How to Deal with a Giant?

Seriously, I'm asking.

In particular, how to deal with that juggernaut, the Amgen/Giant Masters team.


Certainly superior fitness can trump a larger team in many situations, although not always. But that's not relevant here... the real question is, what do you do when the fittest guys in the race are all on the same team?

That's the case with Amgen/Giant. The roster includes more current and former National Champions than any other team in the country. Top-shelf talent there.

This isn't a new phenomenon. When I first started Masters racing in the mid 90's, the top dogs were the mighty US Postal Masters, which was a team started by Thom Weisel, a sizable sponsor of the USPS pro team and Subaru/Montgomery before that. Weisel, as you may or may not know, was a big-shot finance guy with money to burn. Like most successful people, he wanted to be surrounded by the best of the best, so he and his team hired the fastest Masters racers around. Let me tell you, they could dominate a race with only a handful of riders in a field of 100. On the bike, they were efficient assassins; off the bike, they were cool and respected. This year, they morphed into the Team Specialized Masters and seem to be continuing their winning ways. One sage observer of NorCal cycling has gone on record saying that they're the best Masters team in the nation. Hmmmm....

The mid 90's also saw the rise of the notorious Labor Power team of Roger Worthington, aka Max Kash Agro. Roger and brother Dave were the original core of that group but within a few years they had recruited most of the best riders in SoCal. It wasn't unusual to race in a field of 50 masters and have ten or more of them in Labor colors. Roger had a generous bonusing scheme for races that mattered to him, and often those guys would score hundreds of dollars extra beyond their prize split. Some were even paid a stipend that would make young US pros envious. I'm not passing judgement here, just sayin'

Labor was gritty and edgy, and basically the anti $12K-dreamer team. The intimidation factor was high, and there were plenty of heated ego-fueled exchanges on the SoCal crit circuit. If there was some yelling going on, you could bet Labor was involved some how. But they were good. Gnarly speedsters like Vinny the Hack, Evan Teske, and Mark Scott won a lot of rough-and-tumble field sprints. Louie, Genghis, Roger, and Dave crushed many a road race. Following the weekends, SoCal masters would anxiously await Roger's hack-pack reports (many are archived here on Truesport) to see who got labeled an idiot, pretender, nimrod, or worse. Many people disliked the Labor persona, but I found the whole thing pretty entertaining. SoCal bike racing can take itself too seriously sometimes, and Roger and his crew never did.

And then along came the Specialized/Sonance team, formed by Mark Hoffenberg.
They were a bunch of nice guys who raced hard and fair. Most significantly, they proved every bit as strong as Labor. I don't know if they really neutralized each other, but the domination from either team was not so great anymore. Racing was wide open.

But here we are today. Labor and Sonance are gone. Some of the riders migrated to the Cynergy team and they are definitely a force, as is Schroeder Iron, but when Amgen/Giant shows up in mass, they are going to dictate the action.

That's what happened in Ojai last weekend.

They swept the 45+ podium.

Easily.


I started the race, and then essentially took myself out by unsuccessfully attacking early and being too lazy to dig deep enough to respond quickly to the counter. A break of six went clear, including three Amgen/Giants. I tried to go a few times, but always felt the presence of that Big Blue Meanie Peter Sullivan. Quitting seemed like a good option, but I couldn't do it after seeing Choo-Choo and Pops Larsen put in hard chase efforts. I figured, what the hell, might as well get in a sprint. Result: 8th.

I was advised that, to be a real bike racer, I must make an excuse for my disappointing performance. How about this: I was saving myself for the afternoon race. Yeah, that's it.

For a more thorough report of the 45+ race, read the blog of a guy who flew half way across the country to do a single Masters crit, and finished 5th. Pissing on my compost pile indeed... hmmph!

The Amgen/Giant domination continued in the 35+ race and it was a text-book lesson on how to race as a team. They were in the early breaks, including a threatening one with Gus Corona, which forced a hard chase from the other teams. Eventually, a group of six escaped with Amgen/Giants Rich Meeker and Rich Cimadoro, along with Craig Nunes, Pat Caro, Tom Farley, and Tony Brady. Their gap grew steadily while, back in the field, Thurlow completely neutralized Mark Noble who was probably the fittest guy in the race. Meeker won, Cimadoro was 4th, Thurlow smoked Noble to take the field sprint (7th) and Gus rounded out the top ten. The victory and four of the top ten is definitely domination.

Which brings me back to the question: how do you deal with this? Go on the offensive and try to reduce the numbers, or stay alert and be defensive? It helps to have a team of course, but if you're outnumbered and out-fitness'ed, then what are you gonna do? Mark one or two guys? They have too many options for that.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that we Masters get to race against such a strong and talented team. It's a real challenge, and will raise the level of everyone. We just need to figure out how to make it challenging for them!