Supercross Cup (UCI C2) Weekend Preview

STONY POINT, NY— After a largely “embro-free” season of sunny skies, short-fingered gloves and file-treads, sub-freezing temperatures are predicted to fall November 23 during the opening day of UCI C2 racing at the Supercross Cup just 34 miles north of New York City.

With no other UCI racing on tap this weekend, some of the country’s top crossers will be slogging it out in the shadows of Harriman State Park's Bear Mountain. Tim Johnson (Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld) and Ben Berden (Raleigh Clement) are the prohibitive favorites (especially if muddy conditions prevail) for the top two steps of the podium. The battle for bronze looks to be equally, if not more, exciting. Let’s take a look at some of the contenders:

Anthony Clark (Jam Fund/NCC), along with teammate Stephen Hyde, Clark is having a breakthrough year already taking third places in two UCI races (Full Moon Vista & HPCX). But standing tall next to the likes of Johnson and Berden this weekend? That would be a career achievement.

Mike Garrigan (Van Dessel) can always be counted on to ensure a blisteringly fast opening lap, but this year, we’ve seen—with 3 UCI podiums, including a win last week at Kutztown—that he’s got staying power too. Look for the Canadian to be a legitimate threat for the podium, especially if it’s muddy.
  
Dan Timmerman (House Industries-Richard Sachs-RGM) won at Supercross in 2012, finished sixth on day 1 of Cycle-Smart International in 2013 and if his lingering left leg circulation issues ease on race day, a podium placing is a very real possibility.

Shawn Milne (Keough Cyclocross p/b Felt Bicycles) has had his share of “double-legit, this-dude-is-for-reals,” results in 2013, including a win on day 2 of the Cycle-Smart International  (2^nd on day 1) and 7^th place on the opening day of Jingle Cross. But he’s also logged in results in the teens and twenties. Which Shawn Milne shows up this weekend remains to be seen.

Jeremy Durrin (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) was “the little engine that could” in 2012/2013 as he racked up top results as an amateur racing in the UCI Elite fields. This year, as a full-on pro, he’s struggled to put all the pieces together for the kind of results we know are possible. This may be his weekend to shine.

Adam Myerson (Team SmartStop-Mountain Khakis), on his best form in years, just may be the dark (and tattooed) horse for this weekend. Race organizer and course designer Myles Romanow typically creates courses that demand good handling skills (as well as strength and fitness), and there are few better bike drivers than the cagey vet.

Stephen Hyde (Jam Fund/NCC) had stunning early season success, including besting the likes of no less than Jonathan Page (Fuji-Spy-Competitive Cyclist) in Baltimore, but injuries have kept him from pinning on a race number since his DNF at the Cycle-Smart International.

Kerry Warner, Jr (MOB CX Team) is the reigning Div 1 Collegiate CX champion, and despite a light CX racing schedule in 2013, he still managed to score an 8^th place on day 1 of Cincy3. Fresh legs may rule the day come this weekend. Stay tuned!

Boasting $2034 to the top 15, the UCI Elite Women's field looks to be a largely regional battle. Laura Van Gilder (Van Dessel p/b Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers) will be looking to extend her winning streak to 5 races in a row. While Van Gilder has won no less than 7 of her last 8 races, that doesn’t mean she won’t have competition. Arley Kemmerer (C3-Twenty20 Cycling Co.), 15^th in the opening round of the World Cup just one month ago, has come in second to Van Gilder for the past two weekends in a row. It’s hard to imagine she’s not extra motivated to reverse the trend.

Much like the men’s race, the battle for third appears to be a little more wide open. Emma White (Cyclocrossworld.com) has proven to be a consistent performer, racking up top-6 placings (including 3^rd at Cycle-Smart International day 2) in her last 4 UCI races. However, racing much more recently than White, Amanda Carey (Stan’s No Tubes Elite) went out to Jingle Cross and came back with two top-10 performances against the likes of Katerina Nash (Luna Pro Team) and Maureen Bruno Roy (Bob’s Red Mill p/b Seven Cycles). Finally, the field will ignore local stand-out Stacey Barbossa (NY/NJ Colavita Women’s Team) at their own peril. Just two weeks ago, Barbossa placed 5^th at the UCI C2 HPCX race suggesting that she’s finding her form just in time for a Supercross Cup showdown.

Dad in Training: What have you done for me lately?

Lunch break with my beautiful wife

This past Father’s Day Sunday, Sarah and I spent the day with instructor Michele (one “L”) and five other "expecting" couples at Mount Sinai Hospital getting an intensive crash course on what to expect in the next few weeks leading up to our son’s birth day.

Our mothers took Lamaze courses in the 1970s, today our friends have recommended The Bradley Method and our chillaxed OB/GYN said that simply taking “a hospital course” would be good. The decision on which route to take was not guilt-free (oh, goody, it starts already). Were we somehow depriving our boy of his opportunity to become president, Nobel prize-winner and/or an astronaut because we were only taking a hospital course? (Or is his fate already sealed because I have yet failed to serenade him in utero with a Rachmaninoff etude?)

Most folks seem to think Sarah and I will be at least fair parents because 1) I am an ER nurse and generally know when it is best to take your child to the emergency room (almost never) and 2) Sarah has been editing articles about families and children for her entire professional career. Of course, our collective experiences have not prevented us from still being mostly terrified about our next big adventure. And just in case us future-tense parents ever start feeling too confident, we’ve got plenty of present-time parents to sigh, shake their head slowly and remind us that we can’t possibly know anything. Awesome.

Our class, for me, did not start out well. I was fully prepared to give my name and rank (husband, 2nd class), but I was not prepared for the question that came next.

“What kind of reading have you done leading up to this class?”

HuhWHAT? No one told me there was homework due! Does watching back to back episodes of MTV's "16 and Pregnant" count? Sarah’s father, a super big time labor lawyer, used to teach at Cornell University and he always had an assignment due for the first day of class. Catching mere mortals with their academic fancy-pants down. I can’t believe I’ve been “Arthur B. Smith Jr-ed” on Father’s Day!

Ironically, I actually had done some reading before class. But true to form my entire academic career, anytime anything is posed to me in the form of a test question, I fail. I sheepishly mumbled something meant to be funny about torturing my wife with pictures and diagrams from one of my nursing school textbooks. [cue chirping crickets]

Meanwhile, back in a world devoid of brain farts, I just finished a book by humorist and author Joel Stein, called Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. In addition to making me laugh out loud at least once per chapter, this book ultimately helped put me at ease as fatherhood rapidly approaches.

Stein confesses, “I should be lighting a cigar, high-fiving the doctor, and grabbing my genitals to celebrate that my sperm are manly, even for sperm. But when I look at the tiny splotch of Doppler weather pattern on the screen and Cassandra’s obstetrician says it means we’re probably having a boy, I do not do any of these things. Instead I have my first panic attack…I am merely picturing having to go camping and fix a car and use a hammer and throw a football and watch professionals throw footballs and figure out whether to be sad or happy about the results of said football throwing.”

I'm not exactly a real guys' guy and so, like Stein, I feel somewhat under-prepared to raise a proper boy. In addition to growing up with two sisters, more than half of my friends growing up were female. The other half were dudes I met while playing Master Charley Bates in my high school musical production of Oliver. They did not give out letterman jackets for being in 2 separate choirs my junior and senior years. I was even in the Orchesis dance troupe. And not just one of the cool guys-only hip-hop dance numbers…I went to practice every day, I caught flying ballet dancers and wore cartoon character costumes too. This earned me exactly ZERO dates with gorgeous dancers. I guess tap-dancing Snoopy, not so much a sex-symbol with the ladies. Shocking, I know.

Marc in the middle, red suspenders to match the girls' shiny red leotards while singing Billy Joel's "For the Longest Time."

Today, when I walk past groves of pre-teen boys hanging out in the parks of NYC, I look at them wondering to what kingdom, phylum and species they belong. How will I prepare my son to interact with such creatures who do not know what a Jazz square is? (Heathens)

Stein’s answer to our dilemma was to set out on a journey of self-discovery, challenging himself to some of the manliest activities known to man. Among other things, there was camping with Boy Scouts, running with firefighters, shooting with tanks, and fighting with mixed martial art legend Randy Couture.

Flipping through my HARDCOVER edition on the subway (take that you iPad, snooky-Nook, Kindle-reading girly-men), my own confidence grew with every page turn. I was an actual Cub, Webelos and Boy Scout. Our family vacations almost always began with us pulling up to a campsite long after dark and trying to erect an enormous canvas tent supported by roughly 1500 separate sections of indistinguishable aluminum poles. And before I started making an ass of myself auditioning for musicals, choirs and dance troupes, my mom made sure I tried the things I was supposed to try.

“Marc, we live in Chicago now. In Chicago, they play ice hockey. You are going to play ice hockey.”

As an adult, I was an EMT, and I am currently an ER nurse (the second most manly kind of nurse there is). And while I won’t be Mr. February on any fund-raising calendars wearing just my drawstring scrub bottoms, I kind of get what the firefighter life is like. 

My son will watch the original Karate Kid, many times. Because there is no such thing as too much awesome.

My few years of Karate study at the West Side YMCA (oh, yes, Daniel LaRusso, make no mistake about it, this is a very real Karate dojo), ensured I got hit plenty of times by men and women who were only referred to as Jun Shihan, Kyoshi and Sensei. Getting hit by people called “sensei” is serious business.

Reading Stein's book encouraged me to consider the truth and totality of my actual life-experiences, not merely my own viscous, ethereal perceptions of who I am.

Stein concludes, “You change not by deciding, but by doing. We fetishize epiphanies, but only experience changes you. Just like the act of smiling makes you happy, climbing a log tower makes you confident, taking punches makes you tough…I’ve never understood what people mean when they talk about spending time alone to find themselves…The idea that we’re each a black box we have to unlock always baffled me. I’m the sum of my experiences and my reaction to those experiences.”

Yes, when I had the choice to play JV football in high school, I turned it down because, in a school that had at least a dozen different plays and musicals every school year, I was still worried that I would miss an audition. I loved me some musical theater. Still do. But today, I’m also going to be a father who is going to figure out a way to make sure my boy is a Chicago Bears and not New York Giants or Jets fan. Right after we act out West Side Story’s “Cool.”

“Boy, boy, crazy boy…stay cool boy…gotta rocket in my pocket…”