fake racing beats real racing

tuesday night. you could, drive 45 minutes to rural NC, pay $15 to ride around in a circle with a bunch of dudes slowly for 39 minutes and kinda fast for 1 minute, if you can avoid crashing.
or,
you could do the Durham Tuesday Night Fast Ride (departing at 5:30 from The Bicycle Chain). formerly known as the Cycle Center ride (back when Cycle Center was called Cycle Center and before they decided to remove any official affiliation with the ride for liability purposes), the tuesday ride is fast, hilly, and free. two trips up Mt. Sinai Road and a one mile gradual uphill finish on Old NC 10 make it plenty selective. and most importantly riders ride hard. people attack on the climbs. people attack on the flats. people form breakaways and work together in pace lines. the pack will organize and chase hard. it is competition at its purest: no prizes, no upgrade points, not even any bragging rights because the people who show up to this ride are cool enough to realize that anyone who brags about "winning" a shop ride is a fool.
i think the fact that this is a Durham ride is important. we have nothing to prove. we are just out to work hard and keep getting faster.
to hell with real racing. long live fake racing.

ACE venture

Last night was the second go 'round (and round and round and round) at Ace Speedway, and Mike Madsen, Bryan Andregg, Chris, Carl and I made the hour long drive to scenic Altamahaw. Mike and Bryan raced the Cs, and I have to admit that I was so slow getting my junk together for the B event that I missed most of their race. I heard tell that Bryan was feeling strong but something went awry in the closing laps and he ended up sprinting too early. They'll have to give you more.

In the Bs, Chips claimed we were the largest field ever, with 59 racers. Franklin Street Cycles had probably the largest team ever, with 10 riders in the pack. During the warmup, Chris guessed -- correctly, as it turned out -- that FSC would probably be using their team strength to try and score upgrade points for their two remaining cat 4 racers, as most of FSC catted up to 3 last year.

The first five minutes were fairly uneventful, but then the serious attacks started. About half the time at Ace, a bunch manages to lap the field, substantially due to some heavy-duty blocking by teammates back in the pack. Because a flat oval race like Ace lends itself to strong teamwork, for a bunch to make it around, it has to have at least one rider from most of the major teams. At Ace, nuthin's goin' nowhere unless it has an FSC rider in it, and it doesn't hurt to have at least a couple from Cycles de Oro, Hearts, or maybe Doughnutboy or Spin Cycle. Chris got in a good lookin' group, but it wasn't to be, as a bridging rider (*cough* Carl *cough*) ended up pulling the pack up to the bunch. I was in another break, but we fell apart after Derek Powers jumped for a prime and busted us up. Carl made a go in another group, but everything was being kept on a short leash early on. Then a big break got away that looked serious -- with none of us in it, d'oh!. In the end, it never got more than 10 seconds on the pack, but the chase was hard enough that the pack was strung out and breaking apart when the attack was caught. It looked like a good time for a counterattack, so I jumped from midpack to find one of the two FSC cat 4s also making a run for it. He immediately informed me that "my team will block for me" (no kidding). Me: "Trying to cat you up?" Him: "Uh-huh, that's the gameplan." So thanks, Chris, for the tip!

The two of us became four when a Hearts and a Cycles de Oro rider bridged up. With Chris and Carl, plus the 9 FSC riders, plus however many Hearts and Cycles de Oro teammates, we probably had a third of the pack blocking for us, and we ended up staying away for most of the race. We got up to half a lap on the bunch (20 seconds), but with only 10 laps remaining, the FSC rider couldn't keep the pace and fell off. We three tried to keep away nonetheless, but the math wasn't on our side, as the 9 FSC riders in the pack who had previously been working to slow the pack were now all working to bring us back. With only four laps to go the pack finally caught us. I had my second piece of luck in the race when I reintegrated into the pack and happened to end up on the wheel of the other FSC cat 4. With 3 laps to go, FSC put a full euro-style 4 person leadout train in front of this guy, and I hitched on like a caboose. They kept it pegged at about 28-29mph for laps 4, 3, 2, and, unfortunately, 1. I say unfortunately, because that pace is fast enough to discourage attacks before the bell lap, but in the last lap, the train would have to be pushing low 30s to avoid "the swarm" of riders coming up to the front. So into the final stretch, a Spin Cycle train caught us on the right and some more riders outside them. Things might have stayed somewhat sane, but the FSC riders cut the final corner and then had to jump back up into the lane with only 100 meters to go. As a result, I got squeezed between the FSC sprinter (the cat 4 dude) and the Spin Cycle sprinter, and I and the Spin Cycle dude briefly bumped handlebars and had to shut down our sprints. This royally pissed him off, and he gave off a Brooklyn-inspired "aawwwWWWTHATSFUCKINBULLSHIT!!" The FSC guy won it -- I wish I'd had a clear lane, as the finish really wasn't that fast and I was feeling good for the sprint. At the line, I rolled across just behind FSC and, with a couple riders outside us, I placed 4th.

Racers, ready...

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