Friends: For the second time in these travels I arrived at a friend's house while he was out and about. Brian, at least, had forewarned me he had an errand to run and might not be there when I arrived. It allowed me a pleasant couple of hours of reading on the porch of his stately "antebellum" home built in 1989 atop a heavily wooded hillside three miles from downtown Knoxville.
After I'd been there an hour a car pulled in. It was Brian's girl friend Emily, who was swapping her car for Brian's to go fetch him in Marysville, right next door to Alcoa, about 15 miles away, down Alcoa Highway. With the cheap energy provided by all the dams in the area Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America) had located there, as it requires a considerable amount of energy to convert bauxite into aluminum. Iceland with all its cheap thermal energy is another center for aluminum production.
Brian is one of the few people I know who has also been to Iceland, and Japan too. Brian had a period in his life when he would scan travel websites for ridiculously cheap fares, or fares that offered g. ridiculous amounts of miles. Occasionally he'd pounce on an airline's mistake. That enabled him to get to Iceland for less than $100. Brian is presently somewhat bound to Knoxville looking after the family home waiting for the market to improve so he can sell it.
Beside a compulsion for travel, we are similarly drawn to cinema and film festivals. Brian has worked for quite a few festivals--Chicago's International and Underground Fests, San Francisco, Palm Springs and others. His movie-viewing has pretty much been reduced to DVDs of late though. His last significant cinema experience was driving 180 miles to Nashville to see Harmony Korine's latest. Nashville is Korine's home town. He introduced the film and was accompanied by Gaspar Noe, a French director with a distinctive vision well out of the mainstream just like Korine. Both have strong cult followings that overlap. I am one of those. Brian said Korine announced that Noe was in need of some female companionship. After the film Brian drove past the theater and noticed that Korine's announcement had worked.
Though I converted Brian to the bicycle when we were roommates in Chicago, the hills and four-lane Alcoa Highway back into Knoxville, that actually has a sign prohibiting non-motorized vehicles at its entrance in Knoxville, which I ignored, has discouraged him from biking of late. I was hoping he might accompany me on my way out of town yesterday morning, but it was a solo venture.
I was lucky it was a Sunday, otherwise the Kingston Pike I took out of Knoxville would have been suicidal on a bicycle. It had no shoulder. Its four-lanes would have been clogged with hurrying traffic. It took me past an array of churches, mostly Baptist, but a good sampling of others. The Christian Science and Seventh Day Adventist churches faced off against each other. A synagogue was a little further down the road. Though Knoxville isn't known as a great metropolis, it was 18 miles down the Pike before I escaped the gauntlet of franchises and development and slipped into rural countryside.
Brian recommended a road other than the Kingston Pike, but the Pike led to Harriman, the only town in Tennessee within my range that had a Carnegie. Knoxville at one time had three of them, including one built for "coloreds," but they were all long gone. It was a little tricky to get to Harriman. We had to zoom in on googlemaps to find a road to it from Kingston without going on interstate 40. My Triple A map didn't show a road, but there was indeed a way.
Harriman's Carnegie celebrated its 100th anniversary last year and still had the anniversary banner draped across its entry between its twin pillars. I asked a police officer on the outskirts of town for directions. He was happy to learn that I had come to see it and proudly proclaimed that it was well worth seeking out. It was just behind the town's fire department on Walden Ave. A historical marker in front of the fire department called Harriman a "Utopia of Temperance." It had been established in 1891 as "an ideal industrial city, an object lesson for thrift, sobriety, superior intelligence and exalted moral character, where workers would be uncorrupted by Demon Rum." One of the town's founders was a member of the national temperance party.
The white brick library had lost none of its majesty. The two story building stood alone on a grassy lot just a block from the main street. I felt no disappointment that it was a Sunday and I couldn't go inside. Seeing it from outside was more than enough.
From Harriman I picked up route 27 north to Kentucky, which will lead to a couple more Carnegies once I cross the border. The temperature has finally cooled thanks to a cloud cover and a bit of a drizzle. Its not even 60 degrees today, barely warm enough to eat outside.
Later, George
Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Knoxville, Tennessee
Friends: I arrived in Knoxville early this afternoon amongst throngs of orange-clad football fans flocking to Neyland Stadium for Tennessee's game against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the lesser of the Alabamas. I hadn't seen so much orange since this past July when I was in Holland during the World Cup.
There was a much greater variety of orange jerseys here and quite a variety too of woman's wear--skirts and assorted dresses and wraps. Many fans were carrying orange T seat cushions and/or orange pom-poms. Cars had been passing me all day with window flags and cars plastered with orange T's. The T was prominently splattered on clothing as well. As I circled the stadium, I was offered tickets by a handful of scalpers. I lingered for a spell at the main entrance hoping someone might offer me a ticket for free, as I can count on at Wrigley Field, but no such luck.
Charity car washes are a popular item in Knoxville. Once I crossed the city line, I passed at least half a dozen organizations offering a wash--service organizations and athletic teams. Most had women in scanty outfits trying to attract attention. If I had a car needing a wash I would have chosen the girl's rugby team. They looked as if they would have given it a good vigorous scrubbing.
I arrived in Knoxville a little earlier than anticipated as the terrain moderated significantly once I crossed into Tennessee from North Carolina yesterday afternoon. I had several steep two-mile climbs between Marshall and Hot Springs that wore me down considerably. I lingered in Hot Springs for several hours to recover and to wait out the mid-day heat and to take a swim in its river and also watch the trickle of hikers doing the Appalachia Trail.
The small non-Carnegie library in Hot Springs had a sign forbidding backpacks in the library. The sign-up sheet for the Internet also forbade 'trail names,' as most hikers adopt. There was no sign forbidding concealed weapons though, as I had encountered in a few of these southern libraries.
The hikers were all well-tanned and well-traveled. One needlessly had a cardboard sign lashed to the back of his pack proclaiming "Appalachian Trail." One had two dogs on leashes, each carrying saddle bags. Another had a guitar strapped to the back of his pack. They all looked quite content and aglow, doing something that was giving them great satisfaction.
The Hot Springs library was a warm and friendly place in a small house of a building. It had the personality and character of one's favorite well-worn shoe. The library in Marshall, fifteen miles away, was a strikingly new building a mile out of town on a hill overlooking the river. It had four or five times the space of the library in Hot Springs, but lacked any local flavor. It has been heartening to see so many new large fully modern libraries, but they are almost as sterile and homogeneous as the fast food franchises that have taken over the land.
As I go in search of local flavor and Americana, it is harder and harder to find. The four-lane highway I traveled for more than 100 miles from Greenville, South Carolina through Asheville, North Carolina on to Knoxville was almost as generic and heavily trafficked as an interstate, lined with Waffle Houses and Pizza Huts and Midas Mufflers and Family Dollar Stores. The Blockbusters had yet to be boarded up, despite their recent bankruptcy.
I search out country stores hoping for something that lets me know I'm in the South. All too many of them are owned by Indians, and not Native Americans, who are brusque and impatient, and sell the same line of food and drink as all the rest. I welcome their ice dispensers and 99 cent hot dogs, but always appreciate something a little different, like the stores that offer chili and coleslaw to scoop on the dogs along with the standard condiments. I'm happy for the flavor and the additional calories. After discovering potato wedges for a quarter, I go into every store hoping for more.
As I head west from Knoxville, the population should thin and I should be luckier in finding less traveled roads and less homogeneity. The camping has been as easy as ever, though one night when I was caught in the sprawl of a town I didn't realize had such a sprawl, I pitched my tent behind a cluster of pre-fab sheds for sale, a big business in the South. They all advertise, "No Credit Check," as they are an easy item to repossess. It was a quiet camp site, other than having to put up with the barking of a pack of dogs on the other side of a gully. I don't think they were reacting to me, but rather to coons and other night critters that may have been casting shadows in the full moon.
I may be sleeping inside tonight, as I am set to connect with former roommate Brian, who lives on the outskirts of Knoxville. He had an errand to run this afternoon, so I will have time to explore downtown Knoxville a little more and partake in the throngs leaving The Game in an hour or so, before heading out to his house off Alcoa Highway.
I have had three roommates the past ten years allowing me to travel as much as I have. I will have visited all three of them now in my travels--Julie-Ann last year in China, Debbie in Seattle, indeed rescuing her from a boy friend gone bad and reclaiming her as a roommate, and now Brian.
I met Brian through Chicago's Film Festival, as I did Julie-Ann. We will have a lot of catching up to do, as we share many mutual friends, and he is well-tuned into the world of cinema. One of his claims to fame is programming Gasper Noe's "I Stand Alone," for a Knoxville art house many years ago. Noe's latest provocation, "Enter the Void," just opened this weekend in New York and Chicago after debuting at Cannes 16 months ago. It was one of my favorite movies last year. I hope it is still playing when I return to Chicago in ten days or so.
Later, George
There was a much greater variety of orange jerseys here and quite a variety too of woman's wear--skirts and assorted dresses and wraps. Many fans were carrying orange T seat cushions and/or orange pom-poms. Cars had been passing me all day with window flags and cars plastered with orange T's. The T was prominently splattered on clothing as well. As I circled the stadium, I was offered tickets by a handful of scalpers. I lingered for a spell at the main entrance hoping someone might offer me a ticket for free, as I can count on at Wrigley Field, but no such luck.
Charity car washes are a popular item in Knoxville. Once I crossed the city line, I passed at least half a dozen organizations offering a wash--service organizations and athletic teams. Most had women in scanty outfits trying to attract attention. If I had a car needing a wash I would have chosen the girl's rugby team. They looked as if they would have given it a good vigorous scrubbing.
I arrived in Knoxville a little earlier than anticipated as the terrain moderated significantly once I crossed into Tennessee from North Carolina yesterday afternoon. I had several steep two-mile climbs between Marshall and Hot Springs that wore me down considerably. I lingered in Hot Springs for several hours to recover and to wait out the mid-day heat and to take a swim in its river and also watch the trickle of hikers doing the Appalachia Trail.
The small non-Carnegie library in Hot Springs had a sign forbidding backpacks in the library. The sign-up sheet for the Internet also forbade 'trail names,' as most hikers adopt. There was no sign forbidding concealed weapons though, as I had encountered in a few of these southern libraries.
The hikers were all well-tanned and well-traveled. One needlessly had a cardboard sign lashed to the back of his pack proclaiming "Appalachian Trail." One had two dogs on leashes, each carrying saddle bags. Another had a guitar strapped to the back of his pack. They all looked quite content and aglow, doing something that was giving them great satisfaction.
The Hot Springs library was a warm and friendly place in a small house of a building. It had the personality and character of one's favorite well-worn shoe. The library in Marshall, fifteen miles away, was a strikingly new building a mile out of town on a hill overlooking the river. It had four or five times the space of the library in Hot Springs, but lacked any local flavor. It has been heartening to see so many new large fully modern libraries, but they are almost as sterile and homogeneous as the fast food franchises that have taken over the land.
As I go in search of local flavor and Americana, it is harder and harder to find. The four-lane highway I traveled for more than 100 miles from Greenville, South Carolina through Asheville, North Carolina on to Knoxville was almost as generic and heavily trafficked as an interstate, lined with Waffle Houses and Pizza Huts and Midas Mufflers and Family Dollar Stores. The Blockbusters had yet to be boarded up, despite their recent bankruptcy.
I search out country stores hoping for something that lets me know I'm in the South. All too many of them are owned by Indians, and not Native Americans, who are brusque and impatient, and sell the same line of food and drink as all the rest. I welcome their ice dispensers and 99 cent hot dogs, but always appreciate something a little different, like the stores that offer chili and coleslaw to scoop on the dogs along with the standard condiments. I'm happy for the flavor and the additional calories. After discovering potato wedges for a quarter, I go into every store hoping for more.
As I head west from Knoxville, the population should thin and I should be luckier in finding less traveled roads and less homogeneity. The camping has been as easy as ever, though one night when I was caught in the sprawl of a town I didn't realize had such a sprawl, I pitched my tent behind a cluster of pre-fab sheds for sale, a big business in the South. They all advertise, "No Credit Check," as they are an easy item to repossess. It was a quiet camp site, other than having to put up with the barking of a pack of dogs on the other side of a gully. I don't think they were reacting to me, but rather to coons and other night critters that may have been casting shadows in the full moon.
I may be sleeping inside tonight, as I am set to connect with former roommate Brian, who lives on the outskirts of Knoxville. He had an errand to run this afternoon, so I will have time to explore downtown Knoxville a little more and partake in the throngs leaving The Game in an hour or so, before heading out to his house off Alcoa Highway.
I have had three roommates the past ten years allowing me to travel as much as I have. I will have visited all three of them now in my travels--Julie-Ann last year in China, Debbie in Seattle, indeed rescuing her from a boy friend gone bad and reclaiming her as a roommate, and now Brian.
I met Brian through Chicago's Film Festival, as I did Julie-Ann. We will have a lot of catching up to do, as we share many mutual friends, and he is well-tuned into the world of cinema. One of his claims to fame is programming Gasper Noe's "I Stand Alone," for a Knoxville art house many years ago. Noe's latest provocation, "Enter the Void," just opened this weekend in New York and Chicago after debuting at Cannes 16 months ago. It was one of my favorite movies last year. I hope it is still playing when I return to Chicago in ten days or so.
Later, George
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Hendersonville, North Carolina
Friends: I am once again on the trail of Carnegie libraries. Two of South Carolina's eighteen were built in towns on my route of 200 miles across the state, route 178, until I picked up 25 to Greenville. I stuck to 25 north out of Greenville, rather than taking a less busy and more scenic road, as it took me through Hendersonville, site of one of North Carolina's ten Carnegies.
Unfortunately, only one of the three century-old Carnegies I have sought out so far still serves as a library. That was in Honea Path, the smallest town in South Carolina with a Carnegie. The small red brick building in a residential area could have passed as someone's home. I missed it when I passed by it the first time, not even noticing the book drop out front. It has been magnificently preserved, and, like all Carnegies, stands proudly as an architectural gem. Its high ceilings and spacious interior made for a most comfortable retreat.
Honea Path still has a modest enough population to make do with such a small library, unlike Hendersonville and Greenwood, the other city in South Carolina that was on the Wikipedia list of towns in South Carolina with a Carnegie that was on my route. Both these towns have grown into sprawling cities. Their Carnegies have long ago been replaced by huge County libraries. The Carnegie in Greenwood has been torn down, but the one in Hendersonville on the corner of Fourth and King now houses a development company.
Greenwood was in the process of moving from the library that replaced the Carengie in 1957 to a new location. I caught the movers in action at 8:30 yesterday morning. The movers knew nothing about the former Carnegie, but a librarian was able to fill me in on the details. She didn't know though if the Carnegie still stood in Honea Path, 25 miles away. "That's in Anderson Country," she said. "I can't rightly say."
The head mover was a typical Southerner of great friendliness. After we had chatted for a couple of minutes he asked me my name and introduced himself, a customary practice in the South. He told me that if anybody in the news business should happen to do a story on me before I left South Carolina to be sure and mention his moving company, Rapney and Sons, as he could use the business.
I was on the alert for the next hour down the road awaiting a reporter to pull up alongside me, as happened to be in Louisiana in January of 1986 when I was on my way to the Bears' Super Bowl. Someone I had talked to called the local TV station and sent a reporter after me. The next day a few people told me they saw me on the news that night. It didn't get me a ticket to the game though.
Like quite a few others these past days, Mr. Rapney couldn't fathom why I would want to be riding my bicycle in this 90 degree heat. I explain that though it is hot, the breeze I create dries the sweat, and it sure makes the cold drinks I stop for all the more welcome. Every gas station has a soft drink dispensing machine that also dispenses ice. I fill the 32 or 44 ounce cups with ice and after I drain it of the soda or Gatorade, as they occasionally have, I keep adding water until the ice has melted. I am taking great advantage of my insulated water bottle to preserve the ice a few extra miles down the road.
Not everyone I talk to would choose to spend their discretionary time in any place other than the shade, but I try to convince them it is quite satisfying, if not exhilarating, to be able to spend the day rolling along on my bike seeing what there is to see and meeting so many friendly and curious people and not having anybody telling me what to do or having to make demands of anyone myself. I can almost forget that the economy is in the pits and that so many people are struggling to get by, despite the many closed down businesses. Almost as common as "for rent" signs on shops are signs that say "under new management."
I couldn't even find a bicycle store in the large city of Greenville. Both that I was sent to were closed down. I wasn't in need of anything bike-related, just information on the National Professional Bicycling Championships held there the previous weekend and for the past several years. Banners still hung on posts in the downtown featuring local George Hincapie.
A couple of cyclists on top-end racing bikes sitting at an outdoor cafe were able to tell me, though, that the finish line was right across from where they were sitting on Main Street and that the route went north out of town to Paris Mountain for four circuits. The two guys were visiting from Miami. They also knew where George Hincapie lived, in a development north of the city that was on my route. They knew that neither Leipheimer nor Hincapie, the two favorites, won the race. Some 21-year old they didn't know riding for the Trek-Livestrong team won by over a minute. Twenty-year old Taylor Phinney just nipped Leipheimer in the time trial the day before.
I had no problem finding Greenville's baseball stadium, not far from downtown, thanks to its towering light fixtures. I entered Greenville on route 123, Shoeless Joe Jackson Memorial Highway, which took me to the ballpark, Flour Field. The field was an exact replica of Fenway Park, complete with the Green Monster, though it only seats 5,000. On Friday and Saturday nights one can buy a ticket for $25 that entitles one to as much soda and food as one can down.
Charleston is the Class A affiliate of the Red Sox. Across the street was the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in the house he grew up in, which had been moved to be alongside the stadium when it was built five years ago. It was only open on Saturdays from ten a.m. to two p.m. There was a large banner on the outside with a photo of Jackson and his proclamation of innocence--"God knows I gave my best and no man on earth can truthfully judge me otherwise."
Jackson was one of eight members of the Chicago White Sox banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series, even though he had twelve hits during the Series, the most ever, and was the only member of the White Sox to hit a home run and had no errors. He would have been one of the all-time greats if his career hadn't come to an abrupt end. He hit .408 in his rookie year in 1911, a record, and his lifetime average of .356 is third best ever. He is a great cause celebre in Greenville, his home town. There is a statue of him in the downtown half a mile from the park.
One county I passed through boasted of being the home of two Alamo heroes. There were signs in Hendersonville to the vacation home of Carl Sandburg, now part of the National Park Service.
Later, George
Unfortunately, only one of the three century-old Carnegies I have sought out so far still serves as a library. That was in Honea Path, the smallest town in South Carolina with a Carnegie. The small red brick building in a residential area could have passed as someone's home. I missed it when I passed by it the first time, not even noticing the book drop out front. It has been magnificently preserved, and, like all Carnegies, stands proudly as an architectural gem. Its high ceilings and spacious interior made for a most comfortable retreat.
Honea Path still has a modest enough population to make do with such a small library, unlike Hendersonville and Greenwood, the other city in South Carolina that was on the Wikipedia list of towns in South Carolina with a Carnegie that was on my route. Both these towns have grown into sprawling cities. Their Carnegies have long ago been replaced by huge County libraries. The Carnegie in Greenwood has been torn down, but the one in Hendersonville on the corner of Fourth and King now houses a development company.
Greenwood was in the process of moving from the library that replaced the Carengie in 1957 to a new location. I caught the movers in action at 8:30 yesterday morning. The movers knew nothing about the former Carnegie, but a librarian was able to fill me in on the details. She didn't know though if the Carnegie still stood in Honea Path, 25 miles away. "That's in Anderson Country," she said. "I can't rightly say."
The head mover was a typical Southerner of great friendliness. After we had chatted for a couple of minutes he asked me my name and introduced himself, a customary practice in the South. He told me that if anybody in the news business should happen to do a story on me before I left South Carolina to be sure and mention his moving company, Rapney and Sons, as he could use the business.
I was on the alert for the next hour down the road awaiting a reporter to pull up alongside me, as happened to be in Louisiana in January of 1986 when I was on my way to the Bears' Super Bowl. Someone I had talked to called the local TV station and sent a reporter after me. The next day a few people told me they saw me on the news that night. It didn't get me a ticket to the game though.
Like quite a few others these past days, Mr. Rapney couldn't fathom why I would want to be riding my bicycle in this 90 degree heat. I explain that though it is hot, the breeze I create dries the sweat, and it sure makes the cold drinks I stop for all the more welcome. Every gas station has a soft drink dispensing machine that also dispenses ice. I fill the 32 or 44 ounce cups with ice and after I drain it of the soda or Gatorade, as they occasionally have, I keep adding water until the ice has melted. I am taking great advantage of my insulated water bottle to preserve the ice a few extra miles down the road.
Not everyone I talk to would choose to spend their discretionary time in any place other than the shade, but I try to convince them it is quite satisfying, if not exhilarating, to be able to spend the day rolling along on my bike seeing what there is to see and meeting so many friendly and curious people and not having anybody telling me what to do or having to make demands of anyone myself. I can almost forget that the economy is in the pits and that so many people are struggling to get by, despite the many closed down businesses. Almost as common as "for rent" signs on shops are signs that say "under new management."
I couldn't even find a bicycle store in the large city of Greenville. Both that I was sent to were closed down. I wasn't in need of anything bike-related, just information on the National Professional Bicycling Championships held there the previous weekend and for the past several years. Banners still hung on posts in the downtown featuring local George Hincapie.
A couple of cyclists on top-end racing bikes sitting at an outdoor cafe were able to tell me, though, that the finish line was right across from where they were sitting on Main Street and that the route went north out of town to Paris Mountain for four circuits. The two guys were visiting from Miami. They also knew where George Hincapie lived, in a development north of the city that was on my route. They knew that neither Leipheimer nor Hincapie, the two favorites, won the race. Some 21-year old they didn't know riding for the Trek-Livestrong team won by over a minute. Twenty-year old Taylor Phinney just nipped Leipheimer in the time trial the day before.
I had no problem finding Greenville's baseball stadium, not far from downtown, thanks to its towering light fixtures. I entered Greenville on route 123, Shoeless Joe Jackson Memorial Highway, which took me to the ballpark, Flour Field. The field was an exact replica of Fenway Park, complete with the Green Monster, though it only seats 5,000. On Friday and Saturday nights one can buy a ticket for $25 that entitles one to as much soda and food as one can down.
Charleston is the Class A affiliate of the Red Sox. Across the street was the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in the house he grew up in, which had been moved to be alongside the stadium when it was built five years ago. It was only open on Saturdays from ten a.m. to two p.m. There was a large banner on the outside with a photo of Jackson and his proclamation of innocence--"God knows I gave my best and no man on earth can truthfully judge me otherwise."
Jackson was one of eight members of the Chicago White Sox banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series, even though he had twelve hits during the Series, the most ever, and was the only member of the White Sox to hit a home run and had no errors. He would have been one of the all-time greats if his career hadn't come to an abrupt end. He hit .408 in his rookie year in 1911, a record, and his lifetime average of .356 is third best ever. He is a great cause celebre in Greenville, his home town. There is a statue of him in the downtown half a mile from the park.
One county I passed through boasted of being the home of two Alamo heroes. There were signs in Hendersonville to the vacation home of Carl Sandburg, now part of the National Park Service.
Later, George
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Batesburg-Leeville, South Carolina
Friends: Despite being car-free for much of my life, I have had a considerable number of long-distance car road trips over the years. I am a traveler and a car is a means of travel, not my preferred means, but it still takes me places I'd like to go. I'm not hesitant at all to take up the offer of driving a car a long ways, whether solo or with another.
Thus when Lyndon first asked me a year ago if I'd be interested in driving a car he'd bought from Albuquerque to South Carolina, I didn't think twice about doing it, not even concerned that it was a forty-year old car. I was eager to do it when he first brought it up and just as eager when he was finally ready to take delivery of the car.
Kerouac romanticized the road trip in "On the Road." I've taken advantage of drive-away cars as he and Cassady did--to Seattle to take the ferry up to Alaska, to Phoenix to bike up to Flagstaff for a Grand Canyon rafting trip, to LA for the World Series, to San Francisco to launch a bike ride to Guatemala and a few others. I have also driven quite a few cars for friends, particularly snowbird retirees. I once drove three cars to Florida in a ten day span. I have driven U-Hauls for friends to Connecticut and Phoenix and Tucson.
I have also joined friends on long distance road trips all over the country and beyond. Crissy and I drove deep into Mexico to Puerto Escondido several times. I also made the trip with Siegi in his van a couple of times. Lino and I drove to Colorado Springs for the cycling World Championships the only time they've been held in the US. Umpire Dave and I made a habit of driving to the World Series in the late '70s--Boston one year, New York another, and LA a couple of times, along with Baltimore and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. We drove to Sundance one winter. A year later I did it with Joan, which led to several Joan trips to the Toronto Film Festival and a drive to Manhattan to visit friends and to do New York's Five Boroughs Ride.
Dave and I had a number of other baseball trips--to the Cubs Opening Day in Montreal one year that was snowed out, to the All-Star game in Philadelphia, and a few trips to St. Louis and Cincinnati. One of our most epic trips was an eastern swing that concluded with attending a twi-night double header at Shea Stadium and then driving through the night to get back in time for a noon double header at Wrigley.
Dwight too has been a multiple road trip companion. He and I drove to the Olympics in Atlanta, a wedding in northern California, back from an Earth First Rendezvous in Virginia that I had biked to and Toronto for a flight to Cuba. Bike Shop Tim and I drove to New Orleans with a van load of bike parts for a bike co-op a year after Katrina. We also drove to Pittsburgh on another bike shop mission, this time to buy parts.
This past January I made my longest non-stop drive ever from Orlando to Seattle with a friend and his two dogs in a van. But my latest trip from Albuquerque to Charleston in a doddering 1971 VW station wagon may be my most noteworthy drive ever, certainly the most nerve-wracking, even more so than a drive to Manhattan in a rental truck with Ken641 with a faulty gas gauge. Twice we ran out of gas, but fortunately we had bikes in the back of the truck. I ought to quit drudging up these memories, as I may find I have had more long-distance trips by car, than by bike.
Ordinarily I have to keep a wary eye on the speedometer to make sure I'm not exceeding the speed limit. With this VW relic my eyes hovered on the speedometer more than ever making sure I maintained a minimum speed. It took all the VW engine's might to get up to fifty. When the road turned upwards the speedometer took a plunge, sometimes all the way to thirty. I kept a vigilant eye on the rear view mirror making sure the hard-charging trucks and SUVs didn't gobble me up. When I saw a police car my foot didn't let up on the accelerator, as it has been conditioned to, but rather pushed on it a little harder.
I provoked a few perturbed horn toots, but not a single siren. I figured most drivers took pleasure in seeing such a relic on the roads. I certainly attracted quite a few admiring comments and offers to buy the car whenever I stopped for gas. The car was spotted with rust. There were those who didn't think I deserved such a car since I wasn't maintaining it. I had to explain it wasn't mine and that I was simply delivering it. Still people offered me their phone numbers in case Lyndon cared to part with it.
With the car straining I was relieved that I had my bike with me in case it gave up. Lyndon, too, had a nervous couple of days fearing a call from me at any moment reporting that the car had broken down. Fortunately the car was equipped with a decent radio, even though I had to hear quite a bit about the Tea Party from Limbaugh and Dr. Laura and Beck and Levin and Hannity, who were nearly inescapable up and down the radio dial.
There was also a lot of football--a Texas high school game played in a brand new 60 million dollar stadium that seated 18,000, a talk show with the reigning national champion Alabama coach Nick Saban and the betting line on all the NFL games from a multitude of stations. One morning show had a feature "Fight Song Friday" of pep songs from various colleges. Lots of country music too, giving the flavor of rural America. One song paid tribute to the three Johns of country--Cash, Wayne and Deere.
It was a mighty relief when I pulled into the driveway of Lyndon and Stephanie and 16-month Sullivan and their frisky dog Jaspar in Summerville, 25 miles north of Charleston. Even though it was in the mid-90s I was eager to go for a bike ride. It was four miles to the local library. It felt much cooler biking under a canopy of moss-laden trees than sitting in that un-air conditioned car.
I was off early Sunday morning for the 25-mile ride down Heritage Corridor, the Discovery Route, into Charleston past assorted plantations, including Drayton Place where Stephanie conducts tours. It paralleled the Ashley River. The Ashley along with the Cooper River frame the two sides of Charleston, almost as Manhattan is bordered by the Hudson and the East Rivers. Along the way was an estate with gardens designed by Andre Le Notre, architect of Versailles. The manor on the property included a silk copy of the Declaration of Independence and a note from Lincoln. Sheep and other animals roamed the grounds. There was also a crop of Carolina Gold--rice.
The Charleston area is rich with history from the Revolution through the Civil War and loads of tourists being transported in horse-drawn carriages and pedicabs along the Museum Mile. Lyndon and Stephanie and Sullivan met me at Marion Square, a ten-acre field in the heart of Charleston. John C. Calhoun, the great orator and former vice-president, stands atop a high pedestal in the park. Young women from the nearby college were sunning in bikinis.
We took a stroll to a restaurant along the three block long covered-market for lunch. I had shecrab soup and they a fish sandwich. On the sidewalks and in the market women sold baskets woven from sea grass that grows in the marshes. Anita, friend from Chicago and the art director at Telluride, told me they were the one thing I ought to see when I was in Charleston. She had paid a visit several years ago, not to see the city's many mansions that most come for, but to see these magnificent works of art that the slaves from Africa first began making there three hundred years ago. Teen-aged boys were weaving small hearts from the long reeds for sale as well.
In my search for Marion Square I stopped at a fire station with a ceramic dalmatian curled up out front to ask the way. Stephanie knew the fire station well. It is one of Charleston's several hundred historic sites. She said its doors are too small to accommodate modern fire engines, but in the spirit of historical preservation, it is supplied with specially designed trucks.
Charleston is exceptional in maintaining its past, with only a handful of buildings approaching ten stories--hotels facing Marion Square. One modern edifice, though, that had become a signature of Charleston is the towering five-year old, two-mile long Ravenal Bridge over the Cooper River. It is a stately edifice. Stephanie recommended a ride over it for a view of the city and the bay. There were quite a few cyclists and joggers and walkers on its wide sidewalk despite the mid-day heat.
I had a fabulous 70 mile ride on my unloaded bike about the area, as always the best way to see a place. In the morning the locals were flocking to church. There seemed to be one on practically every corner, often with message boards advertising the day's sermon. Many came close to luring me in--If You Can't Stand the Heat Believe in Jesus, Wal-Mart is Not the Eternal Saving Place, He Who Throws Dirt Loses Ground, Worry Is Interest Paid on Trouble Before It Is Due. I look forward to the many awaiting me down the road. I was perpetually entertained by them three years ago when I biked to Lyndon and Stephanie when they were living in Winston Salem. They are just one of the many allures of bicycling in the South.
I might have returned to Lyndon and Stephanie's place a little earlier than I did to load up my bike and begin my ride back to Chicago in the relative cool of the early evening if I didn't need to stock up on maps at the local AAA first thing the next morning. That done, I'm now one hundred miles down the road, about half way to Greenville, home of George Hincapie and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Stephanie, baseball fan and historian, says I will find a statue and a museum devoted to the man banned from baseball for being implicated in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
Later, George
Thus when Lyndon first asked me a year ago if I'd be interested in driving a car he'd bought from Albuquerque to South Carolina, I didn't think twice about doing it, not even concerned that it was a forty-year old car. I was eager to do it when he first brought it up and just as eager when he was finally ready to take delivery of the car.
Kerouac romanticized the road trip in "On the Road." I've taken advantage of drive-away cars as he and Cassady did--to Seattle to take the ferry up to Alaska, to Phoenix to bike up to Flagstaff for a Grand Canyon rafting trip, to LA for the World Series, to San Francisco to launch a bike ride to Guatemala and a few others. I have also driven quite a few cars for friends, particularly snowbird retirees. I once drove three cars to Florida in a ten day span. I have driven U-Hauls for friends to Connecticut and Phoenix and Tucson.
I have also joined friends on long distance road trips all over the country and beyond. Crissy and I drove deep into Mexico to Puerto Escondido several times. I also made the trip with Siegi in his van a couple of times. Lino and I drove to Colorado Springs for the cycling World Championships the only time they've been held in the US. Umpire Dave and I made a habit of driving to the World Series in the late '70s--Boston one year, New York another, and LA a couple of times, along with Baltimore and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. We drove to Sundance one winter. A year later I did it with Joan, which led to several Joan trips to the Toronto Film Festival and a drive to Manhattan to visit friends and to do New York's Five Boroughs Ride.
Dave and I had a number of other baseball trips--to the Cubs Opening Day in Montreal one year that was snowed out, to the All-Star game in Philadelphia, and a few trips to St. Louis and Cincinnati. One of our most epic trips was an eastern swing that concluded with attending a twi-night double header at Shea Stadium and then driving through the night to get back in time for a noon double header at Wrigley.
Dwight too has been a multiple road trip companion. He and I drove to the Olympics in Atlanta, a wedding in northern California, back from an Earth First Rendezvous in Virginia that I had biked to and Toronto for a flight to Cuba. Bike Shop Tim and I drove to New Orleans with a van load of bike parts for a bike co-op a year after Katrina. We also drove to Pittsburgh on another bike shop mission, this time to buy parts.
This past January I made my longest non-stop drive ever from Orlando to Seattle with a friend and his two dogs in a van. But my latest trip from Albuquerque to Charleston in a doddering 1971 VW station wagon may be my most noteworthy drive ever, certainly the most nerve-wracking, even more so than a drive to Manhattan in a rental truck with Ken641 with a faulty gas gauge. Twice we ran out of gas, but fortunately we had bikes in the back of the truck. I ought to quit drudging up these memories, as I may find I have had more long-distance trips by car, than by bike.
Ordinarily I have to keep a wary eye on the speedometer to make sure I'm not exceeding the speed limit. With this VW relic my eyes hovered on the speedometer more than ever making sure I maintained a minimum speed. It took all the VW engine's might to get up to fifty. When the road turned upwards the speedometer took a plunge, sometimes all the way to thirty. I kept a vigilant eye on the rear view mirror making sure the hard-charging trucks and SUVs didn't gobble me up. When I saw a police car my foot didn't let up on the accelerator, as it has been conditioned to, but rather pushed on it a little harder.
I provoked a few perturbed horn toots, but not a single siren. I figured most drivers took pleasure in seeing such a relic on the roads. I certainly attracted quite a few admiring comments and offers to buy the car whenever I stopped for gas. The car was spotted with rust. There were those who didn't think I deserved such a car since I wasn't maintaining it. I had to explain it wasn't mine and that I was simply delivering it. Still people offered me their phone numbers in case Lyndon cared to part with it.
With the car straining I was relieved that I had my bike with me in case it gave up. Lyndon, too, had a nervous couple of days fearing a call from me at any moment reporting that the car had broken down. Fortunately the car was equipped with a decent radio, even though I had to hear quite a bit about the Tea Party from Limbaugh and Dr. Laura and Beck and Levin and Hannity, who were nearly inescapable up and down the radio dial.
There was also a lot of football--a Texas high school game played in a brand new 60 million dollar stadium that seated 18,000, a talk show with the reigning national champion Alabama coach Nick Saban and the betting line on all the NFL games from a multitude of stations. One morning show had a feature "Fight Song Friday" of pep songs from various colleges. Lots of country music too, giving the flavor of rural America. One song paid tribute to the three Johns of country--Cash, Wayne and Deere.
It was a mighty relief when I pulled into the driveway of Lyndon and Stephanie and 16-month Sullivan and their frisky dog Jaspar in Summerville, 25 miles north of Charleston. Even though it was in the mid-90s I was eager to go for a bike ride. It was four miles to the local library. It felt much cooler biking under a canopy of moss-laden trees than sitting in that un-air conditioned car.
I was off early Sunday morning for the 25-mile ride down Heritage Corridor, the Discovery Route, into Charleston past assorted plantations, including Drayton Place where Stephanie conducts tours. It paralleled the Ashley River. The Ashley along with the Cooper River frame the two sides of Charleston, almost as Manhattan is bordered by the Hudson and the East Rivers. Along the way was an estate with gardens designed by Andre Le Notre, architect of Versailles. The manor on the property included a silk copy of the Declaration of Independence and a note from Lincoln. Sheep and other animals roamed the grounds. There was also a crop of Carolina Gold--rice.
The Charleston area is rich with history from the Revolution through the Civil War and loads of tourists being transported in horse-drawn carriages and pedicabs along the Museum Mile. Lyndon and Stephanie and Sullivan met me at Marion Square, a ten-acre field in the heart of Charleston. John C. Calhoun, the great orator and former vice-president, stands atop a high pedestal in the park. Young women from the nearby college were sunning in bikinis.
We took a stroll to a restaurant along the three block long covered-market for lunch. I had shecrab soup and they a fish sandwich. On the sidewalks and in the market women sold baskets woven from sea grass that grows in the marshes. Anita, friend from Chicago and the art director at Telluride, told me they were the one thing I ought to see when I was in Charleston. She had paid a visit several years ago, not to see the city's many mansions that most come for, but to see these magnificent works of art that the slaves from Africa first began making there three hundred years ago. Teen-aged boys were weaving small hearts from the long reeds for sale as well.
In my search for Marion Square I stopped at a fire station with a ceramic dalmatian curled up out front to ask the way. Stephanie knew the fire station well. It is one of Charleston's several hundred historic sites. She said its doors are too small to accommodate modern fire engines, but in the spirit of historical preservation, it is supplied with specially designed trucks.
Charleston is exceptional in maintaining its past, with only a handful of buildings approaching ten stories--hotels facing Marion Square. One modern edifice, though, that had become a signature of Charleston is the towering five-year old, two-mile long Ravenal Bridge over the Cooper River. It is a stately edifice. Stephanie recommended a ride over it for a view of the city and the bay. There were quite a few cyclists and joggers and walkers on its wide sidewalk despite the mid-day heat.
I had a fabulous 70 mile ride on my unloaded bike about the area, as always the best way to see a place. In the morning the locals were flocking to church. There seemed to be one on practically every corner, often with message boards advertising the day's sermon. Many came close to luring me in--If You Can't Stand the Heat Believe in Jesus, Wal-Mart is Not the Eternal Saving Place, He Who Throws Dirt Loses Ground, Worry Is Interest Paid on Trouble Before It Is Due. I look forward to the many awaiting me down the road. I was perpetually entertained by them three years ago when I biked to Lyndon and Stephanie when they were living in Winston Salem. They are just one of the many allures of bicycling in the South.
I might have returned to Lyndon and Stephanie's place a little earlier than I did to load up my bike and begin my ride back to Chicago in the relative cool of the early evening if I didn't need to stock up on maps at the local AAA first thing the next morning. That done, I'm now one hundred miles down the road, about half way to Greenville, home of George Hincapie and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Stephanie, baseball fan and historian, says I will find a statue and a museum devoted to the man banned from baseball for being implicated in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
Later, George
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
San Antonito, New Mexico
Friends: Going off on my bike for a thousand miles or more makes for a good wind-down from a film festival. There is always lots to digest and reflect upon after a deep, multi-day immersion into the realm of cinema. Though Telluride's four days is just a third the length of Cannes, it is no less rich and intense, with a much more varied program and a much more intimately shared experience with many cinephile friends, some new, but quite a few more of long-standing.
My initial film withdrawal plan was a three-week, 1,500-mile ride back to Chicago through the mid-west. That plan was slightly altered when one of my long-time festival pals Lyndon offered me the opportunity to drive a 1971 VW station wagon he bought a year ago to his home in Charleston, South Carolina. It had been sitting in the driveway of another festival friend, Ross, in the mountains outside of Albuquerque. Lyndon is a man of great generosity and goodwill who would do anything for anyone, so I was happy to be able to do something for him.
I would still have a 1,500-mile bike ride but it would be broken into two segments--300 miles to Albuquerque, interrupted by an 1,800 mile drive, and then 1,200 miles through the eastern third of the country. I had no complaints with that, especially since my route from Telluride took me through Durango, home of another festival stalwart and great friend, Mark, an ardent bicyclist and outdoors man who has been encouraging me to visit for years.
Durango, population 15,000 at an altitude of 6500 feet, has long been a hotbed of cycling--road and off-road. It has been the home or base for many world class cyclists, including legends Ned Overend, Missy Giove, John Tomac, Tom Danielson and Bob Roll. Mark has ridden with all of them on Durango's weekly Tuesday night training rides that are virtual races and has been feeding me inside stories for years.
Fort Lewis College in Durango, known as "Colorado's Campus in the Sky," fields one of the best cycling teams on the collegiate circuit. Rebecca Much of Chicago, a junior world silver medalist, who was coached in Chicago by friend Randy Warren, raced for the college. Durango's relationship with cycling goes back to the 1800s. One of the several art galleries Mark and I ducked into as we walked about town had a large framed photo from 1895 in its window of a gathering of cyclists, male and female, posed on a rustic bridge in a nearby canyon. It was propped on an easel mounted on a vintage bicycle.
There were even more bike shops than art galleries in this semi-tourist town whose narrow gauge railroad attracts visitors from all over the world. Durango may have the most bicycle stores per capita of any city in the world. The walls of the largest of them was lined with several dozen framed and signed jerseys, many of them of world or national champions. The huge banner from the first Mountain Bike World Championship hosted by Durango in 1990 filled one corner of the shop. There was also a shelf of trophies contributing to make this shop a virtual Hall of Fame.
Coffee shops included cycling magazines among their reading material. Mark always has his choice of a number of places to watch the Tour de France on television. The recently published book by the blog superstar bikesnobnyc was on prominent display at the checkout counter of one book store on Durango's main street. The Snob competed in the Single Speed National Championships held in Durango a year ago. His caustic blog has a huge following in Durango.
Just a few blocks from Mark's bike and ski cluttered corner lot, not far from the center of town, is the legendary Horse Gulch mountain bike trail. It starts out as a steep jeep trail and quickly turns into rugged rock-strewn single track as it climbs high above Durango. Mark loaned me one of his light-weight front suspension mountain bikes, by far the best mountain bike I've ever ridden. I couldn't have managed the trail on anything less. It was still a harrowing experience riding through flood washed tracks barely a tire's width wide up grades that would have had Contador trembling. Mark just pranced along while I cringed fearful of toppling. I put a foot down all too often to remain upright.
The most harrowing bike episode came the next morning though when a police officer pulled us over on Durango's main street. It was early Sunday morning and there was no traffic to be seen. We were doodling along at a leisurely pace, still sight-seeing on our way to a pancake breakfast. We paused at each stop light and stop sign, but proceeded through a red light when there was no traffic either left or right nor seemingly behind us.
We expected a lecture from the young cop and perhaps a warning, but he said he had a "zero tolerance policy" for traffic offenses by bicyclists after witnessing a cyclist writhing on the street with a broken femur after running a red light. He was no doubt one of the young hotshots who zip around town. The officer acknowledged we weren't being reckless, but he remained firm in giving us a ticket. Initially he was going to give us both $105 tickets, but Mark accepted full blame, saying he was the one who encouraged me to go. I had been surprised how cautious Mark had been in our riding about town, much more so than I would have been. Mark intends to take the case to court. The street was a virtual pedestrian mall with side streets blocked due to a beer fest. A simple warning would have gotten Mark's attention and made him ride with respectful restraint for weeks to come.
After breakfast Mark accompanied me for twenty miles out of town on a secondary road parallel to the main highway. It was just a little further to New Mexico. I was greeted by a huge billboard proclaiming "Election Day, Nov. 4, Throw the Trash Out." I was hoping for more such rhetoric the next 200 miles through the arid countryside and Native American Reservations, but that was it. There was a billboard, though, advertising the Big Texan restaurant in Amarillo several hundred miles away that offers 72-ounce steaks for free if one can get it all down in less than an hour.
It took a little while to get over the $105 traffic ticket before I could let my thought drift to the movies. Telluride's program offered up two must sees for bicycle enthusiasts. One was "The Illusionist," an animated feature by Sylvain Chomet, director of the bicycling masterpiece "The Triplettes of Belleville" from 2003.
Though the program notes didn't indicate there would be any bicycling in this movie, I knew its style alone would harken me back to the vivid images of "Triplettes." But it did have a second gigantic hook drawing any devotee of the bicycle in cinema as the story was based on a lost script by Jacques Tati, whose first film, "Jour de Fete" from 1949, featured himself as a bumbling and acrobatic bicycle postman. "The Illusionist" portrayed an animated Tati in his trademark brown trench coat as a magician embarking on a trip to Scotland.
Though there was no bicycling, not even on a unicycle, Tati did not fail to delight. If there weren't so many worthwhile films demanding to be seen during the festival, I would have squeezed in a documentary on Tati at the Backlot, which only had two screenings. That was one of quite a few films I wish I could have seen, but couldn't, more than I can ever recall at any film festival I've attended.
One of the highlights of "The Illusionist" was the introduction of the film by one of its producers. He commented that he was a "long-timer sufferer of film festivals" having attended them for 45 years. He said this was his first time to Telluride though and it was a most refreshing experience with its "total lack of cynicism." That was but one of many sincere accolades heaped upon the festival by film-makers who fully recognize the uniqueness of Telluride.
Critic Kent Jones, who co-directed "Letter to Elia" with Martin Scorcese commented, "I really love this festival. Its always an honor to be here." Darren Aronofsky, director of "The Black Swan," was awed by the idyllic nature of the town. During a conversation he was part of in the County Courthouse, it suddenly dawned on him where he was. He asked, "Is this a courthouse? What kind of crimes get committed in Telluride."
But back to the films. The program notes for "Here's Your Life," the first film by the Swedish director Jan Troell in 1966, promised a bicycle love scene. The film played at the festival two years ago as part of a tribute to Troell, but the film was so well liked by this year's guest director Michael Ondaatje, author of "The English Patient," it was one of the six films he was allowed to program. This nearly three hour long film about a young man in his late teens working in various jobs was one of Ingmar Bergman's favorites. The young man teaches a girl how to ride a bicycle and is rewarded with his first kiss.
That was about it in that film and the rest of the films that I saw as far as the bicycle was concerned, but I had no shortage of strong memories from the festival. I heard there was a significant bicycling scene in "127 Hours," Danny Boyle's movie about the hiker who had to cut off his arm when it was trapped by a boulder in Utah. I very much would have liked to have seen this film, but I held off, knowing I would have ample opportunity in the months to come. There were just too many one-time only events to see and rare screenings of lost or forgotten films, such as the 1926 documentary "Moana: A Story of he South Seas" by Robert Flaherty of "Nanook of the North."
As always, the three tributes were standouts. Laura Linney presented Peter Weir with his silver medallion on the Opera House stage after a series of clips from his films, including "The Truman Show" with Linney. Werner Herzog gave Claudia Cardinale her medallion, as he directed her in "Fitzcarraldo," which received its world premiere at Telluride in 1982. Todd McCarthy conducted a sensational interview with Colin Firth during his tribute.
A conversation between documentarians Errol Morris and Charles Ferguson moderated by Scott Foundas may have stolen The Show. Though Ferguson earned a PhD at MIT in political science and didn't make his first documentary, "No End in Sight" on the Iraq war followed up by this year's "Inside Job" on Wall Street, until 20 years later, he said he always wanted to be a film-maker. Foundas interjected, "I'm sure that's true of you too Errol." Morris retorted, "I never wanted to be a filmmaker and I'm not sure if I want to be one now." He said he had worked as a detective for several years investigating wrong-doing on Wall Street. That perked up Ferguson. He was surprised to learn, too, that he had the same agent as Michael Moore, Rahm Emanuel's brother. For an hour they fed off each other, thrilling the fifty or so of us in attendance at this rare event.
Just a dabbling of the multitude of memories.
Later, George
My initial film withdrawal plan was a three-week, 1,500-mile ride back to Chicago through the mid-west. That plan was slightly altered when one of my long-time festival pals Lyndon offered me the opportunity to drive a 1971 VW station wagon he bought a year ago to his home in Charleston, South Carolina. It had been sitting in the driveway of another festival friend, Ross, in the mountains outside of Albuquerque. Lyndon is a man of great generosity and goodwill who would do anything for anyone, so I was happy to be able to do something for him.
I would still have a 1,500-mile bike ride but it would be broken into two segments--300 miles to Albuquerque, interrupted by an 1,800 mile drive, and then 1,200 miles through the eastern third of the country. I had no complaints with that, especially since my route from Telluride took me through Durango, home of another festival stalwart and great friend, Mark, an ardent bicyclist and outdoors man who has been encouraging me to visit for years.
Durango, population 15,000 at an altitude of 6500 feet, has long been a hotbed of cycling--road and off-road. It has been the home or base for many world class cyclists, including legends Ned Overend, Missy Giove, John Tomac, Tom Danielson and Bob Roll. Mark has ridden with all of them on Durango's weekly Tuesday night training rides that are virtual races and has been feeding me inside stories for years.
Fort Lewis College in Durango, known as "Colorado's Campus in the Sky," fields one of the best cycling teams on the collegiate circuit. Rebecca Much of Chicago, a junior world silver medalist, who was coached in Chicago by friend Randy Warren, raced for the college. Durango's relationship with cycling goes back to the 1800s. One of the several art galleries Mark and I ducked into as we walked about town had a large framed photo from 1895 in its window of a gathering of cyclists, male and female, posed on a rustic bridge in a nearby canyon. It was propped on an easel mounted on a vintage bicycle.
There were even more bike shops than art galleries in this semi-tourist town whose narrow gauge railroad attracts visitors from all over the world. Durango may have the most bicycle stores per capita of any city in the world. The walls of the largest of them was lined with several dozen framed and signed jerseys, many of them of world or national champions. The huge banner from the first Mountain Bike World Championship hosted by Durango in 1990 filled one corner of the shop. There was also a shelf of trophies contributing to make this shop a virtual Hall of Fame.
Coffee shops included cycling magazines among their reading material. Mark always has his choice of a number of places to watch the Tour de France on television. The recently published book by the blog superstar bikesnobnyc was on prominent display at the checkout counter of one book store on Durango's main street. The Snob competed in the Single Speed National Championships held in Durango a year ago. His caustic blog has a huge following in Durango.
Just a few blocks from Mark's bike and ski cluttered corner lot, not far from the center of town, is the legendary Horse Gulch mountain bike trail. It starts out as a steep jeep trail and quickly turns into rugged rock-strewn single track as it climbs high above Durango. Mark loaned me one of his light-weight front suspension mountain bikes, by far the best mountain bike I've ever ridden. I couldn't have managed the trail on anything less. It was still a harrowing experience riding through flood washed tracks barely a tire's width wide up grades that would have had Contador trembling. Mark just pranced along while I cringed fearful of toppling. I put a foot down all too often to remain upright.
The most harrowing bike episode came the next morning though when a police officer pulled us over on Durango's main street. It was early Sunday morning and there was no traffic to be seen. We were doodling along at a leisurely pace, still sight-seeing on our way to a pancake breakfast. We paused at each stop light and stop sign, but proceeded through a red light when there was no traffic either left or right nor seemingly behind us.
We expected a lecture from the young cop and perhaps a warning, but he said he had a "zero tolerance policy" for traffic offenses by bicyclists after witnessing a cyclist writhing on the street with a broken femur after running a red light. He was no doubt one of the young hotshots who zip around town. The officer acknowledged we weren't being reckless, but he remained firm in giving us a ticket. Initially he was going to give us both $105 tickets, but Mark accepted full blame, saying he was the one who encouraged me to go. I had been surprised how cautious Mark had been in our riding about town, much more so than I would have been. Mark intends to take the case to court. The street was a virtual pedestrian mall with side streets blocked due to a beer fest. A simple warning would have gotten Mark's attention and made him ride with respectful restraint for weeks to come.
After breakfast Mark accompanied me for twenty miles out of town on a secondary road parallel to the main highway. It was just a little further to New Mexico. I was greeted by a huge billboard proclaiming "Election Day, Nov. 4, Throw the Trash Out." I was hoping for more such rhetoric the next 200 miles through the arid countryside and Native American Reservations, but that was it. There was a billboard, though, advertising the Big Texan restaurant in Amarillo several hundred miles away that offers 72-ounce steaks for free if one can get it all down in less than an hour.
It took a little while to get over the $105 traffic ticket before I could let my thought drift to the movies. Telluride's program offered up two must sees for bicycle enthusiasts. One was "The Illusionist," an animated feature by Sylvain Chomet, director of the bicycling masterpiece "The Triplettes of Belleville" from 2003.
Though the program notes didn't indicate there would be any bicycling in this movie, I knew its style alone would harken me back to the vivid images of "Triplettes." But it did have a second gigantic hook drawing any devotee of the bicycle in cinema as the story was based on a lost script by Jacques Tati, whose first film, "Jour de Fete" from 1949, featured himself as a bumbling and acrobatic bicycle postman. "The Illusionist" portrayed an animated Tati in his trademark brown trench coat as a magician embarking on a trip to Scotland.
Though there was no bicycling, not even on a unicycle, Tati did not fail to delight. If there weren't so many worthwhile films demanding to be seen during the festival, I would have squeezed in a documentary on Tati at the Backlot, which only had two screenings. That was one of quite a few films I wish I could have seen, but couldn't, more than I can ever recall at any film festival I've attended.
One of the highlights of "The Illusionist" was the introduction of the film by one of its producers. He commented that he was a "long-timer sufferer of film festivals" having attended them for 45 years. He said this was his first time to Telluride though and it was a most refreshing experience with its "total lack of cynicism." That was but one of many sincere accolades heaped upon the festival by film-makers who fully recognize the uniqueness of Telluride.
Critic Kent Jones, who co-directed "Letter to Elia" with Martin Scorcese commented, "I really love this festival. Its always an honor to be here." Darren Aronofsky, director of "The Black Swan," was awed by the idyllic nature of the town. During a conversation he was part of in the County Courthouse, it suddenly dawned on him where he was. He asked, "Is this a courthouse? What kind of crimes get committed in Telluride."
But back to the films. The program notes for "Here's Your Life," the first film by the Swedish director Jan Troell in 1966, promised a bicycle love scene. The film played at the festival two years ago as part of a tribute to Troell, but the film was so well liked by this year's guest director Michael Ondaatje, author of "The English Patient," it was one of the six films he was allowed to program. This nearly three hour long film about a young man in his late teens working in various jobs was one of Ingmar Bergman's favorites. The young man teaches a girl how to ride a bicycle and is rewarded with his first kiss.
That was about it in that film and the rest of the films that I saw as far as the bicycle was concerned, but I had no shortage of strong memories from the festival. I heard there was a significant bicycling scene in "127 Hours," Danny Boyle's movie about the hiker who had to cut off his arm when it was trapped by a boulder in Utah. I very much would have liked to have seen this film, but I held off, knowing I would have ample opportunity in the months to come. There were just too many one-time only events to see and rare screenings of lost or forgotten films, such as the 1926 documentary "Moana: A Story of he South Seas" by Robert Flaherty of "Nanook of the North."
As always, the three tributes were standouts. Laura Linney presented Peter Weir with his silver medallion on the Opera House stage after a series of clips from his films, including "The Truman Show" with Linney. Werner Herzog gave Claudia Cardinale her medallion, as he directed her in "Fitzcarraldo," which received its world premiere at Telluride in 1982. Todd McCarthy conducted a sensational interview with Colin Firth during his tribute.
A conversation between documentarians Errol Morris and Charles Ferguson moderated by Scott Foundas may have stolen The Show. Though Ferguson earned a PhD at MIT in political science and didn't make his first documentary, "No End in Sight" on the Iraq war followed up by this year's "Inside Job" on Wall Street, until 20 years later, he said he always wanted to be a film-maker. Foundas interjected, "I'm sure that's true of you too Errol." Morris retorted, "I never wanted to be a filmmaker and I'm not sure if I want to be one now." He said he had worked as a detective for several years investigating wrong-doing on Wall Street. That perked up Ferguson. He was surprised to learn, too, that he had the same agent as Michael Moore, Rahm Emanuel's brother. For an hour they fed off each other, thrilling the fifty or so of us in attendance at this rare event.
Just a dabbling of the multitude of memories.
Later, George
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Back in Telluride
Telluride and France are running neck-to-neck as my second home. I've spent two to three months the past seven summers in France attending the Cannes Film Festival then following The Tour de France, while spending nearly a month in Telluride the past 19 years helping to pull off the Telluride Film Festival.
My history with Telluride goes back even further, to the mid-'70s during my ski bum days, when I gave it a several day ski one winter and fell in love with this remote former mining town as so many do. I returned the following year intending to spend the winter skiing its Plunge and other stupendous slopes. I wasn't able to find a reasonable place to live, so fell back on Salt Lake City, where I had lived the previous winter. Lucky I did, as that was the Bicentennial winter of 1976-77, when there was no snow until after Christmas and the ski resorts of Colorado were declared a disaster area.
I've returned to Telluride every year for nearly two decades now, not only for its second-to-none film festival, but also its national park quality scenery and the many friends I have made among the locals and the out-of-towners who return every year as I do to work for the festival. Telluride may have the highest concentration of people leading fascinating and fulfilling lives during this month than any place on the planet. Many days my jaws feel as weary as my legs after a hundred mile day from the many fabulous conversations I've had hearing about other's extraordinary experiences the past year and sharing my own. There is Esther the yoga teacher who lives in Thailand nine months of the year who I visited one winter, Ian the rigger of Cape Town who also hosted me in my travels, Eric the karate expert, David the artist who writes a weekly column for the local daily newspaper, The Daily Planet, and who I'll be biking with in Turkey later this year, Hunt the veteran ski-patroler who had the most rescues this past winter in Telluride and many, many more.
Over the years I have made my annual 1,300 mile migration to Telluride from Chicago by car and train and jet and bicycle. The bike, of course, is my preferred means of transportation. Only once have I made the trip entirely by bicycle, via Seattle no less, but several times I have combined either car or train with bike to get here. This was the fourth year I've taken the train to Grand Junction and then biked the remaining 130 miles up to Telluride. For the first time the train was less than full and I had two seats to myself enabling me to get a little more sleep than usual during the 28 hour trip.
This year's journey was prolonged by five hours, however, due to high water in Iowa. Ordinarily the train arrives in Grand Junction shortly before five p.m., allowing me enough time to reach Delta, forty miles to the south, just before dark, where I wild-camp behind a vocational college a mile beyond the city. I didn't need to fret too much though about arriving in Grand Junction well after dark, as a bicycling friend in Chicago had arranged for me to stay with his sister who lived in Grand Junction. She had followed my travels for years and was eager to meet me.
Having a place to stay when I somewhat needed one was another of those serendipitous strokes of good fortune I continually experience when I'm off on my bicycle, almost proving that there is a beneficent force looking after he who travels by bicycle. The title of my memoirs will be "In the Bicycle I Trust" for that and quite a few other reasons.
I wasn't certain that Cheryl and her husband would be able to meet the train with it arriving so late, but I wasn't concerned. I almost looked forward to the challenge of finding a place to camp in the dark, either behind a school or business or in a clump of trees. I always find a place to camp, even in the most dire of circumstances, and am always curious where it will be. Cheryl and her husband didn't arrive at the station until I had nearly completed assembling my bike and was ready to set out, as the train arrived a few minutes before the latest estimated time of arrival they had been given.
I had hoped I might be able to simply follow their car on my bike to their home, but it was too far away, seven miles out of town on dark, narrow roads. We'd barely introduced ourselves when Cheryl blurted, "How could you keep riding after you were attacked in South Africa?," a question that had been bothering her for more than a year-and-a-half.
I told her that I wasn't sure if I should or not, but that I had ridden in many dangerous places over the years from rebel infested areas in Laos to Harlem in New York and Colombia in South America that I was strongly urged to avoid and had always been glad to have visited them. I figured this assault in South Africa was just an aberration, though I well knew by then, after two weeks in the country, that it was a truly dangerous place. Never before had I been inflicted by such unfriendly, truly menacing, hateful looks from people along the road. Still I was willing to take my chances and place my faith in the bicycle to win me the favor, or at least defuse the hostility, of whomever I encountered, as it always had. I had a few frights in the month-and-a-half it took me to complete my circuit of South Africa, but largely of my own imagining. I was very happy not to have abandoned my travels.
Among the many questions Cheryl peppered me with was what country would I most like to return to. People often ask what is my favorite country, so this was a refreshing twist. If she'd asked which was my favorite, I would have said France, considering the many months I have spent there and how well I know it and how many friends I have there and how many momentous experiences I have had there. Plus it truly is a cyclist's paradise. France would have been a quick and easy answer to the favorite question, and China was just as easy an answer to which country I'd most like to return to, though there are many, many close seconds, just about every country I've been to.
China was fresh in my memory, having been there less than a year ago. It was a revelation and a joy. I was overwhelmed by the generosity and graciousness of its people and the great new roads being built all over the country without much traffic. My friend Stephen I met up with in China after he was over a year into an around the world trip said it was his favorite country of his travels and the one he would most like to return to. I felt the same. We both knew that we better hurry back before it becomes over run with traffic and the people become used to their sudden prosperity and rather than just enjoying it as they are now, start becoming greedy for more and more and less inclined to share.
Cheryl was surprised by my answer, as she only remembered some of the hardships I endured--being detained by the police when I ventured into a Forbidden Zone and the language difficulties and the difficulty of wild-camping in such a densely populated country.
I was too late for the dinner of spare ribs and corn on the cob and more that Cheryl had prepared, but I was able to enjoy some luscious locally grown peaches and plums while we talked and talked as if we were long time friends well after we all should have been asleep. I was eager to know about their life in Colorado after moving out from Chicago over thirty years ago. Cheryl raved about the neighborliness of those in their subdivision at the foot of Colorado National Monument, a National Park of towering canyon walls. She said she took a count of the neighbors she passes when she gives her dogs a walk who she knew well enough to ring their door for assistance if she should fall and twist her ankle and need to be driven to the hospital. She c came up with 86. No where she has lived has she felt such neighborliness.
We chatted some more over breakfast and as Cheryl and I biked for a couple of miles before I had regained the main road into Grand Junction. With luck we can get together again while I'm in Telluride, as she and Eric own a cabin at Trout Lake a few miles outside of Telluride and are due for a visit.
My ride to Telluride was made complete when I scavenged a blue neckerchief along the road. I was running low, having lost one myself in Europe this summer and wearing out another. It'd been a couple of years since I'd had a good ride out West, where I have harvested most of my bandannas. I was counting on being able to restock, so wasn't surprised at all to find one--jut another instance of my simple needs being taken care of when I remain devoted to my bicycle. I am looking forward to my ride back to Chicago to find even more.
Which way I go remains to be seen. My first destination will be Durango, a hundred miles to the south to visit a cycling friend and pay homage to this cycling hotbed and home of many cycling legends--Bob Roll, Ned Overend, John Tomas and more. Its been quite a few years since I've paid it a visit. I enjoyed bicycling through Texas several years ago and have wanted to return ever since, but that last visit was later in the fall when the temperatures had abated. I may prefer to head north to where it will be cooler.
Whichever way I go, I will have plenty to reflect upon after my month in Telluride fully revitalizing my sense of adventure and faith in man and faith in cinema. Who will be here and what films will be screened remains a secret until next Wednesday, two days before the festival. The few in the know brim with excitement for what is on tap. As always, I know I will not be disappointed. I know I will experience an exalting, transcendent moment or two that rarely come along, thrilled by a movie or a director or actor at a seminar giving some extraordinary insight.
My history with Telluride goes back even further, to the mid-'70s during my ski bum days, when I gave it a several day ski one winter and fell in love with this remote former mining town as so many do. I returned the following year intending to spend the winter skiing its Plunge and other stupendous slopes. I wasn't able to find a reasonable place to live, so fell back on Salt Lake City, where I had lived the previous winter. Lucky I did, as that was the Bicentennial winter of 1976-77, when there was no snow until after Christmas and the ski resorts of Colorado were declared a disaster area.
I've returned to Telluride every year for nearly two decades now, not only for its second-to-none film festival, but also its national park quality scenery and the many friends I have made among the locals and the out-of-towners who return every year as I do to work for the festival. Telluride may have the highest concentration of people leading fascinating and fulfilling lives during this month than any place on the planet. Many days my jaws feel as weary as my legs after a hundred mile day from the many fabulous conversations I've had hearing about other's extraordinary experiences the past year and sharing my own. There is Esther the yoga teacher who lives in Thailand nine months of the year who I visited one winter, Ian the rigger of Cape Town who also hosted me in my travels, Eric the karate expert, David the artist who writes a weekly column for the local daily newspaper, The Daily Planet, and who I'll be biking with in Turkey later this year, Hunt the veteran ski-patroler who had the most rescues this past winter in Telluride and many, many more.
Over the years I have made my annual 1,300 mile migration to Telluride from Chicago by car and train and jet and bicycle. The bike, of course, is my preferred means of transportation. Only once have I made the trip entirely by bicycle, via Seattle no less, but several times I have combined either car or train with bike to get here. This was the fourth year I've taken the train to Grand Junction and then biked the remaining 130 miles up to Telluride. For the first time the train was less than full and I had two seats to myself enabling me to get a little more sleep than usual during the 28 hour trip.
This year's journey was prolonged by five hours, however, due to high water in Iowa. Ordinarily the train arrives in Grand Junction shortly before five p.m., allowing me enough time to reach Delta, forty miles to the south, just before dark, where I wild-camp behind a vocational college a mile beyond the city. I didn't need to fret too much though about arriving in Grand Junction well after dark, as a bicycling friend in Chicago had arranged for me to stay with his sister who lived in Grand Junction. She had followed my travels for years and was eager to meet me.
Having a place to stay when I somewhat needed one was another of those serendipitous strokes of good fortune I continually experience when I'm off on my bicycle, almost proving that there is a beneficent force looking after he who travels by bicycle. The title of my memoirs will be "In the Bicycle I Trust" for that and quite a few other reasons.
I wasn't certain that Cheryl and her husband would be able to meet the train with it arriving so late, but I wasn't concerned. I almost looked forward to the challenge of finding a place to camp in the dark, either behind a school or business or in a clump of trees. I always find a place to camp, even in the most dire of circumstances, and am always curious where it will be. Cheryl and her husband didn't arrive at the station until I had nearly completed assembling my bike and was ready to set out, as the train arrived a few minutes before the latest estimated time of arrival they had been given.
I had hoped I might be able to simply follow their car on my bike to their home, but it was too far away, seven miles out of town on dark, narrow roads. We'd barely introduced ourselves when Cheryl blurted, "How could you keep riding after you were attacked in South Africa?," a question that had been bothering her for more than a year-and-a-half.
I told her that I wasn't sure if I should or not, but that I had ridden in many dangerous places over the years from rebel infested areas in Laos to Harlem in New York and Colombia in South America that I was strongly urged to avoid and had always been glad to have visited them. I figured this assault in South Africa was just an aberration, though I well knew by then, after two weeks in the country, that it was a truly dangerous place. Never before had I been inflicted by such unfriendly, truly menacing, hateful looks from people along the road. Still I was willing to take my chances and place my faith in the bicycle to win me the favor, or at least defuse the hostility, of whomever I encountered, as it always had. I had a few frights in the month-and-a-half it took me to complete my circuit of South Africa, but largely of my own imagining. I was very happy not to have abandoned my travels.
Among the many questions Cheryl peppered me with was what country would I most like to return to. People often ask what is my favorite country, so this was a refreshing twist. If she'd asked which was my favorite, I would have said France, considering the many months I have spent there and how well I know it and how many friends I have there and how many momentous experiences I have had there. Plus it truly is a cyclist's paradise. France would have been a quick and easy answer to the favorite question, and China was just as easy an answer to which country I'd most like to return to, though there are many, many close seconds, just about every country I've been to.
China was fresh in my memory, having been there less than a year ago. It was a revelation and a joy. I was overwhelmed by the generosity and graciousness of its people and the great new roads being built all over the country without much traffic. My friend Stephen I met up with in China after he was over a year into an around the world trip said it was his favorite country of his travels and the one he would most like to return to. I felt the same. We both knew that we better hurry back before it becomes over run with traffic and the people become used to their sudden prosperity and rather than just enjoying it as they are now, start becoming greedy for more and more and less inclined to share.
Cheryl was surprised by my answer, as she only remembered some of the hardships I endured--being detained by the police when I ventured into a Forbidden Zone and the language difficulties and the difficulty of wild-camping in such a densely populated country.
I was too late for the dinner of spare ribs and corn on the cob and more that Cheryl had prepared, but I was able to enjoy some luscious locally grown peaches and plums while we talked and talked as if we were long time friends well after we all should have been asleep. I was eager to know about their life in Colorado after moving out from Chicago over thirty years ago. Cheryl raved about the neighborliness of those in their subdivision at the foot of Colorado National Monument, a National Park of towering canyon walls. She said she took a count of the neighbors she passes when she gives her dogs a walk who she knew well enough to ring their door for assistance if she should fall and twist her ankle and need to be driven to the hospital. She c came up with 86. No where she has lived has she felt such neighborliness.
We chatted some more over breakfast and as Cheryl and I biked for a couple of miles before I had regained the main road into Grand Junction. With luck we can get together again while I'm in Telluride, as she and Eric own a cabin at Trout Lake a few miles outside of Telluride and are due for a visit.
My ride to Telluride was made complete when I scavenged a blue neckerchief along the road. I was running low, having lost one myself in Europe this summer and wearing out another. It'd been a couple of years since I'd had a good ride out West, where I have harvested most of my bandannas. I was counting on being able to restock, so wasn't surprised at all to find one--jut another instance of my simple needs being taken care of when I remain devoted to my bicycle. I am looking forward to my ride back to Chicago to find even more.
Which way I go remains to be seen. My first destination will be Durango, a hundred miles to the south to visit a cycling friend and pay homage to this cycling hotbed and home of many cycling legends--Bob Roll, Ned Overend, John Tomas and more. Its been quite a few years since I've paid it a visit. I enjoyed bicycling through Texas several years ago and have wanted to return ever since, but that last visit was later in the fall when the temperatures had abated. I may prefer to head north to where it will be cooler.
Whichever way I go, I will have plenty to reflect upon after my month in Telluride fully revitalizing my sense of adventure and faith in man and faith in cinema. Who will be here and what films will be screened remains a secret until next Wednesday, two days before the festival. The few in the know brim with excitement for what is on tap. As always, I know I will not be disappointed. I know I will experience an exalting, transcendent moment or two that rarely come along, thrilled by a movie or a director or actor at a seminar giving some extraordinary insight.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Another Lance Book
Just as last year, when I returned to Chicago from The Tour de France I had the treat of a just-released biography of Lance by an editor of an American bicycling magazine to read. A year ago the book was "Lance Armstrong: The Making of the World's Greatest Champion" by John Wilcockson of "VeloNews." This year it is "Tour de Lance" by Bill Strictland of "Bicycling" magazine.
Wilcockson's book caused a stir in Monaco last year at The Tour start, as it quoted Lance as saying that one of the reasons he came out of retirement was he thought the previous year's race was "a bit of a joke" with Carlos Sastre winning it and Christian Vande Velde finishing fourth--an incendiary remark that Wilcockson saved for his book and didn't report at the time, not the most responsible of journalism. Lance was forced to apologize. No word though if he stopped speaking to Wilcockson, or if Wilcockson was taken to task by his magazine publisher.
Wilcockson's book started out looking as if it could be the definitive biography of Lance, what with that comment and interviews with Lance's step-father and people who knew him in his younger hooligan days and many of his insiders, though not Sheryl Crow or Frankie Andreu. I should have realized the book was going to be strongly one-sided tilting in Lance's favor though, as its stated thrust was that Lance may be the greatest champion ever of any sport, greater than Pele or Woods or Jordan, and discounted the many drug charges leveled at him over the years.
Though Wilcockson elaborated on some of the less developed stories from Lance's two autobiographies, such as hitting the flaming tennis balls, it passed over many of the negative episodes of his story--his falling out with his best friend College and many of his teammates, the Vaughters-Andreu text-message exchange, his three top lieutenants over the years (Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis) all leaving his team to go be team leaders elsewhere and all getting busted for doping. There's a lot of smoke to the story he ignored. Though the book touched on issues that no other Lance book had, it failed to live up to its early promise of covering all bases, ending up as somewhat of a disappointment.
Strictland begins his book with an inflated description of Lance's greatness as he rides the opening time trial of the 2009 Tour in Monaco. Strictland finds it beyond belief that Lance can go as fast as he can, and not because of his age or his three-and-half year absence from racing, but just because he races too and he can't go that fast. What he says of Lance could have been said of any of the other 179 riders racing that day, a day that Lance wasn't even the fastest. I feared this book was going to be a hyped-up portrayal of Lance as some sort of deity by another of his worshippers.
I didn't think I could take 290 pages of such fawning--a book that wanted to be taken seriously enough to have a ten-page index. But in contrast to Wilcockson's book that started out tough on Lance and then turned soft, this book started out soft on Lance, then turned tough tackling the drug issue head-on in an objective and fair-minded manner. Strictland acknowledges that he has been an ardent fan of the sport and Lance for years. He undertook this book so he could come to a greater understanding of him. He is refreshingly frank saying he was rooting for Lance to win the '09 Race, but that he also wanted to be as objective as he could.
Strictland spent months following Lance during his comeback year. He was there at the race in Spain when he broke his collarbone and at the Tour of the Gila and the Giro d'Italia and of course The Tour de France from start to finish. Strictland's previous book was ghost-writing Johan Bruyneel's biography, a total puff job. It was so shallow and inconsequential that Strictland somewhat disclaims it in Lance's book, saying he had to be careful not to include anything negative that might have upset any of Bruyneel's colleagues. It was quite a contrast to Strictland's book before that, "Ten Points," a brutally honest memoir recounting his abusive father, who literally made him eat shit, and how it made him a tougher person and bicycle racer.
The Bruyneel book at least won Strictland Lance's confidence and access to his inner circle and his team. Strictland is invited to ride in the team car at races and hangs out with the team mechanics. He's urged to become even more involved, but he wishes to keep some distance. This book didn't have to be approved by anyone he was writing about, unlike the Bruyneel book, so he could go back to being frank and honest. He says he learned many things he wished he hadn't, though he keeps many of those to himself. As to whether there is truth to any of the doping allegations, he can't say. He calls himself an "agnostic."
As good as this book is, Strictland suffers the disadvantage that most American writers have when writing about cycling--they didn't grow up in a culture where it was a prominent sport receiving the thorough coverage of baseball and football and basketball. He's had to play catch up, learning about the rich history of the sport and all its nuances on his own. Though he knows a lot, he doesn't have an innate sense of the sport that Europeans have, such as Wilcockson, who is English, though he now lives in Boulder. Its like someone learning a language later in their life, unable to shed their accent.
He betrays his lack of a full grasp of the sport here and there, even though he claims early on, "I understood and love cycling in a way few do." He does in comparison to most Americans, but not compared to those who grew up with it. He says no one ever lucks into a Tour de France win. He's doubtlessly read many Tour histories, as I have, but he forgets that in 1904, the second Tour, Henri Cornet was declared the winner two months after the race's conclusion when the first four finishers were disqualified for taking trains. Cornet is the youngest Tour winner. He was 19 during the race, but turned twenty by the time he was declared the winner. Books alternately refer to him as the 19-year old, or the 20-year old winner. Cornet rode in The Tour eight more times and never finished higher than 8th, not even finishing The Tour in the subsequent three editions after he was declared the winner.
Strictland knows about Cornet, as he cites him when he comments that some books falsely declare Lance the youngest world champion and youngest winner of a stage of The Tour. He is well read enough to know Tour books frequently don't get the facts right, yet he is a victim himself. See a review at http://cyclocosm.com for many more.
Another of Strictland's false generalizations is that there is always a breakaway on the last stage of The Tour that finishes on the Champs Elysees, but it never lasts. That too is patently false. How could he not remember the legendary time when Hinault broke away wearing the yellow jersey for one last emphatic stage win?
When he describes the points race for the Green Jersey he writes that points are won "at two or three sites on the course or at the finish." Maybe that was a typo. Points are accumulated during the race and at the finish. During his opening passage on the great effort Lance put into the time trial for its twenty minute length, he adds that sometimes Lance maintains that pace for six hours. As someone who has done a little racing himself, Strictland ought to know that it is utterly impossible to give an all out effort for that length of time.
The caption on a photo says that the pistol became Contador's trademark after the Verbier stage. Lance and others have criticized Contador for a year or more for his somewhat adolescent pointing of his finger and thumb, imitating a pistol, as his victory salute.
Despite these and other frustrating lapses, this book had much to offer. I was reading hard, eager for the next insightful tidbit, and observation. He says that Lance and Bruyneel both have piercing blue eyes, "though Bruyneel's communicate more humor." He reveals that Dr. Lim, the team's physiologist, fed Lance pill-size, wireless thermometers to study the changes in his core temperature as he rode.
Even though I devour every book on cycling I can get my hands on I never knew that Coppi was so dominant that from 1946 to 1954 he was never caught after he broke away from the pack, such an astonishing stat that Eddie Merckx brings it up in deference to Coppi. Nor did I know that Contador dropped out of school when he was 16 to devote himself full-time to racing or that Eddie B., the Polish coach of the American 1984 Olympic team that used blood-doping, advised the eating of horse meat. I knew that Lance had the number 1274 on his bike, the number of days he had gone between competing in a professional race, but I did not know that he also had "FSU 2009" on his bike. Strictland had to ask what it meant. "FSU" stood for "Fuck Shit Up." Perhaps the next Lance book will use that as its thesis to try to define him, along with the quote from a Lance insider who told Strictland that Lance returned to racing because, "He's a killer and he missed killing."
When Strictland accompanies Ekimov in a team car during The Tour he describes how he inserts a metal tongue into the seat belt so it won't beep. He divulges that none of the directors ever wore seat belts. He reveals, too, that Ben Stiller damaged Lance's chain clowning around on his time trial bike just four minutes before the Stage Four team time trial in Montpellier. It would have been unthinkable for such a thing to happen back when he was dominating The Tour and taking it so seriously. He never allowed Robin Williams to show up until late in The Race when he had secured the win.
Lance accepted Strictland enough to let him accompany him on occasion when he trained. On one ride Strictland thought he might be relaxed and off-guard enough to give him an honest explanation for the incident late in the 2004 Tour when Lance was wearing the yellow jersey and had the race won and bridged up to a breakaway group containing the Italian Filippo Simeoni and brought him back to the peloton, an incident so notorious that it makes Wikipedia. Lance and Simeoni shared the same Italian doctor--Michele Ferrari. Simeoni had accused Ferrari of prescribing him EPO. Simeoni was pretty much a pariah in the peloton for making such a confession.
Lance didn't want Simeoni to win a stage or even have any TV time being in a breakaway. It was a brazen gesture from Lance doing this deed himself, rather than summoning a teammate for the task. It was obvious to all who know the sport that Lance was saying "keep your mouth shut about the dirty underside of the sport. Speak up and you can have no glory," But Lance gave Strictland a phony, laughably bogus explanation, saying he was just feeling aggressive that day. It was such a ridiculous comment that Strictland justifiably doesn't even comment on it, just letting it stand by itself.
Lance gives Wilcockson a similarly outlandish explanation for "The Look" on the L'Alpe d'Huez stage when he left Ullrich behind after feigning fatigue. He said he was merely checking to see if his teammate Ruberia was anywhere near in case he needed his help. Everyone knows he wanted to see the look on Ullrich's face when he left him in the dust and was saying "See ya." Strictland quotes a Lance insider as saying Lance "knows how to mind-fuck better than anybody."
Lance is forthrightly honest though in reflecting back on calling Sastre's Tour victory "a joke." He admits, " It was a dickhead thing to say," but then adds, "even though I was right."
Strictland immersed himself deeply enough in The Tour to have encountered my friend and fellow race follower Skippy as he was hanging out with the Astana mechanics at the Giro. Skippy doesn't make the index though. You'll have to go to page 185 for the two-page description of Skippy. He also mentions The Devil and the American fan who wears the football helmet with horns and Yvette Horner, the French woman who played the accordion in the caravan back in the '60s. He also makes a coded allusion to me. He mentions that the Italian Nocentini, who wore the yellow jersey for a few stages, posed for "five, six, seven pictures." 567 is my bicycle messenger number.
Wilcockson's book caused a stir in Monaco last year at The Tour start, as it quoted Lance as saying that one of the reasons he came out of retirement was he thought the previous year's race was "a bit of a joke" with Carlos Sastre winning it and Christian Vande Velde finishing fourth--an incendiary remark that Wilcockson saved for his book and didn't report at the time, not the most responsible of journalism. Lance was forced to apologize. No word though if he stopped speaking to Wilcockson, or if Wilcockson was taken to task by his magazine publisher.
Wilcockson's book started out looking as if it could be the definitive biography of Lance, what with that comment and interviews with Lance's step-father and people who knew him in his younger hooligan days and many of his insiders, though not Sheryl Crow or Frankie Andreu. I should have realized the book was going to be strongly one-sided tilting in Lance's favor though, as its stated thrust was that Lance may be the greatest champion ever of any sport, greater than Pele or Woods or Jordan, and discounted the many drug charges leveled at him over the years.
Though Wilcockson elaborated on some of the less developed stories from Lance's two autobiographies, such as hitting the flaming tennis balls, it passed over many of the negative episodes of his story--his falling out with his best friend College and many of his teammates, the Vaughters-Andreu text-message exchange, his three top lieutenants over the years (Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis) all leaving his team to go be team leaders elsewhere and all getting busted for doping. There's a lot of smoke to the story he ignored. Though the book touched on issues that no other Lance book had, it failed to live up to its early promise of covering all bases, ending up as somewhat of a disappointment.
Strictland begins his book with an inflated description of Lance's greatness as he rides the opening time trial of the 2009 Tour in Monaco. Strictland finds it beyond belief that Lance can go as fast as he can, and not because of his age or his three-and-half year absence from racing, but just because he races too and he can't go that fast. What he says of Lance could have been said of any of the other 179 riders racing that day, a day that Lance wasn't even the fastest. I feared this book was going to be a hyped-up portrayal of Lance as some sort of deity by another of his worshippers.
I didn't think I could take 290 pages of such fawning--a book that wanted to be taken seriously enough to have a ten-page index. But in contrast to Wilcockson's book that started out tough on Lance and then turned soft, this book started out soft on Lance, then turned tough tackling the drug issue head-on in an objective and fair-minded manner. Strictland acknowledges that he has been an ardent fan of the sport and Lance for years. He undertook this book so he could come to a greater understanding of him. He is refreshingly frank saying he was rooting for Lance to win the '09 Race, but that he also wanted to be as objective as he could.
Strictland spent months following Lance during his comeback year. He was there at the race in Spain when he broke his collarbone and at the Tour of the Gila and the Giro d'Italia and of course The Tour de France from start to finish. Strictland's previous book was ghost-writing Johan Bruyneel's biography, a total puff job. It was so shallow and inconsequential that Strictland somewhat disclaims it in Lance's book, saying he had to be careful not to include anything negative that might have upset any of Bruyneel's colleagues. It was quite a contrast to Strictland's book before that, "Ten Points," a brutally honest memoir recounting his abusive father, who literally made him eat shit, and how it made him a tougher person and bicycle racer.
The Bruyneel book at least won Strictland Lance's confidence and access to his inner circle and his team. Strictland is invited to ride in the team car at races and hangs out with the team mechanics. He's urged to become even more involved, but he wishes to keep some distance. This book didn't have to be approved by anyone he was writing about, unlike the Bruyneel book, so he could go back to being frank and honest. He says he learned many things he wished he hadn't, though he keeps many of those to himself. As to whether there is truth to any of the doping allegations, he can't say. He calls himself an "agnostic."
As good as this book is, Strictland suffers the disadvantage that most American writers have when writing about cycling--they didn't grow up in a culture where it was a prominent sport receiving the thorough coverage of baseball and football and basketball. He's had to play catch up, learning about the rich history of the sport and all its nuances on his own. Though he knows a lot, he doesn't have an innate sense of the sport that Europeans have, such as Wilcockson, who is English, though he now lives in Boulder. Its like someone learning a language later in their life, unable to shed their accent.
He betrays his lack of a full grasp of the sport here and there, even though he claims early on, "I understood and love cycling in a way few do." He does in comparison to most Americans, but not compared to those who grew up with it. He says no one ever lucks into a Tour de France win. He's doubtlessly read many Tour histories, as I have, but he forgets that in 1904, the second Tour, Henri Cornet was declared the winner two months after the race's conclusion when the first four finishers were disqualified for taking trains. Cornet is the youngest Tour winner. He was 19 during the race, but turned twenty by the time he was declared the winner. Books alternately refer to him as the 19-year old, or the 20-year old winner. Cornet rode in The Tour eight more times and never finished higher than 8th, not even finishing The Tour in the subsequent three editions after he was declared the winner.
Strictland knows about Cornet, as he cites him when he comments that some books falsely declare Lance the youngest world champion and youngest winner of a stage of The Tour. He is well read enough to know Tour books frequently don't get the facts right, yet he is a victim himself. See a review at http://cyclocosm.com for many more.
Another of Strictland's false generalizations is that there is always a breakaway on the last stage of The Tour that finishes on the Champs Elysees, but it never lasts. That too is patently false. How could he not remember the legendary time when Hinault broke away wearing the yellow jersey for one last emphatic stage win?
When he describes the points race for the Green Jersey he writes that points are won "at two or three sites on the course or at the finish." Maybe that was a typo. Points are accumulated during the race and at the finish. During his opening passage on the great effort Lance put into the time trial for its twenty minute length, he adds that sometimes Lance maintains that pace for six hours. As someone who has done a little racing himself, Strictland ought to know that it is utterly impossible to give an all out effort for that length of time.
The caption on a photo says that the pistol became Contador's trademark after the Verbier stage. Lance and others have criticized Contador for a year or more for his somewhat adolescent pointing of his finger and thumb, imitating a pistol, as his victory salute.
Despite these and other frustrating lapses, this book had much to offer. I was reading hard, eager for the next insightful tidbit, and observation. He says that Lance and Bruyneel both have piercing blue eyes, "though Bruyneel's communicate more humor." He reveals that Dr. Lim, the team's physiologist, fed Lance pill-size, wireless thermometers to study the changes in his core temperature as he rode.
Even though I devour every book on cycling I can get my hands on I never knew that Coppi was so dominant that from 1946 to 1954 he was never caught after he broke away from the pack, such an astonishing stat that Eddie Merckx brings it up in deference to Coppi. Nor did I know that Contador dropped out of school when he was 16 to devote himself full-time to racing or that Eddie B., the Polish coach of the American 1984 Olympic team that used blood-doping, advised the eating of horse meat. I knew that Lance had the number 1274 on his bike, the number of days he had gone between competing in a professional race, but I did not know that he also had "FSU 2009" on his bike. Strictland had to ask what it meant. "FSU" stood for "Fuck Shit Up." Perhaps the next Lance book will use that as its thesis to try to define him, along with the quote from a Lance insider who told Strictland that Lance returned to racing because, "He's a killer and he missed killing."
When Strictland accompanies Ekimov in a team car during The Tour he describes how he inserts a metal tongue into the seat belt so it won't beep. He divulges that none of the directors ever wore seat belts. He reveals, too, that Ben Stiller damaged Lance's chain clowning around on his time trial bike just four minutes before the Stage Four team time trial in Montpellier. It would have been unthinkable for such a thing to happen back when he was dominating The Tour and taking it so seriously. He never allowed Robin Williams to show up until late in The Race when he had secured the win.
Lance accepted Strictland enough to let him accompany him on occasion when he trained. On one ride Strictland thought he might be relaxed and off-guard enough to give him an honest explanation for the incident late in the 2004 Tour when Lance was wearing the yellow jersey and had the race won and bridged up to a breakaway group containing the Italian Filippo Simeoni and brought him back to the peloton, an incident so notorious that it makes Wikipedia. Lance and Simeoni shared the same Italian doctor--Michele Ferrari. Simeoni had accused Ferrari of prescribing him EPO. Simeoni was pretty much a pariah in the peloton for making such a confession.
Lance didn't want Simeoni to win a stage or even have any TV time being in a breakaway. It was a brazen gesture from Lance doing this deed himself, rather than summoning a teammate for the task. It was obvious to all who know the sport that Lance was saying "keep your mouth shut about the dirty underside of the sport. Speak up and you can have no glory," But Lance gave Strictland a phony, laughably bogus explanation, saying he was just feeling aggressive that day. It was such a ridiculous comment that Strictland justifiably doesn't even comment on it, just letting it stand by itself.
Lance gives Wilcockson a similarly outlandish explanation for "The Look" on the L'Alpe d'Huez stage when he left Ullrich behind after feigning fatigue. He said he was merely checking to see if his teammate Ruberia was anywhere near in case he needed his help. Everyone knows he wanted to see the look on Ullrich's face when he left him in the dust and was saying "See ya." Strictland quotes a Lance insider as saying Lance "knows how to mind-fuck better than anybody."
Lance is forthrightly honest though in reflecting back on calling Sastre's Tour victory "a joke." He admits, " It was a dickhead thing to say," but then adds, "even though I was right."
Strictland immersed himself deeply enough in The Tour to have encountered my friend and fellow race follower Skippy as he was hanging out with the Astana mechanics at the Giro. Skippy doesn't make the index though. You'll have to go to page 185 for the two-page description of Skippy. He also mentions The Devil and the American fan who wears the football helmet with horns and Yvette Horner, the French woman who played the accordion in the caravan back in the '60s. He also makes a coded allusion to me. He mentions that the Italian Nocentini, who wore the yellow jersey for a few stages, posed for "five, six, seven pictures." 567 is my bicycle messenger number.
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