Pulled @ USGP? What The Hell Were You Thinking?

Hey Sour Puss.  Hup Hup and cheer up.  The first faces I saw at the USGP on Saturday were sour pusses.  Like a pre-school art project gone wrong, their dejected faces decorated with the course’s dry dirt glitter affixed by a grotesque snotty sweat-glue told the story.  They didn’t even care to wipe off the Dirt Goatee©.  When I arrived in time to warm up for the Elite masters race, a lot of strong Cat 3 riders, riders who normally would be driving the front end of their regional series races, stood disgruntled on the outside of the tape as they watched the front end of the 2/3 race finish.  Getting pulled sucks monkey butt.  You could hear their thoughts.  “I should be up there.”  "The course was too short."  Riders felt cheated, and rightfully so…but only to an extent.

1. MrKatieCompton 
     
    I will say, day 2 at USGPLouisville was a step in the right direction but still some work to do.Twitter

As Jay Leno would put it to Hugh Grant, “What the hell were you thinking?”  45 riders entered a Cat 2/3 CX race with over 100 riders from all over the nation already signed up.  No offense to their prowess on the bike, but I think it’d be a tall order for even Jeremy Powers to plow his way from the back to the front of a 145 deep field of 2/3 riders in 45 minutes while avoiding every calamity, even if the lap was 8 minutes long.  By some of the bitching and moaning I heard from Cat 3’s around the course you’d think common sense were a banned substance.  You got whomped by starting in the back of essentially a Cat 2 race.  Maybe what’s really stinging ya is realizing that the whoopin’ was administered by 15 year old Jordan Cullen, pictured below.  The Cat 2/3's at the USGP aren’t a 30 year old’s playground anymore.

Still, a rider doesn’t see himself as a bib number and a birthday.  They see themselves as a Cat 3 who trained hard, paid $35, traveled, maybe even booked a hotel and didn’t really get to race.  Yeah.  Yeah!  You tell ‘em Joe Biker.  You say if the promoter accepts 145 riders, 145 riders should have a shot.  Yeah!!  Well this is a big field in cyclocross and not the 26.2 mile course of the Flying Pig marathon.  Riders get pulled when about to be lapped.  It sucks.  It’s cold.  Its cross.  Having a longer course at USGP may have saved a few souls, but I’d say even with an 8 minute lap, close to half the field was doomed from the start based on math alone. 

The last 50 riders signed up in the 2/3 field spilled cooking oil on the counter, left the coffee maker on and hoped the house wouldn’t burn down, short course or not.  That’s not the promoters fault.  There was a better option.  Coulda.  Woulda.  Shoulda.  A racer coulda passed 65 riders with a click of a button by entering the 80 deep pro race.  The Elite Masters 35+ had a solid 70 riders, 45+ had a manageable 59. 

Yeah the course was short.  However, even with an 8-9 minute lap, I have never been at a big cyclocross race where 140 riders, even 100 riders, even 75 riders finished on the lead lap.  Think of it like a beer bong.  The first 1-2 beers will make it down easy.  Unless you’re a fraternity brother nicknamed Bruno, the 3^rd PBR tall boy is going all over your shirt.  Secondly, I’ve started in the back in big races.  Even at the top of my CX game, avoiding every wreck and hitting every perfect line, I’ve never been able to pass 35 or so riders at the most.  For anyone who signed up when the USGP 2/3 field grew past 100, the odds were in the casino’s favor. 

CX is growing faster than the mold on the water bottle in the back of my truck.  A few years ago combining the 2’s and 3’s at USGP and other large races made sense and didn’t make a gargantuan field.  Promoters could attract the regional Cat 2’s that would rather not fork out another $60 for a UCI license they’d use once.  For the first time in their CX lives, if they entered early, they could be on the driving end of race rather than getting beat by Cat 1’s and pros.  Strong Cat 3’s would have their hands full, but still have fun.  With the short course at USGP and a field close to the population of metro Louisville, the fun got pulled right with the riders.  So I guess there are three options: enter a race where the mathematic probability of finishing on the lead lap is the highest, design a hideously long cyclocross course that can keep a larger portion of a field 145 riders on the lead lap or, simply split the 145 strong 2/3 field.  I like the latter.  It’s a good thing too.  Cyclocross in the US, in the Midwest, in Cincinnati and Louisville, is big enough for each category to have its own field.  That’s incredible.

Socks Make The Cyclist

Asking me “What should I wear today?” is the equivalent of asking me “how many cents per ounce is this detergent?” or “what looks better on the mantle, the votive candles or the wood carving we picked up in Durango?”  My mind goes blank.  I feel like the 2^nd grader singled out in the classroom.  I try to find a beginning to the question to start the deduction, but any benchmark evades me.  My eyes dart through the closet, so at least I appear to be helping.  I end up with a confused look on my face that looks remarkably similar to being constipated.  “I’ll be right back.  I gotta go to the bathroom,” is my perfect out to these fearful questions posed by my spouse.  As many Banana Republic argyle sweater vests that I own, I put very little thought into planning an outfit.  The chances of running into a client and what matches the only clean pair of less wrinkled pants lying on the floor usually narrows my choices down to a singular logical choice.  Then all I have to do is pass the test.  If I kiss her goodbye without her saying “you wearing THAT,” I pass.  While my wife can easily spend an hour trying stuff on and re-reasoning with herself to find the perfect outfit for the day at hand, I can usually address my day’s outfit while half-asleep brushing my teeth standing in the closet with the light still off.  There is really only one item of clothing that I put any real thought into whatsoever.  That’s cycling socks.  I have 28 pair and a reason to wear or not wear every single one of them.

If my wife asked me, “What cycling socks should I wear on this ride?” Like an ESPN Sports Center analyst, I could spend a half hour crunching the options, split-screening with the experts and reasoning the perfect pair.  Racer ride, casual ride, commuting or coffee shop?  I happen to have a pair with a cup of coffee on them and they deserve their time in the daylight.  What’s the weather like?  Low cut hot, medium cut temperate, wool sock windy or just a little long sock cool?  Is the sun out?  Don’t want to risk a tall-boy sock high tan line.  Rain chance percentage?  I do have a neoprene pair in case of a hurricane on the Ohio River.  Are you wearing the road team, mountain bike team or other jersey?  Old green one or the new blue?  Team shorts or black ones?  Which helmet are you wearing?  Gloves?  What bike are you riding?  Is there a seat bag?  Which bottles you bringing, or are you wearing that baby blue Camelback?  Like fly-fishing and golf, cycling is half fashion show.  Are teammates, shop employees or team sponsors on the ride?  What about THAT GUY who always wears his “Hammer” socks.  Don’t’ want to be a bopsy twin with him.  You plan on riding hard or hiding out in the pack?  What socks do you want the person behind you seeing as you trounce them up the hill?  Ohio or Kentucky?  Might be an opportunity to break out the UK socks.  Any chance you’ll get caught out at dusk, cuz there’s a day-glo orange pair in the drawer somewhere.  Then again, those are kind of safety geeky.

Out of my 28 pair, there’s a pair and likely 2-4 that are perfect for any given day on the bike.  However, there are two pairs of socks that I’ll never wear: the red ones with the black devil silhouette on the cuff and a pair of long-boy world championship striped socks.  I get the heebie jeebies wearing satanic images.  Lastly, I believe only world champs or former champs should wear the rainbow stripes and the same goes for Stars and Stripes socks. 

I think my half hour’s up and I’m late for the ride again.