NorCal Cycling News – Cycling and Racing in Northern California

Sundays Le Tour coverage was capped off by an hour of highlights from the 2011 edition of the women’s Nature Valley Grand Prix. I have to applaud Versus for using Le Tour as a lead in to coverage of one of the most important women’s races in the world. I thing this now brings up the total coverage of women’s cycling on “major” networks to 1.5 hours. I am not including the UCI feed that Universal Sports plays from the track and CX world cups… Which is awesome btw! I hope you all tuned in and will let versus know it was a popular choice and kept us all glued to the. TV after their main coverage of Le Tour. It reminded me that I started a piece on NorCal riders at the NVGP abut never published it so I went back, dug it up, and tried to get it in shape for a quick post….

2011 NVGP Women’s Recap – Inspired by Recent TV Coverage

Since the demise of Tour d’Altoona the Nature Valley Grand Prix, fathered by the legendary Dave LaPorte, has become the major race for established and aspiring women professional cyclists in the United States. All the teams show up with their ‘A’ game and the race is rarely without the exciting drama usually reserved for the Tour De France.

The NVGP has been a launching pad for several careers including luminaries like Kristin Armstrong who owned the race for several years before her retirement, Brooke Miller who started a hot streak in 2007 for TIBCO with a win at the Cannon Falls RR, and Shelley Olds who placed second to Armstrong in 2009 and ultimately won in 2010.

NorCal was represented with several teams including TIBCO, Peanut Butter 2012, and the up and coming Vanderkitten squad. Peanut Butters Ali Starnes podiumed the first day with a big TT finish (camera time!) and Vanderkitten guest rider Beth Newell topped most of the amateur field coming in 22nd.

The crits and road races belonged to current world champion Georgia Bronzini, but before her crash in Stage 4 Shelley Olds was looking like she would be able to give Bronzini a run for her money. With Olds out Norcal was represented in the final sprints by Vanderkitten’s Emily Collins who managed several top ten finishes through out the week.

TIBCO was throwing everything they could at the race leaders in order to dislodge the race leaders (HTC and Peanut Butter) and they came close to putting Willock in the leaders jersey. The cool part about all the TIBCO attacks and lead outs was NorCal favorite Megan Gaurnier got lots of camera time. Other notable GC rides included former Stanford rider Amber (Rais) Pierce who finished in the top twenty as did Lindsay Myers.

Editor’s Note: I took a picture of the TV… Thats not much of a technology solution.

Time flies quickly these days. In the fast paced and quickly changing scene that is NorCal cycling, it’s easy to forget those that help made/make it possible for us to race—especially those behind the scenes. So to those folks (like Casey Kerrigan, Robert Leibold, and countless other officials, promoters, etc) I say THANK YOU!  ~ Alden Tanaka

Last week I helped Hernando run the Tuesday Night track race at Hellyer Velodrome.  I flipped lap cards and tried to score races.  The next day I woke up and could barely move.  I know this it totally pathetic but I think my back went out due to the stress of learning the ropes since I will be running some races in the near future.  I watched Hernando officiate, promote, and score the race all at the same time while taking complaints from the peanut gallery on a wide assortment of issues.

It reminded me with my involvement with a large local club organizing their sponsorship issues.  I had brought some structure to a loose process, and though there was not much payoff I felt pretty good about actually making progress and being in the sidelines of the industry.  Of course it gave me insight into the make up of the cycling world that benefit from volunteers efforts.

• 60% Thankful, but silent majority
• 20% Thankful, and verbal minority
• 15% Could do it better, have lots of advice, but are really busy so can’t help out right at this moment
• 5% The Bat-Shit Crazy- (almost always guys too) who will hound you do death over both major and minor issues and generally make your life miserable, since they are themselves miserable, and have an ungodly amount of time on their hands

I eventually quit both the position, and eventually the club, because dealing with the 5% Bat-Shit Crazy crowd was so emotionally draining the limited upside was no longer worth the rather large effort.

Since April 1 I have had several people, in organizing positions, tell me about how unhappy they were dealing, or observing, issues that started out as simple organizational items, that became crisis which were effecting their personal happiness.  My advice to them is to quit, why suffer in a volunteer position, even for a moment.

So here is the thing.  Think of all the folks out there trying to “do the right thing” in support of NorCal racing.  Officials, race promoters, club officers, regional association apparatchiks, photographers, and the Cat 4 35+ racers whose entry fee’s pay our way, deserve not a moment of your gratitude, but a huge weekly donation of it.  Do a gut check with your peers, and not just the ones you like, before you go after something you don’t agree with.  Nobody wants to be in the 5% Bat-Shit Crazy crew.

If we loose up our work force we’ll end up a vapid and empty shell of bike snobs like New York City.

PS.  This is a long winded way of preventing people from yelling at me if and when i screw up lap cards or race standings at next weeks Tuesday night race.

Inspired by the photos of

When i think of the Wente Crit I think of….

It is a circuit race littered with ambulances, weird sweeping turns, and long, windy final stretch.  And yet there is something about a road race and crit back to back, under the hot Livermore sun that is kind of cool…

For some reason it always brings out the local big guns…

Which is good for at least one killer photo in that crazy last lap.

There is always a winner.

Women: Devon Gorry

Men: Benny Swedberg

This summer David LaPorte, the organizer of the Nature Valley Grand Prix, gave me an interview for a project i was working on.  He spent about 15 minutes telling me that while the road races in the NVGP were great and popular with the riders he wanted to make it very clear that the crits (Stillwater in particular) is what brings the crowds, the sponsors, and is the most American form of racing in existence.  Take that for what you will but i thought it was cool.

As i was bashing on SoCal a resident of Visalia (or the closest thing i can think of to hell) commented that NorCal folks paled in comparison to the SoCal Crit monkeys.  Of course Rand went down that very weekend and won a crit so it looked good for us, but I have to say for the most part, he’s right.  NorCal does not work hard enough on it’s crits.  We have some of the best crit riders in the country, Holloway, Reaney, McCook, Brooke Miller, and even Rand but these guys are the exception not the rule.  If they show up it’s game over.  In general the prestige is saved up for races like Mt. Hamilton, or Merco, not slug fests like Davis, or the recent Santa Cruz Crit.  Unlike other parts of the country like NYC/NJ/Philly or LAX where crit racing is how riders move through the system a strong Cat 2 can progress easily in NorCal without learning how to turn a tight six corner crit.

This weekend  is the famous Copperopolis, the Roubaix of NorCal, but there are two crits which i feel replicate classic east coast style courses.  The Menlo Park Grand Prix and Easter Cri are flat and have plentiful sharp corners, and are the type of course that need to be ridden more often by the rank and file of NorCal riders.

Menlo Park Grand Prix

The MPGP is right down the street from me so it’s kind of my home race but I have always like the course, despite the truck that always seems to be parked in the last corner.  The first iteration of the course had two long, long, straight aways and four solid corners.  It reminded me of Sommerville (without the drunk Jersey crowd) and after promoter Lori Lee Lown added a few corners the course became a flat technical course that could end in a bunch sprint or break if riders brought their A Game fitness.  It is also great for women riders as LLL stacks the event with a great combination of races for women riders.  It’s a great course for Peninsula riders to get a real feeling of what a decent course is like.

Easter Crit (Fremont)

This is a bastard child of an early bird running two hair pin turns and two 90 degree turns.  This is the kind of race that I would do in Toronto which would be a few hairpins and about 50 people just slugging it out in an office park.  It’s not a pretty race but it’s the kind of crit which does two things. 1. it makes you fast since you are sprinting out of every corner. Intervals for 45-90 minutes 2. If you survive you have a really good shot at winning.

Why Are Crits important?

I think almost 60% of races on the calendar are crits (at least that was the figure a few years ago.) If you have any aspirations of being a real bike racer (like a pro, nearly pro, or master pro) they way you are going to make money is on the crit circuit.  Your big domestic salary will not cover your lavish lifestyle.  There may not be any money in NorCal races but what little there is usually is doled out at the crits.  In other parts of the US crit money can be substantial.  If you are one of those riders that “don’t like” crits or don’t think they are real racing..well, give up now, cause you already lost.

I have a follow up piece on a race strategy, closely related to rand style aggressive crit racing, that incorporates an Image Score concept inspired by Brooke Miller. I will try to publish that before the weekend.   I might even go back and re-read and edit this post in the AM – but don’t count on it.

 

It has been a rough few weeks at my house with traveling spouse, sick kids, and then sick me.  My writing/riding time got a little hit and then my motivation was totally destroyed by a stomach thing.  I even stooped to reaching out to Hernando for motivation… and while i’m not going with his suggestion, when in doubt make fun of Lance, i got this idea seconds after he responded so I give him credit.  It’s in a hippie energy thing… no other way of explaining it.

So I kind of want to write something about Sea Otter, in fact, I totally want to go down there, but they did not respond to my one request about media credentials (don’t laugh, there are way freakier bloggers out there that get press credentials than us – we we get traffic), but I’ve been hedging since I have to work, well….at least show up,  and i’m a-feared I’ll have to pay $20 for parking.  I was about to look up results when i saw picture of Kristen Armstrong in a Sea Otter stage race yellow jersey.  Holy crap it’s ugly.  I mean it’s like Nebraska Century Club ugly.

I just realized this is going to be long and rambling.   Guess it’s good you are all at stage races and shit.

I suppose I understand why US stage races all feel compelled to use yellow as their race leader jersey color but it doesn’t keep me from feeling a little annoyed.  I have one yellow jersey, which I inevitably wear in July, meaning that everybody i see on the Spectrum, Valley Ride, or morning ride makes fun of me.  Why am i mocked?  Because yellow is the color of Le Tour.  It’s their jersey color.  They own it.  They should trade mark it so somebody like Sea Otter doesn’t go and create a hot mess, which is my favorite Project Runway expression, that they then slap on riders who I like to see do well.

What’s wrong with that sucker?  Where to start…. First, they have font problems.  It’s three different font treatments stuck in a black blob.  The variable font gives me a vague sense of neon.  What they hell is that!  A vague sense of neon? Can’t they just pick a freaking font and stick with it?  I don’t think it even matches anything they have on their website or logo. I really don’t think they could have come up with that lettering unless they gave one line each to three different designers, and then had a fourth designer go and then put it in a frame under pain of death not to modify the thickness or color.  Or they had a city college design student work on it.  Now i feel like i’m hurting somebody’s feelings, but you should be told.  The font isn’t working.

Second – Where the hell is the cute little otter that they put on shirts and stuff.  The only thing that Sea Otter really has going for it is they can use a cute little otter in an Olympic mascot type of way.  I see no reason they don’t get that otter on the jersey. In fact, why not make the color brown like a sea otter’s fur. I now it’s not an obvious choice and maybe it wouldn’t stand out enough but it would be better than using yellow which panders to the notion that the only thing American’s understand is a winner wears a yellow jersey.

Third – they have that crazy tiger strip stuff going on the front.  That tiger stripr stuff has “Cipo fashion miss” all over it.  It’s not as bad as the Slim Good Body suit he wore one year, which literally almost made me throw up, but it’s kind of tacky.  Now the tiger stuff probably wouldn’t be too bad, if it wasn’t for the crazy neon like font that is all over the front but the two together equals hot mess. Oh, and to cap it all off, they forgot to leave room for team logo iron on so you have to cram that poor little monkey at the bottom of the jersey.  Which of course reminds me of a joke… “A sea otter and a monkey walk in to a bar…”

I’ll let Sea Otter off the hook for a second to rant about this pathological need to put race leaders in yellow jerseys.  We get it, the leader of the Le Tour wears yellow and since that’s a race that many American’s can relate too I understand why you stick a leader in yellow.  However… the more memorable races, which look to unseat the ASO from their pre-eminent spot at the top of the world stage racing scene have their own trademark colors.  The Giro has the pink jersey, and after a few years experimenting with the color “gold” the Veulta has settled on red, which does have a Spanish vibe to it given their flag, bull fighting, and FC Barcelona.

What do American stage races do?  TOC, Mt Hood, Cascade, NVGP, San Dimas, Merco, all use some version of the yellow jersey.  It makes sense but is really pretty boring and does nothing to help their events stand out.  Now that I think about it… Sea Otter just didn’t go far enough.  They needed to go full Cipo.  They need a “Zebra” jersey or something that can brand their race and make the leader identifiable for fan’s that can’t easily identify a disgraced former Euro-Star (Mancebo), random Australian (Ben Day), or American that should famous  like Kristen Armstrong. (No Dad! She is not Lance’s Sister)

 

The lesson here?  Yellow is safe, but Zebra stripes are forever.  Definitely time to get Tim Gunn into the picture to figure out a jersey design for a race.  I vote for rhinestones.  Everything looks better when it sparkles.