The Bronze Age is 70

2017 was going to be my year. In 2014, I accidentally won the PA State Cyclocross Championship, discovered I was competitive nationally in the 65-69 age group, and realized that in 2016-2017, I would be the youngest in the Nationals 70-74 race. I seized this once-in-lifetime opportunity (maybe twice if I can still race at 75), bought a high-end bike and started training and racing seriously. I finished 2nd in PA in 2015 (Nunzio!), and raced in the 2015-2016 Nationals just as a dress rehearsal for 2016-2017. So here's 2016-2017's story...

From late winter through early summer, I trained like a fiend. In July, we took a couple of weeks off to travel to France (we saw the start of the Tour de France at Mont St. Michel! but I missed the Jeremy Powers clinic at Sly Fox). While we were there, my 94-year old Mom had a minor stroke. This was the wake-up call to move her from her own house to assisted living, but this meant we had to sell her house. Providentially, my niece was looking for a house and had the vision to see what her grandmother's house could become. I assumed the role of Accidental General Contractor to oversee replacing the roof, the heating system, refurbishing the basement, wiring, plumbing, etc.  In the midst of this, we decided it would be a good idea to have the aforementioned niece's wedding in our Meadow. It was a glorious wedding, but a LOT of work. Oh, yeah, we also were in the middle of a remodeling project on our own house.

Something had to give. I backed off training and only raced five times in 2016 (but I beat Nunzio twice!). Then on November 4th, I did an endo and landed hard on my shoulder. I raced two days later - Nunzio beat me, but not because of the shoulder - but two days after than, I reinjured the shoulder pretty badly, so I shut down indefinitely.

In December, the State Championship was looming and my shoulder was no better, so I got an x-Ray. I took one look at the x-Ray and it was obvious - my collarbone was broken! But the orthopedist respectfully disagreed - I had no break, just an AC joint sprain, and no career prospects as a radiologist. He said using my shoulder might set my recovery back, but wouldn't make the injury more serious. I decided to take my chances and enter the State Championship race.

There were four of us in the 65+ class this season - Nunzio, Don, Frank and I. Everyone knows Nunzio, Don owns a running store local to me, Frank's from Philly but comes to ALL the races. I was the only one whose racing age was 70, so even though I hadn't really trained for a month, as long as my bike and I crossed the finish line 45 minutes after the start, riding, walking or crawling, I'd be 70+ State Champ.

Trigger warning - here our story takes an unfortunate turn. After the warmup, Nunzio, Don and I were waiting to start when we heard someone say something about CPR. Then we saw an ambulance. Then we heard someone mention Frank's name.

Frank must have had a heart attack and died instantly on the bike. He had run up some steps, remounted, pedaled a few strokes then just collapsed. Our race was cancelled. We did a ceremonial lap in Frank's honor, but that was it for me for the day, maybe for the season.

The next week, we went to Frank's viewing. The clichés are actually true - "he died doing what he loved", "that's the way to go out", but it's still sad. Don couldn't attend, so the next day we told him stories from the viewing, then the conversation drifted to the Nationals. Don had entered in 65-69, and had looked over the 70-74 field. He claimed that even though I hadn't really trained for two months and still had a bad shoulder, I could get off the couch and make the podium. One cannot turn down such a challenge! And, speaking of clichés, "it's what Frank would have wanted".

So, we went to Hartford CT on January 3rd to race on the 4th. It wasn't as cold up north as I had feared, but it rained all afternoon. The main feature of the course is a 40 foot high "levee" that the pros can barely ride up when it's dry, and we mortals can barely "run" up when it's muddy. From the top of the levee, the course goes back down, back up, back and forth off-camber, etc. On the 4th, none of this was rideable ("Newton's Law" is the best illustration). I pre-rode the "slip-and-slide" (I made it twice!) but then the officials deemed it too absurd and roped it off. Even with the course shortened, laps were taking 15 minutes (~10 is normal), and people were carrying their bikes as much as riding them.

There were 10 of us in 70-74, I was on the front row, and I pulled ahead at the start!

J2M ahead running up to the levee

I had never led a race in my life, even ones I eventually won, so I gave it all I had. I stayed in front until the top of the levee, when the eventual winner passed me and never looked back. Last year's champion also passed me at some point, but that was it. I, J2M, the skinny asthmatic geeky kid, now athlete-by-attrition, slogged through the mud to finish third in the Nationals.

I am the bronze medalist. Who woulda thought?

Cyclocross magazine has great coverage of the event (here's my race plus the old guys' races). Check out the 84-year old guy, he is awesome (literally). Rick Abbott won my race, and his interview is also worth listening to. It almost makes me wish I had grandchildren (if any nieces or nephews are listening and want to give 'cross a shot, I've got the course). Sunday's races will be "televised" (Elite women 1:15, elite men 3:00); it will be better than football, trust me on this one.

So, that's it, probably for 5 years until I'm once again the youngest in my class. And RIP Frank.

AshevilleCX16

We stayed with old friends in Asheville NC this week for the 2016 USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships. They had chosen to settle in Asheville over all other places on the planet, oceans included, and we can begin to see why. It is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and there are views up the wazoo. The town itself is like 5 Phoenixvilles or a 20X Philadelphia concentrate, with fine restaurants, street performers, art galleries, and nary a chain store in its core. Check The Wikipedia article, which calls it "The Hippest City in The South" and much, much more. Keywords: new age, freak, alive, outside, writers, beer, romantic, Art Deco, locavores, retirement, movie maker, and yoga-friendly.

And The Biltmore Estate. "Bilt" refers to George Vanderbilt, and "more" refers to..., well, check it out. It is the largest privately owned house in the US, over 20 times the size of the biggest house I know firsthand. It has 8,000 acres, albeit down from 125,000 in its heyday. We chose not to visit the house on this short trip; it requires a full day, and we had to spend two half-days at the "Antler Village" section of the estate, site of the aforementioned Nationals.

The first half-day, I pre-rode the course while my wife did spectator reconnaissance. The course covers a lot of ground, and is designed so spectators can see where they want to go, but can't get there from here. She spent a full hour picking the best spots for viewing, but failing to plot a way from one to the other, despite asking every gatekeeper for help.

On my pre-ride, I learned that there were sections that required mountain biking skills, of which I have none. It was drilled into my head, quite literally, that you don't touch the front brake on a descent.

On race day, she walked 6 miles to watch two races, which is more distance than I raced. She never really figured out the flow of the course, also not unlike my experience. I got a pretty good start, but was soon relegated to the middle of the pack, where I belong (until next year). On the second lap, I hopped on my bike after running the trickiest descent, only to discover that my rear wheel had come out of its dropouts. This had happened in other races, so I knew what to do. But it didn't work - I couldn't get the wheel back in, so I decided to run the course to the pits to get my other bike. I got to where I could see the pits Right There, but I would have to run another half-mile to get there. I tried again to fix my wheel; this time it worked, but it was too late. The officials waved me off thinking I was one of the Slow Guys. I should have protested ("I'm not slow, I'm average, but with below-average repair skills"). I did finish 22nd of 29, so I was the leader of the last quarter (7 1/4 times 3 = 21 3/4).

There's always next year.

The elite races are actually "televised". Sunday, Jan 10 at 2:30 is the Women's Elite Race (with Katie F'n Compton, who is Awesome), and the Men's Elite is at 3:40. The course will be muddy, so the race  should be more entertaining than football.

It's all over but the Nationals

And so the local cyclocross season ended with me beating Nunzio (for real) on Saturday, him beating me (as usual) on Sunday. For the year, he won first place in 65+, I was second, and Mike came in third, even though he's faster than either of us, but he missed a few races - they grade on attendance.

Saturday was my best ride of the season. Nunzio and I passed each other a couple of times on the first lap or so, then I gradually pulled away from him and even caught a few 55+ guys. After the 65+ "podium" (a rock), I instinctively grabbed the third place prize, even though I finished second (to Mike). I suppose it's good to have been on the podium often enough to have "instincts", albeit self-deprecating ones.

Sunday's race was the opposite of Saturday's: long straightaways and a hill so steep that I ran it every time. I could have tried to ride it as far as possible, then probably fall off, roll down the hill and have to run it anyway. And in case any spectators from that hill are reading, "running" was mostly a state of mind - you might have mistaken it for "walking".

This race started with a drag-strip light, but my "instincts" expected a whistle. When everyone else started, I waited for an official to call "offsides" and move them all back ten yards. By the time I grasped the situation, let's just say I had maximized my opportunities to pass people. In the end, it was a fairly satisfying race: I was 12th out of 22, or as I like to put it, the winner of the second half (11 + 11 = 22).

With one lap to go, the official, as usual, rang a bell as I crossed the line, but this time, also yelled to me that I "just made it!". I was briefly proud of this until I realized that what I had "just made" was a requirement to endure a whole 'nother lap. I had crossed the line ahead of the leader who hadn't quite lapped me. See, once the leader finishes the race, you are done when you next cross the finish line, so I had to complete my entire lap. I was last to finish the race - but I wasn't last! The order was me, the leader, then all the guys I had passed.  They had been lapped, so they got to stop after five laps; I had to do six. I knew the spectators mistakenly thought I was the slowest guy in the race, so I kept yelling "I'm Last Not-Lapped, not Last", but they thought I was just doing diction exercises.

You know, I think I've raced on Sunday's grounds before, in fact, it might be the site of a story that usually works when I tell it, but that I've never written. Could that be my next blog post? Is that a cliffhanger?

Penn Ultimate weekend

There is a brilliant website for discovering and registering for bike events, bikereg.com.  It has a Race Predictor, which you might think analyzes prospective parents' chromosomes, but instead, predicts who will beat whom in upcoming bike races. Despite the fact that I have lost to the legendary Nunzio in every race this year, Race Predictor insisted I would beat him last Saturday. It probably also predicted that the Eagles would beat the Patriots. You can probably guess where this story is going - yes, I finished ahead of Nunzio for the first time this season. I can't claim that I beat him per se, because at the start of the race, a pile-up separated us, and he was hopelessly behind from the start. He just went through the motions, even stopping to fix damaged crime scene tape marking the course. But these details will be lost in the mists of time, so let the record show that on 12/5/2015, I finished ahead of Nunzio.

How did Race Predictor know this would happen? Over my lifetime, I've spent more time with algorithms than with people, and to me, this seems more impressive than Watson beating Ken Jennings at Jeopardy. I should apply R.P's algorithm to lottery numbers.

Within the race, my story was that I passed and gained on both Dr. Lou and #20 (never got his name). Neither of these gentlemen were in my racing class, but you play the hand you're dealt, or more to the point, race the guy ahead of you. I had enough margin on the last lap to be sure I could beat them if I didn't make a mistake. Once again, you can probably guess where this story is going - 50 yards from the finish, I did something to dislodge my back wheel. If I had my wits about me and just picked up the bike and ran to the finish, I could have beaten them, but by the time I finagled my wheel back into alignment, both had passed me. C'est la vie, although I think I said something other than "la vie" at the time.

Sunday's race was a return the norm - Nunzio beat me, Mike beat both of us. After the race, we discussed how finishing third is actually pretty good for me, because I'm three or four years older than either of them. They pointed out that in the 15-18 or 10-14 year-old races, a couple of years makes a huge difference: 10 year-olds vs. 14 year olds? 15 vs. 18? Hardly fair contests, so on the other side of life's Bell Curve, shouldn't I, too, be graded on a curve? I felt pretty good about this until I realized the flip side of the argument - I am three or four years closer to infirmity, decay and decrepitude than either Mike or Nunzio. C'est la mort.

On a brighter note, regardless of what happens in the last race of the season next week, I will finish second in cumulative points. I'm #2!

Reign in the Appalachains falls mainly on the chain (derailleur doesn't rhyme)

Dear Subjects,

When I enter a room, trumpet fanfare and drum roll are no longer necessary, nor are bowing, kneeling or saluting; curtsying is optional. I am no longer PA State Champion. The new 2015 PACX State Cyclocross Champion in the 65+ category is...

Nunzio.

As in every race this season, if Nuzio finishes first, I finish second. If he is second, I am third.  Sunday's State Championship race near Pittsburgh was no exception.  He and I pulled ahead of our peers at the start, and if it had only been a one-lap race, I would have won. I passed him just before the finish line, but he retook the lead a hundred feet later, then steadily gained on me throughout the race. Nunzio got the gold medal, I got the silver.

The funny thing is, I managed to break the derailleur on my new geared bike before the race, so I defended my championship on my old singlespeed bike. This is no excuse - I only lost a few seconds a lap because of the bike, the rest was due to genetic and character flaws - but there's some sort of convoluted irony going on here. I broke so many derailleurs by 2013 that I gave up and went singlespeed. I accidentally won the 2014 championship without benefit of gears, which pumped up my ego so much that I bought the geared bike to defend that title in 2015. Then at the critical moment, I broke the geared bike and returned to singlespeed, and to my original ego.

Oh, well, maybe next year I can win the 70+ State Championship. And the Nationals, of course.

Speaking of ego, we spent the entire weekend driving five hours both days just so I could be in that race. For balance, we took my 93-year old mother so she could visit her 98-year old sister, visited with my cousins, and on the way home, stopped at the Flight 93 memorial.  Thanks to all the cousins for schlepping my mom twixt PA and WV, and for their generosity in putting us up (and planting their own granddaughter as our waitress in the restaurant WE chose just so THEY could pick up the check).

The Flight 93 Memorial is a stunning piece of sculpture. The dissonance between the art and its subject is impossible to resolve. It's worth visiting.

 

 

 

Sly Fox photos and video

Sly Fox is the Best Race Ever.

Here's the local TV coverage of the 2015 Sly Fox race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arL54p1tHXI

Some highlights (IMHO) are 1:05 through 1:11. The singlespeed race gets going at 1:05. I'm #429 in a Spock costume at 1:09. The marriage proposal from the first race replays at 1:10:45. But you can poke around anywhere and get the flavor, although the coverage doesn't capture the noise. It's not unlike a high school football game at times.

A short gallery with some great photos (and two of me, #7 and #10) is at
http://www.aelandesphotography.com/2015-sly-fox-cyclocross-race#main

Spock photos:
http://www.sergiogphotography.com/p827640183/h69823589#h6bdca64c
http://aelandesphotography.zenfolio.com/151108-sly-fox-cx-cross/h6bec8d04#h60cd11e3
http://aelandesphotography.zenfolio.com/151108-sly-fox-cx-cross/h6bec8d04#h68aa4233
(in the last two, I'm attacking Ronald McDonald - he hit me first)

Full galleries for true die-hards:

http://aelandesphotography.zenfolio.com/151108-sly-fox-cx-cross

http://www.sergiogphotography.com/slyfoxcross_2015

Singlespeed, religion and identity

On this date in 2009, I got my first cyclocross bike, a Trek X01. Over the next 2 years, I broke the derailleur (the gear-shifting gadget on the back wheel), the seat, the rear wheel, another derailleur, and the frame. With a new frame and new wheels, over the next 2 years, I wore through the front wheel, totaled another derailleur, broke the right shifter, and finally crashed the derailleur into the spokes, taking out both derailleur and back wheel. I replaced the wheel but swore off gears - I converted to singlespeed.

Singlespeed is what it sounds like - one (1) gear. On a hill, you pedal harder; on a straightaway, you pedal faster. When your legs tell you "it's too hard", you can't shift to an easier gear, you just say "shut up, legs".  When you're clipped into the pedals of a single-speed, you and the bike are primally connected like some kind of cyclo-centaur: half-bike, half-man. The mythical beast image helps going uphill - you can't rely on gears to ease the pain, you have to charge like a bull and use every fiber of your being to get to the top. But going downhill, you pedal like a half-clown, half-tricycle.

Singlespeed has been compared to a religion. Not as has been suggested, an Amish-like renunciation of gears, but a kind of cult with sacraments, vestments and rites. Beer is its sacrament, gorilla suits are its vestments, and climbing hills in a single gear is its rite of self-flagellation. Of course, if you pass someone on the hill, it's a rite of passage.

Back to the bike - after all those changes, is this the same bike? A person's identity is determined by continuity of consciousness. Descartes famously said "I think, therefore I am", but sadly, he is no longer with us because when a bartender offered him a drink, he said "I think not". 

What determines a bike's identity?

Everything has a line where identity breaks down. Those '50s groups like the Drifters are still at it even though the original members are dead, but the Beatles could never be the Beatles after John Lennon was gone. The line is somewhere between Queen with Adam Lambert instead of Freddy Mercury, and Genesis with Phil Collins instead of Peter Gabriel.

A bike's identity is where your own identity meets the bike. The three places where you connect to the bike are: pedals, seat and handlebars. A school of thought says the seat is the most intimate contact, but(t) this is not where my identity is centered. I contend that the handlebars are the Line of Identity - in the drone video, they're the first thing you see. They are where I steer and brake (and used to shift). I can change the frame, the wheels or add a Mary Poppins basket, but until I destroy the handlebars, it's the same bike. The Line of Identity is so decreed.

Destroying the handlebars could happen this weekend - I am entered in two singlespeed races at the Sly Fox Brewery, 3:30 and 4:20, Sunday, November 8th, 331 Circle of Progress Drive, POTTSTOWN, PA  19464.  I have no gorilla suit, but I do plan an alternate identity, if I can finish my Spock costume.