I've heard of the Lance effect more than a few times on this and other
forums.
I've even seen the Lance effect in action when the Italian starts
talking about how this and such item he is using is the same as (or the
same brand as, or, or) Lance uses in the Tour.
On a more local level I've experienced what I'd been thinking of as the
"racer boy effect."
In February I killed a rear tire in Tunchang county about 90km outside
of Haikou, but I was pretty close to Tunchang Town and there was no
problem taking one of the local bus/tractor things into town. Where we
discovered, after much searching, a complete and utter lack of anyplace
selling anything even vaguely resembling 700cc tires.
Tunchang Town isn't the sort of place where one expects to see people
riding flash bikes. Bikes in Tunchang Town are work bikes, work
trikes, and maybe the occasional city bike. Not even much in the way
of mountain bikes to be seen.
If I'd been on my own I'd probably have taken a bus back to Haikou.
But, I was with locals. Guys who not only speak Chinese but who speak
multiple dialects of Hainanese and who know the island like they grew
up there. And they knew I could I get a tire in Qiongzhong Town.
We've got a bike friend there, they told me, he'll have a spare tire.
I was figuring I'd be taking someone else's spare tire, but the bike
friend in Qiongzhong Town also had a bike shop. The racer boy effect
was clear from the minute I got off the bus. Even though Qiongzhong
Town is probably poorer (and definitely smaller) than Tunchang Town
there were road bikes and mountain bikes all over the place. Not very
good ones mind you, but they were there.
I saw more road bikes in Qiongzhong Town than I saw in the city of
Huazhou when I went on tour through Guangdong.
All it took was one racer boy (whose personal bike was about 5x the
cost of his expensive ones) and suddenly the other bike shops also had
mountain bikes and road bikes and everyone in town who could afford one
wanted one 'just like his'.
It's wanting to ride with the racer boys that got me riding regularly,
and got me to upgrade my old road bike to my current road bike. It's
wanting to ride with the racer boys that got me my clipless pedals. I
don't know as I want to be "just like them" but the first time Fearless
Leader came up behind me at the end of a hill and said "not bad" made
the hell of climbing it completely worthwhile.
The racer boy effect is a trickle down thing. There is someone the
racer boys want to be like.
I don't know his name, so I'll just call him "The Man With the Colnago
Pedals." (Colnago branded Look pedals).
I hadn't gone riding at the same time as him before, never seen him
actually participate in a race, and the majority of the few times I'd
seen him he was on the back of a motorcycle riding alongside the
paceline telling people what to do. But there was something about the
awe that the others held him in, the way that they hung on his every
word when he was talking training stuff to make me kind of figure he
was something.
Today he came out on his bike. I'd seen the bike before once or twice
but not known who it went with. It made an impression since it's the
same frame as mine but the original Shimano Sora on it has all been
replaced with older Campagnolo parts. The bike shop doesn't have
hardly any Campagonolo anything ever in stock, except on already
assembled Bianchi (and one Bianchi takes a long long long time to
sell). And I've _never_ before seen anything Colnago in Hainan.
I stayed the whole 20km with the paceline today. It helped that the
prevailing wind was going the wrong direction and we had a tailwind on
the way in instead of on the way out. It also helped that I've got a
new painkiller for my bum leg. And maybe having fast music in my
earphones or maybe oversleeping 4 hours today or maybe last night's
massage helped too... I don't know. I kept up. This alone thrills me.
Today's specific skill was practicing rotating places in the paceline.
No one even suggested that I even think of trying to rotate. I was
last in line and that was it. They rotated in front of me. Hai Ge, Ah
Zhi, Ah Ju, Ah Fang, and the man with the Colnago pedals.
A bunch of others had scheduling issues that prevented showing up at
this evening's start time. Another handful got dropped early on and
rode together in a second paceline.
Ah Fang has only been a racer boy since last summer. Every time it
came time for him to slide in front of me it was rough. The gap was
never big enough when he moved into it. I was always pushed off to the
side of the line and had to move over again.
The other three include the bike shop manager, the man with more than a
dozen bikes, and the man I call Fearless Leader. When they moved in in
front of me it was much smoother.
When it was time for the man with the Colnago pedals to move in front
of me it wasn't merely smooth. One second he was at the front of the
line. Then he was riding alongside it. And then he was back in the
line between me and Ah Ju. There was no transition. He was just
there. I don't even recall being aware of letting a gap open up for
him to move into. I was inches behind one person's rear wheel and
somehow another bicyclist morphed into that space and now I was inches
behind his rear wheel.
If I hadn't had suspicions before, like when he used the motorcycle to
help bring me back into the line on Sunday, or with the sheer level of
detail that has gone into the training schedule for Guangzhou I was
definitely getting them now. So, on the ride back in, I asked Hai Ge
"did the older guy who has been helping us do training stuff do race
stuff before?"
After one of those long slow incredulous expressions that means "of
course" in any language, he repeated back at me "did the older guy who
has been helping us do training stuff do race stuff before?" Then he
repeated it again. "Did the older guy who has been helping us do
training stuff do race stuff before?" Before finally answering that
"the older guy who has been helping us do training stuff was previously
an all-Asia champion bicyclist."
Which explains a lot.
Like why the local bikers are so serious.
If one road biker in a town in the mountains can be the cause of
hundreds of people buying road bikes, then it should come as no
surprise that one previous champion bicyclist helping with training
schedules leads to the best of the locals being disappointed about
coming in third (rather than second) in a race where the first place
was taken by someone from Team China.
-M