On racing Nationals and Worlds.

Obligatory "cycling season is officially over" post. People act like it is a job or something.

Nationals: So I have not raced a national championship since I was 13. It was in Louisville KY on a BMX bike and the results were lackluster. Mr Brett, Amy my wife, and I rolled up to Wisconsin for my first cyclocross nationals. It was Amy's first real cross experience. Up until this point she had only officiated local races.

30-34 National Champs. 2nd row start. 3rd wheel for a distance. First technical turn I dismount to run as a lot of others are doing. I fall flat on my face.
Cycling Dirt Video at 20 seconds in or whatever I just totally slip. Whoops.
The rest of the day was spent getting dropped back to 12th. Rough day.

Elite Nationals. Start too hard as usual. Blow up a bit, work my way back. I started feeling a bit better but got pulled. 43rd. Not really too much else to say about it other than it was a great experience and I wish I was able to race into it.

30-34 WORLDS. Ha. UCI says that anybody with UCI points cant do age group worlds. I am generally the 2nd or 3rd person after the UCI points run out at MAC races, so I figured that I could have a shot at doing well. Again, I wish that I could have raced more leading up to it. Random draw start = me last. Warming up an hour before the race, I crashed and bent my hanger and tweaked my finger. I sucked in the start and struggled to get up to the leaders. I burnt a few matches to do so and they were attacking each other. I went back and forth with some guys. It was all frozen ice ruts, so half of the race was just about not crashing. That was hard. Ended up 5th. In my heart I know that I could have done better, but oh well.


This is all ice. It was post holes. I was worried I would break my ankles running up it.

Dec 31, jan 1

Pittsburgh is amazing.

Seriously one of the best cyclists ever. Most dont know him...

John Gadret.

Yesterday's world cup cyclocross race, Gadret is up there the whole time. This is a guy who half a year ago, I was cheering for during the Giro. He finished 10th.


Even the Universal guys dont know who he is. Very very well timed attack on a stage tailored to his climbing style.


And this is from one of the best days of bicycle racing during my lifetime...

@3:43 Vino looks like he might die.
@5:03 Chase group: Cuenego, Pinotti, Garzell... look who is dangling without mention.
@6:25 Hi we are the best bike racers on earth on the hardest day of bike racing EVAR... look who is in that group!
@10:30 Hey John, you have been standing for the whole 30 minute climb! You rule.

Part 4/5
Best Finish ever.

I remembered Bobke Strut always writing about Gadret, and I just clicked this and realized that my whole post is a summary of his.... but it deserves the attention...

coming of age. being an adult.

I think the last time that I had a major life adjustment was when I was done with college and started bumming around full time. It involved lots of travel, bike touring, adventures, and romantic notions of the world should be. I got into the bike racing thing for the second time in my life and went full throttle.

Now, I have complete my first year of real adulthood. A bit over a year ago, I knew I was making the leap and bought a brand new car and and Iphone. Since then, I have worked a real job, in an office. I have ironed my clothes (sometimes). I have gone by "Stephen." I am set to make in 2011 about the same as I did the previous 4 years combined. It is still not much money.

Its weird. I remember talking to an old Kraynicks teammate about growing up. He said he remembers going to a restaurant after getting a real job, and for once not ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. I can relate now. I have always been good with money, never overspent, and always had some in the bank. However sometimes this lead to things that needed fixing to be neglected. For instance, I dropped about 1200 dollars on dental work this year. It was actually probably more, I just didnt want to count.

As much as things change, they stay the same. Last night was Sunday night. Brett and I were driving home from a killer Mid Atlantic Cyclocross weekend. We drove a good 700 miles. We were raging to Aus-Rotten, when my finance manager called me. I turned it down and talked FHA vs Conventional loans and Seller Assist for about 6 minutes before hanging up and turning the music back up.

Having money doesnt change you as a person. Having a job does not take away fun. Life is what you make of it.

I was at the release show for this LP in 1995 or so. It really helped shape who I became as an adult.

Pittsburgh hates pedestrians...

Pittsburgh has a problem as far as respect for walkers and cyclists goes. Im not going to rant about being on my bike, because that has been done a million times. However, I am going to share photos that I have been collecting. These are signs that go in crosswalks between the double yellow lines. They are put there to slow traffic down.
All of these are super fucked up, have been hit by a million cars, and are out of place and not able to be seen from the road. It is my understanding that the city police are literally not able to enforce the speed limit within the city for some reason.
I have been posting these photos and some other funny photos at my tumblr. Im so hip.


The last one is my favorite. It is 100 feet from the elementary school where my main man Ramazani goes!

Bands that I did not see. AKA my first bike tour.

In the 90's a band named Fifteen was playing in Philadelphia with a band named Propaghandi. They were set to play some dump in philly that is now defunct, but was a legendary show space named the Stalag 13.

Anyway,Jason Angst (who is now like one of the best tattoo guys ever or something, click the link..) and I loaded up our overloaded road bikes with not enough stuff, no rain gear, backpacks, and a Delorme atlas. The plan was to ride to the Poconos so I could make out with a girl for a few days, then head down to Philly. Total of about 450 miles or so. Easy enough.

The first day was 70 miles in cold pouring rain. I think this was pretty defeating. We slept on the side of the road in the tent and froze. I just had a small blanket and we were in the Appalachian mountains. No ground pad. No sleeping bag. I remember just laying on the ground waiting for daybreak to pack up and try to warm up.

We rode the next few days, one of which was my first 100 mile day. It was exciting. We got to where we were going, and within a day my body shut down. I had some sort of fever, cold, exhaustion. Jason went down to philly without me. My romantic teenage plans of making out with a girl nonstop were turned into her making me soup and tea.

I missed the show and the band doesnt play anymore. I still love them. I am glad that my first bike touring experience didnt scare me away from doing all the subsequent tours, cause they have been some of the best times of my life.

This is a good guy...

This is a picture of Marty. He is an old dude that takes time to sweep the track that we race on every week. Today I was riding around in circles at the track and he was there with his push blower, clearing the fall debris off of the track. We are done racing there, but he knows that some people are down there working out, riding, or with their families enjoying traffic free cycling. Such a good guy.

He is a retired laborer, so I guess he has some free time. Last year when I went to Kraynicks to clean up some bikes for the "give poor kids bikes" program, he was there. We talked a bunch. He apparently was in the shop most days fixing bikes for kids.

Little known fact: Marty was the 1974 ACA club champion. When I started racing at the oval in 2003, he was still in pretty good shape, and could whip up a decent sprint for a 60 something year old guy. The world needs more people like Marty.

More free time than me

Google searches that bring people here

So I have a tracker thing for this blog. I sometimes check it to see what brings people
here or who links to me. Its neat to see. Anyway, this is the best I have gotten yet.

Going to "ask.com" to ask "Who uses ask.com?"

An awesome story that I can now tell..

So our team was driving down to the Tour of Washington County awhile ago. I was checking my email en route cause I am a high ballin' real estate agent. I found this:

Steve,

Please reply to this email to confirm that I have your address right. If so, I will send out an electronic draft of an agreement for your review.

Thanks, xxxx
……………………
xxxxxxxx Ph.D.
xxxxx
+1.xxxxxxxxx34
……………………
Continuum Sports LLC | BMC Racing Team
1825 Ferdinand Ct., Unit B
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
USA
| www.bmcracingteam.com


Ok, so somebody wants me to race for BMC? Oh no wait, he meant to contact the real bike racing Stephen Cummings. He is the younger, more bald, faster bike racer. So I respond with:


Hey I bet you didn't know that there is a crappy cat 1 in Pennsylvania also named steve Cummings. If you need somebody to fill a spot let me know.
This email is amazing.


Dude is probably not stoked, this is like super top secret info that I now have.

Stephen,

I'm very sorry for the mistaken email address. I have the correct email now. If you wouldn't mind simply deleting my mistaken email to you and not distributing it anywhere, it would be much appreciated.

Best regards and thanks, xxxxx

Not that easy BRO!

xxxx,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I understand the situation and will keep it quiet.
However I did get third in the Ohio state road championship last weekend and was once ranked 358th in the world at cyclocross. I will delete the email but keep your contact info in case I pull out a sick result at the local stagerace this weekend.
Seriously though you don't have to worry about me leaking this. Can I get a pair of socks or something?
Thanks

Holding out for the contract still... but I got the socks

Cummings signs for BMC