This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, July 6, 2009 - Mike Bruzina sat in the shade, reflecting on his race while cyclists flew by. "My bike's done," he said. "I thought it was OK, but I bent one of the seat stays, so it's a loss, the frame at least. Which is funny, because I got hit by a car on another bike, so now I'm without a road bike for a while."
At the annual Webster Groves Criterium on June 28, Bruzina was not alone. The Category 3/4 race had three separate crashes, sending one cyclist to the hospital with a broken collarbone and a punctured lung. Even though he only "got a little scraped up," Bruzina estimated that it would cost $700 to replace his bike's frame.
Strangers to road cycling might be skeptical of the sport, given the high costs of accidents. Others might cringe at the thought of the injuries. But the cyclists think their passion just needs a little explanation.
And maybe a little tolerance for pain.
Training Wheels: a Beginner's Guide
Bernard van Ulden has seen all cycling has to offer -- almost.
"Never the Tour de France, never done that," he smiled.
A San Francisco native, the 29-year-old has been riding bikes since he was in middle school. His parents pushed him into the sport; his father is from Holland, "a country where everybody rides bikes." Van Ulden recalled, "If I ever wanted to get anywhere, to go to a friend's house or even get to school, my parents were like, 'Go ride your bike!'"
From commuting, he branched out to more intense riding -- first mountain biking, then road cycling. He cited the community as one aspect that attracted him to the latter. "You see big groups, 60, 80, 100 people, men and women, going out for these rides," he said. Then, he found the local racing scene.
Like most sports, competitive road cycling is separated into tiers. Amateurs have five categories. Beginners enter Category 5. In racing, they accumulate points and try to reach Category 1. From there, riders can be signed to a team and become pros.
"I'm on salary, essentially; this is my job," said van Ulden. He rides for the Jelly Belly Pro Cycling Team, based in San Diego.
Staying competitive at the pro level takes work. "On average, I'm riding three to five or six hours a day, six days a week," van Ulden said. Depending on its purpose, his training varies: A shorter ride will include more sprints to build up his anaerobic capacity, while longer, lower-intensity rides will increase endurance.
He pads his schedule with plenty of rest. "If you're constantly exercising all the time and you never give your body the opportunity to recover, you'll never build strength, and you'll never increase your fitness," he said. "So I sleep as long as my body needs to sleep."
"It can be a pretty nice, lackadaisical schedule," he admitted. "Then again, it's February, it's 40 degrees outside and raining, you still have to go for a four-, five-hour bike ride."
The Local Scene
Van Ulden makes racing sound easy; Ron Clipp, owner of the Hub Bicycle Co. in Webster Groves, put his comments into context.
"Those races are not easy," he said. "Even the beginning level, Category 5, I would probably say that 99.8 percent of the population would have trouble doing."
But many St. Louisans have not been discouraged. Because Clipp sells a lot of the bikes St. Louis racers use, helps manage the Hub's own cycling team and organizes the Webster Groves Criterium, he is able to observe the cycling community closely. "The racing is growing," he said. "A lot more people are showing up at races, and we're seeing more people jumping into the sport as well, which is great."
Zack Stein, an 18-year-old Category 1 rider, agrees. "I raced in California and it still seems like they think it's a joke here," he recalled, "but the races that everybody puts on are unbelievable. And there are a lot of races here."
In addition to the races, the local community largely revolves around shops like the Hub or Big Shark Bicycle Co. in the Delmar Loop. Clipp estimated that of the 20 to 25 bike shops in the St. Louis area, about a quarter have their own teams. To counter the potentially discouraging intensity of the races themselves, these shops often host rides. "If you can stay up on our shop ride you can stay up pretty much in races as well," explained Clipp. "That's how you can judge your fitness, too."
Because the shops and their riders constantly compete, they get to know each other. "For the most part, all the bike shops get along pretty well together," Clipp said. "If we have something they need or they have something we need, we'll get it for them or sell it to them for no problem."
Similar relationships form between racers. "Ninety-five percent of them get along terrifically," Clipp said. "It's a pretty good sport in that aspect, in that everybody is friends and has known each other for a long time."
"Out there they want to beat you worse than anything, and afterward they'll slap you on the back and say, 'Hey, good race'."
Having raced in St. Louis for four years, Stein has gotten to know most of the Category 1 and 2 riders. "Usually the camaraderie is pretty good," he said. "Occasionally in races people yell and scream, but everybody knows that it's just part of racing. Your nerves get worked up during the race."
Out at the Races
A newcomer to competitive cycling can most easily observe this intensity if he visits a race and watches.
Van Ulden and the Jelly Belly pro team came to St. Louis for the Tour de Winghaven, which took place on June 21. A three-mile circuit race, the course took cyclists in a loop, with the pro riders passing the spectators about once every six minutes. Because the race itself is 86 miles long, it lasted around three hours. A newcomer might find this to be too much, especially given the 110-degree heat index. And Clipp blamed St. Louis' extreme weather for containing the size of the area's cycling scene.
"The weather is not conducive" to supporting a pro team, he said. A more recent week saw rain every day, Clipp said, "a training ride is OK in the wintertime, but in the summer you have to spend four or five hours riding."
"Winghaven was terrible," said Bruzina, who races with the Gateway Cycling Club. "When it gets so humid, it's just hard to breathe." Still, he finds ways to continue to practice. "I've been riding year-round as long as there wasn't snow on the ground," he said. "When the temperature gets below freezing you go ride a mountain bike."
The criterium in Webster Groves did not demand as much commitment from fans. A .9-mile course, the criterium -- known colloquially as a "crit" (rhymes with "bit") -- sent racers past every few minutes.
"This is really good for spectators," said Bruzina. "It's just a little loop."
The cyclists urge anyone to join. "If you're a competitive person, it's definitely something you should look into," recommended Bruzina. "If you want to go out and kill yourself on your bike and really get a good workout, you can do that."
To get started, "you need a license and a bike," said Stein. The license is a competitive road cycling license, which can be purchased at usacycling.org.
Big Shark hosts weekly races at Carondelet Park. To come to those, meet at Loughborough Drive circle, on the south side of the park near the entrance at Leona.
Still, "people should know that it isn't just pedaling a bike," Stein cautioned. "It's actually like a chess game on wheels: There are tactics."
"Cycling is not just pedaling hard. It hurts a lot."
Joe Milner, an intern with the St. Louis Beacon, will be a junior at Brown University.