FBF 3/4ths race 8/12/2008

 

Last night was the final Tuesday night race for the season at FBF. For some Labor Day signals the end of the summer; for others the first blushes of color on the leaves on the trees mean that fall has begun; but for me, the last opportunity to circumnavigate an abandoned airfield with 50 or so other panting racers in tights indicates the end of the season. I usually begin the last race at FBF with mixed feelings – a bit of melancholy swirled with relief and some lingering spite. I’m not sure that spite is a feeling, but in my world it’s not only a feeling, it may also have developed into a gland.

 

I arrived at the race and took my bike off the top of my car. I was going to pedal up to the registration table, but when I down-shifted, I felt the unmistakable snap of the cable that connects to the rear derailleur. I now faced the prospect of having to race with only my 11 cog on my rear cassette, which would be a little tiring, as I usually like to shift down to the 12 from the 11 cog for a little rest in between my bursts of mightiness. Having no rear cable would make this difficult. I proceeded to start scrambling for a rear derailleur cable – I figured my odds at getting that cable to be roughly the same as the odds of Victoria Beckham chairing the next G8 summit.

 

But then I got very lucky. After wandering around bewilderedly for a brief period, I was able to weasel a rear derailleur cable from the bike of Alan Buday of Global Locate – he was able donate his cable as he had his spare bike with him. Let me repeat that – he had a spare bike with him. I have never been that prepared in my entire life, but some folks out there are much smarter than I, and I was glad to be able to take advantage of Alan’s forethought. Patrick Littlefield had his toolbox along, and we were in a position to be a danger to ourselves. The cable switch was complicated by the fact that the end of the cable didn’t want to evacuate the shifter, but after a scene where a cluster of bike racers poked, pulled and shook my bike in all manners, the cable end came free, and I was able to install the replacement cable. I could only hope that the cable would be able to withstand the oncoming mightiness. And I an eternally grateful to Alan and Patrick and the guys who helped to cajole the cable end out of my filthy shifter. Thanks, guys. And right now Posh is requesting a cat walk for the next G8 get together, I can’t wait to see Putin in his cat suit!

 

As for the race itself? We were racing on an altered circuit last night as there were two large wedding reception style tents plopped right in the middle of the backstretch. They were there for a movie shoot to occur the next day. Judging by the location, I assume the movie is about either mosquitoes the size of wild turkeys or the tale of a scrappy outsider who lives in the bushes in an abandoned airfield and talks to a discarded mattress as if it were his overbearing mother. I heard that they signed Don Knotts for the lead, so they must have a huge budget.

 

The location of the Knotts movie shot meant that Charlie I. had to scramble and adjust the course to avoid having the race run over deadly live electric cables. He altered the course to run over the diagonal runway at turn two, making the course slightly shorter and adding a hairpin turn on the second turn. This added a new sense of excitement to the race for us grizzled FBF veterans. A new turn! Maybe next year we can add a hill! We rolled off onto the new course and were immediately hit by sunshine soaked rain. This made the course wet and made negotiating the new hairpin extra interesting. The plan for the night was to attack and to counter attack moves from James Buttler, to make the sprinter’s team work as hard as possible. We needed to wear out Wonder Wheels especially. It was a tall order, but really the only card I had to play. Sitting in would only guarantee finishing behind Tony Maisto and Frankie Arroyo in a sprint. So I attacked every chance I could, whenever circumstances dictated. I was feeling a little flat last night, I would bog after every attack to get away, but I had to try and get away. See “one card” reference above.

 

That’s pretty much the way the race went. Attacks and counterattacks that got caught or covered. We all rolled in towards the finish. James Buttler had a slight gap off the front going into the finish, but the finish was pretty furious, and he was caught, although he was able to salvage a 5th place finish. I was sitting second on Tony’s wheel in the sprint, but had to get around another guy so I was gapped going to the line, I finished about 7th place or so. Second sand-pounding position.

 

Schmalz Race Report 

 

Like I’ve said before… Seven – for seventh place.

 

Side notes from the evening

 

The new section of the course added new excitement to the race (new holes!), especially when I got some piece of road debris that seemed to be the size of a softball banging off my knee. These new challenges are what make life interesting.

 

Now that the FBF season is over, we have to thank Charlie I for putting on the series. We have to thank the officials Alan, Maurice and Denise for showing up every week, and we have to thank the marshals for making our FBF stage race happen. if any of these people decided to pack it in, we’d be racing our shadows on Tuesdays. So be nice to them whenever you can, because I want to race again next year.

 

 

The head song for the night was “Constructive Summer” by the Hold Steady. Get hammered!

 

FBF 3/4ths race 8/5/2008

I usually have a hard time getting to sleep after racing on Tuesday nights. I lie in bed with my legs humming like struck tuning forks and in the quiet darkness, I go over the night’s race in my head. Many times I would like to simply have my eyes close and extinguish my obsessive re-running of the race, but it never seems to work that way. I always dwell on moments where I could’ve tried a little harder or I lament missed opportunities I saw slip away. I also try to stay very still as to not wake my wife, as I am very gassy after race and the resulting trapped pocket of body cavity air would have her rethinking her lot in life.

We had a slight to middle wind last night in the classic FBF direction. I’m hitting the tail end of my season, the point where I can still ride fairly well, but don’t have the desire to load up the chamois and go for broke. Sometimes my heart’s just no in it, and if it weren’t for the promise of post-race beer, I might not find any motivation to get to the race at all. But I was there. Body present, mind on lager. We lined up and went.

 

James Joseph was absent, but he’s got a 16 point lead in the chase for the series lead, so he didn’t really have to show up. I surveyed the group and saw that Wonder Wheels had their usual numbers out and that James Butler was present in his pink Assos jersey. James has been riding strongly this season at FBF, and I figured if anything was going to get away, he would be involved somehow, so I took a mental note to keep an eye out for him. 

 

I tried a move as we began the second lap, to see who would come out, and to see who was chasing. The answers to those questions were “no one”, and “Wonder Wheels.” Chris Castaldi was able to drag me back after about a half lap, so I knew that Wonder was riding defensively for Tony, who’s near me in the overall standings. It was then I made a foolish decision – I started to ride defensively also. Mind you, I don’t have much to defend nor did I have any teammates to defend with – but I decided to go with that plan anyway. My plan came down to making sure that James Butler didn’t get away without me, which in hindsight wasn’t really a very good plan at all, as it gave Wonder Wheels the opportunity to watch the pair of us simultaneously, instead of having to deal with counter attacks from the both of us – not to mention the fact that my plan would probably frustrate the hell out of James. But I wasn’t in the mood to come up with anything more creative. In essence, I became like another teammate for Wonder Wheels – which, you know, is really smart.

 

And that’s how we rolled, James would jump; I would follow and Wonder would drag us back. We got to the bell, and James jumped at around turn two. Out of reflex, I jumped also, we got a gap and had a sprinter along for the ride. I pulled through and then the sprinter laid an egg of slowness at the front – hoping to get a tow – but not looking to do any work. That pretty much ended my race right there. The last ditch move didn’t work, and now I was overcooked for the sprint. I tried to snuggle into the pack for the finish, but I could only manage a 7th place finish. It really is hard to be so stupid sometimes. Next week will have to see an overhaul of my outlook, or I can look forward to 15th place.

 

Schmalz Race Report 

 

Like I’ve said before… Eight -I dis-enjoy being not smart.

 

 

Tonight’s head song was “Inbetweener” by Sleeper. 

 

Unrelated note

I also couldn’t resist making myself a special new mouse pad. If you want one also feel free, but don’t tell Ian MacKaye.

CRCA Master’s 40+ Championship 8/3/2008

Master’s racing is a scene unto it’s own. The guys who consistently race the master’s field know each other’s tricks and treats from accumulated years of exposure and knowledge. Simply put, they are hard to surprise. They’ve seen a lot of races and have lived through most scenarios involving Lycra and panting. Granted, you will get the occasional neophyte cat 4 “riding elderly”, but for the most part, you are guaranteed a pretty experienced group in masters races.

That means the races usually make sense, tactics-wise. We had a pretty full team present from Merrill Lynch (should we nickname ourselves the “raging bulls?” – or maybe the “nerd herd?”) for our race, so we could actually formulate a plan and then try to implement said plan as best as we could. Pascal was feeling a break coming on, so we decided to “cover and smother” anything in the early parts of the race, in order to give Pascal a better chance for popping off the front. We were keeping our eyes on Blue Ribbon – especially Mark Alden and David Taylor – as they are a very strong masters team, and they race real good.

The thing about plans is that they sound real good when you are standing still before the race fixing your hair (I always carry a little product), but when you find yourself covering three straight attacks from misters Alden and Taylor, the whole “plan” concept starts to really feel not so great. We did manage to keep things together for the first two laps or so, and then mercifully, Pascal attacked and got away. David Taylor and George Suter joined him, so we, Die Hard and Blue Ribbon only had to cover moves (and also try to crush Doug O’Neil’s soul – sorry Doug!) and photosynthesize. And I’m really good at producing starch, so I was firmly in my element – and my hair looked great.

We did have a minor glitch when Gerry Martinez got away to bridge to the breakaway group, and when I say “minor glitch”, I mean “race-changing development for the worse, if you are in the ‘nerd-herd.'” We kept to our strategy of helping Pascal and company stay away. The race did get close to the break many times, and it looked at some points that we might catch them, but I knew there was a pack of tough nuts up front, and they wouldn’t give up easily. And the guys off the front got lucky when the break from the A race caught our bunch (to our aged shame), therefore slowing the group down enough to give the boys on the front some time to further their advantage.

We got to the bell with the break holding a good advantage, I had about two laps of rest in my person, so I was able to feel saucy for the finish. Mark Alden attacked at Tavern and took Marc Cesare and Kurt Guftasson with him, they got a small gap and were looking to sweep up the remaining places. Back in the group, I was sitting on Karl Rahn and Doug O’Neil – who can probably draw the sight of me following him from memory by now – as I thought they had the best chances of contesting the sprint. We came over Cat’s Paw to the Met finish line, and to my horror, we were descending upon the breakaway. There’s nothing worse than being in a break getting caught at the finish after 4 laps away at Central Park, and there was no way I was going to help do that to Pascal. So I sat back, and followed Doug and Karl to the line. Gratefully, we didn’t catch the break, and Gerry Martinez won from the break, with Pascal third – which wasn’t the optimal outcome for Merrill Lynch – but a great result on the day nonetheless. I also was able to throw my bike at the line and pipped Doug O’Neil for 7th place – adding another entry to the list of reasons Doug could have for putting me into the curb in the next race we do together.

Schmalz Race Report

Like I’ve said before…Not a bad result, and I was able to finish 7th, so I will go with a 4 here.

The head song of the day was “Here It Goes Again” by OK Go again, I’m starting to get head repeats now.