by Lanolin

TRAINING CAMP:

This past weekend was the Ritte Team training camp. All the categories were invited and we designed routes that would allow us to regroup without too much waiting. Saturday we hit the mountains off the coast in Malibu, logging 110 miles and about 8,000 feet of climbing. The first climb of the day was the 9 mile long Latigo Canyon, one of the most beautiful climbs in the country. We hit it hard from the start, and a group of six topped out the second summit in 39 minutes. I experienced a real pang of pride as they dropped my ass around mile 4. We climbed Latigo again toward the end of the ride, and what really blew me away was that the same group of guys climbed that 9 miles and 2,400 feet just a minute slower than the first time! I’ve created a team of animals. They get Alpo in their musette bags.

Sunday we did another 80 miles up the Pacific Coast Highway and all the categories worked on riding as a tight, cohesive group. The result of which you can see in this picture:

Day Three of training camp we were hit with what was described as “the worst storm in six years.” This is why I love Southern California: “the worst storm” was pretty much what everybody else in the world just calls “rain.” So a good number of us went over to Griffith Park on the East Side for some soggy hill repeats. The rain might not have been so bad, and it wasn’t super cold, but there were little rivers of mud flowing across the road, so that part felt a little tough. I found myself aiming for the deepest puddles to get the full effect. If there could be a perfect ending to our little camp, cold and wet was it.

WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING HERE?

Cycling for recreation and sport is a silly silly thing. Seriously. Most of us are grown ups who shave our legs, wriggle into spandex, and fret over color coordination to such a degree only a hipster could understand. We’re all just riding around on bicycles for shit’s sake. And perhaps to make the scene even more absurd, we’re racing each other, like little kids at recess. The next time you’re on a group ride, sprinting for an imaginary line just think about how inherently silly the situation is. And then to take it a step further, we pay lots of money to organizers to let us sprint each other to actual lines so we can get points and race against people who are even deeper in clutches of the Obsession. We ratchet down our shoes and become nothing more than little boys and little girls. And that is exactly the reason why we should love our sport so damn much.

I’ve been around road racing since I was 12 back in Texas, and I gotta say the attitude sucked back then and it sucks now. The vast majority of roadies out there are good people, but the assholes taint the scene, pun intended. Just go to a cyclocross race… the vibe is completely different because the inherent absurdity of cyclocross is undeniable by anyone, so therefore nobody makes the mistake of taking it too seriously. But the road scene won’t change unless we all recognize that we too are doing something very, well, silly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and have realized the problem goes even deeper than hothead sprinters throwing little tantrums after they miss a prime. The truth is, as great a reception as Ritte has gotten, we’ve also been getting a whole hell of a lot of shit from the Old Guard out there. Seems like every day I hear another rumor about how Ritte is somehow corrupting other club’s riders, or that we’re poaching and sewing seeds of discontent. Other team directors have even called my riders, confused by why their riders left to race for us. And what has simply been an honest, open attempt to bring road racers together to have fun and win races, is now being dragged further down by the internal politics of old clubs and bitter riders. What does this accomplish? These guys need to take a step back, raise the blast shield and let reality soak in. Because there is approximately a 0% reason that anybody should get bent about who goes to what team for what reason. In the end, we’re just grownups riding around on bicycles. And there’s nothing serious about that whatsoever.

Party,

Lanolin