What does Jonathan Page’s performance at the recently concluded 2007 cyclocross world championships and Artie Shaw’s semi-autobiographical novel have in common? Well…not much, except that catchy title popped into my head while I was watching Page come so damned close to putting on a rainbow jersey Sunday morning. I haven’t been worked into such a berserker frenzy watching a bike race since I lost my voice at the 1999 Presidio ‘cross nationals–just one of several thousand spectators whose ravings helped propel underdog Marc Gullickson to a national title.

They call me The Vituperator: There’s nothing quite like a room full of people urging unspeakable things to happen to fellow human beings, likely upstanding citizens each, and the results of such raw, venomous exhortations. At one critical point, when Page and Franzoi were making everyone in Belgium spit beer through their nose, I believe I started screaming “DIE FRANZOI DIE!!!” just as they hit the sand pit. And lo and behold, Franzoi flipped over the bars leaving Page and Vervecken alone to duke out the world title endgame. I wished fire and brimstone would rain down on Vervecken over those last couple of laps, but that bastard’s mojo is more powerful than anything I could deliver. As an alternative, I was wondering where Trebon and Wicks were at. If they were lapped together by Page, the two tallest lads in ‘cross could “crash” in front of Vervecken and put their collective 13′ of height and super-sized rigs to good use by blocking the course. Come on, Vervecken, you’ve already won 2 world titles and have podiumed 4 other times. Can’t you toss Mr. Page a bone and ensure his livelihood for the remainder of his ‘crossin’ days?

30,000 Belgian Vituperators: I hadn’t realized the venom that Belgians feel towards the Dutch. But it was damn funny on the first lap when Gerben De Knegt Camiel Van Den Bergh rolled down one of the drop-offs to the 180 back to the stairs run-up while out in front on his own, and there was a thunderous wave of “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” all the way around that section of the course. Plus a whole lot of beer cups (empty? who knows…) heaved out on the course. And it also looked like De Knegt Van Den Bergh waved his fist in the air briefly, as if to say “Eat me, Belgium!!” That was just pure theatre.

The VIP treatment: Did anybody notice King Albert II of Belgium during the awards ceremony? He doled out the medals to the Elite podium…and he was wearing a press pass on a lanyard just like all the other schmoes on stage. Can’t the king just stroll in without any ID? I bet Eddy Merckx could.

Moto-rific: I hope that guy on the quad bike who took out Bart Wellens with an ill-timed plastic barricade ricochet had a full tank of gas. Because if he didn’t just keep on riding, like out of Belgium, then he’s probably already been “paid a visit” by the Bart Wellens goon squad.

“…Spends his winters finishing between fifth and 10th in cyclocross races”, so says Cycle Sport in their recent Ag2r 2007 team preview. John Gadret rolled in a respectable 8th on Sunday, fulfilling his 5th-10th obligation. There’s strength to weight ratio, which he’s got in spades, but there’s also pure power, which somebody weighing about 128 lbs most definitely lacks. Which is why Gadret negotiated the sand pit on foot nearly half the time, having simply run out of gas. And unless the freakiest man in cyclocross uncorks something Page-esque in his future, I think the Bobke Strut Gadret-orama will be coming to a close. At least until he shows up in Providence this October on Sven Nys’s chartered plane…and I’ll be there stalking him in baggage claim.

Coming tomorrow, or a couple of days…Lest we forget, Matt Kelly won the US’s second ‘cross medal and only world title on a frigid Poprad day in 1999. I’ll tell the story of the hooptiest bike to ever win a ‘cross gold medal in modern times.

Former pro racer Joe Parkin once told a complaining fellow racer how he could drop those last pounds. “You want to lose weight? I’ll tell you how to lose weight. Get up in the morning and eat a bagel, go ride 100 miles real slow, come home, drink a dark beer, and go to bed.”

That sounds like a plan to me.

And just who is Joe Parkin?

Parkin’s career began with a whim, a duffel bag, and a bike joining him on a flight to Belgium, where he quickly found himself courted by professional cycling teams. His planned three-month trip to Europe turned into seven years of high-level road racing. Parkin then returned to United States, and he rode for the Coors Light Cycling Team until switching to mountain bikes and spending the next three years competing internationally for Diamondback Racing and Barracuda Bicycles. All told, Parkin is a veteran of more than 1,000 bicycle races, with highlights including representing the United States at the World Road Championships, World Cyclocross Championships, and the World Mountainbike Championships. (source)

The voice of experience…

• 1988: Eurotop Keuken-Multifax (Bel)
• 1989: Humo-TW Rock-Bottecchia (Bel)
• 1990: IOC-Tulip Computers-ADR (Bel)
• 1991: Tulip Computers-Koga Miyata (Bel)
• 1992: Scott-BiKyle (USA)
• 1993: Scott-BiKyle (USA)
• 1994: Coors Light (USA)

Fact #1…1981: Jonathan Boyer finishes 32nd overall in his Tour de France debut, riding in support of Renault-Elf-Gitane teammate Bernard Hinault. Boyer cements his place in cycling history by becoming the first American to compete in the Grand Boucle.

Fact #2…1988: Joe Parkin and Andy Bishop share the honor of being the first Americans to compete in the Tour of Belgium, finishing 10th and 31st overall respectively.

But check this out…

Just in case the type is too small, here’s the text of Cyril Praet’s bio as published in Milwaukee’s Second International Six-Day Bike Race (Dec. 13-19, 1932) program:

22 White Number. CYRIL PRAET, American road rider, is probably the strongest rider in the race. Praet was born in Detroit, Michigan, September 12, 1904. After the war was over, at the age of 15, he went to Europe and entered the road races around Belgium, and in two years became one of the sensations of the year. He has ridden in the tour of Belgium and the Tour de France, which is a real test of strength and endurance. This race lasts for ten days over the mountains, up into the snow, and through the hottest of climates. Praet came to America two years ago, and has never been given a chance to show his worth in a six-day race.

Approximately 48 1/2 years after this program appeared, Jonathan Boyer rode his first Tour de France. And about 55 1/2 years later, Joe Parkin and Andy Bishop make America’s debut in the Tour of Belgium. So why has history forgotten Cyril Praet, an American who apparently preceeded Boyer, Parkin, and Bishop by about half a century? Good question…and my answer invariably vacillates from a cautious “I don’t really know” to “The dude’s a fraud.”

Here’s what little I do know about Cyril Praet’s career as a professional cyclist: Praet competed in four American six-day races (1931-Minneapolis; 1932-Milwaukee, 1933-Detroit, and 1934-Detroit). Newspaper accounts shed extremely sparse light on Cyril Praet, which seemed surprising considering the palmares he claimed. Even accounts of the races in his home town of Detroit were nearly devoid of any mention of Praet, usually just the bare bones daily box score info about points won and laps taken. Here’s how Praet was described:

• 1931-Minneapolis: “Cyril Praet (USA)”
• 1932-Milwaukee: “Bollaert and Praet, the famous Belgium road team and holders of many foreign records, form another powerful combination who are expected to be heard from plenty during the race.”
• 1932-Milwaukee: “Praet, who rides with Archie Bollaert, is a famous Belgian road racer and is tough in the sprints.”
• 1932-Milwaukee: “…Cyril Praet, Belgian road champion.”
• 1933-Detroit: “…the Detroit team of Freddie Ottevaere and Cyril Praet…”

Praet was teamed with a different partner for each of his 4 six-day events: Pete Smessart (1931), Archie Bollaert (1932), Freddie Ottevaere (1933), and Reggie Fielding (1934). He and his partners usually ended up as pack filler, although Praet did put his speed to work on occasion to win primes. Praet and his partners finished 4th in 1931, 6th in 1932, 6th in 1933, and 6th in 1934. Chicago and New York were the big leagues of six-day racing, and it appears that Cyril never made an appearance at the sport’s premier venues. The only inkling of how Praet was perceived by fellow cyclists was offered by the legendary Canadian Torchy Peden who crapped on Praet while singing the praises of Praet’s partner Freddie Ottevaere during the 1933 Detroit race:

“We riders know something good when we see it, and we know how tough Ottevaere is”, Peden said. “He has been out of the headlines because his partners haven’t been so hot. But he has the ability. Keep an eye on him.” Peden picked the slender and unassuming Ottevaere to surpass the feats of Belgian bicycle star Gerald Debaets.

Ouch. Not exactly kind words from Peden.

I’ve spent quite some time weeding through the immense amount of data collected at the French site Memoire du cyclisme, and besides the previously mentioned six-day races I could find not one other instance of Praet competing either in the United States or Europe. Memoire du cyclisme has probably the definitive rundown of start lists and results from all major road and track events of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and I could find no mention of Cyril Praet (or even a name close to that spelling) in road events such as the Tour de France, the Tour of Belgium, the world championships, various national championships, and various Euro road events between 1919-1930. That’s right, I can’t find any official record of Cyril Praet competing in the Tour de France or the Tour of Belgium. Likewise, Praet was AWOL from all other six-day races which took place between 1919-1930 anywhere on the planet. And it also appeared that Praet simply dropped off the face of the Earth after 1934. There’s no mention of Cyril Praet in any race, road or track, in the US or Europe through the onset of World War II. Did he remain in the United States? Return to Europe? I don’t know. Various genealogical resources have been coming up empty, so at this point I don’t know if he died in the US or overseas (in Belgium?).

At this point in time, I’m leaning towards Praet perhaps playing a bit fast and loose with his palmares to gain employment as a pro in the United States. After all, it’s probably no easy venture for a race promoter in the US in the 1930s to verify someone’s Euro credentials. If someone who’s lived in Belgium for about 10 years shows up in the Midwest with a bike, looking pretty fit, and with tales of Euro grandeur, then, hell, why not give the guy a shot on the six-day circuit? Perhaps I’ve uncovered the cycling version of Kid McCoy.

So for now Jonathan Boyer’s, Joe Parkin’s, and Andy Bishop’s places in American cycling history as Euro pioneers are still firm, but maybe at some point in the not so distant future I’ll have some corroborating evidence to definitively place Cyril Praet in the Tour as well as the Tour of Belgium.

Random six-day racing factoids uncovered in historic newspapers
1. Unlike any other six-day race I’ve ever read about, the 1933 Detroit six-day race put the riders on an outdoor velodrome at the mercy of mother Nature.
2. Detoit prosecutor Harry S. Toy tried to bring fraud charges against the promoters of the 1933 six-day race. Evidently, a spectator tried to watch the racing action at 3am and was denied entry. He told Toy that the velodrome was dark and as best he could tell, there was no racing taking place. Toy tried (unsuccessfully) to bring charges against the promoters since in Toy’s opinion a six-day race implies 6 non-stop days of racing. “It appears that the race was a race only when there were cash customers about and a sleeping match the remainder of the time.”
3. Diet of champions. Here’s Torchy Peden talking about what tasty food and beverages are ingested during the 1933 Detroit six-day event, “Most of our food consists of broth, vegetables, fruit and an occasional piece of meat, usually rare. We drink practically no water. But we do take gallons and gallons of unpasteurized milk and plenty of ginger ale. Water is considered heavy stuff.”

I stumbled across these images (and many more of a similar vein) here a few weeks ago. The subjects making up the left column seem to simply be faithful renditions of photographs, but within the right column, primarily of pros of the 1900s-1950s, the artists seem to focus on men whose cycling and post-cycling careers were awash in tragedy, and the black and white renditions of those dark moments are particularly evocative…and disturbing.

1. Francois Faber

François Faber (1887-1915) was a Luxembourgian cyclist. He was born in France, but because his father was a Luxembourger, he got the Luxembourgian nationality. In 1906, he participated in the Tour de France for the first time. He didn’t reach the finish. The next year he was 7th in the Tour and in 1908 took second and won two stages. In 1909 he dominated the Tour. He won five consecutive stages, a record that is still unbroken. In his career he won 19 Tour de France stages, Paris-Brussels, Bordeaux-Paris, Sedan-Brussels, Paris-Tours (twice), Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Lombardy. When the First World War broke out Faber joined the French Foreign Legion. On May 9, 1915 at Carency near Arras he received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. Cheering he jumped out of the trench and was killed by a German bullet. The GP François Faber, a small race in Luxembourg, is named after him.
(Faber information found here)

2. Roger Riviere

An excellent time trialist, to the same level as the great Jacques Anquetil, Riviere was ideally placed to win the 1960 Tour de France. Gastone Nencini was in the leader’s yellow jersey but was weak against the clock. On July 10th, during the 14th stage, Riviere crashed into a ravine while descending the Col de Perjuret, sustained major back injuries, and never regained full use of his limbs. The extent of his potential can be gauged be the fact that that Riviere defeated two World Hour Record holders, Jacques Anquetil and Ercole Baldini, in the time trials of the 1959 Tour de France.
(Riviere information found here)

3. Henri Pélissier

Henri Pélissier (22 January 1889 – 1 May 1935) was a French cyclist and champion of the 1923 Tour de France. In addition to his 29 career victories, he was known for his long-standing feud with Tour founder Henri Desgrange and for protesting the miserable conditions endured by riders in the early years of the Tour. Pélissier was notorious for being argumentative and hot-tempered, often inciting teammates and others in the peloton. After his retirement in 1928 his combative personality led to a quick deterioration in his life. In 1933 his wife Léonie despaired of living with him and shot herself to death. Two years later his new companion, Camille Tharault, shot Pélissier to death with the same gun after he slashed her with a knife during an argument.
(Pelissier information found here)

4. Abdel-Kader Zaaf

Zaaf, an Algerian who participated in the Tour de France four times (finishing once, 1951), is best known for collapsing in the 1950 Tour while in the winning 2-man break with his Algerian teammate Marcel Molines. Upon regaining consciousness from heat exhaustion, Zaaf remounted his bike and proceeded riding the wrong way on the course before being picked up by an ambulance. Following his final Tour de France in 1952, Zaaf disappeared into the maelstrom of his war-torn homeland. Three decades passed before he was spotted in a Paris train station in 1982. He had a sad story to tell - a soldier came to his house in the middle of the night demanding he come downtown and show his papers. Zaaf resisted and the soldier shot him in the leg. He was thrown into prison, and his leg wound went untreated. He also began to lose his eyesight from uncontrolled diabetes. When Zaaf was finally released, he recovered a small stash of money he had secreted away and came to France for an operation for his eyes. When the story emerged he was deluged with cards, presents, and money from fans who remembered his brave rides on the roads of France.
(Zaaf information from “Cycling’s Golden Age, Heroes of the Postwar Era, 1946-1967″ by Owen Mulholland, VeloPress, Boulder, 2006: pg. 87)

Images source:
http://www.cubra.nl/wegwijzerwielrennentourdefrance.htm

“No job is so simple that it cannot be done wrong”

So said my fortune last Friday night at our fave local Chinese restaurant. And what was immediately running through my mind was, “Hmmmm…I just glued a new tubular on the rear wheel which I’ll be racing in my final ‘cross race of the season about 36 hours from now.” And my parallel, predominant concern, since I get superstitious when it comes to cycling, is that maybe this wasn’t the time to experiment with a new means of gluing tubulars…not glue per se, but my first encounter with Tufo Tubular Tire Gluing Tape. Can a glorified strip of double-sided masking tape really keep me from ignominiously rolling a tubular in competition?

Because nobody wants to be this guy…

Image source: http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=4469

Until cyclocross renewed my passion for racing a bike, I’d long since given up on tubulars. Clinchers have made vast improvements since the beginning of my racing days back in the early 80s, and the road racing I was doing over the past 10 years or so was not hindered in the least by foregoing tubular wheels. But me and tubulars, we go way back. Oh, the (sometimes painful) memories…

1. Fast Tack Trim Adhesive, I Guess the Fast Tack Part is Important After All
3M Fast Tack Trim Adhesive was the staple of my tubular gluing endeavors for nearly every tire I raced on from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. My source for the repurposed glue was the local Napa auto parts store in Cooperstown, NY. I kept a piece of the cardboard box with the code number in my wallet so I could make sure I got the right stuff from the dizzying array of auto accessories in their stockroom. They never asked me what I was doing with all that trim adhesive. Maybe they thought I was some kind of car trim idiot savant, since I didn’t buy anything else from them at all. They likely new I was “Peter, that guy who races bikes”, but the question of my glue purchases never came up.

One early summer day, I think it was 1989, I went by the trusty Napa store to buy some Fast Tack only to discover their stock was depleted. However, there happened to be another 3M product by the name (I think…it’s been a while) simply “3M Trim Adhesive”. Trim adhesive is trim adhesive, right?

I should have been tipped off right away by the consistency, very close to toothpaste, not the uber-sticky nature of Fast Tack. But I was young and stupid. So I glued up that front wheel. And then I drove to Pittsfield, MA that weekend to race on said front wheel. And in no more than 2 laps of what should have been a 50 lap crit, that bad boy rolled off the rim like it wasn’t glued on at all. Because it wasn’t glued on at all. I was first through the 3rd turn, just beginning to contemplate the can of whupass I was about to unleash on these rubes, when I unceremoniously found myself powersliding across the pavement on my right side. Thankfully, I was the only guy that went down. And then I immediately fled the course, mere microseconds after burning huge swaths of flesh off my right leg and arm, and limped about 2 blocks off the course so I could hide out for a bit. I was not about to get suspended for being a dumbass, and I needed to remount my tire and deflate it so I could re-emerge at the ambulance and have a (kind of lame) excuse about flatting my front tire and then losing control. I still have scars on my leg from that horrific slide across asphalt, I still cringe when I re-live the medics wire brush treatment to raw flesh (I happened to slide through a patch of sand to boot), and I learned that the Fast Tack part of 3M Fast Tack Trim Adhesive is an element not to be trifled with.

2. ‘Roid Ragin’ in CT
I did quite a bit of racing in New England from 1983 through 1991, and one of the things I remember was the pre-race bike inspection. In theory, it was a good idea. A surprising number of people show up to races with bikes in various states of being about to fall apart due to negligent or incompetent home mechanic skills, and everybody had to get a sticker on their bars to prove their bike wasn’t about to jettison parts mid-race and likely take down a huge chunk of the peloton. One rather annoying aspect of this inspection was the dreaded “Let me try to roll your tubular” guy, usually an amped up, ‘roided up, simpleton whose sole thought was “I bet I can roll any tire off any rim”. This guy usually had biceps bigger than my quads, and enough mis-guided strength in his arms and hands that I bet he could have snapped the welds of my steel frame given a few minutes of frenzied effort. On one particular weekend in CT, maybe it was New Britain or New London…who knows, I rolled up to the bike inspection sporting clinchers. I was a newbie junior, and tubulars weren’t yet part of my arsenal (which was probably a good thing). And then, much to my amusement, Angry Tubular Rolling Guy went to work on my clinchers trying his damndest to roll them. Because he was a bodybuilder, not a cyclist, he couldn’t tell the difference. So I said, “Hey, I’ll give you a million bucks if you can roll that tire off the rim”. I think this doofus really thought the offer was legit, and he set to work. I nearly turned as red as him, although I was laughing while he nearly burst a blood vessel in his head due to the stress and strain. Thank god that clincher held.

3. The Last Turn at Fitchburg (Back when it was an off-camber near 180 degree turn about 200 meters from the line)
Maybe it was 1985, and I was racing in New England on 4th of July weekend. I’m pretty sure it was a 3 day affair, with racing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday and Saturday were in CT, and the only excitement coming my way during those two days was an impromptu extended interval to escape a gang of hooligans determined to rip off my bike (from under me) while warming up in the wrong part of New Britain. But no matter, the real excitement happened that Saturday night, the evening before Fitchburg. I was a wide-eyed teenager with more fitness than race-smarts accompanied by an upstate New York dynamic duo: a rather savvy teenager with equal parts fitness and race-smarts (Rider A) and a very green teenager with substantially less fitness and smarts than all of us (Rider B). Rider B flatted that afternoon, and Rider A and I watched him whip out a new tubular and proceed to glue it on the rim that evening in our hotel. And we couldn’t believe our eyes, because (1) he was gluing on a track tubular and (2) the glue he was (barely) using wouldn’t be dry enough to race on the next day. But Rider B was absolutely convinced that no harm would come his way, and that the track tire would be his secret weapon in Fitchburg the next day. All Rider A and I knew was that we needed to avoid him like the plague in the peloton come Sunday afternoon.

As Fitchburg frequently does, the Junior race came down to a frenzied field sprint which wound up a few laps out. Rider A and I avoided Mr. B according to plan, and set about setting up a leadout to earn some cash. We had a monster Suburban with twin tanks on E which needed feeding. Rider A was speedy, wily, and knew the ropes and my mission was to drop him off at the head of the peloton just as we approached the final death turn to the line: a 180 degree uphill off camber. I don’t know what came over me, since I really dreaded crits during my Junior years, but I managed to weasel and worm my way up the right hand side of the peloton in the closing laps with Rider A glued to my wheel. I made one last mighty surge up the back stretch, nearly scraping skin off my right arm as I threaded the needle up the right hand gutter adjacent to the snow fence, and Rider A wormed past me into maybe 4th place approaching the final turn with dollar signs for eyeballs…And then he rolled a tire while negotiating said hairpin turn. And then I plowed into Rider A, laid out in said hairpin turn. And I had to drive that scary ass Suburban back home, having had a learners permit for maybe 2 weeks, since Rider A had no skin on his ass and couldn’t drive. And Rider B took great pleasure in mocking Rider A nearly the entire drive back home, since his track tubular didn’t roll and all the huffery and puffery and indignation coming from Rider A the previous evening was just a load of crap.

4. Not the Wisest of Moves
Like I said earlier, cyclocross renewed my vigor and enthusiasm for competition and training. After racing for a couple of seasons on clinchers, I decided that maybe the leap to tubulars really made sense. And it just so happened I had a pair of tubulars left over from the heyday of my road racing years. Now I’m sure some of you out there may cringe or cry when you read this, but those tubulars were a well-preserved set of Mavic GEL 280s. Sure, I thought, they’re not noted for strength and durability, but I got my money’s worth out of them so what the hell. Well, about 1 minute into their inaugural ‘cross race in Boone, I plowed into a barrier at warp speed and that front wheel damned near transformed itself into a mobius strip. RIP.

5. Henk and I Luv Us Some Wachusetts Mountain
1991 was the first year that the esteemed Fitchburg Criterium morphed into its current incarnation as a stage race. They had some bugs to tweak, like the order of the events. For the Pro/Am field, this was my weekend lineup: Friday morning…105 mile Wachusetts Mountain RR, Friday afternoon…11 mile TT, Saturday afternoon…62 mile circuit race, Sunday afternoon…50 mile crit. There wasn’t much drama regarding the outcome of the stage race after the 105 mile slaughterfest concluded, particularly since Coors Light showed up with the A team: Davis Phinney, Steve Swart, Roberto “2×4″-ioli, Dave Mann, and maybe Roy Knickman. I believe Coors Light won all the stages and swept the final podium with Davis Phinney emerging victorious. What still resonates was how god-awful that road race was for me. The second time down Wachusetts Mountain, in a nasty rainstorm that felt like buckshot due to the peloton’s 60+ mph speed, my rear tire exploded when it got pinched in a frost-heave asphalt chasm. I thought it was all over. I had minimal braking, minimal control, I couldn’t see too well from the road spray, and I couldn’t raise my right arm to warn fellow racers or the wheel van about my flat rear tire. I drifted out the back of the pack, managed to stop the wheel van with a well-timed primal scream as the tail end of the caravan cruised by, and thanked the Lord that I was riding a well-glued tubular instead of a clincher. Because you can still ride a tubular when it’s flat, as long as you don’t have to turn too much. Just ask Abraham Olano about the 1995 Worlds, or just ask me.

Of course, once the jitters and the shock of thinking I was going to die wore off, there was the matter of those pesky 88 miles still to race. By myself. In the rain. Thank goodness the officials had mercy on me and turned a blind eye to the time cut. I was actually amazed there were still officials on top of Wachusetts Mountain waiting for me.

Ok, all you children of the 70s, quick question…

If you spent as much time as I did during the pre-teen years poring over the Guinness Book of World Records, what single image is still burned into your brain?

$100 says it’s this one:

Image source: http://www.cojoweb.com/McCrary-twins.html

Here are some interesting facts about Benny and Billy McCrary, the World’s Largest Twins (source material: here and here, more photos here):

• Benny maxed out at 814 lbs. Billy never crossed the 800 lb. barrier, opting instead to keep his weight at a svelte 784 lbs.
• Backed by Honda and Holiday Inn, Benny and Billy rode Honda mini-bikes cross-country. They took 30 days to ride from New York to Los Angeles.
• During the cross-country mini-bike odyssey, Benny and Billy met professional wrestler Gory Guerrero in El Paso, Tx.
• Once their mini-bike trip concluded, Benny and Billy embarked on a career as professional tag-team wrestlers, initially under the tutelage of said Gory Guerrero.
• They trained about two months in Mexico and began wrestling there, often in bullrings.
• From there, they went to work with Dory Funk Sr. in Amarillo, Texas.
• Later, they worked for Leroy McGuirk in Oklahoma City and in Nashville.
• After that, they were pretty seasoned and hit the road.
• In Japan, they switched from being the McCrary Twins to the McGuire Twins. “The announcers would have trouble with it. They would pronounce it Queary and we’d say, ‘We ain’t no queers.’
• One of Benny and Billy’s signature wrestling moves, “The Big Splash”, had an occasional unsavory result. Benny would pin an opponent, and then, according to Benny, “…then Billy would come sit on top of me. I’ve had wrestlers poo-poo in their pants from the weight.” (Wow, too much information)
• Benny and Billy appeared in Vegas where they played trumpets and told jokes with 400-pound go-go dancers.
• Billy died of injuries after a mini-bike stunt gone wrong in Niagara Falls.
• After Billy died in 1979, Benny teamed up with other wrestlers, including Andre the Giant, before retiring from the sport.
• Benny later opened up a pawn shop.

Another random tidbit of information is that Benny and Billy McCrary are natives of Hendersonville, NC, where I just happened to be last weekend for day 1 of the Southeast’s only UCI sanctioned cyclocross races. The less that is said of my performance in the 35+ event the better. Suffice it to say that 5 hours of sleep, a 20 minute warmup, and training one day a week for the entire year are not conducive to podium appearances. More along the order of “please don’t lap me”. But regardless of my form, I do love racing.

Anyway, between the finish of my race and the start of the Elite Men’s event was an approximate 2 hour window which I dutifully spent riding to Benny’s and Billy’s final resting spot (Crab Creek Baptist Church Cemetery: 72 Jeter Mountain Road - about 9 miles southwest of downtown Hendersonville) where I paid my respects.

Even in death, they’ve set yet another world record: the world record for the largest granite tombstone, weighing in at about 3 tons:

Imagine for a moment an alternate universe. A parallel dimension where instead of meeting Gory Guerrero in El Paso, Benny and Billy ran into a certain legendary six-day pro/promoter Patrick Sercu:

Sercu: Listen, Gory Guerrero’s got nothin’ to offer. NOTHING. This so called ‘Rasslin’ is not a sport. It’s fake. On the other hand, professional six-day bike races are honest athletic endeavors devoid of any illusion of fraud or scripted outcome…
Billy: That’s not what I heard.
Sercu: Now where did you rubes get that idea? Hear me out…How would you like an eternal diet of complimentary beer and frites…
Benny: Wait, I know all about beer, but what the hell are freets?
Sercu: Uh, gloriously fried, golden, crispy, salted potatoes. I believe you call them of all things “French Fries” here. But we use mayo, not ketchup.
Benny: Ooh, that sounds good. Me and Billy can’t live on beer alone.
Billy: At least not for extended periods of time.
Sercu: Right…Anyway, as I was saying, you’ll have a chance to race your mini-bikes - umm…actually we call them dernies…but no matter - all over Europe, ogle oodles of show girls, take in a non-stop disco music soundtrack each night, and most importantly, you’ll be guaranteed a place in six-day lore and legend. I can’t seem to find any Yanks who can cut it in Europe indoors on track bikes. Instead, this land has an uncanny knack for producing men larger than anyplace on the planet. But Benny and Billy, you two win the fat-ass crown hands-down.
Benny and Billy: Amen to that, brother!
Sercu: Damn, I’ve got about 20 Euro speedsters itching to draft such a doughy dynamic duo like you two. And my-oh-my, draft they will. Why don’t you both sign right here on the dotted line…And then we leave for Belgium.

Feast your eyes on what may have transpired in hallowed indoor velodrome venues such as Dortumund or Copenhagen or Zurich or Munich or Grenoble or Ghent. Benny and Billy…you missed your true calling.

Photo ©: Roberto Bettini http://www.cyclingnews.com/cross.php?id=photos/2006/nov06/worldcup4_06/S-moureyFrancis42

The wrong Frenchman (in my humble opinion) won the Treviso World Cup last Saturday, but what a masterful performance by Francis Mourey. He even repeatedly ran the stairs with his stubby legs just as fast as the svelte Vervecken and Nys - no easy feat. Of course, the Treviso parcours was much more dirt criterium than cyclocross so it makes sense that Mourey, a FdJ road pro, would prevail in the 3-up sprint, but you can never count out Sven Nys who just plain knows how to win no matter what the conditions. 5:51 laps on a 3.2km circuit (better than 20mph avg. speed) is just nuts, and the race director in Treviso admitted that changes would be made for the 2008 world championships to take place at the same venue. I had a hunch Mourey would win, even if the cycling.tv duo all but wrote him off, but that last 100 meters was a thing of beauty. Fluid RPMs trumped raw Belgian power bogged down in big gears.

If wee John Gadret hadn’t been knocked off his bike about every other lap on the crazy steep-maybe-you-can-ride-it,-but-there’s-a-good-chance-you’ll-run-it 26% power climb by flailing competitors who crashed and burned when their forward progress ceased and desisted, maybe he could have improved on his 10th place finish. I can’t wait for the remaining World Cup races to be broadcast on cycling.tv.

And I believe that freaky-tall Ryan Trebon will be making his way across the pond very soon to do battle in Europe all the way through the world championships next February. I think Francis Mourey’s head would barely crest the top tube if he happened to be walking next to Trebon’s ride in the pits.

“It’s the first race where you can’t hide”
-Sven Nys opines on the Koppenbergcross

When you weigh all of 128 lbs. including the field-full of cow shit and slimy Belgian mud plastered on your limbs, when you rock Giro mountain stages in the company of Ivan Basso, when you’ve got the watts to finish strong in the Giro di Lombardia, when you live for hard-guy courses in Belgium, then the climber-friendly cobble-rama that is the Koppenberg Cross is your time to strike the fear into Sven Nys. If only John Gadret could go downhill like he goes up. But a podium spot in the heart of Flanders ain’t too shabby for someone heretofore relying solely on ProTour road fitness. Says Gadret, “I’m really happy with my performance as this is the first important cyclo-cross for me. Up until now, I didn’t enjoy specific cyclo-cross training so I’m certainly lacking the technical skills that other riders have mastered,” Gadret explained. “My goal this season is to win an event in the world cup.”

That’s right, it’s just a matter of time…a time, that is, when Gadret can convince a World Cup ‘cross promoter to have a ‘cross hillclimb.

The skinniest-and-freakiest man in cyclocross has been busy putting the finishing touches on his inaugural ProTour road season, while getting his feet wet on the ‘cross circuit. John Gadret is one of only two riders (Enrico Franzoi of Lampre being the other) who has let it rip in 2006 in the Spring Classics, a Grand Tour, Fall Classics, and the Euro ‘cross circuit. His initial forays into cyclocross this Fall seem a bit subpar, maybe he got even freakier-lean to rock the hills (on the road) at the expense of raw power necessary for ‘cross, but there’s plenty of ‘cross to come…

Quik Step-Innergetic must be laughing all the way to the bank. They’ve got the world champion on their squad for another year, and all they have to do is put Tom Boonen’s kit and bike in an industrial strength drier for a few hours so it will shrink to fit wee Paolo Bettini.

And not being satisfied merely using Boonen’s hand-me-downs last week in the Championship of Zurich, Bettini integrated some leftover Paola Pezzo gold lame shorts into the kit a few days later for the Giro dell’Emilia. Leave it to the Italians to bust out the exotic threads.

The Olympics are truly a new frontier for professional cyclists. It’s only been since 1996 that professionals were allowed to compete in the Games, with Switzerland’s Pascal Richard emerging victorious in the inaugural pro/am Olympic road race in Atlanta. Realizing that this would likely be the last, great race he’d ever win, and having no precedent to follow, Richard invented his own Olympic kit, complete with a pretty tame set of gold shades to boot. And don’t forget those world champion bands to commemorate his 1988 world cyclocross championship:

A garish Pascal Richard in 1998 (note to Pascal - Casino kit and Olympic rings are a hard visual combo to digest)

A tamer Pascal Richard in 1999

I think the IOC then became aware of Richard’s copyright infringement and shut down his self-styled Olympic tribute, leaving future road cycling Olympic champions at a loss to commemorate Olympic glory. Because it there’s one entity on the planet more freakishly protective of its intellectual property than Disney, it’s the Olympics. Hence, Bettini’s use of gold and gold lame instead of concentric rings to honor his Olympic victory. Curiously, it doesn’t appear from a cursory review of photographs between 2001-2004 that Jan Ullrich ever took liberties with his kit to reflect his Olympic glory, preferring sartorial Telekom pink and when appropriate, his German national championship jersey.