Phil the Douche

I raced a TT in New York last weekend. I already blogged about it, but I removed the blog, because it caused some drama on nyvelocity.com, namely me be called a douche, among other things. I deleted the blog, because it wasn't worth it, and I now see how people get sucked in to blog drama. Here goes...

I made a couple mistakes in the blog, calling it a "silly local race" and saying that "none of the big players" were at the race. This wasn't meant to say the race sucked, but instead an attempt at being humble. Whenever I win a race and blog about it, it feels like bragging, so I downplayed the quality of the field, the race, etc. I realize that this was taken the wrong way, and since I've promoted races myself, I wouldn't want to insult the promoter or the other riders.

To straighten things out: it was a great, safe, and fun course, and the volunteers were awesome (good people are hard to get). I did get my prize money. However, I'm trying to make bike racing a job here, and my comment on that was frustration that even though I won the race, I was barely able to cover my entry fees and gas, which makes it hard to justify going to the race at all. I'm not trying to get rich off this sport, just to survive. That said, I knew what the costs and the payout were, so it's my fault that winning the race was still a losing proposition financially.

It's easy to not think about the ramifications of every word in cyberspace, but it's also really easy to feel brave and talk shit about people and things you don't know. It's been both flattering and frustrating to read a thread of people on nyvelocity--who loved me last year when I made the break at Univest with CRCA written on my butt--completely judge and turn on me like they know who I am. I apologized to the promoter of the race already, and I hope I didn't accidentally offend anyone else when I accused them of not being "big players" (by which I meant pros). Hopefully the New Yorkers will understand and I can go back to my post-Univest status.