Friday, April 18, 2008

Can’t buy me love

We all have role models. Mr. Brandt, my former high school English teacher and cycling enthusiast, was the first person that ever exposed to the world of racing on skinny tires and pavement, and ram’s horn looking handlebars. I can’t remember much he taught me about English (mainly because I lacked focus at the time), but I can remember staring at his bikes during class and marveling at the fine craftsmanship that set them apart from my accustomed department store bikes. A few times he even went off on curriculum-unrelated tangents after a weekend of racing explaining his success or lack thereof in the event. Sadly, I remember those discussions vividly but am hard-pressed to tell you what a gerund is and its function in a sentence.

As I have grown and matured from that dazed, velo-infatuated sophomore punk, I still keep in touch with him. As a now educator, I aspire to reach students on a level that he was able to achieve and respect his outlooks on all things cycling, spiritual, and education based.

Below is an email he sent to me earlier this week. After obtaining his granted permission, I had to share it with all of you. Enjoy.


I thought of you yesterday when the latest issue of Bicycling arrived at my doorstep. It's filled with the ubiquitous, get-fast-now, get-thin-now, get-carbon-now articles. Who's on the cover? Patrick Dempsey. Yes, the Patrick McActor from Gray's Anatomy. Ahhhhh, nothing better than reading more articles about how people who can fake emotions for a living are given a platform for their views on life.
Why are their views more important than the guy who works on my car? His automotive skills are brilliant, yet, TMZ doesn't fly choppers over his shop, hoping to get a glimpse of wielding his torque wrench. I guess it's the hard-hitting insightful comments people who fake emotions for a living can convey:
Bicycling: Boonen or Hincapie?
Patrick McStupid: Boonen. He wasn't rude to me when I met him. Classic. Now he flaunts his all-access connections.
Bicycling gone Hollywood. I'd cancel my subscription, but I desperately need to lose weight, find speed and wonder what McDipStick's chef has prepared for his post-ride snack.

Waterford Thursday Night Worlds: We got a great thing here!

What can I say but finally some great midweek training races in our own backyard! No more worrying about if the tunnel or the bridge is faster…no more settling for sub-par former hockey player java…no more tolls…no more leaving the country every other Thursday. In all honesty, I will miss Ciaciaro, that short circle has a bit of charm to it that has always been alluring to me. Also, it served as a cheap but honest way for me to claim that I am an “International Racer”.

The turnout last night hosted arguably the strongest field we have seen thus far in the spring semester of MichScene racing. A big thanks goes out to all the teams who showed up to balance out the punches and keep the racing interesting and challenging.

Sparing the details, I will say that the WSC team once again raced in brilliant orchestrated synergy and cohesion thrusting 4 riders in the top ten including Dan Klein (1st), The Godfather Dybo (3rd), Myself (8th), and Cruise (9th).

Overall, I was pleased with my performance but realize as the season approaches and the bigger engines start rolling, if I am going to achieve my season goals…it’s gut check time!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Striving for Sanity


The following excerpt is from Dr. George Sheehan's last essay before his death, published in the November 2003 issue of Runner’s World. His explanation of training validation seems to make much sense and be very poignant. Simply replace “cycling” with “running” when reading.

We know the effects of training are temporary. I cannot put fitness in the bank. If inactive, I will detrain faster than it took me to get in shape. And since my entire persona is influenced by my running program, I must remain constantly in training. Otherwise, the sedentary life will inexorably reduce my mental and emotional well being.
So, I run each day to preserve the self I attained the day before. And coupled with this is the desire to secure the self yet to be. There can be no letup. If I do not run, I will eventually lose all I have gained, and my future with it.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Part of the problem or solution?

If any of you are like me, you have at least once in your cycling career asked yourself, “Why am I doing this? What is the point behind all this training and racing”? Some of you have maybe even questioned yourself as to why you can’t just be normal and lay on the couch on Sunday afternoon with some tasty American light beer and a bag full of partially hydrogenated potato oils in the shape of comforting chip flakes, watching football and blindly soaking in the consumerism undertones. Why do we insist on driving to distant places with the hopes that we may do well in an event that will simply give us glory only within our small and insignificant subculture that 99% of all people are completely unaware of, or if aware of, make fun of and ridicule from the outside looking in. In a world of infinite possibilities, why do we insist on recreating the same realities day-to-day, week-to-week, season-to-season, and year-to-year?

On my last road-trip training endeavor, I found myself spending the evening in Louisville with some of the Essex Brass boys who have been at this a little longer than I have. I shared a living room sleeping arrangement with the ever so flatulent David Mullens. Just before it was lights out to rest up for a following days worth of training, we had just concluded some early season race talk and speculation and David posed the question to me, “Why do we do this, why am I still racing after all these years”. I went to bed that night pondering the question deeply and found that it has taken me quite awhile since then to actually formulate an answer that makes sense to me. Furthermore, I have concluded that if I am going to spend all of this time, energy, and emotional investment in this sport, than I better have a damn good answer for myself as well as my friends, family members, and other loved ones.

Everyone is drawn to the sport of bike racing for different reasons. However, I am hard-pressed to believe that there is not a common thread of thought process or reasoning that is taking place amongst us all. When it all boils down, there are undoubtedly easier paths that one could take to achieve happiness and instant gratification other than the grueling, arduous one leading to bike racing.

During the tenure of my bike racing I have observed several different personality types and racing styles of people I have met and raced among. A variety of these styles have been successful in obtaining their desired results. Some people race fueled by anger and spite of their opponent, they want to completely annihilate their competition, make them suffer, and leave them in a pile of defeat while they throw their hands up at the line basking in the self-affirmation that they are the greatest. However, it seems these types of racers involvement in the sport can tend to be short-lived if they fail to recreate this reality at a high frequency every time they race.

Another type of racer is the tactician. This is the well-calculated, intelligent racer who is drawn to the sport by out-witting his opponent and thus claiming himself more cunning and clever than him. These types seem to usually have great organizational skills and engineering minds. They also tend to stick around for years and years, honing their craft and most often experiencing consistent results.
Some people are just simply drawn to the team aspect of the sport and the camaraderie it has to offer. This rider would rather go train with a partner or several partners rather than spend time in solitude training. They take pleasure that they are part of “a pack” and that they hold status and rank amongst the pack.

The list of rider types goes on and on. I’m sure at times we find ourselves falling into many categories dependent on the conditions. Despite this diverse set of rider personalities, one common thread does seem to be evident. I have concluded that we all do this to simply to feed our egos. We are all severe ego-feeding addicts. We have all experienced some kind of success that gave the racing bug, that gave us the racing induced ego-feeding disease and we are now serious addicts. At first glance, this idea seems to be incredibly self-serving and self-absorbed. In a way, cycling is inherently a selfish sport. Wait a minute, I signed up for all of this to escape the ignorant masculine egocentrism other more typical sports appeared to offer.

The idea of ego feeding does not necessarily need to have a negative connotation depending on how you approach it. We must ask ourselves, for what are we trying to feed our ego and why? Healthy competition is a good thing, but if it becomes so overbearing that enemies are created than this can be very destructive to our delicate sub-culture and the support we have to offer each other. Are we striving to produce desired results to prove something to everyone else thus making ourselves feel good, or are we going to go beyond this shallow method of feeding our egos? This evening, while I was riding the B-Ham Unofficial Tuesday Night Worlds, a verbal scuffle broke out between two riders that resulted in much unnecessary negative energy and closed the lines of effective communication between them. One rider was feeding his ego by using the method of belittling another rider…this was no good at all.

On the other end of the spectrum is the more sophisticated idea of ego feeding through intricate, meditated, and conceived personal goal setting and achievement. For instance, in this type of racing you may view your opponents as a measure of yourself to them. Mutual respect is created and you are not simply trying to beat them out of spite but rather because you are aware of their skills and abilities and are using them to gauge your personal progress. This type of racer is the one who may be in a breakaway with an opposing rider, ultimately beat him, but than still commend him after the race was over and to acknowledge that their breakaway success was achieved only because of both parties working in synergy. Likewise, if that opponent beat you, you would congratulate them on their well-earned victory. This type of ego feeding takes pleasure in the internal personal achievements and is concerned less with the external spectacle of the whole competition.

As a food analogy, ego feeding that is simply focused on beating your opponents down, racing on anger, and viewing them as enemies is like fast food. Fast food is incredibly delicious, cheap and fills you up right away but is in no way a healthy regular staple in your diet. However, ego feeding that is based on setting and achieving personal goals, and respecting your opponent because of your mutual love and dedication to the sport is like eating food rich in nutrients and antioxidants. This method will keep your competitive engine running long and healthy and will contribute to the sport in a supportive manner.

If you take anything of significance away from this above rambling, it is to ask yourself the question, “How am I going to feed my ego?” Are you going to be the superficial guy who has a long list of people he has beaten and is broadcasting and boasting this to everyone, or are you going to be the racer who can claim that you have set personal goals and gained deep internal satisfaction from achieving those goals.

As cyclist, we have enough obstacles to overcome (i.e. irate drivers, gawkers pointing at and ridiculing our colorful lycra, lack of respect from the overweight football fan in the cubicle next to us at work, etc.). Don’t devalue the sport by racing on negativity.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Finkelstein Cliff Notes



After much waiting, anticipation, and nagging from fellow cyclists, Steve Jobs has finally hand delivered my antiquated Apple Powerbook back to me with a fresh new makeover.

As I begin my emersion back to the wonderful blogging world, for the sake of documentation, I am compelled to bring myself and all those up to speed of the most recent happenings.

When we last left off I was on the dawn of the illustrious six-gap ride. The ride went well but in all honesty I got a bit tired of watching the flying Jew ride away from me at the top of each summit, but in the words of Dybo, “Its all good”. A lot of soul searching can be achieved during 11,500 feet of climbing in 100 miles…I highly recommend it to all.

The 2008 Georgia training camp came to a close and I was forced to abandon the 9-day romanticized binge of professional cyclism and cumulative climbing of 42,000 feet and return to the life that enables me to butter my bread and have summers off. Surprisingly the delve back into work was not as bad as I dreaded it to be. The countdown to summer freedom is in full swing now and the light is very bright at the end of the tunnel.

Since my return, my fitness has felt good and my focus has felt even better, I am officially in all out W.C.I.F. mode and striving for cycling monkhood. Although we only have a handful of training races under our belt and some may argue that they are just that “training races” and that they mean nothing, I have to allow myself to bask in the 2008 success and overall cohesion of the team. In short we have had three wins, several seconds, a few thirds and an impressive plethora of top tens spreading out to all our riders. I, as well as several of teammates have experienced the never-get-used-to tingle of lapping the field on numerous occasions already. Just today, Dybo (fresh off his 1-2 finish with Mr. Klein just yesterday) and I took pleasure in claiming every prime A2 had to offer as well as another impressive 1-2 finish. That’s two big W’s for big Dybo for the weekend (or as the German would say, two double Vs). Things are looking up and I am overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the season. Once again, I love this team…I love this club.

2008 American Cycle and Fitness Supersale


The support we receive from our sponsor American Cycle and Fitness is undoubtedly not only integral to our racing but also goes beyond “bike deals”…they are our friends.

Last weekend was the 4-day Supersale. Matt and Cullen at ACF thought that what better to spice up the party atmosphere than to invite the unaccomplished DJ Funkelstein into the mix. Combining music and bikes was a great thing!