Amanda had a seminar all day, so I saw this as an opportunity to help out at the race. I finagled a ride from Chris who lives in Auburn, who I knew from the before times, as he has been dating my old roommate and college friend’s sister since like forever. So that was funny! He got into bike riding and racing as training for motorcycle racing (hrm…isn’t there someone else we know who got into bike racing as training for motorized two-wheel vehicles?) and has fallen in love with it – especially how cheap it is compared to motorsports!

For example, one motorcycle race costs ~$60 to enter and lasts 12 minutes or so. So a day of racing can be pretty expensive – plus tires, field fees, bike maintenance…we’re talking a pair of Carbones a weekend in expenses!

Anyway.

We got there at 7, I hooked him up with some Skratch and informed him of the glory that is Mad Alchemy  (I did not tell him how much it BURRRNNNS post-race, though. Whoops), and me and my folding chair and sack o’ food awaited marshaling instructions. Todd and I caught up, got sent to our posts, and the GAME WAS ON.

I worked an intersection from 7:30 – 11:30, spending most of my time sitting in my chair killing my phone battery, getting up every few minutes to politely ask traffic to wait. One dude was rather cranky, and was not calmed down by my huge smile and wave. Oh well. He went off to continue living his likely terrible life while I got to help at a bike race before I enjoyed a bike race.

I was relieved of my marshaling post at 11:30, got snagged by Aaron and drove to the school to begin the bike racing adventures!

HEY KIDS, WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?

Pre race marshaling is easy – the physical act that is. As long as you have a chair, water and food, it’s not different than sitting on your ass at your house. Plus, you get to help ensure that races continue. The challenging part is being able to make time for it. It’s hard enough to avoid responsibilities for the better part of the day (if I was just racing, I would have been gone from my house from 11 a.m – 5:30 p.m or so. Marshaling had me leave the house at 6 a.m.) to just race – much more difficult to do it for an entire day. I was lucky that my schedule allowed it to happen. Amanda had a class all morning, I had Sunday to blast myself with house work and keeping up with life things.

But, the act of marshaling? With a chair, it ain’t no thing.

Anywho.

I gathered my things, noticed that the wattage of the Pro/1/2 field as indicated by the pre-reg list DID NOT match the visible wattage of the parking lot, and got ready for FUN TIMES.

The MetLife – NorEast team had a pretty full squad – minus sick Fleming and College Zach. So it was myself, Aaron, Landen, Peter, Ben, Luciano and Andrew.

The racing times started with the two mile ride to Sterling center at a quite spirited pace. Thankfully, there was no pre-race Amos break that went in the neutral.

But once past the finish line, WE WERE OFF.

And dudes started going hard. Not full-on attacks, just relentless high tempo, with lots of people taking their turns keeping the tempo up. I found myself up in this shin-dig getting busy, and soon enough our group of nine or so riders had a decent gap!

A break! Would it be DA BREAK? Only time would tell.

We kept the tempo up, not totally murdering ourselves because it was the first lap of 9. By the time we hit Route 12, the field was barely in sight and Anthony Clark and Luciano (booyah!) had decided to come hang out! Hooray!

We kept it rolling, up the climb where some dude who I have never seen before thought he’d pseudo attack. With 8 to go. From a group of 11. After his gap was closed down, I reminded him to CALM DOWN because it was a LONG DAY and he should stop being a jerk (I didn’t say the last part).

The group was sizable and most teams were represented – so that was good. And Luciano was there – which was real good. My bike race friends included Josh Lipka (JL Cakes $), Sean McCarthy (Champion Systems), Anthony and Stephen Hyde (JAM FUND), Austin Vincent (CF), John Harris (Aetna), Brad Sheehan (Sheehan Graphic Making Company), Charles McCarthy (Dealer.com) and a dude I didn’t know (the Internet says he is Pascual Caputi).

Sorry for listing all those names. It looks stupid, I know, but whatever. I HAD DUDES TO HANG OUT WITH from like EVERY TEAM so this looked like DA BREAK.

Nothing of significance really happened. We rolled around nicely, making up time on the field on Route 12 because we were motivated to ride into that awful wind, while the field was probably not motivated because riding into a nasty wind on an open road sucks. So we put some time in each lap, eventually building to a gap of 2:30. Which is not that huge, considering how much work was being done.

At one point in the middle of the race – maybe around 40 miles? – people started jockeying to not pull, which made the group start falling apart, and I started yelling at people that it was not time to dick around, and that we could dick around SO MUCH later, when we had a huge gap, and honestly you guys you’re probably going to drop me at some point.

Despite my mild annoyance at people trying to not pull, I did try to get Luciano to rest up a bit in the last few laps. I took some BONUS PULLS to keep things together and keep the pressure off of him because he’s a hell of a lot stronger than I am.

With two to go, Sean McCarthy and the random dude punched it up the climb (it looked like Sean attacked, which made me sad because I just want to hang out), but we got back up to them and it hurt me. At which point I looked at my matchbook and said “oh dear”.

After that, the mood of the break clearly shifted from “Let’s all ride together!” to “I JUST WANT TO MURDER ALL OF YOU WITH EVERYTHING I HAVE“, and coming into the climb on the final time Luciano reminded me that I should try to regulate.

So, of course, Capt. Dude I Don’t Know Who Also Attacked Up The Climb Every Lap goes at the bottom, I try to cover, but it’s hard, and as I’m dying I’m thinking “Crap, I know he doesn’t have the horsepower to see this effort through so I should have just ridden my own pace instead of burying myself. Craaaaap.” So then the break from the break happens, which includes Sean McCarthy, John Harris, Anthony and (thankfully) Luciano.

I form a post-break party with Lipka, Brad and Sean. I am angry, so I ride with as many anger watts as I have. Capt. DIDKWAAUTCEL and Stephen Hyde are up the road and I want to catch them for vengeance. So we’re riding, and then BAM Al Donahue decided he wanted to hang out, I cursed him because this means he brought up more people that will probably beat me.

So this group is together, some people get attacky on Route 12, and then Lipka realizes he has a teammate (in Erik Levinsohn) so he gets on the front and goes LIPKA, which is nice for me.

Into the base of the climb people get away from me, as I find myself in some sort of third dropped group? Or something? This is getting too layered for me.

Anyway I continue trying to find anger units to move me up the hill, when I see Capt. DIDKWAAUTCEL and I BURIED MYSELF to catch and beat him. Because his foolishness combined with my foolishness is what caused me to exit the break.

Meanwhile, this is happening up the road:

Bwahahaha TEAMMATES.

WHAT ELSE HAVE WE LEARNED TODAY, CHILDREN?

That you can volunteer for a bike race and get in DA BREAK. And if you can’t bring a chair, ask the volunteer person if you can work registration or something that involves sitting.

After the race I went to Ikea.

The list of canceled road races gets longer: Wayne Elliot, Housatonic Hills, Lake Auburn.

— Russ Campbell (@rusto88) April 24, 2013

Russ Campbell’s tweet got those of us who are sitting behind a desk talking on the Twitters. And maybe talking about things is how we can keep road races around? Or maybe not, and I’m just wasting my time typing this (NOTE: I am currently waiting for reports to run, so I am filling a void in my day with bloggage).

Despite the unhelpful commentary I’ve lobbed at Dieter Drake and his (quite expensive to race) Tour of the Battenkill, I do think that he has figured something out – entry fees have been unsustainable for too long. Or, to put it another way, bike races are really expensive to run, and the primary source of revenue has been stunted, contributing to races falling off the map when the promoter gets tired of running a money-losing event.

Dieter has also taken over the Tour of the Dragons. The entry fee in 2011 (pre-Dieter) of the two-day stage race was $90 (or something, Colin Reuter hasn’t answered my IM about how to find old races on bikereg. Shit that’s cheap!). Entry fee in 2012 was $180 (what the hell just happened?!?).

Now, that is a steep increase – but maybe he’s the only promoter who’s realized that putting on a bike race is a risky endeavor, and if you want to make sure the event is still around in five years, you gotta add some padding there. Terrible weather with no turnout, road construction canceling the race or late-to-pay sponsors and the promoter could be looking at a big-ass bill eating up all available dollars.

Please note that I’m doing Tour of the Dragons this year because I really like bike racing, and I feel that it is a worthwhile expense for the event. I don’t do Battenkill because driving out there blows, and I don’t think it’s worth the entry fee.

As far as racers helping to better foot the bill of an event, the answer probably lies somewhere in between artificially low entry fees ($35 for Sunappe!) and a doubling of entry fees in one year.

Other questions that are valid that I have no idea how to answer, and am just putting in a list because I am bad at writing and want to go eat lunch.

• How do promoters keep entry fees down for beginner racers so they don’t get scared away?
  
• How can costs be lowered across the board?
• Does having more volunteers lower the event cost?
• What information can promoters share to figure out best practices?
• Maybe every race has an associated Gran Fondo to support it financially?

I may be totally missing the point for why bike races are disappearing – maybe it’s not money. Maybe it’s a lack of volunteers, promoters getting tired of all the work, cities and towns that aren’t supportive (maybe because PEOPLE KEEP LITTERING YOU FRIGGIN IDIOTS), or something else that I can’t think of in the few minutes I dedicated to type this out.

Perhaps racers should promise to volunteer at one race per season (please note that I only help out with my clubs events, so this sentence is also directed at me). Cars don’t point themselves in the correct direction.

So, really, I have no answers, just thoughts, but this is the Internet! It willed a Foam Party into existence, it can help solve some of these road race problems.

So it was a long time between bike races, and though one would expect me to be SUPER ABSURDLY EXCITED about Marblehead, I was just MARGINALLY EXCITED, because maybe I am becoming an old person. But if I’m becoming an old person, maybe I’m getting old man power, so it’s really okay.

I rode from my house to a McDonald’s in Amesbury to meet Ryan Fleming and new teammate but dude you all know Aaron Hubbell. We drove to the bike race while they marveled at my collegiate-level foolishness to not bring a change of clothes with me.

Listen, when you have size 15 feet, you really don’t want to ride bikes with a pair of shoes and street clothes. It’s terribly annoying. Plus my shorts are pretty comfortable and I had on some chamois cream, so…whatever.

Upon arrival at the sandy parking lot of Marblehead, Peter Bell came up to us like some sort of beardless Santa with a sack of new clothing, and that was great. I love new clothing, especially when it includes well-fitting long-sleeve jerseys, as a good portion of my bike riding is spent in the morning hours when long-sleeve jerseys are my friend.

After the usual pre-race business of chatting and riding and discussing whether or not it was an appropriate temperature to go bare-knees (it was not, but don’t tell Luciano that, because he’s all “you guys check out my legs!”), the racing started! YAY BIKE RACING I HAVE MISSED YOU.

It was not warm, which is normal at Marblehead.

Marblehead is a strange race, because the promoting club CCB throws everyone who owns a CCB jersey at it. So, when there’s a move up the road with a CCB rider, you aren’t immediately sure if it’s watt-factory Tim Mitchell or some dude who is normal. Then, CCB also has Cameron Cogburn (winner of 2012 Mt. Washington Hill Climb), Dylan McNicholas (dude who spends every Wednesday night in the summer making me question my life decisions), Will Dugan (former Team Type 1 rider) and a pile of other dudes who they also just send off the front to make it interesting.

So you’re never really sure what’s going on, it gets sorta fast, and everyone is super excited because OH MAN WE ARE RACING BIKES!

The race saw a few moves go up the road and come back, and things were pretty normal until three to go when Tim Mitchell (aforementioned watt factory), a Keough (yep, one of them Keoughs) and another dude were up the road. I was getting to the point where I wanted to take a nap, as I had spent some time at the front of the race being excited, but once I saw Ryan Fleming at the front riding with gusto I realized I should try to be productive.

We spent a lap riding at a lively pace – lively enough that my legs and respiratory system started getting confused with what was happening – before I detonated at the bottom of the finish climb at one to go. Fleming eventually blew up shortly thereafter.

Luciano ended up 6th, and Aaron 8th (full results – please note the fantastic finish of Ryan Fleming and I!), so that is dandy.

Yay bikes!

You may have heard that I use Lotus Notes at work as an “email” “client” (both are in quotes because Lotus Notes is so fucking terrible I refuse to put it in the same category as Gmail, Postbox or Pine).

You may also have heard me bitching on Twitter about how long it took me to get a computer.

Well, I got a new computer (MacBook Pro), it has Lotus Notes, and the above-linked file is the alert that Lotus Notes plays when I get an email.

Please note that this is 2013, and I am not a character in a Carmen Sandiego game.

GENERALLY, all of my bike riding energy comes from pre-ride french toast (or pancakes) and mid-ride Snickers bars (unless I’m racing then it’s…still Snickers bars, but sometimes Clif bars). But both cost money, and rice is CHEAP. I had a bunch of rice cake thingies this one time when Ted and Tim tried to kill me, and they were good.

However, they pretty much fell apart in my hand while I tried to eat them, which usually resulted in me shoving the whole thing in my mouth and almost choking. And I didn’t really think they could hold up to a couple of hours in my jersey and not disintegrate into a pile of rice and other ingredients.

So I modified this recipe slightly – instead of SCRAMBLING the eggs and mixing them into the rice in a baking sheet, I mixed the eggs (and soy sauce…more about my ingredient choices later) into the rice, greased a muffin tin, and made WATT CAKES (or, that’s what I called them when I texted a photo to Alex).

Put them in the oven at 350° for…20 minutes or so and BLAMMO. Pretty sturdy little cakes that held up very well during our ride. At mile 80 or so, they were still totally together and hadn’t disintegrated into a rice pile!

All told it probably took 20 minutes to prepare (that’s counting the time to cook the rice). Way better than spending $1 on one Clif bar.

A few things I’ll do differently (probably on Thursday night so I can have them for our Bicycle Riding Team Adventure Weekend):

• Lower temperature and longer - The top was a bit crispy, the inside sort of soft. I’d like it to be SOLID, but kind of soft, so that if I accidentally inhale a grain of rice it’s not like there’s a tiny knife flying through my respiratory system.
  
• MORE STUFF IN IT – I didn’t have any veggie sausage and I brain farted on putting…anything else in them. So they were very bland. Alex spiced it up with some agave nectar at D Squared, so that was good. Round two will include veggie sausage and shredded cheddar cheese in the mix that goes into the muffin tin.
• Maybe chocolate - Might make some with chocolate inside. Yes.

I should do the math on how much they cost per calorie unit…likely way better than anything you can buy!

You should check out the Facebook page for Sandy Hook’s Ride on Washington.

Anyway, here are some numbers about the bicycle riding from 2012 – cocksizing, I suppose, perhaps?

I use the great training spreadsheet (2013 version coming soon) and Strava.

SO!

• 9767 miles
• 524 hours
• 5696 miles of bicycle commuting

Those are really the only stats I have. So um yes. Bicycles. I like riding them.

1/2 As we head full on into cross season I’d like to politely ask that spectators/fans respect riders. Not everybody wants to be heckled….

— JD Bilodeau (@JDBilodeau) September 27, 2012

2/2 We’re all out there for different reasons, and ‘good fun’ means different things to different people. So think before you act K? Thanks.

— JD Bilodeau (@JDBilodeau) September 27, 2012

I thought “Yeah! He’s right!” This was not a new thought, mind you, but it was good to see it on the Interwebs.

And if you have known me at all, you’re probably thinking “What? You actually ‘respect riders’?”

Um. Yes. I am not surprised at your thoughts. Because Past Ryan is an asshole (Present Ryan is also an asshole, but it is decreasing over time. He’s working on it).

But I do respect riders! Despite what you may think! Or how I’ve acted for my entire life!

Shit.

Maybe this is like one of those scared straight things, where I share knowledge with you from years of being a significantly annoying jerk at bike races (thanks, Colin)? Though some people enjoy the things I shout?! I think?

Yeah, let’s go with that.

Here are some things that I have learned:

• Know your audience! This is SUPER IMPORTANT. By audience I mean “people racing” and “people around you”. It’s probably a good idea to only give the business to people that you actually know, because you know their limits, and know you aren’t actually upsetting them. If you’re going to heckle anyone else, keep it on the friendly side. And keep it creative. Also, if you’re standing next to a bunch of families…maybe it’s not the best place to shout about how it appears the person riding has replaced the blood in their body with human feces.
• Be creative! This is the second most important thing. Anyone can just scream “YOU SUCK”, but it takes some finesse to tell Brian Wilichoski that if he wins the race he gets to go bow-hunting for human. Or maybe you can’t insulting at all to the person you’re heckling! So tell them how good they’re doing – like they are sandbagging the race they’re in, and the only real competition they could have would be the Justice League.
• Don’t set up a PA really close to Richard Fries and overpower him. This is a jerk move, but I didn’t actually realize I was overpowering Richard. So, if you have a loudspeaker, or a PA, or an incredibly loud voice, go stand like 200 meters from the official speakers.
• Don’t swear. I haven’t done this (with any recollection, but I wouldn’t be surprised). But I have seen riders get races cancelled because they flatted in the last corner of a crit, lost it, and started screaming “fuckfuckfuck”. Swearing on the Internet is different – because you came here – but standing next to someone’s ear at a race and screaming vulgarities is a great way to get a race cancelled. Or scare people away from bike racing. Which is also very bad.
• Don’t throw things. JD also touched on this but, yeah, don’t do that. Handups are…not technically legal, but okay if someone is way off the back. But don’t do it in front of an official. Again, you have to know your audience – and don’t offer beer feeds during the junior race!
• If someone asks you to stop, do. Don’t be a jerk. In the same vein, if someone is being a jerk, tell them! If they’re at a cross race, odds are they are a cyclist, and odds are they don’t want to damage the reputation of the sport (hopefully). We pretty much all know each other, and we don’t want to have an awkward moment at the #NECX dinner table.
• Don’t mess up anyone’s race. Ohhhh boy. Yeah. Don’t lean over the tape all the way, putting your face right where Tim Johnson’s face is going to be in a matter of seconds, and fail to move it. That would be bad.

So…yeah. Those are the jerk things you shouldn’t do.

I’m obviously not going to share THE SECRETS OF THE TRADE. You have to learn them yourself.

UPDATE:

.@ryantkelly additionally, heckling guys by calling them girls stopped being okay a long time ago. lookin at you, @midnightridecx heckler

— colinr (@resultsboy) September 28, 2012

Um, yes. Not cool.

Some t-shirts. Design by Ryan White, as he’s my design dude. Here’s what they look like in Illustrator:

They will cost $20. I should have them with me at Gloucester on Sunday (and a Square reader!) so track me down and you can buy one (or coordinate with me before hand). Cash or credit BABY.

Printed on Next Level shirts at Black Sheep Design in Portsmouth (printers of the Portsmouth Crit shirts this year).

Sizing is similar to American Apparel.

After the race, they will be on Metallic Poutine for $20 + shipping.

So…yeah.

Share your sick watts in your choice of power meter.