The day I beat Dave Jaeger
November 9, 2014 § 26 Comments
I know what you’re going to say. “He’s even older than you are.”
“That guy hasn’t won a race in years.”
“DJ? He still rides?”
And, of course, “Who?”
Yeah, well, whatever. We all have benchmarks, and Dave is one of mine. “The day I beat Dave Jaeger up a climb,” I have often said, “is the day I will quit cycling.” I’ve made that promise to myself because it’s something that will never occur.
“Never say never!” chirp the Pollyannas. “Ya gotta show up to win!” Oh, horseshit. There are some people you’ll never beat, and it’s not because you don’t train enough or have the right equipment or the right dietitian or whatever, it’s because they are faster than you. That’s Dave. He’s faster than me when he hasn’t been training for a year and I’ve been on the EPO Diet.
He’s faster than me in races. In training. He’s even faster than me getting out of bed, I just know it.
I used to do an early morning Saturday training ride with him but I quit doing it for the same reason I quit buying lottery tickets. There was no chance of winning.
It’s no big deal to me that he’s richer, better looking, has an uber-hot wife, and wonderful kids. That stuff counts for zip. All I ever cared about is beating Dave Jaeger on a climb. He has beaten me every year for the last six years on the French Toast Ride, cruising up Balcom Canyon in his big ring, putting minutes on me even when I hit the climb with a several-hundred-yard head start. He has beaten me so many times on the Donut Ride that on the few times a year that he bothers to show up I immediately call it my “off week.”
Worst of all, when everyone else beats me everywhere else I get to smile and say, “Yeah, but I’m 50,” even when the other guy is 49. Not with Dave. He races 55+ starting in 2016. He’s waaaay older than I am. And worser than the worst, he’s always nice about it. “Good job, wanker,” he’ll always say after putting a few football fields in between me and my dignity. And he’ll mean it.
Yesterday was going to be more of the same. The Donut Ride started slowly, thanks to the absences of Smasher and Ollie. Manny Fresh did a pointless attack on the downhill, and SBBaby Seal rolled away only to make the fatal mistake of turning down the alley. No one followed and he wasn’t seen again.
Once we hit Portuguese Bend the pace picked up, but not too much. We had some Belgian dude named Jan riding with us, and just the word “Belgian” was enough to make most of us shart in our shorts. Even the Wily Greek was eyeing him.
Jaeger always gets irritated when people go slow, and this day was no exception. “What are you wankers doing, holding hands?” he asked. I nodded. He shook his head and attacked off the front, from the front. The last time I saw him do that was at the Lake Castaic Road Race. In fact, the situation had been identical.
“Did you wankers show up to hold hands or race your bikes?” he had asked.
“Hold hands, hopefully,” I had peeped.
That time too he had shaken his head, punched it, and soloed for 47 miles to victory. It was my only top-ten road placing of the year, but that’s just because everyone from #11 on down quit.
DJ rolled away from the Donut. We lollygagged some more until we hit the bottom of the Switchbacks. There are usually a half-dozen wankers left by this point, as the repeated accelerations have shaken the dingleberries out of the weeds, but today we were still thirty or forty strong. There was a feeling of joy in the air as the larger specimens enjoyed being with the lead group at the bottom of the climb, a point at which they were usually alone, defeated, struggling, and swearing off pork rinds at least for the next hour.
The Wily Greek leaped away. Chatty Cathy followed. Davy followed. Destroyer followed. I followed. With a few pedal strokes I glanced back and the wankoton had evaporated. Then as Wily punched it again, I evaporated. After clawing my way back we went around a couple more turns on the Switchbacks and Wily surged again, taking Destroyer with him.
Chatty Cathy pulled for a while then cracked. I passed him and continued on to the wall. Up ahead I could see Wily Greek and DJ, who had hooked up, with Destroyer in No Man’s Land. Jaeger then came unhitched, and I passed him on the wall.
Please re-read that a few dozen times. “I passed him on the wall.”
Yep, that actually happened. Wankmeister passed David Jaeger on a climb.
Somehow I got onto Destroyer’s rear wheel, “somehow” meaning “he let me.” Then he towed me to the flat spot. Then I towed him for six or seven feet to allow him to recover before swinging over to let him share some more of the work. Then, a quarter mile before the end, with Wily dangling out in front doing his nails and wondering why no one was riding up to him, I spied a shadow on my wheel.
I didn’t need to look back, because there was only one rider yesterday who had the legs to chase down Destroyer on a climb, and the outline of the head meant that it was Jaeger. My glorious victory, the one time I was going to actually beat the best bike racer, nicest guy, richest man, dude with the hottest wife … it all crumbled in an instant.
The only hope I had, and it was a slim one, was cunning. Destroyer swung over and I took a massive 180-watt pull. DJ came through like a bull. I went to the back and recovered from my 180-watt effort. We rounded the bend. The imaginary finish line was in sight. Wily, who had arrived slightly before, had finished the finance section of the Times and was halfway through “A History of Modern Computing in Twelve Volumes.” I dropped back a few feet and took a run at Destroyer’s rear wheel.
Destroyer laughed at the tiny acceleration and easily sprunted away, but to me, he was small game, tiny fish, he was nuttin’. As I passed the imaginary finish line I heard that familiar voice on my right-hand shoulder. “Good job, wanker.”
“Best ride of my life,” I said.
He laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve passed me before.”
“I’m sure I haven’t.”
‘November 8, 2014, the day I beat Dave Jaeger on a climb.’
The artist told me to keep the ink out of the sun for two weeks, which will be hard because it’s on my forehead in 36-point Courier and kind of winds down over my ears and neck, and yes, tattoos hurt a bit, and yes, it’s my first one, but this one is worth it.
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Congratulations, Mr. Wankmeister!!
An historic tattoo like that deserves pictures. Should look great with at coat and tie in front of a Judge. They love stuff like that. Humorless
Greg D
Pretty sure my pro contract is in the mail.
Congrats, Brother! That’s one of those elusive euphoric moments that makes bust’n your ass day in and day out in the saddle, worth it. And I swear, rarely is there a better feeling. It’s like landing on the moon and realizing what you’ve just accomplished. Your recalling of this moment makes me want to jump on my bike. Just what I needed, inspiration!
Officially retired now.
well, the $2.99/month should cover your retirement! I can’t get the smile off my face after you reading this blog. You DID it! now go lick your wounds.
There will be money left over, for sure.
I have some friends like Dave Jaeger. I do not yet have my tattoo though.
There is an ink artist who lives over by my dumpster. $2.99 per square foot.
That is curiously similar to your subscription rate. I’m getting there, really I am.
I was way more impressed with your ride on Joe Yule’s Thursday beat down but if this is what you choose to celebrate so be it. Cheers!
Choose? I’m retiring. Nice riding with you.
Nice job dude! And now… beer!
Well, there’s that.
He will never be your match writing-wise. His latest blog, “The Day I Did the Donut On a Beach Cruiser” was a real snore-fest.
Subtitle: Pedaling with one leg as I gave Wanky the win.
Dave must have had some bad sush at that all night kegger, because this doesn’t happen in the real world…either that or it was his off week. But whatever, a wins a win…cant wait to see the ink!…congrats Wanky!
Right? He was up late the night before, had a run-in with some beers, etc. etc.
But I gotta takes ’em when I gets ’em.
” …a few football fields in between me and my dignity.”
…says everything.
If you retire, you will run out of things to write about.
This is true.
The one time in your life you had moves better than Jaeger. Congratulations.
I so owned him. Still drunk on the euphoria.
Unfortunately, I could not make it to the end. After your fourteenth ‘he is faster than ME” your abuse of grammar made me long for the days my sainted mother would correct me to get my elbows off the table and in comparing attributes there is an implied verb. DUH. So, on this day of memory were you faster than he.
WHS
I have long refrained from correcting your own miserable grammar and spelling, and today I will continue that honorable tradition if only for the sake of what I have learned is your tender ego.
However, you may be surprised to learn that some of the things you learned as you dangled from your mother’s breast are not considered iron rules of standard English. In fact, following “than” with a subject pronoun has been a matter of hot controversy for more than 300 years, at least among people who think such topics matter.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/than-i-versus-than-me
I don’t expect you to read something that would contradict your sainted mother’s teaching, since she was doubtless endowed with superhuman powers of grammatical analysis, but unless she was born in the 16th Century, she should at least have been aware of the diversity of opinion on the matter, and communicated to her darling son.
Dave is a monster and you have done well grasshopper. I take the prize for DFL at Castaic with a 13th so you beat 3 finishers plus the rest that didn’t!
That race was a living nightmare.
[…] completely spend myself in the first ten minutes and have actually done respectably on the climbs. One time I even beat Dave Jaeger. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when Daniel showed up for our new Thursday AM beatdown ride […]