Masters #CX Mediocrity: Hope in the Delta

“Delta Delta Delta.  May I help ya, help ya, help ya.”  The Deltas are what keep me on the grid week in and week out racing a combined Elite/Elite Masters cyclocross field in the OVCX series (Ohio Valley Cyclocorss).  Racing a field with 80% of the guys being younger than you can make you feel 25 again, but the fact that I quoted the movie Animal House tells you I don’t know what the buttons do on an X-Box game controller.  Sure, you and the young guns are the fastest guys in your riding circles, but on race day you’re the guy on the trainer behind your buddy’s RV who pays more to store it every month than they do in rent.  They are the guys warming up under the hatch of a ’98 Honda Civic with those big stoopid Jay-Z headphones which remind you of the Koss you used to wear while listening to Led Zeppelin surrounded by black light posters in your high school buddy’s basement bedroom.  You may be in the same race, but your Delta’s are still waaay off man.

Gray beards race with pimple poppers in OVCX.  The payout goes 20 deep indiscriminately to those with ear-hair or zits.  As a guy who can operate a nose hair trimmer, I get pummeled week in and week out by guys with Safe Auto Insurance.  It’s tough to feel success in 30^th, 40^th and 50^th place.  While less bruised, even the fastest Elite Masters struggle for a top 10.  The only thing that keeps me coming back next week is the compliments I get at dinner parties from un-athletic friends and constantly improving Deltas which give me hope for that 20^th place prize.

If you're a bottom of the pickle jar Elite Masters racer like me and are looking at the overall results, you’re likely two races away from selling your bike and playing catcher for the office softball team or using the cash to get the deck stained.  To me the Elite purse is an Everest-like pursuit, so in the time being I find unseen prizes hidden the lap splits, the deltas.  For the past 25 years it’s been useless, but now is the time to put your college statistics class and Texas Instruments calculator to work.  Dig into those lap times results with the furor of a U-23 with his head in a bag of Doritos and find a glimmer of hope.

Me at Cincy3 KingsCX by Kent Baumgart

Delta to the Leader

The first step is to chop off the head of the monster.  As a Masters racer, you’re not lapped until Andy Rooney eyebrows gets past you.  Looking at the results of an early race, disregard everyone placing higher than the fastest guy in your Masters category.  This will likely eliminate the top 5-8 guys, automatically making you feel better.  Then look at the overall time of the lap finishing at the :40-:45 minute mark.  In this case, my delta to the best placed Grey Beard was a beer-belly-big 5:33.

SEPTEMBER EARLY SEASON RACE EXAMPLE

1 Pimple Popper 40:02

2 Squeaky Voice 40:04

3 Mama’s Basement 40:28

4 Dorm Room 40:42

5 ’98 Honda Civic 41:44

6 Fastest Grey Beard 42:10

51 The Best Bike Blog EVER! 47:43

Now, drill down to a more recent race like the USGP Derby Cup.  This past weekend at USGP, two months later, I’m a much slimmer 4 minutes behind the fastest OVCX grey beard.  I shaved more than 90 seconds off my Delta to my direct competition in the last two months, finished top 20 in back to back USGP races, and earned 4 USGP points.  That’s velvet smoking jacket in a leather chair good. Clink of the bourbon glass to my JBV Coach Chris Mayhew.

USGP MASTERS 45+ DERBY CUP SATURDAY RESULTS

1 EX PRO 40:04

2 PRO’S HUSBAND 40:05

3 FAST OUT OF TOWN FOGIE 41:00

4 FASTEST OVCX GREY BEARD DU JOUR 41:25

17 THE ELUSIVE WHEEL IN FRONT OF ME 45:23

18 THE BEST BIKE BLOG EVER! 45:27

Me chasing Papa @ USGP Masters 45+ by Christine Vaughan

Delta between Best and Worst Lap

Even though you’re wallowing way deep below the payout bar, there can be enough hope in your lap delta to keep you from turning on the gas and sticking your head in your stainless steel oven.  Never compare the fastest lap from your aging carcass to that of the guy who may still own Cars 2 Movie bed sheets.  Instead, compare overripe apples with overripe apples.  This Delta compares the time difference between your best and worst lap with those of others with wrinkly elbow skin.  It’s best to compare only the cruising laps.  Toss out the first lap split which is usually impacted by high traffic, a hole-shot sprint and/or a short first lap start grid shoot-in. 

SEPTEMBER EARLY SEASON RACE

#1 Overripe Apple 6:20 6:22 6:28 6:28 6:33 6:41 6:25 6:43 (best 6:22, worst 6:43) Delta = 21 seconds.

52 Me 7:25 7:11 7:31 7:25 7:48 7:38 7:36 7:35 (best 7:11, worst 7:48).  Delta = 36 seconds.

What you can see in these numbers is room for improvement.  The overripe apple is much more consistent.  Only 21 seconds separate his worst lap from his best.  Me?  Not so much.  But if I can improve my lap consistency by 15 seconds, I’d likely be 1-2 minutes faster over an hour long race, which would translate to 31^st place in this particular race.  I’d gain nearly 20 spots if I could increase my capacity for pain and mental strength to keep racing hard.

This brings us to the Delta from Saturday at the USGP Masters 45+ race, two months since that early race.  You see my lap to lap Delta has improved to 15 seconds from an early season 36. 

USGP MASTERS 45+ DERBY CUP SATURDAY RESULTS

18 THE BEST BIKE BLOG EVER! 7:17 7:29 7:37 7:41 7:44 7:41 (best 7:29, worst 7:44)  Delta = :15 seconds.

The Perfect Al-dente Monday Night Noodle Ride

Kickstands Up: 630pm Columbia Square (Delta & Columbia Parkway)

The Ride: an hour or so into downtown, Covington, Newport and back.

Speed: Noodle

Here’s the recipe for the perfect al-dente noodle ride: 1 small ring, two cups of coasting, a pinch of parks, 1 purple bridge, a couple flakes of friends, and a circumnavigation of Paul Brown Stadium-lightly spun.  Blend together at low speed. 

Just like cooking mac & cheese from a box, the noodle ride is easy in theory, but harder than you think to pull off.  Both are incredible with cocktail wieners.  Respecting the noodle is of the utmost importance.  It’s a spirit, an upside down ride where being off-the-front is promptly heckled, an exercise in non-exercise.  Ride whatever bike you want, dazzle us with your grocery cruiser and short shorts.  Coasting is encouraged, as is the use of unnecessary racing equipment like disc wheels, bib numbers and shoe covers.  Also highly encouraged is flair, such as a devil horns on your helmet.  However, whistles, and other instruments of mass annoyance, are strictly prohibited.

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The noodle ride is about recovering from a race or a weekend of long and/or fast rides.  It's about noticing the things you miss when trying to keep your heart from coming out your mouth on other group rides.  It’s your sprinters grupetto just barely making the time cut.  Spin your legs out.  Have an actual conversation that goes beyond "hey dude" with your riding partners.  Notice the sculptures in the park, the gargoyle on the downtown building and how refreshed you feel when you get home.

The Noodle:

West on Riverside Drive/Pete Rose Way

Lt on Mehring Way

Counterclockwise around PBS

South on Suspension Bridge Sidewalk

Sidewalk to East on 2^nd St Covington

Counterclockwise through Covington’s Riverside Neighborhood/Park

Lt on Gerard

Lt on 4^th St Bridge to Newport’s 5^th St

Lt on Monmouth

Rt on 3^rd in front of Newport on Levy

Lt on Purple Bridge

Lt U-turn into Sawyer Pt Park/ Through Stonehenge

/Friendship Park

Rt on Riverside

Rt on St Peters (Schmidt Fields Park)

Lt on Delta to Columbia Square

Huckin' With Huck: So Long Delta Queen

Unless you seek out the things that make your town unique, you might as well live in Anytown, USA. Cincinnati is definitely not Anytown to me, so when I can, I like to get out and do Cincinnati things, be a tourist in my own hometown. One of the things that make the Queen City the Queen City is its rich history as a rivertown. The historic wooden paddleboat, the Delta Queen, built in 1926, made its last stop in it’s homeport of Cincinnati today. Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1989 but unable to continue operating due to fire regulations, at five o’clock today the Delta Queen will steam off to it’s final resting spot down river, possibly in New Orleans. Maybe it’ll make day trips in the future, maybe there’s a tiny chance she’ll come back for the next Tall Stacks festival, but its days as an overnight passenger ship are numbered. As a transplanted Cincinnatian, it was my chance to see a bit of the history in the making. To get as close as possible, I rode my bike down to the public landing on the Ohio River to see her off and take a few photos with my crappy phone camera.

The mood was sort of somber. The 100 or so journalists and people taking pictures were pretty quiet. Alone or in groups of two or three they snapped photos of the big red stern wheel (pictured left), pointed out details of the ornamental wood work to each other, and one couple nearly went for a swim while posing for a the perfect photo with the smoke stack wafting in the background. From what I’ve read, the bell on the Delta Queen is the same bell from the boat that Mark Twain rode on in his travels. The boat is enormous, standing on shore it towered over 4 stories above my head and stretched 176 feet from bow to stern. I couldn’t get it all in one picture, especially with my crappy phone camera.

So, today’s blog isn’t so much about cycling, as it is the things you witness on your bike. Today it was history, Huck Finn type history. So long Delta Queen.

To learn more, here’s the Delta Queen’s Website