Cyclocross and (Oxy)Morons

Pre-season Jolly Pumpkin Race at Leslie Park

For a few years now, Chris, my friend and neighbor down the street has been telling me about this friend of his. According to Chris, he's this amazing rider who mountain bikes mostly and he goes out to epic week long races like one in Vancouver and wails. I could never talk about biking with Chris without his bringing up this guy. They've been friends since childhood.




Jonathan Page - Who We Pretend to Be

Chris loves to mountain bike, but his job in recent years has him commuting in a car through the thick of Southeast Michigan hell over an hour or two each way, so whenever we talk bikes, which is every time we meet, he says, "my friend Andy..." and seldom talks about his own exploits. After a number of these conversations, Andy took on epic proportions.

Chris had tried to get me in to Local Loop MTB rides a couple of years ago that he did with a group that included this Andy guy. They rode from Chris's house at the bottom of the street on Tuesday evenings when a crew of about ten riders would assemble, ride, and head to the bar, in that order.

45+ at Springfield Oaks, Mark Wolowiec in Front, Duh!

The trouble was that those were the nights when I did the DirtHammer with the club. The DirtHammer has always been one of my dedicated training rides for cyclocross season, so I never did get out with Chris on the Local Loop. In fact, they were usually just heading out, often with lights, when I'd returned from ripping my legs apart with the club. I'd wave as I rode up the street, Chris would wave, they'd go for their ride, and that was that.

We Look So Relaxed and Like Such Pals at the Beginning, Don't We? (Scott Claes, Ken O'Day, somebody's arm, Mike Seaman, Rob)

So, during the first race at Vet's Park this year, I lined up with the pack. Since this is an Ann Arbor race, I noticed Chris in the crowd and thought how great it was he'd shown up to watch. We were our usual nervous, jokey, group, everyone wondering where Mark Wolowiec was, since he usually sets the standard for chase rabbit. Then this guy in a Biciclibre jersey next to me says, "are you Rob?" It's a question I struggle with at times, but realizing this is not a deeply philosophical moment, I answer in the affirmative. He reaches over and shakes my hand. "Andy," he says, "Chris's friend."

A week or two before, when I didn't know he was The Andy, we rode a few laps at the Lower Huron CX race together and Andy was off the front kind of dragging everyone around the course until he, Mark Wolowiec, Joe Brown, and Mike Seaman made it their own little race, leaving the rest of us behind. A couple of laps after that, Andy was walking with his bike over his shoulder in the opposite direction on the back half of the course. He'd broken his chain. At the time I'd wondered, who the heck was this Biciclibre guy? Now, at Vet's it all came together. The infamous Andy. He came in first that day at Vets.

The Pros Over the Barriers

I really love cyclocross. And to put the words love and cyclocross into the same sentence is truly an oxymoron. And the moron part really fits because cyclocross hurts so much that you have to have something deeply wrong inside to feel passion for something so brutal. The oxy- is about air, or the lack thereof (ie., deprivation), perhaps leading to the reason for the second part of the word in our case.

Worse, I don't win many races. The podium is hard to reach. I've had Wolowiec and Brown beat me so often that I feel like it's really an exercise in self flagellation. In previous years Riege was a dominating force, but this year he was less so. It must not have been a priority for him, because he's definitely someone to reckon with when he's on form.

Blood (Seldom the Accompanying Glory)

I wasn't racing CX last year because of my heart attack (see my 2007 blog article DirtHammer 911) at the beginning of the season, so I don't know who the main contenders were beyond stalwarts like Wolowiec and Brown. I know Mark Lovejoy and Ken O'Day are always in there battling it out. But this year we also had the rise of Mike Seaman, Andy Klumb, Mike Belanger, and Mike Green. They made me and my new tubular Zipp 404 carbon wheelset and old faithful Fuji cross bike dig in awfully hard. No matter what my placing, against these guys I knew that I'd been challenged by the best and that I'd done all I could do on a given day.

I remember watching my first CX race, before I decided to expose myself to the stupidity of it all. It was at Hudson Mills near Dexter. Everybody looked like they were going so darned slow. There's something about watching cyclocross bikes moving over the grass that makes you think, "I could do better than that! Why don't they just pedal harder?"

Barriers Won!

The next year I was on that same course for the first time. On the bike it's different. It's like a Kafka nightmare where you work so hard to go forward and the earth drags your wheels down toward hell so your legs just ache. Always. There's always something in a cyclocross race that pulls you down as much as you fight to drive the bike forward.

On a road bike, on pavement, your bike does move forward. It flies sometimes like there is no road, no earth to tie you down. Even mountain bikes can give you that feeling of a soaring raptor as you dip and glide through the trail. But cyclocross is all about earth and gravity and that simultaneous pull of opposing forces. Seldom do you feel that same sense of glide and lift. Even stretches of pavement often work against you. By the time you hit the tarmac all you think of is recovery. And since it's a fall sport there's usually a nice head or cross wind to extinguish any dream of reenergizing on these paved stretches.

Joe Brown

On my last race in late November at Munson in Monroe (out for the rest of the season after that race due to a pinched nerve and a bout of the flu), snow was falling, the course was slick, and the temperature was below freezing with bitter wind chills. Joe Brown, as ever, had designed a challenging, cranky, flowing course to ride. Munson Park has one big hump of a hill and a lot of flat, damp grass. He'd made the one hill into three brilliant, wicked little climbs.

Rob & Joe at Vets

Joe and I battled that race out together from beginning to end. There was one moment when we were topping one of the steepest of those pitches, our legs barely able to turn the cranks over, and he just moaned, "man these hills are hard." In the middle of all that suffering for both of us I thought it was so funny. Here I was with one of my toughest competitors all these years and we were absolutely miserable, having pushed each other to the limit lap after lap, trying to find weakness, trying to pull away, neither of us giving in. I literally had spit and snot all over my face from the cold and the endless exertion. And Joe just wouldn't let up. In all those years, he never has. And I said to him, "you designed this, Joe. You did it to yourself." "I know," he said, "I know." It said everything about cyclocross in that one brutal, honest, comical moment. We do it to ourselves. And then we do it again and again.

Paul Alman

The guy has a stern and crusty demeanor. He's a bit intimidating right off. There's a gravelly grumble in his voice sometimes that hovers low, like small crumpled scraps of paper with a note tossed aside that you don't want to miss. And he doesn't hold back when he wants you to pay attention at the start line. The grumble becomes a shout. Bike racing is serious business, LISTEN UP!

My first road bike race ever (not including the Spring Training Series) was at Allen Park. I was racing Cat 5, nervous as could be, my legs unshaven, and apparently my number oriented in the newbie version of wrong side up--hey, it was probably upside down and inside out for all I knew. I pulled up to the line early with a few other guys and there stood Paul, officious looking, larger than life, and pacing back and forth. Then someone said something rude to him and a big smile came across his face and he had an instant comeback that reduced my tension immeasurably and totally trashed the other guy. It was a great moment. The whole group laughed.

Paul then zeroed in on my number and with only a quick comment that it was on wrong he was up along side me, removing the pins and reorienting it the proper way. He didn't even stick me as a reminder never to do this again. He just kept redirecting offhand comments that flew his way, a beam of a smile and a glint of wickedness never leaving his face. He likes this world of racers and action and bikes and life in general. It was all clear in just those few moments and I knew from then on that I liked Paul.

A year or two later I witnessed Paul's tenacity. It was the last race in the April calendar of his Spring Training Series out at Runway. You'd think the last race in April would be the warm one, leading into the heart of the transitional spring. You never know quite what you're going to get in April, but in a just world, anything close to May should be at least in the upper 50s to lower 60s. As we know, Michigan weather has nothing to do with justice. This race day began cold, bitterly cold, more like the 20s somewhere, and windy. The C race had a good turnout and they kicked off the morning with a good spirited crit. It was freezing, but the pavement was dry and if I remember right, it was partly sunny. (I just found some pictures, it was cloudy and the pavement was wet. I like my imagined version better.)

I did the B race. It started with deep dark billowy snow clouds moving in from the northwest. The wind picked up and it was the kind of wind that eats through lycra like a cougar goes for the bare neck. From the beginning a few snow flakes fluttered down from above. Our pack whizzed around the 1k park and up the gradual climb to the start finish line as the snow became thicker and thicker. The pavement was wet but rideable, but the snow was definitely coming down (I probably made this all up, too).

Joe Christy & Paul at Runway
It's at least 20 below in this shot.

And there stood Paul--and Joe Christy--through it all, making sure the racers were riding safely and fairly and that the podium racers got their due. It was bitter just to race and keep moving, much less stand there in that blast of icy air and let the cold run deep into your bones. But that was Paul.

Paul is passionate about biking. That's like saying Colnago makes decent frames, or Eddie Mercx was a pretty good bike rider. There just aren't enough ways to describe the level of his enthusiasm. He is bike racing as far as Michigan is concerned. He's spent the past twenty years or so as a--often the--driving force behind the road racing events here in southeast Michigan and throughout the state.

I don't think he can help himself. Roads talk to him in ways different than your average traveler. Where most people see ways to get from here to there with a big hunk of enclosed metal, Paul sees opportunities for great bike racing and a tarmac from which to get others as passionate as he is about the humming gears of pelotons, the glory of breakaways, and the sheer explosion of pack sprints.

David Myers, Mark Lovejoy & Paul Alman

I know that Paul talked last year about the challenges of his carrying the Spring Training Series at Runway. He didn't say he wouldn't do it, but he hinted that it's time for someone else to step forth. He's totally young at heart, but there's a time to move over and let others take charge of the reins that keep racing alive in Michigan. Great leaders need great successors or the the whole thing wanes.

I'm not sure who the successor of the Spring Training Series will be, yet. From what I hear, Paul's putting on one last year at the helm. These have always been the most fun road races of the year in my opinion. They're serious, yet still full of joy and light hearted banter. The only tension comes from wondering if you're in shape enough to stay in the pack for another year and/or how much more training you need to get there.

But in terms of the larger Michigan scheme of things, it will come as no surprise that one of the major successors of Paul's reign will be Joe Lekovish. Joe is just as passionate as Paul. He lives, sleeps and breathes bike racing and he's taken over at the helm of the Michigan Bicycle Racing Association. Joe is spirit and he's already doing a wonderful job.

I'm sure Paul won't be drifting very far from the scene. He's an in and among the action kind of guy. And he's probably the most intimidating (don't you believe it), caring, fun loving guy I know.

Thanks, Paul. You're great.