We have to give credit where it’s due. This was originally Chung Chiang’s idea, posted on his Century Central site. We decided to pay homage to (steal) it, and added some of our own. And now that we’ve shown you ours, you have to show us yours.

@##=#<15,r>@##=#Norbert O’Reilly

Whenever someone asks me about my first race they end up getting two stories! For those of you who know me this won’t come as a big shock. My first season racing was in Ireland in 1983 in the Under 16 age group or Schoolboy racing as it was called.

The first event I ever did was an “Irish Road Club” (my club at the time) club time trial. I can’t help but include my first ever open road race as well when I’m talking about my “first” race.

Some Thursday evening in April 1983 I turned up to do a club time trial, it was 1 lap of the Black Bull, a 14 mile loop near Clonee Co. Dublin. The event was handicapped, meaning time was deducted off your actual time depending on your age or ability.

I seem to have some sort of amnesia about the start of the race. All I know is with about 6 or 7 miles to go I caught a cyclist out training. He was a veteran I had seen around. I didn’t know him, but he knew me! He decided to sit on my wheel and do his best Manolo Saiz impersonation. I for some reason felt like I had to comply, so I rode my arse off. I had never ridden as hard in my life, and I swore to give up cycling as soon as I got to the finish. I was in such a state that for the last mile or so I was crying, pleading with him that I couldn’t go any faster.

The finish line finally came and I was able to ease up. I turned around to receive the praise from “Manolo” I believed I so richly deserved, instead I got some snide remark about feeling sorry for myself. Compliments were hard to come by in those days.

As I rolled over to Mick Lawless’ (my coach/mentor) van to get my gear and change, people were treating me differently. I didn’t pay much attention to it; I just wanted to get home before it got dark. As I went to cycle home someone told me I had to wait around because I had posted the fastest adjusted time! I was more surprised than anyone else. I had to wait around for Eddie Madden to finish, as he was only one left to finish likely to “beat” my time. He finished and my time stood. I didn’t really feel like a winner because I wasn’t the first across the line or do the actual fastest time. But officially I was the winner.

A month or so later I did my first open road race in Mullingar, meaning everyone in the country would be at this race. I had hatched a plan over the winter on how my season would go. My plan was to able to finish in the bunch by the end of the season. I was going to try and achieve this goal by my 10th race. I was going to use my first 9 races to learn the ropes.

On the morning of the race I was very nervous as I had worked the night before in a bar and wasn’t able to sleep with the excitement. To add to my stress level all the “heads” of U16 racing would be there, Chivers, Kimmage, Farrel, Carey, Stewart. I was a bit of a mess, I threw up anything I tried to eat.

When I got to the race I found out the race was 2 laps of a 19 mile circuit. This was a few miles longer than the official distance an U16 race was allowed to be. I had only done a “long” ride of 40 miles in training a couple of times, 38 miles seemed like an impossibly long race to me.

The race started, and I couldn’t believe how fast they were going, I remember thinking if I make it around 1 lap I can pack it. The main problem I had though, was riding in the bunch, there were about 70 or 80 guys in the race. I had never ridden in a bunch this big before. So I spent most of my time giving out tickets at the back of the bunch. I could hear Mick Lawless yelling from his van for me to move up into the bunch.

At the end of the first lap I decided to try and hang for as long as I could. Many had been dropped at this stage and it seemed like a waste of effort for me to just sit up. Anyway I’d get an earful from Mick if I didn’t give it 100%. Coming towards the end of the second lap I was still hanging on. I recognized a landmark from the previous lap and knew that there were only a couple of miles left. I decided I needed to move to the front so as not to get dropped during the sprint.

I eventually got to the very front as we were about to take a sharp left turn with about 1km to go. As I didn’t have much confidence in my ability to ride in a bunch, I decided to be first into the corner. Immediately after the corner was uphill, much like the north hill in CP. I sprinted up the hill for all I was worth hoping not to get dropped. About 50 meters after hill no one had gone by me, so I looked around expecting to be swamped by the bunch, and to my utter shock I was about 50 meters ahead of everyone. I put my head down and rode like my life depended on it. With about 50 meters left I looked under my arm to see if I still had much of a gap, I was well clear. With about 20 meters left I put both arms in the air in victory, remembering not to stop pedaling something Mick had beaten in to our heads (“never stop pedaling until you see the line go under your wheels”).

I rode over to Mick beaming with joy, and I hugged him. But he didn’t seem to be as excited as I had expected. I had won, so what gives? It turns out it was illegal for me to take both hands off the bars. Then some fat, red in the face local official came waddling over and gleefully informed me that I had been DQ’ed because of this. To say I didn’t receive this news well would be an understatement. I was held off him by Mick, even though as he was restraining me Mick said he’d like a piece of the guy first.

I might not have been the “official” winner I sure felt like I was the winner.

Luckily I got plenty of official wins during the rest of the year, making sure not to take both hands off the bars. Many years later I had the last laugh, because the fat red faced official was done for embezzlement!

@##=#<1,L>@##=#Eugene Boronow

When I was 13, I saw a race advertised in the Daily News, “The Olsten Challenge” in Eisenhower Park, LI. It was a 3-mile event. So for a couple of weeks I went out and practiced riding 3 miles as fast as possible. At the race, it was a small event with a few experienced racers, but mostly recreational riders. My friend (David Howell) and I were the only kids there. Dave had a new Peugeot, and I had a self-built bike that was made both from stuff from the garage and from the garbage. With cotter-pin cranks and toe clips & sneakers, it worked well enough. At the start, the “official” warned us of a sharp turn with sand in it, and cautioned us to ride very slowly through it. But all I heard was, “ride as fast as you can through the sandy turn.” During the race I had trouble keeping up, but I passed everyone through the sand– no problem (and no helmet). In the end I got 7th out of about 20. Ten years later I did my next race, “The Ossining Grand Prix”, where I got 3rd in the citizens race. I was hooked.

@##=#<2,r>@##=#John Tomlinson

My first race was a CRCA club race in March of my last year of high school. It was a cold and rainy morning and few people showed up. Lou Maltese was running the race and combined everyone — and even then the field was small. Less than 20 riders.

We set off and the pace was pretty fast for me, but not too bad. I’d been commuting and messengering a lot, so I was in OK shape for a beginner. We went up the hill at the north end of the park quite fast and I started hurting, but I made it to the top in the group. I remember thinking “Good, now we can coast down the hill and have a rest” Not! (as people used to say in the 1980s.) I got dropped immediately and rode the rest of the race alone.

I ended up being the first C (or was it D) rider anyway so I “won.” And I was hooked.

A guy who I was later to learn was one of the club’s biggest hitter — Jonathan Massey — won the race overall. My race ended on an earlier lap, so I watched the finish and was impressed by Massey’s long, painful looking sprint, and by the big bunch of mucus hanging way, way down from his face. What a sport.

@##=#<3,L>@##=#John Campo

It was in beautiful Los Gatos, outside of San Jose, and I was on tour playing some places in San Francisco sometime before they invented indoor plumbing. I entered the Cat Hill Classic Crit, a small course around the town center. It had a quick right turn that led to quick left, and then a uphill, kind of like Grant’s Tomb but much steeper and longer.

I had not raced since a teenager, and was now 35 and a cat 4 beginner. I got dropped on the second or third lap. I made the neophyte mistake of riding the course the whole day before and climbed the hill twenty or thirty times. Coming up the hill with the gruppetto I heard someone in the crowd say ‘ wow, there are some old dudes in this race’. I guess they were talking about me as I huffed and puffed my way up the hill with my borrowed steel no name bike. It was the year of the ‘Vitus’; everyone was riding one. I drooled over the possibility of owning one myself. The Sean Kelly model…

@##=#<13,r>@##=#When I got home I raced the Pepsi challenge – a twenty four hour race around central park – and I did it on a track bike. Kenny Sloan won that year. I managed 10 laps with Gus, Crockett, and Muggy, setting a pace for Kenny to win and almost couldn’t make it home, my legs were rubberized.

I joined Century Road Club also, and met Lou Maltese, got my complimentary tee shirt, hat and bought my woolen club jersey. I showed up for my first club race on a track bike with a 52×13 on it. Lou fell in love with me right there and moved me to the ‘ B’s ‘ way before he should have. He later gave me one of his bikes when he found out mine had gotten stolen. A 1920’s BSA track bike with Major Taylor bars and a Titan adjustable stem. He might have been gruff at times but he loved cycling and helping people. During my first club race I told jokes the whole time, but I couldn’t get a giggle out of anyone. Someone said, ‘ Great, we have a comedian in the group’. That person got his bike stolen at the finish line and the cop that recovered it got shot by the ‘perp’, and wound up in a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

@##=#<14,l>@##=#A crash happened on the last lap and I managed to stop in the middle of it somehow. I checked to see if my new found club mates were all okay. Caroline Corey, John Franks, and I hot footed it to the finish. That day started 20 years of eating horse pucky in Central Park on freezing mornings. What’s not to like?

Those are the few firsts that matter, the real first was 10years old standing around with neighbor buddies choosing up sides for stick ball in East Flatbush when a guy jumped on my friend’s three speed and took off. I hightailed it after him on my Columbia one speed 26in wanker. When I caught up to him he dropped the bike and ran. The guys were astonished I was able to chase him down. That is when I got an idea I might be good at this stuff.

best

campocat

@##=#<4,r>@##=#Craig Upton

I won my first race, but it’s not great story as I’m not really sure how it happened. All I remember is somehow attacking in the final km and staying away to win. I had no idea about tactics, or that it might be a smart place to attack. I just tried to ride as hard as I could because the finish line was close. In fact, I’m pretty sure the reason I got a gap was that they thought I had no chance of staying away and were busy trying to work out who was going to lead out the sprint.

I was around 23 years old, in a state of limbo. I’d just quit water polo after competing in two World Championships, and hadn’t found myself yet. I did some messengering on a mountain bike and enjoyed the riding. Bike messengering in NZ is VERY different to NY! The owner of the messenger company was a racer, and he got me into it. My first real racing bike was a Faggin (no joke) with Suntour Superb Pro components, and it had the sweetest paint job.

Races in New Zealand don’t have categories. All races are handicap, with the ‘Limit’ group going first, followed by the ‘Break’, then the ‘Scratch’ group. The idea is to catch all groups and win the race. The categories are self policed – you put yourself where you thought you belonged. But if you sandbag you catch so much shit you’d never do it again. And if you start in scratch and don’t work, you’d be downgraded next race – I remember being told “Scratch was for workers”. At the finish they award two prizes: first across the line and fastest time.

My first race was 80 km’s, and I started in the limit group. Like I said, I don’t remember much about it, but I do know the scratch group caught us. I remember this because a couple of the scratch riders were my friends, two Italian brothers. They were real nice guys, older guys I looked up to, both very good riders. They were nicknamed the fashion police. They were extremely hot headed and made sure you did the right stuff, had the right equipment, and learned how to rotate smoothly. They’d go NUTS on you if you did it wrong or if you didn’t pull through. I can remember riding breaks with them with the fear of god that they would scream at me… I guess that’s why I always work in a group and hardly ever sit on.

@##=#<5,L>@##=#Dan Schmalz

First Race Kansas City, Missouri 1992

I started riding my bike as a quasi-Euro dork. I would leave the house in my “very cool” leather “hairnet” helmet along with a t-shirt and cycling shorts and do the usual “Fred” things, getting chain ring tattoos and such – good times.

With all this mojo going on, I decided my next step would naturally be to try and race. I came from the generation that watched Greg Lemond (now officially known as “the other guy who won the tour in the 80s?”) in the Tour and was inspired to try and ride. Remember that footage on CBS? It was pretty good, and they covered Roubaix, as I recall. They were good races, Duclos-Lasalle kicking ass at an advanced age. Alas, I no longer get to watch cycling races for I live in an OLN-free zone, but I digress.

My first race was a citizens’ race. It was on a course that was a loop in front of the Nelson-Adkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. We circled the sculpture garden, which has the largest collection of outdoor Henry Moore sculpture in the world. The race was in maybe the one of the busiest and most expensive sections of town, I don’t know how the promoter pulled it off. It was a great first race course; it made the subsequent office park head spinners and middle of nowhere races seem a little less satisfying. Not that I’m not grateful for any race someone chooses to put on, I am.

But let’s return to the fast and furious citizens’ action. The details I remember about the day were that it was mid-morning and it was wet, not raining exactly, but a wet road. I think this helped eliminate a lot of the field (by scaring them), which worked to my advantage. I rolled to the line in my new cycling jersey (yellow, of course) ready to rock. I looked around and noticed the rag-tag bunch surrounding me. Most seemed to be middle-aged fellows with pronounced moustaches and I think I may have seen a pannier or two. The only other fellow in the race under 30 was a big kid who looked pretty strong.

The race started and all involved were moving very slowly due to the wet conditions. I was not concerned with caution and decided to attack into the first corner. Ah, the enthusiasm of youth. I heard huffing and puffing behind me as the moustache brigade saw their easy ride spoiled. I got a gap of about a quarter mile. Thinking back, I’m sure the race was probably about five miles long, but it seemed like the finish would never come. About three-quarters through the race, the other young guy bridged up to me, so naturally, I decided to keep pulling. In fact, I pulled him to the finish. He jumped me in the last turn and won the race. Second place for me.

I collected my medal and was feeling a little bitter. How could that kid have jumped around me? I felt betrayed. Of course, looking back I realized that these were the musing of a clown. The kid had bridged and won, he deserved it.

I would love to say I learned an important lesson, but I didn’t. I gleefully kept attacking and getting dropped. I didn’t place again for five years.

@##=#<6,r>@##=#Andy Shen

I got serious about bikes around ’98, when my POS mountain bike was stolen. I did some research to replace it, and soon had built myself a fixie. After I got faster it was time for a road bike. It came down to a Cannondale or a Bianchi. The salesman recommended the Cannondale, so I bought the Bianchi ’cause it was a nicer color, and it had a fade (it was the ’98 color scheme, when Pantani did the double). I rode for quite a while before my first race. I finally took the plunge in ’01 when a friend convinced me that I would regret it the rest of my life if I didn’t at least try it once.

A mountain biking buddy told me I’d be dropped my first race, don’t worry about it and have a good time. As I pulled up and surveyed the CRCA C field, I knew I wasn’t going to get dropped. There was a torrential downpour in the middle of the race. A guy named Kevin Anderson, who had raced collegiately but had been away from the sport, pulled up next to me in the middle of the race and we chatted for quite a while, which helped me relax. At one point Kevin’s front wheel slipped in the wet and he nearly lost it. He fell back several spots and I maintained my position, so I didn’t see him for the last couple of laps.

I worked my way closer to the front on the last lap. There was a lot of cursing and screaming, guys trying to sucker other guys into pulling. I wound up in front by the reservoir, but I just soft pedaled and looked back. Just before 72nd street 3 or 4 guys attacked, and I jumped on their wheels. Their attack was over before it started, and they went right back to calling each other douchebags and dickwads. No one was doing anything, so I attacked going up Tavern. No one chased (sensing a pattern here?), and I got a good gap right away and just tried to hang on for dear life. By the 7th avenue exit I could see a lone rider trying to bridge, and he caught me by the 6th ave entrance.

I had to laugh because the guy pulled up and said, ‘Hi, Andy’. Since I knew exactly one guy in the race I figured it had to be Kevin. We worked together and got to 72nd street (on the east side) pretty easily. Unlike Schmalz, I knew not to be in the lead, so I got behind Kevin and stopped working. We eased up cat’s paw, and Kevin jumped. I got ready to wind up my sprint, moved out into the wind, and promptly fell back about 20 yards. I limped in just in front of a Keith Haring junior who had jumped out of the pack. After the race I took a look at Kevin’s massive quads and didn’t feel as badly about finishing second.

I got home soaking wet, covered in grime, and wearing the world’s largest shit eating grin. Laurie was very excited for me, though if she knew then what she knows now, she probably would’ve thrown my bike out the window right then and there.

@##=#<7,L>@##=#Alex Ostroy

Let me preface my story by letting everyone know that this is not the story of a schoolboy wonder who, through an outsider to the cycling establishment, manges to win the day through pluck, heart and god-given talent tempered by an aw-shucks modesty that prevents the writer from recounting the next thirty races-in-a-row he wins. And even worse, in my story there was only one other rider in my race.

That said my story is the best one even with its dull predictable outcome and pointless anecdotal side tracks — I have pictures! And if NYVELOCITY has taught Andy and I anything, it’s that a nice color picture trumps accurate reporting or thoughtful well constructed prose every time. BTW The pictures I unearthed are from another, not my first, race in 1980 and not an out take from That 70s Show but go ahead Schmalz take your best shot.

First a meandering remembrance of cycling in LA at the time.

In Southern California in the late seventies and early eighties if you saw another cyclist who was wearing cycling shorts or a jersey chances were you knew his name. Sometimes if you were out riding and you saw a guy going the other way you would turn around and ride with him, so infrequent were the chances to ride with other cyclists. To make matters worse most of them were real oddballs; guys in their late twenties still living with their moms, unbathed hippies who made their own frames and in one case pot pipes out of old derrailers . It may sound romantic in retrospect but these guys were not gentlest mentors to a 13year old boy. At stops they would secretly loosen my brakes, on climbs they would change my gears, and at the first sign of weakness they would drop back if they were in front of me in the paceline and then sprint ahead to catch the group — along with various other small cruelties I now happily inlict on those unfortunates who are even weaker than me..

Me

In school I showed modest promise in other sports but all I wanted to do was ride my bike. I had a poster of Greg Lemond winning the junior nationals in his Advocet jersey next to my bed and every holiday brought a desperately needed upgrade to my 1976 Italvega which had steel cottered cranks long before Shimano made cottered cool. My dad rode and when I was alone in the garage I would carefully take down his Lygie with Campy Nuevo Record parts to look at it with the care that most boys reserve for their father’s gun.

@##=#<8,r>@##=#Le Velo Club La Grange

I rode with a club called La Grange which was a French restaurant located about a mile from my house. It was started by a Frenchman, Raymond Fouquet who left France right before the occupation and settled in West LA. The war had interrupted a promising cycling career but he along with a few other expats, were enthused about sharing their passion for cycling. The restaurant is gone, Raymond is over eighty but still rides, and the club lives on with over 400 members, in 1980 there were twenty three. How do I know the exact figure? I was editor of the club newsletter of course! I still have my original Velo Club La Grange Jersey from the picture complete with intructions for my burial on the inside (sorry Don Johnson pastel prom suit).

Junior Racing

I began racing in 1979 as a 13 year old. The Categories for kids were differentiated by age, as they are now, except there was a midget category 11-12 (a casualty of political correctness?). And there used to be an Intermediate category (14 and 15), the Juniors were 16-17. As you can see from the race pictured below often times they had to mix fields to get enough kids for a race. Future 7/11 team rider and Tour de France racer Roy Knickman was one year older than me but I rarely got to race with him because he was racing with the Cat 1-2s as an intermediate, I remember a Cat 1-2 race where he and Thurlow Rogers (in his prime as reigning national champ) lapped the field, Roy was only fifteen.

@##=#<10,c>@##=#

The course

The Palmdale desert is about ninety minutes outside of LA. Its a great place to ride a bike, you can see for miles and there are all kinds of wild flowers and cactus without many cars, we had most of our local road races out there because it was easy to get a permit. The course profile is sort of like Bear Mountain and Floyd Bennet all wrapped up in one because of the hills and the desert winds. The year before Jonathan Boyer had won the men’s field by over ten minutes and people were still talking about it..

Onto the race

Raymond picked me up in his VW bus at 5 in the morning to drive out to the desert, sleep was the only reprieve I had from the dread I was experiencing driving that green mile out to the desert. I lined up for the intermediate field with only one other racer, I remember he was a lot bigger than me, and when you are that age there is no advantage to having a light “climbers build” you’re just a prepubescent scrub.

@##=#<12,l>@##=#As our “race” began we started talking, it was turning out to be like a nice friendly ride together. My new friend told me he had been racing since he was eight and had won the national age group titles in road as well as track and even some BMX. He did not seem to be bragging or trying to psyche me out — he was exceedingly well mannered. We reached the base of the King of the Mountain climb and he wrapped up our conversation politely; I thought for a second he might get of his bike and shake my hand, then took off up the climb. No one told me how far ahead he finished, but I don’t remember getting anything for second place either. This was to be the first of many humiliating defeats.