Racing Union

Archive for March, 2006

This past Saturday was the last of the Quicksilver Winter Solstice Series training races, and I’ve learned, frankly, that I need more race training. I’ve noted in my own progress that I’m not thinking about how to finish a race any more, rather I’m thinking about how to finish first. This is a pretty big step for me as any who’ve followed my change from couch potato to bicycle racer can attest.

It was pretty windy for the ten-lap “D” race. After the first lap two guys in front took off. I was very close to the front and could have gone (or at least tried to go) with them. I distinctly chose not to and that turned out to be the big losing moment for me. At the time I figured they would come back pretty quick with the wind. I was wrong. The eventual winner rode solo for more then eight laps and was never in danger of getting caught, and second place just survived the closing group. I ended out of position coming up the hill in the last lap, so did not contest the sprint for third.

I came away with two main thoughts from the series: if you are not willing to be aggressive and risk losing, you are not going to win; and mistakes will be punished, especially in short races like this.

-michael

Dear Mr. Marshall, Your e-mail requests that corrections and changes be sent to you. My son and another junior placed first and second in the race on 3/4/06; but there was a mix-up, perhaps no one was paying enough attention to notice they were juniors and not with the group in front of them. In your reply, you state you cannot do anything about this. What kind of mistakes can you fix? All the racers I know would rather have accurate race results then ghiradelli chocolates and a heated tent. I cannot believe that no one can correct the posted results. These are two juniors that want to keep moving up in racing. My son (name withheld) rode with his teammate, (name withheld) to the race on Saturday, and they needed to leave before the results were posted. I realize this was a training race, but if any results are to be posted, the sponsors, like everyone, should care that they are correct.

eric’s response:

>> What kind of mistakes can you fix?

Just minor ones, like misspelled names, different club affiliations, et cetera. Also, 3rd in the junior race, as the officials wrote down a racer number that didn’t exist. I can understand your frustration, but I hope you can see the logistical difficulties in trying to verify results changes after the officials have disbanded along with their results note. Until the rules are changed, we’ll all have to use the 15 minute protest period.

and the conclusion:

I guess we will skip Quicksilver next year. Chocolates and heated tents mean little if judges miss a sprint finish and now you tell me, gave credit to a 3rd place finisher that didn’t exist. If that can be corrected, I fail to see how assigning a win to the wrong person cannot be. I appreciate your prompt response, but frankly it is way behind the times.

now i need to be really clear here: these are my opinions and my opinions alone. nothing i say, at all, at any time, should be construed to be speaking for the series, the promoter, or any of the clubs involved in promoting the series. that said, this is a regrettable occurence. i am tempted to chafe at the anger of the parent. a big part of what the racing union is all about is keeping a perspective on these things. the promoter offered you a free race and even subsidized your child by paying the mandatory fees and you are snubbing the race over something that they have no control over. i also understand the frustration expressed in the email. when someone works hard for a good result, it’s really a shock to have it pulled away and attributed to someone else. the specific point i want to address is the misplaced anger in the email. don’t be mad at the race or the promoter or the venue. this was an unfortunate event, and it happens all the time because things go wrong or there is confusion or fate conspires against you.

but first, let’s understand the process. it is the job of the officials that are assigned by usa cycling, the national federation that provides the structure under which most races are run, to administer and adjudicate the results of the race. the rules of racing and the various officials manuals that provide guidance on administering events are here. if you show up at a race and you don’t know the rules, you don’t have a leg to stand on. the officials post results as soon as possible after each event. at that point, there is a 15 minute protest period. if a rider believes that there is an error in the preliminary results, they should speak up during this time. if the results are changed, a new 15 minute protest period is initiated. if a protest period expires, the results are generally deemed final. however, to address the specific point made by somewhat understandably disgruntled parent above, if there are known errors in the results, they should be rectified. in particular, see the yellow sidebar on page 28 here for more information. the best thing for everyone is to know how the system works and to treat it with whatever seriousness you feel it deserves.

what bugs me is the anger that gets redirected towards the promoter, race and venue. if you are angry enough to boycott an event, it would certainly have been worth it to stick around for the 15 minute protest period. i have had a considerable number of experiences as a promoter with other races in which riders spent hours contacting other racers and trying to produce testimonials that the event actually unfolded in a way that is different than the results say they did. no problem, but think about it. hours of frustration and avoiding races and venues when you could have just stuck around for the results and the protest period. racers who show up to a venue 2-3 hours early to chew the fat, apply the proper embrocation, locate their teammates, set up the trainer, tune the bike, and prepare their sports nutrition supplements somehow can’t stick around after the race to make sure their carefully prepared and hard-won efforts have been recognized?

my personal opinion is that these conflicts stem from an unrealistic assessment of how bike racing works: it’s not always perfect or safe or fair. as i mentioned above, mistakes happen from time to time. bicycle racers are not perfect, officials are not perfect. mistakes get made. technology fails. oversights are….inevitable. there is no justice. if the world was just, there would be no need for the revolution that the racing union is propogating. remember that cycling is a hobby. you can be passionate about it, but at the end of the day, it’s just a really fun way to spend some time and some money.

i am carpooling in to work today along 66 with mike rp when i notice something in the bushes on the side of the road. mike pulls over and we find a relatively nice bike wheel. so someone is out a bike wheel and i am up a bike wheel. it looks like it probably came off a roof rack, and it’s sorta nice, so it sorta looks like you might want it back. email or call me with a description. it was found just past the west falls church metro station on i-66. if no claim appears after what i consider an appropriate amount of time, the wheel will be ebay’d and the money will go to some non-profit. the wheel could be claimed from me or mike at quicksilver or the racing clinic eli is so graciously putting on this sunday.

racing union has received a veritable cornucopia, a horn of plenty if you will, of interesting missives from our dear readers. many of the questions seem to center on the same topics, over and over, endlessly repeating the same motif, tediously redundant. you gte the idea. we address them, here, today. let’s get started.

q. what’s up with your club? what are you guys trying to accomplish?

a. we’re trying something new. the details are here. the simplest analogy describing what this will lead to can be found here. change is what we are all about, and change can be hard. the more you resist, the harder it will be. resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

q. i checked out my horoscope this morning. it says: “the road is long for those who choose to take the long road. and it’s short for those who recognize the short cuts. all things being equal, why not get there faster?” does this mean i shoudl dope myself to the gills to become a better cyclist?

a. no. let’s take this in stages. the horoscope in question is from the print edition of the march, 3 2006 washington post, style section, c11, leo. i can’t link to it as a resource because apparently, the print edition of the post contains different horoscopes than the express which is different again from the washington post online. since the different versions of the post cannot seem to agree on how the stars should guide our actions, i would tend to conclude that it may be difficult to discern their astrological wisdom. as such, i must urge caution in making their will central to your race preparation and planning. on a totally different different note, if you’re looking at drugs as a way to get strong enough to beat up on people at industrial park crits, your problems are waaaayyy more profound than we can address here. oh, and by the way, i forwarded your name and address to usada and the usoc ombudsman. best of luck.

q. what are you guys, commies?

a. this charming query came in shortly after we launched the site. thankfully, mail like this has essentially tapered off to zero. it is worth noting that it’s difficult to assert with absolute certainty that the racing union is definitively one thing or another thing. it is what the members want it to be. if we want to race bikes, we’re a bike racing club. if we want to work for charity, we’re a charitable organization. if we want to sell all of our stuff and buy a boat and put on eye patches and forcibly board other boats to steal their booty while screamming “yaaaaarrrggghhh, prepare to be boarded”, we’re pirates. people tend to want to categorize things. that, in and of itself, is not bad or weak. however, one must be careful not to categorize, simply to have something fit into narrow and predefined ideas about how the world operates. that, is weak.

q. oh my god, your new uniforms are slammin’.

a. yes, yes they are. hincapie has done a very nice job. they always do. but we keep it real too. you’re not going to overthrow the current regime and orthodoxy and thought patterns if you look like crap. i would have thought that one look at our exceedingly smooth educational materials would tell you that we understand the dynamics of getting the point across to people. resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

q. how come you never capitalize anything in your posts?

a. making arbitrary distinctions between letters based only on their placement within a sentence structure is a clear sign of a mindset that is inclined towards classist distinctions. really, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from capitalizing sentences to being an indentured servant on some duke’s grand estate. once you reach the point where you need (need??!!) to elevate some letters over others, you’ve lost the battle and the war. talk about punked…

one day, you’re writing out a letter to a friend, mindlessly allowing the first letter of each sentence to dominate the others in size and the next, well, your probably on your knees in some terrible agricultural backwater, pulling weeds from sun up to sun down for the right to occupy a hovel with the other workers on some landed gentry’s estate. liberate your mind, and your ass will follow. the fact that I need to write these words indicates the truly sisyphean nature of our task.

we gratefully accept it. it is so rarely the case that something that needs doing is simple and fun. challenges are hard, and it’s that particular quality that makes it rewarding. bike racers, of all people, should be able to appreciate this. if it was easy, everyone would have it or could do it, no? that’s why they call it racing and not winning. got more questions? well that’s great, because we have lots of answers. put your queries in the comments and we’ll get you what you need.