Racing

Races will be coming soon; less than a month. Several of you are ready, and several others are not…. I am in the “not” category.

We have several Category V riders who should pick a few races, and all go together. You could really make a great presents for our club and team.

In these past five years, I have noticed a very big difference between running and multisport athletes and road cycling athletes. I had never realized a general difference before, but I see it now.

Road cyclists typically consider every single weekend a race weekend. Pure cyclists tend to race two or more times a month from March to August resulting in 20 to 40 race completions. Multisport athletes tend to race just a few times each year. I am not sure what the difference is; and neither idea is better than the other. I can only speak to what I am used to.

It seems to me, multisport events (MS) are kinder and friendlier upon each individual participant than pure cycling (RC) events. MS athletes are more able to bask in their race completions than RCs – After all, they’ve trained in at least two sports, and probably three… Each time the MS competes, it is a total commitment. RC’s are also totally committed but unfortunately, nobody seems to care if you completed any given race the way MS does.

Road cycling tends to only celebrate those who finished in the purse. Those who didn’t Finnish in the purse are noteworthy only because the “cash riders” had to have somebody to beat (Imagine if only five riders showed up to a race that paid five deep). Road cyclists are snobs in general, and as a rule – downright assholes. I don’t even know when this started, but it has been this way for as long as I can remember (early 1980’s) and do not like this aspect of my racing community.

I can tell you what road cyclists respect (other than winning or placing in the purse) and that is if they see you over and over again at many different races. The more often you are seen at road cycling races, the less the community is harsh on you.

As a brand new racer, you will have to overcome not only a blistering pace, many strong teams and getting dropped, but also MAYBE EVEN WORST OF ALL – the fact that nobody in the peleton has ever seen you before, or knows who you are. Breaking in to road bike racing is almost as hard as breaking into Fort Knox – the physical and emotional resistance insures that most “first timers” never come back. I HATE THAT ABOUT THIS SPORT.

Multisport events are far kinder. First of all, they are not all clumped up, and there are no team strategies to speak of. In other words, if Papa Johns has a rider off the front, and you decide to chase them down, you will not have to deal with half-a-dozen riders who will block you.

But road bike racing is richly rewarding if you can survive you’re first few races (physically and emotionally).

I have only done one MS event totally on my own in my life, but I have raced many hundreds of times in road cycling events. As such, I couldn’t possibly give any advice to our MS riders… But I can give advice to our up and coming road cycling riders.

SO IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER MOMENT…… LET ME TELL YOU WHAT TO EXPECT FROM ROAD BIKE RACING…..

1) There is a %99.9 you will get yourself clobbered in your very first race. If you attempt to hang on to the lead pack, you will probably feel like somebody dropped you into a deep and narrow water well along with a pissed off porcupine. All you have to do is pull the barbs out of your ass, shake it all off emotionally and race again next weekend.
2) Race as often as you can –and suggest racing in the same Association. As you show up to races over and over, other riders will begin to recognize you, and no matter what your results are, they will begin to respect you. They will talk to you, and they will begin to consider you a friend, even if you race for an enemy team. It is a brothers-in-arms kind of thing.
3) You can’t race just two are three times a year and expect to do well at road cycling. You really have to race every opportunity your situation allows.
4) Steal is forged in the furnaces of competition. The training you receive from actually racing is about ten times as great as anything you can do on your own or even on a club-team ride. To get good at racing, you have to race a lot. To actually win a bike race, you have to race almost constantly.
5) When you get beat, take “your licks” like a well adjusted human being…. Remember, you have a higher goal – getting fitter, stronger and more knowledgeable about racing… and that any given race does not matter. (Especially if you take my advice and race as often as you can).
6) One race is roughly equal to a month of training in your normal regiment in terms of personal gains.
7) If you race a lot, which I hope you do, you will find yourself in a very comfortable place…. Your friends can be your enemies and your enemies can be your friends. In the end, even your bitterest opponent on the road will be kind (before and after the race) to you as long as they see you are more than one race.
8) To win a race, you can’t be afraid of physical harm. You simply can’t be afraid of crashing. As for me, at my age, and condition, if I took a good hard shot to the pavement, it would probably do a lot of damage. Still, I can’t be afraid of it. I have to block that thought out of my mind. Races are most often lost, not because of lack of strength, but a reservation in terms of crashing.
9) I am sorry to say, as you enter road racing, you will enter upon some very strong riders, many of whom have no idea how to race. While you are throwing caution to the wind, as I suggested above, if you are CAT V, you will experience many very strong riders who can ride very cleanly.
10) As you upgrade, odd as it may sound, you will find the races more even, more clean and easier to win.
11) Even though you can upgrade to Cat 4 and even Cat 3 with less than a dozen races in you (and I recommend you get away from those categories as soon as you can) you really need to race at a minimum, once a month for a season to be a “seasoned racer”. Two or three races a year will not harden you, educate you enough to get yourself into a “same time” finish.
12) I didn’t make the rules…. I wish I had. Road bike racing is very self-cleansing. But it is not those who can’t handle the pace who fall away… it is the riders who can’t come back after getting whipped who go away.

I have won many races, and I have been absolutely humiliated in others. In road cycling, no single race defines you… So don’t let any single race define you! Take Jack’s lead, and race as often as you can…

We have many very strong cycling teams in our Associations (Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana). We have some of the strongest cycling teams in the country. Chances are, you may never be the first rider across some finish line.

If you crossed the starting line, you’ve already won…. PLEASE WIN (START) AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN!

Cycling is what we do to feel good. When we get beat in a race, we feel bad… but we should feel good that we were there… we were strong enough, physically and emotionally to give the big guns something to shoot at!

And, who knows, you might just win a few.

I will race soon – I will get dropped, and I will suck in March and April. But I know, if I show up in March and April, I might collect some ass in June and July!