By: Jackson Weber Tuesday April 27, 2010

An odd issue of the amateur racer is the priority to which
we assign to our bikes. We pour thousands of dollars into them, spend countless hours on them, strive to make them aesthetically pleasing, and after all of that, beat the piss out of them via racing, crashing and transporting them about.

To a racer the bike is supposed to simply be a tool; a means to get you from point A to point B faster than your competition; something that can be shattered and replaced without a second thought. However to the cycling enthusiast (which most racers are also) the bicycle is a form of expression, an extension of themselves. The problem is that, in making the bike part of oneself, fear of risk and loss set in. You question whether you can fit in the gap, or if you should take a chance in the sprint – you sacrifice moments that become fewer and fewer the better you get because of your concern for your ride. As a racer myself, I thought I had steeled my emotions towards my bicycles, going so far as to selling a bike I couldn’t
bring myself to risk. Yet as I transition from my old steed to my svelte, new Ridley my giddiness is tempered by a feeling of loss and emptiness.

My System Six was a bitch of a bike, its components beaten by several years of use, its head tube quite possibly the most excessive of anything on two wheels. Yet in its aesthetic lacking, its purpose was clearly apparent, and in that purpose the bike grew on me. I was never worried about scratching or denting it, matching colors or even cleaning it. It left me worry free to throw it about races without hesitation, unlike the gorgeous air-brushed Colnago that I had to sell because I couldn’t bring myself to race and risk it. The System Six was a work horse and putting it out to pasture for the Ridley was like putting down a good dog – painful,
yet right.

The Ridley and I are now off to a proper start. The team’s color scheme is simple enough to make its purpose clear, this is a tool, and with the right set of legs it will
look amazing (like Morrison). But its immaculate condition left an emotional void – it was too perfect for me to feel right on it. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I began the bonding process yesterday as in the process of finishing my last interval I puked and fell over, giving the shifters a bit of ‘character’ and starting what I’m sure will be an eventful relationship between myself and it.

By: Jackson Weber Saturday February 27, 2010

January and February is generally a time of for all the annual irritations of a mature life – car inspection, physical (body inspection), eye glass prescriptions, etc. ad nauseum. I generally put off all of these things (nothing like putting off a car inspection for 6 months and explaining that one to a police officer). However there is one thing I have become religious in yearly (if not more often) seeking out, bike fit.

Fit, one of those words in the cycling world that people can bicker over like the merits of Campy against Shimano against SRAM. The end goal is the same – comfort and power – but the paths travelled to get there might be compared to the struggles of creationism and evolution. Holy word, science, black magic, common sense – go to four different fitters and you could find yourself in four different positions. I myself have been fit to bicycles with nearly every method
imaginable. The “inch-between-your-crotch-and-top tube” method, the slight bend in your knee at the bottom of the pedal stroke, that you should be able to block out your front hub with the front of your stem, knee over pedal spindle, Euro stretched and slammed, American upright a la Pruitt, laser levels, video recording, motion
capture, a fitter can rarely surprise me with a fitting technique or concept.

Of course, I still managed to donate a year and a half of my
life and part of knee due to injury thanks to (you guessed it) poor fit and
biomechanics. Now I’m about as neurotic about fit as Merckx or the Princess and the Pea. I have fortunately recognized that I know enough about biomechanics and fit to cause irreparable harm to myself. Thus I now seek out fitters like wine aficionados seek out elusive bottles. And upon finding them interrogate them until they’re either irate or I’m satisfied.

These days a fitting session for me is like therapy. I’ve found a fitter whose blend of science and common sense fit comfortably with my own ideas that I’ve concocted over the years. Getting measured and stretched puts my mind at ease in a way few things do. Riding a trainer while wired up for motion capture is bliss. I can and have happily spent hours with my fitter tweaking measurements by millimeters, as it all means one thing: I only have to worry about driving my bike as hard as I can, no worries, no excuses.

By: Jackson Weber Tuesday October 27, 2009

The cross season is a sort of solace for me – proof that I can turn off my bike racer, must-win (or at least try to win) attitude and just enjoy riding my bike fast. Racing cross, I get to witness mountain bikers herd packs of roadies like myself about mud strewn courses with their superior handling skills that I’m rather confident I’ll never possess; and watch other riders struggle in the throes of bike racing insanity that I delve in 7 or 8 months each year.

Racing is a drug. One that’s as addictive and destructive as anything else out there and I’m no Keith Richards. So instead of constantly going for a hard fix all year long, I switch to my methadone, turn off the must win attitude and simply try to enjoy the experience that is ‘cross. I register late, warm-up poorly, and above all I drive a bike like an Asian grandmother in a minivan. Some would call these issues limiters, problems, excuses, however, I see them as enablers.

If I think I have any chance of winning a race, like many (I think), I will turn myself inside out to do so. Thanks to cross’ peculiar requirements, my poor preparations virtually guarantee that I have no worries about racing at the front, which is coincidentally the only place you can win from. Thus my cross racing turns into a well-paced sightseeing expedition – seeing the even worse guys at the back, the various crashes the various gents in mid-pack cause trying to move forwards or back, the hecklers du jour, and of course, how close to the front of the race I can make it by the end. It’s wonderful and yet pathetic how one can find satisfaction in placing 30-somethingth.

Let me be clear – this is a loser’s attitude. But while you may be pushing yourself to win a 3 race or not get lapped as a 2, I am begging or bitching for beer or cake, and let’s be honest, when your options are trying to chased down a mud-covered mountain biker or a cake feed, is there really any question?

By: Jackson Weber Tuesday September 15, 2009

Baseball. I sucked at it as a kid, left it for soccer, which quickly left me isolated from the rest of Americana-loving peers (though I think I feel worse for my father, given soccer’s lack of popularity at the time, having to tell his friends his son played soccer had to be right up there with saying something like “The dolls and dresses are just a phase…”). But lest this turn into the rant of an outcast right off the bat, I moved on, and baseball and I came to terms.

Then the whole baseball-doping thing hit. I’m ashamed to say, I was psyched. After everyone maligned cycling for being the dope-ridden sport, those same people were going to have deal with the pain of knowing their own sports heroes were as tainted as mine. Their heroes were to be dragged across muck-covered headlines, abused by the masses and media and discharged into ignominy.. In my head it was going to be Festina for baseball, and I was ready for it.

But it flopped. There was some outrage, a headline here, a Congressional (!) hearing there, a catchy poster slogan or two and…yawn…more baseball? Baseball didn’t stop, money didn’t disappear, fans didn’t turn away in disgust. ‘How the hell did that happen,’ crossed my mind but then another cycling doping fiasco appeared, and thoughts of baseball quickly dissipated.

Then, more recently some New England notables – Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Ortiz – had their own little doping issues, and instead of disgust, once again folks were calm – fans were even excited for Ramirez to return after his 50 game suspension. Without any cycling/doping outrage (maybe a Spanish second-tier rider getting popped for CERA or something equally meaningless), I pondered over the difference. What makes Ramirez or Ortiz ‘roiding up to Thing-like proportions to win a World Series o.k. but Landis placing a testosterone patch on his nethers for Tour win disgraceful (location? Needle in butt, ok; patch on your grundle, no no?)?

After quite a bit of bickering, beer-swilling, shouting and even a book or two, I have settled on a conclusion: We, the American cycling public, are too well off for the good of the sport. As an odd number of recently published or resurfaced articles have pointed out, American cycling is a bourgeois sport, which provides the means for riders like Tom Danielson to go to Europe and discover amazing new illnesses which slow him even further..

It also means that cyclists in America tend to view cycling as a leisure sport for themselves – something to keep themselves from getting fat without all the extra strain of running. Hell, I’ll venture (sure ain’t gonna prove) that the vast majority of the middle class views sports in general as a nicety, a hobby, a something-to-do-after-work-to-avoid-my-life-wife-whatever. Whatever they see it as, one thing I very doubt they think of with sports is a way out. After all, unless you’re an angsty teen middle class life in America isn’t a bad deal. We (relatively correctly) don’t view cycling as a money sport, so when we hear of Mr. Dopey Italiano sticking needles in his ass to finish 50th in an un-televised semi-Classic, its offensive and absurd – why dope and stain what to us is a ‘beautiful spectacle’?

It’s American cycling fans’ own beliefs in the sanctity of the sport that leads to its media crucifixion. Perhaps it’s our own money, perhaps it’s that so many believe in St. Armstrong, immaculate Tours, or something else that I’m missing, but the overdone outrage that is directed at dopers in cycling lets the media circle and focus on all the wrong things. I say we take a page from the baseball fans. Doping is here. Punish it where we find it, but let it go once we do. This is not a perfect sport, and it won’t be while others depend on it for their livelihoods, to expect such purity will only lead to further dismay and disgust.

By: Jackson Weber Monday August 10, 2009

July is my traditional time for an existential bike racing mind-fuck. If one’s had a bad season, Fitchburg finishes just in time to leave you mentally fried and ready to be done; if you’re having a good season, Fitchburg becomes a focal point, one that you can forget to look beyond. Combine all that with that big race in France, and OD’ing on all things two-wheeled seems to happen rather routinely.

This season’s annual fogging was further helped by the news of the ‘retirement’ of New England racing stalwart, Matt White. I don’t know White that well, my only real contact was the compu-trainer sessions I attended over the winter, instead he is one of those riders that will forever be associated having attained that dream that I’ve been going after ever since I (somewhat) figured out this whole bike racing thing. He wasn’t quite a pro, but amongst the amateur ranks he was near the top, regularly winning big races throughout New England and had been doing that for as long as I can remember. He had it – and then he stopped and walked away.

Now this isn’t meant to malign White’s decision, as I’m sure he has reasons, and I’m certainly not the one to question them. Instead its perspective. I and other racers surrender quite a bit of normalcy in life for a shot at a podium, a win, an upgrade, a chance to prove we are good – prove we are better. We get caught up in it and tend to chase after it blindly, leaving a littering of failed relationships and missed opportunities like a pack of racers discarding Gu wrappers. Hell, I’m about to tell a team of runners that I’m going to stop coaching them in order to train more, and I while I do feel bad, the fear of leaving a ‘what-if’ makes the decision an easy one.

So, this isn’t meant to ask why we do this to ourselves. We have our reasons, what-if or what not. This is just a friendly reminder (maybe just for myself) that as we descend back into or out of our Tour and racing-induced hazes to remember, that this whole bike racing thing is temporary. Even if you attain everything you want, eventually you’re not going to be in the saddle, and then everything you’ve gone after on two wheels will be left hanging with them on the wall with the bike you just hung up.