Sweet. John Gadret avenged being pipped at the line by Francis Mourey in 2005 with a reversal of the scenario this afternoon in Sedan. Only time will tell if this augers well for ag2r’s burgeoning ProTour campaign, or if it’s all downhill from here this season. Here’s hoping for the former. And in case you wanted to meet every living soul who had anything to do with putting on the 2006 French ‘cross championships, your wish has been answered.

I’ve spent a fair amount of last evening and this morning watching the live stream from the Rotterdam 6 day event. Very cool. All of the events - the madison, scratch, 400m TTT, miss-and-out, derny (that sounded like I was trapped inside a beehive echo chamber), plus the keirin and match sprints - were entertaining (especially since while I’ve been a big fan of historic 6 day events, I’ve never actually seen one take place live).

While the pros on the track are undoubtedly physically talented, what I actually have the utmost respect for is their ability not to go postal after hearing this soundtrack absolutely beaten to death:

Right Said Fred: “Stand Up (For the Champions)”
Queen: “We Are the Champions”
Survivor: “Eye of the Tiger”
London Symphony Orchestra: “Star Wars Main Title”

At least the audience can drink heavily to diffuse the torment. The riders out on the track have to hear it all full-bore, stone cold sober. Ad nauseum, again and again and again.

And having just finished the 1992 Tony Doyle biography, Tony Doyle: six day rider, where he details the execrable conditions the riders had to put up with (particularly housing), I hope that the riders today are getting better treatment and salaries then Doyle had to put up with in the 1980s-early 1990s, and what was likely worse prior to that. Doyle mused about tennis pros like Ivan Lendl, surmising that he didn’t sleep in a cot in a basement at Wimbledon or have to take a dump in a plastic bucket courtside while playing. What was particularly interesting to me about Doyle’s bio was how many big-name road riders (we’re talking Tour de France and Giro champions: Laurent Fignon, Gianni Bugno, Stephen Roche, Greg Lemond, Francesco Moser) did six day races in the winter. Plus, Doyle chronicled the tension that it created among the 6 day specialists who were wary of the road pros’ riding skills on the tight quarters of indoor velodromes plus jealous of their larger paychecks. It seemed to me that the road riders had yet to adopt the globe-trotting winter travel currently in vogue to seek out warmer climes for winter riding. Instead, they had the choice of cyclocross or 6 day races to add intensity to their road off-season training regimen. Perhaps in addition, the paychecks weren’t quite as large as today for many of the pros and racing six day events was an economic necessity. I did notice a few road pros in Rotterdam (Isaac Galvez-Lopez, Max van Heeswijk, Servais Knaven, Aart Vierhouten, plus I’m sure some of the others race on the road), but it seems to me that the recent generations of Grand Tour contenders avoid the winter track season. It’s probably not a bad thing, particularly for the rider’s constitution’s sake, but just a fact of contemporary pro racing. I think riders don’t race as many days on the road per year, but the days they do race are more intense. Gone are the days of rolling into February a little overweight and able to race off the pounds by the classics or first grand tour. Expecting someone these days to race a full road season then hit the 6 day circuit is likely a one way ticket to uber burnout.

I confess to not knowing too much about the current state of track racing in Europe, but it seems that there still is a core of riders Doyle dubbed “The Blue Train” who are 6 day specialists comprising about 50% of any event’s lineup, while the remainder of the field is made up either of younger, up and coming 6 day riders or road pros looking for training/paycheck/thrill of competition in their home country (or maybe just the desire to suck down cigarette smoke and live vampire hours for 6 days straight).

Image source: http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/photos/races05/cross05/druivencross-thekick.jpg

Vlaamse Druivenveldrit: Overijse, Belgium. There’s nothing like hecklers who pull out all the stops. John Gadret, frustrated by a rather mediocre ‘cross season and comfortable in the knowledge that he’s been hooked up with ProTour squad ag2r for 2006, verbally lit into Wellens from the sidelines lap after lap after lap. Egged on by his cadre of Wellens-haters and fuelled by about 2 liters of Duvel flowing through his slight frame, Gadret thence stripped down to his stylin’ Bruce Lee kit and uncorked a lightning fast strike to Wellens’ noggin.

Bart Wellens is lucky to be alive.

And then not one week later, having let all of Belgium cyclocross know that he’s not a man to be trifled with, Gadret uncorks his best ride of the season at Superprestige #6. If only there was some sprinting horsepower in his spindly limbs. Here’s hoping that having absorbed the final morsels of old school Belgian knowledge from his Jartazi-Revor-Granville goon squad handlers, Gadret will give ag2r its first win of the season in this weekend’s French cyclocross championships.

Before Philly Week existed, hell, before there were even enough pros in the US to play a pickup basketball game, the best cyclists in the country still made a beeline to the Northeast in late spring for a trio of highly prestigious, big money (sort of) events. The pre-Philly Week triple crown, in the era of 7-Eleven Davis Phinney vs. GS Mengoni Steve Bauer or the original McCormack brothers (Alan & Paul), crammed all three races into Memorial Day weekend on the roads of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Monday and Sunday events, the Tour of Somerville and Tour of Nutley respectively, were your basic fast and furious, flat as a pancake criteriums. The odd man out, and by far the most brutal of the weekend’s events, was the kickoff event to the weekend’s festivities: Saturday’s Gotham Cup in Allentown, PA. Threshold Sports is in search of a new race venue to replace Trenton’s place in the Philly week calendar, and I’d venture that a phoenix-esque Gotham Cup revival would be a worthy retro addition to the week’s festivities.

I only raced the Gotham Cup once, in 1988, and my memories of the course are probably suspect. However, what still stands out to me was dealing with Allentown’s baby Koppenberg, a narrow, cobbled climb dubbed “The Goat Path”. Turning the cream of America’s and Europe’s pro teams loose on that would be entertaining theater. Probably not more than 200-300 meters in length, The Goat Path resembles this view of the Koppenberg: steep, earthen banks on either side; not much room for passing; replete with cobbles almost certainly nastier, probably more reminiscent of the Koppenberg of yore, before the 2002 re-surfacing. I remember weeds cropping up between large gaps among the cobbles, I remember a wall of sound from the spectators who were almost literally right in your face (this was also the feed zone which accounted for a good number of the people jostling along the edges), I remember how momentum was at a minimum since one had to negotiate a sharp, near 180 degree turn at the climb’s base, I remember how passing was nearly impossible, I remember the mercy of kind souls in the feed zone who had pity on a very thirsty 19 year-old in way over his head (me) parched and out of water, I remember being too stupid to bring granny-ish gears and suffering immensely on a 42×19 low gear, and I remember succumbing to yet another case of 2/3-itis. For the first few years in the Pro/1/2 ranks, whenever I raced with riders of a national caliber, no matter what the distance, I would inevitably complete 2/3 of the distance and completely blow up. So in the Gotham Cup, a race of approximately 100 km, I was shat out the rear end of the peloton at about the 42 mile mark. The next day in Nutley, I bid the peloton goodbye after approximately 35 of 50 miles. Doh!

The Gotham Cup existed from 1971-1998 and I’m sure any number of reasons could have contributed to its demise. I don’t know if this particular nugget of information had anything to do with its disappearance from the race calendar, but I’m sure glad that the weather was balmy and rain-free in 1988. Just prior to The Goat Path on the course’s 4 mile circuit stands a narrow bridge, an ominous steel-decked fright-fest. Steel-decked bridges are spooky enough when it’s dry and you’re crossing them alone. At 30+mph, in a pack of about 100 jostling for position for the upcoming Goat Path, it’s rather tense. I swore my legs were practically brushing the steel guardrail on the right side each lap as the road funneled from 2 lanes to 1 at the bridge. And god help the poor soul who eats it on such a structure, suffering either the lesser or more hideous gradation of evil: The Cheese Grater or Cheese Grater Deluxe. The simple Cheese Grater operates just like one would imagine, hit the deck (steel deck, that is) and have swaths of epidermis peeled off in a matter of microseconds. The Cheese Grater Deluxe has all the pleasure of the prior affliction, but the Deluxe element constitutes a truly unfortunate bonus for the extra-cursed amongst us: having your fingers snapped in the steel grid’s plentiful holes. Ouch, ouch, and triple ouch.

My one feeble effort at racing the Gotham Cup wasn’t a total bust. After all, this race is the one time in my life I can say I rolled up to the line with Viatcheslav Ekimov. He was an amateur trackie at the time, part of the Big Red Machine, and part of a bunch of Russian pursuiters travelling stateside who re-wrote the record books at T-Town the night before. If memory serves correct, the entire squad of Russians rolled off the front of the Gotham Cup fairly early and executed a crisp, textbook display of TTTing. However, much to the chagrin of their burly KGB hired-goon handlers, they began to implode on the penultimate of the race’s 15 laps. Matt Koschara managed to bridge up alone on that lap and I’m sure he thought he had those desiccated trackies beat. But alas for Koschara and his bonking commie comrades, the race came back together for a bunch gallop on the last lap. Sunkyong’s Matt Willis emerging victorious and was heralded for his effort of vanquishing the Red Menace and once again making the world safe for democracy.

When push comes to shove and it ultimately comes time to stick it to the Man, I know where I’m headin’ first: the local Guns & Bicycles.

What better way to invoke one’s inner seer than the tried and true, one-two punch of heat and hallucinogens. Cue the poor man’s sweat lodge: slather the body with hot balm, don 5 layers of winter cycling clothing, vigorously ride the rollers in your cramped, basement bike shop in the company of numerous portable heaters, inhale deeply the pungent vapors of newly cracked Continental tubular cement tins, black out in a heap on the concrete, and await the ghosts of cyclocross past. Through the haze, the murkiness, the throbbing in your head, the din of clanging cowbells, the hum of Karcher pressure washers, chimes the chorus of Eric De Vlaeminck, Roland Liboton, and Andre Dugast:

First place. Ryan Trebon.
Second place. Jonathan Page.
Third place. Todd Wells.

Tomorrow’s Elite Men’s podium.

I believe Tyler appreciates the sentiment of this message.
I believe Tyler blood doped autologously.
I believe Tyler and Santiago Perez both blood doped autologously.
I believe Tyler and Perez accidentally mixed up their blood in the Phonak fridge.
I believe Tyler and Perez thusly tripped the homologous doping test.
I believe Tyler will curse the guy who mixed up their blood each and every day for eternity.
I believe Tyler should give back his Olympic gold medal.
I believe Tyler was clean in 1991.
I believe Tyler and I raced each other in some big money Rhode Island crits during 1991.
I believe Tyler made the winning break each day.
I believe Tyler was already showing glimmers of his potential.
I believe Tyler kicked my ass handily.
believetyler.org no longer exists.

Forget the typical Euro-pro retirement charade of winning a local “race” in one’s honor. Kudos to Giovanni Lombardi for envisioning the suavest possible farewell to cycling. From the CSC site:

The veteran Italian had planned on ending his professional cycling career on September 25 at the conclusion of the 2005 road world championships to be held in Madrid. Lombardi, who lives in the trendy Madrid neighborhood of Cheuca, was planning to race in support of the Italian national team, ride straight through the finish line to his apartment, hang up his bike and officially call it quits.

If Lance Armstrong had it his way, I’m sure the 2005 Tour de France would have ended up in downtown Austin instead of Paris so he could have ended his career in a similar manner. When the sun set on September 25th, Lombardi must have been a tired man. After all, in January he helped his CSC teammate Lars Michaelsen to victory in Qatar, that very day in late September he strung out the field (in vain) on the last lap in service of a hurtin’ Petacchi, and in the interim Lombardi became only the 22nd and oldest (at 36) cyclist in history to finish all 3 Grand Tours in a single calendar year. And since Bjarne Riis and Ivan Basso sweet-talked him into prolonging his career 2 more seasons, I’d wager he’s on his bike right now putting in the miles for 2006.

 
Evidently, winning a stage at a ProTour event, finishing 5th on GC in that same event, nearly winning a Tour de France stage, and nearly winning the USPRO championship on only several weeks of training gives one a license to do, well, whatever the hell one feels like on a bike. Such as racing back-to-back UCI ‘cross races sporting a downtube mounted water bottle and cage on your tricked-out, carbon Scott. Did anyone on the start line mock Mr. Horner? Did all the other pit denizens chastise Horner’s mechanic for allowing such a fashion faux pas to alight itself on Horner’s rig? Horner’s perma-smirk says it all: “Quick, everyone racing on a ProTour team next year raise your hand! Anyone?…anyone?…Just me?…Well alright then. Let’s fast forward 5 months. While you smug, parched bastards are trying to divvy up $80 and a box of GU five ways in an industrial park criterium parking lot, I’ll be living large in the Tour of Flanders.”

Push Yourself Just a Little Bit More by Johnny Green.

Journalist Joyce Stillman writes, “Clash fans will remember Johnny Green as the tall guy in studious horn rims who was always bounding onto the stage to adjust The Clash’s guitars or to pull excited fans off the lead singer, Joe Strummer. A bookish punk fan with degrees in Arabic and Islamic studies, Green had been pulled into The Clash’s orbit at the comparatively mature age of 27 when they asked him to help work a spotlight at a gig; he ended up as a combination workhorse and nursemaid, hauling their equipment, brewing their tea, scoring their dope, and washing out their socks in his hotel-room sink.” Green, head roadie for The Clash from 1977-1980, may seem an unlikely character to write a first hand account of the 2004 Tour de France. But who better to chronicle a culture populated by unhealthily skinny prima-donnas, characterized by the tedium of living out of a suitcase for months on end, rife with the specter of drugs, suffused with premature death too infrequent for mere happenstance. It is the tale of The Clash; it is the tale of professional cycling.

Accompanied by his son Earl, a mysterious Euro cycling savant known simply as The Brief, and a rental VW sedan dubbed Black Magic, Green parlayed forged journalist credentials into an all-access TdF press pass and the means to pursue the essence of the grandest of the grand tours: charisma, live performance, and logistics. Fuelled daily by gallons of espresso and a frenetic fervor to bear witness to the Tour’s multiple dramas, Green largely ignores the cult of Armstrong (and the invasion of his jingoistic American posse) to chronicle the story left untouched by what he considers a lazy and dispassionate press corps. Cipollini unfortunately abandoned early denying Green a chance to witness a victory and conduct an interview, but Green quickly warmed up to Vladimir Karpets, Salvatore Commesso, and Gerolsteiner domestique Ronny Scholtz as characters largely under the radar, yet worthy of his attention. Green is certainly no staid Samuel Abt. I’m sure Green was probably the only journalist nervous about being picked up by Belgian police for an outstanding warrant (he skipped out on a drunken driving conviction stemming from clipping some Belgian road furniture with The Clash equipment van) and while in Belgium he likely was the only member of the press curious about the ASO’s battle with the legacy of Belgian serial killer Marc Dutroux. The first several stages of the 2004 Tour took place in Belgium and one of the stages passed in front of Dutroux’s home (with its basement dungeon). The ASO wanted the home leveled prior to the Tour passing by, but the organization’s bid to tidy up the route proved unsuccessful.

Possession of a press pass does not a journalist make, and Green’s attempts to interview a handful of English speaking pros went dismally. They called immediate bullshit on his inept questions and likely gave their press staff grief for setting them up with such a hack. The only interviews which went well were instances where Green was in his element, talking to rock stars and talking to roadies. Green penetrated the Armstrong security scrum on the summit of La Mongie to chat with Sheryl Crow. Crow, thinking she was talking to a reporter from the music publication Mojo, called off Armstrong’s hired goons and treated Green to a lively dialogue. Late in the Tour, Green finally corralled the “living, pumping heart of Le Tour de France”: Directeur des Sites, head roadie Jean-Louis Pages. Just as Green turned a chance 1977 encounter with The Clash on a Belfast stage into a life-defining change, Pages’ chance encounter with the Tour 20 years prior unexpectedly turned into a career opportunity worthy of Green’s envy. Le Tour doesn’t follow the route of some large rock bands which have two road crews leap-frogging from venue to venue to make setting up and breaking down a bit less time sensitive. Not so in le Tour. Whether it’s due to professional prowess or (likely) cheapness, le Tour only has one start line crew and one finish line crew who must get the infrastructure around France without a safety net.

Frank Zappa once said, “Rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, in order to provide articles for people who can’t read.” Substituting “cycling” for “rock” isn’t too far off the mark. While I voraciously consume most everything under the Sun written about professional cycling, I’d be the first to admit there’s quite a copious amount of noise, dissonance, and chatter obscuring the path to worthy reads. This book is not dry prose devoted to the daily race narrative. What Green captures particularly well is the magic of live performances. No matter how good the television coverage, no matter how well written the journalistic narratives, nothing compares to the electricity of witnessing an event in person. Green told of how Joe Strummer knocked a television camera man off the stage because he was interfering with the audience’s view of the band: “I’m not playing for the camera, I’m playing for the fans right in front of me”. The ultimate homage for Johnny Green would be to emulate his wondrous infatuation with the living, breathing le Tour outside of the dingy confines of the press room. Most of us probably don’t have access to world-class forgers to supply faux press credentials, but the simple immersive act of spectating at a race is what Green would wish for each of his readers, even if it’s to experience the ephemeral moments such as this, chance intimate encounters unlikely to occur in other pro sports:

“I passed on a trip across town to the official celebrations. It was all over. The motor cruised slowly down a quiet small road. In the warm, clear evening, all our passion was spent, at peace finally. Ahead of me were two riders in the red of Team Saeco, dawdling on their bikes. One of ‘em was Salvatore Commesso with his dark goatee beard and devilish grin. As I pulled level, alongside, Earl climbed half outta the open passenger window, clapping his hands hard and shoutin’ ‘Chapeaux’. The cyclists bowed their heads in humble proud acknowledgement.”

Just as NBC Americanized the BBC program The Office for an American palate, I couldn’t help but commit a similar act of cultural appropriation in my reading of Green’s book. Johnny Green bears more than a passing resemblance to Lenny Clarke: comedian and irascible “Uncle Teddy” on FX’s remarkable drama Rescue Me. Green’s voice and dialogue seemed even more outlandish channeled through Clarke’s exuberant, Boston-accented ravings. And The Brief? For some reason every reference to his character conjured up a mental image of The Cheat, simply for the similar ridiculousness of their respective monikers.