It's really a bit hard to write that way, though. You may have noticed that I have hardly written anything here. Last year I kept a blog and I updated it far more frequently than I have this one. A lot of that is in trying to skirt around issues like who I am.
In reality, I realized, I don't give a damn if people get upset. Well, to a point. There are still crazy people out there.
Hi, my name is Brian Parker, and I can be a bit sharp-tongued at times. I'm sorry if that gets you all worked up, but I can't say I'll change it.
So let's get one thing out of the way that I have no problem saying straight-away.
If we happen to all find ourselves in a bicycle race and you feel as though the pace isn't high enough for you then you should, by all means, move to the front and take a solid pull. If your pull is so hard that the guy behind you can't hold your wheel then you may have just made an unintentional break-away. Go you!
If, however, you find yourself somewhere between 10 and 20 wheels back, comfortably in the middle of the back, in a sub-sub-maximal effort zone, and you don't want to get to the front and pull: Keep your damn mouth shut.
"Come on guys; up the pace!" is not what I want to hear after I've been at the front rotating with 5 other guys to pull in some breakaway. We're gassed, and we did it to get the entire bunch up to some other bunch. You've been having an armchair ride. Be thankful for that, and then come around us in the sprint because we just got you to a good position at our own expense. Don't thank me by telling me to go harder.
Anywho,
I realized at last weekend's race that when I'm at that place where my heart can't beat much faster, my lungs aren't taking in enough oxygen, and everything is saturated in lactic acid, I look like shit.
This may not come as a huge revelation to the non-cycling public. Most mortals, in that scenario, look rather poorly. Cyclists, however, tend to have a certain amount of dignity when they're in the red.
Here's Lance Armstrong in the time trial up Alpe D' Huez in '04. Relatively calm, looking fairly cool. Really, he looks like he's not doing that much to his body. The truth is that he's climbing one of the fiercest mountains in the world, and he's doing against nothing but himself and the clock. That's the hardest kind of riding there is. In sharp contrast, I offer:
More specifically:
We all look a bit worn down, but I look like I'm getting ready to shout at someone. Really, I was just trying to breathe. Air in, air out, repeat. That was a bit tough at the time.
What I really noticed based on this and other similar photos is that I have no chance at being a good racer. The fact that I finished 5th in my second 3/4 race (the last one, an insect bit me on the forehead in the sprint) and my 3rd race as a cat. 4 doesn't really matter. If I can't start looking better, no one will want to take pictures of me. If there aren't any pictures of me then there are no pictures of my kit. And how do you convince sponsors that they should get behind a team with a rider no one will photograph? I guess that somehow, I need to start looking much, much better when I'm totally gassed.
At some point in time I may come across the finish line first. If the first person photographed finished second then my win will really be worth nothing.
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