Another SoCal Masters Racing Douchebaggery

[benb]

Just another reason this 40+ racing is just a giant waste of time. Why expose yourself to people like this? It's not really that guy, there are lots of guys like him, it's something about cycling (road cycling specifically?).

Also at 40+ with a family, you should have enough insurance to not need a GoFundMe if you're going to race. A need for $30k after a bike crash implies something is not right with the family risk management. You should be treating this the same as having motorcycle racing or skydiving or base jumping as your hobby IMO once you're married or have a family. Just my take on it.. I never raced without insurance that had a small enough Out of pocket max for the year that I couldn't have covered my portion in cash on the spot, and I never did a mass start USAC road race once I got married.. too hard to justify when the ambulance got used just about every weekend I raced. At least one person's # came up every weekend.

[GregL]

Originally Posted by benb

Just another reason this 40+ racing is just a giant waste of time. Why expose yourself to people like this? It's not really that guy, there are lots of guys like him, it's something about cycling (road cycling specifically?).

There's also lots of masters racers who are friendly and safe competitors. As with most things in life, generalization leads to (and arises from...) misconceptions. At my most recent race, it felt like a reunion with old friends. We laughed, we joked, and we caught up on families, careers, and of course bike racing. Yes, there are some overly intense idiots, but that can be said of most life activities.

Greg

[azrider]

Wow.......Efff that guy.

The move that prompted Doyle to react was definitely not worth retribution, but intentionally crashing someone resulting in broken bones and a bleeding brain sure as hell is.....whataprick

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by chiasticon

I have a theory... it's OK if it's wrong...

there's a thing I do where if I'm all the sudden being forced into a bad line and it's unexpected, I'll deliberately and massively shift my upper body weight to one side of the bike, in order to not crash. I'm not sure how to explain this accurately. if you've even seen euro cx pros ride though sand, you've seen it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkxTR9vIUl0). basically, the bike is sort of trying to go one way and you counteract this by exaggeratedly leaning the other way.

anyway, it looks to me like dude takes way too thin of a line to pass the victim between him and the curb. then the victim goes left just slightly (most likely not realizing someone is even coming up on his left yet) and dude starts to go left into the curb. to counteract this, he leans his weight to the right, hitting the victim. he actually does the same thing 5-10 seconds before the crash on his own, when he's too close to the curb.

not sure if this analysis is right or whatever and it could be 100% intentional. I don't know. just offering up an alternative theory. either way, it's a lame move. he shouldn't have taken that line to begin with. and he d*mn sure shouldn't have leaned into the victim, even if not doing so means he would've crashed (or would they both have?).

He leans his shoulder in preparation for the hit, meaning he's winding up to make the hit more effective.

[andeww]

Looks very premeditated to me, crazy when they are already dealing with rain and curbs at a high speed. Weird to see Lader Ranch on the screen, wish him a speedy recovery.

[shovelhd]

Originally Posted by chiasticon

I have a theory... it's OK if it's wrong...

there's a thing I do where if I'm all the sudden being forced into a bad line and it's unexpected, I'll deliberately and massively shift my upper body weight to one side of the bike, in order to not crash. I'm not sure how to explain this accurately. if you've even seen euro cx pros ride though sand, you've seen it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkxTR9vIUl0). basically, the bike is sort of trying to go one way and you counteract this by exaggeratedly leaning the other way.

anyway, it looks to me like dude takes way too thin of a line to pass the victim between him and the curb. then the victim goes left just slightly (most likely not realizing someone is even coming up on his left yet) and dude starts to go left into the curb. to counteract this, he leans his weight to the right, hitting the victim. he actually does the same thing 5-10 seconds before the crash on his own, when he's too close to the curb.

not sure if this analysis is right or whatever and it could be 100% intentional. I don't know. just offering up an alternative theory. either way, it's a lame move. he shouldn't have taken that line to begin with. and he d*mn sure shouldn't have leaned into the victim, even if not doing so means he would've crashed (or would they both have?).

That's pretty much exactly what I said. Lots of jumping to conclusions in this thread. But if the dude has a history, that must be considered.

[carpediemracing]

There are incidents where not as much happens. The Carney-Lakatosh T-Town incident comes to mind immediately. Much more blatant (Lakatosh grabbed Carney's bar and yanked it backwards, causing Carney to hit the deck instantly).

You have to separate the results from the actions. As much as I don't like hearing about people being hurt bike racing, if things had gone a bit differently and the guy on the deck had "just" road rash, would everyone be as angry?

Personally I'd want the guy suspended. I know it's hard to get an assault suspension (the officials tried to do that to the guy that took me out intentionally) but an assault suspension could be a year under the then-current rules (not sure now).

After the rider took me out I realized he'd been doing this for a while. 9 days prior he took out most of the front of the field when he swerved sideways around his blown up leadout man. A number of broken bones, and all my teammates swore off crit racing because of this one rider (one upgraded out of reach to 2 and got 2nd in his first Cat 2 race, Battenkill and then promptly quit racing). The year prior he made the same move in the same Tues Night race, causing a massive crash.

I proposed a rule where there is exponential increases to suspensions for given things, sort of like doping. 2 years, life. For "abrupt line changes resulting in a crash" I thought 20 days (max right now) could be close to minimum. Then something like 1x, 10x, 50x, 100x the minimum suspension. The third time someone did something they'd be looking at 50x the minimum or 1000 days. The fourth, 100x or 2000 days. Yes, 6 years.

I came up with this when I was wheelchair confined.
http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.de...posals-on.html

USAC declined to implement the rule for a couple reasons. First was "they don't track rider suspensions". There is literally no history out there, just like there is no history for rider deaths, injuries, etc.

I briefly contemplating downloading the 10 MB rider database, maybe weekly, and parsing out everything that says indicates a rider is suspended. It would be interesting to see what happens. It would be more complete if every disqualification showed up but that's not tracked at all since being DQed in one race won't affect your next race, even if the next race starts 5 minutes later. Suspensions affect your ability to race so USAC has it in their database, however briefly.

I still think an exponential penalty system would be good. Even if the character above was penalized for "abrupt movement resulting in a crash" (which would be no big deal if it was the first time he did it), if it really was his 5th or 10th or 50th thing then he'd be out for a long, long time.

People work for managers. Bad apples in any local racing scene can cause riders to quit or at the very least reduce participation. After getting screamed at for 15 minutes (along with bar/helmet/thigh/shoulder pushes/shoves/bops) by one particular rider I avoided NY races for many years. I knew the guy did (and won) many of the races I entered so I just avoided them.

Bad apples propagate. Same guy taught his teammates the same thing. I heard him yelling at a teammate after a race. "You have to use your thighs, shoulders, arms! You have to show them who is boss! If you both crash doing it, that's okay! Next time they'll remember and get out of your way!"

[shovelhd]

Originally Posted by benb

Just another reason this 40+ racing is just a giant waste of time. Why expose yourself to people like this? It's not really that guy, there are lots of guys like him, it's something about cycling (road cycling specifically?).

Wow, that's some judging, and way off base. Have you ever raced at this level? If not, then I wouldn't expect you to understand.

[carpediemracing]

As a promoter I was asked if I wanted to ban a rider. I didn't know a promoter could do that. Could I?

For the record I let everyone race my race unless they threatened the race itself. The guy peeing in the parking lot? Instant ejection, no refund, no nothing, I was absolutely livid. If I was still a promoter I'd ban someone for life on a second such offense, and I'd make sure I didn't accidentally let him register.

The guy that caused me to crash and break my pelvis in two places? The 15 minute screamer who rode super dirty? They could and did race.

[superbowlpats]

Geez and for what? This is why I'll stick to CX (and MTB occasionally): way fewer a'holes and the crashes don't hurt as much.

[chiasticon]

Originally Posted by superbowlpats

Geez and for what? This is why I'll stick to CX (and MTB occasionally): way fewer a'holes and the crashes don't hurt as much.

...and usually the crash is your own fault, and there's little to nobody else close enough to be harmed by it. although I've seen some gnarly crashes in the opening holeshot sprint, complete with people being run over.

[johnmdesigner]

I am somewhat amazed that the word "douchebaggery" or "douche" is not censored on this Forum in the way that "****" and "****" is.
I suppose it's not surprising since this place has become a total "sausage party" (oh wait that passed the censors) of late.
As for 45+ masters;

[beeatnik]

Originally Posted by hellvetica

Is this the prick?



https://www.road-results.com/racer/39709



LOL. Bottom 50 percenter.

You're safe, M. He only rides w the fast group at The World Famous Rose Bowl. I, on the other hand....




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[hellvetica]

Thanks A. Was trying to figure out who this was, but could not find any photos on the Google.

[benb]

Originally Posted by shovelhd

Wow, that's some judging, and way off base. Have you ever raced at this level? If not, then I wouldn't expect you to understand.

At what level? We just heard this was Masters. I did race USAC for about 3 years. (I mentioned that in my first post.) Saw someone badly injured just about every weekend. I was hit just like this, luckily never had a really bad outcome from getting hit. I did have a few really close calls. I volunteered at plenty of races too, and drove the official car once. (And that race we saw a horrific Masters crash with a head injury)

That was when I was young and single and no one depended on me. No desire to put up with any of that for bragging rights at all now that I'm married and have a child.

You think his wife and kids care about his "racing level" with him in the hospital? Really no one cares at all.. the only reason any of us do this is trying to impress the other cyclists. We get it in our head that it's the most important thing in the world when it's really not.

You gotta step outside of it all to realize how nutty some of this racing is once you get to a certain age.

There is a LOT more to riding than these silly 40+ races.