Hey Folks, Let's Cool It a Bit

Is it just me, or has there been a recent surge in aggression in the local and regional bike-racing scene??

Not just slice-'n-dice riding; I'm talking about real fighting, or close to it.

Must be the summer heat.

Let's see... last week a couple of on-again-off-again hot-heads almost came to blows before the start of the Thursday 8:00 roco ride. WTF? It's a beautiful morning in Santa Barbara... you're about to go ride a bicycle while the rest of society marches off to work... and you want to fight? I don't get it.

Then I get word of a skirmish during local Sunday Worlds a few weeks back. Punches were thrown, bikes got tossed, and F-bombs were dropped all over Goob canyon. What gives? Was the issue really that important? Did people (or person) crack when heart-rates went over 200 or they got dropped? BFD!

Tempers flared even yesterday on our weekly Tuesday lunchtime love-fest. Seems some folks don't like the sorta unstructured nature of the thing. Something about accelerations and pulling through ...or not pulling through. I dunno, it seems to me everyone can get what they want out of the ride without imposing rules. I like riding it as if we were a break-away, which means if the speed drops and I feel good, I'm gonna pull through faster. Not attacking, just a reasonable acceleration. Maybe it's time to try something else on Tuesdays anyway...

This phenomena isn't just local either. Nor is it limited to the male side of the sport. Check out this thread on the SoCalCycling forum:

San Pedro Skirmish

Woaah! I had the apparently-false impression that women racers were a lot less confrontational and generally more supportive of each other (at least face-to-face). Actually, I still think that's true. Perhaps last weekend was the result of some long simmering problem between just a few ladies. Seems like an anomaly, not the norm.

Maybe not so rare on the men's side however--another thread from that forum, which started off with a video from former-SB-boy Coulter Cederloff:

Ontario video

Dang! What's a light-weight like me to do if your typical LA crit involves a lot of body slamming?? Make's me glad I never see the front anyway! (Hmmmm... my heart-rate just elevated a few beats thinking about racing for that final turn at Manhattan Beach this upcoming weekend... anyone want to try to get away with me?)

And then a few weeks back I ran across this thread on Rahsaan Bahati's blog. Again, I won't even pretend to understand what goes on at the front when these guys are racing for the win. But I have been head-butted out of line at the end of Masters races a few times, and it sucks. Move in on me if you need to--maybe I'll lean back on you, maybe I won't--but no hitting, k? Back to Bahati... it appears from the comments to his post that all has been forgiven and folks are back to respecting one another. Good outcome. In any case, I really like the All-Star Fishes and how they race together.

And don't go thinking this is just a SoCal thingie either. Up north is not all hugs and kisses, at least according to some of the blog smack. In the highly competitive geezer races, it seems Safeway and AMD/Disco have had some altercations this year. Maybe there's a long history going back to when these guys were battling in the p/1/2 races, and some of it bubbles up from time-to-time. I don't know, so I really shouldn't talk/write about it. Ooops, too late. Fortunately, it seems like most of those folks have a pretty strong mutual respect for one another, even if tempers flare occasionally.

Oh yeah, if you haven't seen it already, check out the awesome video of the big-money p/1/2 race in Stockton last weekend. Pertinent here is the crash in the closing laps as emotions and heart-rates rise. Does it look to you like a blatant push started that carnage? BTW, I'm from Stockton, I can assure you that pavement was HOT!

So what are we to do? Well, for one thing, please remember that we all have a hell of a lot more in common with each other than with the population at large. As cyclists, we generally respect our bodies and our environment. We understand competition and hard physical effort. We shave our legs for crissakes! Let's reserve our anger for the morons in over-sized SUVs that get their kicks by buzzing us as we ride. Scorn the idiots who throw their trash by the side of the road, break bottles in the streets, and flick cigarettes out their car windows. That's the kind of anti-cycling behavior that should incite your anger, not some fellow cyclist who doesn't ride his/her bike exactly the way you want.