No rain, go train. But it rained. And rained. Sunday was worse than Saturday. The best part about being an over the hill amateur is that we don't have to do any training that we don't want to do. I don't want to go outside and ride in the pouring rain. Actually, the rain is not the part that bothers me. Not the rain that is still falling anyway. The puddles are the problem. They make my feet wet and get my bike all dirty, not to mention need maintanence. I don't like doing bike maintanence. Right now I don't have a full-fendered beater up and running either to take the "ride her hard and put her away wet" abuse of rain riding, but even if I did, this weekend's deluge was beyond my sensibility threshold.
With the rest of this week looking wet too, and Sunapee coming up on Saturday, the trainer might be a fact of life when it comes time to open up. Rather than burn out on indoor riding now, after doing a good session on Saturday, I decided to just skip the ride Sunday. Late in the day I stumbled out of the house when the rain wasn't quite so bad and did a 6 mile run at a slow pace, 8:20 miles with an average HR of 135 (LT is around 160). Then it was off to Mom's place. This wrapped up my week of training at a pathetic (for May) 6 hours, and this on the heels of the prior week's less than stellar 8:45. Things will be all that much sweeter when the weather turns back. I might need to end up doing a 200K epic on Memorial Day in order to get anywhere near my monthly mileage (kilometerage?) goal.
So yesterday, being rained in, I did some extra exploring of the blogosphere. One of the links I followed was to this tri-guy Iron Benny. His recent blogging included this post where he offers up a rehash of an old theme, that road cyclists are a bunch of elitist snobs. This angle has been exploited for years, especially back when mountain biking was taking off. It is too bad, because we are all bike riders, but since division and classification come hand in hand, as soon as we classify ourselves we start to become divided.
Years ago, I can remember being called a "roadie" by hard-core MTB riders. I guess this was because I could climb hills without using the granny gear, but then manage to get in their way on downhill. "Roadie" was hardly being used in a complimentary manner most of the time. This was particularly amusing to me, because I bought my first mountain bike in 1986 when most of these kids were still playing T-ball. So maybe reading Iron Benny's post opened up old wounds. Where does the "elitist snob" stereotype of road riders come from anyway?
I am not a raging Springsteen fan by any means, and he probably heard this from someone else, but I once saw an interview where he said "There are nice guys and assholes in every neighborhood." Damn straight. (that's me as a forty-something trying to sound hip. What is hip? Tell me, tell me do you think you know?...). For sure, The Boss has got it right. Certainly there are road riders whose attitude cannot be defended. That goes for everyone. Why then, do we all get the broad brush? I take you back to my first blog post. This whole little thing started out with a little comparison/contrast between triathletes and bike racers. Like most friction, the divide between bicycle road racers and other cyclists originates primarily from misunderstanding.
Bicycle road racing is something that you just cannot understand without doing it. The dynamic of pack riding defines the sport. Tactical management of ones energy, and the use of other's actions to ones own benefit are as big a part of the game as strength and fitness. This is what makes racing hard in a different way than "individual" sports that involve cycling. When the race comes to a hill, and the benefit of drafting in the group loses its significance, if you can't keep up, and lose 10 seconds, you will probably never get it back. There is no "your pace." You either need to put up, or get dropped, and then you are done. The pack is that important. This is just the way it is.
Trust is very important in the pack. Riding along at 50 kph down an unfamiliar road, shoulder to shoulder with 125 other riders requires a lot of trust. Surely any triathlete can understand that no dedicated athlete wants to lose an entire season, maybe even an entire lifetime of training and hard work due to a mistake by someone else. The group is like a flock of birds; we are all individuals, but we have to fly in the expected manner to avoid carnage in the group. Unlike birds, we were not born with these instincts. The skills and etiquette had to be learned. This is why bicycle racing has licenses and categories, to separate the new riders from the experienced.
When out on the road training, we share the roads with all kinds of people: the cars, the trucks, motorcycles, triathletes, tourists, kids, and DWI's riding against traffic. Those of us who spend our weekends mixing it up in road races and criteriums have been conditioned to ride a certain way amongst other cyclists. When I am with my mates, I don't have to wonder if, when a chipmunk runs into the road right in front of us, are they going to swerve or brake? I know they are going to bunny hop it. I have confidence in them, trust. Not because they have a fancy bike, not because they shave their legs, not because they can name a pro cyclist other than Lance Armstrong, but because I know them and trust them. It is that simple. If you've never raced bikes, you just wouldn't understand. Lots of racers feel the same way, and what you might perceive as elitism is really nothing more than risk management. Trust me, if you are on a bike, I respect what you are doing, but please respect me and what I am doing too.
The rest will have to wait. Thanks for reading and bring on the comments!
*This one is a bit more obscure than most, so I will spell it out for you:
Real Mother for Ya
Johnny "Guitar" Watson
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