Comments on: 2015 Rockwell Relay Race Report, Part 9: Battles, Conclusions, and Questions

By: Danny

Danny — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 12:29:17 +0000

@walter. I suppose I was more like Pinot than Martin with regards to taking a bike :). It honestly didn’t cross my mind. Mary is much taller than I am, and Marci is much shorter than I am, but I think that the more critical deal is that I ride speed play, and I think they both are on Look pedals.

By: Rockstarster

Rockstarster — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 14:39:34 +0000

“Subber-Wubber.” It came to me in the night that if you say it phonetically, it has much more panache than if you say it “Team S-B-R/W-B-R.”

Team Subber-Wubber. I’d wear that jersey.

In case you are required to defend your title, with your actual title.

And it’s kinda sad that I think about this kind of thing in the night. Pathetic, really.

By: walter

walter — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 02:12:45 +0000

I would tend to agree that perhaps domestiques is not within the spirit but that is beyond my knowledge of the race. In any event, the secret to the race is clearly DON’T turn down Fatty’s brats!!!

By: walter

walter — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 01:56:41 +0000

Wow – one of your best pieces of writing, though I think you still have lots of great stories/writing left. Pinnacle?Not by a long shot.

One thing I don’t understand is why didn’t Mark take mary/mar ci’s bike and keep moving until the sag vehicle could catch up, fix his wheel and then switch back to his bike. If I understand, this was Fatty’s plan if he got a flat.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 01:37:42 +0000

Reading your blog makes me wish I had ridden Rockwell this year and I DID ride it (with Thad et al) that’s how well you’ve captured the spirit of this race.

With your followers and readers it’s a wonder there aren’t 500 teams signed up for this event. Here’s hoping for something close to that next year. More riders = more stories, more friends, more converts, more fun.

Congratulations on the hard earned victory. See you in Swanney Park, second Thursday of June, 2016.

By: dgyeates

dgyeates — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 22:21:32 +0000

I’m exhausted.

By: Zone Five

Zone Five — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:59:58 +0000

Fatty,

It’s comforting to know that you agree that a Team Fatty decision to ride solo instead of co-ed competitive next year would be the same as a concession blog post 346 days in the making – a tad bit pre-mature!

While I’m sure that Troy, Danny, Billy, M&M&M, and Big-D have their own plans, the real questions you failed to ask are “Who is Zone Five Racing?” and “How badly are they going to beat us by next year?”

2016 can’t come fast enough…or can it?

CUE OMINOUS MUSIC. – FC

By: MattC

MattC — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:35:30 +0000

Rats..some of my comment disappeared! At the bottom of the first para:

(you might even go back into past years posts and add some of that info into your book as there’s lots more good stuff).

By: MattC

MattC — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:33:27 +0000

All in all, it was a FANTASTIC report Fatty! I think you should compile ALL of it (including all the comments from your competitors)into a small cycling-book about the Rockwell Relay race, including all your pre-posts about strategy, eating, etc…it would be VERY informative for somebody looking to do it for the first time (you might even go

I have to admit that at FIRST when you mentioned the Infinite teams plan to always have a ‘domestique’ helping their active rider, I thought it was lame and akin to cheating (even though it was allowed in the rules).

However…as the story progressed, I came to realize that it was actually quite brilliant. Everybody knows road-racing is a TEAM sport, and nobody typically wins a race (except maybe Fabian) on their own. Strategy is a HUGE part cycling and always will be…and as always, the pre-race strategy only goes so far and then you have to be able to regroup and adapt on the road as the conditions change moment by moment.

It was an AWESOME race by both teams plain and simple…and it’s only a shame that somebody has to lose. But by all of you giving it your absolute best, there truly are no losers, only winners.

By: MikeL

MikeL — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:53:22 +0000

In the end it does not matter what if this or what if that. It is what it is or as I call it “on any given Saturday”. Maybe a good mathematician could model all of it in terms of Chaos Theory.

This whole race report is one of the best pieces of cycling related writing I have seen. Your writing was entertaining as always but having the comments of Troy, Danny, and other folks to provide an additional counterpoint and commenting took this report up another level.

Congratulations to all.

Well put!

Maybe, in some alternate universe, Mary hadn’t been sick the week before, Mark hadn’t hurt his back sometime recently, Danny had changed his tire when noticing it was soft, Infinite Stamina hit all their exchanges perfectly, and — most importantly — Troy didn’t spurn the bratwurst (and all its glorious, cramp-preventing, power-giving calories) offered by us the day before the race.

In this alternate universe, no doubt everything was different in this race, and the two teams are now considering a completely different set of “what if’s.”

Still, in this alternate universe, Troy is that much happier, since whenever he is having a bad day now, he can always draw on the memory of eating the best darned bratwurst in any universe. – FC