great uncle pappy's cycling almanac

Zoologist, Triathlete, Idealist: Gone

2010-09-22T08:19:00.012-04:00

Natasha Pettigrew was from Maryland.

She made sure to insert the definite article when mentioning her alma mater: THE Ohio State University.

She was brave and strong enough to ride her bike before the sun rose.

She was beautiful and smart, and only 30 years old.

She cared enough about the world and her country to run for office, and not just any office: the US Senate. Even if she stood no chance of winning.

In the same manner, she earned her BS in Zoology, even though she stood no chance of supporting herself as a zookeeper.

In a fiery column promoting her candidacy, she wrote: "How effective a representative can I be if I must wait 20 or 25 years and have had the opportunity to become set in my ways or suffering health issues that preclude me from getting out and really visiting my constituents, all of them!!!"

Christy Littleford, 41, driving a Cadillac Escalade, struck Natasha on this corner, sometime around 6:00am on September 19th:

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Littleford admitted to police she knew she had struck something, but told the police she thought it was "an animal," and said she did not stop. A witness at the scene, however, saw the Cadillac stop.

Only after Littleford reacher her home, four miles away, dragging Natasha's bike, did she call police. Some reports have her calling police "sometime before 6:30am," others "four hours after she arrived home."

Natasha died yesterday.

Professional Athlete with World's Worst Physique Guilty of Doping

2010-09-18T07:14:00.004-04:00

By now, you've read the Cyclingnews article, Stevo's comments and maybe some other things about Jonathon Chodroff's purchase of EPO from Papp's online store.

A few things about Chodroff:
He raced the Tour of Millersburg in 2007 as a Cat 2 and won the TT, but not by a huge amount.
His racing age is 25.
He went to Yale, where he was a rower.
His grandfather was a prominent dentist who suffered from cancer and died from cancer in 2007. His grandfather was intensely interested in Jonathon's cycling career.
His blog during his cycling tenure is here.
He won his first pro stage race, and the first race won by OUCH, enlisting the help of Bobby Lea in his victory.
He put out 415 watts for 28 minutes at the Valley of the Sun TT in 2008.
Riding in China earlier this Summer convinced him that "he didn't have it" and to retire from cycling to go to medical school.
He purchased EPO when he was a Category 3 racer. He presumably used it then, and later.
Thus far, he is the only one of Papp's customers to step forward and admit guilt. There are, it has been suggested, approximately 187 others who purchased EPO but haven't had to balls to step up and admit what they did.

I'm not worried that the guys who beat me in local Cat 3 races are doing it "on the juice." In fact, I'm pretty sure almost all of them are clean. I see how hard they work, and I recognize that I'm not at the kind of sublime level where being beaten by dopers even matters.

But take a talented kid like Nate Wilson who just announced he may step out of road cycling--he's competing directly with guys like Chodroff. How can we advise him to stay in the sport, knowing that even our best and brightest--Yale grads, for God's sake--resort to juicing?

I'm not sure I'd advise Nathan to continue to ride his bike...on the road. On the one hand, the kid can ride, and it's great seeing talent. On the other hand, if Nate's talent is obscured by no-talent ass monkeys like Chodroff, maybe it's time to join a band or take up spelunking, or writing a proper blog with punctuation and capitalization.

Near Hit Caught on Camera

2010-09-16T11:11:00.004-04:00

Two weeks ago some DVR shlumps rode the Civil War Century.

Now, I've never done this particular century. Frankly, I've never understood this region's (and by that, I mean everything south of Illinois) fascination with all things Civil War, or Second War of American Independence, or War of Northern Aggression--whatever your particularly lunacy deems it.

I'm not a fan of the kind of historical revisionism that leads people to obsess about the Civil War. It's usually white Southern men looking for an excuse to put the Confederate Flag somewhere on their pickup. To me, it's a symbol loaded with meaning: sure, you can call it a symbol of pride to one group of people, but it's also a symbol of tragedy to another group. Like Tim Brown's mustache.

But I respect the idea of riding a bike in just about any context, so I won't piss on my teammates and the Civil War century, which, after all, is about an event in American history, not a glorification of the ol' South and its grand old white folks.

However, I can't help but associate the flag-waving southerner I find so distasteful with the kind of behavior witnessed by my teammates during this ride, shown in this helmet cam video taken by Marcus:

Putting Cyclists in Danger from pulpVcious on Vimeo.

The brake lights go on, and a rider has to swerve around the car to avoid running into it. It's a deliberate message from the driver to cyclists. This isn't a random ride on a random day: it's an organized century, with hundred of bikes on the road. There should be no debate about who is in the wrong: the driver is wrong, and he should be punished, preferably by being made to ride a bike through DC in rush hour every day.

Isn't it strange how the law punishes drunk drivers who strike another vehicle and take a life, through mere negligence, but there is no punishment for deliberately stomping on one's brakes and committing an act that, through chance, happens to not harm anyone?

The discussions that inevitably take place when a cyclist is killed by a car assume a kind of symmmetry: the driver is at fault; the cyclist is a fault. The truth is--there is no symmetry! Cyclists won't kill anyone but themselves if they deliberately ram a car; drivers of cars will kill cyclists if they intend to do so. Thus, a cyclist cannot commit a deadly act, while drivers of cars can.

Ours is a kind of asymmetrical warfare, and the temptation is to use the weapons of asymmetrical warfare: sabotage, mob justice, and terrorism. The best we can do, usually, is curse and slap the side of cars with our fists. And that is the difference between us and cars, because they can make their message not only heard, but felt.

I like the following exchange between a cyclist and a driver. The cyclist engages his truck-driving adversary with a debate about tax structure and jurisprudence.

So what can we do, aside from arguing tax code at the top of our lungs?

I'm not sure.

Imagined Monologues: Laurent Fignon's Ghost at Turkey Day

2010-09-13T10:18:00.004-04:00

What a pity that no one can see me here in the midst of the pack. I wear no helmet, and I have a glorious head. I still wear my beloved spectacles that never fell even during the most furious races.

I lost much when I died, most notably the pain of my disease. But I gained much more than I lost: my beautiful ponytail has returned, my young legs are back, and, most of all, the guilt and suffering of my disease is gone. The Grand Tour of Life is finished.

But I was talking about how you should see me here in the pack without my helmet and my hair flowing as it once did, in its full shock of magnificent creamy blonde.

Here is another attack! Harley goes, and is matched by NCVC. A split, and this is sure to stay away for some time.

But now the field chases--Harley chases down the break, and it is sure to come together. Here an ABRT fellow disregards Bobby Phillips' advice and tackles the potholes; a tremendous explosion, with steel and bits of parts flying everywhere. His saddle has exploded! No one goes down.

The mist falls, but my mane sits unperturbed, immortal. I have no need of tucking, of aero bars, of heart rate monitors, of bulbous helmets--of any device to fight the elements. It does not concern me, nor does time.

Eight seconds to LeMond. A curved bar and an egg-shaped helmet. An American in American style taking the Tour from a Frenchman losing the Tour in French style.

They say my hair slowed me down, that if I'd cut it, I'd have won the Tour that year. Samson's story inverted, I suppose you could say.

I'm sorry to see these helmets. Of course, safety is important, and these boys must work for a living; they aren't professionals. But I want to see them as people in their suffering and anger.

I heard a scientist once give a talk on the suppleness of our faces: our ancestors needed faces, not masks, to speak to each others' hearts. We are not ants with hard exoskeletons leaving scent trails everywhere, Hinault excluded, naturally. It is a shame LeMond hid behind his Oakley welder's glasses, that others followed, that they put on masks to hide their souls.

That is what we do, by the way, we dead. We are voyeurs of the souls of the living. We watch that part of the self that is immortal when it is mortal, just as you living spend your time watching the many deaths of the living: sex, violence, games, and bike races.

What did I say? The break has been brought back. There is Chuck Hutch charging across. And now he tries to recover, but he has burned one too many matches I think. They swarm at the finish and he is pipped by a working man from ABRT.

C'est la vie, no?

Rugg Report: Green Mountain Stage Race

2010-09-07T12:49:00.005-04:00

Last year, our man Rugg held the KOM jersey for all but one stage of the Green Mountain Stage Race. This year, he competed at the top level with Ted King, Reid Mumford, the Kough boys.

I'm not sure what happened; I haven't had a chance to chat with Rugg, and I'm assuming he's returned to his hybernational state in his kryogenic decompression chamber for hyperbaric synergistic re-Ruggification.

All I've done is browse the results. With Rugg, there are usually quite a few things that happen that do not show up on the results page. As all MABRA-ites know, racetime events for Rugg include but are not limited to the following:
-a million attacks,
-strong language,
-heavy breathing of a kind not inspired by exertion, but more like the kind heard on the end of anonymous phone calls,
-shitcore,
-justice flowing like a mighty river, and
-the wholesale slaughter of farm animals.
Obviously, I'm missing the story, and full Rugg Report is a forthcoming necessity, which I will pursue with all vigor and courage.

In the meantime, let's look at the results:

Prologue
Result: 19th
Probable Cause: quintuple flat tire

Rugg performed at the expected level, nabbing a top 20 in a very difficult TT. As a team, Harley put three riders in the top 20, which is extraordinary for an amateur squad. The failure of five tires to withstand Rugg's refusal to stop "peeling out," and laying rubber tracks in the road and causing his tires to explode from excessive wattage-producing friction nothwithstanding, Rugg did what Rugg do.

Stage 1
Result: Basically, last
Probable cause: Bear attack

In stage 2 Rugg underperformed. The probable explanation is freak bear attack or freak Rugg bear attack. Either way, a bear was involved, and either Rugg or the bear instigated the conflict. The old saying, "I went to see Rugg bike race and a bear mauling broke out" was surely validated by this stage. Another observation is that the bear may have been a freak (for attacking Rugg), or Rugg, a known freak, may have turned on an innocent bear. Secondhand reports of Rugg complaining of "lack of lovemaking bearskin" in front of his lodging's fireplace remain unconfirmed, as do reports of the attack being set off by "bearskin Rugg" jokes sparking the conflagration, prompting Rugg to actually go out and procure a bearskin rug, and then ride through the peleton actually carrying and pointing at the bearskin and repeating "THIS is a bearskin rug" repeatedly.

Word is not in whether a lovemaking bearskin rug was subsequently found at the Rugg domicile.

Stage 2Result: Basically, last

A herd of kitties, stranded in trees along the edge of the race rount, required Rugg to either climb the trees or fell them with a might kick, and then fill his pockets with the fiesty creatures. Rumor has it that he personally stashed forty seven in his jersey and chamois. He even discarded his water bottles and thrust two in his cages. "Every kitty is precious," said Rugg after the race, "and I can always win a bike race, except during rutting season, when the musth comes over me."

Stage 3: 9th

Although Rugg finished in the top ten on the stage, he did so without the benefit of pedals, preferring to groove to the beat in a boom box lashed to his Trikke 3-wheeled carving scooter.

GC: Dead last

For his efforts, Rugg was awarded the lantern rouge of the race. Unfortunately, the race awards no official jersey, so Rugg slaughtered race organizers and wreaked death upon the countryside, and then visited Ben & Jerries for a free scoope of its newest flavor (made of raw meat, with chunks of marrow, incidentally): Ruggday Bloody Ruggday.

Newton's Bike-Universe and the Infinite Descent

2010-09-03T08:38:00.007-04:00

Think of the universe as a bicycle...how are the planets in continual and seemingly permanent motion, always gliding downhill without seeming to pedal? How is this possible, since no mountain descent lasts forever?

This is Newton's theory: the universe lurched into being when some cosmically massive explosion of energy topped out the universe's Powertap and set the cosmic bicycle coasting for billions of years. Sadly, it will eventually run out of energy and the long downhill of the universe-bicycle we've been riding will end. In Newton's world, the great first P-tap buster, first cause, the clock winder, the projectionist who started the film--this is called "God."

I bring this up because this morning, Stephen Hawking is the most talked-about trend on Twitter.

People are talking about Hawking because, in his new book, he argues against Newton's bicycle-gliding-downhill-universe theory. "The universe," he writes, "can and will create itself from nothing...It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going."

Hawking's a scientist, not a theologian, and his statement is not theological; that is, he doesn't argue that God doesn't exist, rather that God is not a necessary explanation for our existence.

Bring up God and suddenly people get touchy, because 90% of us believe in God. We require him in our lives as a psychologically and philosophically calming explanation and friend. If God, as Hawking states, was not really necessary to start the universe, then is he really necessary to keep me winning on the gridiron?

This frightens people--a fear, I think, which is rational.

The idea of God is a way to deal with uncertainty, and life is full of uncertainties. What we're really saying when we say "insha'llah" or "God willing" is "...we'll see." A statistician would simply say, "we lack insufficient data." In other words, God (or chance, whatever words suits you) works in mysterious ways.

In a way, including the will of God in any explanation of events is an admission of agnosticism, because it's an insertion of skepticism into a belief. It's mental humility, admission of the unforeseen black swan. Reaction to Hawking is, therefore, not necessarily anti-science (as the Christopher Hitchens / Richard Dawkins crowd sees it) but skepticism, and what is skepticism but science?

The developing world is far more religious than the developed world; what but the uncertainty of poverty explains this greater religiosity? People trust in the supernatural because nothing on this natural world makes any sense. And their trust is not necessarily belief, but hope. When they posit God, they posit hope and ultimate explanation.

This was Newton's great contribution to us, in the end: confidence that the natural world can be understood. We no longer need to be skeptics, but can trust in a cosmic order as regular and predictable as a bicycle.

Bicycle races, far from being predictable, inspire profound uncertainty. "There are no races," said Anquetil, "only lotteries." If only winning were as easy as coasting down an endless slope. But it is not.

The universe? God only knows.

Restoring Honor...by Dropping a Few Pounds

2010-09-01T08:37:00.012-04:00

This weekend my brother was "restoring Homer" (or "Homeslice," as he is known to Unholy R.), while here in DC a crowd of visitors was "Restoring Honor."

It got me thinking about history, which is as sacred in the minds of DC's weekend visitors as Betty Crocker classics such as marshmallow-grape salad:

What happened to Salisbury steak? What happened to the meal my neighbors referred to as "shit on a shingle," (i.e., chipped beef gravy on a slice of bread)? Where did Snausages, devilled eggs and creamed corn go? And, oh, where went our honor?

Well, it appears to have gone right to the hips of the lumbering pink beasts who piled out of SUVs and onto the Mall lawn, because they claimed uniformally to be the ones bringing it back.

They came draped in flaggy splendor and portaging lawn chairs, like pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock and causing it to sink under their prodigious heft, like westward pioneers in king-sized Conestoga wagons, complete with cupholders the circumference of basketballs, heaved across the plains by genetically mutated oxen capable of serious wattage.

They came to bring back something from America's past that has been lost: what they called "honor." Does this word "honor" mean something literally from the past, or is
it just a word to describe something they feel about the past?

Well, let's see. A country's history is a history of its people. It is, to a lesser extent, about its policies and its politics.

It's unlikely that the pink herd of honor restoration wishes to restore politicians from the past, since past Americans include myriad a-holes: Presidents getting it on with (not to mention, owning) hot slaves, Dixiecrats, Joseph McCarthy, Huey Long, forgettable presidents from Ohio, and Representative Preston Brooks bludgeoning Senator Charles Sumner with a Gutta-percha cane on the Senate floor.

Nor is it politics from the past, since our parties are sordid messes, full of "log cabins and hard cider," the yellow press, Klan candidates, duels between Vice Presidents and cabinet members, and Know-Nothing movements.

Nor can it be policies, since slavery, voting rights for women (and men), ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, the land grab in California and New Mexico, internment camps for Japanese Americans, and the labyrinthine structure of the BCS bowl system are better forgotten than resurrected (even if some still exist).

Clearly, our past is full of dishonorable persons, activities, and policies. What kind of restoration are the pink behemoths after?

Perhaps honor, for them, is some kind of aesthetic. As if, in the grocery store, the aisle is stocked full of different "America models" from 1776 to the present. Not only is each past America known and fully packaged, it is available for sale and purchase.

"History," says Tolstoy, "has for its object not the will of man, but our representation of it." If Tolstoy is right, then the historical legacy of honor is an idealized one, more reflective of present psychology than the actual past.

I'll admit I have a notion of past honor. Take a look at this picture of President Kennedy and his advisors:

Admittedly, this is just a photo of guys. They look studious, smokey, and surprisingly thin.

To me, there's an aura about these men that somehow seems honorable.
They never considered laser hair removal.
They never set aside Thursday nights for catching up on Project Runway.
Jogging had not yet been invented. Neither had the female orgasm.
They could enjoy Eddy Merckx's cannibalism guilt free, either not knowing or not caring to know about his drug use. He was not a communist; therefore, he was a good man, and one was free to praise his exploits.

Of course, this feeling I have about Camelot has nothing to do with whether or not these men behaved honorably. It's doubtful, in fact, that Kennedy behaved honorably toward his wife, or that LBJ honorably abstained from profane expressions, or that the Bay of Pigs or the Gulf of Tonkin incidents display honorable political motives.

Honor, as I use it here, is a word I use to describe an aesthetic liked by me. For example, if I could purchase an America off the shelf, I'd pick the thinner and smarter-looking one, the one in the Kennedy picture. That's what my America would look like. It's policies, however, would be totally different.

Maybe I've got it all wrong, though, and the pink herd is not merely mobs of wig-punk fashionistas looking to end the reign of No-Drama Obama with fabulous XXXL-sized bright yellow and purple LSU shirts. Maybe the honor-restoring crowd is like Odysseus, back from pillaging, looking to slaughter those who have defiled the honor of his home. Imposters and outsiders ruin the house while the real and rightful owners have been off at war.

If this explains the honor movement, the fight isn't about rules of the house, but who's in charge of it. Turf wars are the basis of all politics. "Brutus," said Marc Antony, "is an honorable man," a speech to tug the heart of the mass to action, driven on by the appeal to honor, a vague but potent primer for violent retribution. But what does honor have to do with ownership and possession?

No, this can't be the case.

Like aerobars on a hybrid, the pink honor brigade is something I can't figure out. I just know that they'd be healthier if they got off their fat asses more rather than watching Glenn Beck every day. Seriously, it takes a rally in DC about "honor" to get them off their asses? How about the trees, the clean air, your fellow citizens, and the pride of reducing dependence on foreign oil and the soft life of luxury?

But then, maybe even this call to restore America's honor by riding a bicycle is too soft. So felt Henri Desgrange a century ago when he staged his own "restoring honor" protest, stating "...variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer? We are getting soft... As for me, give me a fixed gear!"

Racing, Time, and Throwing People off Cliffs

2010-08-31T14:27:00.006-04:00

The off season approaches, a period of long rides that go, literally, nowhere. The memories of last season, the sweat, the rubber from the eroding tire on the trainer--all coagulates around you. You are a pool of stagnant memories.

Time does stand still, in fact. Or at least slow down, like Chuck Hutch allowing Tim Brown to pass him for the win at Greenbelt.

Think about the moment before the collision, the time between when you asked for her hand and when she responded, the eternal flight of the foul ball off Luis Castillo's bat into Steve Bartman's sweaty hand on October 14th, 2004, and the last three seconds of the sprint you nearly won.

Time passes especially slowly when we're afraid. For instance, when one is dumped off a cliff. Believe it or not, this is exactly what researcher David Eaglement recently did to subjects, trying to figure out how subjects' brains' sense of time responded to the threat of death. In the interest of test subjects being alive to provide feedback, he installed a net a few hundred feet below them. He strapped a watch-like device (called a "perceptual chronometer") on their wrists with a sequence of numbers flashing too fast to be read in normal situations.

Unfortunately, none of the subjects were able to read the numbers while falling. Go figure. Perceptual time did not slow down in that way.

Subjects were, however, able to remember incredible details from their falls. Thus, they were not at the time empowered with superhuman perception; still, they were empowered with superhuman recollection of their collections after the fall.

Says Eagleton, "We're not writing down most of what's passing through our system...but if a car suddenlys werves and heads straight for you, your memory shifts gears. Now it's writing down everything--every cloud, every piece of dirt, every little fleeting thought, anything that might be useful."

This explains why I can recall the manufacturer of the tire of the car that struck me three years ago.

It's not just fear that affects our sense of time; rhythmic noises can prime our brains to slow down or speed up the flow of time. Before you take your next test, subject yourself to a few clicks of increasing speed. The "speeding up" effect of the clicks has been shown to improve recall and information retention (Sperling; Loftus, Johnson and Shimamura).

Thus, there are at least two things which alter our sense of time: emotion and rhythm.

I can't figure out which has more of an effect during a race--emotion or rhythm--but I'm sure the effect of racing on time and memory is one reason why racing sometimes exerts such a powerful pull on my brain. Why I can recall every Greenbelt I've ever done.

Time doesn't slow down, necessarily, it simply sticks in the brain, whereas the mundane bits never stick; they flow away and are forgotten.

Inspirational Homeric Gore

2010-08-30T21:56:00.012-04:00

I've recently finished Robert Fagle's English translation of Homer's Odyssey. It's not the chanted, sung, dactylic hexameter of ancient Greek, but it's pretty kick ass nevertheless.

If you're not up for reading this whole epic, then I don't know, read the Spark Notes or something, and then flip to book 22, which is where Odysseus reveals his identity and slays the suitors in his own hall. It might be my new pre-race ritual.

Some archery action :

But Odysseus aimed and shot Antinous square in the throat
and the point went stabbing clean through the soft neck and out --
and off to the side he pitched, the cup dropped from his grasp
as the shaft sank home, and the man’s life-blood came spurting
from his nostrils--
thick red jets---
a sudden thrust of his foot --
he kicked away the table--
food showered across the floor,
the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth.

and again:

he [a suitor] drew his two-edged sword, bronze, honed for the kill
and hurled himself at the king with a raw savage cry
in the same breath that Odysseus loosed an arrow
ripping his breast beside the nipple so hard
it lodged in the man’s liver --
out of his grasp the sword dropped to the ground --
over his table, head over heels he tumbled, doubled up,
flinging his food and his two-handled cup across the floor--
he smashed the ground with his forehead, writhing in pain,
both feet flailing out, and his high seat tottered--
the mist of death came swirling down his eyes.

Now, onto the larger projectiles, and a groin-shot bonus:

as Odysseus, fighting at close quarters, ran Agelaus
through with a long lance--Telemachus speared Leocritus
so deep in the groin the bronze came bunching out his back
and the man crashed headfirst, slamming the ground full-face.

Avian metaphors laced with some graphic ultraviolence:

The attackers struck like eagles, crook-clawed, hook-beaked,
swooping down from a mountain ridge to harry smaller birds
that skim across the flatland, cringing under the clouds
but the eagles plunge in fury, rip their lives out--hopeless,
never a chance of flight or rescue--and people love the sport--
so the attackers routed suitors headlong down the hall,
wheeling into the slaughter, slashing left and right
and grisly screams broke from skulls cracked open--
the whole floor awash with blood.

Odysseus doesn't spare holy men. After Leodes begs for his life...

And snatching up in one powerful hand a sword
left on the ground--Agelaus dropped it when he fell--
Odysseus hacked the prophet square across the neck
and the praying head went tumbling in the dust.

A man in full:

She [the nurse] found Odysseus in the thick of slaughtered corpses,
splattered with bloody filth like a lion that’s devoured
some ox of the field and lopes home, covered with blood
his chest streaked, both jaws glistening, dripping red--
a sight to strike terror. So Odysseus looked now,
splattered with gore, his thighs, his fighting hands,
and she, when she saw the corpses, all the pooling blood,
was about to lift a cry of triumph--here was a great exploit...

Then, as if the violence meter hadn't already been shattered, Homer cranks it up beyond Mel Gibson levels. After separating out the dozen or so of his women servants who were "unfaithful" while he was gone,

Odysseus called Telemachus over, both herdsmen too,
with strict commands: “Start clearing away the bodies.
Make the women pitch in too. Chairs and tables--
scrub them down with sponges, rinse them clean.
And once you’ve put the entire house in order,
march the women out of the great hall--between
the roundhouse and the courtyard’s strong stockade--
and hack them with your swords, slash out all their lives--
blot out their minds the joys of love they relished
under the suitors’ bodies, rutting on the sly!”

The women are hanged by a cable used on a "dark-prowed ship". Gulp!

Then, as doves or thrushes beating their spread wings
against some snare rigged up in thickets--flying in
for a cozy nest but a grisly bed receives them--
so the women’s heads were trapped in a line,
nooses yanking their necks up, one by one
so all might die a pitiful, ghastly death...
they kicked up heels for a little--not for long.

Really really not cool, man.

Race Analysis: Dawg Days, Cat 4

2010-08-27T08:20:00.004-04:00

I didn't see the Cat 4 race at Dawg Days, but a glance at the results and Siggy's pictures provides insight into the benefits of racing for a large team.

First is the large proportion of riders from two teams: NCVC and DVR. Both DVR and NCVC had 9 riders, totaling 18 of the 43 riders listed in the results.

Second is the proportion of riders from those two teams at the top of the results.

It's clear from the spreadsheet that the blue and red sit toward the top of the results list.

Consider the chart below. The horizontal axis shows placing for the 43 races; the vertical axis shows the rider (in this case, both NCVC and DVR have 9 riders). NCVC won 1st and 2nd; thus, their line rises for places 1 and 2. DVR's first rider was third, and its line rises. It rises again from places 5-8 and again 11-12.

If you don't follow all that, just think: shallow line=good. Random, evenly-distributed results would simply bisect the rectangle, as the black line (labelled "Linear Poisson") does.

In sum, the chart shows both NCVC and DVR's team effect. That is, their linear results run at a shallower angle than those of a mere random (or Linear Poisson) distribution (shown in the black line in the chart below).

This illustrates a simple point: riders on large teams did better than riders with small teams or no team presence. I think this is generally the case, especially on courses like Dawg Days.

Of course, Levi Leipheimer just won the Tour of Utah without teammates, and strong individual riders inevitably post results befitting their strength. However, the Tour of Utah is a climber's race, and teams provide less benefit in vertical races than they do in flat ones. This is true of MABRA races as well; compare the dominance of Harley in local crits vs. their less dominant performances in vertical road races.

If we wanted to get all "Freakonomical" we could look at the team effect for various teams and see which teams provide the biggest team effect for their riders over the course of a season. That effect would be, essentially, the slop of the line shown in the chart above--the flatter the line, the bigger the team effect. We could also weight podium places so that the lower placing of teammates who sacrifice themselves for results would be rewarded.

Why bother? Well, to me, the team effect is the best part of racing. It's what gives you that gloating feeling when you pass stronger riders who make poor choices and lack teammates. It's the element of smarts that makes bike races collective action games rather than simply chemical reactions and genetic exhibitions.

DVR p/b TBR m/x Booty Pop

2010-08-25T07:44:00.003-04:00

Several weeks ago, the intrepid reportage of yougotdropped unearthed this photo of one of our riders:

We scrambled to explain how it happened that a bike race led to the exposing of a single ass cheek, pure and pristine as clotted cream. No road rash. No evidence of impact. That and a pansy-type pose, appropriate for an Oxford grad with a towering intellect, true class and a Gandhian dose of humanity, but in America somewhat suspicious. Especially with the small child in the background.

To explain the picture, we told stories about flying bikes thrown from grassy knolls, about gluteal muscles exploding Hulk-purple-pants-like, about an "epic" pre-race refried beans session, about women driven to madness and violence by the sight of DVR-garbed ass.

How many kits do we go through at DVR, you ask?
It does get tiring, all the times the ladies (and men, yes) rip the kits off our supple bodies.

It's time we fessed up. We shouldn't be ashamed of who we are, or what we do (aside from crashing a lot and wearing jorts and frightening women and children). No, this unfortunate incident requires explanation and unearthing.

In the spirit of free inquiry and justice, I give you a true explanation of what occurred that unfortunate day, causing our man to expose a cheek: a Booty Pop malfunction.

As much as we hope to admired for our riding, our not wrecking, our team spirit, and our hearts of gold, the truth is that we're insecure. Particularly about the shape of our posteriors.

Well, no longer. Behold our new USAC-sanctioned race team:
District Velocity Racing p/b The Bike Rack and made sexier by Booty Pop

Church Creek and Dawg Days: Race Report

2010-08-24T09:58:00.007-04:00

Church Creek TT #2 2010

I borrowed a TT helmet.
I borrowed a pair of ridiculously light and aero wheels.
I borrowed a car for the trip.
I borrowed a heart rate monitor.
I borrowed a teammate to pin on my number and to help me pump up the tires, using the borrowed valve extender on the stripped valve stem on the borrowed front wheel.
I borrowed a skinsuit, washing it vigorously before and after my event.

I enjoyed Gatorade's new G system, following instructions precisely: downing the G1 packet 15 minutes before the event, sipping G2 during the event, and recovering with G3 after the event. I felt good, but prefer not to give credit to Gatorade for the good sensations.

My heart rate from start to kilometer 20 averaged 167 bpm. It averaged 176 bpm from there till finish. My maximum heart rate is around 190 bpm.

During the race I hit the rumble strips several times and nearly wiped out because of it. Somehow, the rumble strips caused my front brake pad to rub for several minutes. I am happy this occurred, because it provides me with an excellent excuse for not winning or placing.

I beat Sigberto by 1 second and Nathan Hakken by 2 seconds; Siggy rode with some Fredtastic Lemond aero bars that made my Performance brand clip-ons look positively wave-of-the-future. I believe he wore an NCVC-logo crushed velvet tracksuit and a cowboy hat as well. In short, he employed a piss-poor aerodynamic setup, equipment-wise.

But let me not gloat. I lost to several riders by more than five minutes. An ABRT rider passed me at kilometer 25. I remained within 50 yards of him until the final 5 kilometers when my brake pad began to rub.

The Dutchman lost time riding in circles trying to find his Garmin, which fell off mid-race.

I recovered from my effort by sitting in traffic for four hours.

Dawg Days of Summer 3/4 35+ and 1/2/3

From Logan Circle to Bowie, Maryland is 27 miles. You can ride much of the way on trails and paths.

Since I was road-guarding at 7:15, I started my ride at 5:45am. In my bag I carried boiled eggs, coffee and an oatmeal / coconut milk gruel for day-long sustenance. I had written directions on the back of an envelope.

Surprisingly, the directions worked.

The rain came hard during my shift, which included the women's Cat 4 race and the 45+ men. Evelyn of Artemis was nice enough to loan me a monstrous umbrella (mine is a drugstore toy) and BJ Basham stowed my bag in his van. I watched the race, sipping coffee and oatmeal coconut gruel.

I determined to help Chas and Seth in the 35+ 3/4. That's what I would do, I said to myself. Before the race I let everyone know this was my plan: provide a leadout train.

Five or six laps in, I chucked all that and rolled off the front solo. It didn't make any sense then, and thinking about it in retrospect doesn't make it any more sensible. It was just stupid.

I stayed away for about twelve laps, getting at one point a gap of about 30 seconds. The field caught me with about a lap and a half to go. And that was my race.

The numbers are decent--I sustained a higher pace than I had at Church Creek, for example--but I can't shake the feeling that I let my teammates down, that we could have won the race had I been more patient and stuck to the plan. It's good to feel on-form, and it's good to dish out pain, but it's even better to do it with purpose. The previous day I had borrowed half my "aero weaponry" from teammates; and here in this race I'd ignored what I owed others. What a dufus.

The 1/2/3 was a mass of water, fast attacks, and near wipouts. Siggy has written an excellent report, which I can't beat, even with technological help.

I rode home afterwards to the sound of my filthy drivetrain and carrying a wet bag of gear, half-eaten gruel and boiled eggs.

Pass Around the Bib Shorts: Buff that Right Out

2010-08-19T13:33:00.012-04:00

We at bikerackheads receive a lot of fanmail and questions about life and cycling, most of it imaginary.

Anyhow, I've decided to respond to a stupid question every now and then. Here's this week's question:

Dear Bike Wreck Idiots--
I have borrowed a friend's skinsuit for the time trial this weekend. Not too bad, since I know he's an incredibly hygenic fellow. However, the guy before him, well, there are some known unknowns in that question.

I'll be swaddling my taint in the apparel tonight. Am I being a cyclotic?

Jackie Treehorn

Excellent question, Jackie. I'd been thinking about the very question myself. The other day while browsing craigslist for used bikes (and, let's be honest, I was actually on the site for another reason--wondering why the "skill'd trade" category omits the letter "e") it occurred to me that the popular social networking / informal market / human belittlement site might be the kind of place where one finds used bib shorts for sale.

Belittlement indeed. I soon found this:

Specialized bibshorts size small very comfy pad in good shape with about 6 rides

Used bib shorts--especially a stranger's used bib shorts--conjure up the revolting human wretchedness of an MC Rove.

No need to think about it; it's just disgusting and should be voted out of office either directly or indirectly.

But should we just rely on visceral reaction? What does science say in the matter?

Here's a fair question: which is worse, used bib shorts or used toilet seats?
Two factors in favor of bib shorts:
(1) They have been washed and dried between asses (i.e., between asses of different people);
(2) They have been sullied only by one previous wearer, whereas toilet seats have been sullied by hundreds, if not thousands of asses.

One factor against used bib shorts is the little bit of vomit that comes into one's throat just thinking about swaddling one's pristine taint in the detritus of another man's crotchal presence. Truly, it's disgusting. There's no getting around it.

But a lot of disgusting things are perfectly hygenic: broccoli, Oprah's minge, recumbants, and most of Florida (some parts of the state are indeed both disgusting and unhygenic).

In conclusion, Jackie, let me say that I think it's a legitimate question, and that if you do decide to wear borrowed chamois, be liberal with the rubbing alcohol and bleach, and remember that all the scrubbing in the world can't save your filthy soul.

Millersburg Road Race: A Recap

2010-08-16T08:35:00.008-04:00

Here's a little experiment to think about:

(1) Watch TV with the lights on. Turn the volume to an appropriate level.

(2) Now turn the lights off.

What happens to the volume level?

Here's another thing to think about:

Tomorrow go for a walk in a park or green place. A recent study which performed such an experiment on test subjects finds that people who stroll through green spaces (rather than inhabited spaces) will be able to repeat, in backwards order, longer sequences of numbers more accurately. Also, they're happier.

This certainly applies to rides.

We don't need to be told that, though, do we?

Nor do we need to be told exercise makes us smarter and happier.

Here's a picture of five of us, exhibiting proof of the benefit of the claims listed above:

This picture was taken after we'd finished the Tour of Millersburg's final stage, a road race of 52 miles, all of it wet, all of it dangerous, most of it hard. None of us won or placed well. In fact, we rode poorly in all three stages.

Like idiots, we're happy for no apparent reason.

Some credit goes to the town and race organizers.

"You win today?" an elderly woman with a cane called out to us after the race. "We tried," I said. "That's good!" she shouted.

After the crit I chatted with Chris Gould, who sat on a family's yard. His host family beseeched me: "You want some food? We have loads?"

Mennonite children in homespun cheered us from under awnings and tents amid the downpour.

Bodies had hit the pavement several times. A Coppi rider trying to pass me on the right caught the lip of the road and nearly bit it and took out my brother. I heard the skid of bikes rounding a bend smash into a rail at full speed. You can read a participant's account here.

AABC's Paul Wilson, on whom I'd landed in the crit when the aforementioned Coppi rider went down in a corner, said the crash was "Like one of those Tour crashes, where the bodies just piled on top of each other and blocked the road."

As Dennis said, "Lines in front of the ambulance, that pretty much summarizes it. And a helicopter ride for a guy with a concussion because the nearest hospital is 45 mins away."

Clouds swirled around the mountains as we rode. I could barely see through the wet and the fog of my glasses. I felt hyper-alive, and at the same time asleep and dreaming.

Grayson put it this way: "The road race was unreal. The shear amount of concentration it took due to the inclimate conditions itself was exhausting. That said, there were moments I was able to steal some mental snapshots of the majesty of it all. Clouds settled on the distant hilltops, the wiz of rooster tails jumping from everyone's rear tire in an otherwise silent group of bike riders. Spiritual stuff to be sure."

Danger--when it's a city causing it, it makes you angry and stupid; when it's a crazy bike race through a beautiful natural setting, it makes you happy and smart.

If you bothered with the lights / TV volume experiment, by the way, turning down the lights tends to turn the volume up. I bring the effect up because I think it--the weird neurological effect it describes--may explain the effect of the road race on my brain. The light dimmed, I heard each drop of the rain and spray, every spinning gear, the breathing of the pack, and the soft wind we drove on with our own bodies, driving through manure and potholes, striving with and against each other.

You Got Reintegrated

2010-08-13T08:06:00.006-04:00

I've always been a fan of yougotdropped. It's funny and all those jackasses totally deserve to be mocked for being slow, having mechanicals, showing ass, and looking like they've been hosed in shame and urine. More shame! More urine! More entries devoted to socks! Socks, socks, socks!

True, I've never been dropped's victim, and victims may have a different perspective. I can imagine not enjoying the display of a very public picture of me having just pissed myself, not wearing YGD socks, AND my jersey's unzipped and I've forgotten my "bro."

Thus, and in the spirit of Oprah and those who think Zipp 808's make a beautiful noise at speed, I propose a life-affirming new MABRA venture in vivid 2-d...

You Got Reintegrated? [alternatively, You Have Been Reintegrated, You Reintegrated Yourself, Reintegration!]

What would You Got Reintegrated (hereafter, YGR) be?
YGR would be a "web log" that would show pictures of riders temporarily dropped who manage to get back in (i.e., "reintegrate") the peleton. It would show a picture of a reintegrated rider, and add an affirming caption such as, "GREAT JOB!!", "YOU MADE IT WITHOUT PISSING YOURSELF THAT WE ARE AWARE OF!", and "I TAKE BACK MY EARLIER ASSERTION THAT I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER LAST NIGHT!!"

Who would visit YGR?
YGR, if "codified," would appeal to greater MABRA area riders seeking self affirmation and seeking to affirm the efforts of others (i.e., narcisists and suck ups). Comments would be moderated to only allow life-affirming remarks, not negative life-destructive bitching and accuracy. Also, those who sought socks could buy socks at YGR. We'd sell lots of socks to riders seeking to affirm the aspirations of others.

Today YGR is only in the conceptualization stage. We face legal issues with the Center for Reintegration, which helps crazy people "blend seemlessly into society" so normal members of society don't run away when we see nutjobs on the street talking to themselves; and also the Texas Rio Project for Reintegrating Prisoners back into society so they can start killing people again without being disruptive to society.

With hope and affirmation, dreaming, naming, claiming, not-shaming, and never-changing, we will soon see the light of YGR shining from the MABRA hilltop, after we've dropped all your asses on the climb, you fat, lazy, equipment-deficit, sweaty, urine and poop-covered losers without our socks.

Jackie Treehorn, Strawberry Jam and Inception

2010-08-10T07:48:00.002-04:00

"People forget that the brain is the largest erogenous zone."--Jackie Treehorn
"On you maybe."--The Dude

What's your favorite beer?

Now, rethink your answer. Judge the beer on appearance, texture, head, packaging. Give me a logical answer before you respond again. Same beer?

Probably, but maybe not.

So concludes a recent study on how having to analyze our tastes and preferences changes them. The experiment had two parts:

(1) Researchers wanted to see if the tastes of average citizens matched those of Consumer Reports testers. Using a CR study which ranked 50 jams, they simply asked a random group of college kids to rank strawberry jellies in order of preference, no explanation needed. The college kids had approximately the same preferences in strawberry jams as the CR testers. No surprise there.

(2) The researchers wanted to see if analyzing tastes had any effect on the college kids' tastes. This time, they required the students to give an explanation for their ranking before announcing their preferences. Here's where it gets interesting--the college kids suddenly had very different tastes than the CR folks and the other test group that was not required to explain their choices.

What do we get out of this, and what does it have to do with riding a bike? Hm...

A bike race (or any event, for that matter) is something that happens. The happening.

And then there is how we narrate it, either after the fact or during the fact. The telling. The explanation for why we like some strawberry jams better than others.

Some people, mostly Frenchmen and sports announcers, deny the happening its autonomy. For them, there is only the telling. Readers, watchers, listeners, commentators--we're doing the telling. Those who emphasize the telling believe the brain is not only the largest erogenous zone, but the only erogenous zone. These are pornography innovators, postmodernists, attorneys, and artists such as Christopher Nolan (of Inception).

But for the rest of us, there is the fact of the matter. What happened. It's important. If you've been struck by a vehicle, for example, what happened is important for getting compensation. If you've won a MABRA jersey it's important that you actually won the jersey, and don't just have a great story and a tailor capable of manufacturing you a fugazi MABRA champ jersey.

The only thing that provides some proof of the happening is collective memory. And this is where you get f-d up by Christopher Nolan and scientists who ask you to give a reason for choosing Knott's Berry Farm Strawberry Jelly of Schmucker's.

Here's one more interesting result of the jam study: for CR testers, thinking about why they prefer one jam to another makes them better at judging jam; on college kids, thinking makes them worse. We can guess that college kids don't think about jam much; they're novices. If they thought about it more, the act of analyzing their tastes wouldn't trip them up.

In other words, thinking and feeling both have their place in life. Making choices and choosing isn't best served by merely going with one's gut, like invading Iraq. When it comes to prefering Duvel to Icehouse, Campy to SRAM, the brain doesn't need to be the largest erogenous zone.

Congrats to Joe Dombrowksi, but I Nearly Held Your Wheel Once

2010-08-04T08:22:00.008-04:00

Young MABRA talent Joe Dombrowski has jumped over to Trek-Livestrong as a stagiaire. This is great news for Joe (or Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski, as he is listed in Cyclingnews) and also for us old guys who have raced with Joe. Now we can remove one "wheel of separation" between us and Tour riders. Also, we can automatically move ourselves up one place in each local race Joe would have entered with us, had he stuck around.

Racing with a pro--Phil Gaimon at Greenbelt last month, for example--provides the occassional thrill for me. I initiated a break that Phil, along with Chuck Hutch, joined. Then they dropped me. But at least I rode the wheel of the young pro who writes the blog "Living the Dream" for Bicycle Magazine (yeah, yeah, it's a Fred-zine, I know). You know, I can think to myself, only a few watts and years separates a guy like Phil and me. The physics of bike racing invite this kind of delusion: that is, I can [almost] hang on the wheel of a pro; therefore, I am [almost] as good as a pro.

For some of us, however, the thought of almost-equality is not delusional. Last year in an interview with In the Crosshairs, Joe recounted what it was like to race with the best:

"European racing is very condensed; the best guys in the world are consistently showing up at the biggest races in a relatively small area. Think Sven Nys showing up at every MABRA race."

For most of us, Joe has been our Sven. Earlier this Summer, Joe won at Wintergreen Ascent by putting out, at 154 pounds, around 390 watts for 32 minutes. He beat last year's winner and record holder Jeremiah Bishop and nearly set a new course record.

This means Joe ranks, if Andrew Coggan's chart (above) is to be trusted, somewhere among the exceptional domestic pro's.

Joe's numbers at Wintergreen are impressive, but there are several riders with comparable results in MABRA. There are even several young MABRA riders with comparable results (Nate Wilson comes to mind).

If you read Joe's gamjams blog entries from Europe, you'll appreciate his thoughtful approach to the sport. The guy pays attention. He's not just a watt machine.

Still, cycling's a numbers game: if you think you've got what it takes to hang with Joe, hop on your bike for 32 minutes. You must be under 20 years of age to compete. Pump out 390 watts. Be 154 pounds or less. Make sure the air temperature is at least 85 degrees.

If you've succeeded in matching or exceeding Joe's numbers, congratulations. If you've failed, don't worry. You can still qualify if you manage to put out 540 watts for 4 minutes, as Taylor Phinney (Trek-Livestrong's other under-20 American rider).

Rude Gestures: Stevic, Cav, Levi, and Floyd

2010-07-21T10:24:00.011-04:00

As a spectator sport, the narrative of bike races come from commentators, not the athletes themselves, who are mostly silent. We watch the riders sit incommunicado for three hours, and then at the very end, one of them raises his hands, fingerbangs, releases an arrow from his bow, or rocks the baby, or chops his crotch--and that's supposed to be expressive?

And that's not even considering the other 189-odd non-winning cyclists who communicate nothing at all for the entire race. The 140 characters of Twitter are, in comparison, a veritable Dreamweaver compared to the silence that cyclists must endure.

So when a rider does win, his gesture is packed with meaning. Levi's three-fingered salute, for example, could either be the conveyance that he knows he has his third Tour of California in the bag or the fraternal sign for "one in the X, two in the Y."

Such gestures, in the manner of "Can Stop, Won't Stop" tattoos, often seem to express frustration rather than insight or inspiration. Maybe this is due to the limitations of riding a bike--one can't be in a box, crawling out of a box, swan-diving into the best night of your life on a bike.

Take Mark Cavendish's salute after winning a stage the Tour of Romandie. Afterwards, he told us that the salute was intended for those who doubted his ability to come back from what perhaps the most devastating visit to the dentist in the history of cycling.

But this was after he'd been forced out of the race and fined.

It's a bizarre thing to win and then use the platform of winning to wish ill will upon some person or category of persons. I mean, in the picture, it seems like it's directed at me. And that's the problem with a gesture like this--we could get behind it if we only know that it was directed at the right assholes.

A similar gesture occurred yesterday at the Tour of Qinghai. Ivan Stevic elevated his middle finger after outsprinting the field, which sounds like a bad idea in a place like China.

Stevic "explained after the win that he gestured at the finish with his finger in response to the difficulties his team has endured this week, more so than trying to offend anyone." Among these difficulties his team has endured has been extremely loose stool.

I see no problem with giving the finger to diarrhea, but this is China, and things are different there. For his disrespect to the Party, Stevic was removed from the race and the Communist Party, fined $1,000 Swiss francs and forced to drink local beer in the VIP tent.

Riders forget that they don't necessarily need to tell the world to die with a sufficiently rude gesture. Sometimes, just showing up and riding is gesture enough. Floyd Landis, who kicked off his participation at Cascade, raced in a gray flapping T-shirt and a Cat 5-level number pinjob. That pinjob says more than all the vitriolic fingers ever could.

I'll interpret: "Dear cycling--I ♥ you."

Struck By

2010-07-19T09:25:00.008-04:00

My body has been struck by a boat, a car and a truck. All I need for the royal flush is to be struck by a train and a plane.

We use the figurative expression "I was struck by...", but when something big, heavy and fast hits your body it feels nothing like an insight. Getting struck by a heavy, fast-moving vehicle feels like watching terrorists fly planes into a building or learning of a loved one's death.

Except the world doesn't stop. In fact, people hate it that you are lying in the middle of the road holding up traffic. Places to go and this damned cyclist is lying on his back waiting for the body board. People feel sorry for you, sure, but the accident is something that happened to you, and no one else.

And this makes it a self-centered event. When it happens to me, I move somewhere toward Mel Gibson on the narcissist - saint scale and starting thinking Gibson type thoughts:

It's easy to feel you've been singled out by God, or chance, or whatever for special misfortune, but you know this is idiotic, since you're still better off than 99% of human beings who've ever lived.

It helps to remember who you are. For example, that you once did this to yourself voluntarily:

And it helps to remember what you did to yourself before you raced a bike:

And thinking about this leads you to maybe realize that, for participating in that kind of nonsense you deserved to get struck by several fast-moving and heavy objects, and to stop whining and Mel Gibson-ing, and get back on the bike and forget about getting struck at all.

Circle of Shame: Downtown withTim Brown

2010-07-15T15:08:00.004-04:00

If MABRA has a Pozzato, it's Harley's Tim Brown. Here he is winning the Capital Criterium 1/2/3 in ridiculous style, captured with aesthetic genius by Joe Mallis.

Every Mona Lisa has its blemishes however, and we are only too happy to point them out:

Picture by Joe Mallis

Lance and Alberto Make fun of your Mom

2010-07-15T12:27:00.004-04:00

Circle of Shame Friday

2010-07-09T13:55:00.007-04:00

While you and your healthy and in-shape companions are battling for the MABRA crit champion jersey at Hagerstown, or entertaining the Italian ambassador at the Capital Criterium, or both, I will be sitting on the sidelines, preventing pedestrians from walking in your path. Also, to honor my DL brethren, Tom Boonen and Heinrich Hausler, I will be crushing my painkiller tablets into a fine powder and boozing irresponsibly. So I may not be the most reliable road guard.

Just a word of caution.

Caution is something we could all use more of. Especially celebrities, who face roasting for even the slightest faux pas. Heat magazine has a regular feature called "the circle of shame," in which they circle a celebrity's exposed nip, a bit of deodorant, a bit of drooping flesh.

For example, Amy Winehouse's split dress...

Pregnant Christina's less-than-perfect cleavage...

And so forth.

Cyclists face similar scrutiny. Here's Ricardo Ricco in the circle of shame:

Whatever is on his upper lip, it's big, it's black, and it's exactly what I'd picture would be on the lip of a tubercular coal miner after a hacking fit.

Whatever it was, it didn't prevent Ricco from winning the stage and seizing the yellow jersey in completely un-pro fashion.

Nick Nuyens, who won yesterday's stage, one-upped (er, one-downed?) Ricco by fully unzipping his jersey (and obscuring his sponsor's name), gesticulating awkwardly as if hugging an invisible friend, and making sure the outline of his armadillo was quite pronounced.

Nuyens would have looked more professional if he had finished in the buck, or wearing a pair of Crocs, or if dragged to the line by the General Lee.

I'm hoping to see a teammate on the podium this weekend. Make me proud and stay out of the circle of shame.

Mrs. Schleck must have nerves of steel

2010-07-08T15:19:00.005-04:00

You've heard of the Cassandra complex? Where you can see the future but can do nothing to prevent it from happening? My Mom came down with a bad case of something like it, itoldyousoitis, after I called her last week from the hospital:

Me: Hi Mom.

Mom: Oh, son! Why don't you call?

Me: Well, I'm calling you now. And I've got something to tell you, and I don't want you to freak out.

Mom: What's happened? [freaking out]

Me: I was struck by a delivery truck when I was riding my bike and I've broken two vertebrae and damaged my knees in an as-yet-indetermined way.

Silence.

Mom: First your brother and now you. I feel sick. I knew this was going to happen.

Me: ...

Mom: How long are you going to keep riding your bikes before you get killed? You realize you or your brother is going to die if you keep riding?

Me: ...

I could have told her that I was extremely lucky to have gotten off as I did--that the truck had been travelling at noon goon-like speeds through the stop sign, or that Dave Fuentes had been hit and broken his femur and had a severe concussion, or that Steven Grant and Sean Barrie had gone down in blood and carnage on a goon ride. As if recounting the recent injuries of other cyclists could convince her that I'm lucky and cycling is safe.

Since then, I've been wracking my brain, trying to think of a persuasive argument for the safety of cyling.

Argument 1: Cycling makes me a better person.

The idea here is that, look, dying is not the problem. Being a jerk is. Isn't it better to strive to be a good person (even if it means dying somewhat young) than to be a big jerk and live a long life? Sure, it's bad having a dead son. But it's better than dealing with the guilt of knowing your child's a complete waste of space, or worse.

Argument 2: Cycling increases the odds that I will have children.

The argument here is an appeal to Moms' desire for more heirs: cycling keeps me healthy and fit; I look better and think better, increasing my chances of meeting a nice girl with childbearing hips; we make a nice heir. Cycling...it leads to grandchildren.

Argument 3: I could be doing something worse.

This is true.

Notice that none of these three arguments address the real issue, which is that cycling is dangerous.

Cycling is dangerous, damnit! That's just how it is.

And if you do it, you just have to accept it. Unfortunately, Mom has to accept it also. And I think that's the hard part.

Fred Population Explodes in DC Area in Recent Weeks

2010-07-05T12:51:00.007-04:00

At a press conference yesterday, officials from the MABRA Statistical Analysis Council (SAC) confirmed what the cycling community has recently feared: Fred numbers are on the rise in the DC area. The data compiled by MABRA officials suggests that the battle to cull the weak from the cycling herd is slowly being lost.

Who are Freds? According to Wikipedia, "a "Fred" is a cyclist who has a ton of cycling gear, especially of the utilitarian "uncool" kind."

A Fred, however, is much more than this. A Fred may wear baggy jerseys with whimsical printed designs, running socks, tube socks, running shorts, platform pedals (preferably on a ridiculously expensive racing bike) and running shoes. If a Fred does wear cycling-appropriate gear, he chooses cycling shorts--preferably, over boxer briefs--rather than bibs. None of this is absolutely essential for being a Fred; what is essential is an attitude of superiority; e.g., "this Camelpak keeps me more hydrated than these other folks all dressed alike, behind whom I am perfectly entitled to follow and swerve dangerously."

A Fred might rig himself up a cockpit that looks like this:

A Fred believes he is every bit as strong a rider as everyone else on the ride, since his bike and helmet mirror are as flashy as any other bike out on the road. And this makes him dangerous.

Experts are divided about the causes of the rise in Freds, although they are absolutely agreed that the trend is dangerous and must be addressed.

Freds are known to come out in the heart of Summer and remain dormant in Winter. The return of Lance Armstrong to competition surely has brought out the kinds of casual ignorant boobs with limitless budgets, limited knowledge, and unlimited love of mirrors that make up the ranks of Fred-dom.

MABRA SAC Underwear Prevention (SAC UP) economist, Professor D. P. Etro, has a controversial explanation for the recent surge in Freds: "Fred populations, like other prey species, respond to natural predation. If Freds' natural predators--that is, those who slay Freds--suffer a fall-off in population or activity, Fred populations tend to respond." SAC UP's Professor Etro has noted that a number of local Fred slayers have recently suffered injuries and misfortune while in battle: "It began, to my knowledge, with the accident of notable Fred slayer, Lance Anderson." Anderson was a tireless slayer of Freds, sometimes logging 30 hours a week on his missions of doom. He fell while slaying an entire group of Freds almost two months ago, and only now is beginning to ride on his missions of death once again.

After Anderson's accident, others followed: notably, Dave Fuentes, Fred flesh devourer Grayson Church, and more recently Kevin Cross, Sean Barrie and Steven Grant.

Notable Fred slayer, Steven Grant

"Just do the math," state Etro, "if these notable Fred slayers slayed, on average, five Freds a week, and Freds mating and multiplying as they do--just imagine the numbers of Freds that would have been culled, now out there, riding around and attempting to put aero bars on their hybrid bikes?"

Etro calls on all remaining Fred slayers to redouble their Fred slayage efforts for the good of the community and the survival of the species.

Black Swan, Delivery Truck

2010-06-29T00:44:00.008-04:00

Let's be self-congratulatory, and also honest: it's been kinda genius lately here on bikerackheads. That is all Calvini's doing, because I haven't written for months.

So it is with some hesitation that I break the comedic rhythm of my brother's posts, weigh down his trademark lightness with something more ponderous. But I've got to write today, because my brother's been hit by a delivery truck and he's lying in a hospital bed: elbow gouged, knee banged, backside torn up, vertebrate fractured.

A police officer witnessed the truck gunning to beat a signal change, then charging through a red light.

Calvini himself can't recreate the physics. He saw a fast-approaching grill, heard glass shattering, the thud of truck-on-torso, the grunt of air forced from his lungs. He remembers the heat from the asphalt searing his back.

He's ok. He'll recover. His spirits are high as he jokes about how this is the ideal time to take a few days off from work to watch World Cup and the opening of the Tour.

I'm not so sanguine. I'm angry about his super-promising season cut short; dismayed and mystified by the rash of cycling accidents we've had on our team and in this region lately; annoyed by the medical glitches and delays.

But my dominant reaction is an overwhelming sense of gratitude. If my brother had been another six inches into that intersection... I can't even think it.