Lesson one...

...in the pros mentality.  Attitude means as much as anything.

Score after match 1:  Alan 650.  Aer Lingus Nil...
We're at Logan airport, on the way out.  Alan's flight comes in from Colorado.  We collect him at terminal C and hoof over to E.  Aer Lingus counter.  Smiling young not at all Irish girl offers us $650 to give up our seats on an overbooked flight.  

Before I could laugh out the words "You're joking, No way I'm deviating from my months planned in advance, extra rest day in Dublin," the pros' voice of conscience answered for us. Alan's.

"We should do it..it's a lot of money.  What'd ya think?"  

Sometimes the difference between pro and schmoe is revealed on a false flat at 48kph. Sometimes it's revealed in opportunistic decisions to incur discomfort and routine disruption in return for cash.

Lesson one in being a Pro.  Always, always take the cash.

Alan snagged this first prime.  $650 plus transport and lodging vouchers. Paul and I vacillated and were going to join him to keep the band together, but now that they had three volunteers grabbing at the bait, suddenly they only needed one, for the moment.  Corporate indecision.  Typical...

Leaving enough time to reconsider the trade offs.  Risk of not seeing already-checked-in bike until a day later.  Stark reality of a lost day spent in a Peabody Holiday Inn holding cell.  The opportunity cost of losing the acclimation day and our only free time in Dublin.

The girl at the Aer Lingus desk still couldn't commit.  Maybe we'll need one more.  Flight time approaching.

The cock crowed three times.  Paul and I took the flight.  The real pro took the money.  See you Saturday!

So the points classification before the Ras even started is A. McCormack 650 - Aer Lingus 0.
...and no sign of the intended stand-by substitute for Alan's seat.
Corporate waste knows no bounds.
A professional cyclist's decision calculus is much more logical than the incentive policies of multi national corporations with more money than sense.  For alas, Alan's paid-for seat remained vacant all the way to Dublin.  No sign of the stand-by passenger it was intended to be filled by.  Cue trombone music jongens!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time tested, old school early season training advice

Image
I just love the article below. I found it on the web years ago. It's a lecture by Dr. Marco Pierfederici, a trainer who used to work with Eddy Merckx and Italian pro teams back in the ’70 and ‘80s. He delivered this talk at a training camp in Miami organized by a long-gone business called 'Italia Velo Sport'. They imported Battaglin and Francesco Moser frames, Campagnolo and Gipiemme components and other Italian clothing and gear. This innovative, early discount mail order company brought champion Francesco Moser to a winter camp with US amateurs in 1982, and then brought over Giovanni Battaglin and his teammates, I believe in early 1983. The pros spent the days logging early season easy miles with starry-eyed US amateurs, and spent evenings giving clinics to imparting old world 'knowledge'. An old friend and CCB teammate Rick Graham attended that camp. A few weeks later as we were tapping out the miles around Gloucester Mass., I remember Rick talking ab
Read more

Benotto dreams...

Image
Before the US National Road Race Championship, August 1982. Hard to believe now jongens , but once upon a time I could sprint a bike through a crowd fast enough that somebody actually saw fit to sponsor me. It's a faded memory I needed to keep drawing upon several times this past season... Way back in 1981 I was recruited by Constantin Negulescu to join his Northstar Bicycle Club.  The ex-Romanian national team rider had put together an elite US Amateur team, sponsored by a slate of leading Italian cycling brands:  Bicicletas Benotto, Gipiemme components, Ambrosio rims, Hutchinson tires and IscaSella Saddles.   With the exception of Hutchinson (who still makes killer tubeless tires... raced this whole season on one pair), most are brands either dead, or largely missing in action.  But back in '82, well, it was the perfect gear. "Good enough for Roger DeVlaeminck or Moser, good enough for you!" Talk about Christmas morning... I can still remember being in
Read more

Will the real one percent please stand up: How much should your bike cost?

Image
Bernard Thevenet,  in a 1975 Tour time trial.  Averaging 27.9 mph on a stock steel Reynolds 531 frame, with crap (sorry) Mafac, Simplex and Stronglight components.   Read with some amusement the other day that article about the advent of the $10,000+ road bike .   'Halo bikes' they call them.   Halo Bikes.  Hallelujah, let the pigeons loose.    Ten to twelve grand for a race bike?   Utterly ridiculous.  On oh, so many levels.  It got me shaking my thick-mick head, and thinking longingly back to the good ol' days.  The mid '70's, when road racing bicycles were all hand brazed, lugged steel tubing.  Your wheel choice?  Pick 28, 32 or 36 spokes.   Grouppo?  Either Campagnolo Nuovo Record, Super Record or maybe Shimano DuraAce.   There were a lot of bicycle company 'brands' (e.g. frame designers, brazers and assemblers), but the basic ingredients were all about the same really.   Funny thing was, guys still rode 30 mph on them, no problem.    In fact,
Read more