Balderdash for April 23, 2010

By Daniel McMahon

NYC cycle racing Week 8 is upon us, if you’re keeping count.

Now, is it me or is the racing scene in this city, well, brought down by a bunch of complainers and angry people?

Who are these anonymous people? Where do they live? Where do they come from? Do they just get a lot of flats or get dropped a lot and get pissed off and go home and bust out their laptops? And do they have dirty white handlebar tape?

Do they stalk the Web, patiently waiting to flame it up when they find something not to their liking? Are they into bike racing because they can’t afford a shrink?

Are they strongmen online because they couldn’t be so in a race? Do they embrocate before launching their browsers?

Frankly, I don’t buy the “This is New York, man—it’s for the thick-skinned” argument either. Because a lot of the “conversation” online is filled with hate and bitterness, not valid criticism. It’s replete with junior-high-variety attacks. The tone and substance of the Internet bickering is … depressing.

Is the cycling scene we’re a part of a “microcosm” of the world at large? If we’re dysfunctional and better suited to appear on “The Jerry Springer Show” than participate in bike races, why do we bother?

If you’re in agreement with me, do you just ignore the hate mongering?

So, a joke:

A cyclist walks into a bar. The bartender says, “We don’t serve cyclists in this bar.”
The cyclist says, “But I came on a long Trek to get here. I just can’t Schwinn.”
“Oh, wheelie? But I’m so tired.”
“That’s OK. I can’t handlebars anyway.”
“Wait a second! Let me get a grip on this … ”

Props, RevChuck.

As they say in Esquire, we can’t guarantee that joke will be funny to everyone, or anyone.

Contador choking in the last meters of Fleche. Now that’s funny.

Le week-end
Tomorrow you have Round 1 of the Lucarelli & Castaldi Cup Prospect Park Series. The fields are filled up now, so you’ve got 50 Cat. 5s, 100 Cat. 4s, and 110 Pro-1-2-3s. That’s 260 riders, and yet only three shall win.

But lest the odds get you down, know that there are other ways to succeed and earn your postrace pils. There are pro-looking jerseys! You got your KOM, Sprint, and Overall competitions. Sorry, Cat. 5s—just an Overall jersey for y’all.

So there ought to be some great battles going on during the multilap build-up to the finish. Will the racing for jerseys make for faster laps? Or slow down the fields because everybody wants to be fresh for the sprints either to the line or up the hill? Or, will breakaways gobble up all the points?

The 4s among us will take note of Mr. Leszek “Lance” Sniadowski’s mandatory upgrade to Cat. 3 this past week. Leszek, you’re a beautiful man—give ’em hell in the Pro-1-2-3s. I’ll miss your awesome box-truck draft. Also, Scott Savory has been a 3 for some time now, but has not found it easy going racing with the elite.

Last week
Not that you’re still reading, but last Saturday I lined up with a decent-size field at Floyd Bennett Field for an hour of interval workouts. Long story short, I got in a good break with Leszek, teammate Michael P., and Bill from Teany, and we motored on just swell, till two to go and I flatted. I was hoping to get my first podium but got shafted by the cycling gods instead.

To deal with this tragic defeat I lined up for two races at Bethel next day, and what a fun, fast course that is. In the 4 race Sean Smith motored solo to take another win, his first and not his last as a 4, with myself coming in the seventh spot. Later, in the 3/4 race, Smith found the speed a little tougher to deal with and got eighth, I think, and I was daydreaming and didn’t realize it was bell lap and sprinted way too late and got 15th. Still, I felt that I got out some of the frustration of flatting the day before.

Meanwhile, aeroman Olsen had himself a nice win in the Pro-1-2-3s with Chad Butts in tow in second.

And don’t forget that Ken Harris again got away from the field and went right into TT mode at Floyd … and got his sprint on to take a nice win.

Sunday you have a Prospect repeat, this one hosted by CRCA. Sans the variety of jerseys. So if you botch your Saturday race, you can come back and right your wrongs 24 hours later.

As we know, Gilbert scored a lovely and well-deserved victory in the Amstel Gold Race, while the classiest man in cycling, Cadel Evans, kicked ass big-time in Fleche. If you saw that finish, you had to be hurting just watching those guys break their legs revolution after revolution. Best finish I’ve seen this year.

As an Earth Day request, can all you litterers who toss out your empty gels during races not toss our your gels during races? Not very pro and totally unnecessary.

Liege? We’re thinking Schleck, finally.

Athens Twilight? Isaac Howe.

Ride smart, ride safe, ride hard.