I tuned into yesterday’s riveting mountain-top finish in the Giro (stage 7: Frosinone - Montevergine Di Mercogliano) just as Pavel Tonkov started to let it rip at the front for teammate Stefano Garzelli. As the camera angle switched from the head-on shot to a profile, I was at first puzzled by what appeared to be an absurdly long, Croakie-esque attachment for Tonkov’s sunglasses stretched out limply on his back. I thought, hmmm, that’s pretty geeky for a pro cyclist and then bemusement turned to HORROR when I realized that Tonkov has been coiffurely inspired by Laurent Brochard and Romans Vainsteins, proud aficionados of the mullet. And then I started to poke around online to find confirmation of Tonkov’s new lid. Holy shit! Check out Tonkov at the Giro team presentation (see picture to the left)! How did this pass by unnoticed? And then I started to dig some more, because hair like this doesn’t appear overnight. There has to be evidence of Tonkov’s lid in some medium-length transition phase. Here’s where it gets a bit weird…Check out the picture of Tonkov taken at the 2003 Tour of Switzerland (see photo to the right) while riding for the Polish CCC-Polstat squad. The earliest date that photo could have been taken is June 16th, 2003 and he’s got some pretty closely cropped hair. Fast forward to May 7th, 2004 to the mullet-mane he’s sporting now. At the most, 325 days have transpired. Is it possible for hair to grow that fast? Or is Tonkov, even more bizarrely, sporting a weave? Fans of cycling, I just don’t have an answer.

I would pay good money for some brazen fan wielding a set of scissors to run alongside Tonkov on a steep climb, ever so subtlely reach over, and SNIP!, liberate that squirrel pelt from his scalp. Maybe if that excess 5 pounds of hair was emancipated from his skull Tonkov could turn the screws in the mountains an extra kilometer or so for Garzelli. Power-to-weight ratio, Pavel, power-to-weight ratio! Who knows, maybe Garzelli has been using it as a handsling device to hurl himself forward once Tonkov gives up the ghost on a climb…

I went to Tonkov’s personal site searching for answers. And you know what, this guy’s had a pretty interesting life. He was a lieutenant in the Red Army, he’s had 3 years of college (3 more years than most pros), and he exhibits a profound dedication to yoga and sophrology (I had to look that one up in a dictionary). I’m sure he speaks more languages than me, he’s seen more of the world than I have, he can kick my ass on a bike using one leg and one lung, and he could probably give me an old-fashioned, Red Army beat down off the bike. Maybe I shouldn’t be so snarky in my derision of Tonkov’s lid, but the more I look at that Giro photo the more I think of Paul Reubens’ mug shot.

May 17-21 is Bike to Work Week. While every week should be Bike to Work Week, why don’t you leave the car at home and pedal to work instead? Or run an errand on 2 wheels instead of 4?

If you absolutely despise W. as much as I do then you owe it to yourself to read local columnist Hal Crowther’s scathing indictment of Bush’s presidency. Unless you’re a defense contractor or super fucking rich, I don’t know how anyone can re-elect that incompetent, smirking simpleton to another term with a clear conscience.

Cycling. Literature. These are 2 words rarely used in the same sentence. Great minds seldom, if ever, ponder our sport. During the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway was an avid spectator of the six-day bicycle races at Paris’s Vélodrome d’Hiver. Hemingway dragged many friends along (some less than willingly), including John Dos Passos. Unfortunately, Hemingway turned out The Old Man and the Sea, not The Old Man and the Velodrome. My dream is to have a seminal cycling moment woven into the tapestry of an epic tome in the manner of Don Delillo’s superb Underworld. The opening scene, taking place in NYC’s Polo Grounds in 1951 culminating with “the shot heard around the world”, is utterly breathtaking (even though it’s, gasp, baseball). David Foster Wallace also has a predilection for weighty, dense novels such as Infinite Jest, but he’s enamored with tennis. Maybe I can convince Neal Stephenson to take a crack at cycling… Anyway, while Tim Krabbe is hardly on the plane of prose heavyweights such as Don Delillo, Krabbe’s slight novel (it’s on the cusp of being a lengthy novella) The Rider, however, is a work worthy of the literature label (although the competition in the genre of cycling literature is rather insubstantial). The plot encompasses an entire 150 km. race in the foothills of the French Alps from the point of view of a marginally accomplished amateur cyclist who came to the sport too late in life. Oddly enough, or maybe not so oddly enough, the protagonist is also named Tim Krabbe. Throughout the course of the race Krabbe reflects on his previous races, legendary professional cyclists and their successes and failures on the bike, superstitions, and just the random and occasionally bizarre thoughts that course through one’s brain while the body endures episodes of immense suffering. I was amused by Krabbe pondering his tanned, sweaty, beautiful wrists while in a lactic acid induced mental fog on a difficult climb.

If someone unfamiliar with the sport of cycling asked me what racing a bicycle is all about I’d hand them this book. Krabbe was an accomplished Dutch amateur cyclist and his keen insight into the physical as well as psychological facets of the sport are all too evident. Krabbe is probably most well known for writing the novel upon which the excellent film The Vanishing was based. Make sure you see the original Dutch version, not the crappy American re-make. If one pays attention to the radio frequently playing in the background noise, one can hear the play-by-play of Bernard Hinault’s and Joop Zootemelk’s epic duel in the 1980 Tour de France.

Another noteworthy aspect of Krabbe’s life, alluded to in The Rider, is his passion for chess. Before becoming a racing cyclist, Krabbe was one of the best chess players in the Netherlands. While cycling no longer seems to consume his time or thoughts to any notable extent, chess is still a central element of his life. His current project is a website called Tim Krabbe’s Chess Curiosites. I have a casual interest in chess, mostly the human element concerning the freakishly eccentric players throughout history and not so much the actual tactical, move-by-move analysis. While much of the site constitutes analysis which goes right over my head, there is still plenty of interesting articles about chess history, theory, and personalities to keep one busy if there’s spare time to kill.

This past weekend was spent in Richmond, primarily to watch the CapTech Classic. The course was BRUTAL! 125′ of climbing per lap meant the men totalled 6000′ of climbing over 100km of racing. This wasn’t going to be your regular 4 corner, flat-as-a-pancake crit but a course for the tough guys. Dailypeloton.com has a good race report if you want the details and some photos.

Gordon McCauley (Team Monex) was on fire. We were about half-way up the climb and McCauley was absolutely killing it lap after lap on his own. He was out of the saddle, raging in the big ring, and his solo lap times were remarkably consistent (always within 5 seconds of each other). It took about 50km for a chase group of 9 to bridge up to Gordon, and even after contact was made Gordon, Erik Saunders (Ofoto), and Juan Jose Haedo (Colavita) immediately countered and were never seen again (that is until they lapped the field). The consensus was that Saunders and Haedo would duke it out for the victory, hometown pro vs. Tour of Georgia speed demon. However, McCauley, a seasoned pro with Continental experience, totally turned on the afterburners and torched Saunders and Haedo. Quite an impressive effort. The climb definitely took some punch out of Saunders and Haedo. I got to say an ever so brief “Hello” and congratulations to Saunders before he was wisked away to the podium. He’s a class act and there was definitely a palpable excitement in the crowd regarding his return to Richmond.

While spectating at the race I couldn’t help but notice the sizeable fixed gear/messenger element cruising around the course. I knew that Richmond has hosted messenger races, but I’d never really realized the extent of the scene. Here are a couple of links, Richmond Sprint Club and Riders of Brohan, which document what’s up in Richmond. I remember seeing quite a few of the riders pictured on the sites at the CapTech course on Saturday. I also found this site, Old Skool Track, NYC which has a pretty amazing collection of writing, photos, videos, info, etc… regarding riding a track bike on city streets. Pretty cool stuff.

Anthony Pope’s depictions of professional cycling events via Playmobil figures never fail to crack me up. This is one of my favorites, showing Wladimir Belli popping a Simoni hooligan (who happened to be Simoni’s nephew) in the head during a 2001 Giro d’Italia mountain stage. For his antics on the bike, Belli was kicked out of the Giro.

While Plastic Peloton People shows up monthly in procycling magazine, go here to see the mother lode online.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Roger Bannister running the first sub-4 minute mile. However, on June 30th, 1899 (that’s right, 1899), another remarkable achievement in human performance, which has largely been relegated to the dustbin of history, took place on several miles of Long Island Railroad track . Charles Murphy, an accomplished professional cyclist, drafted a train and traveled a 1 mile interval in approximately 58 seconds becoming the first man to travel a mile-a-minute under human power. Unlike the fake-ass truck drafting episode of protagonist Dave Stohler in Breaking Away, Charles Murphy is the real McCoy. I’m a bit sketchy on the details of this event, but somehow Murphy managed to have several miles of boards laid down between the railroad tracks for him to ride on, he convinced the L.I.R. to supply their fastest locomotive, and he had a passenger car custom fitted with extended walls and ceiling to act as a fairing. This guy must have had a pair of big ones and nerves of steel to ride at 60mph on a narrow section of wood behind a belching, raging locomotive. Forever after that magical day, Charles Murphy was referred to as Charles “Mile-a-Minute” Murphy. The New York Times had a reporter on site to witness this historic athletic feat, read the official eyewitness account for yourself.

Bob Roll came to Chapel Hill this past Tuesday night under the aegis of book promotion (his new book is basically an Idiot’s Guide to the Tour day France) and he spent approximately 1 hour rambling about professional cycling and answering questions from the rather substantial crowd (I’d guess about 200 people). The Bob Roll you meet in person is by and large the same Bob Roll you see on OLN: he can tell a good story, he’s got a wry sense of humor, and he’s just as amazed as the audience that he’s carved out a niche for himself on television. Bobke vividly personifies the stock from which Euro pros blossom: an admittedly poor student, a blue collar upbringing, and a genetic predilection for enduring season after season of pain and suffering on a bike. What sets him apart from the rank and file members of the pro peloton was some nascent intelligence and sense of purpose which manifested itself in his writing and immersion in the cycling culture of Italy and Belgium. This is a man who wrote poetry on his sidewalls, a man who worships Fausto Coppi, and a man who survived years of the primal, shitty, Belgian Spring Classic weather. To me, he’s the Mike Watt of professional cycling. While Bobke has quite a knack for pleasing a crowd at a book signing, I’m sure he’d be even more of a hoot in a bar after slugging back a few beers. I wanted to get him into Local 506, buy him a bunch of rounds, and hear him pontificate on the stories which didn’t find their way into print. I wanted to hear why he called the organizers of the Tour of the Adirondacks a bunch of douche-bags and vowed never to race there again and I wanted to see the Bobke Strut live in person.

I’m having trouble coherently organizing my thoughts so I’ll just spew forth with my memories of the Bob Roll Experience: Bobke really loves Lance and is convinced (as I am) that he’ll win his 6th Tour this July, Bobke likes to drink, Phil Liggett can drink Bobke under the table, Bobke noticed Kirsten Gumm’s “two new friends” but reserved further commentary, Bobke is under the spell of pro cycling omerta and refuses to believe Jesus Manzano’s drug allegations, Brasstown Bald is as tough as any European hors categorie climb, being a television announcer sure beats roofing houses in Durango, riding the Gavia Pass in a blinding snowstorm was Bobke’s toughest day on the bike (that was my softball question to see if he’d say anything else, but his vivacious description of being blind and screaming for Massimo Testa at the finish line while being filmed live on Italian television was in itself worth attending the event. Bobke’s quote to the world was “This sport SUCKS!”), just like one of Bobke’s heroes he was the Man in Black, and it’s always heartening to see ex-pros who look slim & trim.

Flashback to 1996…

I’m a geek when it comes to cycling memorabilia. While I was looking through my Graham Watson books for a picture of Bob Roll riding the cobbles in Paris-Roubaix, I came across this program from the 1996 Tour DuPont’s TT stage in Raleigh tucked away in one of the volumes. I’m always fascinated by looking at past start lists to see which Euro pros have raced in the U.S. (quick quiz: did you know that Tom Boonen was on the podium of the 1999 Univest Grand Prix and that a young Laurent Jalabert finished on the podium of the 1990 USPRO race in Philly?) While I remembered Mapei sending their A team (Tony Rominger and co.) to do battle with Armstrong, check out who else made the trip. I’m pretty sure that these guys hadn’t really hit the big time yet, but nonetheless look who was here: Erik Dekker, Robbie McEwen, Michael Boogerd, Daniele Nardello, Marcel Wust, Leon von Bon, Arvis Piziks. And there’s also the contingent of Belgian/Dutch hard guy domestiques who live for the Spring Classics: Nico Eeckhout, Geert Verheyen, Tom Desmet, Erwin Thijs, Serge Baguet. What I was most amazed about was I missed my chance to meet the legendary Dane Claus Michael Moller. I have some sick fascination for this guy who’s been banned from racing in Denmark (due to failed drug tests) and survived on crap teams in Portugal. He must be pushing 40 these days, but he’s still going strong and lighting it up in the smaller Spanish and Portugese stage races. What also struck me was seeing all the American domestic pros who were such a huge part of the racing scene in the 90s who now are largely, if not totally, forgotten. Just like Bob Roll mentioned that Doug Shapiro disappeared into the woodwork, I wonder what happened to these guys who were on the forefront of pro cycling’s rebirth in the States? It’s also interesting to note the surprisingly few riders who competed both in the last incarnation of world-class stage racing in the U.S., the 1996 Tour DuPont, and the recently completed and fabulously successful Dodge Tour of Georgia: Scott Moninger, George Hincapie, Bobby Julich, Trent Klasna, Chris Horner, and last but not least Lance Armstrong (and an honorable mention should go out to Jonathan Vaughters who competed in 1996 and was the USA National Team D.S. in Georgia) are the only repeat competitors.

I was a spectator for a few of the 1996 Tour DuPont stages. I saw the TT stage in Raleigh, followed the peloton from Raleigh to Greensboro the next day, and then saw the start of the stage in Mt. Airy the day after that. It still boggles my mind that these guys raged through downtown Raleigh, that Leon von Bon won a hot spot sprint on Franklin Street near Peppers Pizza, and that Radisa Cubric nearly won the stage finishing in Greensboro while racing on a freshly fractured wrist. That bastard (Cubric) is still terrorizing (both figuratively and literally) the Masters and Pro/1/2 fields in the Southeast. I got to meet and chat with both Graham Watson and Phil Liggett in Mt. Airy, NC. That was an odd encounter. I remember talking to Graham Watson and looking over his shoulder to see some goofy-ass Barney Fife impersonator strutting around Main St, Mt. Airy. I don’t think the Euro pros quite understood what was going on or why this character fired the starting gun. Main St., Mt. Airy is also the place where I got to meet for the first and last time living-legend Sean Yates. What I remember the most, however, was the incessant bitching and griping that dominated the local news the evening of the Raleigh TT. Never mind that Lance Armstrong just kicked Tony Rominger’s ass, the only thing reported on was all the pissed off people in Raleigh who were inconvenienced by the streets being closed on a Friday afternoon. While I think the Tour of Georgia proved that the U.S. public can tolerate road closures (aside from the geezer who creamed the U23 rider with an SUV in the TT), unless there’s a rock star performer of Lance Armstrong’s stature it will be a tough sell in the future.

What does it take to get some press coverage for professional cycling into The New York Times? While I don’t turn to the NYT for cycling information, I do notice when articles appear about the sport. They’ve done a competent job of covering the Tour de France with writers Samuel Abt and Frank Vescey, but I was rather shocked that not one iota of ink was spent on covering Lance Armstrong’s stellar victory in the Dodge Tour of Georgia. I distinctly remember one of the cycling websites mentioning that the NYT had a reporter on location and I’d be rather curious to find out the fate of his/her race reports. If Lance Armstrong kicking ass on his native soil, Super Mario Cipollini winning a field sprint, and exciting racing on a daily basis from domestic as well as Euro-pros doesn’t warrant coverage, what does? Even having Sheryl Crow show up in a helicopter didn’t do the trick. Not even the specter of calamity (the U23 rider Craig Lewis getting creamed by an SUV during the time trial) piqued the Times’ interests. Sadly, I think pro cycling is doomed to even deeper obscurity and marginalization once Lance Armstrong retires (and I’d be willing to bet big bucks that if he wins his 6th Tour de France this year he’s going to pack it in on the podium).

I’m heading up to Richmond, VA on May 8th to check out the CapTech Classic and am curious about how the Fox TV coverage will pan out. Maybe there’s still hope. I’ve been heading up to Philadelphia for the Corestates/First Union/Wachovia/Whatever Big Bank Rules Philly Now race for the past 6 years and am truly impressed by the support of cycling exhibited by a major metropolis. It seems that San Francisco is also equally enthusiastic about their San Francisco Grand Prix. I’m crossing my fingers that the Pro Cycling Tour will propel domestic professional cycling out of niche obscurity, but perhaps domestic cycling’s heyday will always be the early 20th century, never to be repeated again.

Only about a month or so ago I had the good fortune to spend a week in Hawaii. While most of our time was spent on Oahu, we made a detour to the Big Island where I found a bike shop in Hilo very reminiscent of this New Yorker cover. None of the bikes were new, but it was a pleasant trip down memory lane all the way back to the Mongoose I cruised around South Orange, NJ on in my youth back in the 70s. Bikes were stacked together, hanging from the ceiling and parts were strewn about in bins and on shelves. The owner, Bill Jackson, was super friendly, laid back, and full of stories about each of the bikes in the shop such as the old school Cannondale mountain bike, the Steelman ‘cross bike, his sweet ti singlespeed he got off of ebay, 80s road bikes with Grip Shifts…We were there just as the shop was closing at 5pm and a friend of Bill’s showed up with a whole bunch of beer to kick back before heading out on a ride. It’s shops like this that keep the lore and legend of our sport alive and I rue the day when these repositories of cycling history go belly up and fade into the woodwork. The owner of this particular shop had carved out his niche in Hilo and seemed to be doing alright, and he talked about some grand masterplan of taking his used bike/part business online. He offered to set me up with a mountain bike and take me for a ride, but sadly we were pressed for time and were flying back to Oahu early the next morning. One of these days a big bag of cash is going to drop out the back of an armored car while I’m out on a ride and all that dough is going to finance a long-term, I mean really long-term, stint in Hawaii on the Big Island.

John Lieswyn hit the nail on the head the other day with his comments about roadside litter (Tour of Georgia preview, April 6th entry). I live in the Triangle region of NC and it’s never ceased to amaze and appall me how much garbage is either tossed out the windows of vehicles or flies out of trucks without any tarp covering their payloads. I was out on a ride yesterday a bit north and then west of Durham and as an experiment over a 10 mile stretch of road I started counting to myself every time I passed a piece of trash on the side of the road. I never counted higher than 5…That’s a ridiculous amount of trash, and I’m not counting minute particles of paper or cigarette butts. This is bottles, cans, magazines, kitchen-sized trash bags stuffed completely full, fast food detritus (bags, fountain drink containers, wrappers), broken furniture, miscellaneous clothing items…Is it too much to ask to keep your crap inside your vehicle until you get home or wherever else you’re headed? And cyclists who pitch Powerbar or GU wrappers are equally as guilty. Keep that shit in your jersey pocket until you get to a garbage can.

One Tough Mofo…

I think Joseba Beloki needs to give Evel Knievel a call so he can get his head screwed back on right and purge retirement thoughts from his mind. This is Evel Knievel’s skeleton and as you can see, among other shattered bones, Evel broke his femur not once, not twice, but FIVE times. Joseba only broke his once and he’s a shattered man. Granted, Evel wasn’t pedalling his Harley over 14 Greyhound buses, but Joseba could use a pep talk from Mr. Knievel nonetheless. I think this all stems from Lance Armstrong’s Jedi Mind Trick campaign that’s going full on in his attempt to attain 6 Tour de France victories and cycling immortality. Lance’s constitution is also Evel-esque in nature (who else would race the 2000 Olympic Games with a cracked vertebrae in his neck?), and now he’s waging psychological warfare among the podium contenders for Paris. Jan Ullrich? Pudgy and can’t finish a race…Joseba Beloki? Feeble-minded and can’t finish a race…Vinokourov? At least he’s getting results, but there’s no way that he can consistently out-climb or out-time trial an insanely focused Armstrong. To me, it’s looking like an all-American showdown between Lance and Tyler. I’d love to see what Hamilton can do with all his bones connected.

How cool is this? Bobke’s coming to Chapel Hill! I know where I’ll be next Tuesday night…

Tuesday, April 27 7:00pm
Author Event at McIntyre’s
Bob Roll, ESPN Tour de France commentator and an anchor for the Outdoor Life Network’s coverage of the 2004 Tour de France, will discuss his new book, The Tour de France: A Nuts and Bolts (and Spokes) Guide to the Greatest Race in the World. Bob was the first American to compete in both a Tour de France and a Mountain Bike World Cup.