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.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
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.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Chris Horner Appearance
Friends: Over 250 people, as many as the Trek store in Highland Park, an affluent suburb north of Chicago, could accommodate, turned out last night on less than 24 hours notice to listen to Chris Horner, fresh back from the Tour de France, chat with Robbie Ventura, former Lance teammate and commentator for Versus, about his tenth place finish at The Tour, the highest placed American.
I was among the crowd thanks to an email alert from Skippy in Europe, who had received a Twitter alert of the event. One had to register to attend. There were only thirteen spots left when I signed up.
Just as he races, Horner held nothing back as he vividly recounted his Tour experience. I was as thrilled to be listening to Horner as I was to gaze about at this enraptured audience of Americans stone-cold mesmerized by his highly detailed, insightful tales of riding the cobbles and the Tourmalet and the hills of the Ardennes and what its like on the team bus with Lance. I felt as if I was back in Europe re-experiencing my three weeks of following The Tour.
It was exciting to be part of this audience and to know that I'm not as much in a minority as I once was as a devotee of the sport. I'd been going through Tour withdrawal since my return. This was greatly helping to appease those pangs. Just as American racers have been measuring up to their European counterparts for the past decade, there are increasing numbers of American fans who can compare to those on the other side of the pond.
Horner transported us to the peloton as he told of being along side the Schleck brothers on the crash-filled stage two when they began a treacherous descent. "Andy looked at me and said, 'Let's not get carried away here.' I replied, 'You don't have to worry about me.' We came around a bend and there were bodies everywhere. Usually in Tour crashes there's just one big pile of bodies. On this one for a hundred yards or so, there were bodies everywhere. I slowed and guys were crashing behind me and sliding past. A motorcycle was down. When we came around a bend it was more of the same. I've never seen anything like it."
Horner didn't agree at all with Cancellera's edict to neutralize the stage and have everyone just roll across the finish line without battling it out. Nor did he agree with the condemnation heaped on Cavendish's teammate Renshaw for head-butting Garmin's Julian Dean three times in the Stage Eleven sprint. He thought the headbutts were an incredible bit of racing, helping him remain upright as Dean cut in along side him.
But he did acknowledge that Renshaw deserved to be ejected from the race for aggressively cutting off Dean's teammate Tyler Farrar after the headbutts, preventing Farrar from latching on to Cavendish's wheel. He said he has been a lead-out man himself for the best sprinters on the North American racing circuit, so knows how it is done. The lead-out man's job is to make a subtle sweep behind his sprinter's wheel after he peels off to prevent another racer from following, but Renshaw's sweep was anything but subtle.
On the day of cobbles, Horner said it was his assignment to ride on Lance's wheel to prevent anyone else from coming up behind him and cutting into him on the corners. The Radioshack team scouted out the cobbles just before they arrived in Rotterdam for the start of The Race. Lance had ridden them before but he and Leipheimer and Kloden and others on the team hadn't.
The team's strategy was to be at the front when the cobbles began towards the end of the stage. Eight of the Radioshack guys were among the first 25. Everything was going just fine until Kloden had a flat and then later Lance. Lance lost over a minute. "Lance was extremely upset after that stage," Horner said. "The tension in the bus was really intense."
Horner described how his role evolved over The Race from being a support rider to being able to ride for himself. He said if he had been a protected rider from the start he was certain he could have finished top five. "Schelck and Contador are in a class by themselves, and Menchov was really strong finishing third. I don't think I could have finished ahead of him, but otherwise I was as strong as anyone."
He said on the final climb on Stage Eight in the Alps after Lance had crashed three times, effectively ending The Race for him, Lance gave him permission to go on ahead. He legs were good, allowing him to storm up the mountain, though no one saw it on television since he was well behind all the leaders. But his efforts didn't go unnoticed. He said, "The next day a Liquigas rider came up to me and complimented me, saying he thought I'd had the best time of anyone."
He talked for ten minutes about the stage in the Pyrenees where he and Lance finished fifth and sixth and were in a ten-man break for the last half of the stage. The stage began with an immediate category-one climb. Lance was feeling great that day and just wanted help getting into a breakaway group. There was another big climb immediately after the descent from the initial climb. Horner said that his work was done for the day after those first two climbs. He fell back into the third group, but on the Tourmalet, about halfway through the stage, he moved back up into the first group and stuck with Lance to the end.
They knew there were three sprinters stronger than them in the group. He and Moreau did most of the work towards the end. Horner was hoping Moreau would let up once they caught the lone breakaway rider ahead of their pack with one kilometer to go. "Then we could play some cat and mouse games so Lance could get away," he said, "but Moreau kept riding hard as he had a teammate in the break too."
He said he would have finished in the top three at the Giro d'Italia last year if he hadn't crashed out. He came into his own at the Tour of the Basque country earlier that year with "the best form of my life." He crashed out of that race, but recovered and felt the same at the Giro.
He presently ranks eleventh in the UCI standings. He's in town for a local race and then will take two weeks off the bike, resting up for the rest of the year. He'll do a couple of races in Canada and then return to Europe for Paris-Tours and the Tour of Lombardy. The Paris race is a sprinter's race, so that's just to get some extra racing miles into his legs, but he's going to Italy for the hilly Tour of Lombardy intent on winning it, and ending the season in the top ten.
He came out of The Tour with a slight calf injury that still has him limping. He had only one crash in The Tour at the end of the first stage and was lucky to land on another racer so he had no road rash. He did wrench his back, leaving him with back issues for three or four stages. He injured his calf later in The Race after pulling a hamstring when he accelerated out of a corner on an easy stage when he wasn't drinking enough. The hamstring injury forced him to ride one-legged leading to a strained knee, which led to the calf problem. He could barely walk for a couple of days, but was okay on the bike. Still he feared having to quit The Race.
But he's used to all the aches and pains. "During The Tour I only feel good between hours two and three on the bike each day," he said "The rest of the day, I'm screwed. You have to take the bad with the good, and there's more bad than good."
The evening concluded with the auction of the jersey Horner wore on Stage 18, the stage between the Tourmalet summit finish and the time trial, along with the number pinned to the jersey from that stage and a laminated copy of the stage route that he carried in his jersey pocket. The bidding began at $500 and ended at $1400.
It concluded a remarkable evening of Inside Racing. It was amazing to see such racing interest here in America. There was no time for questions from the audience, as the few that Ventura was able to ask kept Horner going for well over ninety minutes. Ventura spent nearly half an hour recounting his Tour experience even before he brought on Horner. One of his highlights was being halted by a gendarme as he was riding The Tour route and being rescued by the Radioshack team physiologist, Dr. Lim.
If you wish for more of Horner's take on The Race, go to http://oregonlive.com/Horner for his daily dispatches to his hometown newspaper.
Later, George
I was among the crowd thanks to an email alert from Skippy in Europe, who had received a Twitter alert of the event. One had to register to attend. There were only thirteen spots left when I signed up.
Just as he races, Horner held nothing back as he vividly recounted his Tour experience. I was as thrilled to be listening to Horner as I was to gaze about at this enraptured audience of Americans stone-cold mesmerized by his highly detailed, insightful tales of riding the cobbles and the Tourmalet and the hills of the Ardennes and what its like on the team bus with Lance. I felt as if I was back in Europe re-experiencing my three weeks of following The Tour.
It was exciting to be part of this audience and to know that I'm not as much in a minority as I once was as a devotee of the sport. I'd been going through Tour withdrawal since my return. This was greatly helping to appease those pangs. Just as American racers have been measuring up to their European counterparts for the past decade, there are increasing numbers of American fans who can compare to those on the other side of the pond.
Horner transported us to the peloton as he told of being along side the Schleck brothers on the crash-filled stage two when they began a treacherous descent. "Andy looked at me and said, 'Let's not get carried away here.' I replied, 'You don't have to worry about me.' We came around a bend and there were bodies everywhere. Usually in Tour crashes there's just one big pile of bodies. On this one for a hundred yards or so, there were bodies everywhere. I slowed and guys were crashing behind me and sliding past. A motorcycle was down. When we came around a bend it was more of the same. I've never seen anything like it."
Horner didn't agree at all with Cancellera's edict to neutralize the stage and have everyone just roll across the finish line without battling it out. Nor did he agree with the condemnation heaped on Cavendish's teammate Renshaw for head-butting Garmin's Julian Dean three times in the Stage Eleven sprint. He thought the headbutts were an incredible bit of racing, helping him remain upright as Dean cut in along side him.
But he did acknowledge that Renshaw deserved to be ejected from the race for aggressively cutting off Dean's teammate Tyler Farrar after the headbutts, preventing Farrar from latching on to Cavendish's wheel. He said he has been a lead-out man himself for the best sprinters on the North American racing circuit, so knows how it is done. The lead-out man's job is to make a subtle sweep behind his sprinter's wheel after he peels off to prevent another racer from following, but Renshaw's sweep was anything but subtle.
On the day of cobbles, Horner said it was his assignment to ride on Lance's wheel to prevent anyone else from coming up behind him and cutting into him on the corners. The Radioshack team scouted out the cobbles just before they arrived in Rotterdam for the start of The Race. Lance had ridden them before but he and Leipheimer and Kloden and others on the team hadn't.
The team's strategy was to be at the front when the cobbles began towards the end of the stage. Eight of the Radioshack guys were among the first 25. Everything was going just fine until Kloden had a flat and then later Lance. Lance lost over a minute. "Lance was extremely upset after that stage," Horner said. "The tension in the bus was really intense."
Horner described how his role evolved over The Race from being a support rider to being able to ride for himself. He said if he had been a protected rider from the start he was certain he could have finished top five. "Schelck and Contador are in a class by themselves, and Menchov was really strong finishing third. I don't think I could have finished ahead of him, but otherwise I was as strong as anyone."
He said on the final climb on Stage Eight in the Alps after Lance had crashed three times, effectively ending The Race for him, Lance gave him permission to go on ahead. He legs were good, allowing him to storm up the mountain, though no one saw it on television since he was well behind all the leaders. But his efforts didn't go unnoticed. He said, "The next day a Liquigas rider came up to me and complimented me, saying he thought I'd had the best time of anyone."
He talked for ten minutes about the stage in the Pyrenees where he and Lance finished fifth and sixth and were in a ten-man break for the last half of the stage. The stage began with an immediate category-one climb. Lance was feeling great that day and just wanted help getting into a breakaway group. There was another big climb immediately after the descent from the initial climb. Horner said that his work was done for the day after those first two climbs. He fell back into the third group, but on the Tourmalet, about halfway through the stage, he moved back up into the first group and stuck with Lance to the end.
They knew there were three sprinters stronger than them in the group. He and Moreau did most of the work towards the end. Horner was hoping Moreau would let up once they caught the lone breakaway rider ahead of their pack with one kilometer to go. "Then we could play some cat and mouse games so Lance could get away," he said, "but Moreau kept riding hard as he had a teammate in the break too."
He said he would have finished in the top three at the Giro d'Italia last year if he hadn't crashed out. He came into his own at the Tour of the Basque country earlier that year with "the best form of my life." He crashed out of that race, but recovered and felt the same at the Giro.
He presently ranks eleventh in the UCI standings. He's in town for a local race and then will take two weeks off the bike, resting up for the rest of the year. He'll do a couple of races in Canada and then return to Europe for Paris-Tours and the Tour of Lombardy. The Paris race is a sprinter's race, so that's just to get some extra racing miles into his legs, but he's going to Italy for the hilly Tour of Lombardy intent on winning it, and ending the season in the top ten.
He came out of The Tour with a slight calf injury that still has him limping. He had only one crash in The Tour at the end of the first stage and was lucky to land on another racer so he had no road rash. He did wrench his back, leaving him with back issues for three or four stages. He injured his calf later in The Race after pulling a hamstring when he accelerated out of a corner on an easy stage when he wasn't drinking enough. The hamstring injury forced him to ride one-legged leading to a strained knee, which led to the calf problem. He could barely walk for a couple of days, but was okay on the bike. Still he feared having to quit The Race.
But he's used to all the aches and pains. "During The Tour I only feel good between hours two and three on the bike each day," he said "The rest of the day, I'm screwed. You have to take the bad with the good, and there's more bad than good."
The evening concluded with the auction of the jersey Horner wore on Stage 18, the stage between the Tourmalet summit finish and the time trial, along with the number pinned to the jersey from that stage and a laminated copy of the stage route that he carried in his jersey pocket. The bidding began at $500 and ended at $1400.
It concluded a remarkable evening of Inside Racing. It was amazing to see such racing interest here in America. There was no time for questions from the audience, as the few that Ventura was able to ask kept Horner going for well over ninety minutes. Ventura spent nearly half an hour recounting his Tour experience even before he brought on Horner. One of his highlights was being halted by a gendarme as he was riding The Tour route and being rescued by the Radioshack team physiologist, Dr. Lim.
If you wish for more of Horner's take on The Race, go to http://oregonlive.com/Horner for his daily dispatches to his hometown newspaper.
Later, George
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Tour Reflections
Friends: Among the many signs along Saturday's time trial course was "Merci Les Francias--Chavanel, Casar, Riblon, Voeckler, Fedrigo," thanking the five French riders who won six stages among them, one more than Cavendish. It was such a big deal to the French to have won so many stages that President Sarkozy invited the five French riders, along with the French rider who won the polka dot jersey, to his residence in Paris the evening that The Race finished on the Chaps Elysees.
Its been twenty-five years since a French rider has won The Tour--Hinault in 1985--and its been twenty years since a French rider has even been in contention--Fignon losing to LeMond in 1989 by eight seconds. I would love to ride The Tour in a year when there is a French contender to enjoy the heightened interest and excitement of the French along the course and throughout the day.
When Chavanel assumed the yellow jersey after his second stage victory, the road was full of Chavanel graffiti and signs. People shouted out "Chavanel" at me as I passed several hours ahead of the peloton. In a year with a French rider vying for first, especially after this prolonged dry spell, the country would go crazy. The bars would be packed with people watching The Race on television and the roads extra thick with spectators.
Chavanel acknowledged he could feel the hope of all the French that he could stay in yellow until Paris. He said he would try, and offered encouragement, saying he felt stronger than ever and felt confident he could stick with Contador and Schleck in the mountains as he had finished just behind them on Mont Ventoux last year and rode with the leaders on the L'Alpe d'Huez stage this year in the Dauphine-Libere race just before The Tour. But when he faltered in the Alps, as expected, ending The Race in thirty-first, one hour behind Contador, he admitted that he knew it was "practically impossible" for him to win The Tour. A reporter asked, "Practically?" Chavanel corrected himself and said, "No, I meant to say, totally impossible."
Such thinking incenses "Fignon," a commentator for television. He has harshly criticized the French riders over the years, and in particular Chavanel and Moreau, for not trying harder and having such a defeatist attitude. It caused a war of words in the press the last few days of The Tour. Chavanel said, "I know he has been calling us imbeciles for years, but I don't pay any attention to him."
The French riders do have a battle among themselves to be the highest placed French rider. The winner this year was John Gadret, who finished nineteenth, ten minutes and three positions ahead of 39-year old Moreau, riding in his last Tour. Gadret was so intent on being the highest placed French rider that he defied his team director and team leader Roche on a stage in the mountains when Roche had a flat tire and was ordered to stop and give him his wheel. Roche was so incensed that he didn't think he could ever speak to him again. In his column that he writes for an Irish newspaper Roche reported that if Gadret was found dead in his hotel room, he would be a prime suspect. Roche ended up finishing The Race in fifteenth, seven minutes ahead of Gadret. He would have finished at least one position higher if not for Gadret's insubordination. It will be interesting to see if he makes the AG2R team roster next year for The Tour.
I returned to Chicago yesterday as aglow as ever from my Tour experience. I may have ridden more miles of The Tour course this year than any of my previous six. I rode eighteen of the twenty stages, some in their entirety and some just a segment, missing the final one into Paris and the third of the four stages in the Alps. I reached the finish line five times before the peloton and was able to watch the last couple of hours on the giant screen as well as the peloton passing underneath it. I saw them zip by on the road in the middle of a stage six other times. The most memorable was in the thick crowd on the last of the cobbles on stage three, probably my most memorable moment of this year's Tour.
I can't say any of my Tours has been better than another, but this was an exceptional one, being able to ride the first four stages and prologue with Vincent and then spending three days with Yvon in Pau, on the fringe of the Pyrenees. I shared more time with Skippy this year than any other year and met quite a few other interesting devotees of The Tour. After next year I will be half way to the number of most Tours ridden by a rider--sixteen by Joop Zootemelk. I will be looking forward to it all year. And looking forward to perhaps Chris Horner riding as a team leader for Radioshack and Heyerdal and Vande Velde teaming up for Garmin. They may not be a threat to Contador or Schleck, but they could cause a stir and get more Americans to pay attention to The Race.
But in the mean time, I'm off to Telluride in a couple of weeks, where I'll spend a month working for the Telluride Film Festival and also plotting a fall ride with a Telluride friend who has done considerable bicycle touring himself. We plan to ride from Athens to Turkey and then through the Middle East. Turkey has long beckoned. It will be nice to finally make its acquaintance.
Later, George
Its been twenty-five years since a French rider has won The Tour--Hinault in 1985--and its been twenty years since a French rider has even been in contention--Fignon losing to LeMond in 1989 by eight seconds. I would love to ride The Tour in a year when there is a French contender to enjoy the heightened interest and excitement of the French along the course and throughout the day.
When Chavanel assumed the yellow jersey after his second stage victory, the road was full of Chavanel graffiti and signs. People shouted out "Chavanel" at me as I passed several hours ahead of the peloton. In a year with a French rider vying for first, especially after this prolonged dry spell, the country would go crazy. The bars would be packed with people watching The Race on television and the roads extra thick with spectators.
Chavanel acknowledged he could feel the hope of all the French that he could stay in yellow until Paris. He said he would try, and offered encouragement, saying he felt stronger than ever and felt confident he could stick with Contador and Schleck in the mountains as he had finished just behind them on Mont Ventoux last year and rode with the leaders on the L'Alpe d'Huez stage this year in the Dauphine-Libere race just before The Tour. But when he faltered in the Alps, as expected, ending The Race in thirty-first, one hour behind Contador, he admitted that he knew it was "practically impossible" for him to win The Tour. A reporter asked, "Practically?" Chavanel corrected himself and said, "No, I meant to say, totally impossible."
Such thinking incenses "Fignon," a commentator for television. He has harshly criticized the French riders over the years, and in particular Chavanel and Moreau, for not trying harder and having such a defeatist attitude. It caused a war of words in the press the last few days of The Tour. Chavanel said, "I know he has been calling us imbeciles for years, but I don't pay any attention to him."
The French riders do have a battle among themselves to be the highest placed French rider. The winner this year was John Gadret, who finished nineteenth, ten minutes and three positions ahead of 39-year old Moreau, riding in his last Tour. Gadret was so intent on being the highest placed French rider that he defied his team director and team leader Roche on a stage in the mountains when Roche had a flat tire and was ordered to stop and give him his wheel. Roche was so incensed that he didn't think he could ever speak to him again. In his column that he writes for an Irish newspaper Roche reported that if Gadret was found dead in his hotel room, he would be a prime suspect. Roche ended up finishing The Race in fifteenth, seven minutes ahead of Gadret. He would have finished at least one position higher if not for Gadret's insubordination. It will be interesting to see if he makes the AG2R team roster next year for The Tour.
I returned to Chicago yesterday as aglow as ever from my Tour experience. I may have ridden more miles of The Tour course this year than any of my previous six. I rode eighteen of the twenty stages, some in their entirety and some just a segment, missing the final one into Paris and the third of the four stages in the Alps. I reached the finish line five times before the peloton and was able to watch the last couple of hours on the giant screen as well as the peloton passing underneath it. I saw them zip by on the road in the middle of a stage six other times. The most memorable was in the thick crowd on the last of the cobbles on stage three, probably my most memorable moment of this year's Tour.
I can't say any of my Tours has been better than another, but this was an exceptional one, being able to ride the first four stages and prologue with Vincent and then spending three days with Yvon in Pau, on the fringe of the Pyrenees. I shared more time with Skippy this year than any other year and met quite a few other interesting devotees of The Tour. After next year I will be half way to the number of most Tours ridden by a rider--sixteen by Joop Zootemelk. I will be looking forward to it all year. And looking forward to perhaps Chris Horner riding as a team leader for Radioshack and Heyerdal and Vande Velde teaming up for Garmin. They may not be a threat to Contador or Schleck, but they could cause a stir and get more Americans to pay attention to The Race.
But in the mean time, I'm off to Telluride in a couple of weeks, where I'll spend a month working for the Telluride Film Festival and also plotting a fall ride with a Telluride friend who has done considerable bicycle touring himself. We plan to ride from Athens to Turkey and then through the Middle East. Turkey has long beckoned. It will be nice to finally make its acquaintance.
Later, George
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Pauillac, Ville Arrivée
Friends: The 2010 Tour has one stage to go, but fans can already start anticipating next year's Race and another battle royale between Contador and Schleck. Schleck is just 25, winning the best young rider award again this year, and Contador just two years older. Contador and Schleck finished one-two last year. It was an easy win for Contador last year, but not this year as Schleck considerably narrowed the gap between them.
He gave a valiant effort, giving it his all, holding back nothing on the Tourmalet as well as in yesterday's time trial. He was not willing to settle for second, and risked overextending himself and going kaput, but he nearly pulled it off. He actually closed to within four seconds of Contador early on as they battled each other and the clock three minutes apart on the course. If he had overtaken Contador it would have been as momentous as LeMond overcoming Fignon in the final time trial in 1989.
Maybe he found extra inspiration from all the road graffiti cheering him on. Nearly all of it was devoted to him. It even gave me extra energy as I biked the time trial course Friday night into a wind and the setting sun. I was over 100 miles for the day, but felt no fatigue as I was urged on by the fan enthusiasm--the writing on the road and the many campers parked along the roadside.
Schleck will be haunted for the next eleven months by those 40 seconds he lost when his derailleur failed him. If brother Frank hadn't crashed out of The Race on the cobbles in Stage Three, he would have been there with him to give him his bike or help pace him back to Contador. If not for those lost 40 seconds Contador would have been forced to attack on the Tourmalet, rather than simply riding on Schleck's wheel for half an hour the final six miles when they were a duo ahead of everyone else. Then we would have seen for sure who was the strongest.
Andy and his brother Frank will be riding for a new Luxumbourg-sponsored team next year. Everyone will wonder if they can maintain such a high level without Bjarne Riis as their director and without the support of their veteran teammates Voight, O'Grady, Sorenson and Cancellera, four of the toughest, most hardened riders in the peloton. When Sastra left Riis after winning The Tour two years ago, he's hardly been a factor in The Race, finishing seventeenth last year, the second worst finish by a Tour winner in the year after his victory. He did even worse this year finishing twentieth, three places ahead of Lance.
It was well that I biked to the time trial finish in Pauillac the night before, as the road was closed by nine the next morning with the first rider on the course by 10:15. The caravan started much earlier and reached the finish line about the same time that first rider was hitting the course. The large screen didn't come alive with Tour coverage until 1:30 with a 40 minute pre-Tour show. It largely focused on the wineries of the area that the time trial course passed.
There was a feature though on Ryder Hesjedal, the revelation of The Tour, coming in seventh. His Garmin team director, Matt White, was interviewed wearing a t-shirt with a red maple leaf and "Ryder" above it, acknowledging his Canadian heritage. Christian Vande Velde has been quoted as saying he looks forward to riding with the "new Ryder" in the upcoming Tour of Spain.
Finally at 2:20 the actual Race coverage commenced. I had laid claim to the shade and back rest of a plane tree facing the screen four hours earlier. I was just five steps from the barrier lining the course at the 200 meter to go marker. I could hop up for a quick look at a rider when he whizzed passed, alerted that he was coming by the fans pounding on the sponsor signs lashed to the barriers.
In year's past I have invariably found myself beside an English speaking fellow aficionado of The Tour for several hours of the time trial rehashing the preceding three weeks of racing. No such luck this year. I was hoping to be joined by a couple of young English fans I'd met the day before at the finish line in Bordeaux. They had driven down from the UK arriving in time to set up a campsite on the Tourmalet Monday night, three days before the dramatic stage in the rain.
Last year they had done the same on Mont Ventoux, experiencing extreme heat their first day and then plummeting temperatures on race day. They said they were surrounded on the Tourmalet by Spanish Basque fans who drank wine and coke out of goatskins non-stop, explaining their crazed behavior chasing after the racers. The runners were the worst ever as they had plenty of room to run with the rain thinning out the usual mobs. They said they would have gladly tripped any they could, but there was too much of a gap between them.
They were Cavendish fans and worried that he might not win the sprint in Bordeaux without his lead out man Renshaw, who had been kicked out of the race for head-butting a competitor in the last sprint finish a week ago. I assured them he would find someone else's wheel to launch himself from, which he did indeed, winning so easily he looked back two or three times to see where everyone was, an insult of a sort to his competitors. It was his fourth win this year. Only he and Eddy Merckx have won four stages three years in a row.
I did have one final good conversation with an English fan, though not until the next day out at the Bordeaux airport. I stopped by the airport, just six miles from the city center, to confirm my British Air flight for the next day and to verify that they could provide me with a plastic bag for my bike.
I saw a cyclist with a bike wrapped in a plastic bag. I was hoping he'd just arrived and I could have his box or bag if I needed one, but he was preparing to leave. He was a Welsh school teacher who'd just finished a week's ride from Barcelona, coincidentally connecting up with The Tour in Bordeaux and a little in the Pyrenees.
When he learned I was American, he said, "I was hoping to be biking across America this summer. I had it all planned out. I was going to do it in three stages over three years--Los Angeles to Denver, Denver to Chicago, then Chicago to New York, taking three weeks for each stretch. It was to celebrate turning fifty. But my wife would have nothing of it. She threw quite a fuss. She'll only allow me to go off for a week at a time. I don't suppose you're married."
"No, that's not a mistake I've made."
"It has its advantages and disadvantages. My wife just doesn't have the passion for the bike that I have and can't understand it. I bought us a tandem, but that didn't work. I've ridden it with my 14-year old daughter, but she'd prefer to be on her own bike. I know I'll eventually do the America ride, but it will take a while before I can get permissions from my wife."
This was Russell's first time flying with his bike. All his other excursions on the continent had come after taking the ferry or train over from the UK. He ordinarily stayed in bed and breakfasts, but spent one night in a barn on this trip and had also spent the previous night sleeping at the airport. I could do that tonight as well if there wasn't such easy and plentiful camping nearby.
Biking in Bordeaux kept reminding me of my imminent return to Chicago. In the central district I couldn't go a block without seeing a painted cow or a mini-billboard advertising "Night and Day," a Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie. The two stars were in town for a gala opening and to attend The Tour. Barriers had been lined up leading to the theater where the opening was Friday night. It was mobbed with people at six pm after the stage finish. If I didn't have 32 miles to bike before dark I could have stuck around and gotten a glimpse of them.
Now its time to find a bar for the finish on the Champs Elysees in Paris and Cavendish's fifth win. It will be interesting to see if the Sky team leads out the sprint again as they did in Bordeaux for the first time this year. It is an audition of a sort to Cavendish, as they will be doing everything in their power to pry him from the Columbia team, even though he has a year left on his contract with them.
Later, George
He gave a valiant effort, giving it his all, holding back nothing on the Tourmalet as well as in yesterday's time trial. He was not willing to settle for second, and risked overextending himself and going kaput, but he nearly pulled it off. He actually closed to within four seconds of Contador early on as they battled each other and the clock three minutes apart on the course. If he had overtaken Contador it would have been as momentous as LeMond overcoming Fignon in the final time trial in 1989.
Maybe he found extra inspiration from all the road graffiti cheering him on. Nearly all of it was devoted to him. It even gave me extra energy as I biked the time trial course Friday night into a wind and the setting sun. I was over 100 miles for the day, but felt no fatigue as I was urged on by the fan enthusiasm--the writing on the road and the many campers parked along the roadside.
Schleck will be haunted for the next eleven months by those 40 seconds he lost when his derailleur failed him. If brother Frank hadn't crashed out of The Race on the cobbles in Stage Three, he would have been there with him to give him his bike or help pace him back to Contador. If not for those lost 40 seconds Contador would have been forced to attack on the Tourmalet, rather than simply riding on Schleck's wheel for half an hour the final six miles when they were a duo ahead of everyone else. Then we would have seen for sure who was the strongest.
Andy and his brother Frank will be riding for a new Luxumbourg-sponsored team next year. Everyone will wonder if they can maintain such a high level without Bjarne Riis as their director and without the support of their veteran teammates Voight, O'Grady, Sorenson and Cancellera, four of the toughest, most hardened riders in the peloton. When Sastra left Riis after winning The Tour two years ago, he's hardly been a factor in The Race, finishing seventeenth last year, the second worst finish by a Tour winner in the year after his victory. He did even worse this year finishing twentieth, three places ahead of Lance.
It was well that I biked to the time trial finish in Pauillac the night before, as the road was closed by nine the next morning with the first rider on the course by 10:15. The caravan started much earlier and reached the finish line about the same time that first rider was hitting the course. The large screen didn't come alive with Tour coverage until 1:30 with a 40 minute pre-Tour show. It largely focused on the wineries of the area that the time trial course passed.
There was a feature though on Ryder Hesjedal, the revelation of The Tour, coming in seventh. His Garmin team director, Matt White, was interviewed wearing a t-shirt with a red maple leaf and "Ryder" above it, acknowledging his Canadian heritage. Christian Vande Velde has been quoted as saying he looks forward to riding with the "new Ryder" in the upcoming Tour of Spain.
Finally at 2:20 the actual Race coverage commenced. I had laid claim to the shade and back rest of a plane tree facing the screen four hours earlier. I was just five steps from the barrier lining the course at the 200 meter to go marker. I could hop up for a quick look at a rider when he whizzed passed, alerted that he was coming by the fans pounding on the sponsor signs lashed to the barriers.
In year's past I have invariably found myself beside an English speaking fellow aficionado of The Tour for several hours of the time trial rehashing the preceding three weeks of racing. No such luck this year. I was hoping to be joined by a couple of young English fans I'd met the day before at the finish line in Bordeaux. They had driven down from the UK arriving in time to set up a campsite on the Tourmalet Monday night, three days before the dramatic stage in the rain.
Last year they had done the same on Mont Ventoux, experiencing extreme heat their first day and then plummeting temperatures on race day. They said they were surrounded on the Tourmalet by Spanish Basque fans who drank wine and coke out of goatskins non-stop, explaining their crazed behavior chasing after the racers. The runners were the worst ever as they had plenty of room to run with the rain thinning out the usual mobs. They said they would have gladly tripped any they could, but there was too much of a gap between them.
They were Cavendish fans and worried that he might not win the sprint in Bordeaux without his lead out man Renshaw, who had been kicked out of the race for head-butting a competitor in the last sprint finish a week ago. I assured them he would find someone else's wheel to launch himself from, which he did indeed, winning so easily he looked back two or three times to see where everyone was, an insult of a sort to his competitors. It was his fourth win this year. Only he and Eddy Merckx have won four stages three years in a row.
I did have one final good conversation with an English fan, though not until the next day out at the Bordeaux airport. I stopped by the airport, just six miles from the city center, to confirm my British Air flight for the next day and to verify that they could provide me with a plastic bag for my bike.
I saw a cyclist with a bike wrapped in a plastic bag. I was hoping he'd just arrived and I could have his box or bag if I needed one, but he was preparing to leave. He was a Welsh school teacher who'd just finished a week's ride from Barcelona, coincidentally connecting up with The Tour in Bordeaux and a little in the Pyrenees.
When he learned I was American, he said, "I was hoping to be biking across America this summer. I had it all planned out. I was going to do it in three stages over three years--Los Angeles to Denver, Denver to Chicago, then Chicago to New York, taking three weeks for each stretch. It was to celebrate turning fifty. But my wife would have nothing of it. She threw quite a fuss. She'll only allow me to go off for a week at a time. I don't suppose you're married."
"No, that's not a mistake I've made."
"It has its advantages and disadvantages. My wife just doesn't have the passion for the bike that I have and can't understand it. I bought us a tandem, but that didn't work. I've ridden it with my 14-year old daughter, but she'd prefer to be on her own bike. I know I'll eventually do the America ride, but it will take a while before I can get permissions from my wife."
This was Russell's first time flying with his bike. All his other excursions on the continent had come after taking the ferry or train over from the UK. He ordinarily stayed in bed and breakfasts, but spent one night in a barn on this trip and had also spent the previous night sleeping at the airport. I could do that tonight as well if there wasn't such easy and plentiful camping nearby.
Biking in Bordeaux kept reminding me of my imminent return to Chicago. In the central district I couldn't go a block without seeing a painted cow or a mini-billboard advertising "Night and Day," a Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie. The two stars were in town for a gala opening and to attend The Tour. Barriers had been lined up leading to the theater where the opening was Friday night. It was mobbed with people at six pm after the stage finish. If I didn't have 32 miles to bike before dark I could have stuck around and gotten a glimpse of them.
Now its time to find a bar for the finish on the Champs Elysees in Paris and Cavendish's fifth win. It will be interesting to see if the Sky team leads out the sprint again as they did in Bordeaux for the first time this year. It is an audition of a sort to Cavendish, as they will be doing everything in their power to pry him from the Columbia team, even though he has a year left on his contract with them.
Later, George
Friday, July 23, 2010
Bordeaux, Ville Arrivée/Départ
Friends: While today's stage from Salies-de-Bearn to Bordeaux is a relatively easy 125-mile flat ride for the peloton, it was my final big push of these past three weeks following The Tour, as it included 50 miles of riding from Pau. I had 27 hours to ride 175 miles if I wished to reach Bordeaux before the peloton.
Yvon and I departed his brother's house yesterday morning at 10:30 in a hard drizzle that had been coming down all night and made the conditions for the peloton heading into the Pyrenees and the Tourmalet look as if it could make for an epic stage. Yvon planned to ride just the first few kilometers of the stage with me, then help guide me towards Meaux, while the peloton turned south into the mountains, and he returned to his brother's house to watch all the action.
Yvon was insistent that I pass through Mourenx as it has a giant mural of Eddy Merckx commemorating an epic victory of his in a stage that ended there in 1969. I had seen it five years ago when Mourenx was a Ville Etape, but thought it was put up just for that occasion. I didn't realize it was a permanent fixture, so I was happy to go give it a look again. Unfortunately, it was taken down while repairs were being done on the building where it hung. Even though going to Mourenx added a few extra miles to my ride to Salies-de-Bearn, I didn't mind at all revisiting a former Ville Etape, and at least reacquainting myself with its velodrome, named for Merckx.
The rain had let up by the time Yvon and I made our farewells. Yvon was able to shed the garbage bag that he was wearing over his cycling jersey to keep himself dry. It was still overcast and looked as if it could begin raining at any time.
I was riding hard to get to Salies-de-Bearn by three to find a bar with a television to watch the last couple hours of the stage with two big climbs up the Soler and the Tourmalet. My thought was preoccupied with what the conditions were like in the mountains. I couldn't wait to get to a TV.
The entry to Salies was the route the peloton would take the next day. It was already lined with barriers. The roundabout on the outskirts was decorated with bikes, a site I never tire of seeing. There were also bikes painted solid colors lined up wheel to wheel on several hillsides. Nearly every shop I passed had decorated its window with a bicycle. I didn't mind at all that it took me nearly ten minutes to find a bar with a television as it allowed me to make a through circuit of the town and see its many bike decorations, the most of any Ville Etape I had seen this year, just like I wish they all were.
I finally found a bar with a television just as an escape group of seven riders five minutes ahead of the peloton was beginning the climb of the Soler. It contained no one of significance, though former Tour winner Carlos Sastre was trying to bridge up to it, caught half-way between it and the peloton. I wasn't sure if Sastre was in the lead or behind. The only other patrons in the bar, a husband and wife from Tennessee were able to fill me in.
They had been following The Tour by car the past two weeks and were exultant over the experience. They had been able to drive only as far as the first climb today about 30 miles into the day's stage. They watched the riders pass and then headed to Salies, where they had a hotel for the night.
Several minutes later an Irish couple came into the bar. It was the first stage for them. They were quite pleased with the performance of the lone Irish rider in the race, Nicolas Roche, son of former Tour winner Stephen. He is the team leader of a French team, the first year he has had such a position. The Irishman was particularly pleased that Roche was well ahead of the British rider Wiggins, who ended the day 24th, just behind Lance, just as he was last year, except last year they were third and fourth. Wiggins' former teammate Ryder Hesjedal is even further ahead of him than is Roche. Bad year for the Commonwealth favorites, as Evans is even further behind Wiggins.
The roadsides were so packed with spectators it was hard to believe it was raining, except for the reminder every so often when a cameraman was caught wiping the water off his camera lens. It wasn't until nearly 4:45 that the climatic ten mile climb up the Tourmalet began. Contador and Schelck were wheel to wheel being led by a couple of Schleck's Saxo teammates. Just after they passed under the ten kilometer to go arch Schleck made his attack. Only Contador could stick with him. For the next half hour the camera hardly moved from their battle. There were no helicopter shots this day with the rain, just those from the motorcycles.
They opened up a minute gap on their pursuers and it remained at about that, though the producers gave us only a quick glimpse at what was unfolding amongst them, a battle as intense for third as for first between Sanchez and Menchov. Horner was hanging with them with another exceptional day on the bike moving up into the Top Ten. If he hadn't sacrificed himself on the day Lance crashed, he'd be even higher.
Menchov and Sanchez remained neck-to-neck as did Contador and Schleck. Just after the four kilometer to go arch Contador surged around Schleck and opened a bit of a gap, but he didn't have enough in him to leave him behind. They resumed a steady pace all the way to the summit with the mist growing thicker and thicker. Contador's face was more constrained than I had ever seen it. He could have jumped past Schleck at the summit to take the win but he did the "gentlemanly" thing and let Schleck have the win, as there was no time bonus as in year's past for first place. Its been two years now that the bonus has been waived. The bonus does make it more interesting.
Contador maintained his eight second lead on Schleck. Schleck was at least able to gain a minute on Sanchez and Menchov. Menchov had been a threat to overtake him in Saturday's time trial. Schleck may now have enough of a cushion to hold on to second place.
At the top French president Sarkozy awaited the riders. He greeted Schleck and Contador and also Lance. Earlier in the stage he had been interviewed by a reporter on a motorcycle as he drove up ahead of the peloton. He makes an annual appearance at The Tour at one of its mountain stages.
The Irishman in the bar bike tours and would love to be doing what I'm doing. The Tour starts next year in the northwest corner of France, just below Britanny in Vendée. It would be easy for him to hop down from Ireland. I told him I would welcome his company. He was envious that with the stage over I would get on my bike and ride until dark.
I was hoping to get 50 miles down the road before dark, but managed only 44, leaving me with 81 miles to the stage finish. I needed to be there by two before the roads were closed. I was helped early on by a vacationing Italian out for a morning ride. I drafted him for an hour at 16 miles per hour, two miles faster than what I had been riding on my own. I was on my own then for a couple of hours until I latched onto a five person group with Ronan Pensac Tours, a French company run by a former French Tour rider.
They were riding at 18 miles per hour. I lasted with them for over an hour until I needed to stop and eat as I was beginning to bonk, having ridden non-stop for nearly five hours. I talked for a while with a woman from South Africa. My first question for her was, "How many times have you ridden the Argus," the legendary 60-mile ride out of Cape Town that every serious South Africa cyclist rides. "Ten," she said. We could recount tales of the 2009 ride that was the windiest and hardest in its history.
I had some final drafting with three people riding with Marty Jemison Tours, run by an American who rode The Tour a few times. The assistance all got me to the finish line in downtown Bordeaux along the Garonne River a few minutes before two and road closure. Without the drafting I would have been battling gendarmes, as I did in Reims, and forced to ride side roads and sidewalks for quite a few miles.
At about the one kilometer arch I noticed course markers going down an intersecting road, the route for tomorrow's time trial. As soon as today's stage ends I will start following them for 32 miles to the end of the stage. There will be no pressure tomorrow. I can take up my position under the giant screen at the finish line early and have one final great day of watching The Tour live.
Later, George
Yvon and I departed his brother's house yesterday morning at 10:30 in a hard drizzle that had been coming down all night and made the conditions for the peloton heading into the Pyrenees and the Tourmalet look as if it could make for an epic stage. Yvon planned to ride just the first few kilometers of the stage with me, then help guide me towards Meaux, while the peloton turned south into the mountains, and he returned to his brother's house to watch all the action.
Yvon was insistent that I pass through Mourenx as it has a giant mural of Eddy Merckx commemorating an epic victory of his in a stage that ended there in 1969. I had seen it five years ago when Mourenx was a Ville Etape, but thought it was put up just for that occasion. I didn't realize it was a permanent fixture, so I was happy to go give it a look again. Unfortunately, it was taken down while repairs were being done on the building where it hung. Even though going to Mourenx added a few extra miles to my ride to Salies-de-Bearn, I didn't mind at all revisiting a former Ville Etape, and at least reacquainting myself with its velodrome, named for Merckx.
The rain had let up by the time Yvon and I made our farewells. Yvon was able to shed the garbage bag that he was wearing over his cycling jersey to keep himself dry. It was still overcast and looked as if it could begin raining at any time.
I was riding hard to get to Salies-de-Bearn by three to find a bar with a television to watch the last couple hours of the stage with two big climbs up the Soler and the Tourmalet. My thought was preoccupied with what the conditions were like in the mountains. I couldn't wait to get to a TV.
The entry to Salies was the route the peloton would take the next day. It was already lined with barriers. The roundabout on the outskirts was decorated with bikes, a site I never tire of seeing. There were also bikes painted solid colors lined up wheel to wheel on several hillsides. Nearly every shop I passed had decorated its window with a bicycle. I didn't mind at all that it took me nearly ten minutes to find a bar with a television as it allowed me to make a through circuit of the town and see its many bike decorations, the most of any Ville Etape I had seen this year, just like I wish they all were.
I finally found a bar with a television just as an escape group of seven riders five minutes ahead of the peloton was beginning the climb of the Soler. It contained no one of significance, though former Tour winner Carlos Sastre was trying to bridge up to it, caught half-way between it and the peloton. I wasn't sure if Sastre was in the lead or behind. The only other patrons in the bar, a husband and wife from Tennessee were able to fill me in.
They had been following The Tour by car the past two weeks and were exultant over the experience. They had been able to drive only as far as the first climb today about 30 miles into the day's stage. They watched the riders pass and then headed to Salies, where they had a hotel for the night.
Several minutes later an Irish couple came into the bar. It was the first stage for them. They were quite pleased with the performance of the lone Irish rider in the race, Nicolas Roche, son of former Tour winner Stephen. He is the team leader of a French team, the first year he has had such a position. The Irishman was particularly pleased that Roche was well ahead of the British rider Wiggins, who ended the day 24th, just behind Lance, just as he was last year, except last year they were third and fourth. Wiggins' former teammate Ryder Hesjedal is even further ahead of him than is Roche. Bad year for the Commonwealth favorites, as Evans is even further behind Wiggins.
The roadsides were so packed with spectators it was hard to believe it was raining, except for the reminder every so often when a cameraman was caught wiping the water off his camera lens. It wasn't until nearly 4:45 that the climatic ten mile climb up the Tourmalet began. Contador and Schelck were wheel to wheel being led by a couple of Schleck's Saxo teammates. Just after they passed under the ten kilometer to go arch Schleck made his attack. Only Contador could stick with him. For the next half hour the camera hardly moved from their battle. There were no helicopter shots this day with the rain, just those from the motorcycles.
They opened up a minute gap on their pursuers and it remained at about that, though the producers gave us only a quick glimpse at what was unfolding amongst them, a battle as intense for third as for first between Sanchez and Menchov. Horner was hanging with them with another exceptional day on the bike moving up into the Top Ten. If he hadn't sacrificed himself on the day Lance crashed, he'd be even higher.
Menchov and Sanchez remained neck-to-neck as did Contador and Schleck. Just after the four kilometer to go arch Contador surged around Schleck and opened a bit of a gap, but he didn't have enough in him to leave him behind. They resumed a steady pace all the way to the summit with the mist growing thicker and thicker. Contador's face was more constrained than I had ever seen it. He could have jumped past Schleck at the summit to take the win but he did the "gentlemanly" thing and let Schleck have the win, as there was no time bonus as in year's past for first place. Its been two years now that the bonus has been waived. The bonus does make it more interesting.
Contador maintained his eight second lead on Schleck. Schleck was at least able to gain a minute on Sanchez and Menchov. Menchov had been a threat to overtake him in Saturday's time trial. Schleck may now have enough of a cushion to hold on to second place.
At the top French president Sarkozy awaited the riders. He greeted Schleck and Contador and also Lance. Earlier in the stage he had been interviewed by a reporter on a motorcycle as he drove up ahead of the peloton. He makes an annual appearance at The Tour at one of its mountain stages.
The Irishman in the bar bike tours and would love to be doing what I'm doing. The Tour starts next year in the northwest corner of France, just below Britanny in Vendée. It would be easy for him to hop down from Ireland. I told him I would welcome his company. He was envious that with the stage over I would get on my bike and ride until dark.
I was hoping to get 50 miles down the road before dark, but managed only 44, leaving me with 81 miles to the stage finish. I needed to be there by two before the roads were closed. I was helped early on by a vacationing Italian out for a morning ride. I drafted him for an hour at 16 miles per hour, two miles faster than what I had been riding on my own. I was on my own then for a couple of hours until I latched onto a five person group with Ronan Pensac Tours, a French company run by a former French Tour rider.
They were riding at 18 miles per hour. I lasted with them for over an hour until I needed to stop and eat as I was beginning to bonk, having ridden non-stop for nearly five hours. I talked for a while with a woman from South Africa. My first question for her was, "How many times have you ridden the Argus," the legendary 60-mile ride out of Cape Town that every serious South Africa cyclist rides. "Ten," she said. We could recount tales of the 2009 ride that was the windiest and hardest in its history.
I had some final drafting with three people riding with Marty Jemison Tours, run by an American who rode The Tour a few times. The assistance all got me to the finish line in downtown Bordeaux along the Garonne River a few minutes before two and road closure. Without the drafting I would have been battling gendarmes, as I did in Reims, and forced to ride side roads and sidewalks for quite a few miles.
At about the one kilometer arch I noticed course markers going down an intersecting road, the route for tomorrow's time trial. As soon as today's stage ends I will start following them for 32 miles to the end of the stage. There will be no pressure tomorrow. I can take up my position under the giant screen at the finish line early and have one final great day of watching The Tour live.
Later, George
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pau, Rest Day
Friends: The Tour is so fan-friendly, Pau's guide to The Tour given out at the tourist office, as well as the two local newspapers in their extensive Tour coverage, list the hotels each of the teams is staying at.
One is a small hotel just down the road from Yvon's brother in Idron, a suburb of Pau, hosting the Belgian Lotto team. Yvon and I swung by knowing the huge team bus would be in the parking lot with the mechanics on display tending to the bikes. Seven of the nine bikes were lined up and ready to go. The two other bikes were perched on stands with mechanics busily washing them down and spraying their moving parts with lubricant and testing the gears. Yvon noticed a mechanic wrapping handlebar tape in a manner he had never seen before, a technique he plans to use the next time he replaces his tape. There were half a dozen fans watching. For some getting so close to the bikes is the highlight of The Tour.
We had an appointment with a newspaper reporter at eleven. Yvon had alerted both papers to my story and our story as international cycling friends. A couple years ago another French newspaper had written about us. French newspapers frequently have stories about cycling adventures. The Tour newspaper passed out by the caravan and the national newspaper "Aujourd'hui," also passed out by the caravan, both feature a daily story about some French celebrity and their love for bike and The Tour. This would be the fourth time a French newspaper had written about me.
The reporter was a young woman who only spoke minimal English so Yvon was able to conduct the bulk of the interview. He traced our friendship back to our meeting at the cycling chapel not far from Pau six years ago. She asked how many countries I had bicycled. I told her I'm up to about 85, but that I always look forward to returning to France as no place is better for bicycle touring. She replied with a "Merci." Such graciousness is one of the many things that makes France stand out. There are frequent signs along The Tour route saying "Merci" to the caravan and The Tour and the riders.
Lance is one of those recipients of "Thank You." After the interview we went to the hotel where Lance's team is staying. As we approached we could see Lance straddling his bike and signing autographs. He and his Portuguese teammate Paulhino had just returned from a training ride. Two fans had a "Thank You Lance" banner that he had just signed. After he left people wanted to take a photo of the banner with the two fans holding it.
Two guys were reverently holding water bottles that Lance and Paulhino had just given them. Nearly every fan was wearing a yellow Livestrong bracelet. Some were wearing Livestrong t-shirts. There was also a guy in a "Mellow Johnny" t-shirt, Lance's Austin bike shop. Mellow Johnny is how Lance's Texas friends pronounce "maillot jaune," yellow jersey.
In our wanderings Yvon and I stumbled upon several other hotels with team buses and a small group of fans reverently gazing upon the mechanics at work. We didn't see any other riders, though if we cared to we could have lingered until they emerged for their rest day ride. The vast majority of fans and mechanics were wearing yellow bracelets, as Yvon and I do, signifying them as cycling fans, if not Lance fans.
We could have made a day of searching out all the hotels, though some of the teams are staying as far away as Tarbes, twenty miles to the east. Many of the hotels are putting up multiple teams. The Astana and Saxo teams of rivals Contador and Schleck are at the same hotel. The Saxo team might be looking for a new mechanic, replacing whoever it was who might have been responsible for Schleck's faulty derailleur that cost him 40 seconds and the yellow jersey.
We did hit a couple more hotels but not all of them. Then we ventured off into the quiet countryside for a couple of hour leisurely ride. We had to stop on occasion to ask for directions, though we couldn't get too lost, nor did it matter much until the air grew misty and we needed to hightail it home.
Yvon mentioned that once near his home in Mulhouse when he was out riding he paused to figure out where he was. A motorist stopped to offer help. Yvon told the man he was all right as he knew the area and had once made a tour around France on his bike. The motorist said he had made six Tours de France. Yvon then recognized him as the highly popular Roger Hassenforder, who raced in the late 1950s between the eras of Bobet and Anquetil, competing against both of them. Hassenforder was a jokester who would speed ahead of the peloton and hide in the bushes and then slip in the back after the peloton had passed. He'd stop and kiss pretty women along the road.
He was someone I had never read about. When we returned we dug into Herni's library of cycling books to read more about him. We learned he had won several stages of The Tour, twice those finishing in his home town, and had also worn the yellow jersey. He was an ardent hunter and had accompanied Coppi to Africa on the trip where Coppi contracted malaria and died. None of the books though profiled his antics as the prankster of the peloton. We googled him. There was a Wikipedia profile and also a lengthy interview on You-tube, but nothing about his crazy side that made him the most popular rider of his day. That will have to await further research.
With Henri spending the night camped out on The Tour route beside the tent where his cycling club would be selling beer and sodas the next day it was just Yvon, Henri's wife Anik and I for dinner, a French classic starting with salad from Anik's garden, followed by sliced meats and a baguette, an olive quiche, a platter of cheeses and then a dessert of a home-made tart and small containers of custard.
Anik went to grade school with Gerard Depardieu. She said he was a bit of a trouble-maker, and that nothing in the school or town had been named after him. Yvon knew that about Anik, but he was surprised to learn that she had once had an American boy friend, an Air Force pilot who had served on a nearby base, who was fluent in French, as Anik only speaks French. The base lasted until 1965.
Later, George
One is a small hotel just down the road from Yvon's brother in Idron, a suburb of Pau, hosting the Belgian Lotto team. Yvon and I swung by knowing the huge team bus would be in the parking lot with the mechanics on display tending to the bikes. Seven of the nine bikes were lined up and ready to go. The two other bikes were perched on stands with mechanics busily washing them down and spraying their moving parts with lubricant and testing the gears. Yvon noticed a mechanic wrapping handlebar tape in a manner he had never seen before, a technique he plans to use the next time he replaces his tape. There were half a dozen fans watching. For some getting so close to the bikes is the highlight of The Tour.
We had an appointment with a newspaper reporter at eleven. Yvon had alerted both papers to my story and our story as international cycling friends. A couple years ago another French newspaper had written about us. French newspapers frequently have stories about cycling adventures. The Tour newspaper passed out by the caravan and the national newspaper "Aujourd'hui," also passed out by the caravan, both feature a daily story about some French celebrity and their love for bike and The Tour. This would be the fourth time a French newspaper had written about me.
The reporter was a young woman who only spoke minimal English so Yvon was able to conduct the bulk of the interview. He traced our friendship back to our meeting at the cycling chapel not far from Pau six years ago. She asked how many countries I had bicycled. I told her I'm up to about 85, but that I always look forward to returning to France as no place is better for bicycle touring. She replied with a "Merci." Such graciousness is one of the many things that makes France stand out. There are frequent signs along The Tour route saying "Merci" to the caravan and The Tour and the riders.
Lance is one of those recipients of "Thank You." After the interview we went to the hotel where Lance's team is staying. As we approached we could see Lance straddling his bike and signing autographs. He and his Portuguese teammate Paulhino had just returned from a training ride. Two fans had a "Thank You Lance" banner that he had just signed. After he left people wanted to take a photo of the banner with the two fans holding it.
Two guys were reverently holding water bottles that Lance and Paulhino had just given them. Nearly every fan was wearing a yellow Livestrong bracelet. Some were wearing Livestrong t-shirts. There was also a guy in a "Mellow Johnny" t-shirt, Lance's Austin bike shop. Mellow Johnny is how Lance's Texas friends pronounce "maillot jaune," yellow jersey.
In our wanderings Yvon and I stumbled upon several other hotels with team buses and a small group of fans reverently gazing upon the mechanics at work. We didn't see any other riders, though if we cared to we could have lingered until they emerged for their rest day ride. The vast majority of fans and mechanics were wearing yellow bracelets, as Yvon and I do, signifying them as cycling fans, if not Lance fans.
We could have made a day of searching out all the hotels, though some of the teams are staying as far away as Tarbes, twenty miles to the east. Many of the hotels are putting up multiple teams. The Astana and Saxo teams of rivals Contador and Schleck are at the same hotel. The Saxo team might be looking for a new mechanic, replacing whoever it was who might have been responsible for Schleck's faulty derailleur that cost him 40 seconds and the yellow jersey.
We did hit a couple more hotels but not all of them. Then we ventured off into the quiet countryside for a couple of hour leisurely ride. We had to stop on occasion to ask for directions, though we couldn't get too lost, nor did it matter much until the air grew misty and we needed to hightail it home.
Yvon mentioned that once near his home in Mulhouse when he was out riding he paused to figure out where he was. A motorist stopped to offer help. Yvon told the man he was all right as he knew the area and had once made a tour around France on his bike. The motorist said he had made six Tours de France. Yvon then recognized him as the highly popular Roger Hassenforder, who raced in the late 1950s between the eras of Bobet and Anquetil, competing against both of them. Hassenforder was a jokester who would speed ahead of the peloton and hide in the bushes and then slip in the back after the peloton had passed. He'd stop and kiss pretty women along the road.
He was someone I had never read about. When we returned we dug into Herni's library of cycling books to read more about him. We learned he had won several stages of The Tour, twice those finishing in his home town, and had also worn the yellow jersey. He was an ardent hunter and had accompanied Coppi to Africa on the trip where Coppi contracted malaria and died. None of the books though profiled his antics as the prankster of the peloton. We googled him. There was a Wikipedia profile and also a lengthy interview on You-tube, but nothing about his crazy side that made him the most popular rider of his day. That will have to await further research.
With Henri spending the night camped out on The Tour route beside the tent where his cycling club would be selling beer and sodas the next day it was just Yvon, Henri's wife Anik and I for dinner, a French classic starting with salad from Anik's garden, followed by sliced meats and a baguette, an olive quiche, a platter of cheeses and then a dessert of a home-made tart and small containers of custard.
Anik went to grade school with Gerard Depardieu. She said he was a bit of a trouble-maker, and that nothing in the school or town had been named after him. Yvon knew that about Anik, but he was surprised to learn that she had once had an American boy friend, an Air Force pilot who had served on a nearby base, who was fluent in French, as Anik only speaks French. The base lasted until 1965.
Later, George
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