Dirtwire.tv Features Junior Spencer Petrov #cxnats

#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.

Why My Daughter Cares About #doprah

Corey Green is part of the leadership team for the Lionhearts Junior Cycling Team and Program in Cincinnati and over the past few days, like Luke Armstrong-Lance's son, those juniors had to field questions about doping at school too.  It brings an interesting side to the conversation.

Days prior to Lance's #doprah special we got tidbits of "leaked" info, primarily that he "did it". You couldn't turn on a TV or even listen to the radio without hearing that Lance was going to admit Thursday night to Oprah.

As I thought about the proceedings and the forthcoming admission, I decided I didn't really care. I watched all his Tour de France's over and over on my basement trainer. I know every excruciating detail of those tours from Armstrong riding away from Zulle in 1999 to chasing down Fillipo Simeoni in 2004 to the famous "look" back to Ullrich on L'Alpe-d'Huez in 2001.  I have a barely worn t-shirt commemorating the look from Armstrong's Ride for the Roses ride in 2002.  Roughly 8000 others from that ride do too.  

I had watched this footage over and over, I knew there was no way Armstrong did it clean. When you watch him pull away from every previously confirmed doper, year after year, it doesn't take a genius to know it isn't a matter of "if" its confirmed, its "when". 

Still I needed to know more.  I needed to watch the Lance interview on Oprah, but not for me.  As you know from reading, I have been working with juniors for several years.  They would have questions and may even watch themselves. So I watched, curious what I would see and even more curious whether I would learn something.

The first night, I learned almost nothing, except for Lance Armstrong confirming his brash, unyielding and stubborn persona.  Night two I contemplated whether I should spend another hour watching.  The same conversation went through my head.  I was glad I watched.  Lance nearly broke down, but not for the reasons I had suspected. 

Lance nearly lost it when talking about Luke, his 13 year old son, defending his father at school. After the USADA report was delivered it had become increasingly difficult for a 13 year old to withstand the constant questions from other kids. The teen years are awkward enough without having to defend your dad's actions daily.

That's when it clicked with Lance.

As a dad I could see the anguish in Lance's eyes. It was easy for Lance to lie, control other people, inject EPO into his body, or meet in secret hotel locations to discuss strategy with doctors referred to as vampires. However, to uphold his secret, to maintain his control, it now meant his son, an impressionable teen, would have to lie too. He would have to continue to defend his dad no matter how complicated the situation, no matter when or where.

He told his son "don't defend me anymore." I can't imagine having that conversation.  I can't imagine what I would have do to put myself in the situation to have that conversation. It's quite a leap from the Easter Bunny.

Juniors on the Podium at Chicago Cup CX 2013

I hadn't expected the questions our juniors got at school. Other kids at school asked my juniors, my kids about drugs, why cyclists took drugs, and whether one of them did drugs themselves to improve their performance.

Until Lance on Oprah, I thought the situation only impacted current cyclists and riders from the previous generation, the guys who "did it." Tyler, Floyd, Ivan, Alex, Jan, etc, etc had taken the drugs and received their suspension.  Some disappeared.  Others returned to ride again. Without being known worldwide, their impact on the general public was minimal, and their issues came and went without my kids knowing.

Lance was different. Yellow LiveStrong bands graced the wrists of school kids of all ages. Certainly they didn't know the depth of LiveStrong and what it stood for, but they knew it was Lance and the bracelets were cool. He dated Sheryl Crow, hung with Robin Williams, was on Letterman and Leno every year, and even hosted Saturday Night Live.  The other kids at school knew who he was, what he did, and associated our kids with him because they were junior cyclists.

Pro CXer Kaitlin Antonneau Gives Tips To Junior Racers

Our quest is harder now. Lance didn't make adults 30 and over wonder about drugs and question whether all cyclists took drugs to go faster, he made anyone who could watch TV wonder.  Now, kids of all ages who love taking their bike out to the park to race and recently built a wealth of experience in Madison at Nationals were having to answer Oprah's questions. They didn't have to defend Lance - he excused himself - they had to defend their sport.

Lance wants a comeback.  Frankly I don't care if he rides or races or not, but his rehab program should include education to all of America that cycling isn't an evil sport. The world needs to know cycling is a community of good people, people who care not about themselves, but about a sport that provides lifetime fitness, a sport that Lance used and abused like a rental car to bring him fame and fortune. 

Funniest part of this whole story is how much Lance was just like the teens I spend my time working alongside. Teens are a combination of mature and immature at the same time. They understand complex emotional situations and teeter on the edge of making good and bad decisions. Their success rate is poor at times, but we all chalk it up to growing up and "those dang teen years." What do you do when a teenager needs an attitude adjustment or needs to see the fallacy in their decision making?

You take away something important to them.

Bikefucious: A Flat Is Good Team Training

Bad Bikefucius Rendering

PSSssss!  I heard it, looked back from my drops and saw it was my teammate Mark.  “Flat!”  I shouted over the buzz of 30 hubs on Binning, a one-lane beat-up twisting flat farm road famous for chewing up tubes.  It was a pinch flat for sure.  I held up a hand, moved left and eased up to help.  A third teammate, Kris stopped too.  As I look back on the flat, it’d be a great team drill, perfect for a budding team of juniors or a group of mismatched hammer headed masters alike. 

Try this team drill on for size.  Put a cable cutter in your jersey pocket.  At a rest stop with an hour back to civilization, split the team ride into two evenly matched groups.  Tell the 1^st bunch they’ll get a 30 second lead and send them out.  Then immediately turn to the 2^nd group, snip the valve stem off the fastest person’s front wheel and shout, “Go!” 

Actual Flat Tire Fix

We laid the bikes at the edge of the farm field and tag teamed the flat.  Mark stripped the old tube out.  Kris unraveled the fresh rubber.  Like a 14 year old junior, I man-stared across the field.  Just like Belgium, for every one mile of road, two miles of ditches.  In a few months we won’t be able to see above the corn.  Mark woke me out of my day dream, tossed me the old tube to roll up and began dressing the new one.  Diagnosing it as a pinch flat and not debris saved us time.  Kris aired it up as I stuffed the old tube in Mark’s saddle bag.  We were off in a respectable 3-4 minutes. 

Cincinnati's Binning Road Rendering

Changing a flat quickly is half the battle.  Now you need to try and close a 3-4 minute gap in an hour.  Not that blazing group rides aren’t fun, but I love me some good team paceline and the challenge of the chase.  The strongest rider pulls longer not harder.  Hands on the drops, backs flat, we traded even pulls the whole way back.  Elbows flicked and the momentum flowed forward.  No one got gapped off crossing the railroad tracks.  Instead of fighting for air in pursuit of a KOM, we gauged each other’s efforts and kept the group together up the last climb.  As we crested, we could make out a rider turning left ¾ of a mile down the road, almost there, but not quite.

Ten minutes later, we turned the corner into the shop lot.  The other guys still hadn’t taken off their helmets.  They must have just stopped, and were sitting on their top tubes chatting.  While we didn’t close it down completely, we probably weren’t more than 1-2 minutes off the pace.  When you look at it upside down, if the flat cost us 4 minutes, we still took 2 minutes back from the fastest guys in town. 

Bikefucious say: only when you fall back can you move forward.  Teach a team to close a gap and you’ll give a team confidence to bust a breakaway.