This Isn't Checkers so HTFU

com-pe-ti-tion \ˌkäm-pə-ˈti-shən\
Defined by Merriam-Webster as: a contest between rivals; also : one's competitors competition>

sport \ˈspȯrt\
Defined by Merriam-Webster as: (1)physical activity engaged in for pleasure (2) : a particular activity (as an athletic game) so engaged in

I was having a conversation with a teammate yesterday about the season and the high and lows that go along with racing bikes and the cyclocross season specifically since it is so short and intense with a race or even two every weekend for close to four months straight. Each season it's typically the same familiar faces with a handful of guys moving up in the ranks from the season before to test themselves against faster competitors. Some guys are always top 5-10 riders while others race all season looking to "crack the top 10" and marking a significant milestone in their racing careers. Going into the weekend you always have a sense of where you should finish based on the level of your competition. You must prepare yourself mentally well before you even get to the start line.

With cycling, and most any sport, you get out of it what you put into it. 'Cross is not an easy discipline and requires an additional amount of technique and finesse that for most is only gained after years spent racing. In 'cross one starts out as a Category 4 (beginner) racer and work their way up to a Cat 1/Pro. As a Cat 1 one has achieved the highest possible "degree" in the sport. It means you're fast enough to have either won or collected enough upgrade points to mark a notch in your cycling belt so to speak. The difference between Cat 1 and Pro is minimal in technical ability but can be huge in physical ability. As you move down the ranks these gaps typically become somewhat smaller but still exist and therefore the need for a system to rank riders and appropriately place them together into racing classes. This achieves two things, first it ensure to a degree that riders of similar technical ability are riding together and second, that riders of a similar physical capability are riding together. This ensures a novice racer is not mixing it up with faster, more technically capable riders and causing a dangerous situation.

To some degree riders have control over their category. Once you hit Category 3 your upgrades are more or less optional unless you are always winning, then USAC gives you an automatic upgrade to the next category. Upgrading sometimes comes with a price, like never going back to being the big fish in the pond. This is more so once you hit Category 2 as there are very few non-Elite races out there that allow Cat 2 racers who are looked at as being the next Cat 1s and thus treated so by being forced to race the faster races.

I've been racing 'cross on and off for the past 12 years and only in the last two have I found any real success. I'm a highly competitive person when it comes to sports. I started playing teeball around 4 or 5 and spent the next 15 years excelling at baseball until I couldn't play at the level I wanted to any longer. Rather than become bitter at the fact I could no longer compete in a sport I loved and competed in for so long, I found other outlets. In college it was volleyball. While only a Division 2 club team at UMBC, we were still pretty damn good. I also picked up competitive cycling in college in the form of mountain bikes and eventually road bikes. Bike racing allowed me an outlet for my competitive nature after college.

Now, as a 36 year old Cat 2 with a family, work and other commitments, I don't have the time to dedicate to racing in the Elite/Pro ranks even if I were gifted enough physically to do so but I also have not lost my need to compete at the highest level possible and continue to push myself to get better within the confines of my life. Fortunately for myself and a lot of other guys like me, races are also broken out into Master's categories starting at 35. This allows for highly competitive "old" guys like myself to go out and smack each other around for 45 minutes on Saturdays and Sundays. Anyone who takes the time, effort and money to register for a bike race, pack up the car with all of their race day gear, travel to the race and spend the time away from family and friends must have either a strong love for the sport, a love of competition or a combination of both. I'm the latter, I wouldn't do this if I weren't going to go out there and give it my all I expect that of my teammates and competitors as well.

In the conversation with my teammate, we talked about comments that had been made from guys who have been regulars over the years but weren't racing because the sport had become "too competitive". WTF? This has to be the lamest excuse I've ever heard and is an insult to everyone who goes out there every weekend and pulls on a kit, pays their entry fees and drives over an hour one way for a 45min race. It's one thing if life changes force one to not train and be as competitive as they once were, one has simply lost their desire to race, or maybe just can't stand being the small fish in a new pond and misses the days of beating up on their lesser brethren. But to use the excuse that the sport has become "too competitive" is cop out. I've pulled out of races or not raced for long periods of time because my head wasn't in it but I never blamed my fellow competitors for my own lack of desire to race.

Here are your choices, choke down your ego and request a downgrade in your racing license so you can go back to being the big fish, race in a "less competitive" field, or just stop racing all together and lead group rides where there are no entry fees, no race numbers, no officials scoring you at the end, no podiums and no one cheering for you even if you're riding DFL because you're having the worst day ever on your bike.

No Sympathy for the Stupid

Anyone who has known me long enough has probably figured out I'm not the most sympathetic or compassionate person to walk the earth. The word Dumbass springs from my lips far too often. I find it very hard to feel bad for someone who gets in trouble or gets hurt from doing something that is obviously stupid and ill contrived. I'll preface the rest of this post with the understanding that I love motorcycles, they're fast, they're cool but they are also not toys and like guns, are very dangerous in the hands of monkeys and children. I cannot ride motorcycles, I want to, but I know I cannot be trusted with them. Every experience I have ever had with them has not ended well, at least for the motorcycle (learning to crash is essential). Gina, who worked in Shock Trauma where they affectionately refer to them as Donor Cycles, would never permit me to own one anyway. I have friends who own and have owned them. The ones that still own them seldom ride them because it's just to dangerous with the way people drive around in their SUVs, talking on their cell phones sucking down 1200 calorie venti caramel machiattos from Starbucks to pay attention to the road long enough to see them. The ones who have sold them did so after one too many close calls and decided it just wasn't worth it.

I also believe in Darwin's theory of evolution and that only the strong will (should) survive in a normal, balanced ecosystem. Unfortunately, technology and a good health care system have derailed that theory over the last century to leave us with a not so deep gene pool. So here it is, like it or not, my story of a Dumbass who slipped through evloution's ever shrinking net.

Today was the Bay Country Century down in Owings, MD. Great day, great event everything went well and the club made some bank. On the way home coming up Rt. 97 from Annapolis, through two lanes of cars, three of Anne Arundle Co.'s finest brain donors on their crotch rockets go flying past the group of cars I was in weaving in and out of them at what was easily over 100 mph wearing nothing more than t-shirts, shorts and a helmet. Now, the act of riding a motorcycle in a law abiding fashion in and of itself is like playing Russian rulet with bullets in 5 0f the 6 chambers of the gun. Now add in the fact that they were going almost twice the speed limit weaving through traffic and you get this. Not five minutes after the trio flies past us I come upon stopped traffic where the road goes to three lanes and some exit/entrance lanes form on the right. Whatever it was it had just happened and all three lanes of 97 are stopped and traffic trying to merge on was backed up. People are pulled over on the shoulder getting out of their cars. I see one lady grabbing her medical bag from the trunk of her car. As we inch up a bit I see it, one of the donor boys laying in the middle of the right lane splayed out like a rag doll next to a mini-van with it's rear end smashed in.

Me, having absolutely no sympathy for the guy having watched him and his buddies only moments earlier, asked the guy next to me on his crotch rocket if that was his buddy they were about to scrape up off the pavement, and if so could help as traffic was starting to get really backed up. From his response it obviously wasn't his friend which was odd, because there were three of them and the other two were no where to be seen. They didn't even stop to help their friend, probably because they were to worried about the overwhelming number of traffic violations they would receive after hearing witness reports. But lucky for them, unless their buddy wakes up (if he survives) and recovers from this, they probably won't get caught. Lucky for them, eh? Sorry for no pictures, I would have taken a some shots but traffic started to move.

All Thanks to OJ

I don't typically rant about politics, religion or other serious and controversial topics, more for fear of it coming up in my background investigation by the FBI or some other G-man investigator processing my top secret clearance, but I need to get this one out. This is the product of a really long road ride today where after a couple of hours the mind just begins spilling out uncontrollably everything that has been bottled up. It's a mental cleansing for me. Contrast that with mountain biking which is more of a soul cleansing experience, you don't think too much, you just try and be one with the trail and forget about everything else. Maybe I should just ride my mountain bike.

So to my point. First off, I'm not trying to debate the Constitution or say that our founding fathers didn't have the foresight to see what a f'd up world we would create. I'm just trying to make sense of everything lately. This all started last week with the tragedy at Virginia Tech, but the tipping point for this post was this ridiculously inappropriate and disrespectful article I had the complete misfortune of reading first thing this morning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402595.html

What is the media thinking? The editor who allowed this piece of trash to be published should be publicly flogged. We know the situation in Iraq is bad, but this piece of journalism (term used very loosely) isn't even worthy of the National Inquirer.

Now flashback to the events of last week. The first thing the media said they WOULDN'T do was make this story about the killer. Bullshit. That lasted all of what, a day? The other real tragedy of this situation is the complete circus the media made of the entire event. Do they have no respect for privacy and personal grieving, that question is rhetorical. The first amendment is a great thing, and we're lucky to have its protection so don't get me wrong, but the need for sensationalism and higher ratings is rotting the value of the first amendment from the inside out. News and media outlets need to be held accountable for what amount to nothing more than reckless behavior that's detrimental to society as a whole.

Everyone wants to know "How could this happen?". Well, here's part of the answer whether you like it or not. And before you finish the first sentence, don't worry I'll get to the liberals next. Let's start with the gun totting, right-wing conservative NRA and lobbyists for the gun industry backed by our Commander in Chief who has repealed or let lapse multiple gun laws in his illustrious tenure, all at the very open displeasure and dismay by members of law enforcement. I also believe in the second amendment but please, no one needs to own automatic weapons, and some people obviously shouldn't own any weapons at all. Now, couple the conservatives with the left-wing, bleeding heart liberals and privacy advocates who would rather die (or more rightly, let you die) than allow the government to use someones history of mental illness against them in a background investigation for the purchase of a gun. It's actually amazing, if these guys are so good at keeping your private data from the government, then why can't they keep public companies from selling my information to the highest bidder?

This country has gotten so polarized with picking sides in the left-wing, right-wing debate that no one can see that there can be no black and white when it comes to issues like this, because when they bleed together it always turns out to be the color of blood.