Can I get a freakin race report?

MadisonDan said:
It almost looks like you did it on purpose
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I wish... There were a bunch of UCI women standing around trying to figure out line choice so instead of waiting and watching what they did, I went full gas into the off camber and was basically riding sideways for half of the stretch then gravity/mud got the best of me and I went down. Luckily Reimann was there with the telephoto lens to capture the slide for posterity's sake. Notice hand on the hood and feet clipped in, definitely not on purpose!
 
hotsauce said:
I ran a 5k today because of that mud. Definitely going to have dreams of washing my bike but it never getting clean tonight. A cyclocrossers nightmare!
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You guys should've raced WCCX2. It was pretty cold with the 40 mph guests (which blew over a portapotty - now that's a nightmare) but no mud. Fun course with lots of climbing. I did Supercross on Saturday and it was just too much traffic on the course to make any headway.
 
MadisonDan said:
Supercross Cup Weekend 2016

Saturday....
Upgrade went thru this week for 4->3, but after looking at the race times, I opted for the Master's 35+ (1/2/3/4) race at 10:45am. Oooffff....
Drove up solo on Saturday morning, since @Harry Hamilton was racing in the 55+ race an hour earlier and he had to leave right after he was done. Packed up everything Friday night. Hit the road in the morning, and arrived at 7am. Wanted to get there nice and early to get in a few laps to check the joint out, cause new venue. Also had a co-worker, Jeff, doing his first race in the 4/5 at 8am and wanted to point him in the right direction for reg/pre ride/staging, etc.

The course... Holy hills batman. #TooMuchSuper Rode two full laps, and doubled back on the stairs a few times. Decided to run them.
Get Jeff over to the start of the 4/5 Race, then grab megaphone and vuvuzela to head over to the stairs for some heckling... Beautiful weather for suffering. And yelling at people. Much fun was had here.
Rode another lap between races, watched Harry and @seanrunnette in their 9:45am 55+ and 45+ races, photos in the Weekend Thread.

10:15 I head to car, change into skinsuit for race and ride around the parking lot on the hill for a bit.

Staging...
They call up the Vittoria Series leaders for the first row or two. There was a national champ in there somewhere, a junior I guess. The 35+ was mixed with the 15-18's. Call up by name. WTF am I doing here. I'm 5th row? maybe 6th? Doesn't matter. We go. Up the pavement to the first off camber along the fence. I find myself on the high line, make up a few lost spots along the way . Then we hit the off camber turns, and the right hander is a little jammed up. The front guys are gone already. As we make our way up to the pit area, it thins out a lot. I make a pass or two, get passed by a few, and eventually settle in behind a Kissena guy. For the next 3-4 laps we go back and forth, until I get a decent gap on him after the stairs on lap 4(?). I come thru the S/F and see 2 to go as I start my 5th lap. 30 seconds later I hear the announcer calling out the leader and hear the bell for the last lap. I will get caught. Soon. Going up the first few turns, I can see over my shoulder the two leaders on the off camber along the fence line by the track. As they're about 15 yards behind me I pull over as far as I can to the left to let them by..... They pass like I'm going backwards. Ugh. Shortly after a couple more guys lap me, and I finish 29th, one lap down, getting passed by 5 guys. Not bad... First lap video HERE

Lap times
1 - 8:40
2 - 8:58
3 - 9:03
4 - 9:08
5 - 9:25

Sunday

What can I say. Cold. Wind. Snow. Mud. Cross...
Harry & I drive up together. Check in on newbie Jeff. He has mud tires today instead of file treads. Good boy.

One lap course recon. Holy fuck. Sit in the car for an hour. Watch a little of the 4/5's. Yell at @1sh0t1b33r , Jeff, and a few others. Back in the car for an hour. Watch Harry & Sean again in their race. Go to car, change socks, cover shoes with duct tape (yes, it did help, so fuck off :)), change gloves, ditch skull cap and jacket, and make it to staging as call ups start. Same staging. 4th row. Go! Up the pavement to the first off camber along the fence. I find myself on the high line, make up a few lost spots along the way until the end when I catch my bar on the chain link fence. Stay upright, but loose a few spots. Then we hit the off camber turns, and the right hander is all jammed up. Running, remount, hot that long off camber straight by the tennis court, try to ride, and slide out. The mud is just nasty. As we hit firmer ground, I notice my chain dropped. ugh. 3rd time this year? fix, remount, still not DFL, how is that possible? I see @jShort but the corner of the building and say hi as I ride by. I managed to make a few passes up on the flatland by the barriers. A few before, and a few after. This was a battle to stay upright the entire race, Even while running up the mud hills.

View attachment 43795

I rode three of four laps. I finished about 10 yards in front of the leader, and the official took pity on me and said "You're done. I'll put you out of your misery" Thank you sir.

Lap times
1 - 12:43
2 - 14:09
3 - 14:37


Next race thoughts? Solstice or Limestone? Need to choose 1
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Noticed the tape, pro move. In the days before Giro shoes I would tape my toe vents.

2 Pro Points for Gryffindor.
 
The bear-suit guy (name omitted) stepped up and apologized:

Adam my intention was not to get under your skin or piss anyone off. I'm a meaningless CAT 3 in the cycling world. I was trying to have fun an took it a step too far. I am also confused by the bikereg athletereg thing honesty I don't know that guy. I'm apologizing for what I said and in future races will tone it down. I'll gladly say the same in person. I just want to have fun on my bike as I hope we all do. I'm more than happy to come forward at NBX as shake your hand and talk it out. I'm not here to hate on other riders. Especially when they can clearly leave me on a course.
Like · Reply · 15 · 17 hrs

Adam Myerson Thanks, ------. I appreciate you understanding and taking responsibility for it.
Like · Reply · 6 · 17 hrs

also, from the Supercross page. It wasn't just Adam this was bugging:

Derrick St John
------, you re right you took it a bit too far, but hey we all make mistakes. Good on you to step up and claim it. But just know that none of the categories are meaningless, all the other categories matter, they really make the race happen, without the other categories there is no race. People are not defined by their ability to go fast or dig deep. I have just as much respect for other categories as my competitors. It's the respect for my competitors that pushes me to train and keep chipping away.
Like · Reply · 4 · 15 hrs

Adam Myerson I thought the same thing. We don't think you're meaningless. We don't care how fast anyone is. Just what kind of person they are.
Like · Reply · 4 · 15 hrs
 
jShort said:
I have to admit, I was surprised to see someone who has been doing this for so long, let someone get under their skin.
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Yeah, what am I missing here? Ok, somekind of unwritten rules about heckling that obviously these guys didn't know, or did they just mess with the wrong person? Since when can't you can't heckle about someone's appearance?
 
seanrunnette said:
The bear-suit guy (name omitted) stepped up and apologized:

Adam my intention was not to get under your skin or piss anyone off. I'm a meaningless CAT 3 in the cycling world. I was trying to have fun an took it a step too far. I am also confused by the bikereg athletereg thing honesty I don't know that guy. I'm apologizing for what I said and in future races will tone it down. I'll gladly say the same in person. I just want to have fun on my bike as I hope we all do. I'm more than happy to come forward at NBX as shake your hand and talk it out. I'm not here to hate on other riders. Especially when they can clearly leave me on a course.
Like · Reply · 15 · 17 hrs

Adam Myerson Thanks, ------. I appreciate you understanding and taking responsibility for it.
Like · Reply · 6 · 17 hrs

also, from the Supercross page. It wasn't just Adam this was bugging:

Derrick St John
------, you re right you took it a bit too far, but hey we all make mistakes. Good on you to step up and claim it. But just know that none of the categories are meaningless, all the other categories matter, they really make the race happen, without the other categories there is no race. People are not defined by their ability to go fast or dig deep. I have just as much respect for other categories as my competitors. It's the respect for my competitors that pushes me to train and keep chipping away.
Like · Reply · 4 · 15 hrs

Adam Myerson I thought the same thing. We don't think you're meaningless. We don't care how fast anyone is. Just what kind of person they are.
Like · Reply · 4 · 15 hrs
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Bear suit guy is a good dood. Totally of the "let's rip beers and party!" bike racing type, but also crushes hard AF in the 3's.

I personally can't get enough of any amount of heckles. You have to basically yell "you suck at bikes, you suck at your job, your GF fakes it and your father will never love you since you quit baseball," to actually make me bummed out.

I'm barely participating in the same race as the front group that any acknowledgment that I'm out there makes usually helps.
 
i wonder how mad @seanrunnette gets when people say he is tall
YouMad.jpg


while i agree its unoriginal and not funny, how does it even compute to you in the race?
 
Once, at a GBH show in LA, a guy asked how the weather was up there. I spit on him and told him it was raining. He punched me once in the stomach. I think he actually punched my spine. I lay there in a ball for a long time. I don't get mad. I AM tall :)
I get the sensitivity though. I was a theater actor for a long time, and between savage reviews -
NY Times weekend arts section Oct '98: Among the play's many trivial conceits, the silliest is Lydia's relationship with the buzzard, played with offensive smugness by Sean Runnette.*
and 4 people getting up and walking out of a show in the middle of your big monologue when there were only 5 people in the audience to start with (a high-water mark for an actor, lemme tell you), it takes it's toll.
Once that super-thin connection between you and what you're trying to do, against every contrary impulse (don't stand up in front of people, you can't ride your bike, you suck at everything...) is broken, it's very hard, almost impossible, to get back to the place where you forgot you were a shitty person who shouldn't be doing this.
Quoting @Mountain Bike Mike's awesome baseball heckling article: "Should someone really be bothered by heckles, they must be respected." When a racer flips you off on one lap, and asks what's wrong with you on the next, it's probably time to back off.
When in doubt, just be nice. It's so much easier on everyone. Even pros.

*to be clear, this was accurate.
 
If we want American cyclocross to look more like it does in Europe then we need to start being meaner to our pros and pay them a lot more. But, if we want to make American cyclocross great again then we just need to take ourselves a little less seriously and/or learn to be more clever hecklers. I've never come up with a clever one in my life so normally I just yell something that sounds a lot like blorf!

In Europe, there are different ways to deal with fan disrespect:

Bart Wellens karate kicks hecklers
bart-wellens-kick.jpg


Sven stops class to teach a lesson in nonviolent protest (ffw to 0:39)

Most likely the Sven fanclub served up the perp with some vigilante justice in the beer tent later.
(BTW - this as Loenhout 2012. epic mud)

postscipt: note that Sven retains good dismount form when addressing his detractors. respect.
 
seanrunnette said:
I get the sensitivity though. I was a theater actor for a long time, and between savage reviews -
NY Times weekend arts section Oct '98: Among the play's many trivial conceits, the silliest is Lydia's relationship with the buzzard, played with offensive smugness by Sean Runnette.*
and 4 people getting up and walking out of a show in the middle of your big monologue when there were only 5 people in the audience to start with (a high-water mark for an actor, lemme tell you), it takes it's toll.
Once that super-thin connection between you and what you're trying to do, against every contrary impulse (don't stand up in front of people, you can't ride your bike, you suck at everything...) is broken, it's very hard, almost impossible, to get back to the place where you forgot you were a shitty person who shouldn't be doing this.
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This cut real close to the bone.
 
seanrunnette said:
Once that super-thin connection between you and what you're trying to do, against every contrary impulse (don't stand up in front of people, you can't ride your bike, you suck at everything...) is broken, it's very hard, almost impossible, to get back to the place where you forgot you were a shitty person who shouldn't be doing this.
Click to expand...

At least when it comes to being a mediocre amateur bike racer I find solace knowing that however bad I am currently sucking at whatever I am doing, I am in fact doing it infinitely better than the rest of the shlubbs who are sitting on their sofas experiencing life second-hand. This mindset is an antidote to criticism, but it may also be the definition of offensive smugness.
 
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@seanrunnette quite enjoyed reading your race report while we drive towards Acadia. I too executed the race plan poorly with no shoe spikes. It was a rude wake up call that more time needs to be dedicated to race prep. Btw while I was out there struggling and hating life, i also had two different hecklers being too harsh. Encouragement is all we need on a day like that.
 
Personally I could careless if someone is heckling, most of the time I don't even pay attention to it. But there was a certain race this year that I though it went alittle to far, at a barrier section there were a couple a people who though that we should be trying to ride the barriers and by the last 2 laps they started calling riders Fu?? As??Hole's and other names I wont mention. That I though went too far especially when you have kids running around, heckling is one thing but being a jerk is another.
 
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