Cal Aggie Crit: Not Even Max Jenkins Pro Bike Racer Could Make a Break Stick

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of writing about science. This is an excellent thing for my real, scientific career, of course. However, readers who have been with me for the duration of this blog’s existence will remember that the dry, concise, pristine world of scientific disclosure is what drove me to start this nonsensical, meandering, illogical, and factually iffy internet endeavor in the first place.

Writing about science is all about good form, smooth delivery, and few mistakes. Literarily speaking, it’s like taking a nice girl to a fancy restaurant, having a good glass of wine each and engaging in charming but appropriate conversation, all while listening to string quartet music. It’s something that would make a mother proud.

This blog, on the other hand, is the written equivalent of an all-night, sloppy, air-guitar on the dancefloor, greasy street-vendor sausage at 2am, wake up on a mattress in the closet of someone you don’t know, tequila-driven bender. Mothers do not approve.

Well, Mom, there’s a time and place for each. Tonight, it’s blog night.

Every year, the NCNCA collectively forgets that it ran a Hill Climb on January 1st — let’s be serious, that is not a real bike race, no matter what climbers tell you — and inaugurates the true racing season with the Cal Aggie Crit: a low-budget, family affair hosted by perennial collegiate powerhouse, the UC Davis Cycling Team.

This race is held in William Land Park in Sacramento, home of a zoo, one of my favorite crit courses of all time, and a relatively lowbrow golf course inhabited primarily by fratboys playing a game of “Dude, did you just see that? I bounced that shot off six trees and a stroller! HAW HAW HAW!” So, another zoo.

After I retrieved my race number from the multitude of cute college girls at registration — OK, let’s be honest, we all know I can’t talk to girls, so I had my teammate Sam get it for me instead — I had a cup of coffee with my parents and pinned my number to my fruit-covered spandex. Shortly thereafter, I was ready to roll around idly and scream vulgarities at the women’s race taking place directly before mine, which is the part of my pre-race routine I refer to as “warming up.”

My fellow bicyclogger Beth Newell (NOW/Novartis) was sitting on the back of the W/1/2/3 race, pretending to be cool with her National Champion stripes on her sleeves, while real bike racers like Emily Kachorek (Primal Wear), Maura Kinsella (Vanderkitten), and seemingly dozens of Stevens/Pactimo and UC Davis girls were attacking furiously and aimlessly like I prefer. I yelled at Emily — she glared. I yelled at Maura — she grimaced. I was striking out in the heckling department. Finally, I screamed “You’re racing like a little [expletive], Beth!” when the ladies passed through.

(Photo Credit: Dale Tapley)

Sure enough, the next lap she came by me, Beth was drilling it on the front with the whole field sitting idly on her wheel. I guess they don’t teach track sprinters how to “attack” in the criterium sense of the word.

Now I feel kind of guilty, because Beth ended up losing the finishing sprint — presumably, it’s because she wasted all that energy at the front trying to prove me wrong. I don’t know the exact finishing order, but I do know that Heather Lipana (Stevens/Pactimo) won convincingly over a pretty strong women’s field.

Congrats, Heather. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t beat Beth in a bike race; in fact, I chickened out when given the chance for a match sprint.

Sorry Beth, I won’t heckle quite so hard next time, and you know I have the utmost respect for you. Perhaps I should heckle more viciously? What would help you win better?

With the women’s race over, it was time for my first real race of the season, a 60 minute P/1/2/3 clusterf*&k of an affair.

I was pretty pumped up on the start line. So pumped up, in fact, that Jan Stastny (father of my teammate Chris) was overheard saying, in his thick Czech accent, “I am going to put a Valium or two into Rand’s bottles, because he is way too excited right now.”

I guess I just love bike racing, and I really enjoy the people involved. I don’t think I’m the only one — I just might be the loudest. I also caffeinate a lot.

I have to say, this race felt pretty fast. I no longer have any electronic devices on my bike: my speed sensor died several years ago, my HRM strap died shortly therafter, and finally the head unit of my Polar flickered and died in the middle of the 2011 season. Now it sits uselessly on my stem, an emblem of my former dedication to the sport, not willing to tell me how long I’ve been riding nor even what time it is. Thus, I have no metric by which to measure the 2012 Cal Aggie criterium — no “kJs,” no “watts,” no normalized bullshit whatsoever, not even an average speed.

But I can say this race felt pretty fast at the front end.

Now, not more than a few minutes ago, I called my blog “factually iffy,” but I feel as if I ought to set the record straight given that some well-read sources have been posting factually iffier things elsewhere.

For example, “Nor Cal Cycling News,” which is now curated by a fat, old man who lives in Wisconsin, made the following claim:

“In the Men’s race Sam Bassetti attacked late in the race for a solo win off the front.  It was a win stylistically approved by teammate Rand Miller who was monitoring the chase group on Bassetti’s heals (sic).”

False. I stylistically disapprove of solo victories, always. Here’s what actually happened.

My teammates (Nate Wilson, Robin Eckmann, Sam Bassetti, Jesse Moore, Chris Stastny) and I tried as hard as we could to force a breakaway — if you can imagine that. I think you can tell by the look on my face in this photograph that I was not happy with my inability to brute-force a move off the front of the anxious group behind.

(Photo Credit: Dale Tapley)

Time and time again, riders would attack with reckless abandon, only to find the field mere seconds behind. Even Max Jenkins Pro Bike Racer (who is racing for Competitive Cyclist this year, ironically making him a fred) became frustrated with the way others were racing. He was overheard saying,”Well, since I’m the only PRO in the race, I’m kind of obligated to yell at people.” Classic.

Allow me to illustrate why the breakaway contingent was so frustrated. Here is a graph plotting “Frequency of Attacks” vs. “Gap Over the Field.”

That is annoyingly flat.

Further analysis doesn’t make it any better. This time we’re plotting “How Much The Breakaway Hurt” vs. “Gap Over the Field.”

Clearly, I was confounded by the inability of a breakaway to get more than 5 seconds up on the field, but as the inimitable Susannah Breen (Stevens/Pactimo Sideline Squad) is fond of saying, “I guess you just had too many dicks on the dancefloor.” Tru dat.

And so, for pretty much the first time in my entire life, I helped force a bunch sprint to happen. Did you just read that? That’s right: Mr. F*&king Breakaway Guy purposely helped design and execute a bunch sprint. Yes, I have sold out entirely.

With a little under one lap remaining, and a late-race attack by my erstwhile Webcor teammate John Wilk and one other dangling off the front, I went to the front and drilled it, leadout style, with Staz on my wheel and our best sprinter, Sam Bassetti, on his.

Those of you who have been reading for a while can imagine what went through my mind at this point. How could it be that I — the long time Webcor rider, fond of late-race attacks against the Cal Giant behemoth — was now wearing the uniform of the enemy and chasing down my former Webcor teammate Wilk’s defiant, last lap attack?

There was a very brief moment of this:

But then I was just like, “$ $ $,” and I just got over it. Luke can keep his Jedi morals and whatnot — I kind of want a cool, shiny, black, weird-shaped helmet and a red lightsaber. Rumor has it that Emperor Guido is building a big spherical team car that blows up planets and pro teams and shit.

Anyway, there’s a video of the last two laps on YouTube, if you’re interested, but here’s the relevant screencap.

I think that’s the most fun I’ve ever had whilst cornering: at the front, going full-f*&king-gas, with no chance whatsoever of a good result for myself, safe in the knowledge that I had two of the best sprinters in the race on my wheel, and that they were both my teammates. Never mind that the next best sprinter in the race, Chuck Hutcheson (McGuire) was tagging along — if he had looked fresh enough, I would have chopped him when I pulled off.

I dropped off the Staz/Bassetti duo a little earlier than I’d hoped, a bit before the final corner on the course, just as we caught the dangling duo. Staz took over from there and delivered The Bassetti Hound to a solid victory with a clean set of wheels.

(Photo Credit: Alex Chiu)

And he’s got a pretty solid victory salute. I’m glad he won instead of Stastny, because that guy hasn’t quite gotten the victory salute thing down yet.

Don’t worry, we’ll work on that one at team camp this month, Staz.

After the race, we all headed to a team BBQ hosted by Lorry Huffman, the wonderful mom of my teammate Evan. It was pretty awesome because it involved about two different meat entrees and some Lagunitas IPA. Thanks, Lorry!

Racing season has begun, and with it comes blogging season. I’m pretty stoked about the whole gig, so I’ll see y’all at the Cherry Pie Crit this Sunday afternoon. Until then, may your mullet vectors always be horizontal!