Each Sunday, the “Fashion & Style” section of the New York Times runs a column entitled “Possessed” in which a person of indeterminate renown (who are these people? the columnist David Colman’s friends?) expounds the virtues of a prized material possession. More often than not, the objects are of a more mundane vein, yet marvels of utilitarian design (i.e.- a razor knife, Nicorettes, Gap jeans, a neckerchief). My typical reaction to these articles is a bemused “So what?”; however, I’m an addict and return Sunday after Sunday after Sunday eager to read the latest installment.

In all likelihood I’ll never be featured in Mr. Colman’s weekly diversion, so I’ll have to take advantage of my personal e-forum to make a contribution to the “Possessed” oeuvre: a 15t Regina CX cog, serving faithful duty as my keychain. This particular cog has quite a story, and is undoubtedly the only thing I own which has been on my person virtually each and every day for almost 20 years. On a balmy summer day in July, 1985, I don’t quite recall the exact date, I lined up with about 100 other juniors in Lake Front Park, Milwaukee, vying for the 16-17 men’s national road championship to be contested over approximately 100km. Unfortunately for me, it would be a rather brief foray in the peloton that morning. For those of you who are veterans of Superweek, we were racing on the long Lake Front loop, and I hadn’t even completed one circuit before my trusty 6-speed Regina freewheel had a meltdown. We had negotiated the dicey switchback descent to Lincoln Memorial Drive, raged along the lake front, and turned left up the wooded climb at the northern end of the loop. I made it about 75 meters uphill, shifted from my 53×15 to my 42×15, and then abruptly ceased to make any forward progress despite feverish spinning on my behalf. I was running pretty typical junior gears for the flattish circuit, 53/42 up front and 15-16-17-18-19-21 in the back. The 15t cog on the freewheel also served as a lockring, and the little bastard’s threads disintegrated at the base of the climb. I’m not sure of the internal mechanics of this freewheel, but I do know that with a stripped small cog the freewheel no longer engaged and my 120rpm spin wasn’t propelling me uphill at all. This problem should have been remedied with a simple wheel change, but again, luck was not on my side. I was in the top 1/3 of the peloton and somehow managed not to be creamed by any adrenaline-crazed junior comrades as I coasted to a halt. I took off my bum wheel and expected neutral support to come to my assistance in a matter of seconds.

Nope.

It turns out a rather large crash at the base of the switchback descent occupied all of the neutral support vehicles and I had to wait about 2-3 minutes before anyone came to my assistance. I got a new rear wheel and set off in steadfast pursuit of the peloton, but only managed to hold the gap at 2 minutes on my own for the next 30 miles. Angered and frustrated, I then retired. Ultimately, Paul Orwicz rode in solo for victory while I begrudgingly spectated instead of competed. One of the few other moments of that day still in my memory was watching fellow upstate New Yorker Steve “Tough as Nails” Deutschmann, sick as a dog, ride tail gunner all day long and ultimately finish in roughly that position. (Whatever happened to him?)

A Velonews was waiting for me upon returning to Cooperstown. Inside was a small blurb warning readers about a defective batch of Regina CX freewheels which had entered the US earlier that year. Doh! I had finally got around to getting a driver’s license so the bum cog became my keyring and has been ever since the summer of ‘85. I’m long past any notion of bitterness, although on occasion I just wish I had the chance to have my fate decided by athletic prowess, not crappy Italian steel.

Ninja Skyjacker: While flying back to Duke in the late 1980s, an overzealous Syracuse airport rent-a-cop X-ray technician thought he made the bust of the year. I happened to mosey through the metal detector with the Regina cog keychain in my pocket and tripped off the alarm. I emptied the contents of my pockets for the guard and he totally lost his shit when he spied my keychain. He was eager to bust me for carrying a concealed, deadly weapon (in his mind this was a throwing star) and he called in the real law enforcement officers for backup and assistance. Thankfully, cooler, saner heads prevailed when the real cops showed up. One of the cops immediately IDed the offending “weapon” as a bike part and sent me on my way with apologies for any hassle.

Toga Is The Wave of Motion: While living in the northeast I spent many years competing against riders in Team Toga duds, such as aforementioned junior national champion Paul Orwicz. Once sublimation emerged for jersey graphics I was always enamored of Toga’s distinct green and yellow design. I distinctly recall Matt Koschara decked out in Toga apparel, and a friend from Binghamton, Paul Pisani (where is he now?), also raced for Toga. And one can’t think of Team Toga without the flamboyant man behind the scenes, Lenny Preheim. One of my most vivid race memories was competing in one of the sickest circuits ever laid out in the Northeast: the Ossining Grand Prix in the late 1980s (maybe 1988?). In the course of a 1 mile loop (to be travelled 50 times) was a wall requiring extended climbing in the 42×23 (with the finish line shortly past the summit) and a rapid descent alongside the walls of the prison. Climb, plummet, repeat. Matt Koschara, of Team Toga, emerged victorious. I recall toiling uphill in blistering summer heat, lap after lap, and being jarred from exercise-induced myopia by the apparition of Lenny Preheim, decked out in a neon green suit, a voluminous shock of bleached yellow hair, and cowboy boots, providing feeds for Matt. He was standing in the middle of the road (we were going so slow it was hardly a hazard) and provided a stark sartorial contrast to everyone else’s feeders, primarily parents or nonplussed girlfriends. I never knew him more than that, seeing him at races, but I’ve since become acquainted with people who knew him well and spoke fondly of him. Sadly, Lenny passed away in 1998(?), far too young.

If I were a true man of letters I could read these books, but like most Americans I’m uni-lingual and consequently unable to read Peter Winnen’s Dutch-penned works. I was at a post-race party last summer and found myself in a fairly lengthy conversation with a Belgian, about the same age as me, whose employment happened to bring him to the US. I was envious of his ability to speak not 1…not 2…not 3, but 6 languages fluently. By the time he left the Belgian equivalent of high school he already could speak 4 languages well and he added 2 more later in response to work demands. I’m pretty sure I’ve exhausted the English language’s assortment of cycling literature, and what’s left (a rather substantial amount of books and magazines, utterly dwarfing what’s available to me in English) reside in the tongues of what Rumsfeld affectionately considers “old Europe”.

I’ve been reading an incredibly illuminating book, One More Kilometre and We’re in the Showers, and the author has laid out a rich reading list of cycling books chronicling the history of European cycling penned in Flemish, French, and Italian. Sadly, for me they’d be no more than finely bound paper weights. One of these years we’ll head over to the continent, particularly northern Italy and Belgium, and I’m hoping whether we find ourselves contemplating the Madonna del Ghisallo or in rapt attention atop the Muur de Gramont that I’ll be able to communicate with people. Most likely there will be English speakers around, but I’d prefer to have something to say in their native language. Are there any “Converse With Any European Cyclist” language immersion programs out there? I’d gladly take part.

For the past week or so I’ve been preoccupied with a side project (obsession?) concerning the digitization of my 6-day bike race program collection. Here’s a preliminary peak at one of the pages, still a work in progress. I’ve scanned the covers of about 20 programs and will also likely have a complete chronology of every six-day event held in the US (from 1899-1973, although heavily concentrated in the 1920s-1930s), plus a rogue’s gallery of rider photos and bios. My collection is certainly modest, but I’d undoubtedly have many, many more programs in my possession if it were not for the existence of my eBay arch-enemy: the appropriately monikered sixday, my personal Newman. If I lived in the NYC metropolitan area it would probably be possible to scrounge antique dealers or estate auctions and come across 6-day programs/memorabilia/photos (since approximately seventy 6-day events took place in NYC), but living in a region devoid of cycling history requires me to peruse eBay on a regular basis. sixday has deep pockets and enviously keen sleuthing prowess, an uncanny ability to unearth 6-day related items from the breadth of eBay. I’ve been on the losing end of far too many auctions, but I’m not made of money. Who is this mysterious fellow? What is he doing with his steady influx of 6-day, eBay booty? I have a vivid mental picture of sixday reminiscent of the Steve Buscemi character in Ghost World, the mordantly unhip Seymour alight with an obsession for 78rpm records. At the very least I hope he’s taking good care of the material, but the budding archivist in me hopes that he’s considered making his collection accessible to fans of cycling history (or one particular devotee…mainly, me). Well, that’s just the bitterness talking. I’m sure I’d enjoy picking his sixday brain over a few beers, probably coming to the conclusion that we’ve lead remarkably similar lives.

Madison Square Garden has resided in three locations: Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street (1879-1925), Eighth Avenue and 50th Street (1925-1968), and Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street (1968-present). As befitting the era, the 1925-1968 Madison Square Garden’s inaugural event was a 6-day bike race spanning November 30, 1925-December 5, 1925. Judging from the daily reports in the New York Times, the event was quite a barn-burner. The race came down to the wire, with a team of young Belgians Gerard Debaets and Alphonse Goosens lapping the field in the closing minutes snatching victory from 6-day ironman Reggie McNamara (45 years old!) and his young, Italian partner Franco Georgetti.

And the photo? Depicted is Alphonse Goosens (left) with his trainer on the first evening of racing. Goosens is taking a moment to recover from his facial wounds suffered during the event’s first crash. However, for Goosens and his partner, this was only the beginning of their suffering. From the December 6, 1925 New York Times:

The victory of Debaets and Goosens was the triumph of youth, experience, gameness, and courage, combined with riding skill and speed. The Belgians emerged from the race with the marks of battle - as many a fighter has left the ring and many a football player has left the gridiron. Last Thursday night Debaets was stretched out unconscious on the track flat, and was out of the race for an hour.Within an hour of last night’s finish, the game little Belgian was on his track cot after a nasty spill in a terrific jam, his right shoulder and right hip injured as he crashed to the track in a smash-up which many thought would eliminate the team from the grind. He was painfully hurt, but he gritted his teeth and mounted again after a short respite. When the great test came he was found ready and he responded in thrilling manner.

Goosens started the race banged up. He was the victim of the first spill in the race. He went through the grind with his face battered out of shape and discolored. He finished that way and with the added pain of several minor spills of which he was the victim.

They made an exciting spectacle, these Belgians, Debaets with his fresh show of crimson through his short-sleeved undershirt, his legs and arms bleeding and raw, and Goosens with his eyes discolored and blazing after six days of painful riding, his elbows and arms barked and stripped of skin and his face patches of raw red from falling. But, like his wonderful little partner, his courage remained unshaken.

They wouldn’t quit…

It was a notable triumph for Goosens, a signal victory for Debaets. Goosens won his first (six-day) race in five starts. He finished second in one previous grind, third twice, and sixth once. Debaets, a 21 year old youngster, road cycling champion of Belgium, was making his first six-day race appearance.

Debaets and Goosens covered 2,294 miles during the six days of racing. That’s quite a few laps of a 1/10 mile velodrome! Approximately 150,000 tickets were sold over the course of the six day event to spectators clamoring to witness the daily morning, afternoon, and night sessions.

Well, seeing as how the Discovery Channel team has already made their formal team presentation in Silver Spring, MD and are currently grinding out pre-season miles in Solvang, CA, and that jerky bastard Lance Armstrong still hasn’t called me about my position on the roster then I guess it’s time for plan B: sayonara Pro Tour-bound Discovery Channel, hello D3 WKTV Channel. That’s right, I’ll be kitted out in 2005 for Utica, NY’s very own SoLow budget NBC affiliate. (Ah, the stories I could tell about the unintentionally comic local newscasts where each of the talking heads (anchor, field reporter, weather, sports) shared an identical first name. Cue cheesy commercial voiceover, “All of central New York’s news, sports, and weather brought to you live by Bill, Bill, Bill, and Bill!”). I’m sure for most of you this revelation is as shocking as Igor Astarloa’s downgrade to the backwaters of Barloworld-Valsir, but above all, like Igor, I’m a survivor. Therefore, no exotic, tropical spring camps for me, just the Saturday P-ride and oodles of miles sucking down fumes behind my wife’s Aprilia scooter. USPRO week, here I come…

Since the team budget is extremely tight, we couldn’t afford a fancy photo shoot for our press release. Instead, we got my Dad to donate his talents for an artistic rendition of the 2005 WKTV Channel kit.

(Thanks, Dad, for the artwork!)

When one parses the coy, obtuse statements emerging from Lance Armstrong’s initial Discovery Channel press conference, you can’t help but speculate that Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong cozied up with Cycle Sport’s excellent Eddy Merckx retrospective (January 2005 issue) and decided to sketch out a 2005 campaign to close (infinitesimally) the palmares gap, perhaps satiating Armstrong’s “What about the rest of the season?” critics. After all, Lance probably has about 2 good years left and some rather frightfully imposing monkeys still reside on his back (short list: Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Amstel Gold, non-French Grand Tours). Amazingly, rumor has it that Lance is even considering constructing a one-off indoor velodrome at altitude for a late-season assault on the hour record. I can just imagine Lance and Johan flipping through the opening, double-page photo spreads…

pg 8-9: Stately Eddy Merckx poses in front of an Eddy Merckx painting within his factory. (Sorry, no pic to show you, I guess you’ll have to pony up a few bucks for the magazine.)
Johan: “Lance, this one’s easy. I’m sure there’s a barren wall in the Trek factory just itching for some paint-by-numbers Lance Armstrong colossus.”
Lance: “Yeah, those dudes in Wisconsin owe me. It’s too bad that Bob Ross bit it, I sure would have loved him painting a scene of me on L’Alpe d’Huez, torching Ivan Basso, with a few little trees and clouds to keep us company.”

pg. 10-11: Eddy Merckx beach beefcake shot, 1967 Giro d’Italia. (Same scenario, no pic…)
Johan: “Lance, how do we match this, uh, how you say in USA, “Glamor Shots” moment?”
Lance: “No problemo, Johan. I’ve got an Annie Leibovitz photo of me buck-naked on my bike. How do you like them apples, Eddy! Damn, I’m ripped. Ripped!”

pg. 12-13: Eddy Merckx hour record bike on display underground in Brussels, Belgium’s Eddy Merckx Metro station. (Not quite the same as Cycle Sport, this came directly from the Brussels Metro website.)

Johan: “Hmmm…This one’s tough. First, you’ve got to break the hour record. Second, what US metro station would go for such a ploy?”
Lance: “Dude, have you no faith in me? I’m going to kick that record’s ass inside out. And about that metro station plan? Screw that. That’s small potatoes. I’ve got the mother of all plans.”
Johan: “I’m listening…”
Lance: “Do you remember in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure how Pee-wee Herman was looking for his bike in the basement of the Alamo?”
Johan: “Who is this Pee-wee Herman character you reference?”
Lance: “Never mind, Johan, just hear me out. Pee-wee Herman was humiliated because the Alamo doesn’t have a basement, but I’m sure with W. on my side I could build a basement for the Alamo and store the hour record bike there in a glass enclosure. How sweet is that? My own shrine at the Alamo, the dream of every Texan. Besides, mass transit sucks ass.”

pg. 14-15: Panoramic shot of Barcelona with Eddy driving the break in the 1973 professional world road championships.

Enter Pietro Hymasini, the Ghost of Eddy Merckx’s past.

Pietro: “Lance, Johan, I think it’s time for this little charade to end.”
Lance and Johan: “WTF?!?!?!?!”
Pietro: “Look closely at this photo and I will point out a heretofore unknown Eddy Merckx fact that will forever put the kibosh on your farcical “I wanna be like Eddy” crusade. Check out the man with the ‘fro. Do you know who that is?”
Lance and Johan peer intently: “Nope.”
Pietro: “Here’s a magnifying glass. Have a closer look. Lance…sure, you’re shacked up with soft-rocker Sheryl Crow and you may hang with the Wallflowers from time to time, but only on Planet Armstrong does that equate to street cred. Eddy Merckx has the ace-in-the-hole to end all ace-in-the-holes: that gent with the Afro is none other than incognito Eddy Merckx fan #1, MC5 frontman Rob Tyner. For this reason alone, Merckx has no peers in cycling lore and legend. How about them apples, Lance? The MC5!”
Lance and Johan: silence
Pietro: “I thought so. How about in 2005 you win Amstel Gold, maybe the Giro, and call it a career. My job here is done. Later…”

Poof! The ghost of Merckx’s past has left the building.

Have you ever had a sense of deja vu while viewing artistic endeavors? Before I read the caption for the above painting, I had a fairly certain notion that I’d been to that offramp on multiple occasions. And sure enough, Exit 29 off of upstate New York’s I-87 was indeed familiar to me from my numerous trips to races in New York’s Lake Placid region or races in the Burlington, VT/Stowe, VT neck of the woods. I’ve been a fan of Jim Kunstler after reading his book The Geography of Nowhere and lately I’ve been spending time reading the rich, yet somewhat grim, musings on his site concerning sprawl, congestion, and the ramifications of our country’s addiction to cheap petroleum. It’s interesting to see how the detritus of sprawl, industry, and transportation infiltrate Kunstler’s paintings of what I believe to be scenes in the vicinity of his upstate New York home. It also reminds me of R. Crumb’s comments, within the excellent documentary Crumb, about how we’ve been totally de-sensitized to the omnipresence of overhead power/phone lines and traffic signs. Crumb was talking about having a friend drive him to your typical “strip”, chock full of fast food restaurants and gas stations, so he could sketch the electrical and communication cables. Crumb needed to have realistic urban/suburban scenery for his comics and he was shocked that he couldn’t draw them from memory even though he knew he’d seen them ad nauseum.

No coal in my stocking this year, but instead a must-see DVD. PRO, Jamie Paolinetti’s deftly filmed USPRO week documentary, is worth viewing if only for the scene pictured above. Danny Pate and Mike Sayers drove the first lap break in Philly for approximately 120 miles before calling it a day. One of Paolinett’s cameras honed in on them retiring to the Health Net feed zone tent and first Sayers, then Pate, take off their helmets to reveal geometric road grime stains and an exquisitely sculpted, disheveled lid. It’s the subtle, normally off-camera moments like this which exemplify what being a pro cyclist is really all about.