Things that make me laugh...

Herein, are just a few things that I just read this evening that kind of made me chuckle, or made me think about a few things, maybe they did for you as well, eh, then again, maybe not. You decide. Deride, if you will.

Part the first:
O'Grady's recent tirade.

As I normally do, I laughed at Mr. O'Grady's latest throwdown on the sport that apparently too many people take way too seriously. How do we know this, well, fast forward to the letters section on Velonews and we have this response from an irate reader of O'Grady's recent outburst:

"Editor,

I read Patrick O'Grady's on-line article, unfortunately.

Was this called for?
"The others, belonging to Janez Brajkovic, Steve Morabito and Yaroslav
Popovych, are indistinguishable from the jillions of other Madone 6.9 Pros
ridden to mid-pack finishes in industrial-park crits worldwide by
potbellied masters racers. "
Sure, we may have never been god-like pros, but describing what is probably the MAJORITY OF YOUR RACING SUBSCRIBERS as "potbellied" was inaccurate, unnecessary and demeaning. This subscriber would suggest that you choose your words a bit better.

John Strasser"
Actual link to letter section at Velonews.com.

Alright, first of all, it looks like someone touched a nerve with Mr. Strasser eh? Did someone eat too much food over the holidays and hasn't been riding since about that time and has a bike that is oh so average, but really highly extremely overpriced? Hey, nothing wrong with the Madone, as long as you don't actually have to pay for one. I'd ride one all day, if it was given to me. If I'm going to part with my hard earned greenbacks, or in the situation that I'm in now, my lack of hard earned greenbacks, sorry, it's not going to be for a Trek. I'd much rather ride the Pinarello Prince that I have now, but I digress.

Second, Strasser, seriously, get a sense of humor. Most pot bellied mid pack master's racers know what they are (it's what O'Grady has been for, well, many years now, and what I ASPIRE to be), and they apparently don't take themselves as seriously as you do. I know lots of master's racers, and guess what? Those are normally some of the coolest cats out there, mostly because the ones I know have been racing bikes since the days of toe clips and wooden bottom shoes, and didn't just discover the sport when Lance rolled around le Tour in 1999 (or later for the late bloomers).

I can picture Mr. Strasser now. Rolls up to the "Saturday Morning World Championship ride" (you know which ride I speak of, there is one in almost every town where there are, well, people who like to ride bikes), on his shiny new Madone, matching Nike shoes, matching Giro Atmos LiveStrong edition helmet, Astana kit (he's already upgraded from the old Disco kit), a $400 pair of Oakleys, embrocation on his newly shaved legs, and not a speck of dust nor dirt anywhere near his visage. As the group rolls out of town, he's yapping away about how he's been doing some zone 3 this week, and maybe a little zone 4, and that his new SRM Dura-Ace crank (he has to use this crank because they don't make a SRAM crank - yet) is giving him great power files that he can upload to his training blog so that his coach can see them, and his friends can be amazed by a ton of squiggly colored lines that only maybe about 3 people in the world really understand anyway.

As the group makes their way into the "meat" of the ride, you know, where the shit normally starts to get thrown down, he sticks in the middle of the ride for a little while. Talking less now, trying to keep the legs turning over, and talking the game gets harder when you suck, and your gut is getting in the way (I ought to know, my gut is getting in the way more and more these days). As the group approaches the section of road where the shit really goes down, all of a sudden, Mr. Madone is no longer seen. Where the hell did the annoying guy go? A few minutes later, we all know the answer.

He took the side road about a mile back so he could take a short cut, catch his breath, and intercept the ride up the road where it's a little flatter, and he can tuck in behind everyone else.

Over the flats we go, and we're grinding it out. Mr. Nike New Shoes is sitting at the back, huffing and puffing, and just barely hanging on for dear life. Ah, a stop sign. He can catch his breath again, and then more flats, same sitting at the back. Finally we reach some climbs, OK, they're not huge, but they are a little bit of a bump, and it normally separates the strong from the weak. Mr. Oakley goes shooting off the back like a caboose separated from a runaway freight train, and as he fades off the back, you hear, "Coach told me to take it easy today anyway, this is supposed to be a rest day..." Yeah, you all know THAT guy, you've seen him. You've ridden with him, thing is, he's not done yet.

After you ride over hill and dale, chasing attacks down for the workout, having fun with your friends, on the run back into town, you see him. Again, waiting, and soft pedaling up in front of the on rushing pack. Approaching the "sprint" line at the end of the ride, he gets back into the line, surprisingly fresh for someone who got dropped about 40 minutes before. The sprint starts to break loose, and I don't need to tell you what that's like on a group ride. You've got yay-hoos all the way from folks who have never raced, to folks who are local strong cat 1s and 2s and 3s trying to actually mix it up, and here comes Strasser again. He jumps into the sprint, and starts going for it. Despite himself, he's an OK sprinter, but he's not that good, in order for him to "win", he slides slightly to the left, therefore running you OFF the road, so that he can "win". Thing is, he starts turning squares 50 feet from the line, and 20 people go rushing past him anyway, and he almost killed you. All in a fine day for guys like this.

You have all had this experience, I know that you have. And there might be some of you out there who ARE this guy. If you are, stop it. Knock it the fuck off. Nobody thinks that you're cool, and really, nobody likes you. What we want to do is toss a tree branch into your spokes, and given the right chance, and opportunity, that's what we're going to do. It would be better for everyone else if you just didn't show up. Seriously, stay at home, or ride alone. Nobody. Likes. You.

Oh, and did I mention? Get a fucking sense of humor.

I was going to write about something else, but I seemed to have forgotten what that was exactly during my above tirade. Sorry about that. More later. Adios.

Twitchy riding...

Today, being the 4th o' July and all, and just about everyone having a day off, I decided to hang out, and go for a ride at one of the local "group" rides that are held this time of the year. I write "group" rides, because as most of you know, the group rides on days like today are more like a mob scene. Today, no different at all really. I think around about 1000 folks lined up and rolled out from Spin Cycle in Cary this morning at 8:00AM. There was a 50k route, and a 100k. I decided, at the last moment, that maybe the 100k would be OK to do. Nah, just kidding, I decided the 100k way back, I mean it is only 60 some odd miles after all. 

So the ride rolls out, and we get a police escort out of town. Nice, except for the fact that the pace car, and the cop cars rolling with us are stopping in the middle of the intersections with little to no warning that they are stopping. In other words, some movable road furniture. There were almost several crashes heading out of town. Everyone made it out alive though, no worries.

While out on the road, I've got to admit, there are some jackasses on this ride. Look people, it's a large group ride, and we're moving fairly fast. It's not a race though. When things bunch up, do not, I repeat do not go over the yellow mid line of the road, into a blind corner, going uphill, and almost get your stupid ass run over. This happened, time and time again. There is no need for it. No need at all. Why risk your damn life on a group ride. Why risk your life in a race for that matter. Look, rules of the road, stay to the right of the yellow line. You'll live longer. But then again, maybe Darwinism should be practiced, because then we'd have less stupid people out there riding with us. I won't name names, but there seemed to be a certain local team whose riders were doing this the most. Mostly because they seemed to not be able to maintain their position within the group, and decided that the only way to "get ahead" was to dash across the line and then have to dart back in when a tractor trailer truck was coming up the other side of the road, therefore endangering other people, again because the riders had to dash back into the group. Nice work jackasses. I've been to a few races, and I think the bulk of this team are all hero cat. 4's, I could be wrong, but I think that's the level they're at. Ridiculous really. But again, no names, don't want anyone feeling downtrodden by little old me.

Then, coming into town, anyone who has done this ride knows, that there are some traffic lights when rolling back into town. OK, a little lesson for those of you who don't know. If the light is red, you stop. If the light is green, you go. If there is a car in the lane in which you're in, do not go around the car at the stop light. I don't ride in Cary all of the time, or make that hardly ever, but there are a lot of people that do. And guess what? A little respect for their town goes a long way, plus it makes the motorists of Cary a lot less pissed off (I'm talking to the people who go around cars at stop lights and "swarm" the cars - idiots). You see, in a large ride like this, you should obey the laws and rules of the road when rolling back into town. Don't ignore, and run the lights. And I did see people who should know A LOT better than to do this, doing it on the way back into town. You makes us all look bad, so stop it. Then, the topper to all of this. We're about a half mile away from the finish point of the ride. I'm riding in a double paceline with, oh, 60 other people. I see someone come up on the outside of me, he cuts back hard to right, splits the difference of a couple of teammates in front of me, bounces around a little bit, almost knocks over 3-4 people, and then he sort of sprints off up the road. What were you trying to accomplish there super chief? Are you racing for the parking lot? Did you want to get to the bouncy castle first. Unbelievable. Again, this guy was from the same time riding all over the yellow line, so it didn't surprise me when this happened. I yelled at him of course, it's what I do on these things.

My griping aside though, Spin Cycle, and Capital Cycling Club held another great event this year. It was well organized, and well attended. I can't express my thanks enough to those folks for putting this on. It must have been a huge undertaking, and it was for a worthy cause, so I didn't mind tossing in my $30 bucks. Nice work folks. Everyone seemed to have a good time and there was good food, good rest stops, and a nice little post ride party back at the Hibernian. You guys did right. I hate it that people act like assholes out on the road, but what are you going to do? Rides like this attract people like that. People who don't, or can't race, but yet have some fitness and want to show everyone "what they're made of" and all. But, considering the amount of people who attended, it could have been a lot worse. I wasn't aware of any crashes that took place, or anything really bad happening. And again, Spin Cycle, Capital Cycling Club, thanks for having this, and hope to see you at it again next year.