The farcical implosion of Giancarlo Ferretti’s 2006 ProTour Sony Ericsson squad is hardly recent news, but I couldn’t help but zero in on one sentence of the February 2006 procycling interview with Ferretti. Now, professional cycling team managers may not necessarily be intellectual peers with Nobel Prize Laureates (although Jonathan Vaughters’ cerebellum may give someone a run for his money…), but there’s definitely a tangible element of brain power required to successfully manage a team. After all, anyone who can get multi-national corporations to cough up millions of euros, anyone who can fill a 20+ rider roster of prima-donnas and convince them to ride as a team, anyone who can deal with the logistics of sending riders and support staff to train and compete all over the globe (very often with squads competing on different continents simultaneously), anyone who can read a race and make split second strategic decisions certainly has their ducks in a row or they would soon be out of work. Which leads me to this jaw-dropper comment from Ferretti in procycling:

procycling: Did you ever get to meet these fictional Sony Ericsson representatives, or try to?
Ferretti: It was all done via email, on this address that I now know must have been made up: ronwestland-sonyericsson@hotmail.com

Holy shit, Ferretti was making multi-million euro contract negotiations with a certain “Ron Westland” hiding behind a hotmail account! Earth to Ferretti, employees of multi-national corporations do not conduct business deals via hotmail accounts. I think someone needs a primer on how “the internets” work. It would be comical if it weren’t such a tragic situation for the riders and staff who got screwed and had to scramble for 2006 employment at bargain basement rates to squeeze onto already brimming team rosters. I hope Ferretti hasn’t since sent gobs of money to Nigerian petroleum companies who need a willing partner to assist in transferring wealth out of the country.

Never mind that Belgians have swept the elite ‘cross podium for the past 4 years and have won 20 of 24 elite ‘cross worlds medals over the past 8 years. John Gadret has been on a tear, only a few scant seconds behind Erwin Vervecken and Sven Nys these past couple of weeks. And with countrymen Francis Mourey on hand, a willing and enthusiastic partner in Gadret’s Franco Mallachi Crunch, and with the undeniably inevitable Belgian infighting probably already manifesting itself at this very moment, John Gadret is primed to make history.

Is there anyone out there who can honestly say they’ve never raced a bike hungover, at least once? I know I can’t. For instance, I raced the Athens Twilight Crit once (and only once, that race was nuts) back in 1992. I maybe moved up all of two places in the peloton the whole night, but I didn’t get dropped and I wanted to celebrate. Caught up in the frenzy of about 20,000 drunk crazy people screaming their lungs out around the 1km loop all night, and with plenty of drinking establishments to satiate one’s boozing desires right on the course, it only seemed right that I have a few beers. And a few more. Maybe one more. Ah, fuck it, sure I’ll have another. And then the alarm goes off too damn early the following morning for Sunday’s road race. Oops, forgot about day 2 of the race weekend. But I race about 100km in the am, a bit green in the gills and groggy, and sweat all that booze out of the system just in time to contest the field sprint. Mission accomplished, no big deal.

Now I’m hardly endorsing such behavior, but when you’re in your 20s you can get away with competing under less than ideal physical states. Which is why the whole hubbub about Bode Miller racing World Cup downhill events with a hangover is so amusing to me. I don’t see why Bode had to apologize. If anything, the other downhillers who got their asses kicked by a person who may have failed a breathalyzer in the starting gate should apologize to their fans. What’s even funnier is Nike’s glorification of Bode Miller’s predilection for projectile vomiting (albeit under different circumstances). If you happen to visit Nike’s Bode Miller love-fest, check out the option “training sled” in the pulldown menu.

“I piss on Belgium.” - Alexi Grewal

Things weren’t going too well for brash American 7-Eleven professional Alexi Grewal amidst the 1986 Three Days of De Panne. Gloom. Rain. Misery. No results. No sight of the sun since leaving the United States. Grewal’s fragile pysche cracked while the team sought pre-stage respite from the elements in a cafe, and the Het Volk reporter, there ostensibly to pen a puff piece about 7-Eleven’s first full-blown Euro season, instead was handed dynamite via Grewal’s mouth as he fled the premises in a tizzy. If only Harry Pearson penned his homage to Belgium about 10 years earlier. Armed with the insight of Pearson’s extensive travels in both Flemish and Walloon Belgium, A Tall Man in a Low Land may have prepared the wide-eyed 7-Eleven pros for immersion in perhaps Europe’s most maligned country.

Harry Pearson, a British sports columnist and travel writer, deftly reveals the quirks, oddities, and charm of Belgium gleemed from several months of travel through seemingly every city or village in the country. Additionally, seemlessly intertwined within Pearson’s narrative is a steady dose of Belgian history impressive in both depth and breadth. If I ever make an appearance on Jeopardy, I am confident I will kick anyone’s ass when it comes to facts about Belgium. Names, places, dates, events, artwork, architecture, beer, language; I’m armed to the teeth. Of course, to me Belgium is synonymous with professional cycling and, fortuitously, professional cycling is what first drew Pearson across the English Channel. His first-hand experience with the 1995 Ronde van Vlaanderen, particularly atop the Muur in Geraardsbergen, allows Pearson to flaunt his contemporary and historic Belgian cycling acumen. For more than 10 pages, Pearson weaves every name of Belgian cycling lore and legend (Eddy Merckx, the de Vlaeminck brothers, Freddy Maertens, Briek Schotte, Rik van Steenbergen, Rik van Looy, Edwig van Hooydonck, Eddy Planckaert, Eric Vanderaerden, etc.) into his account of the Ronde occurring before his very eyes highlighted by Johan Museeuw’s solo victory following the Fabio Baldato beat-down on the Muur. The riders past and present, plus the facts of the 1995 Ronde, are hardly anything earth-shatteringly new to cycling tifosi, but Pearson’s fleshing out of the fervor, zeal, and frenetic ardor surrounding the Tour of Flanders deserves a mention.

On a more macro-level, I think Pearson gets one’s brain churning regarding the dynamic between travel, stereotype, and expectation. In particular, I think Pearson hits the nail on the head regarding certain truisms of foreign travel:

“One of the odd things about being in a foreign country is the impossibility of detecting any kind of social nuance. All the guidelines - clothes, accents, articulacy - that normally point the way are lost to us. We do not know if the person we are talking to empties septic tanks or runs the stock exchange for a living. We wander dippily around in this blissful state and when we return to our hotel in the evening and tell the receptionist how we have spent our day her face turns white, her eyes bulge and she shrieks, ‘You went there. But my God it’s soooooo dangerous over there.’ And we swell with pride and reply, ‘Oh really? It seemed quite pleasant to us.’ To our untrained eyes abroad is wonderfully classless, overseas societies homogeneous visions of the perfect future. It is the happy egalitarianism of total ignorance.” 

For some reason I was to a certain degree surprised that the gulf of the English Channel separating England from Belgium may as well have been expansive as the Atlantic Ocean separating the U.S. from Europe. But I guess I’m just a dumb American. Just as amusing as Pearson’s seemingly frequent snarkiness concerning Belgium was the degree of bewilderment expressed by Belgians that someone would actually come to their country to visit. “You’re here on holiday? Hmmm…It’s flat, crowded, and it rains all the time” was a frequent assessment of Belgium’s appeal. Perhaps everyone worldwide is afflicted by a case of the grass is always greener. Or maybe they’re just averse to being the grist for humorous anecdote after humorous anecdote. I don’t think it’s too broad a stretch to imagine Pearson being beaten senseless if his Belgian subject(s) could have read his mind. Even the Trappist monk may have kicked his ass. I’d be curious to hear the opinion of a native Belgian regarding this book. Thumbs up? Or a resounding “I piss on England.”

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.