Dismissed!

In a season of ups and downs, I’ve now hit a low point. I was dismissed from my team this past Monday, apparently because I couldn’t play nice with others. This is an extremely embarrassing situation for me, but I’m going to have to explain this at some point. First, I’ll give some background of my “Bad Boy” status. Back in April, after I raced the Boulder Beer race, one of our team leaders (overall Rocky Mounts team, not specifically the 35+/Cat. 4 team) sent out an email chastising me for wearing last year’s jersey. The tone of the note was nasty, saying that my conduct was “unacceptable” and that I was “letting down our sponsors.” He also said that the ACA would find this acceptable because they have a rule about wearing current kits. This was either a lie or ignorance since the ACA has no rule. You'd think an experience racer, and this guy had been racing for many years, would know this or at least check into it before using it as an extortion weapon. At first I responded quite cordially. I explained that I didn’t have this year’s jersey and was explicitly told by our team caption that I was not required to buy a new kit for this year. Our kits are expensive and aren’t subsidized in any way, so I bought pieces that I didn’t already have, like a long-sleeve jersey. I offered to buy a new jersey, but the lead time for this is 2-3 months, so most of the season would be gone. I also asked a few pointed questions such as:

1. What do the sponsors do for me, so that I am obligated to them?

2. Where does the sponsors’ money go?

3. Who are our development team riders?

No logical answer was given to the first question, though the powers that be would highly dispute that statement. The financial dealings of this team are highly secret and not revealed to anyone besides the leaders, so the second question was mostly ignored. You’d think the third question would be simple, but it took asking it three or four times before it was answered. My team dues subsidize these riders as well yet it was even difficult for me to get their names. Our team supports a number of development riders, some quite talented, some not so much. How these riders are picked was not revealed nor answered when directly asked. Some rather pointed emails (on both sides) were exchanged on these issues without any resolution. Without any input on my part or previous notice, I was refunded my team dues. At that time I thought I was dismissed from the team, but then received an email telling me I wasn’t off the team, but felt it was easier to refund the money than to explain to me how I’m obligated to the sponsors. I didn’t ask for this nor wanted it. I only wanted the nasty tone of the emails about me letting down sponsors for which I couldn’t understand my obligation to them to stop. My only request was to stop the nasty emails.

This issue eventually died down and I thought it was behind us, but apparently it left a very bad taste in the mouth of the team leaders. I too was quite dissatisfied with the attitude of the team leadership and started to explore what it takes to start a cycling team. There really isn’t anything to it. The only difficult part is recruiting enough riders in the categories of interest to make team riding a reality. But back to the issue at hand.

Two weeks ago eight of my former teammates raced the Mike Horgan hill climb, a brutal race of steep climbing that went up Sugarloaf road this year. I was away that weekend climbing 14ers with Sheri. Unbeknownst to me, my brother in-law, Kraig, also enter this race in our category. Kraig is an outstanding endurance athlete and well known around the Boulder community of runners, bikers, triathletes, and Nordic skiers. He doesn’t do much bike racing, but loves the sufferfests up the big hills, where he excels. Anyway, the team races, does well, thinking they finished first, second, third, and fourth in the race, but then the results come out. It has the team listed as first, third, fourth, and sixth. “Who were these other guys?” the team wondered. The results correctly listed Kraig in second place, but our team protested his finish, claiming that he must have started in an earlier wave. This was indeed the case with the 4^th place finisher, but our team had absolutely no reason to protest Kraig’s placement. In doing so, they got Kraig moved completely out of the results for our category and placed well down in the Cat. 4 group, which had left five minutes before our group. Kraig contacted me about this, saying, “What happened?”

I sent a note out to our team leader and the ACA director vouching for Kraig and confirming that he was indeed 2^nd place. He described the race perfectly and he kept track of his competition, unlike our team. I thought that would be the end of it, but the ACA director came back saying that since my email she got another email from the rider on our team who claimed he was 2^nd and that “no one passed me.” This was an untruth and I sent out an email calling it a lie. Using the word “lie” got me in trouble as it indicated malicious intent. I didn’t know this rider at all and probably shouldn’t have assumed the worse, but family was involved and I got more aggressive than I should have. It’s ironic in that I pride myself on being very reasonable and logical yet at the same time I know I’m an emotional hothead.

The rider in question finally admitted that two riders indeed passed him within a few kilometers from the finish. One of these riders was Kraig. This rider then checked Kraig’s time and when he noticed that Kraig only finished 16 seconds ahead of him said, “Oh, if I had known he was in our group I’d have certainly beat him.” This comment disgusted me and I sent a pointed email to that effect. Did this mean it was okay to not mention being passed? Because he “would have beaten him?” My emails about this I suspected pushed things past the point of no return. Kraig was so disgusted by our team’s behavior that he refused to race in our category the next weekend at Mt. Evans. He insteaded raced in the 35+ division and finished 15^th with a time of 2:05. If he had raced in our category, he’d have won the race and he would have beaten the rider in question from Horgan by four minutes.

The next day I felt bad about the harsh language in my emails and sent out an apology for getting so heated. I have no doubt that if this discussion had taken place face to face that it wouldn’t have gotten out of hand. I know that email can get this way, having been burned myself with it before. I should have known better and I have no one to blame by myself. At Mt. Evans I didn’t see much of the team until the finish, where I congratulated Scott and Bruce for the top ten placements. I was essentially ignored by these guys then so when I got an email from our team captain on Monday saying that he needed to talk to me, I feared the worst.

We spoke Monday evening and Bruce told me that because of my previous altercations and this new one that the team leaders have decided to dismiss me from the team. I didn’t say much. I really wanted to finish out the season with the team, but it was not to be. Racer dismissed has got to be extremely rare at the amateur level so it was extremely embarrassing that my behavior was so reprehensible as to require my release. I was released about the same time T-Mobile released Jan Ullrich. I was already registered for the Salida Omnium the next weekend, but would now have to race unattached. I asked about my race kit and was told that it would be bought back from me. This was very fair of them since I wouldn’t be wearing it anymore.

The rest of the week I wallowed in self-pity, not sure if I wanted to race any more. I was in Atlanta on business Monday through Thursday and I didn’t do any exercise. I made up for it by eating like hippo. I was going to be very uncomfortable at the next race. Our team captain sent out an email to our team newsgroup, of which my access was revoked. I was sent the contents of this email and it just said that I would no longer be racing for Rocky Mounts. A few of the riders contacted me to ask, “What the hell happened?” I explained the situation to them and I’m sure they got the other side of the issue.

I wasn’t really planning on racing much next year and just wanted to dedicate myself to one year of bike racing. Right now I’m still not sure I’ll finish out the season. It sure has made for an interesting year, though.