Sparky and Fiona
I haven't seen any results from this weekend, but there were two people that I was very impressed with, Sparky & Fiona.
Sparky (okay, he does have a real name and it happens to be Stephen Ettinger) is a Cashmere boy whom I skied with on the Leavenworth Winter Sports Club. Since he's a skier he's really strong and fit and since he mountain bikes he's a good cyclist too. Sadly, he doesn't road bike very often so he had to race in the Men's 4/5 field, which is silly, but it was very fun to get to watch him absolutely dominate the 4/5 crit Saturday night. Even if he was outsprinted at the finish, he was by far the strongest rider there. It's always fun to watch another skier take on the cycling world and watch the other cyclists go, "where in the world did this kid come from and how is he so strong?"
Fiona MacLeod (racing for Trek Red Truck Racing) is a girl I met during the road race. I haven't actually spoken to Fiona other than a short introduction and exchange of "nice work" at the finish but I've decided that she's my new cycling hero because: she's tall, she's strong, she always pulled through in our paceline, she wears big, junky body jewelry earings, she's willing to work hard, and mostly because at the end of the race when another girl started complaining about the girl that won the sprint for our small pack because she never once pulled through, Fiona shut her up real quick with a "that's bike racing."
I realized that one of the main differences between the pro riders and the wanna-be-pro riders is that the pros are willing to work hard and the lower category riders are much more quick to decide that this is as hard as I want to work today and I can't go any faster. I also decided that I'm not very impressed with the draft-draft-draft-sprint type of riders because, even though they may win the sprint, they're not working as hard as people like Fiona and eventually, they're not going to be able to hide in the draft and they're going to find out that people like Fiona are just getting stronger and moving on to bigger races and they're still outsprinting the novices to take whatever place in a po-dunk local race in Wenatchee. Woo-hoo. I would rather work really hard, be foolish and get outsprinted, and then continue working really hard and getting outsprinted but against faster and faster fields. But that's just me.
Sparky (okay, he does have a real name and it happens to be Stephen Ettinger) is a Cashmere boy whom I skied with on the Leavenworth Winter Sports Club. Since he's a skier he's really strong and fit and since he mountain bikes he's a good cyclist too. Sadly, he doesn't road bike very often so he had to race in the Men's 4/5 field, which is silly, but it was very fun to get to watch him absolutely dominate the 4/5 crit Saturday night. Even if he was outsprinted at the finish, he was by far the strongest rider there. It's always fun to watch another skier take on the cycling world and watch the other cyclists go, "where in the world did this kid come from and how is he so strong?"
Fiona MacLeod (racing for Trek Red Truck Racing) is a girl I met during the road race. I haven't actually spoken to Fiona other than a short introduction and exchange of "nice work" at the finish but I've decided that she's my new cycling hero because: she's tall, she's strong, she always pulled through in our paceline, she wears big, junky body jewelry earings, she's willing to work hard, and mostly because at the end of the race when another girl started complaining about the girl that won the sprint for our small pack because she never once pulled through, Fiona shut her up real quick with a "that's bike racing."
I realized that one of the main differences between the pro riders and the wanna-be-pro riders is that the pros are willing to work hard and the lower category riders are much more quick to decide that this is as hard as I want to work today and I can't go any faster. I also decided that I'm not very impressed with the draft-draft-draft-sprint type of riders because, even though they may win the sprint, they're not working as hard as people like Fiona and eventually, they're not going to be able to hide in the draft and they're going to find out that people like Fiona are just getting stronger and moving on to bigger races and they're still outsprinting the novices to take whatever place in a po-dunk local race in Wenatchee. Woo-hoo. I would rather work really hard, be foolish and get outsprinted, and then continue working really hard and getting outsprinted but against faster and faster fields. But that's just me.
posted by LAV at 08:39
1 Comments:
First, for the most part the only time I read a blog is if it comes up in a Google search and it seems like it might have some useful info. But yours is the exception to my rule -- you write well and since I enjoy skiing, cycling, and thinking about life, it works for me...
Second, I know my daughter (a developing skier and cyclist) has your blog bookmarked and I'm going to make sure she has read this entry. The moral of the story is pretty obvious, and it will be good if she gets it from someone other than me...
Post a Comment
<< Home