Stan’s Obligatory Blog

I finally got to go through and separate the pictures from the 1978 Longsjo Classic in Fitchburg, MA. Apparently this is a stage race now. But back then it was a single-day criterium in downtown Fitchburg. The course was about a mile, and it went up and down a hill in town. The race itself was something like 100km.

I don’t remember a lot about the race itself. I rode the whole thing, staying snug inside the pack. I didn’t try to do anything fancy. But it was still a fun time. About the only real memory I have of the race is that I spent a good part of it following Jon Schuster. He was a Category 1 racer with the Indy USA team, which was the big team of the day. A lot of the National Team members rode with them, including the Stetina brothers. Wayne Stetina won the race that day. But I followed Jon because he was big. Like a moose. And when he moved through the pack, it was like the Parting of the Red Sea. Everyone just got out of his way. And I just sort of followed along. It was fun.

So have a look at the photos from that day. It’s old-school late-’70s bike racing at its best.

So I’ve been writing down my old bike racing stories, and I told the story of how I got my Category 2, back in 1977. But there’s one more piece to the story. After the race in Maine, I sent my license off to the USCF New Jersey representative. A few days later, it came back with a nice little “2″ sticker next to “Category”. I was immensely pleased. So pleased, in fact, that I wanted to use it immediately. And I had a perfect chance.

On Sunday, September 4th, 1977 there was a race in Harrisburg, PA. This was a criterium around the State Capitol building. The course was four corners, flat, and just under 1 mile around. The first picture is a screenshot showing the location of the course. The feature race that day was 40 miles for Category 2 and 3. This was unusual, since 1 and 2 usually rode together. So of course I decided that that was the race I was going to ride.

The 2+3 pack was pretty big. Probably close to 100 riders at the start. I remember that two guys broke away relatively early, and I missed it. But a little later, I took off to try to start a second breakaway. A guy I knew named Clarence came along. He was from New York, and I knew him from racing at Kissena Velodrome, and I knew he was strong. So we were good to go. A third guy joined us, but I didn’t know him. The photo shows when we were first starting the breakaway. I’m on the right, and Clarence is on the left. We got within sight of the front breakaway, but we weren’t able to catch them. But we still got a good lead on the pack, and we held it to the finish.

Coming out of the last corner, I didn’t even try to contest the sprint. I just rolled across in 5th place. I figured that that was a pretty good showing for a Junior rider’s first outing in Cat 2.

August 21, 1977 was the day that I finally made Category 2. The race was in Waterville, Maine. It was the finish line the Maine International Bicycle Race, which was a rarity in that it was a true point-to-point road race. It began near the Canadian border and traveled south for 100-mumble miles to the finish in Waterville. But because just watching a pack of sweaty bike riders roll into town and sprint for the finish isn’t terribly exciting for the locals, the organizers also held a Junior race in town for the spectators. The race was a criterium around downtown Waterville, and it was 25 miles, which was long for a Junior race. Most were 10-15 miles. So I wanted to ride it, since I usually did better in longer races.

I got the use of the car for the weekend and set out looking for some other riders to come along. My friend Cary wanted to go. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a driver’s license. It was about a seven-hour drive from New Jersey in those days with the 55mph speed limit, and I wanted to find someone who could share the driving. So my other friend Gene came in. He had his learner’s permit, which meant he could drive if another licensed driver (me) was in the car. So this was good enough for us. And it’s probably best that we never stopped to think whether or not this was also going to be legal in the five other states we would be passing through to get there.

So Gene and Cary came to my house and we loaded up the car. Two bikes went on the roof rack, and the third was stuffed under the hatchback. With all our stuff, there was barely room for the three of us in the car.

The ride up to Maine was pretty uneventful. When we got there, it was night, and we went looking for a place to stay. We picked a motel and Gene and I went in to see about getting a room. The manager was suspicious, and kept asking us if we had any girls with us. We told him we were there for the bike race, and pointed to the car outside with the bikes on the roof. So he let us have a room.

We unloaded the car and started getting our bikes ready for the race when there was a knock on the door. The manager had decided to come and check again to see if we had any girls with us. Since we’d told him that there were just two of us, Cary grabbed his bike and went to stand in the shower with it while the manager came in. He looked at the bikes, wheels, and racing clothes strewn around the room and he was satisfied.

Our next priority was finding something to eat. Cary wanted to have something good, and not fast food. So we ended up at the only ‘nice’ restaurant in sight. The Silent Woman was the place, and we looked pretty out-of-place in there. It was all adults and families, and a trio of teenage boys looked pretty odd there. But the food was good, so we were happy.

The last priority was deciding how to divvy up the two beds. As you might imagine, this was a gravely important task for teenage boys. We drew lots, and I won. So I got a bed to myself while the other guys had to share.

In the morning, we headed over to the race. The course was pretty nice. It was basically triangular, with two long straights and a wide hairpin turn at one end. There was a slight grade, but nothing worth getting excited about. There was also a tremendous hole in the road that was marked off with sawhorses and cones. The race had a pretty good turnout, and the pack stayed together for about half the race. Then a breakaway formed. I don’t remember how it started, but I managed to get in it. There were three of us, and we got a good lead on the pack. We managed to stay away to the finish, and I didn’t even contest the final sprint. So I came in third, which was the finish that put me over the top for my Category 2 upgrade.

My goal for the year had been to make Category 2. I had one first-place finish, a fourth-place finish, sixth place in Rahway in July, and sixth place in Pittsburgh. So with this third place finish I met the requirements for my upgrade. That was the thing I was most excited about. My actual prize for the day was a pair of pedals and a little silver-plate trophy bowl.

I used the pedals for many years until they broke from metal fatigue. But I still have the little bowl. And the memories of that day. It was a fun time.

I got a chance to do two rides this weekend, so the Saturday ride was out to La Verne and back.

We met at Library Park in Monrovia and headed east from there. In Duarte, we were treated to the sight of a helicopter being used as a crane. It was lifting a series of large boxes from the parking lot up to the roof of the building.

We rode pretty much straight east, all the way across Glendora and San Dimas, where we turned and rode up San Dimas Canyon Road. Then we made a loop up in the hills, coming out right next to Live Oak Reservoir. I’d never seen it in daylight before, but I recognized it immediately. Back in 1978, when I raced with the Claremont cycling team, we used to to evening workouts on the road around that reservoir. We rode our track bikes, and we did intervals, time trials, and practice races. The thing I always remember about those times was how our coach, Steve, used to ride with us. When we got going fast, he always looked like he was going to die. His face was red, and he was sweating hard. But he always beat us in the final sprint. He had ridden on the 1968 Olympic team, so he was actually a very good rider.

After passing the reservoir, we dropped down a very steep hill. Gene said that he got up to just over 48mph on it. Then we rode into La Verne and stopped in the nicely shaded patio at Coffeeberry.

On the way back, we took the direct way. It was very hot by then, so we stopped for water several times. At the Santa Fe Dam Nature Center, we saw a number of oddly-placed stuffed birds. There was also a stuffed bobcat. Outside, we saw a roadrunner go by, so not all the birds there were dead and stuffed.

The last funny thing we saw was the car in Duarte with the two Hello Kitty dolls strapped to the front like so many dead deer.

It was an amusing and fun ride.

55 miles.
cycling

Here’s a picture from last week when we visited:

Now here’s a picture of me riding on about the same spot on the track, back in 1979:

Those trees next to the track are a lot bigger now, nearly 30 years later.

In one respect this is a good thing, since now the backstretch is shaded, and riders are not blinded by the setting sun. But on the other hand, that used to be my favorite place to attack, since everyone was blinded by the setting sun…

It was August 7, 1977, and I rode a race in Pittsburgh, PA. The race was in Schenley Park, across the street from Carnegie-Mellon University. The course had a straight uphill stretch along the edge of the campus. There was a right turn at the top and short level stretch. Then a long downhill with big, sweeping switchback turns. At the bottom it met up with the uphill back to the finish line. I was riding in Juniors at the time, so the race would have been something like 15 miles.

The course was nice. I particularly remember the downhill as being very exciting. The road was a bit rough, and going around the turns at high speed was great fun for a 17-year-old.

Somewhere along the way, two guys broke away. I missed that, but I managed to make it into the second breakaway. There were four of us, and we got a good gap on the pack. The downhill was faster for the four of us than it was for the pack, since we didn’t have to slow down for the turns.

At the finish, I just coasted across the line. I figured I couldn’t do worse than 6th place, and that was good enough for points toward my Category 2 upgrade.

This race meant that I had one first-place finish, a fourth-place finish, and with sixth place in Rahway in July, I had two sixth-place finishes. So now I just needed one more top-six finish to get Category 2.

I have no pictures from that day, and I don’t even remember what my prize was. But I do remember it as a very fun day.

The year before last, when we were on vacation at Lake Tahoe, we found my parents’ old slide projector in the closet at the house. There was a carousel in it filled with slides of bike races I rode back in 1978. Included were the big races in Hartford and Fitchburg on July 4th weekend, and also the races from Super Week in Milwaukee.

This year, Cathy took these slides to Ritz Camera and got them all scanned onto a DVD for me for Father’s Day. So I’ve been going through them and sorting them out. Today I put up the first set. This is from the Hartford Criterium in Hartford, CT. At the time, the race was sponsored by Travelers Insurance, and it had a very rich prize list. This race was very popular with racers on the east coast. They had a little sticker with the Travelers umbrella logo that they put on bikes when they passed pre-race inspection. Lots of racers kept this sticker on their bikes long after the race was over, even going so far as to glue it back on if it fell off.

Apparently, they are still doing this race now. It was on Memorial Day weekend this year.

The race is held on a short course around Bushnell Park in downtown Hartford. The Category 1/2 race was relatively short. My recollection is that it was something like 25 miles. There were only a couple of real corners on the course, so the race was very fast. I don’t remember much about it. I just stayed in the pack the whole way, and I didn’t place. But it was an exciting race, since it was a big pack on a fast course.

So here are my pictures from that day. It’s old-school racing at its best.

It was Monday, July 4, 1977, and I rode a bike race in Rahway, NJ. It was billed as “A Holiday at Home” because the big east coast races on the 4th of July weekend were in New England, so this was a race for people who didn’t feel like traveling to Massachussetts. This was my third step towards my Category 2 upgrade, so it was a significant day.

The Junior race was something like 10 or 15 miles. The course was a short, four-corners criterium course through downtown Rahway. The course went underneath the railroad tracks in two places. The race was pretty fast. I never got the front to try to break away, and most it was a blur. I don’t remember much about this race, aside from one incident right by the finish line.

Around the middle of the race, there was a crash right as we passed the finish line, and several riders went down. One of them was Frank Kaler, who was the rider who had helped me win the Challenge Cup race back in April. My recollection was that he seemed to crash in a lot of races. That and that he had the orange-tread D’Alessandro tires that always seemed to pop off his rims when he crashed. Usually, when riders crash, they are off the course by the next time the pack came around, but this time, we came around, and Frank was still lying in the road with the ambulance crew around him. He was still there on the next lap, too. Then he was gone, and I never saw him at a race ever again. I heard later that he’d fractured his skull, and was told not to race any more. Back in those days, helmets were the old ‘leather hairnet‘ type, and they didn’t offer the same degree of protection as modern helmets.

Somewhere along the way, one very big and strong kid named Chris Diehl broke away solo. So on the last lap, all of us in the pack were racing for second place. I’d recently learned how to position and sprint in a pack, so on the back stretch I moved up the inside. Coming out of the last corner, I was near the front. I used a 52×17 gear for the final sprint. My eyes rolled back into my head and I went for it. I came in fifth in the sprint, for sixth place overall.

This finish meant that I now had one first-place finish, one fourth-place finish, and a sixth-place finish. All I needed now was one more top three finish, or two more top six finishes to get my Category 2. The goal was within sight.

My prize for the day was a $25 savings bond, which I saved for many years like a trophy. I finally cashed it in 1988 when Cathy and I were buying our first condo. So in a small way, my ride in this race helped me to enter the southern California real estate market.

This is the story of my pump. It was my prize for 4th place in a race on May 22, 1977. It’s not the best pump, but it’s still special, since it reminds me of a very good day. And for 30 years I’ve been using it to pump up my tires before every ride.

The race was the Maryland Road Classic in Baltimore. I was racing as a Junior. The race was a criterium around a school. It was mostly flat, but with one small hill. The distance was about 15 miles. This was one of those races where the pack was, for lack of a better word, lazy. They never really got going very fast. Nobody wanted to push the pace.

I rode with the pack, just staying in the group. I wanted to break away, but it seemed that every time I tried, nobody wanted to come along, so I just dropped back into the pack. Somewhere along the way, three guys managed to get away, and I missed it. So when it came down to about three laps to go, I was still in the pack.

At this point, I decided to just go for it. I took off by myself, hoping that someone would come along. Nobody did, but I figured I’d just try to solo to the finish. This didn’t seem like an especially good idea, but I thought that my chances of making it solo to the finish were better than my chances in a pack sprint at the end. So I just put my head down and went for broke.

As it turned out, I gained enough time on the pack that I was able to solo across the finish line for 4th place. This was a Good Thing, since it meant I was one step closer to my goal of upgrading to Category 2. In those days, for a Junior to get Category 2 required three top-three finishes or six top-six finishes, so 4th place counted. I already had one 1st place finish, so I was on my way.

My prize for this was this pump. And I still have and use it to this day, 30 years later.

This week marks 30 years since the beginning of the 1977 bike racing season. This was my last year racing as a Junior, and I’d set a goal for the year of making Category 2. In those days, if you raced in Juniors, when you turned 18 you went into Category 3. But if you could place in enough Junior races, you could graduate directly into Category 2. Since Categories 1 and 2 generally race together, it meant that if you were a 2, you got to race with the Big Dogs. So I decided that that was what I wanted to do.

I’ve written before about my greatest ride ever, when I got in the breakaway in a big race in 1978. This is the beginning of how I got to race in Category 2.

The first race of the season was the Challenge Cup Road Race at Rockland Lake State Park in New York. It was a four-mile loop with some moderate rolling hills. I figured that I had a pretty good chance of getting into a breakaway there. Since I wasn’t a very good sprinter, I thought that this was my best chance to place in the top 10.

The race was six laps, for 24 miles. Right from the start, I stayed near the front and tried to start a breakaway. Sadly, the other guys who tried it with me weren’t strong enough, and we always got caught by the pack. But I kept at it.

Finally, on the last lap, I was hanging around at the front when I saw one kid take off like a bullet. His name was Frank Kaler, and I found out later that he was known for riding time trials and pursuit, and he was very good at going very fast for 2-3 miles at a time. He was hoping to solo to the finish. I immediately got on his wheel. The way he was going, I thought that we had a pretty good chance of making it to the finish.

We went about a mile before I took a look back. We had a good lead on the pack. I said something like, “Hey, I can pull. Let’s work together and make it to the finish.” He just looked back at me with a wild look in his eye, put his head down and went faster. So I just stayed on his wheel.

About 300 yards from the finish, he started to slow down. I put my head down and poured it on. I went around him and drove straight for the finish. I was sure he was going to tail me and come around at the last second. I just couldn’t even begin to believe that I could actually win the race. Even as I went across the finish line I was still expecting Frank or someone else to catch me and come around. In the picture, it’s apparent that I was in no danger of getting caught, but at the time I was afraid to look back and jinx it.

After I crossed the line, I sat up and looked around, dumbfounded. I’d won the race. Nobody there was more shocked by this than I was. It was a complete surprise, but it was also great fun. I always thought that soloing across the finish line was the absolute best way to win a bike race, and now I’d actually done it. It was the best feeling.

In my racing years, I only won three races. This was the first one, and in many ways, it was the best.