fast again soon.

10.   Bike fitting is a long process.  Sometimes it is frustrating.  But it is always rewarding when we can help someone be more comfortable on their bike and produce more power.  Every fit is like a chess problem.  We analyze, measure, and think about how a change might affect the fit later on down the road.  More often than not, a proper fit will make you faster!

11.   Logan Park is a hipster.  I almost said “closet-hipster” but then I realized that he’s pretty open about it.  Today he is wearing a t-shirt that he stole from a Barbie.

12.   Oliver’s hair is far too long.  Jack Tripper baby…

13.   Ben Schmutte cracks me up.  I think if I told him there is no way he could ever do a 360 tailwhip off the roof and land on a pile of boxes with a Tarmac, he would do it just to prove he could.

14.   Don Birch is ageless but his hip is not.  But even with that one leg stuck out in the wind like a jib-sail he will still rip your legs off 364 days a year.  He takes Christmas off.

15.   When Chris Clarke shows up for a group ride on the P5 you should have enough sense to stay in bed.

16.   Strava segments should only be bested on SOLO RIDES.  Everything else is cheating. 

17.   My wife is awesome.  I don’t know how she handles work, travel (a lot), the dogs, the house, my schedule, the unpredictable nature of my business, and my persnickety personality while keeping the most beautiful smile in the world on her face.  Amazing…

18.   I know it’s weird but I sort of miss how hot it was last year.  My legs work better in that heat.

19.   John From Cincinnati was a great show.  I don’t know Butchie instead.

20.   I really need to do some actual work now so I’ll save some more for the next post.

So that’s it for this post.  I’m going to write another one on recent results of Motion Elite and some race recaps but I sort of needed a warmup.  Some tempo…couple intervals.  It works with writing just like it does with riding.  Writing/riding.  Writing, riding, rhyming.  Good one…

welcome to spring 2012!

well, after a wave-like start to the year, in terms of weather and business and riding and running and all other manner of silliness, i believe i can declare that the season is open!  it is a happy time, like always.  there is a steady stream of sick bicycles making it’s way into the store.  we fix them and they leave to resume their duties as bringers of fun to their owners.  people are beginning to make their way in to purchase new bikes and gear and i can feel a wave beginning to form way out there beyond Noblesville and Fishers and even Geist, where the tooth-fairy leaves you hundred-dollar bills.  

roadies are the first riders to catch the wave.  they usually run into it over on Fortville Pike on the Mama Bear’s ride, or sometimes up at Potter’s Bridge, or even at the world-famous Boring Esde ride out of z-ville.  all winter they wander around in the cold searching for it with thick gloves and booties and a miserable countenance.  not finding it, and furious with cold and wet, they retreat to their basements and garages, and sometimes even their local bike shops to ride in place and watch videos.  IWBMATTKYT.  an ancient and terrible way to spend the winter, really.  i was never really much of an indoor rider.  you can ask anyone.  it is well known that i turn into a miserable ogre when i have to ride a trainer...early in the morning...without having performed my customary coffee/news/lounge ritual.  during those times i will not speak much and not even the sight of a black-eyed bieber will cause me to smile.  (we must rid the world of that thing)

so anyway the roadies.  they are the first to catch the wave.  i sort of caught it in february and rode it for a little while myself.  but it did not last long.  see, this year has been weird for me.  after last summer, we had a fall.  fall lasted about six months, completely bypassing the winter of 2011-12 and tearing straight into march as if that was just the normal thing to do.  by then it had built up a big enough head of steam that the only season that could possibly stop it was summer.  so that’s what happened.  spring tagged out and summer came barging in like gary busey on whatever it is he feeds on and put a boot-stomping on fall.  so march was summer.  but summer began it’s campaign so viciously it completely ran out of energy by early april and retreated back to columbia and spring tagged back in.  the first thing spring did was kick the recently beaten fall right in the jibblies and call winter to brag about it.  winter didn’t care because it had decided to take  some vacation time and was in columbia with summer...where the rum flows freely and the secret service tries to pay for hookers with amex.  

and that was essentially the way the season started, ended, started again, paused for shots of rum, took a month-long nap, woke up and drank irish coffee with gary busey, and, tonight, nearly drowned in broad-ripple because of thunderstorms and a broken water-main.  and between all of these volatilities, don birch somehow became faster than last year and logan park had another terrific wreck, in which his head became concussed.  also we hired him at the shop and he is just the most pleasant and well-mannered young man you can imagine!  

anyway back to bikes.  pretty much everyone got in way too good condition way too early this year except for me, which means that if.......you know what, never mind.  this thing is too long for any more anecdotes.  suffice to say, everyone has been riding a lot, tuesday sessions started way early this year, they are still the hardest ride in town, a lot of team heroes have already raced this year...multiple times, and i look forward to regaining some of my indomitable form sometime soon...maybe by the time spring rolls around this august.  

sincerely,

gary busey

Road Weary, a novella, chapter 1

Road Weary, a novella

Chapter 1

Today was not the day for this to happen.  Chris was already 10 minutes late to work and he knew they would be waiting for him as soon as he got out of the complex.  He had unwittingly used up his monthly allotment of Victory SMRs a few days earlier on a high-speed run to Walgreens for batteries and Milk of Magnesia.  And today was shaping up to be one of those awful days he hated the most. 

They seemed to come out of nowhere.  Every single time.  He had tried everything to evade them, or at least to stay ahead of them, but to no avail.  Even on the rare occasion that he could get out of the gates with a clear left-side view, they would inevitable be there as soon as he reached the next entrance.  Their behavior was both shocking and vexing.  But most of all it threatened his very sanity.  And it was for this reason that he had signed up for the SMR program. 

The problem he was facing, and he had been warned of this, was that he was constantly tempted to use an SMR on a sometimes less than eligible target.  He knew from the start that this would be a problem, though, as he was an impulsive person by nature…a FM in truth and action…and it was widely known that SMs and FMs are natural and mortal enemies.  They simply cannot coexist.  “Dammit,” he muttered as he feverishly scanned the road ahead for movement, “buggers are out there in force today…I just know it.”  The big V-8 rumbled along, quickly gaining speed as he approached the first neighborhood entrance just 400 meters down the road from his own entrance.  He hated the fact that he was gaining speed.  Hated it because he knew that the faster he went and the more time he gained would attract them even more.  SMs feed on efficiency.  They eat it.  They eat freedom and shit impedance.  “Miserable nits” he thought as he continued to scan the road ahead.  He had made it past the first entrance but that act, in itself, was progress and he knew…he could feel that they were somewhere up there waiting to roll out. 

Both he and the SMs were intensely selfish.  He knew this full-well.  The war erupted because both he and they were convinced that their selfishness was warranted and was, according to each party, better for mankind in the long-run.  He thought of the whole concept as a sort of Time Marxism.  After all, wouldn’t a society which was faster and more efficient, by law, be more free to pursue more creative and enriching endeavors instead of wasting away life driving around slowly and creating congestion in general?  Of course he had created his philosophy in a purely subjective frame of mind.  He was practically incapable of empathy or tolerance.  And he could no more understand the mind and motivation of a SM than they could him.  And in a nut, that is the reason why he was out of SMRs on this day.

Letter to Al--Hammerfest Report--Floss for Dummies

9/6/11

Open Letter to Al Standley

Dear Al,

Your pals and teammates wonder what has become of you.  We understand that you are dating someone.  We understand that you are probably happy at the moment.  We are worried about this.  It is a well-known fact around these parts that your muscles derive energy not from carbohydrate, but from rage and personal angst.  We are worried that your muscles will therefore atrophy and become like those of a moss-tooth carnival worker.  We wonder how we may aid you in this horrible situation, while sparing your dewy new relationship the awful display of your terrible bike-anger in an up-close and personal manner.  We know that you are probably lacking in real motivation right now but…

…hang on I have to review the rental car I picked up this morning while my truck gets Ziebart.

200something Chevy Malibu.  This is a horrible car.  The interior is so bland it makes me depressed.  The exterior looks like the pine box derby car I made when I was ten.  The stereo is like angry dwarves screaming into a steel drum.  When I press on the accelerator I feel a grinding sensation as the thing groans desperately for sixty in under thirty seconds.  In fact, the whole thing just makes me feel awful…like watching old reruns of Barney Miller or something.

So back to Al (I have my truck back now, complete with paint-protection and hood-film).

You know what?  Nevermind Al.  If he wants to have a relationship and get a huge beer-gut, let him.  But I don’t want to hear any complaining next spring when we are all having fun playing paceline punch-out at top speed while he’s dribbling away at the back like an old man trying to piss.  I guess our little baby’s all grown up…he’s FOUND that lovin’ feeling, whoooah that loooooovin’ feeeeeeling.  No matter…can’t fault him.  I found it also a couple years ago and married the chick.  But my riding style is such that I ride better when things go well in my life, unlike our hop-addled hero.  And so much for all that…

So, Al, cheers buddy!

Now in other news:  Hammerfest is all but done for the season, there are no more road races or crits of any consequence left, and silly cross season is looming.  This past Tuesday, there were all of eight of us at the start of Hfest and we decided to just go north and do echelon practice into the most awful cross-headwind I have felt in a long time.  I named it “Leviathan”.  This was a very difficult ride…difficult in a different way than normal Hfest.  Don, Damian, Mikey, myself, Jose, Ryan, and Court were all there.  Everything is harder when Court shows up.  With Court, it’s “no quarter asked for, and none given”.  We simply took turns pulling really hard for a minute or so at a time.  It was tremendously difficult just to hold your line and try to hide from Leviathan.  Mikey is the best at that.  He can literally shrink himself down at will and find shelter behind the tiniest of riders in the fiercest of winds.  I have seen this dozens of times.  Makes me laugh.  The weird thing is that he provides absolutely NO draft benefit to anyone behind him!  I don’t exactly know why this is because he rides pretty much the same as any of us…but when I try to catch a draft from him…nothing.  It’s like he’s a natural airfoil or something.  One notable comedic moment happened as Court was pulling at around 26 into a BLOC headwind and Jose tried to actually pass him and start a HERO-pull from second position.  He may as well have slammed into a sand-pit because we dropped 5 MPH instantly and all I could hear was a terrible gasping sound and cursing in Spanish.  He pushed furiously on the pedals, trying in vain to keep his cadence above 50 and his ass on the seat but it was no use…he was a goner.  I chuckled to myself as I passed him and took us back up to 26 until we got to Strawtown Road, where Damian and Ryan had the misfortune of taking us to Cyntheanne and the journey home.  The return leg was pretty much 30 to 32 MPH all the way.  I did the lead-out at the end and Don and Court sprinted it out.  Good ride. 

UPDATE:  It is now about a week after I started this screed.  I could not figure out how to go from Hammerfest to something else…and I really didn’t need to but I wanted to give a shout-out to my dentist.  So here is my transition to that:

Transition

So I went to the dentist today (Grin Dentistry, by the way—good people, a team sponsor, very hi-tec equipment, and Dr. Rick’s wife, Dr. Mundy-Burgett is the Chief.  In less than an hour I am scraped, polished, fluorided (not really a word), and x-rayed.  Very efficient and comfortable with massage dental chairs and TV in each room.  I was told, for the hundredth time to floss more.  I said I would.  But I will certainly not.  If everyone who said they would floss would actually floss, the people who make floss would be very wealthy.  And I know EXACTLY what that means… The floss industry would explode.  We would have floss-IPO millionaires, or “floss barons” if you will.  They would marry dimwitted and tanned young coeds and fly about the world behaving like the internet billionaires of the Twentieth Century, all drunk on power and gin but with healthy gums and Maseratis.  There would be marketing campaigns with high-powered celebrities looking glamorous and tan in exotic places with bikinis on…flossing.  MTV would create a reality show based on the ex-wives of the floss barons with lots of ruthless bickering about alimony and inflatable lips and all of them would passionately hate floss and their ex-husbands and cheap chardonnay.  But Snookie would love floss because it tastes “hot, bitch”.  Proctor and Gamble would buy Oral-B and create exciting new flavors and maybe even floss infused with green tea or acai berries or even laudanum.  Eventually there would be mergers and acquisitions of the various floss companies and antitrust lawsuits and the now behemoth floss conglomerates would begin to profoundly affect the US and world economy.  A congressional bailout would surely follow and it would cost us all a lot of tax money.  Finally it will be discovered that floss causes mesothelioma and cervical cancer and possibly rabies and pregnant women or women thinking of becoming pregnant will NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be able to touch floss or they may experience nausea, irregular heartbeat, and possible birth defects for their as-yet unconceived babies.  Then there will be many lawyers and class-actions and the floss companies will be investigated in Congress and 99% of the floss on the market will be recalled until a safe alternative can be investigated.  Then floss will be considered a Schedule II narcotic, which is the same class as morphine, oxycontin, and amphetamine.  Now the drug companies will take over the industry and floss will have to go through many phases of trials with animal testing before it can be placed on the market.  Prescription floss will be very expensive and highly controlled because of the potential for abuse. 

So as you can see…nothing good can come of this ridiculous floss thing.  And I REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE and make the world any worse than it already is. 

--Richterissimo

August 15

Wrap-up: State Road Race—Tuesday shmoozeday—Trigonometry for Bikers (or Mass Ave if you prefer)—and Thank God the 7 comes before the 9 now…

So the state-champs road race was possibly the greatest turnout (hang on…Patrick Cox from Taxmasters is on TV right now and I must stop and watch for 30 seconds because he is possibly the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen).

Sorry…anyway the state-champs road race was possibly the greatest turnout the Heroes Foundation team has ever had for a single event! (crap…sorry again but I can’t help but wonder if bed bugs have eaten off the left side of Patrick Cox’s face. Is that why he is always in profile on those commercials?)

So we had a bunch of dudes and my wife up in the Fort for the state champs. It was very hot and very sunny with a not-so-pleasant breeze blowing in from the west. Total elevation gain for the race was two feet per lap. Those two feet are an aggregate of the several inches we gained every time we went over potholes. Other than that…not much going on but lots of maize. (you call it corn, we call it maize…remember that commercial?) So like I said, we brought lots of people to race and many of them had never raced before which means we pretty much had like 10 guys racing 5s. I believe the only reason we did not WIN the 5s is that most of our guys simply did not have any experience with actual race tactics. They are all strong enough to win a road race…just not as tactically astute as the others. For this reason we are considering devoting the rest of the Hammerfests to teaching race tactics to those who want to learn. We decided to do this because anyone who can do Hammerfest and stick it for all six laps is fit enough to compete in their respective categories. And it is at that point where tactics determine how successful you will be as a racer. And THAT is when it gets fun! I will explain: someone who is barely fit enough to stay in the group during a race will expend most of their mental energy worrying about whether or not they can hang on when the pace goes up to 30, and for how long. This is NOT fun. Worrying like that depletes your adrenaline and turns you into a Piggy. BUT…when you are fit enough that you don’t have to worry about hanging on, you can focus on when and where to attack or what break to go with or how far back you want to be when the sprint begins or even when to eat your turkey sandwich, Damian. And when you can focus on those things instead of your fitness, you turn into a Roger…and Roger sharpens a stick at both ends.

So what does all that have to do with the Cat 5 race up in Fort Wayne, Indiana? I’m not completely sure but it was fun to think about. And that’s all that really matters to me. But the POINT! The point is that most of our guys can win races…they just don’t know HOW. Now I can remember when I started racing bikes back in 1993 I did well just by riding as hard as I could for the whole race. That was mountain bike racing. When I started doing road races, I learned really quickly that I might be faster than most of the guys I was racing, but they were all beating me. So I learned how to measure my efforts and make them count when it mattered most. That took about ½ of one race. I quickly learned who was fast, who could win solo, who could initiate a solid break, and who the gnats were. I learned NEVER EVER EVER to follow a gnat attack and never to allow a gnat to be in a break with me because their pulls are weak and their confidence is like soft butter. And speaking of confidence…it is muy importante. It is maybe the most important thing after basic race fitness. Someone who has no real confidence will attack and then immediately look back for reinforcements. This is not the guy to go with. The guy to go with is the one who attacks strong and does not care if you come or not. He knows full well that he is capable of starting something and simply HOPES that someone else will come up and help out a little. And if no one does, he does his best to stay away. If he gets caught, no big deal…at least he had the Pelotas to do something.

Right…I am spending too much time on this. The point is to go with that last guy and not the doucher.

So we could have won the 5s but we didn’t. But I believe we will next time if we spend some time teaching our less experienced guys how to race. Good stuff…

So we did well in the other categories on the whole. Jacob K, who has too many consonants in a row in his last name, got 6^th in Cat 3, I got 4^th and Langan got 6^th in Masters 35+, Ryan Tragesser, who races for Matthews but who we have adopted for road events, got 7^th in M35+, and Damian got very upset at the spare tire truck. Oh and Steve Down placed 15^th, Greeney 16^th, Tim Konrad 27^th, Jose Cisneros 29^th, Lee Jackson 30^th, Jeff Hess 31^st, and Ryan Nolting 34^th in Cat 5. I hear they tried to run a train several times but they created such a powerful draft that my Grandma Richter could have kept up on her adult trike. So next time we’ll get a better plan together.

The Masters race was really fun and Scott Moon took off from the gun in a throwback breakaway from the 90s that lasted all the way to the finish. I felt very good that day and attacked numerous times and finally got across with Court and a couple others. We stayed away and I cramped very badly but managed to stay in it until the end for fourth. Mikey got 3^rd in the field sprint which gave him 6^th in 35+ and Ryan T was right behind him. Good enough for a beer, brothers…

So the Mass Ave Criterium was a triangle. That’s about all I can say about that. I started the 1 / 2 race and pretty much immediately dropped out. My head was just not into it. This is the time of year when I start to get bored with riding all the time and the ol’ motivation just goes away. That race started at 32 MPH immediately with bumpy pavement and super tight corners and I just suddenly realized that I was not having, nor would I have any fun at all that night. So I pulled out and Hans bought me a beer and I thought that was a much better way to spend the rest of the evening.

Damian and Court did well in the Masters race and little Tommy Cox won the day. I saw him in the parking lot with a bouquet of flowers and a half-empty (or full if you are optimistic) bottle of champagne…which I think would have been the BEST way to spend the rest of the evening…but champagne must be earned, whereas beer can be bought, and I had friends with money but my competitive spirit has waned. So thanks, Hans.

I think I’m pretty much done racing now unless I get a wild hair and decide to do Z-ville, which is right down the street from my house. Yesterday I went out with Beth on cruisers and pedaled around JUST FOR FUN and it was great! We got about 10 miles in and my heart rate never rose above 120. I never felt any lactic acid. When we hit a headwind, I simply geared down and rode more slowly. When we had a tailwind, I tried my best to coast for as long as I could. I wore flip-flops and a t-shirt. I did not take a water bottle. We stopped at a friend’s house and said howdy and I didn’t worry about my legs getting “cold”. If we saw a cool neighborhood, we rode in and checked it out. We smelled barbecue and heard kids playing and birds singing. We talked about stuff without having to take a breath every four words. And best of all, my wife and I enjoyed riding together without me worrying about how much time I got in for the day and generally being a brooding, neurotic mess. I’m looking forward to that type of riding for a while. It’s not so hot these days, although it’s August and I know that can change. Today I have both doors open at the shop and there is a fine fresh breeze whisking itself around in here and telling me to loosen the screws a little…at least until cross season shows up and those weirdos start calling…

--Richterissimo

August 2

When I drove home last night I was cross-eyed. Hammerfest was terrifically brutal. Here is the way my mind remembers it:

Chaos! Lap 1: Gunshot and burning legs, too fast, very hot, Al and Court and Don go too FAST every freakin’ time on the first lap. No time to properly prime the engine. Al has his legs back. SW wind makes 238 very fast. Don’t like taking my pulls but stubbornness prevails. Swollen legs and who the hell is on the front?! Might quit this one after a couple laps and just ride slow by myself. 97 degrees or something close. Measure your ENERGY, MAN! ...and no hero-pulls. One, two laps done in record time and where in burning Hades is everyone?! Drop half the group in three laps. Long pulls down 238 on the false-flat going 27 up the hill and my torso is rocking left to right, right to left already...forearms parallel to the ground, hands hanging over the hoods, head cranked up as far as I can with eyes fixed hard and steady two guys up...don’t look at the wheel in front of you, just sense it and don’t overlap...but definitely stay close...no more than an inch or three. Echelon snakes right to left with tremendous wind and it’s really hard to hold a line. Huge rocky minefield all along the shoulder on this stretch and the noise in my ears is thunderous. Snipers firing from all directions...razor sharp boulders everywhere! Someone has booby-trapped this thing...they are hunting us with wind and heat and terrible, terrible speed. Across the bridge at 32 and hit the hill full-force and why the hell does it always have to be ME that gets stuck with the damned hill?! Stay in the saddle and drop a gear and pedal hard and keep the cadence above 90 and now there’s only like six of us left and it’s SO FREAKIN HOT! Around the corner onto 136th and you finished the hill, stud, so you have to start the 136th run so do your best to get back up to speed before you blow up and can’t get back on because Don and Court are next up and there you go...you made it. Down the hill and across another bridge before the double-tier hill past the rock-garden where Logan fell (Logan’s Run) and son of a B you get the hill again but it’s okay because it’s lap 4 and your systems are coming on-line now and the snipers have all gone home for dinner and a pull from the jug...get this thing in the books before they come back with worse aim but more aggression and blood-lust. Up the hill and through the S-curve and back up to 32 with a cross-tail wind and we are lapping people and some of them get back on and then they get back off and I think there are just four of us left now...Damian and Don and Court and Chris. Now on to Cyntheanne where we have headwind all the way but a little bit of a windbreak on the right side of the road. No matter...still fast and hard and HOT but it’s smoother now because we all know how to rotate well and that means a faster average speed.

Mind starts to wander as I think about this and realize that this is why a good break can gain so much time on a huge field...guys that know how to properly rotate and stay smooth can conserve so much more energy than the gnats that NEED to do stupid hero-accelerations when it’s their turn to pull just so they can demonstrate how strong they are when all they really do is disrupt rhythm and cause the guy in back of them to exert more energy than necessary thereby causing a chain-reaction of bad-craziness that eventually leads to a slower pace. Hero-pulls are for legitimately chasing a dangerous break or for keeping a break alive when it’s about to die. Hero pulls should be a minimum of 30 seconds to a minute...not five seconds of stupidity. Hero-pulls are NOT for just taking your turn in line when you have no intention of doing anything of consequence beside demonstrating your impotent vanity.

And enough with all that...my calves are cramping, probably because of my insistence on shoving my cleats all the way forward on my shoes because I theorize that by creating a longer lever and keeping it rigid with very strong calves, I can increase my torque on the cranks and produce more power. I am actually still convinced that this is partially true but my calves do tend to wear out when I go hard for more than a couple of hours. Jeff Frame says this is patently ridiculous and he’ll prove it to me with a 30-second Wingate test for max power with my cleats all the way back. I may take him up on it but I may not. I’m not sure I want to be proven wrong. And anyway it doesn’t matter now because it’s lap six...

...and it’s now just Don, Court and myself and Court just laid down a vicious run going down 238 to dump Damian and it took Don 30 seconds to get us back on. Thanks Don but you better grab some cover because the Billies are back and their gin-blossoms are glowing white-hot with the sort of rage that only the truly oppressed can muster. It’s all self-directed in truth but don’t get in their way...more dangerous than a starving wolverine (which will attempt to kill anything that moves, even a moose). Up 238 hill, around the corner, accelerate smooth, down the hill and across the bridge...up Logan’s Run and around the S-turn and finally on the back-stretch and headed for the last corner. Very sweaty now and I look back and we are already out of sight. I know full-well that I can usually out-jump Court or Don but I am full-on knackered and cross-eyed and I vow to take every last pull until the end because that’s what this ride is for...hard training. Headwind hits hard around the corner and we march down Cytheanne toward the church and the little bridge-hill and the 1K to go line and I JUST CAN’T GO ANY FASTER and the terrible screaming wind sounds like banshees chasing us to our doom. Then the anticipation as we get to 500 to go. I just go to the front to avoid any confusion and do my best to lift the pace to at least 27ish. We all sprint at once and my right sartorius snaps like a rubber-band and ends up somewhere in my chest cavity near my liver and I swear it would have been a photo-finish. I honestly don’t know who “won” and I don’t care. I am in oxygen debt for about five minutes and my tongue is weirdly stuck to itself on the underside because I have no moisture left in my mouth. Court’s eyes look like Schwarzenegger’s in Total Recall when they used that machine to generate an atmosphere and it took a little while and Quaid and that girl fell down the side of the mountain and couldn’t breathe and their heads almost blew up with their eyes the size of bloodshot oranges. Yeah...bloodshot oranges. And we call it a day.

Back home to a protein shake and bed. My awesome wife made dinner but I could not eat it because my stomach digested itself to feed my quads and hammies. She also made triple-chocolate brownies which were just coming out of the oven when I got home. She then took them ALL to work today to give to SOMEONE ELSE! (she promised to save me...two)

-Richterissimo