The idea for A View From The Back came a few years ago, when I got a bad case of the yips. I developed a deep fear of riding in a group, and the only way I could race was either at the front or in the back. Nothing specific happened that caused the yips and, two years later, they vanished just as quickly they had come.
I spent a lot of the time at the back where you get a unique perspective on a race. So the idea was to write about racing at the back of the local peloton. But it quickly became apparent the last thing anyone needed was another series of race reports from another no-name rider racing in local park races, even if the races happened to be in the world’s greatest city (well, technically joint leader in the world’s greatest city contest with my beloved Roma). So, I’ve always shied away from writing about the actual races.
Al Toefield Masters Field (c) G. Green
Having said that, the Al Toefield Memorial Road Race this past Saturday at Prospect Park was chock full of actions that just drive you crazy in a race, so I thought I’d share them. Mind you, Saturday wasn’t the only time these things happened, you’ll see at least one of them in just about every race, but usually not all in the same race.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm #1: Idiotic crashes
Above everything else, I value safe racing. I’ve got a wife and kids to go home to after the race, and I’d prefer to do that in one piece. Don’t get me wrong, crashing is a part of racing, but crashes come in two shapes, the unavoidable and the idiotic. Champion System, a strong team with a lot of good riders, won the race on Saturday and they managed to do something I’ve never seen locally. The guy who won flatted somewhere in the second half of the race, and Champion sent guys back to wait for him and bring him back to the field which the managed to do. And in the process, they managed to cause a stupid crash, albeit one that only affected them.
To set the stage, the loop in Prospect Park has a couple of spots that, while not tricky, definitely can catch you out if you are unaware. At the bottom of the descent, the loop goes from two lanes to one lane as your turn to head north back towards the start/finish. To make matters a little more interesting, because they’ve had issues with that turn forever, they’ve put the big orange barrels you see on a highway to effectively close the right lane as soon as you start the turn. Another spot to know about is just before you enter the start finish straightaway, where the loop curves slightly from right to left. The fastest path through is a straight line so the group always ends up slamming from the left to the right and anyone charging up the right hand side quickly runs out of real estate.
The Champion train bringing the eventual winner back caught us just as we entered the turn at the bottom of the hill. Three guys made it through, but, in a harbinger of things to come, four and five had to swerve hard left to avoid hitting the orange barrels which they narrowly did.
Having survived the turn, the train continued up the right. Sure enough the last rider, who strangely wasn’t the guy they were pulling back to the front, ran out of room and ran into the curb at the slight curve left. He’s lucky that they were moving so fast because he flew over the handlebars and landed on his chest in the grass otherwise it would have been nasty. We’re lucky because his bicycle landed in the road but stayed put instead of shooting into us which would have taken out a lot of guys.
Champion Train Minus One (c) G. Green
The thing is we all know about that spot. Race once in Prospect Park and you know about that spot. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you’re not fast enough to get clear you’re going to go down if you go up the right hand side. And in taking a stupid chance like that you are playing with everyone’s safety, not just your own. None of us are professionals. We all have day jobs, well, most of the group does, and lives to go back to after the race. So if you don’t care about your well being, try to remember that the race can only be a race if there are others in it, so riding safely is your responsibility. Before anyone starts in with you can’t win if you can’t take chances and that if it’s too hot in the kitchen, well, you can’t win if you’re on the ground either and knowing the difference between an aggressive move and a stupid move isn’t really that hard.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm #2: Fighting for a wheel in 70th place
Memo to the guy with the green shorts with “On The Right Track” printed on the back of your shorts: You’re in the back so gaining one bike length, especially when the hammer is down, is not really going to get you any closer to winning the race. Bumping into me on purpose, especially with your bars, is not only stupid, it’s dangerous. And I promise if I go down, you’re going down with me.
We were on the back stretch, pretty much single file and moving along nicely without any hitches or gaps opening. I happened to be behind two guys riding next to each other when Mr. Green Shorts, came from my left, so I moved over a little to sit on one guy’s wheel instead of between the two guys. Green Shorts proceeds to try to ride between the two guys, so I gently push him back to the left with my hand on his hip. His response was to brush his bars against mine as he tries to sit between the two again. At this point I’ve got two options. Smart option: let him take the wheel because we’re 9000 places back so what difference does it make. Option two is to do the patented Robbie McEwen head butt.
Robbie McEwen
After I very politely explained where we were in the peloton and why it made no sense to fight me for the wheel, I chose the smart option. Bumping happens all the time and it is fine. I am also willing to fight for a wheel when I think it’s appropriate or there is a particular reason I am on that particular wheel. It’s fighting for wheels 300 places back that is just plain stupid.
(BTW: I’m convinced McEwen learned his head butt from watching giraffes fight. Watch the video which could be mistaken for a McEwen sprint.)
Things That Make You Go Hmmm #3: Strong guys yo-yoing through the field
I’ll admit this one is all mine and that this is really just me whining. I apologize in advance. There are two particular offenders in this case both of whom have won their fare share of races. One guy is a sprinter, so the issue isn’t so much that he’s at the back, it’s that he moves to the front on the same sections every lap and the drifts back through the middle of the pack in other sections on every lap forcing guys to go around him in different directions. Again, it’s just my own neurosis here, but what’s the point of moving to the front, if you are just going to come to the back every single lap. I could see if he was trying to get to the front for the hill, so he could stay in contact, but that’s not where he drifts back. And it probably wouldn’t annoy me at all, if he drifted back on one side, instead of down the middle.
The other guy just has no business riding at the back. He’s strong, he wins in breakaways and when he does go to the front, he’s usually either towing us around at a zillion miles per hour to bring back a break or launching a break of his own. He tends to open up gaps when he’s at the back which he knows he can close. The issue is that I’m not sure I’ll be able to stick his wheel if I’m behind him which will leave me caught out. So please, ride at the front and leave those of us to ride in our own cesspool of misery.
Again, apologies for the whining.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm #4: Riders coming unglued by a bump in the road
Technically, this happened the week before, but since I’m on a roll . . . Akin, to knowing the curves of the course is also knowing the course obstacles, i.e., the pothole 3 feet to the left of the lane marker at the bottom of the descent, the row of potholes in the middle of the road by the Greek Temple, the manhole cover just before the old finishing straight. If you watched yesterday’s stage in the Tour, you saw the catastrophic effects an unseen bump can have when Jens Voigt went down super hard on the final descent. Key word here is unseen.
Two weeks ago, the guy from Coffee Den (I think that’s the name of the team), riding right in front of me, hit the aforementioned manhole cover on the 12th lap and both feet came unclipped from his pedals. Luckily he kept it upright. It can happen to anyone. It just shouldn’t happen on the 12th lap. I’m 99% sure the manhole cover was in the same spot the previous 11 laps. Heck, I’m pretty sure the manhole cover has been in the same spot since they opened Prospect Park. Hitting it is no big deal. Being so unaware and unprepared for it that you come out of your pedals is.
Now given the chance, I’m sure guys would mention the million things I do in a race that drive them crazy, but since this is my blog, you’ll only get the things that drive me crazy.
Sprint Finish in the P/1/2/3 (c) G. Green
And that’s today’s view from the back.
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