yes this is true... i am starring in and producing my own monthly tv reality series available on demand to viewers through this website.. the show will also be supported by interactive features on this website using audio blogger technology and other gizmos...
follow the adventures monthly on DVDs that i record with my own video recorder... once i get one... team camp is next week so i hope i can get one by then... the dvds might be free because i cant imagine anyone would pay for it... but it depends on how good the shows are and how broke i am... but probably i dont do this at all...
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46 comments:
Erik,
Maybe I haven't been following along as well as I should be, but have you told us which team is lucky enough to have you for the 2006 campaign?
Really. Spill the beans. Did you make D3 this year?
every year i am on the bubble to make it into a team... and i always barely pull it off... i mean shit... its hard to get into an amateur team that you have to spend your own money to race!... its crazy...
i should just race for labor power pro masters team and make the real money and not have to travel at all... that would be the joint...
"i should just race for labor power pro masters team"
sorry, you are not old enough or fat enough yet. at least those other guys are 35+ ...and your new team will be good... Tour of California?
I bet people would actually pay to watch some "home movies" of unscripted life behind the scene of the US pro peloton. PRO seemed to do ok, and Overcoming's best part is the bonus footage. I'd pay a couple bucks for a low-edit DVD. Skip all the production stuff, just find some good pre-race talks and maybe some footage from the team car.
I just don't get it. Why would you pay a 40 year old guy to race 35min. It's gay! Labor should put there money into a badass Jr squad like Major Motion...
OK, you're with a team but you won't name it and you're moving to NC, but you haven't packed yet. Being a man of mystery can be cool sometimes, but ya gotta give us fans a few info crumbs. Inquiring minds want to know!
I agree with Slover. By the time you have sufficiently decayed to race masters, you should have enough resources to race on your own. Masters Pros? Thats bogus. Ok, there are some guys I race against who got golden handshakes or early retirement and can now train all the time. But hey, if they were smart enough or clever enough to pull that off, good for them.
What little money there is in this sport should help out the young guys.
Slover,
Sad to say, but all of the development in US cycling is at the master's level, not Juniors... Look at the start lists, Master's is where the growth is... Kids just don't think at present that bike racing is cool, Lance or no Lance.... Old guys have the $$ to buy the bikes, travel, etc... Plus guys of that demographic are among the most loyal sports viewership. AND they are the most likely to work inside companies that can throw $$ at this thing and grow it. So yes, as much as we bitch about Master's racers, they are in fact our life blood and cash cow...
If I didn't see Juniors rolling up to Races in their Range Rovers, with a $6,000 bike in the back, and their dad playing mechaninc and mommy in the feed zone, plus every little local and regional team throwing kit, bikes, and $$ at them... THEN I will check that little box on my Lisc form and send extra $$ to the fed for junior development.... But it's not like these rich kids are hurting for money and opps... If there were poor kids on shit bike turning out and showing some love, i'd be all for it. But as long as it is a bunch of rich white kids getting everything handed to them on a silver platter, just so they can get bored with it and quit when the go to college, then fuck it. The fed has plenty of $$ for junior racing. Why else would they cover costs for kids whose parents make $350,000/yr to go to development camps? They have more funding than interested aspiring riders...
How about a development fund to provide crash/med insurance for mid-20's privateers who put career/life/family on hold to race and live this?
Also, EROK...
Thank god you are getting back to some bike-related content.
You are going to hate the NPR station in Winston. It sucks... They are one of those public radios who play classical music all day and only NPR content in the form of Morning EDt in the am, then ATC, Marketplace, and Fresh Air in the Pm... Then back to Classical...
Aren't negotiations for teams done? Can't you dish on your digs? (Or did you and I am suffering from brain-freeze). You're too young to ride with the old guys. But a "Pro" 2 would be cool.
rich boys like big toys and their own teams. No different than T. Weisel, just a different scale.
its all about the on-line kcrw simulcast... cool music.. then original news analysis and culture programing.. then all things considered.. then more cool music.. then all night cool music...
when i was coming up i never got shit from the feds.. and then i was last year u23 before they started to care about u23s... but it was too late for me.. i went to an ID camp and they didnt like me.. i tested average and that was that.. never mind that i had better race results than most guys there and i was completely burnt from a year of racing... it seemed to me that they already had their minds made up and they needed the camp to justify their decisions...
its true that there were a bunch of guys there that made it into the program and lasted a year with no results... then only guys still active that were there are kirk obee, and chris baldwin and jon hamblen... and me... of course i think that they missed a chance to have me in their program but it worked out ok for me anyway... how many guys have they just shitted on because they didnt think they were any good?... that was back in the day though and they do things a bit differently now... and i am not really in touch with what is going on with development...
You guys should check out NorCal Mountain Bike League http://www.norcalmtb.org/
Erok even came to a benefit in berkeley to give the program props and talk to the kids. My teammate is coaching a bunch of oakland public school kids who participate, and yes, they just got a grant from USA cycling development. There should be more. More to the point: why not give directly to NorCal and put $ where you know it belongs instead of to USA cycling who takes overhead & stuff that comes with checking that box you're talkin 'bout.
cgu, you are an idiot. get new young riders into the sport, the sport gets better and bigger, the old guys want to roll like the young guys, then the old guys spend more money. It takes a while for this to work but narrow minded people like yourself just want everything to work right now. In the state of cycling right now Jr.'s should be focused on.
- Nad Boy
norcal mtb league.. yes.. it gets kids on bikes... you should see children of the dirt.. its their movie.. it makes you feel great for these kids that enjoy going out and biking... it put me in a good mood for a week...
Hey Nad Boy...
"get new young riders into the sport"
That is exactly my point, there are no new young riders coming into the sport...
I bet if you could check the demographics for all new cat 5 lisc holders in the USA, 50% of them would be 40+, about 35% would be former atheletes in other non-traditional sports (cross country, swimmers, etc)... Only that last 25% would be young guys or never before competed types... of that 25%, I bet less than 8-10% are junior racers....
As far as I see at 60-80 races a year, all the juniors that do show up are riding in their loaded parents bimmers and racing bikes with 'pit' wheels worth more than my entire racing setup...
So yeah, show me scads of juniors who are hungry to race and show up on Targa spec'ed bikes, mow lawns for entry fees, and bust their ass to line up rides to races... Then I will say put more money into junior development... As long as I see all these spoiled rich brats with their hand out expecting full kit and a plush ride, just because they happen to be 16 and won a cat.4 race... Fuck that.
bravo cgu bravo
If USA Cyling wants to get new blood into the sport they should target high schools- but it'll never happen due to the high costs of insurance to cover the sport. Better to keep the kids on a field where you can keep an eye on them rather than dice it up in traffic.
Face it- the US doesn't have the tradition of cycling nor the infrastructure to develop new talent, and until we do the only new blood we're going to get are rich kids, or super talented kids that come out of nowhere.
cgu: sounds like someone is bitter they got left off the team...
As someone only a year removed from the junior ranks, I'd just like to point out that there are juniors out there busting their asses in order to pay for parts and entry fees.
I do, however, agree that there are way too many juniors that have everything handed to them on a silver platter. The number of 13 year olds on $6000 TT bikes at nationals is sickening.
"Anonymous said...
cgu: sounds like someone is bitter they got left off the team..."
Yeah, I am 29... And bitter that I'm not on team mommy... I have a team, but it's not just because I happen to be a certain age.
There is actualy a kid here who's dad bought a $125,000 tour bus (ala bon jovi) to drive his son to all the races ($7,000 bike in tow)... We call it 'the wealth wagon'... Too bad he quit after one year... Thus proving my point.
the thing is, kids come into the sport and their parents buy them the best equipment they can... then when they get old enough to have to start cutting back in other areas to pay for their own bike equipment and they see how it cut's back their ability to buy their trendy clothes, so they quite... impressing chicks/guys is much more important...
I did the whole junior thing and watched the kids with rich parents get to go to all the cool races across the country and get the experience... while USA Cycling didn't even respond to my emails for travel grants... all this while I had better results then some of the spoiled rich kids... now it's U23 and not much different... except we all go broke trying to make it to races unless we're U23 national team... which hasn't changed at all from Erik's last experience with them...
i just want to develop the sport by using money to bring in hotter chicks. 90% look like beef jerky or they like they rode in on the wagon train for the gold rush. sheeeeeit.
let's pool some cash together and get team 4-play together and get some girls 'off the pole' and into the the real action. we can get sidi to make acrylic cycling shoes and maybe cannondale will rock a brass bike for them so they feel at home. hell.. slover was a plastic surgeon... i'm sure he can enhance em as a prime..
where there are titties.. the dads will follow with junior in tow.
peace out bitches. wut.
n.. but not n-dogg.
I don't dissagree with the whole "rich boy" thing, but it's a niche sport with a higher buy-in than golf. What'd you expect?
Of course, there's stock car racing... hmmm...
(In reference to the many rich white boy comments)
...and it's just the opposite in Europe---especially Eastern Europe. It's a working man's sport and potentially a guy's way out for following in the old man's shoe's and raising pigs/factory work. Thus bike racer's have more credibility as athlete's outside of the US.
It'd seem that track racing would be a good high-school way of getting guys/gals on bikes and potentially racing. Take it a step further and get some company (Trek? Giant? Jamis?) to subsidise the sport by donating a size run to the "track" or the school for the athlete's. No traffic to deal with for alleviating some of the danger/liability, and great training. I think the track is a good introduction place to the sport of cycling.
There are more soccor/baseball/hockey/football Mom's driving big old SUV's to the sport de jour for their kids. Why not a track-Mom too?
Hey Parke, "higher buy-in than golf"? Are you kidding? Priced a good set of clubs w/bag lately? How about greens fees and/or club membership. Don't forget quarterly restaurant minimums, the customary post-round boozing, caddie tips etc. How about all the balls that end up in the water or woods (OK, maybe thats me). Anyhow, whenever my dear spouse starts to beef about the cost of cycling, I just bring out the golf bogeyman. Works every time.
One more thing about the juniors. If a kid really likes cycling and is crazy for it, then they should be supported. In our case, by our club. However, in the case of a talented athlete who has a choice of varsity sports or cycling, I always advised them to stay with the school program. It's the only time in their lives that they can do something like that. I would not have given up that experience for anything. Not to forget the clincher argument for an adolescent; at school games/meets, all the hotties are watching you.
RE: The Junior thing...
Why not go to a system like they used in TDU (or was is Langkawai?) last year, namely, for the TTs only clip-on aero bars were allowed. No disks, no rims over 25mm, etc...
It made it easier on the smaller teams who can't afford the $10k superbikes, and made it easier on the big teams too, not having to ship 8 TT bikes to the end of the earth.
Just sayin'!
Steve: I agree completely! If there are UCI rules for Pro Teams regarding bikes' set up, then you could have even more restrictions for juniors- 17 lbs bikes, 32 spokes, etc, etc. If they race with seniors then no resrictions, but all juniors competing together should be on the same level. But it would give officials something to do, and that could be rough- they might actually have to pay attention!
all of you race right? well have your team start a Jr. program! END OF STORY!
gay
WE DO YOU
RVD
we have a junior program. do research before you shoot your mouth, fool.
I don't dissagree with the whole "rich boy" thing, but it's a niche sport with a similar buy-in to golf. What'd you expect?
HAPPY?
'swear to christ...
Since all of you spend so much time talking about this why don't you buy some sweet Capo socks for your Jr's and Masters.
- Nad Boy
back to the team discussion...if winston-salem, then NERAC
My whole comment was fuck the juniors.... I don't want to start a junior team.... Nobody ever started a team for has-been/never-was/almost made it 29yr old assholes like me....
Let them suffer for their passion... If they don't become good racers, they never would have anyway...
Wow cgu, can you feel the love? Dude, you blow big wang.
- Nad Boy
cgu: ahh, wonder why you got left off the team....?
What are ya'll talking about? When did I try to get on a junior team? I didn't start riding until I was 25 yrs old... And I'm on a team now... With a 2x better deal than I had last year.
So uhhhh... WTF?
Now ask me what I think about women's cycling.
I don't think anyone really cares what you think right now. We can sort of guess... uh, you think it's lame right? Do I have ESPN or what!
- Nad Boy
Nah, i don't think it's lame.
Hey einstein, your team from '05 is going to do real races, you got left out to dry, therefore you are bitter.
Define 'real races'?
I guess I will be doing a bunch of fake races this season?
Real races: NRC. What you'll be doing is a bunch of broken dick "race to the back of the Hamblen's wheel" type races.
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