Embarrassing moments in racing

Some of my proudest memories stem from the time I spent racing a mountain bike, like winning my first pro New England championship the day after separating my shoulder racing the downhill, or refusing $500 in prize money at a winner-take-all event to allow for second and third place awards.  In the more recent past, I met rider and frame builder Niall Gengler, now in his mid 30s, who recounted riding with me at a mountain bike festival where I looked after his 15 year old self, checking in that he was faring well and offering encouragement.  While the memory of this specific interaction isn't mine, it feels good to hear about those moments when I was exactly the type of rider I hoped to be.

But nothing is ever all good, so of course, there were plenty of racing times when I let myself and others down, failing to be the best racer or person.  What follows is a few of those memories, although it's certainly not a complete list, and I'm sure I've repressed countless more.  With the distance of time, my face no longer burns so red at these recollections, and hopefully I learned from the experience to do better next time.  Maybe I can even share these with a sense of optimism.

I was once seventeen.  I know, hard to believe.  Possibly even harder to believe, that was the year I raced my first local event in the senior pro/expert category.  Meriden, CT, mid summer of 1991, this twiggy kid lined up at Wrath of the Boneyard with the fast guys, including heroes like Rich Labombard and my mentor Mike Lachance.  I'd previously won my single sport category race, and adamant that nobody could ever accuse me of sandbagging, I'd made the jump, even though my racing license still listed me as a beginner.  For my first time out, I did well, placing in the top third with a fifth place finish, but that isn't the whole story.  My dad was handing me water bottles, and at the end of my first lap, I found him dutifully positioned on the left side of the start/finish area, but there was one problem.  Left.  I seemingly was incapable of grabbing a bottle with my left hand, and in trying to negotiate the snag by reaching across with my right, I crossed wheels with another rider and, well, it all ended with me in pile on the ground.  Or at least I wish it ended there, but no, I got up and blamed my dad for not magically knowing I was left-hand inept, probably even yelling at him.  Sorry dad.

Jump forward four years, and I'd successfully made the transition to racing with those fast guys, and in fact often been the fastest among them.  I was leading the pro/open New England point series aboard a frame from a small local builder, or at least I was until that frame developed an issue with the head tube.  Sure, the builder was more than happy to repair the frame, but unfortunately, he worked on a slower schedule than your typical glacier, so after losing a few precious days trying to receive a concrete response, I reached out elsewhere for help.  With my ties to the crew at Merlin (who went on to form Seven Cycles), I asked Jennifer Miller if they had a frame I could use to see me through the remainder of the season, with the perk that I likely would win the championship on it.  Luck shined, Jennifer came shining through and later that week, I was building up one of Rob Vandermark's personal test frames as my race rig.  More good, the bike was fast, and I was fast enough to take my first title despite that scare with bouncing off my shoulder the day before the last race.  From there, I was offered a spot on a professional team with a national race program and support, and I jumped at the chance, but that is where I screwed up.  Within the world of sponsorship, there is a concept of right-of-first-refusal, which means a racer gives an existing sponsor the chance to match any new offer before contracting with a new company.  This was even written into my contract for the next year, and while my relationship with Jennifer and Merlin was sealed only with a phone call and sense of friendship, I still should have given them the chance to respond to what I was offered elsewhere.  Could they have matched it?  Probably not, but I showed a lack of grace in not giving them the chance to say "No."  To Jennifer, I owe a long overdue apology for not having acted better.  Sorry.

A year and half later, I was riding high, teammates with a past National Champion as well as a future World Champion.  This was the opportunity I'd dreamed, travelling around the country to race my bike and getting paid to do it.  Mountain biking had only recently been supplanted by inline skating as the fastest growing sport in the world, and there was enough money coming into racing teams to make a spot for a pretty fast, but not brilliant, rider like myself.  Yeah, riding high, but it turns out, it was height that posed a problem for me, especially when it was an elevation of over 9,000 feet above sea level.  I was living in the Connecticut River valley at a tickle over 300 feet, and you might notice a bit of difference between those two numbers.  My lungs certainly did.  So there I was, in Mammoth Lakes, California, attempting to race with much less oxygen finding its way to sore muscles, but instead making a painfully slow tour of the race course.  There's no shame in being beaten by some of the fastest racers in the world, but when they're your teammates and they actually lap you, that sucks all the already-lower-density wind out of your sails.  To my pride, and those who footed the bill to get me there, sorry.

But overall, I am proud of what I did racing, especially when even years later, I would hear from people how it inspired them to watch me.  That's a really good feeling, but further padding my ego is not the primary impetus for returning to competition.  It might not even be the second reason.  Just going back to racing again would in some ways feel hollow, been there, done that, but when I conceived of riding to the races, that was a totally new challenge that hooked me.  The idea that it could serve as a form of bicycle advocacy, a way of saying, "If I can ride 100 miles to the race, my fellow competitors could consider riding five miles to the store," that sealed the deal.  But in a way, I am returning to racing as I always did, in that, for Secret Squirrel at the end of this month, I've registered for the Pro/Open category to ride with the fastest local racers, some of them thirty years my junior.  Not only have I not raced regularly these past sixteen years, I've grown older as well, so attempting to jump back in at the top is a huge ask, possibly even a form of hubris.  Still, if I'm going to get the word out about how functional the bike can be, that's where it can garner the most attention, so I've got to give it a try, even though realistically, it could add to my list of racing's most embarrassing moments.  Good thing I have experience surviving embarrassment!