The Velo Cross/Shedd Park Double

Damn.  I haven't written in a while.  You're only reading this because I forced you to, or you have some tacit interest in Velo Cross or Shedd Park which has dumped you at my doorstep weeks after the events were held.  

I didn't race Velo Cross last year, because I think the hostile takeover of the velodrome was bush league bullshit.  But because this race is orchestrated by NEBC, who were not a party to said bullshit, I saw through my own personal politics and also Chip helped me view this in the right perspective and I got out and raced in the final field of the day, which was the bikes with one gear race.

SINGLESPEED CYCLOCROSS.  When I started racing 'cross in 2008, it was on 1FG.  It was rare to find others doing the same.  We generally got our asses kicked, and that part of it sucked.  But then there was Ice Weasels. That was the first time I ever raced SS against others of similar handicap.  I can't express the abject relief you feel when you realize that this scenario is actually a race.  It was that one event that validated the concept of SSCX for me, and I looked forward to doing it again.

So Velo Cross was my chance, years and gears later, to try it again.  I had two weapons to choose from.  Mr. Stompy was ready for the call, decked out in brand new Mud 2s and a rear wheel stolen from my Sheldon Brown tribute set.  But not to be denied was the G&T.  Adorned in tubular glory, I ziptied the front shifter and hacked the rear derailleur cable to yield a single gear experience.

Stompy is a a pure SS, and you feel it in every turn of the crank.  Stompy weighs pounds more than the G&T, but the drivetrain is bliss by comparison.  The parts are just more substantial.  The White freewheel.  The 1/8 inch chain.  The solid steel square taper Sugino track crank.  This shit isn't going anywhere it's not supposed to.  It just goes forward.  A serene, smooth feeling pedal stroke.

Then there's the locked-out G&T.  You don't get quite the same experience.  Everything is designed to derail, and you miss all of that simplistic stiffness in the transmission.  It's not quite the Sunday in church that you get from Stompy.  Pedaling the bike in this way is more gritty and unsettling.  But G&T has merits beyond this.  Tubulars.  Aluminum/carbon construction yielding pounds of weight differential.  Superior brakes and handling.  In the end, the Van Dessel would prove the appropriate weapon for today.

I blew the start of this race so badly it was criminal.  I fumbled the clip-in like I've never ridden a bike before, and found myself lurking in the bottom quarter of the field.  It was generally fun times.  Due to lack of opener, my legs felt like cement, but as laps wore on I loosened up.  Of course by now, it doesn't matter.  The guy in the photo below said something like "You're just going to ride away like that?  After everything we've been through?"

Tour de Robocop Industrial Plant

So we're getting into 2 laps to go territory, and keep hearing Curtis Boivin's name.  That means he's somewhere close behind, very likely to lap me, and I waver between these moments of complete and total acceptance of this fact - and the associated one less lap I will have to race is enticing! - and a completely irrational idea that I can stay ahead of him and finish on the lead lap.

So I begin looking over my shoulder.  A LOT.  Sometimes I think I see him, but I'm not sure and then I think I'm just seeing things.  I get to the hill in the woods with 1.5 to go and make this one decision: race like you're not racing tomorrow.  The thing is, I'm racing tomorrow, and subconsciously I'm saving something for that.  But now, I'm not.  I'm playing a little game where I trick myself into believing that if I ride spectacularly hard right now & leave myself with no ability to race tomorrow, that's okay because it will have been totally worth it.

So that's what I do.  I start railing it, thinking I will somehow not get passed by Curtis.  Smashing my legs stupid.  And no sooner do I exit the woods and enter the BMX "rhythm section", here he comes.  I am fucking dead meat.  I am tantalizingly close to making the finish line and I know I am screwed twice.  One, because today's gamble will not pay off.  Two, because tomorrow is definitely going to suck with nothing to show for it.

So now I go into "white man dancing" mode in the rhythm section.  I have no idea how to ride this shit.  I'm just trying to get through it with zero technique.

I watched Dylan flow through it in the race before, and tried to do what he did.  Except while trying to do that, I keep looking for Curtis, who keeps getting closer; now less than 10 seconds away.  So this comes to a head as I completely blow the landing in a small whoop section, eject from the saddle, and land square on my stem.

Somehow I recover this without even really stopping, and I jam on it.  Now I know I'm dead, but the line is only a few hundred feet away around two squirrely paved corners.  Maybe five seconds apart now but I go for it anyway, sprint my brains out to the confusion of many a spectator, and mercifully succeed in a lead lap finish while Curtis was back there probably stopping off to help a lost puppy or autographing boobs.  These are wins, people.      

HAHAHAHA PLUMMER THERE IS A TOMORROW.

It's at Shedd Park, and it was definitely time to pay the price for yesterday.  I could not go with ANYONE.  I tried like hell but I was definitely not working with a full tank.  The two wooded climbs & the associated switchbacks were where I kept time on people.  Then I worked like a dog to find & keep a wheel down below, and ideally it's a good wheel, but generally it is not, and placing degrades as life passes by.  No gifts.  Not even on your birthday, birthday boy.  I did learn something though - in spite of being away from it all year, I still love climbing hills.

Rare action photo where I lead others in competition

The biggest bummer of all from this weekend was the ILLUSION OF SUCCESS.  In spite of clinging to hard-fought lead lap finishes both days in fields featuring reasonably fast dudes, my effort at Velo netted awful Crossresults points.  And my finish at Shedd Park, while nearly identical to last year, was worth nearly 100 points more (more = bad).  Clearly the points market is in some kind of correction right now.  It's why you need to diversify your portfolio and make investments outside of the mixed field markets.  I've been in them a lot lately, and it's not a good play to abandon your long term cyclocross retirement strategy of effortless mid-pack masters starts.  The big point money; your equity builder, is in pure 1/2/3.  It's just like I told you.

Cycle-Smart Saturday

I promptly smashed my balls at the top of this runup.  Photo:  Calvin Laszakovits

I suffer from a highly curable condition known as NOT RIDING.  It's a pretty simple formula to do okay in a race, I have come to discover.  What you do is you get on your bike for maybe a few times the week before the race, for something like 2 hours at pop.  You ride at a reasonable pace, and kick it up a few times, but generally give yourself a chance to recover.  Then it's race day, and you feel good, and you finish feeling good, and everything in the universe makes sense.  And so ideally you repeat this all season and would do well every time.  But then when you don't do that, and then just show up at Masters 35+ 1/2/3, you pretty much get popped.

I like Cycle-Smart.  Half of it anyway.  In spite of not having the flat-out power that most everyone else seems to have, I like the lower portion of the course where this type of rider is suited.  The upper portion is where my race goes to die.  I can never figure it out.  I hit everything in my way and take the worst possible lines.  Some people thrive up there, but I don't get it.  It's where Adam just personally fucks with me.  His phantom visage swirls around in front of my bike; the haunting reverb of maniacal laughter every time I overcook a turn or drive around something only to slam into something else.

Anyway for not having raced in two weeks, and having done zero riding for the past week on account of having no electricity or hot water, I had no expectations.  I hung off two guys for a lap, planning on reeling them in later in the race.  Except that's dumb, because they actually ride and I never got close enough to concern them.  But I finished feeling awesome.  I actually warmed up for this race, which I highly recommend.  You guys need to look into this whole riding and warming up stuff!

I drove to CSI the day of the race, and have some handy travel tips to offer if you're driving from the Manchester area.  It's about 120 miles one way and presuming you hydrate adequately, you will need 3 stops.

• Stop 1 is going to be at a rest area on Route 2 West.  The main building doesn't open until mid-morning, but the bathrooms open at 6am.  There is a huge red sign on the door to the bathrooms regarding video surveillance and police and how you probably have a 72% chance of witnessing or being involved in a sex act in this bathroom.  You go in anyway, because that gamble you were playing - the one where you were "pretty sure" you dropped everything off before you left home - yeah, you lost.  These toilets are the weirdest toilets on earth.  It's regular toilet, but it's not.  The waste just drops into a pitch black oblivion from which a cold wind emanates.  I'm terrified of dropping my keys or phone in there.  It's all I can think about, right until I need to use some of the worst toilet paper on planet earth.  Bring your own.  This stuff removes paint, skin, and the human spirit.

•  Stop 2 is going to happen right in the vicinity of the turn off 202 onto Amherst Road.  This stop will be an emergency, because rather than piss at one of the gas stations just off exit 16, again you "figured".  Well now you're figuring on not getting your dick shot off by one of the numerous hunters who are parked in most of the places you'll be thinking of pulling over into.  Make this a quick one.  If you can hold it to the beginning of Amherst Road, there's better cover, and less hunters.

• Stop 3 is going to be another gamble, and you will lose this one too.  It's going to be within a mile or two of Look Park.  You think you'll make it, but trust me.  Events will conspire against you and bailing out into the wilderness is your only option.  Too many variables prevent you from successfully pissing at the park: 1) the line at the parking attendant.  2) time securing an adequate parking spot once inside the confines of the park. 3) locating available facilities.  Dream all you want as your eyes burn amber through downtown Noho; you'll never make it.  Just piss in the woods on the right off Route 9 past the rotary.
• Stop 4 is actually on your way home after the race.  If you leave promptly after finishing, you can go quite a ways before your next scheduled evacuation.  It's actually quite impressive.  What's not impressive though is the pair of discarded women's underpants you'll need to avoid in the woods just off a turnout on 202/9.  As I stood there in mid-relief, I wondered exactly what series of events led to this piece of clothing coming to rest at such a spot.  I then finished up, quickly scanned the immediate forestscape for a dead body, and high tailed it outta there. 

In spite of getting shelled in my race (64/66), I felt awesome.  Rarely better have I felt after races than the few I've done this fall when I'm actually healthy.  And I have never felt so justified in my decision to get crushed in 1/2/3 and not race Cat 3 than standing there watching the start of that very race.

2011 Cycle Smart International, Cat 3 Men's Start from Dave Chiu on Vimeo.

See you out at Shedd Park on November 20th.  This is also my 35th birthday, so flock like the salmon of Capistrano and let's flow the beer like wine.