FBF June 16

As racers we are constantly evaluating and reevaluating one another. And these evaluations run the gamut from the shallow (hairy legs, dirty bike, large beard, Josh Sakofsky) to the tactical (who made the break, who is sprinting well, when did Josh Sakofsky get dropped). Every race brings new data about our competitors, and smart racers learn about their competition as the season wears on. Over the season, we develop our own notions about what we and our competition are capable of. We write our own dossiers about one another, and because we are lazy, we stick to them.

A week from last Tuesday was the most recent Tuesday Night race at FBF. Teammate Aaron had won the week before on bonus points night, and because I am bad at counting, I thought that he had the yellow leader’s jersey. He didn’t, he was one point behind James J. So there was no jersey to defend, just a mad scramble for points. Tuesday brought a classic summer FBF conundrum. After heavy rains the day before and the morning of the race, and with a threatening sky, there was a good chance the race would be canceled. And before you start assuming that all of us that race at FBF are super soft, rain-adverse chicken people, you need to know that the races aren’t canceled because of rain, they get canceled because the course floods—you know, like the story of Noah and his animal dating service—and racing in 3-4 inches of water through a pot hole minefield is not recommended.

We found out through the magic of Facebook (it is good for something other than finding out how racist your casual acquaintances are!) that the race was on, so we trudged our way out to the course—because when you are in contention for the yellow jersey, that’s the sort of hell you inhabit. It was a small field and James was there also because he’s stuck in the same GC boat as we are. There wasn’t any wind, but with a small field, there’s a good chance that if you make it hard, things will split apart, as there’s no where to hide.

That’s what we did. Attack, counter, jump, weep, etc… I finally did one big effort, and Aaron countered and that formed a group of about five up the road. Mission accomplished, I sat back and started to do as little as possible. I was near the front and watching the chase, which never really coordinated itself. It was all short bursts and accelerations, which never bring anything back. The break was at about 15 seconds, so if they kept working, they had it in the bag.

Then James jumped.

Now, James does this sort of thing all the time. He’ll jump ahead of the pack when things are slow, and he gets brought back every time. So when he jumped last Tuesday, I assumed it was another jump to get the chase animated. It wasn’t. he jumped. And then jumped again to get up to the break. Which was bad, because James can win a field sprint. Winning from a break would be child’s play for him.

My choices were to: chase and bring back a teammate, so things could get together for a field sprint that he would be too tired to contest; or sit back and hope they could drop James from the break. Being a non-idiot, I chose the second option. James was able to not get dropped, and won the race. Aaron was able to grab second. And now James’ dossier gets updated.

Rockleigh June 25

In the mental contract I keep with the voices in my head. I pledge to only do one weeknight race per week, as this helps insure that I stay non-divorced. Due to the two week hiatus of the Tuesday night FBF races, I decided to shift my weekly bowling league night to Thursday and head over to Rockleigh. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Rockleigh Crit, it’s a Thursday night series held on a 1-ish mile loop that has real turns on it. It also happens to occur in New Jersey, which is the place that I live. This means I can ride my bike to the race. And I did. I rode the 16 miles from my house in a leisurely mosey, as not to waste any mightiness on public roads.

The Rockleigh race, though the field may be smaller than other weeknight races, are hotly contested. Looking around before the race and sizing up the competition, it seemed were would be in for a speedy evening. It was a pretty large field (40-ish, I think) for Rockleigh and there were many FBF refugees out looking for an alternative bowling night as I was. We lined up, shoved off and after two neutral laps, bike racing happened.

The Rockleigh race is a 60 minute crit plus two laps, and we spent the first 45 minutes doing terrible things to one another. Attack, counter, jump, weep, etc… The field was lined out for a good portion of the race, and then when it bunched people would attack, you know, because bike racing. Finally at about 50 minutes on or so, Evan M of Lupus got away from a small move he was in and started a solo ride to victory. None of the teams behind could bring him back, and I wasn’t helping due to the fact that I was riding YOLO. So as we hit the bell lap, it looked like second place would be the best anyone in the pack could muster.

As we were a pretty large group of league bowlers, that meant that getting into position to win second place would be a challenge. This challenging situation came to a head, when a few bold fellows tried to squeeze themselves into the inside line on turn one. Basic physics took over and reminded them that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and then gravity won the position. I was behind this basic experiment, and managed to evade a schooling. This took away any momentum that I had, and that meant rolling in to the finish while gladly evading a “bodies in motion” type scientific demonstration. Evan M won in his Lupus hobo skinsuit. I do not know who finished second.