The Risk/Reward Ratio of Racing

 (The pack closing in at Liberty Crit)

"Risk = Reward" is one of several assumptions this racing season has called into question.  My fixation on risk-taking started from the admiration of my teammates' abilities bury themselves in a race, often achieving the team's goal in the process, and even in cases of failure, making the race exciting and getting a great workout.  Our friend Jess describes this as "going until you can't breathe anymore."  It was time for me to stop sitting in the pack and learn how to take a risk.

1. Risk = Reward.  The first attempt was Tour de Toona Stage 2.  By the time we finished the mountain climb, I had finally gone to the "can't breathe" place.  The result was a great stage finish and GC standing.

2. Risk = Loss, Pain, And Your Mom Having To See You Unconscious.  Here's the result of deciding to finish Toona Stage 3 in spite of a suspicious tire:

3. Risk = Booze?   After my recovery, CAWES raced Liberty Crit, and I buried myself off the front for 5 laps before being caught.  The goal was to wear the pack out for our sprinter, or to stay away til the finish.  I obviously failed on the latter, and I don't think anyone was worn out except me.  Becky and the team had a great sprint anyway, and I got nine zillionth place and a zinfandel prime.

 (Sarah, Ky, & Becky executing the perfect leadout train at Liberty)

 

 (We consumed the booze prime later at Rob's pool)

4. Risk = More Time Off The Bike.  Finally cleared to ride again, I went out for a morning workout and was hit by a car (thanks to Lance for stopping and helping!).  Another helmet broken and another bonk to the gourd, but I did earn the nickname "Dome Destroyer" or "Double D" from the team.  Alarmingly, that puts me just one D short of being this guy.

So, if cycling is a risk, the only wisdom I can glean from this racing season is Risk = Reward Risk. And in terms of injury recovery, When one door closes, another one opens closes too.  Some friends from QCW Cycling have also been hit at Memorial Hall recently, and it sounds like it might not be a safe place to ride in the mornings.  You know what they say: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man woman healthy injured, wealthy lacking a helmet, and wise concussed.  Translated into jive: See a broad who get all booty-eyed, lay'em down and smack'em yack'em.  Well, I'm looking forward to the team laying the smack down in some late-season races.  Hopefully my booty will be better by then.

Wimbledon...I mean Lost River Classic

Oops, wrong sport.  What I meant was, this race actually elicited tennis player noises from me in the final sprint.  And although I brought my best Monica Seles (second best actually, but more on that later), I would never confuse the Classy with the Classic.  Let's look at the differences:

Wimbledon  vs. Lost River Classic

Ground Surface: Flat manicured grass vs.Chewed up asphalt+roadkill+hills
Customary Eats: Strawberries and cream vs. Clif Bars and VitaCoco given as podium prizes
Women's Attire: Mandatory all white + skirts vs. Choose your own spandex, provided it can get sweaty and dirty
Payout: 7-figure sum in British pounds vs. 3 digits worth of American bucks + aforementioned yummies (but hey, it's not the race promoter's fault that the dollar sucks, unless the race promoter is Alan Greenspan, but I digress)

Anyway, since I prefer the latter of most of those categories, I entered the Lost River Women's 123.  After winning the cat 3 race last year, I had high hopes for a result.  This was my first race since recovering from the 'Toona injuries though, so I tried to keep the expectations loose.  We took off, and Laurel immediately drilled it at the front of the pack.  I followed her cue and attacked on the long shallow uphill.  We quickly established a 4-woman break that lasted until the end.

I remembered the finish from last year being steep enough to be non-sprinterly, so I didn't give much thought to tactics.  As we approached the final 200m though, Mary took off like a rocket.  Crap.  I reacted slowly, finally whittling the gap down to a frustrating half bike length at the line, meanwhile uttering an awkward "Uhhhh!" as we sprinted to the line.  I've occasionally made such tennis noises in sprint workouts, usually on the best effort of the day.  In fact, the sprint+scream is so much faster than the sprint alone, that once I tried to improve my training by deliberately making the noise.  Turns out, however, that such things can't be faked, and the result was a meager sprint with an awkward little squeak.  So a spontaneous tennis noise in a race is an exciting achievement.  Another 2nd place finish though...well, I guess it could be an indication that the injuries are back to normal...

     

Tour de 'Toona: Frustratingly Awesome

The Wasabi Warriors set out for the lunar landscape known earlier this year as PomWonderful, accompanied by 2 guest riders, 3 feed zone helpers, 3 groupies, and 1 awkward loiterer. Stage 1 was a sub-3 mile time trial, with a couple of small climbs and 18 corners. I set my goal at 6 minutes or less and hoped the technical course would not put me at a disadvantage for riding Merckx-style. The stage went by quickly, and I felt like I had energy leftover. I was pleased with my 6:03 time and 25th place, but I wished I had gone harder. The TT was a great stage for the team, with all of our riders doing well. Our friend Charlie of Breakawaybikes.com/iFractal overcooked the S-turn on 12th Avenue, ending up in the ER, but thankfully avoided any head injuries. The Pistachio Princesses send their regards to Chaz's broken pelvis.

Stage 2 was a 74-mile road race from Richland to Blue Knob, with a mountaintop finish. Early in the race, a small group went off the front. Two sprints and a QOM later, we approached the final climb with the break reeled in. It was a 20-minute effort, the kind of suffering that requires serious motivation to keep going. I asked myself that burning question that every aspiring cyclist ponders now and again: WWLVGD? Word had it that Laura Van Gilder was using a 12-25 cassette that day, so my guess was that she'd shift into a big gear and make that mountain her bitch the old-fashioned way. Inspired by this confidence, I clicked up a few times on my 11-28 and stomped it out for 13th place, moving up to 15th in the GC. Woohoo!

(CAWES guest rider Jessica Chong making the most of the rest day)

Stage 3 began after a rest day of watching the Tour de France and recovery spinning on our trainers. The 91-mile stage involved 3 climbs and a flat finish. I was psyched. The first 40 miles were mainly flat, and a group got away. The race leaders weren't in the break so we assumed it was an effort to wear the pack out, and we didn't chase. My rear tire skidded a few times, and I thought I might have too much pressure. It became so bad that I considered dropping out of the stage, but I decided to proceed with extra caution. The next thing I remember, I was being revived in the same ER that I had just visited Charlie in. I later learned that I had skidded out when there was sudden braking on a descent. Thankfully, no one else was hurt, not even my bike The Green Weenie. The x-rays and CT scan came back ok, and the doctors were impressed enough with the articulateness of my refusal of a tetanus shot and staple in my head that they deemed my head injury to be non-serious (little did they know that my fear of needles could provide a moment of clarity in any situation involving sharp objects). Disappointed but grateful, I was discharged and returned to the course in time to see the stage finish. Colavita and Now & Novartis had the first riders in, with the other race leaders, including yellow, trickling in as groups of 2 and 3. Larger groups sprinted in, and team CAWES finished strong.

I'm disappointed that such a great race ended with an injury, but I enjoyed the first 2 (and a half) stages, and I'm looking forward to next year. Let's hope Tour de Toona continues to happen in 2012!

South Jersey & Rodale Crits

After the weekend's sprinterly races, I think it's safe to declare myself in need of A) the balls to take a risk in a race, and B) an 11-cog on my cassette. Since the weekend I've acquired one of those items. As for the other, I should probably mind my previous post and stop associating brave behavior with a specific gender.

Anyway, the weekend started out with stage 1 of the South Jersey Omnium, a 6-corner crit around Seneca High School. Teams CAWES, Kenda, and Sturdy Girls had the most representation in the pack. Stacey Jensen of Kenda worked hard to keep the pack on the rivet and string things out. The Wasabi Warriors' own Sarah Iepson drilled it on the last lap, keeping things fast and preventing any funny business from happening in the field sprint. I took 3rd and Becky 5th, while Kenda's amazing sprint power secured 1 & 2. I was impressed with the teamwork of both teams in green, and excited to keep working on my sprint. Sarah, Becky, and I took our winnings to a south jersey farmer's market and bought all sorts of plants and veggies.

(Our South Jersey spoils shared the back seat with the Green Weenie)

On Sunday, Arley and I rolled up for the Rodale Fitness Park crit in Trexlertown. The smooth, banked up loop had a gentle roller and no legitimate corners. Team Type 1 launched some strong attacks at the front. I tried to work in a break, but it didn't get away and/or my usual timid attacks weren't enough to get away. This was going to come down to a field sprint, with a lot of powerful sprinters.

Ironically, the corner-free course seemed to lead to a sketchy pack, because there weren't any technical elements to slow down the non-technically skillful riders. As the final jockeying began, the pack swerved from side to side, and I launched off of Arley's wheel, then off of a zillion others who were shuffling around in the sketchiness, finally coming in behind Christine Fennessey for 2nd place. The smooth course had me wishing for a bigger gear as I spun out in my 53/12. I guess there's a first time for everything...

Q: Are We Not Women? A: We Are Wasabi Warriors

In light of the upcoming Tour de ‘Toona’s gender-equitable policies, and recent allegations of sexism in local training races, it seems like a good time to examine the status of gender in cycling. The sport certainly has trended towards equality since the days of women's top tubes being sloped for their skirts, and Quaker City Wheelmen being just men, but lingering issues of inequality lead me to believe that women’s cycling is stuck in a state of what I’ll call “Bachelorettedom.” There are a lot of similarities between women’s cycling and the cheesy reality TV show that separates the sexes from each other and forces them to compete amongst themselves, all the while perpetuating gender stereotypes. Let’s look at some similarities:

1. Wussy suffix:

Well, in cycling’s case, a prefix. The original dating show about a man, The Bachelor, came first of course. The 'ette came along later. In cycling, race promoters still often list the men’s races as just the “races,” while specifically distinguishing the women’s fields, sometimes with a “W” prefix. Check out this current registration page, where women, kids, and handicapped riders are distinguished, while the men’s fields are just assumed to be such.

2. More is expected of men than of women:

Both The Bachelorette and cycling require men to be courteous and brave. The current Bachelorette recently asked one of her suitors to “be a man” and break up with her. On the cycling side of things, I'm definitely part of the problem. I've recently tried to relieve my own "wussiness" by entering men's races. A more controversial example is the infamous -woman elbowing a man- incident at a recent training crit near Philly. Check out the comments, where the alleged elbower suggests that the elbowee be a “real man” and let a woman go first. If a “real man” is a brave or courteous person, then I think the popular excuse of “it’s just bike racing,” precludes all of us cyclists, male and female, from being real men.

Besides being courteous, men are expected to do more work. The Bachelorette's suitors have been tested with competitions in boxing, dragon boat racing, and performing manual labor for charity. When the current bachelorette was competing as a "suitor," the hardest work she had to do was look better than her competitors in a swimsuit.

Look familiar? Liz Hatch, anyone?

Cycling also requires men to work harder. At Fitchburg last year, the women's amateur field competed in half as many stages as the men's amateur fields, and the women's pro field had only a fraction of the distance and payouts of the men.

3. The women get serious sooner:

Women on dating shows are constantly "falling for someone," finding a "connection," and even saying the L-word before their male counterparts, and women cyclists seem to get the racing bug with the same kind of urgency. I suspect this has to do with field size. Someone might enter several Women's Cat 4 races, all with fields half the size of their Cat 4 counterparts, and easily dominate all of her races. She'll quickly ascend the ranks to cat 3, maybe cat 2, and suddenly be racing with pros. At The Tour of Somerville, for example, a cat 3 woman had a single choice, which was to enter the women's combined 123 field and race against the likes of Laura Van Gilder and world champion Giorgia Bronzini. There wasn't a sign-up sheet for cat 3 men to race with Thor Hushovd. The difference in field sizes presents awesome opportunities for women to win small races, and rub (or throw?) elbows with the pros in others. Consequently though, it tests women's L-word for racing by forcing them to be competitive with elite and pro riders, even as amateurs.

What can we do to save cycling from plummeting further into Bachelorettedom?

We could start by revising our naming conventions. Let's start listing men's races specifically, and while we're at it, how about this: Instead of printing separate KOM and QOM jerseys, why not use the gender-neutral “Monarch of the Mountain?” Who wouldn’t be proud to earn the title of MOM after laboring intensely up a hill? Having equal payouts and distance will be tough until women's racing becomes more popular, but the Tour de 'Toona has the right idea. The only stage race in the country that has equal payouts and distance for the pro men's and women's fields, this race is sure to be a really challenging (and hopefully fun) event for CAWES. Stay tuned next week to hear how it goes.