Remains of the day
May 13, 2015 § 25 Comments
Wire reports have confirmed that Wanky Meister pulled off an upset 4-lap solo breakaway victory on the Tuesday NPR, crushing the dreams and splattering the tender egos of some of SoCal’s fastest and finest. Cycling in the South Bay caught up with the ride’s participants to get their perspective on this once-in-a-lifetime athletic achievement.
CitSB: What’s your take on Wanky’s epic win?
Vapor: Epic? That dude ain’t shit.
CitSB: Eyewitness accounts have him winning the NPR in a solo 4-lap breakaway by more than 75 seconds, with a certain unnamed former national crit champ unable to close the gap.
Vapor: Listen here. That rusty old butter knife is old, slow, weak, and dumb. What else do you want to know?
CitSB: Who else was in the chase group?
Nation’s No. 1 Beast: I was.
CitSB: Whoa! Didn’t you win the pro field sprint at Dana Point two weeks ago?
No.O.B.: Yeah. So what?
CitSB: And you couldn’t reel him in?
No.O.B.: Come on. We weren’t even trying. That guy rides about as fast as a broken washing machine.
CitSB: Who else was chasing?
JusWills: We weren’t really chasing. Just riding tempo. We all have a big race coming up next week. You think we can’t chase down some old grandpa with hairy legs? Really?
CitSB: Witnesses say he did pretty much leave you guys gagging on fumes.
Manslaughter: Hey, I didn’t even know he was off the front. Like, I saw him on the Parkway and figured he was off the back, chasing, and I was like, “Man, he’s never gonna catch back on.”
CitSB: And then?
Manslaughter: Then I realized it was us who wasn’t gonna catch back on.
CitSB: Was there any discussion in the peloton about bringing him back?
Dawg: Wanky? Naw. No one cares about him. We let him go. We weren’t even trying. Plus he ran all the stoplights.
Major B.: Yeah, he ran them ALL. We only ran most of them. Why that idiot even shows up, all he’s gonna do is ride by himself?
CitSB: Maybe he wanted to try and put everyone to the sword?
[Laughs]
Cat 4 Dave: It didn’t count anyway. He attacked on Vista del Mar.
Chorus: YEAH!
Cat 4 Dave: We didn’t even see him go.
Chorus: YEAH!
Cat 4 Dave: Plus, even though we didn’t see him, we let him go.
Chorus: YEAH!
CitSB: Video footage shows the field shattered on lap two, and on lap three there were four separate chase groups and a big clump of riders who looked very sad.
NJ Pedalbeater: I have to admit, we went pretty slow today.
Manslaughter: It was the slowest NPR ever. I’ve never gone that slow on the NPR. Never.
NJ Pedalbeater: Although looking at me Garmin now we do appear to have been averaging 31 on the first lap.
Manslaughter: Really? Well, it felt slow.
Boozy: That’s because you were on Josh’s wheel all morning, and he hasn’t ridden since January.
CitSB: Isn’t this the first time in NPR history that anyone has ever held a solo 4-lap breakaway?
[Silence].
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Chorus? Now this thing is turning into a stage play?
Well done on your win.
Pro contract to follow.
Follow what? The Tony Award?
It WAS pretty dramatic.
“He never went to the front even once!”
It was my rest week anyway.
Sounds like a possible epitaph.
Or victory slogan.
Awesome sauce.
Goes good on an entree of fresh roasted egos.
I’ll just repeat my Facebag post, which I suspect was the genesis of this blog post (since I have seen no other public discussion of yesterday’s ride):
“The NPR Commissars were asked earlier this morning to determine whether Seth Davidson or Rahsaan Bahati took the imaginary win at this morning’s NPR. Officials report that while Seth crossed the imaginary finish line first, he did so aided by an attack on the Vista del Mar rollout headed north. The Pershing Drive wanker crew reports that he rolled by their assembled masses approximately 4 minutes before the rest of the group.
The Vista Del Mar rollout headed north is a designated neutral zone. The pavement there is littered with holes and ruts and simply does not support 50+ riders moving up, back and all about the same way that Pershing and Westchester Parkway do. Cars pass in the left lane at very high speeds and thus any incident in the right lane could have dire consequences.
Even James Cowan, who never met an attack he did not like, including attacks on water-slicked corkscrew hairpin descents, remained with the group, observing the neutrality of Vista del Mar.
As a result, the Commissars have ruled that Mr. Davidson is DQ’d from this morning’s imaginary competition and Mr. Bahati, who was the first finisher from the 5-man break, is the rightful imaginary winner.
Please carry on.”
Do I have to return my imaginary medal and prize money?
I’ve long been on the record that NPR is a better ride when you and other like-minded dick stompers show up. You (almost) never show up just to sit in and the seals should take notice and emulate your effort.
But if there is one place that those seals should maintain order and remain in a double paceline, it’s Vista del Mar. Group riding is inherently dangerous, but we should always try to mitigate the danger. What is to be gained by drilling VdM? What is likely to be lost?
The current NPR route was chosen to take advantage of the *relative” safety of Pershing Dr and Westchester Pkwy. VdM is simply the most direct way to get to the route. If the road on VdM was even halfway decent, it might support opening things up even with the angry commuters buzzing from behind at 70mph. But it isn’t. It’s a complete shitshow with massive holes and ruts and sections where only half of the lane is viable for a paceline.
If it were just the two of us riding there, or even a smaller group, then by all means let’s hammer the shit out of VdM. But when you have a very large group of varying skill levels (from national champs to seal pups), drilling VdM is a bad idea.
There is a certain local rider who certainly shares your exuberance for a good, solid dick-stomping. He developed a habit of attacking on the treacherous peacock-littered descent featured on the Thursday Flog Ride. You chatted with him to let him know that by attacking there, he was forcing his fellow riders to decide between (1) following him and likely crashing on one of those ill-advised descents or (2) letting him go off to ride on his own.
This is the same talk. Except that I am not sure how many of the clubbers and seals at NPR have the discipline to choose choice (2). And that scares me.
I disagree that VdM and the hairpins on the Flog Ride are comparable. VdM is straight, flat, and every crack/crevice is known by every rider there. I’ve seen one crash on VdM, during construction when it narrowed to one lane. Every close call I’ve had on VdM has been because of slow speeds and a massive group.
The Flog Ride hairpins are 180 degrees, often wet, narrow, trafficked in the opposite direction, and occasionally clogged with live, slow moving pea fowl and their brood. Full gas descents there require a level of skill and luck and bravado that very few riders have, including me.
Plus, my coach Bazza Barnes told me to “lock it in the big dog and put those [expletive] in the gutter.” So, just following orders, sir.
In my opinion, a stiff pace and a single line is the safest option.
Chickenshits
No one cares about it except for all the people who care. Which is everyone.
Ahh but there is the rub my friend. Single file is an illusion in a group of any size. The wankaton resembles the pro peleton (there aren’t many resemblances, but this is one of them) in that while it may be single file at the front, that is only the proverbial “pointy end.” As you move back in the group, it widens. And when speeds pick up and riders jockey for position, shit happens. And that’s on decent roads without cars flying up alongside at 70mph.
Point of clarification: heads drop and eyes focus on the wheel in front. And then a hapless “newbie” somehow caught up in the inevitable wankerton crash, but didn’t cause it, is blamed.
It’s not Wanky’s fault if someone can’t herd a bunch of baby seals to hunt him down. There was enough time to do it if the power/will was there.
Good thing this is all pretend.
NPR Rule #1: If you won, you lost.
NPR Rule #2: If you lost, you won.
Your win ( or imaginary win) reminds me when I was riding a 40 mile club ride in Sacramento many years back and on the turn around Norm Alvis took off and time trailed back to town, not to be seen again. I, of course, I am not comparing him to you, as we know, no such comparison can be made but the feat is somewhat comparable.
It’s only comparable if everyone else denied that it a) happened or b) was legit!
If it ain’t on Strava it didn’t happen (No matter what Bazza says) and if it were you could use the new “flyby” feature and clear all this up.
You need to come do the NPR, where you will learn Rule #3: If you weren’t there, it didn’t happen, and if you were there, it absolutely didn’t.
…can we go back to riding on the bike path…and talking to our friends for 30 minutes, before we blast it up Pershing? Heck we rode that way for 18 years…I HATE Vista Del Mar….
Herding cats on amphetamines …