The ride from Marysville OH to Wooster OH was a real eye opener, it showed a side of Ohio that I did not know existed. We went from gently rolling farmland to dense forests, riding through a river valley and then some fairly significant climbs in Pleasant Hill State Park. We had more good size rollers as we entered Wooster, a nicely gentrifying small town. Mikey drove down from Oberlin and joined me for dinner. He's been living on beans and rice in his food co-op, so he seemed to enjoy a good size burger and fries.
Today we rode to Warren, OH. The ride started in a thick fog, so I felt right at home. The route took us through the industrial outer suburbs of Akron and Canton. We then entered another Ohio county which obviously has some significant fiscal issues, the roads were terrible, lots of potholes and cracks.
That part of the ride was a real t___t splitter. Entering the area around Warren I saw the first signs that we are in the rust belt, some areas seem to be in real decline.
And lesson 1 in Dutch cycling expressions……
In a country where socialism is considered a capital crime, altruism must be like a mortal sin? Indeed it has its downsides, as this story from within the A-team reveals.
Every day has a frantic start. The boys start putting the hammer down immediately. It is riding with the ass open (1) straight from the start. This is because Tom wants to show off. Usually younger kids think they look cool when they have older friends. With 60 year old Tom it’s the other way around. He thinks he looks cool hanging out with the younger guys. And to secure his spot in the pecking order, he is eager to show he can still ride.
This utterly annoys Floris, a European snob who rides his bike 1 lousy mile to work every day and has done a couple of Tour de France climbs a couple of times and hence thinks he is a big shot on a bike. He is a slow starter, and having to ride the snot in front of his eyes (2) immediately reminds him of his childhood. He was a weak boy and was always picked on. The whole biking thing is one big compensation. Honestly, who rides a bike from coast to coast voluntarily? Anyway, the memories wake the worst in him. He just gets fired up and wants REVENGE on those Yankees (which is by the way a word with a Dutch origin).
When Tom goes on one of his frantic starts, David even digs a bit deeper when he is taking the pull. The last thing he wants is to be called a pancake (3) because he is a tough crit-guy from Minnesota. And you don’t mess with a crit-guy from Minnesota. He is not a water porter (4), he is a WINNER! Hell, he’ll do anything to win a sprint for a city limit. ANYTHING. That includes feigning dehydration. Dave knows the tricks of the trade. He knows you have to eat someone else’s plate first before you start eating your own plate (5).
Seeing all this testosterone cycling, Roger just shakes his head. He is glad that he is not in the Mongol-echelon (6) but cannot stand the view of Tom’s unshaven legs. Roger is notorious for cranking it when there is a tailwind and coming to a complete standstill when there is a headwind. Conclusion: he must be gay. After the frantic start, Roger typically uses his big knife (7) to keep the tempo going.
When the A-team has finished with their frantic duty of overtaking ‘The Others’, things usually settle down for a minute or so. By this time, the guys are so tired they cannot remember to which parish they belong (8). But after a few quiet minutes, Barbara starts yelling in their well hidden earpieces. “You guys are behind schedule for the lunch SAG. You better lift your asses from that saddle and hurry!”
Shortly after this, a strange stalker in a white van shows up. He is following this bunch of cyclists through the entire country and indulges in taking countless photographs of guys dressed in spandex…… He lowers his windshield and starts slamming the door of his car in a successful Peter Post (9) imitation. “Ride, you bunch of lazy-ass mockeries of cyclists, ride!”
This usually stirs things up a bit among the A-team, and they find their second breath (10). This is also the typical time for Tom to start being a wheelsucker (11) and for Floris to start his compensating behaviour, which is trying to hurt his colleagues by doing relentless, uselessly hard pulls.
When the A-team has barely made it in time to the lunch SAG and has, on the very edge of exhaustion set up all the tables, water, food and chairs for ‘The Others’ to enjoy, they put on their nice faces when the next riders arrive. ‘Show no weakness’ is lesson 2 of cycling. Lesson 1 is ‘do not show off’ but this lesson is wasted on anyone from the US of A.
In a private spot, the A team injects one of the concoctions of ‘The Doc’ intravenously, just to be able to make it through the next leg and arrive in time to unload the luggage.
The next leg is typically even harder than the first leg. This is because more talented cyclists usually take off quite fast after lunch, getting a mere unbridgeable head start on the A-team. Most of all, Floris cannot stand this. He is just unable to accept the fact that there are Americans that are faster on a bike than he is. So he starts one of his potato chases (12) wearing down the rest of the A-team even more.
By the time the A-team arrives at the destination they sit backward on their bike (13). Because David is a master in this, he usually wins the sprint for the city limit. Which is, in fact, quite pointless because a more talented member of ‘The Others’ is already way past that virtual finish line and is already enjoying a well deserved milkshake and hot tub.
After Barbara is done with scolding the A-team for being too late, again, the 4 men unload the luggage of ‘The Others’. And usually make a mess of it, hence they fully deserve the taunting and cynical remarks ‘The Others’ throw in their direction. After that, they clean Karen’s and Mike’s bike, and help Jim with patching tyres.
By 1 a.m. when they can finally go their rooms, the first thing they do is to take the painting from the wall and hang a fresh bag of blood on the revealed hook. This is the only way they can recover for another day of altruistic duty…….
Dutch cycling expressions explained
(1): riding so hard that sphincters do not function anymore, riding very hard basically
(2): riding on the verge of collapsing
(3): very bad cyclist
(4): domestique, gets the waterbottles for the champions
(5): first wear your adversaries out, then win
(6): every echelon but the first, where the weak and/or dumb cyclists ride
(7): the outer chainring
(8): being on the brink of collapsing, brainfunctions are dead
(9): Dutch cyclist, former winner of Paris-Roubaix and manager of the infamous TI-Raleigh team with Joop Zoetemelk, Jan Raas en Gerrie Knetemann.
(10): some hidden source of energy
(11): no explanation needed
(12): chasse patate, single rider making a pointless, useless and fruitless attempt to bridge the gap between peloton and breakaway
(13): are exhausted
