Ka-rack!Lightning
struck the high rise condo building which looms over our backyard along the
Ohio River.While I was sort of
disappointed my wish didn’t come true and Thor once again missed the ugly dead
tree in our neighbor’s overgrown yard, I was happy to be taking care of
domestics.I’m my own soigneur.
Domestics is a term coined by a former teammate, a civil way
of saying, “I’ve named the dust bunnies in my living room.” He used it as a reason he couldn’t ride, but
think he had it sort of backwards. I
save the domestics for when I can’t ride, like last night. That’s what cyclists do when it rains. In a sport that more or less depends on fair
weather to enjoy, there’s a reason to smile when it rains. While it may be close to crawling away on its
own, the VW Beetle sized pile of dirty clothes at the foot of your bed isn’t
going to wash itself.
I wrangled the recyclables and cleaned the cat boxes. It was 5:45pm. With black clouds creeping closer, raindrops tapped
on the windows. Normally on a Tuesday,
I’d be filling water bottles and searching for the ever elusive taillight. Like a bad friend cancelling a date, the rain
waits to fall 30 minutes before the group ride starts. At least I saw it coming on radar. I had an hour or more to kill before there’d
even be a chance to clip in.
As the Channel 9 meteorologists advised people in the
northern suburbs to take their “tornado safe place” over footage of flood water
pouring down Eden Park’s public steps, I man-sorted jeans & t-shirts,
whites and delicates into three relatively separate piles. I found my long lost Smithwick socks under
the bed. Back upstairs, I emptied the dishwasher. Looking back at the TV and using my superior
storm tracking cycling senses, I saw a break between storms and deduced I had
about a 40 minute window. Not long
enough for a ride, so I stuffed a load in the washer and tied the laces on my
Pearl Izumi Peak II’s. By the time I'd come back from back from my run, it'd be perfect timing to get the load in the dryer. On the way out for
a flat 5k, I wheeled the recycling to the curb.
While I’ll never go pro, I’d have a solid career as a pro cycling team soigneur.
While he’s sort of adopted by way of Michigan and Purdue, and
we’ve had quite a few locals race big pro races, another one of ours is racing
the pro Tour of the Battenkill this weekend.If there was an American Paris-Roubaix this is it, a one day 200k
classic in New York featuring covered bridges and 25% dirt roads.When you consider the pot holed mess of Binning
Road and the Stonelick covered bridge, maybe our regular BioWheels Wednesday
shop ride with Chris Uberti is good hard training to face the ranks of the pros at The Battenkill.
Panther is Logistics Company
A few weeks back Cycling
News revealed Team Panther/Competitive Cyclist was selected as an Elite Amateur
team for the Tour of the Battenkill. CIncinnati's Chris Uberti and the rest of Team Panther under the
guidance of regional pro veterans Kirk Albers and Paul Martin will line up alongside
the real big boys of United Health Care, Team Type 1, Bissell, Team Mountain
Khaki’s and others. If you’re wondering
why he wasn’t on the Wednesday BioWheels group ride or Tuesday’s New Richmond Rampage
this week, this is it. I heard he joked
that it was too hard before this big race.
In a twisted way, Chris is about to get a taste of the medicine he’s
been dishing out to us over the past few months. Or, will he be the one dishing?
“Who is that guy?” People
don’t notice him till after the ride. He’s
not a flashy rider or chest thumper. Very
approachable, he’ll roll up to the start of a local training ride, put his foot
down like a kickstand and chat like he’s a local club rider. You’re completely oblivious to the pro experience
he hides behind that smile. The same demeanor
comes across in his riding. He’s
smooooth. I guess that comes from
competing in The Tour of the Gila, The Joe Martin Stage Race, Fitchburg-Longsjo
and The International Cycling Classic (Superweek) the past few years.
While I’ll usually sit-on and rearrange myself within a
paceline to not have the wheel of the strongest guys on a ride, I don’t mind Chris’
wheel. When he pulls to the left on the
front of a rotating paceline, it’s not a shocking quick elbow throw and a jerk to
the left. Like he’s introducing you to
the road ahead, he graciously lets you into the wind. In a race, the smoothness translates. Two weeks ago at the local OSRS race at
Harrison’s Tomb, I saw him ride from back to front in the stretch of 2-3 miles,
gracefully threading his way through the middle of the bunch. After witnessing that, I’m convinced. If you
need to ride the yellow line to the front, you need to brush up on your
skills. He’s the type of rider that
forces you to be a better rider. At 44
years old and no stranger to a bike race, I’m learning from a guy 20 years younger than me.
With the way his black curls cascade out of the back of his
helmet, you wonder why there’s not 10 women on this 24 year-old’s wheel or why
he’s not out clubbing it downtown. He’s
a skinny kid with wide dark eyes and a magnetic smile. At 28mph he churns the pedals with knees in
and his toes pointed down. His back is
so low you have to emulate the posture and seemingly ridiculous high steady
cadence to even get a whiff of a draft.
His Strava profile
lists three full pages of KOM’s, usually a full mph faster than the next guy. I’m ahead of him on only one, hanging on to
the KOM purely for the fact that the Highwater climb in Kenton County, KY is
under construction at the moment.
You’d like to think he’s some sort of out of nowhere gifted
rider, but when you look him up,
he's just like you and I (had we started racing at 18.) He was racing
cat 4 in 2006. Raise your hand. Sure he’s young, but he trains his ass off, even
riding 25 miles to local races, winning them and then riding home.
He won his first race as a Cat 3 in May of 2007. In ’08 and ’09 he placed 9th at
Collegiate Road Nationals, was on the podium of smaller 1-2 races and posted 70th
and 80ths on bigger races like Joe Martin, Fitchburg and Superweek. In ’10 and ’11 he started bagging the bigger
races finishing 3rd in the Hyde Park Blast, a 4th on a
Superweek Stage and a 2nd on a stage of the Gateway Cup. All the while he continues to test himself,
dipping his toes in the deeper waters of the 2011 Tour of the Gila, (won by Francisco Mancebo) finishing
no better than 73rd on his best day.
There’s still more work to be done.
Now here he is with a couple early spring wins, a short cyclocross
season under his belt, and an invite to the dirt roads of the Tour of the
Battenkill, a race on the Director Sportif radar of Pro Tour teams. We wish Chris, Ryan Knapp,
and the rest of their Panther teammates the best.
Surely it’s still ahead of them.
(Post Race Note: Chirs Uberti finished in a group of riders placed 15th-49th 12 minutes down from winner Francisco Mancebo, officially 40th. 162 riders were on the start list. 59 finished. For race results and recap click here.)
American Idol Taylor Hicks once touched it and said, "I gotta get me one of these!" No kidding.
It can weigh 15.56 pounds if you build it up with Sram Red, Zipp wheels and carbon bottle cages, all of which I am keeping for myself. ;)
It’s been ridden on the foreign cobblestones of...uh...Covington, Kentucky.
It placed 7th twice in Cat 3 road races, once in a breakaway and once in a bunch sprint. Yippie!
Unlike those pesky Trek Madone's that some ride, I was never severly injured on it.
If you like the Cincinnati Bengals or Halloween, it’s your favorite colors!
It also looks good with white bar tape for at least 3 days.
It can deliver a killer leadout so your Cat 2 teammate can snatch up that one 4th place point instead of a big cow-legged dude in a green and white kit.
If you have legs bigger than mine, you might be able to stick a heroic solo breakaway attempt like this:
It makes getting dropped from the lead group while suffering in a 95 degree July race a tiny bit better. See article below for details on how you can get your sweaty fanny on this incredibly gifted and blessed bike.
Barry Wicks ain’t no dummy.I’ve searched the internet and in my entire cycling life, I have only seen one example of this genius number pinning technique.Back then, I was too green to have the epiphany I had Sunday.Over the weekend at the Cincinnati UCI-3 International Cyclocross Festival, more specifically at Harbin Park, the Kona truck was parked behind me.As I rolled back and leaned my bike against my car after my race, Barry Wicks was inside the Kona truck pinning on his bib number and I nearly crapped my chamois, not because I was star struck or because I saw his schmengie (I did not), but because I saw how pro’s pin their numbers.
I’ve have a teammate that nearly reaches a near Tourettes syndrome nervous tick trying to get his number pinned on correctly.Sometimes the number accidently gets pinned through the base layer.Sometimes it goes a bit deeper. “Ouch!“Sorry Brother.”“I’m good.”
Sometimes you get the number on perfectly, only to have a pin blow out when the jersey is pulled in.Or, maybe you’ve got a lycra-phobic friend who isn’t quite cool with delicately touching a man in spandex.I’ve heard all the tips: put your jersey on the hood of the car, you got to leave room for jersey stretch…blabidty blabidty blah blah.
I wish I had taken a photo of Wicks pinning his numbers to his jersey.Then again, it’s not cool for a man to take a photo of another man who’s about to don spandex.And…he’s bigger than me.So, I took a photo of myself to demonstrate this technique.Behold my children:
Maybe it’s something secret you only learn after a pro hazing or written on a flyer when your pro license arrives in the mail.Maybe I’ll be lynched by Lance Armstrong for sharing this with mere amateurs.But, I’m going to lay it on you anyway.
There’s a number of ways to get to the point in the photo.I did not see how Barry got his jersey or skinsuit around his legs.As far as I can figure, you can zip up your jersey part way, and then pull it on your legs with your feet going through the arm-holes till the body of the jersey comes up over your quads.Or you can zip your jersey around your upper legs, skipping your feet in the arm holes, and then twist the jersey around your legs till the back is facing up and the zipper is down. Or if it's a skinsuit, maybe just pull it on backwards so the back lies on your upper thighs. Now the jersey/skinsuit is pre-stretched to the approximate dimensions of your upper body and you can precisely pin it so that when you put it on your upper body, your number will be flat and perfect every time.At least you’ll look pro.And, please don’t tell anyone I told you this or I could get man-slapped by a gang of skinny bean-armed pro cyclists.
“Eh.Joe.Git yer knees in,” OB would say.“What the F is he saying,” I would think as the Wednesday night racer ride was rolling down Benning Road at north of 27mph.“Huh?”“You’re knees are stickin’ out.Get ‘em in.Like this,” he gestured as his knees grazed his top tube. I’d do it for a few pedal strokes but would lose form as soon as the next attack went up the road.
OB, arguably the most accomplished masters aged pro in Cincinnati, would drive people nuts on group rides.At the time, OB raced for Torelli.Atop his latest Landshark bike, he’d point out my knees.He’d point out if someone else’s bar drops weren’t level with the ground.He’d scold riders for attacking in dumb places.He would annoyingly start his tips off with a nasal sounding, “eh.”He got under some peoples skin.Those guys would brush him off.Those guys didn’t know better.
The thing about OB was that he genuinely wanted to help people race better.He didn’t waste his breath on most people.When OB gave you a pointer, it meant he saw some promise in you.He was saying eh, welcome to the front, eh now it’s time to look like you should be here, and eh here’s a tip to get even faster.
He went so far as to email me a picture of European U-23 pro’s in a perfect echelon with their knees a hairs width from their top tubes.A note read something like, “in Europe they learn at an early age.”
On the trainer, on group rides, at cyclocross practice, in the trails, for the last 2-3 years his voice permeated my brain, “eh, git yer knees in.”After about a year, I had my knees in, but they would drift wide like an old man riding on the bike path when I got too waxed and lost focus on form.
Today, OB, the above photo is for you.It’s me (pictured in middle) at Saturday’s race.As you can see I am totally on the rivet.My mouth is open taking in air like a hood scoop on a Camaro.I can barely see straight.My hands are in the drops.My back is relatively flat.My knees are in.I made all the pack splits.Thanks OB.
The light at Camargo & Miami in Madiera turned red.I zipped across anyway. I had to take a natural.Sorry, but the laws of nature supersede traffic law.Right officer?I knew this ride wasn’t going to let up for the next hour and the morning coffee was percolating.Between here and the halfway sprint, I could foresee no other points where a pause in the action and a good pee place would intersect.Figuring I had somewhere between 30 and 45 seconds of red light before the group would get back to business, I thought I’d be able to duck behind BioWheels bike shop, take care of business and either jump right back with the group as it passed or, if this were to be a grande natural, at the very least I’d catch ‘em on the descent.I chased the group in full-on flat-backed heart grabbing donkey wheezing mode for the next 10 miles dangling between 50 and 300 meters. I finally caught on in Loveland, only to get popped seconds later as the group punched a big climb at 23mph. Then I spent the next 5-7 miles chasing with a teammate who also got dropped on the climb all because I had to take a pee. Have you seen my critical mistake?
I didn’t tell anyone I was going to take a natural.What a doof I am.Essentially I limited my potential bridge back on posse to the handful of people who saw me head up to the shop.I had four teammates in the bunch, a few good friends, one of the Two John’s, and a bunch of others that know me well enough to give me the courtesy of holding up a bit for me to catch on.Here’s what my antic’s looked like to the five people who saw me.F*&%!Joe just ran the red light.He’s headed up to the bike shop.Look like he’s probably ditching his knee warmers or something.Oop, light’s green, let’s go.At this point there are no thoughts of Joe, because the group of 25 or so is bombing down a hill at 30+mph, navigating a notoriously slippery set of angled railroad tracks followed by a 90 degree corner at the bottom.
Here’s what it was like from my perspective.Oop, can’t pee here, looks like that’s wood for the shop renovation.How ‘bout here?Nope that’s Mitch’s car.Can the neighbors see?Who cares?Get the front of your bibs down.Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.Did the light turn yet?Ahhhhh. Ahhhhhhh. Ah.Ah.Ah.Fhew!Tuck in under jersey.Pick up bike.Clip in.Where’d they go?Oh F%^*!They’re halfway down the hill.Tuck and hammer.Oh Sh&* the tracks.Jam on brakes.Cross.Back up to speed.Crap they’re around the corner.Hammer.Just 50 more meters.Ugh, little bastard hill.Dammit 100 meters.
Like the directions on a shampoo bottle, so it went for the next 10-15 miles.Close gap, stuck at light, hammer, repeat.I finally caught the group in the next town, unfortunately 10 seconds before the major climb of the ride.Still trying to choke back my heart & lungs, I was waxed and off the back in 20 seconds flat.Here I went again, but this time I had the company of another dropped rider.We tried in vain to catch on for the next 5-7 miles, but eventually the group got out of sight, we figured we missed a turn, and gave up the gootch.
So to save you from making the same mistake, here’s how to take a Natural Correcto:
Step 1: Tell group you’re going to go, making this point right in front of the leader or veteran riders.Maybe say something like, “Hey I’m gonna zip up here and take a pee.”
Step 2: Ask a teammate to hold up to help you bridge back on. Maybe say something like, “Can you Andy, Brian and Matt hold up a bit to help me bridge back on, thanks man.”
Step 3: Take natural as quick as possible as waiting friends or teammates dangle off the back of the group.
Step 4: Time trial to your waiting teammates or friends and work together to bridge the rest of the way
Step 5: Return the favor later by keeping a teammate out of the wind or offering up half a Clif bar.
She had a good point.While watching another male pro cyclist get kissed by a pair of Austrailian hotties on the Tour Down Under podium, my wife asked, “I wonder if there are podium guys for the pro women?”“Hmmpf well,” I said with a pause, “I don’t see why not.”There HAS to be podium guys for women.Why should the men get all the love?Or, would podium guys be kind of, you know, creepy?She didn’t seem to think so.
In all the pro women’s races I’ve seen, which really isn’t that many, I haven’t seen podium guys kiss the female race winner.So, like any curious PC equipped person, I googled images of “women’s pro cycling podium kiss.”Nothing came up.So, just to make sure I had my search terms correct, I googled “men’s pro cycling podium kiss.”Whadaya know!A whole bunch popped up.Lance, Floyd, Freddie Rodriguez.You name ‘em.They got smootched.
Striking out, I decided to take this to an expert.I decided to ask a professional women’s cyclist.I sent the following email to Luna Pro Georgia Gould :
Hey Georgia,
It was my buddies who scrawled your name across their collective chests for the UCI CX races in Cincinnati. Anyhoo, I race for BioWheels Cinti and write The Best Bike Blog Ever*.
Last night, when my wife, who races road bikes, and I were watching the Tour Down Under podium girls kiss the winner of the stage, she wondered if they have hunky podium guys for women’s pro races. I thought it was a fair question and I haven’t seen a women’s pro road race podium in person. Are there hot podium guys in cute outfits for the women?
Lemme know and if you don’t mind answering, I’d love to make it a post on my blog.
Wha da ya know, she answered on her blog here. Thanks Georgia!
Anyhoo, I’ve taken the liberty to find some potential podium guys.While I’m not a pro in finding a 100% pure piece of man candy, I think I did pretty good.Since the next big race is the Women’s Tour of California crit, I tried to muster up a pair of Hollywood Hunks that might fit the bill.What do you ladies think of these two potential candidates? (Mathew McConaughey-left, Ryan Reynolds-right) Should there be Podium Guys in women's cycling? Take the poll on the right.
