I’m in Gent, Belgium this week. First up on the “things to do before I die” list is catching a night of the 6 Days of Gent. That will be Wednesday evening…I’ll be drinking beer in the center of the track all night. Next up on the list is a ‘cross World Cup in Belgium…so it’s off to Koskijde on Saturday. Tomorrow my mission is to ride from Gent to Oundenaarde and back so I can ascend the Koppenberg. And not pull a Skibby.

Tour Fever by J.P. Partland.

I’ve been known to attend professional baseball games from time to time. As a wee youngster, living within sight of the New York City skyline, my parents took me to Shea Stadium so I could watch Tom Seaver pitch and Dave Kingman belt towering home runs. Fast forward several decades, and a couple of times each summer I’ll attend a local AAA ball club’s immaculate downtown stadium if only to put away a few beers, admire the precision mowing patterns in the outfield grass, and watch the sun set. One of the games I attended this past summer was like no other I’d ever experienced, however, due to the Israeli couple who joined us at my wife’s invitation. These people hadn’t a clue about baseball. They knew of its existence, they knew a ball was involved, but that’s about the extent of their knowledge. So how does one go about explaining a sport to an absolute neophyte? At first thought the rules seem straightforward, but then all the oddities and quirks come up. This seemingly simple exercise becomes a protracted discussion of why your first two foul balls count as strikes, but you can’t strike out by fouling additional balls into the stands so you can hit an additional 25 foul balls out of the park and still keep swinging, or how sometimes a baserunner can be called out by stepping on the base vs. needing to be tagged. Oh, and the rudimenatary concept of “bat” and “base” needed explanations, too. And absolutely out of my mind, I dared bring up ground rule doubles, spitballs, Abner Doubleday, why the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, etc. The things one takes for granted when the sport is around you for a lifetime.

So this brings me to J.P. Partland’s Tour Fever, which deftly explains the Tour de France to befuddled Americans much better than I can impart baseball elucidation to befuddled Israelis. If your average American was asked to name one bike race the Tour de France would be the likely answer. And if pressed to name a professional cyclist, Lance Armstrong would also be the typical response. But put that same person in front of a television of an in-progress Tour de France stage and they’d almost certainly be absolutely perplexed about the machinations taking place before their eyes. And at this point, if I ran the universe, J.P. Partland would magically appear on the scene and sell a copy of Tour Fever to this spectator whose level of professional cycling knowledge is equal to the “What’s a bat?” line of questioning I fielded from my Israeli acquaintances.

If you’re enough of a fan of professonal cycling (particularly the Tour de France) that my blog makes sense to you then you’ll likely be well-versed in every aspect of Partland’s book which explains the Tour from the ground up. It sets the stage by discussing a familiar sporting icon (Lance Armstrong) and his pivotal crash and recovery on Luz-Ardiden during his 2003 TdF triumph. From there Partland explains the history of the Tour, how exactly one goes about winning the Tour, the purpose of other competitions besides the yellow jersey, what actually makes professional cycling a team sport, the physical and mental qualities of an elite professional cyclist, the Tour route itself, race tactics, the technology of cycling, and handy tips about becoming a Tour de France spectator (through print resources, television, the Internet, or the ever ambitious in-person option). The 224 pages of Tour Fever, chock full of text, a glossary, and indices, are essentially a primer into Professional Cycling 101, and provide the building blocks to dissecting and analyzing a sport alien to our cultural sporting norms. If you grew up in a cycling-mad environment such as Belgium this knowledge would likely be absorbed just as an American soaks up baseball. Absent of such an upbringing, Tour Fever is a handy reference for making sense of an initially perplexing sporting dynamic. And while this book concentrates on the Tour de France, the principles learned here can be applied to other cycling events throughout the season. Many Americans are oblivious to the cycling calendar in months other than July, and hopefully piqued curiosity will lead spectators to embrace other races throughout the long road season.

While the aforementioned nuts and bolts of the Tour de France experience are laid out lucidly, what struck me as particularly engaging are Partland’s snippets of information regarding his introduction to the sport as well as his discussion of how exactly an American so inclined to race progresses from his first road bike to toeing the line as a Tour de France pro. I’ve begun to notice some familiar last names appearing in the Junior and Senior ranks…names like Phinney, Stetina, O’Reilly, Simes, Barczewski, Chauner…all promising cyclists whose parents were at their prime while I was learning about the sport. The remaining 99.99% of us, however, don’t have parents who’ve raced professionally (if at all) to set an example and provide tutelage from the time the training wheels come off, so we find our way to the sport via random, serendipitous paths. Partland’s fascination with Euro cycling as a teenager struck a chord with me since our gravitation to the sport followed strikingly familiar paths. While becoming bored with BMX in the 1970s, I cobbled together a barely functioning rendition of a track bike (thankfully with a coaster brake, a la Little 500 rigs) from bikes recovered from the dump, donned a TI Raleigh cap, and began to roar around my neighborhood in pursuit of speed. One day a guy on a shiny road bike, fully kitted out like a pro, happened to roll through my stomping grounds and I jumped on his wheel on my jalopy. Much to his consternation, he could not drop me as he began to turn the screws. And much to my surprise he stopped and began quizzing me about my heap. His advice…”Dude, get your parents to buy you a racing license and a real bike”.

Additionally, I think it’s particularly rare to read about how one becomes a professional cyclist, much less how one gets to compete in the Tour. Partland goes into the state of competitive cycling in this country, its challenges, and the process of progressing from amateur to pro. Based on how many times I’ve had to field questions at work, from relatives, or from random people who see me in cycling garb why I’m not racing the Tour de France it’s an aspect of our sport which deserves attention and outreach. It’s common knowledge how professional baseball/basketball/football players progress to the pinnacle of their sports, but to the lay person in the US the sport of professional cycling is truly enigmatic to the point where it’s surprising to find out that people actually make a living from competing. No matter what one thinks of Tyler Hamilton, several years ago he gave a funny interview in which he had to explain to his in-laws just how exactly he was going to support his wife. They didn’t believe riding around on a bike was a vocation, but they’d probably never ask Michael Jordan what he did to support his family while playing for the Chicago Bulls.

And once one has completed the prose portion of Tour Fever, there are the lists of professional cyclists who’ve made Tour de France history. Every North American cyclist who’s ever started the Tour (through 2005) plus every person/team gracing the final Tour podium from 1903 through 2005 are chronicled year by year. For those curious about professional cycling’s history, the names gracing the latter portion of Tour Fever are the jumping off point for attaining one’s TdF Ph.D. Begin poring through web sites, books, magazines, films, and videos to discover the many hallowed expoits of these individuals and teams who’ve made TdF history for over 100 years. Embrace your inner TdF geek. After all, one never knows if winning a fortune on Jeopardy hinges on who donned the final green jersey in the 1963 Tour. Of course that would entail lucking into a Cliff Clavin-esque category selection.

If there was one thing lacking from the prose, it’s visuals. The only photograph within the entire book is the cover shot of Lance Armstrong resplendent in yellow. Professional cycling is such a visually stunning sport and anecdotes throughout the book could have benefited from a few strategically placed images to complement the text. I’m guessing that the cost of copyright clearance for iconic TdF images may be prohibitively expensive.

And on the subject of visuals…and serendipity…and the truly small world of people who race somewhere in the vicinity of the 12K dreamer realm is this post I made back in March of this year. Yes, that’s me front and center in purple looking a bit worse for wear. And to the right, in the solid red jersey, is none other than J.P. Partland. For the sake of disclosure, I’ll admit that I knew his name and could recognize him from my days of racing in the Northeast primarily through his proliferation of hair kept in a ponytail, but I can honestly say that I’ve never spoken a word to him prior to somewhat recent email communications regarding a possible review of Tour Fever. Who would have thought that our paths would intersect once more nearly 15 years later courtesy of “the internets”. What is apparent is that J.P. Partland is a kindred spirit afflicted with a fever, fervor, and fascination of the Tour de France…and Tour Fever is an able steward for those just embarking on understanding the Tour or for the more grizzled aficionados who’ve felt the Fever wain in recent years.

It’s getting to be the time of year when various cycling publications, web-based entities, and opinionated pundits are holed up in undiscolosed locations plotting to dole out multitudes of awards to PRO cyclists whose stellar achievements on the bike warrant recognition. Sure, the Paolo Bettinis, the Fabian Cancellaras, the Alberto Contadors will undoubtedly get their due, but there’s always room for one more award. Added to the pantheon of VeloNews’ “EuroPRO of the Year Who Didn’t Lie About His pre-Tour Whereabouts”, Cycle Sport’s “If It Isn’t Scottish It’s Crap All-David-Millar-All-the-Time Lovefest”, High Times “Downhiller of the Year”, Wired’s “Most GBs of Memory Filled-Up With SRM Data”, venerable non-cycling honors like the Oscar, the MTV Moon Man, the Clio, the Emmy, is the new kid in town: my first annual Big FucKing Hennepin, hereby bequeathed in 2007 to Adam Craig.

Firstly, let’s hear it for employees of beer-selling establishments equipped with Sharpies and a sense of humor. It only makes sense that uber-sized beer goblets deserve equally proportioned beer vessels. Hence the recent appearance of a Big FucKing Hennepin gracing the shelves of Sam’s Blue Light.

So…why Adam Craig?
1. This photo, along with some prose by esteemed scribe Mike Ferrentino:

You have to love a man, who is arguably the fastest XC racer in the U.S., showing up at a drunken singlespeed race in the north of Scotland, a week before the World Championships, wearing a mullet and a mustache that he grew just for the event to go along with the specially chosen Daisy Duke shorts, denim vest and pantyhose that he was racing in. That’s admirable.

Even more admirable is the way that he rode the race—hollering out rebel yells and maniacal laughs, passing politely, stopping to chat, taking beer hand-ups, wrecking hard on fire roads after taking said hand-ups, and still winning with a crushing margin. Topping it off, he took a tattoo to soft part of his ass that is bigger than most man-hands, less than 48 hours before he was scheduled to race the team relay at the “real” world championships.

2. Nat Ross chimes in regarding the 2007 ‘Cross Vegas:

…10. Who is the baddest motherfucker on the planet?
-Right now I would have to say Adam Craig. He won 43 dollars in one hour while wearing a skinsuit. Not bad for the single speed champion of the world. But can he count? I don’t know if I see 43 dollars in the pic. Where was the rest stuffed? That’s what I thought, sock or not Adam is still the man. He even has a silly tattoo to prove it.

3. He hasn’t mastered the art of clipping in to the pedals at the start of ‘cross races, and he thinks it’s funny:

I did my trademark pedal slip at the start. I told the guy behind me he was screwed, and he was. This is how I like to start the Gran Prix season off: a terrible start, riding through, entertaining people, and getting the most aggressive rider for the day so I can buy my mechanic dinner.

4. Adam Craig don’t need no Foo-Foo pit bikes and Dugast tubulars. Check out the accumulation of ice acquired while scorching the NC locals at a wintry ‘cross race in 2003 while preparing for a trip to Monopoli, Italy for the world championships. Also note the bloody ankle, where Craig ate it pretty hard while trying to bunny-hop a series of barriers. I lined up against Adam that January, and I don’t think I’ve ever been lapped so quickly in my life. In fact, I think he got me twice. The man has a motor.

There’s a single paragraph in Allan Peiper’s excellent autobiography, A Peiper’s Tale, which stopped me in my tracks. It’s 1978 and Allan Peiper is in the United States for the Junior World Championships (track events at T-Town then a week later the TTT and road race in Washington, DC). Having finished the road race, Peiper finds himself stranded all alone in DC with another 10 days before he can fly back to Belgium. Here’s the paragraph at the bottom of page 34:

It was time for another angel. Luckily there was one in Washington, a guy called Mac who had raced in Belgium the year before. He arranged with his parents to take me back to his place in North Carolina. I didn’t ride well in the [road] race-my emotions were all over the place-but afterwards we drove home with Mac’s mother, and Mac got me a job for a week sweeping the floors in the factory where he worked. It ended up being the most fun week I ever had. I made some money, and even rode a race at the weekend where Mac arranged for someone who was going to back to New York to drop me at JFK.

Now, for those who live in North Carolina, the words Mac, North Carolina, and raced in Belgium can only mean one person: Mac Canon. Being very intrigued by this passage in Peiper’s book, I called up Mac recently and he graciously spent approximately 45 minutes talking about Allan Peiper, among other things. Thirty years ago in 1977, Mac Canon befriended Allan Peiper at an ultra low-budget rental house in Ghent, Belgium. I had a litany of questions lined up for Mac, but as it turns out I only had to interject very sporadically to guide the conversation. There’s probably several books worth of stories still locked in Mac’s head, but what follows is certainly fascinating reading. It’s a lengthy piece, but I believe one can never overdose on first-hand, insider Lore and Legend. Enjoy.

How did you end up coming to Allan Peiper’s rescue in 1978?

That’s a long time ago! [laughs] We go way back before that. When I went to Europe the first time, (because we didn’t have Colorado Springs and all that good stuff like we do now, and if you wanted to race you had to go to Europe to race) I searched around and kept calling and writing. A lady in Ghent, Belgium was putting some people up or getting them put up with a guy who ran a little place renting rooms. It was kind of run down so badly I don’t think even the locals could live there, it was only foreigners. It was me, Roger Young, Tom Schuler, and a whole bunch of Aussies. Allan was part of that Aussie group as a Junior. He was 17 or 18, and we rode all the races together. We just huffed around and raced. I think Alexi Grewal was there for a while, not at that particular place, but in the area.

The guy [landlord] was like the Fred Sanford of Ghent. He would sleep underneath newspapers and he was crazy. He’d burn you out of your room because he’d stuff the furnace with all kinds of junk. But he was a real nice guy and I think we lived there for less than $50 a month.

So Allan was part of that group. He and a couple of [Aussie] guys lived in the back. He went with a group of Belgians to Austria [1977 Junior World Championships]. He was doing well in the races. He came back with a bronze medal in the Road Race [actually, according to Peiper’s book it was a bronze in the Points Race]. So we just got to be friends hanging out there [in Ghent]. We’d head out to the cafes, head out to the pubs…just having a good time.

The next year [1978] was just more bike racing and I was keeping up with him through some letters and things like that. He says ‘I’m coming to the Junior Worlds road race’ [held in Washington, DC]. I went with a friend of mine…we headed up to watch. We hung out, I can’t remember how he did in the race [Not well…but Peiper won a silver medal in the Junior Worlds points race on a borrowed bike a week before at T-Town.], but he had a week or 10 days before he was going to go back [to Belgium]. I said ‘Why don’t you come back [to North Carolina] with me and stay with me.’ I’m working at this door factory and I talked to the guy [the owner], he was a young fellow, and I told Allan ‘I’ll get you in, no worries’. This was back before all this stuff you deal with now. We paid Allan under the table and put him to work.

It was a hot summer and we trained a lot. That’s the first time that I ever saw veins on someone’s belly. My dad had this little BMW 2002 that he bought right out of the showcase in 1976. We used to motor pace behind that thing [after work]. Allan was tearing up the bumper with his tire. But getting back to the work thing…this is funny. Remember the small Cokes that had where they were made on the bottom, like Washington, DC or Water Valley, MS, or Spokane, WA or wherever? The workers had this big board with a bunch of pushpins out there. So I said,’ What are you doing?’ They said, ‘Oh, that’s Travel. When we break we drink Coke and everyone chips in a quarter and we travel’. ‘So what do you mean, travel?’ ‘Whoever’s Coke is from furthest away wins all the money.’ So we used to play ‘Travel’. And it used to get close, you had to break out the yardstick and measure. So Allan loved that, he loved to ‘Travel’.

It was just hot summer nights…skinny-dipping. Just hanging out. My sister was his age and she’s a good-looking girl and Allan liked her a lot. Mom fixed a sit down meal, old school, we ate at the table together. All the food you needed and wanted. He just loved it. I think Allan grew up in a broken family. His dad was an alcoholic and they used to not even tell him where they lived because his dad would show up drunk and raise hell. So they’d hide from him and just that whole deal dealing with that. Allan thought is was the best thing in the world being in Albemarle [NC], training and racing.

Then we drove up [to the Northeast]…did a road trip. The next week was Fitchburg–back before it was a stage race it was just that big crit downtown in Fitchburg. So we did Hartford, Fitchburg, and Walpole…three big crits they had 4th of July weekend. So we drove this guy’s big ol’ station wagon with a buddy of mine. Just seeing everything, hanging out in the New England experience, going up through the mid-Atlantic states, going to New York, and going to New England and racing. Allan had some good races. Just seeing 4th of July…he never experienced anything like that. When he left he was going back to Europe to stay with Eddy Planckaert. We got real close. We were both upset, it was a tearful moment so to speak, it was hard to say goodbye to him. It was just bike racing and being buds. He’s just a super guy.

I went back over there, I guess it was 1989, when I was racing some on the track just for a little fun doing some 6-days. He was there and he gave me a whole bunch of clothes. I was down on money and he loaned me money. The guy is just a million bucks. He had a tough time. He’s lucky to even come back to racing…I guess he had an amoeba or something in him. And the thing about it was that even back then the doping thing was pretty bad. He was real adamant about being clean, doing it straight up. He didn’t bend over for any soigneur in town, he wasn’t that kind of guy. His racing results weren’t as great as some of the other guys, but you have a lot of respect that you don’t normally get.

We had some good times there [Ghent, 1977]. We lived in the student area where the University of Ghent was located. I’ve got some pictures of these girls throwing water out the window. There was just a lot of friskiness back then. We used to go out all night and race, go out all night again and race. We used to eat beans on toast with rice, anything we could find we would fix it, cook it, eat it, and thought it was great.

Were you in the house in Ghent for just one year? Did you go back other years?

I was only going to go a month. It was a big deal, I was only 19 and going for a month. Actually, I had some pretty good races. You always remember the first race where you crack the top-20. It felt like you won a stage of the Tour de France. The racing was just bone knuckling hard. I had bruises on my forearms from banging the handlebars from being down in the drops. The bars are more anatomical now so you can’t do that, but the old days with those old bars with the funky bend…It was just hard. You’re going so hard in a 12…I remember a couple of times you’re closing your eyes because you’re trying to go as hard as you can go. Crazy. It’s just absolutely insane.

But then after a while you figure it out and start placing. Then you get asked to race. We did a 5-day stage race down in France. I went with this other Australian, Ian Chandler, who ended up winning. So it was Ian Chandler, John Eustice was on our team–back when he raced, Rory O’Reilly–the guy from California who was a good kilo rider, a couple of other Southern California kids, me…just a composite team of English-speaking riders. There was a team from Cuba there…they had everything. And of course you have all these French teams. But we ended up winning. I always felt good because Ian had a flat once and I went back and gave him my wheel. Support hadn’t gotten there. Jackie, our team guy, couldn’t get to him in time and I gave him my wheel and sent him on. Ian ended up winning the race by 15 seconds and I always felt proud that I had something to do with that 15 seconds. You just never know how things will pan out down the stretch so I always felt good about that.

Then, I did Circuit Franco-Belge and the Tour of Liege. Both of those now are pro races. Those were amateur races, then. Well, they were called amateur races but they were so hard. So I did the Belgian races first, had 2 or 3 days rest, then the French race, then I got god-awful sick eating something down there. Waking up with the shakes and sweats. I was supposed to do the Tour of Luxembourg but I said ‘No, I’m done…I’m going home’. I did this criterium, I won a prime, and then I just puked after winning the prime. I think I pulled out of the race. I was just 145 lbs…crazy light…just a skinny ass kid. Good fun.

Then I went in 1980 for 9 months and I lived with a family. That’s when I took John Patterson over there. Then I went back there in 1989 for the track thing. They tried to get me to stay, but I just went back to Florida. I just said ‘I’m out of here’.

Were you still based in Ghent for your 1980 and 1989 trips?

I stayed three months that year with Allan [1977]. I was only going to stay a month but stayed three. I came back with $500 in my pocket. Back then that was good money…usually you come back broke. To come back with $500 in your pocket, you did damn good. That was nice. In 1980 I stayed with a family. I went back to Ghent and then John [Patterson] and I split up. I went with a family looking for a rider and went to live near Ninove[?] where Allan actually lived. I worked in a bike shop in Ninove, but the guy kept terrible books. He had creditors up his ass, he was too nice and just gave everybody everything. He had two complete Campy took kits just sitting on his bench. He was a great guy but unorganized as hell. That’s when I learned to speak the language [Flemish] real well because I was changing tires and generator lights for these old ladies that came in while shopping. Practically everybody there, you know, they all ride bikes. They busted a tube or needed a generator light and you’d fix it. There was an old potbelly stove cooking back there and you’d just learn to speak, learn the language.

I stayed there for nine months and did the road and the first part of the track season. After the road season ended they asked me, ‘Do you want to do track or cyclocross?’. You know cyclocross is big now, but I did the first couple of cyclocross races and said ‘Noooooooo’. I couldn’t do it. I said, ‘Look…I’ve been cleaning my damn bike all summer. I’m out of here.’ It rained everyday in June that summer, so I decided to ride track. I rode that little Ghent track…50-degree banking, baby! 165-meter track with real high banking. Then, Noel Dejonckheere’s brother Richard came up. I’ve known him, he set up a lot of races for us, and he said ‘I can get you on a team’. It was Fangio, which became ADR, which was LeMond’s team when he won the [1989] Tour. But I said ‘I’ve had enough…I’m going home. I don’t want to be bending over for some soigneur who I don’t know. I’m going to turn that contract down.’ Plus, I wanted to go back to school at State. I thought it could be me, but at that point I knew that I’d always be a kermesse pro and I just didn’t want to do it. So I politely turned him down. So that was probably the end of bigger and better things for me as cycling goes, but not as life goes.

What was the North Carolina and southeastern racing scene like back in the 1970s?

Well…it was a lot of key races and small stuff. It wasn’t as organized as it is now. I don’t know…I’ll give you a case in point. When we were Juniors, with guys like me, Ronnie Hinson, Randy Parker and some of these other guys, back then results were in the newspapers and we looked at other Junior state championships numbers. And you know how Juniors are ‘What’s their average speed? What’s their time?’ Hell, we had the fastest average speeds of any races in the whole country in North Carolina, back when there were 50 man junior fields. We were running some damn hot races. It was good. The Senior racing was good. Some of the big boys would come in, like John Howard. These guys would come in and spank us. We thought it was great. You’d just try to hang on…you never could. You had the Tour of Tallahassee in Florida; some other races in Miami; a couple of stud things in Georgia; the Tour de Moore and the Carolina Cup; a couple of key races in Charlotte—Dilworth; the DC area and Maryland was always a hotbed of cycling; Virginia Beach; the Tidewater area. You had plenty of racing. Back then to fill it up even more we’d race both track and road. We’d drive up and do 4th of July races [in the Northeast], go across New York and catch a couple of races in Buffalo, maybe race in Canada, then come into Superweek and do Superweek. And not just Superweek…we’d race Tuesday nights on the track in Kenosha. That’s back when the guys promoting the races were all 6-day riders. Then we’d race Thursday nights at Northbrook in Chicago. They had some tough Madisons…90 minutes at 50km/hr. They would just light it up, just HARD. Roger Young, Danny van Haute, [Tom] Schuler, a few of those other guys, some Belgians would show up. You’d come out of there just wide-eyed. You couldn’t get to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. And Belgian spectators would come up and say ‘You guys did great’, shake your hand, give you $20/$30/$40 wadded up in your hand. Just give it to you. Did you ever hear of that these days? Hell no! The supporters were just different…more European. And then you’d come back down here [North Carolina] and you’re tired but you’re so much fitter than everybody else so you’d kick ass.

Of course things got going in Colorado Springs. You hear stories about that 1980 group, well I was in that group out there: LeMond, Phinney, Kiefel, Mark Gorski, Andy Hampsten, Carmichael. Carmichael was my roommate, for god sakes! We’re old buddies from way back. I knew him when he was skinny. We called him ‘The Kid’. Eddie B. came in and changed the way we trained. Some East German ideas and that kind of thing. Things were never the same after that. You still went to Europe and raced, but with the development in Colorado Springs it started branching out a little bit more. Things were getting better at home for training.

How did you get into cycling?

I came along in the 1970s amidst the bike boom. At that point it was kind of a counterculture sport. But you were getting guys who were track runners who had damaged their knees, or somebody who wanted to do something different, someone who wasn’t your typical jock football player. Well, maybe up north where there were tracks it wasn’t as true, but road racing was a mainly a skinny hippie sport. Dale [Brown] put on the first race I ever went to. We got up there, and I shit you not, he had a race where I think first place was a six-pack of beer and a watermelon. Maybe it was for each of the first three places. Just a little thing Dale threw together at the last minute on the weekend, some road race out in the country. Back then you didn’t tell the police anything. It was very strange. That’s what started it there for me. You started racing in gym shorts, then got some shoes with cleats.

Where did you get your equipment?

I got smart and got a tax license and opened my own pocket bike shop, Mac Cycles or something like that. I never made any money, but I had it and I used to order stuff wholesale from up North: tubular tires, wool shorts and jerseys. Clean Machine had a big team and I rode for them so we had some shorts and jerseys to race in, but we had to have stuff to train in. It was kind of an underground thing. Most of the real choice bikes were up in the Philly and New York City area. Guys were getting bikes from some of the old shops up there. Dale [Brown] had some stuff. There was some other stuff down here: Skip Flythe in Raleigh and Higgins in Greensboro. I had a local guy who was a Schwinn dealer, one of the last ones that was an appliance dealer and Schwinn dealer. I used to work for him in Albemarle and do anything, fix everything when I was a kid. I got him to order me a Paramount. I raced on it and it was really nice. Those never broke in Belgium. There’s always bikes breaking over there, but none of those boys ever broke one over in Belgium. Later I went to an Italian bike…I can’t think of the name. I rode a few of those. Fiorelli or something like that. It’s kind of hard to remember. It was a typical Italian bike: a little cleaner in the lugs and a tad lighter for that day in time. Yeah, equipment was kind of hard to come by. Now, of course, with the internet it’s off the hook. Back then it was word of mouth…acquire here and sell there…wheeling and dealing…buying stuff out of someone’s car trunk at races. That’s kind of the way it went.

So I dropped the bomb that I’ll be in Ghent, Belgium during Thanksgiving week—which means I’ll be there for the 6-Days of Ghent as well as the World Cup cyclocross at Koksijde…Here’s what Mac had to say about that:

[The Ghent velodrome is] Rock ‘n’ roll central. Get inside the center of the track and drink some beer. You’ll get to see that track…it’s so steep and it’s so beautiful. What you need to look at is the blue line down at the bottom. It’s got a curve down at the bottom so if you ever got a flat you could glide it down and fall into that little dish at the bottom. I was training one time in there with Johan Lammerts. You know, he helped LeMond win that Tour that one year. We were doing exchanges behind a derny at like 30-something mph. Insane…and it was a blast. He wasn’t in good shape at the time, but we hung out and talked a lot. He had a shoe sponsorship with Time. And the next thing you know, I trained with him a few times and one day he said, ‘I got these, can you wear them?’ He gave me a pair of Time shoes and Equipe pedals. They were nice…I said I’d wear the hell out of these things. You just can’t put a price on stuff like that.

I never rode the 6 in Ghent, I rode the little 3-day. I tried but never could get a partner…couldn’t get in. I rode the 6-day at Bremen, I rode Paris with a Belgian. Then he went back home that winter and I did a whole bunch of track racing in Belgium that winter. I rode and worked in a bakery. A buddy of mine’s dad owned a bakery so I hung out with them. So I rode Bremen, a bunch of stuff in Ghent. Bremen is like Oktoberfest …that’s where Beck’s beer is made…that’s insane, that race. This is back when Danny Clark was kicking it pretty hard. I was hanging out with him a little bit, riding with him some. Then I think there were two sixes going on at once: some German city and then there was Bordeaux which was a new track at the time. It was like 200 or 250 meters and it felt huge. It was great. I rode with a British guy and we’d ride with the Stars & Stripes one night and a Union Jack the next night. This was all going on when the [Berlin] Wall came down. The East Germans were just going nuts, drinking vodka every night and just killing us. All the amateurs did is race one hour just flat out….an 88” gear with a 30mph average. I think we hung in there and got 5th or 6th. Anyway…that’s the extent of the 6-day thing.

Did you get acquainted with all the roads in Flanders, like the roads used in the Tour of Flanders?

After the 6-days are over at the beginning of the year guys start training for the Classics. So you go out on these big group rides. So I rode with a couple of different teams. I rode for the KVC-Diamant team, and I was trying out some other teams and I’d go out on their big team rides. Everyone rides just a two-up paceline with a follow car. It might be raining, it doesn’t matter what the weather is, you’re going to make this ride. You may go out and ride the Het Volk loop or something like that. So you’re out there dying going over these big hills and the team director is counting who did what, who’s getting dropped. So you’re out there in a paceline in the damn 12, not really even a paceline, just two-up and pulling off. They were just loving it. They were saying, ‘You’ve got to stay, we’re going to have a good season.’ They were just all into it. That’s another one where I thought I should have stayed, to be honest. And just when you felt like cracking out comes the tea and coffee and these Belgian pastries out the window of the team car. Crazy. It was always right at the point where you were ready to quit and crawl in a ditch they’d bring out the goodies. They’d just train like crazy, but they had a good time. Belgium is a country that takes it’s cycling serious. When you ride, there’s a guy down in the ground digging a ditch and he’s checking you out. And he’s digging a ditch decked out in an expensive team jacket, the equivalent of a Team Discovery jacket today.

Thanks again, Mac, for spending a Saturday afternoon speaking with me. I owe you a beer or two. Or three.

Very early in the DVD The Six-Day Bicycle Races, it’s revealed that one of the earliest 6-day champions, a certain William “Senator” Morgan, hailed from North Carolina. Further inquiries on my part cast a shadow on the claim that Morgan hailed from North Carolina, but his life trajectory proves to be rather fascinating. Morgan won the 1886 Minneapolis 6-Day event in an era when the races were solo affairs and truly an exercise in sleep deprivation. As far as I can tell, this is his only significant victory. He appeared in other events in 1887 and then seems to have simply disappeared from the world of competitive cycling.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw quite a confluence of interests between the cycling and the internal combustion engine realms. Of course, a pair of bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio incorporated mechanical expertise gleened from cycling into their maiden flight at Kill Devil Hills, NC. Albert Champion, 1899 Paris-Roubaix victor, moved to the United States and started the Albert Champion Company (later known as the AC Spark Plug Company) to further his own motorcycle racing career having abandoned his cycling endeavors. Soon, Champion’s company’s spark plugs graced the engines on high-performance race cars and airplanes before ultimately being absorbed into the General Motors conglomeration. Similarly, William “Senator” Morgan re-emerged in the early 1900s as an avid car-racing advocate while employed as a writer for the highly influential magazine The Automobile. Morgan can be credited with promoting the Speed Carnivals, annual wintertime auto time trials held on Daytona Beach starting in 1903. Over the next 10-odd years the fastest cars from Europe and the U.S., piloted by members of the European and American aristocracy, convened in Florida each winter. Amazingly (at least to me, I know next to nothing about performance autos) a Mercedes roared through the 1 mile speed trap on the beach at 141.732mph in 1911, a world land speed record for any ground transportation medium.

While William Morgan may have long-since abandoned cycling as a competitor, he still appeared to be involved with cycling’s governing body in an editorial capacity. A humorous story appeared in the New York Times in September, 1911…a story told by Morgan talking about the insanity of the rulebook governing competitive cycling. It seems that our sport has had “Stupid” as its middle name for more than 100 years:

“The other day we were talking about reminiscences, which pertained to those pioneers in the automobile industry, who graduated from the bicycle field. All were entertaining, but the one they liked best was told us about a prize given by a Connecticut club at a bicycle tournament, which was won by C.S. Henshaw, now manager of the Metropolitan Thomas Motor Branch. It seems that Mr. Henshaw, who was a member of the Riverside, Kings County, and Greenwich Wheelmen, won a pair of rabbits as a prize. According to the League of American Wheelmen rules, if he disposed of those rabbits he would professionalize himself. So the rabbits grew and multiplied as only rabbits can, and Mr. Henshaw, getting alarmed, sought our advice. He asked if in our opinion he could sell, dispose of, or get rid of these rabbits without inviting George D. Gideon, who was the best advertisement the Quaker City ever had, to jump on him. We quote from an article in the American Wheelman, of which I was editor, published at the time of this controversy:

‘We waded through the L.A.W. racing rules and can find nothing that meets this rabbit case. Gold and silver medals do not breed, otherwise there would have been something in the rules forbidding the disposition of their offspring, neither was there anything which said that livestock won as prizes could not be boiled or roasted. We know that Welsh rabbit is good, if well cooked, with a bottle of Bass on the side. Rabbits are often used as peacemakers, for we have had them many a time without their consent with old dog “Bogle” who has been sleeping under a plum tree on the old farm for twenty-three years. The Racing Board must let our Riverside Wheelmen friend out of this awful predicament, or else we shall have a regular Australian rabbit plague on Manhattan Island.

‘Chairman Gideon has been written to for his opinion inasmuch as he lives in the country and is, no doubt, well up in rabbitology. One gentleman from Chicago offered his advice: “The rule involved reads as follows: Anyone selling, trading, realizing money on prizes won. Now, what is the matter with selling the offsprings as fast as they come to pay for the feed of the old lady and gentleman? This would not be selling the original prizes or realizing cash on same”.

‘Another gentleman from Indianapolis said: “L.A.W rules are like a basket of speckled peaches, luscious and sound to look upon but rotten to the core.[emphasis mine, too funny…] Perhaps on those productive trees, the minds of the Racing Board, sound fruit is ripening. One man was not expelled for accepting a check as a prize because it was not money until cashed, so Mr. Henshaw is exempt from the charge of racing for a divisible prize until their families commenced to arrive. Amateurs are not allowed to realize on their prizes, so the prizes should not be allowed to realize on amateurs. We can appreciate the owner’s feeling because rabbits have long ears, you know, and you also know what that means”.

It was not known whether Mr. Henshaw was considering the advisability of taking the poor debtor’s oath, which was sure to have been forced upon him, if he had not been allowed to dispose of the ill-advised prize. George Gideon finally owned up that he was not up in rabbitology, but he pleaded guilty to knowing a rule when he saw it, so he wrote: “The owner can dispose of the product of his original prize in any way or manner he pleases, but he must at all times be prepared to show me those two old rabbits.” That settled and closed the case. Mr. Henshaw was allowed to enjoy and employ his rabbits of the second and other generations with safety. It was not long thereafter that he discontinued cycle racing and embarked in the automobile trade and whether this complexing rabbit case hastened his decision to make the change is not known. Mr. Henshaw won the Greater New York bicycle championship during the nineties and the world’s motor pacing tandem championship at the Pan-American Exposition in 1902. He was the first to use motor pacing machines on the Metropolitan tracks, including Madison Square Garden.”

A relative of mine on my mother’s side of the family was a professional cyclist in Newark, NJ at about this time, and I recall reading that his progression from amateur to professional was due to an infraction of the amateur code…no doubt something akin to this rabbit silliness.

Just this evening I watched what’s likely my first and last episode of the new ABC program The Cavemen. I can’t even recall what transpired due to a prolonged episode of shock from the opening credits. Reminiscent of Zelig or Forrest Gump, random scenes throughout history had a Caveman inserted into the images to show (according to the narrarator) how they’ve “always been where the action’s at”. So, as one can imagine, you see a Caveman in an Egyptian frieze…crossing the Delaware with George Washington…as a Union soldier conversing with Abe Lincoln…bustin’ a move in a 1950s sockhop…part of a Space Shuttle astronaut crew…a member of a metal band, likely Twisted Sister…on stage with Al Gore and Bill Clinton…and finally–at the finish line of the 2004 Verona world championships (?!?!?). That’s right, the final image in the opening montage is a heavily doctored image of Oscar Freire winning his 3rd world title, flanked by Erik Zabel (who now has a Caveman head spliced to his body) and Allan Davis.

Exhibit A: Oscar Freire winning his 3rd world title

Image courtesy of cyclingnews.com | Photographer: Mitch Friedman

Exhibit B: Oscar Freire vanquishes Caveman in The Cavemen opening credits

There are plenty of photos which are much closer to the action at the finish line, but the one I used from cyclingnews.com is the only image I’ve found which has Freire’s arms exactly right. Here’s a photo with a closer view a microsecond after. Whoever took the photo ABC used must have been zoomed in about that much. It’s kind of bizarre what the creative team at ABC have done in their version of Verona. Firstly, of course, is Caveman Zabel. I’m not sure if there’s a cyclist on staff trying to put in a surreptitious dig at Zabel, or if this is just some totally random selection. And who knows why the finish of the Verona worlds. Probably if Lance was involved there’d be some high powered lawyers and right of publicity at stake. Lance and Nike could probably extract enough money to double the show’s budget. Hence, some random Euros on bikes instead. I wonder if Freire, Zabel, and Davis even know they’re on American television. And it’s also odd to me how the photo was edited…Zabel is now on the opposite side of Freire, and the rest of the peloton has been put further arear. It even looks like Davis appears again in the background. And what’s up with Davis’s hand and the missing handlebar. The advertising on Freire’s chest has been Photoshopped out. Questions, questions.

If my lifespan was converted into seconds, the total is in the ballpark of 1,235,088,000. Of the approximate 1.2 billion seconds I’ve been alive, a mere 20 have been spent one-on-one with Lance Armstrong—May 4, 1996 in a Greensboro, NC hotel lobby—and that’s all the time it takes sometimes for primal, survival instincts to kick in to the point where one wonders if a punch to the face is imminent. A punch to my face. But let’s back track a minute to set the stage for this fleeting encounter with a future 7x Tour de France champion.

Stage 4 of the 1996 Tour DuPont was a sweltering affair…110 searing miles of shade-free tarmac between Raleigh, NC and Greensboro, NC made even more uncomfortable by nearly 110 miles of headwinds, to boot. Everyone in the peloton was surely looking forward to their air-conditioned rooms at the race hotel situated about 50 meters past the finish line. Well…maybe not the Euro pros, who seem to have a superstitious aversion to AC. Tony Rominger and company probably donned both leg warmers and long-sleeved jerseys immediately post-race and cranked the heat in their rooms to fully recreate the stifling oppression of crappy French hotels in summertime (but I digress…). Lance Armstrong, due to extended post-stage podium commitments, media commitments and a trip to drug-testing controls, was the last rider (by a longshot) to walk into the Four Seasons lobby. He made a steadfast beeline to the elevators, undoubtedly dreaming about cracking open a few Shiner Bocks in an Artic-cooled luxury suite, and ran smack into a stalker parked in front of the elevator bank with a Sharpie in hand asking to autograph a 2-page, Graham Watson book spread.

That stalker would be me.

And this is a closed-caption translation of the expression on Lance’s face since not a word was spoken in our entire 20 second encounter: “Fuck…fuck…fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckityfuckfuck…I—just—want—to—lie—down …upstairs…with cold beer…and you’re in my way”. In a fervor of activity Lance tossed his bike up against the wall, started signing away, and then simultaneously 1. his bike started to tip over in slow motion and 2. the elevator door next to us opened. The casualty in this equation was me. Or more accurately, my Graham Watson book. By the time I could pick the book and pen up off the floor (both dropped by Lance in a heartbeat in lieu of saving his bike from hitting the deck) Lance was already safely ensconced in an elevator several floors above me and rising. Here is what he left me with:

It kind of looks like he managed “Lance A” before he had to pitch my book.

If many hundred of years in the future somebody finds it and tries to read Lance’s cryptic scrawl, it will probably be analogous to this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

KNIGHT: There! Look!
LAUNCELOT: What does it say?
GALAHAD: What language is that?
ARTHUR: Brother Maynard, you’re our scholar!
MAYNARD: It’s Aramaic!
GALAHAD: Of course! Joseph of Aramathea!
LAUNCELOT: Course!
KNIGHT: What does it say?
MAYNARD: It reads, ‘Here may be found the last words of Joseph of
Aramathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail
in the Castle of uuggggggh’.
ARTHUR: What?
MAYNARD: ‘… the Castle of uuggggggh’.
BEDEMIR: What is that?
MAYNARD: He must have died while carving it.
LAUNCELOT: Oh, come on!
MAYNARD: Well, that’s what it says.
ARTHUR: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn’t bother to carve ‘aaggggh’.
He’d just say it!
MAYNARD: Well, that’s what’s carved in the rock!
GALAHAD: Perhaps he was dictating.
ARTHUR: Oh, shut up. Well, does it say anything else?
MAYNARD: No. Just, ‘uuggggggh’.
LAUNCELOT: Aauuggghhh.
KNIGHT: Aaauggh.

Or is this case…Lance Aaaauuugggh.

For some unknown, random reason I have a video clip of the final kilometer of the 2005 Ghent-Wevelgem saved on my hard drive. Every now and then I’ll stumble across it, watch it, and probably 97% of the time I’ll wonder how Nico Mattan can look himself in the mirror regarding the manner he won (arguably) the biggest race of his career…playing motorpace Frogger with various cars and motorcycles shadowing Juan Antonio Flecha. I wonder if Flecha got one of these for his New Year’s party. It’s the least Mattan could do. But really…what do you expect when a pro wins a marquee event almost within sight of his home. Just ask Levi Leipheimer about creative interpretations of the rulebook favoring a native son.

Lately, however, my lukewarm (at best) regard for Nico Mattan may warrant a radical revamping based on an amazing anecdote in the September 2007 Cycle Sport. Mattan, in cahoots with his cycling-mad Flemish entourage, planned the all-time great Tour de France meet-and-greet during stage 2 of the 2001 Tour from Calais to Antwerp. The route wasn’t going through his home town, but it did pass fairly close by within West Flanders. Mattan arranged for a flatbed trailer to be situated on the Tour route resplendent with his family, friends, fans, a Belgian TV crew, and ramps(!!!) at either end for a seamless entry/exit via his bike. Then, Mattan worked his ass off to get in and then motor the early break so it would survive until the trailer. Let’s just let Nico tell in his own words exactly what happened as the break approached the rendezvous point…

“As we neared the Belgian border the [Cofidis] director said over the radio, ‘Now, you are not going to stop are you Nico?’ I didn’t answer and he started to panic and said, ‘Nico, this is the Tour de France and you are in the break, you can’t stop.’ But I still didn’t answer.

“We got nearer and nearer to the trailer and the director got even more impatient. ‘Nico, Nico, don’t stop.’ But I did, and as I rode up the ramp I could still hear him shouting, ‘No Nico, don’t do it!’ I gave my interview, I spoke to my family and then I got on my bike and rode back into the race.”

Sweet.

Every now and then I hear of bizarre goings on during races, such as a certain pro that stopped at a roadside yard sale during a stage of a New England stage race and bought a waffle iron. And then transported it across the finish line. If I recall correctly, he was OTB and just trying to make the time cut when he took his detour. Stuff like that just cracks me up. But during le Tour??? Mattan didn’t finish too badly rolling in 28th and best Cofidis finisher (both stage and GC). But that takes some serious balls to motor a Tour de France break and then consciously remove yourself from said-break just to stop on the side of the road for your friends, family, and the media. Mattan told his director that the break was doomed once the course turned east towards Antwerp due to the wind so it didn’t matter that he bailed when he did. And yes, the break got caught just as Mattan predicted. But still…I don’t think I’d want to deal with my DS post-race following such a preposterously cheeky move on a world stage.

Professional cycling indeed has a drug problem…a problem exemplified by a notable lack of characters pushing the envelope of gratuitous pharmaceutical ingestion simply for pharmaceutical ingestion’s sake. Take a look at the chemical yawn-fest cycling fans have had to endure: testosterone, EPO, illicit blood transfusions, out-of-wack T/E ratios, blood thinners, cortisone. Where’s the fun in shooting yourself full of that stuff. All it does is ensure your body can endure increased bouts of physical misery on the bike. Sure, the peloton can claim some diminutive Italians dabbling with cocaine (Daniele Pontoni, Gilberto “Candy” Simoni, Salvatore “Hey, this blow isn’t mine” Commesso) and one has to mildly applaud Michel Pollentier’s (failed) ingenuity regarding avoiding a TdF drug test. But cycling is still light years away from approaching professional baseball’s Dock Ellis who has set the bar pretty damned high. The man pitched a no-hitter on June 12, 1970 against the San Diego Padres while tripping on acid.

From Keven McAlester’s detailed account of Ellis’s career, particularly the LSD episode. This is just freakin’ remarkable:

Thirty-five years ago, on June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate and future Texas Rangers pitcher Dock Ellis found himself in the Los Angeles home of a childhood friend named Al Rambo. Two days earlier, he’d flown with the Pirates to San Diego for a four-game series with the Padres. He immediately rented a car and drove to L.A. to see Rambo and his girlfriend Mitzi. The next 12 hours were a fog of conversation, screwdrivers, marijuana, and, for Ellis, amphetamines. He went to sleep in the early morning, woke up sometime after noon and immediately took a dose of Purple Haze acid. Ellis would frequently drop acid on off days and weekends; he had a room in his basement christened “The Dungeon,” in which he’d lock himself and listen to Jimi Hendrix or Iron Butterfly “for days.”

A bit later, how long exactly he can’t recall, he came across Mitzi flipping through a newspaper. She scanned for a moment, then noticed something.

“Dock,” she said. “You’re supposed to pitch today.”

Ellis focused his mind. No. Friday. He wasn’t pitching until Friday. He was sure.

“Baby,” she replied. “It is Friday. You slept through Thursday.”

Here’s what Ellis remembers about the trip from Los Angeles to San Diego: not a goddamn thing. Apparently he got to the airport, boarded one of the San Diego shuttles that left every half-hour, flew for 22 minutes and landed. The first thing he recalls is sitting in a taxi, telling the driver to “get to the fucking stadium. I got to play.” Next thing, he’s sitting in the locker room. 5 p.m. By that point, Ellis had enough experience with LSD to know that it wouldn’t be wearing off anytime soon; as a, uh, “precautionary measure,” he took somewhere between four and eight amphetamines and drank some water. He walked to the railing at Jack Murphy Stadium where, each time he played in San Diego, a female acquaintance would bring him a handful of Benzedrine. White Crosses. He took a handful of those and went to the bullpen to warm up…

…What’s weird is that sometimes it felt like a balloon. Sometimes it felt like a golf ball. But he could always get it to the plate. Getting it over the plate was another matter entirely. Sometimes he couldn’t see the hitter. Sometimes he couldn’t see the catcher. But if he could see the hitter, he’d guess where the catcher was. And he had a great catcher back there. Jerry May. You could make mistakes with him, and he would compensate. He’d know if he called for a curveball, he could look at the follow-through of your arm and see if you were gonna hang it. So he’d get ready to slide and block. Also, he had this reflective tape on his fingers that was by far the easiest thing to see.

Ellis had no idea what the score was, and he knew he’d been wild–he ended with eight walks, one hit batsman and the bases loaded at least twice–but here it was, bottom of the seventh, and he was still in the game.

The hardest part was between innings. He was sure his teammates knew something was up. They had all been acting strange since the game began. Solution: Do not look at teammates. Do not look at scoreboard. Must not make eye contact. His spikes–that’s what he concentrated on. Pick up tongue depressor, scrape the mud, repeat. Must. Clean. Spikes.

One has to wonder if Vinokourov wasn’t dabbling with LSD during the most recent Tour de France. Talk about erratic, bizarre behavior: senseless crashes, TT victory, relegated to the autobus, victory, then booted for easily detectable blood doping. One has to wonder if the peloton was seeing scenery like this, while Vinokourov was grappling with a more perplexing panorama. Maybe somebody should ask him. Or how about Zabriskie…just watch all of his 2007 Tour de France Velonews video interviews in succession and provide some sort of explanation (other than acid) for his demeanor.

I actually knew somebody who inexplicably did try to combine bike racing and acid. He popped some LSD at a raucous party at about 3am on a Saturday morning…slept for a few hours…remembered he had a race that afternoon…drove a mere 10 miles along the NYS Thruway in an attempt to attend said race…then promptly exited the Thruway at the first rest area to spend the rest of Saturday and a good chunk of Sunday parked in his car enjoying an acid induced light show in lieu of racing.

It’s Sunday evening, Versus has put the 2007 TdF to bed, the Champs-Élysées is once again overrun with automobiles, emaciated Euro-pros are fast approaching drinking their body weight in liquor at swank Parisian bars, gawkers confirm that Alberto Contador is indeed more skeletal than the models draped under each of his arms, and I’m thinking about Eliot Ness.

Specifically, the moment in “The Untouchables” when Kevin Costner’s Ness character realizes his plan to bring Al Capone to justice in court may be about to go up in smoke due to incriminating documents taken from a Capone henchman: the fix is in, Capone owns the jury. And Ness’s solution? He convinces the judge to swap juries with another trial across the hallway to ensure an untainted citizen pool.

Which brings me to the 2008 Tour de France. If one really cares about the future of the Tour, if one really cares about instilling a sense of integrity and truth to the most beautiful spectacle in sport, if one really wants to send a message to the Euro squads that we’re fed up with their doping fiascos, then send them all to Superweek. Here’s how it plays out:

At medical check-in prior to the TdF all the squads are told to simply pack a single suitcase of leisure clothes along with their cycling shoes/pedals. Surprise! You’re all flying to Wisconsin! No Tour for you. 12 months.

At the same time back in the U.S., everyone who’s pre-registered for the Pro/1 Superweek event will receive a plane ticket to France and similarly be instructed to pack a single suitcase of leisure clothes plus their cycling shoes/pedals. This is your new Tour de France peloton.

The kicker is…all the team infrastructure stays on their respective continents and will be divvied up by lottery. All the U.S. D3 squads and bike shop teams once headed to Superweek now get to draw straws for who gets to be Quick-Step, Liquigas, Euskaltel, etc. The arriving Americans will inherit the entire kit and kaboodle…all the bikes, team kits, team buses, team cars, soigneurs, chefs, team staff, mechanics, hotels, etc. They’ll just slot in to whatever team they pick via the lottery just as if they were on the team’s Tour roster. Similarly, all those Euro pros get to draw straws for the equipment awaiting them in Wisconsin. They may luck out and get a D3 squad like Rock & Republic with its array of Escalades, Scott carbon bikes, and actual hotels…or you may now have 9 Rabobank pros crammed into a 20 year old Chevy conversion van, sleeping in youth hostels or somebody’s basement, patching their own tubes, hand-washing kits in sinks each night, depending on prize money for gas, and feasting on my own tried-and-true econo Superweek diet of beer, bratwurst, burritos, and bananas.

The schedule of Superweek can be tweaked to give the Euros some semblance of the Tour. Just cluster all the road races in the middle of the schedule (Tour of Holy Hill is now your queen stage in the Pyrenees) and end it at Downer Avenue (now the Milwaukee substitute for the Champs-Élysées). If I was exceptionally cruel, the Euros’ trip back across the Atlantic would be financed by prize money alone…but maybe that’s going a wee bit too far. They wouldn’t be back until the Tour of Lombardy after hitch-hiking to the East Coast and then bumming a ride on a cargo freighter across the pond. There’s only about $60,000 (plus primes) to go around. Super squads like Discovery and CSC will definitely take a mega-financial hit, but the Agritubels of the world may actually make out about the same money-wise. Superweek will now be their Tour de France and post-Tour criterium-fest all rolled into one grandiose extravaganza. Maybe they’ll learn how to go around corners faster than old ladies.

On the Euro side of the Atlantic now being raced by America’s finest D3/Cat 1 contingent, maybe Henri Desgrange’s vision of the perfect Tour would finally come true. Said Desgrange, “The perfect Tour would have a perfect winner only if one man survived.” You want human suffering, the cream of America’s criterium racers will give you human suffering. Making the jump from several weeks of high-octane, 100km criteriums to seemingly endless consecutive 200km road races is quite an escalation in pain and mileage…let’s see how much truth there is to arriving at the Tour slightly under peak form and “riding oneself into shape”.

And could the hordes of viewing public know the difference? At Superweek…hell no. Maybe there would be some puzzlement about the relative lack of English speakers taking part and the preponderance of faux-hawk coiffures, but that’s about as far as it would go. In Europe…do all those people on the side of the road really know who’s racing? Well…probably. But certainly they’d warm up to their new “convicts of the road”. I think the doping would likely disappear in France, unless there’s a test for THC. Just call it “medical marijuana” to ease the suffering…of the entire peloton’s “cataracts”. Make sure those medical waivers are in order.

And unless the Euro peloton can demonstrably clean up their act during the rest of the season…well…back to Superweek for you in 2009, 2010…ad infinitum, and let someone else reap the benefit of being center stage in France during the month of July.