So I was browsing through one of the many online bike forums, and came across this thread. Now I don't post on these things, and in fact I rarely read them. I was bored, and I was hoping to read a good race report.
Anyways, here's the link
I wanted to bring this up because it goes right along with some sound advice that I gave earlier. To briefly summarize for those that don't want to read the report, or the unsound support for the poor decision made by the rider, here it is:
Original poster entered first race, which was a crit (for you non-cyclists, this is a short course that generally has a lot of turns and you complete multiple laps). Original poster began to get nervous about the high speeds in a corner, as well as the numerous other riders surrounding her. So what does the original poster do next?
Now there are many options one can choose here, but I'll narrow it down to a few with a multiple choice question:
Do you ______________________?
A. Continue on with your nervous ways and hope to survive the race
B. Slow down, move off the back, and pick your own lines while slowly trying to finish the race
C. HTFU (for non-cyclists, this means to Harden The Fu$K Up)
D. Remove yourself from the race to prevent the escalation of the nervous feeling, and also to avoid the potential for physical injury to yourself and/or your fellow bike racers.
E. Never find yourself in this postion, because you are on the front of the race, launching attack after attack, knowing good and well that somewhere in the pack you are making people so nervous by the insane speeds that they lose touch with what it means to race a bike and they choose option 'D'.
The answer to this question is obvious. In case you're the kid that always peeked at your neighbors paper on test days, here's a hint. What would a winner do in this situation?
I know exactly what I'm doing. And I know exactly what every other winner reading this is doing.
Unfortunately our original poster selected 'D'. In fact, I never even knew this was an option when racing a bike. But what made matters even worse, was that almost everyone on that forum told the original poster that they made the right decision.
There was only one person who even came close to offering up a comment from a winners perspective. That poster started off correctly with option C, but unfortunately the original poster should have never been in this situation to begin with.
So now there is a whole group of people that are reading that post, and thinking that the correct thing to do is to sit in a pack. And when you get nervous while in that pack, quickly pull yourself from the race.
You see my friends, this is why you never sit amongst the peleton (cycling term for pack of losers). There losing mentality will wear off on you.
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9 comments:
Option E, please.
You get an 'A' for you cycling abtitude exam. Nice work.
"abtitude" is the new slang word for "aptitude" - just a heads up.
When it comes to bike racing I'm grateful for people like yourself who act as a counter balance to the mass amounts of misinformation floating around out there on some of these bike forums.
I understand many of the members in the aforementioned bike forum are a sensitive bunch and afraid to hurt the said person's feelings - especially since said member is a babe which might have influenced some of the many wishy washy replies she received, none of which, in my opinion, were going to help her win a race. She doesn't need coddling, she needs good advice on how to lose her "oh whoa is me" attitude and gain the winners attitude you possess.
Back to the quiz at hand, of course my knee jerk reaction was to choose option C, HTFU, the commonly used phrase of over the hill cyclist trying to maintain a sense of self worth by telling themselves they train longer and harder than many of today's professional cyclist. (I'd like to see them last a week on your training program!)
But recalling some of your previous post I would like to erase the number 2 pencil mark used to fill in the oval to answer C and change my answer to E, which is obviously the best answer.
Will there be more test like this in the future? I think our learnings can be reinforced with ocassional testing - perhaps a final at the end of the semester?
(bikerider)
bikerider-
I'm glad you have seen the light, and realize that while HTFU may seem like a good answer, it also insinuates that you may be showing weakness.
It should never come to this. You must never let weakness enter the body.
There might possibly more exams in the future, especially when the obvious need to correct poor advice makes itself apparent.
As far as your aptitude test is concerned, you too receive and 'A'.
Wait, I thought it was abtitude now...
I post on that forum quite a bit. And, yes, said poster 'duathlongirl' is, perhaps, treated with velvet gloves for her *ahem* attributes. On the other hand, 'to each his/her own', eh? If she had opted for C) or E) (roughly equivalent although E is a mere articulation of C, I am guessing), she probably would have washed out, rubbed a wheel, put her foot in someone's spokes, etc, etc. Crits are not the place for beginner roadies to start -- time trials are. That's where she made her error. One might argue that she reacted poorly in the aftermath of her decision (elation instead of dejection), but that doesn't negate the correctness of her choice. I'm pretty happy (for her sake and for others') that she didn't try to push to the front and bring herself down and 5, 10, 15 others. Bad advice, my friend.
If the original poster had crashed trying to get to the front I got $100 says you'd be leading the parade of people whining about why she didn't drop out.
'"oh whoa is me" attitude' is a strangely apt misrepresentation of the usual statement.
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