#Frexit
April 14, 2017 § 10 Comments
Another frustrating Telo Tuesday. Not that that’s unusual. They have been consecutively frustrating now for about ten years. Not much reason for that to change.
Evens Stievenart, our adopted French hammer, is one of the best riders in California and one of the top marathon-endurance riders in the world. He won the 24 Hours of LeMans last year, bike version, and has his sights trained on 2017, too. Glad I’m not the target.
He showed up at Telo, our Tuesday night worlds, and said he was very tired. “I’m very tired,” he said. That didn’t mean anyone else had a chance of winning, it meant he would win with different tactics.
His usual tactic is to attack into the wind each lap. Finally people get tired of riding in the gutter and they give up. Then he rides off by himself or with one or two others. Then he beats them in the sprint.
My problem is that I’m not fast enough to follow the crazy hard attacks when the good guys are fresh, and I’m not strong enough to break them when they’re tired. My bandwidth is straight up mediocre.
Derek Brauch was there; he’s never an instigator, that’s not his style. Instead he’s a conservative. He doesn’t waste energy, reads the race, and invariably goes with the winning move. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him miss it at Telo except for one race last year when he said, “Go with Cowan if he attacks from the gun.”
Cowan attacked from the gun, I didn’t go with him, and “Head Down James” stayed away solo for the entire sixty minutes. The races are always harder and better when Velo Club LaGrange shows up, that’s for sure.
Last week I had followed every one of Evens’s attacks, about twelve of them. He finally got tired of me shadowing him, sat up and drifted to the back. Then he attacked on the final turn and smoked everybody in the finish, everyone who hadn’t crashed, that is. Afterwards he texted me, “You followed me so much I almost called the police for stalking.”
He has a good sense of humor.
This week I had crazy good legs, which is always a bad sign. It means I will squander them in pointless attacks, which I did, starting with an attack in the neutral zone with Michael Smith. We got caught after a few laps, then he broke a seatpost and was done.
I kept attacking but Evens and Derek were filing their nails. When I sat up for a second, after about thirty minutes, Evens attacked and took Derek with him. We never saw them again. Evens did most of the work then outsmarted and outsprinted Derek in the finish. I don’t know how you outsmart Derek. He’s the savviest guy out there, period.
No one wanted to chase because, I don’t know. Aaron Wimberley was there and he had a teammate up the road. Eric Anderson was there but he wasn’t going to chase the break so Aaron could sprint him fresh. Josh Alverson would normally have bridged solo but not today. In most races you know when the winning move goes because everyone kind of heaves a collective sigh. The fight goes out of the group.
With four laps to go I thought we had three so I figured I could at least give my teammates a three-lap leadout. I wondered at the end of lap three why no one was coming around. “Dang, maybe they can’t.”
But of course they could. I saw Emily holding the one-to-go card and was gassed. I probably made a d’oh-ing sound. They kicked me out the back on the headwind section and I finished last. I learned again that if I have good legs I should ride at 80 percent and wait.
It also occurred to me that if you have to learn the same lesson over and over and over, maybe you aren’t really learning.
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Perhaps the lesson is not about winning, grasshopper.
Perhaps the lesson is about getting my face smashed in.
Consequential savagery – mostly figurative and occasionally literal – is a robust value-add to industrial park pedaling.
Put that in the prospectus.
You did learn that you are not learning, which means that, unlike most, you know what you don’t know. At least about racing. Though I think it’s OK to race with your nuts instead of your brain, maybe not all the time…
Nut racing, new USAC category.
I wish the writers at CN and VN could outline what went down at a an f’ing Monument as well as you lay out the dynamics of a swap meet crit that no one gives a rat’s ass about. Even worse than the writing was listening to Phil Liggett bungle his way through PR last week on nbc streaming. Sucks that europsport streaming is hit or miss at best…
Phil LIggett is a living bungle …
Living in Canada. I’m not familiar with the names you mention, so did a quick Google on Derek Brauch. So, 2nd places Masters 40+ at San Dimas Stage 2. caught my eye.
You do realize that your articles are the best marketing for these races. Never mind riding in the Dolomites, I want to ride your Tello and Thursday Flog. Bucket List
Haha! Telo is bucket list because it’s free!