Reflections of Rimouski #juniors

I wrote it in my head while driving, riding my bike, showering.  I think I even tried to write this post in my sleep.  This post has been written at least fifty times. When you're behind the wheel of a team car and your kids are racing, you get lost between being a fan and a father.  With the race radio crackling in french and the window down, thoughts escape quickly.

Powerful events are hard to write about. On this blog, we like to keep things light and write about the humorous observation or the part of cycling that you don't read about in Velonews. Sometimes the slice of life isn't handed to you like a #5 at the drive through window.

While most adults head to the beach or the lake with their kids during the summer, I took 7 vacation days to drive a team car at a junior stage race in Canada. Unless you came up through the junior ranks, even most cycling fans haven't heard of Rimouski.  That's okay.  Some Rimouskians, weren't aware either, but impressively stopped what they were doing when the race passed their house or business and watched. Sometimes they were even surprised into watching. Take the plump, older man who was obviously surprised to see sixty bikes flying past his house with a full police escort, ten motorcycles, six organization cars following the race, fifteen team cars, then a broom wagon. I am hopeful that the Rimouski locals don't ALWAYS watch bike races on their porch in a blue thong, but hey, I was just happy he was watching the race. Of course I will never get that vision of him out of my head, hopefully the therapy will help.

However, no one takes 7 days of vacation and drives to Canada for the chuckle of seeing a big man in a little blue thong.  So why do it?  

It would be easy to expound on 150 teens staying in a two star hotel eating cafeteria style pasta every day. With several different languages in play there was no mistaking the guys checking out the French speaking girls and the girls checking out the leg shaving guys. There is a lot to see, hear, sometimes even smell.

However, Rimouski was more powerful than the evident situational humor, powerful enough that dads witnessing it could barely contain themselves. Dads seeing their kids learn that it is okay to be a cyclist, that there are other kids in the world that love their bikes, wearing lycra, and being fast.  That's a special moment.

Remember when you were a teen?  No matter what you were into, it felt weird to be 'different'.  Even if people didn't directly poke fun at you, you thought they were poking.  Admit it, no doubt, whatever circle you were in, you were probably laughing at someone else too.  It's part of growing up, learning who you are and being okay with it.

Spending a week in far-eastern Canada to support kids racing bikes isn't exactly the Dominican Republic beach vacation. I'll tell you one thing however, letting the kids have a week of racing and feeling accepted around other teens that giggle, text, roll eyes, check each other out, and still race bike fast while wearing lycra and shaving their legs is worth whatever drive was required.

Confidence isn't just about knowing how to ride the bike.

#Juniors: Riding Through Butterflies

Four years ago when I nudged my daughter Mackenzie into bike racing we had one consistent concern from week to week - butterflies. Not the kind of butterflies that flutter around your backyard and make little girls run with a net squealing with excitement, but the deep down nervousness that makes the stomach tighten and questions of doubt arise at the dinner table.

My kids were so tight, their stomachs so consumed with butterflies, they were afraid of being sick on the start line or on the bike.  I explained.  We all get nervous, especially when it matters.  Many adult racers go through the same thing.  My friends from BioWheels Gerry and Joe are known for it.  While making last minute equipment tweaks, I've heard them coughing at the team tent.  It happens, even to mom and dad.  It's a reflection that you care about what you're doing.  They'll fly away at the sound of the starter's pistol.  After several minutes of coaxing they'd typically loosen up a bit, at least enough to get them to start line.

Today, probably a few hundred races later, the butterflies before a normal Ohio Valley race have dulled to a mere blip on the radar screen. It's a local race, no big deal.  Occasionally something will rear its head, a misplaced glove or a rubbing wheel, and the wings of nervousness will flutter momentarily, but never long enough to escape the net of reason.  Lately, I thought they had migrated away. 

Not so.  There was nervousness tonight in Rimouski.  They were back, big red maple leaf winged Canadian butterflies. It wasn't unexpected.  It wasn't so much that this is a UCI level international stage race.  On top of that, it is their first time team time trial in a foreign country with hundreds of teens watching, kids their own age, peers.  At Mackenzie's side a French speaking Canadian counted down.  "Trois!  Deux!  Un!  Allez!"

Nothing was familiar tonight in Canada, except for one thing...the butterflies.  Now, after four years of racing, hundreds of start lines, the butterflies were back, but this time they were telling my kids everything would be okay.  This is normal.  This is how it is.  Now it feels familiar.  They were where they needed to be.  Like their colorful pretty fluttering cousins, this time the nervous butterflies we're comforting.  Without uttering a word every kid knew the butterflies would take them to the start and see them to the finish.

#Junior Stage Race, Dad in The Team Car

Stage racing, or at least the concept of stage racing, isn't new to the juniors, but the fine details are crystallizing as they learn the rules. The Tour de France this year was the first time that Mackenzie had really taken a noted interest in the racing portion of the broadcast, but that isn't enough to understand all the details of true stage racing.

When I say true stage racing, I am in no way belittling the Ohio Spring Series stage race that several of our juniors raced, but the level of detail of Rimouski (as well as l'Abitibi) really takes it to the next level.

The biggest difference is the support caravan. Those cars driving just behind the riders and providing wheels/food/support/instructions? Yep, that's me this week. Behind the wheel of a vehicle following the race each day. While I am looking forward to this responsibility and seeing my own kid race from the relative safety of the follow caravan there are certainly responsibilities that come along.

At the forefront is the possibility of being fined. To drive in the caravan at a UCI stage race you must have a UCI license. Pretty sure this is just to be sure there is a way to fine you for screwing up - and as I am learning there are a lot of rules to being in the caravan. Fines in Swiss Francs are worn by riders as badges of honor in some cases - I remember one rider getting fined in the pits at Masters Worlds for an infraction that frankly was ludicrous. Though I guess if you read the rules really close it could have been legit.

Now I have follow specific order of rules - something Mackenzie will tell you I am not really good at doing. As opposed to a funeral procession where the direct family slots in first and then everyone else fills in the gaps to make a line, the stage race caravan is in the order of the fastest team overall to the slowest team overall (with a couple possible exceptions). This means I have to know which team is in front of us - and recognize the car. In le Tour that is easy - the first thing they do with Tour cars is wrap them in logos making them unmistakably recognizable. At Rimouski I will have to remember whether I am being the gray Camry from Missouri or the gray Camry from Quebec. Or maybe just get fined.

Our junior riders will also have to deal with the caravan. If they flat they have to get service and get back in the race. Going too far outside the time limit will disqualify them from the stage race, soloing back up would take all their energy and possibly zap them for the next day. That leaves them trying to draft off the caravan - as a parent I am deathly afraid of this...as a rider this is the coolest thing ever.

But that brings us back to my driving responsibilities. Do I want to be responsible for running over the next Taylor Phinney? I don't know if the next Taylor Phinney is going to be here, but what if the next Ryder Hesjedal is here? Geez...now I have to not hit cars and not take out the next famous North American cyclist at the same time. I can't wait to support the team as a driver. It may be my personal most interesting experience of the trip. 

We brought footage from 7 different Tour de France's to watch in the car on the way up - you can bet I will be watching the follow vehicles hoping I get my chance to be Manolo Saiz riding up Jan Ullrich's bum while yelling ALLEZ! ALLEZ! through the radio.