Mad Props Vol. 8

From the Cartier eye glasses to the signature ponytail, Laurent Fignon was one hell of a dapper racing gentleman. While he's synonymous with his 8 second loss in the 1989 Tour de France to Greg LeMond, Laurent Fignon was a seriously accomplished rider of the PRO peloton. He won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984, the Giro d'Italia in 1989, Milan San-Remo in 1988 and 1989 and he also won Fleche Wallone in 1986. Filet Mignon ( a friend's nickname for Laurent) also finished atop many a podium and captured numerous stage wins throughout his illustrious career.

I remember Fignon for his grace and elegant style on and off the bicycle. His calm demeanor was in stark contrast to the other great Frenchman of the time, (no, not Charly Mottet) Bernard Hinault. Thus, Fignon earned the nickname "The Professor".

Laurent Fignon was a class act, and he also had a way with words. He once described the great Miguel Indurain, who had recently demolished the entire peloton in a Tour de France time trial by stating "He is an extra-terrestrial!".

Passion and the Universe

When I made my way into that bike shop known as BS, to plunk down the hard earned dough for my first "real" bike, I was immediately drawn into the deep and beautiful world of cycling. Four months after I payed my last twenty dollars (made in weekly installments for two months) I was getting paid to flounder about the very shop I had been frequenting/pestering. The whole crew at that shop rode and was passionate about bikes. Every damn one of them. It was the perfect shop to guide my ascension of the cycling tree of knowledge.

Nothing came easy in the first few years. I was a complete neophyte and was forced to understand that nothing in the bike shop world just gets handed to you without some form of payment. I remember using a crescent wrench to build one of the first bikes thrown my way. This humiliating faux pas of poor tool selection stripped me my privilege of bike assembly for two weeks. "The right tool for the job" they said, as I sat red faced and disheartened, "You're lucky Mel didn't see you". As traumatic as that episode was, it opened my eyes to realize that this wasn't my dad's garage where I only had a handful of primitive tools to work with. I actually had a large collection of specialized tools at my disposal that addressed all the fine details of bicycle mechanics.

As the years passed, I moved on to other shops and still carried the deep passion and curiosity of cycling with me wherever I went. I read books and magazines, watched videos, raced, wrenched, and basically did whatever I could to envelope my life within the world of cycling. I was passionate about bikes. They became a defining part of my life. I finally became like all those people I looked up to at that first bike shop.

While I moved from shop to shop in search of ever more bike culture, I failed to ever again experience the collective passion for cycling that that first shop embraced. I soon found that cycling is also a world full of very different people with a wide range of reasons for working at a bike shop. Thus, I began to formulate a theory that folks within the bike shop world can be matched up with the various types of phenomena in the universe. Here is what my unscientific mind has come up with so far:

Black holes

These are the collectors (aka the equipment whores) that work at the shop so they can buy their parts on the cheap. Their nose is always buried in the QBP catalog plotting their next acquisition.They make it a point to always look the part, but they sure as hell don't ride much. They're the fabricators of the lamest excuses for only riding two or three times a year.

Supernovas

These are the guys that blast off into the cycling world and get all the bikes, clothing, sunglasses, and accessories possible and then ride like madmen for six months only to fizzle out with a quiet whimper. They can usually be found at the local race every year telling you how they're gonna get back into riding/racing next season. Next season never comes.

Comets

This is the funny, fat guy that comes in once in awhile to build the odd bike but spends more time waxing nostalgic about the good old days of cycling yore. He doesn't ride anymore because "Cycling has become a superficial sport of soft men with plastic bikes". Besides, he's "paid his dues". Still, he's fun to have around and is always good for a sixer of imports and chips.

Asteroids

He roams the shop aimlessly looking for something to do. Without fail, he will not do anything unless specifically told to do so. He also manages to take five times longer than he should to complete any task. Only threats of bathroom duty will goad him into any meaningful action. The only reason the boss hasn't fired him yet is because he'll take minimum pay and work a shitload of hours. He's something of an enigma in that he usually wanders in late and yet, is almost always the last one to leave.

Dead Planets

Why does this bastard even work here? Oh, I know! He's the boss's old pal. This guy hates every soul that walks through the door and rarely lifts his gaze from the bike he's working on, which happens to be his own. He doesn't wrench, he doesn't sell, he doesn't merchandise, and by God, he doesn't fucking clean. He does, however, take massive shits in the bathroom that make your lungs bleed as well as drink all the beer.


Red Dwarf Stars

These are the people that keep the whole damn shop ticking. They've been around forever and continue to soldier on for the love of the bike. They are the rare constants that keep on keepin' on. Always the same old dudes you've seen riding for years and years in all sorts of familiar, different and unexpected places. They have their ups and downs like anybody, but they keep it centered. They also know that even though the faces change and most of their coworkers will go on in a few months or years in search of fulfillment elsewhere, every so often one of them will stick and find their passion for cycling in much the same way they did.

Sprinter Della Casa link

Yeah, yeah, I know I said something about a first and last doping entry, but who would have known it would foreshadow such a farce as the Tour this year?Anyway, I saw this at Gewilli's fine blog. Pretty concise and eye opening stuff. Hate to think that the dopers are the guys at the local races, but sadly, they probably are. I've started racing again after 9 years (yeah, I'm back) for fun and I'll do my best to crush the motherfuckers with the juiced blood.

Sprinter's doping link

Riding the Garden of Eden

Riding in the traffic congested confines of Chicagoland makes me dream sometimes about distant places I can escape to without some asshole in a SUV pinning me into the gutter. The above photo fits the fairytale wish of a world where I can ride for mile after mile amongst a beautiful backdrop of mountains, streams, trees, and winding smooth roads.

I tell my friends that if I ever were to suddenly become a billionaire, I'd buy a huge parcel of land and create a cyclist's haven of swooping loops, hills, and interconnected trails. Road and offroad. Maybe even a nice place for the BMX'ers and trackies to rip it up. I'd ride for hours and hours without the dirty automobile to fuck it all up.

Sounds cool, eh?

The Yin and The Yang

“Life is the result of the struggle between dynamic opposites. When the pendulum swings in favor of one, it eventually swings in favor of its opposite. Thus the balance of the universe is maintained.”
- Fist of the Northstar

In the world of Kung Fu cinema a common thread binds nearly all tales: the world cannot exist without positive and negative influences working upon each other to maintain life's fragile balance. There is hard and soft, dark and light, good and evil, ad infinitum.

Thus, the cyclist has a polar opposite as well. Though the gluttonous, cheese doodle eating, pasty blob of bologna flesh that lays about home lethargically watching hours of television might seem the obvious culprit, it is not. The world is much more complex than simply balancing cyclists with the lazy slug picking the underwear out of his ass all day. No, the ruler of the natural world is a funny, twisted and sometimes cruel bitch. For she has sardonically counter weighted cyclists with the most freakishly inane beast of the sporting world: the triathlete.

The triathlete is the giant booger on the tip of the nose of every first date. The dingleberry that falls out of the cuff of your jeans and into your shoe. The square peg that insists on going into the round hole. Yes, they are all these things and more.

The triathlete shuns the time honored traditions and etiquette borne of pedigreed riders. Disregard for aesthetic is prevalent in both cycle and dress to an almost obscene level. They make their own rules that confound and annoy. It's kind of like if they say the wall is a door, they will repeatedly bash their head into the wall until it becomes a really big hole, and thus, a door.

While a strong majority of the general public inaccurately thinks bike lanes are for double parking, so too, they think the triathlete is somehow "cool". However, I am here to tell you that they most certainly are not. In fact, they are very uncool. For instance, take their fruity choices like riding with no socks. Or, the way they used to put Powerbars on their top tubes for future consumption. Does that sound cool to you? No. I didn't think so.

The other misconception, lo, the greatest misconception of the general public is that the triathlete is a cyclist. It is important to remember that even though they ride bikes, they are not cyclists. Road, mountain, cyclocross, bmx, and track riders know this. That's why when we hear that someone caused a major pile-up on the local group ride, the first question is "Was it a triathlete?"

So, in honor of all my cycling brethren out there I've prepared a simple guide to differentiating between us and them. Pass it on to your neighbors, post it on stop signs, or spray paint it on walls. Do whatever it takes to get the word out.

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Cyclist: Carries his water bottles in cages mounted to the downtube and seatube of his frame. Camelbacks are often worn as a way of carrying more water or so the bottles don't get horse shit all over them from the trail.

Triathlete: Eschews sensible water bottle cage mounts for contraptions that crush their carbon seatposts so they can carry their water behind them for aerodynamic purposes. These aesthetic abominations are counter productive for 98.9% of the foogs that have them. Not only do they put them farther away from reach in their $200 aero tuck position, but they wobble all over the damn place trying to get the bottle back in the cage while they try to avoid the asshole in front of him trying to put his bottle back in the cage. Worse yet, are the gay aerobar bottles with the shlongy looking straw bouncing all over the place. No frat house imposes hazing that is more degrading than this self inflicted shit.

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Cyclist: Makes use of all gears at their disposal to match terrain, weather, and riding situations.

Triathlete: Wrestle their aerobars like savages in a vain attempt to ride the 53x11 at all costs. In the bizarro world of the triathlete there is no such thing as a chainring smaller than a 53 nor a derailleur that is capable of shifting beyond the 12.

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Cyclist: Well versed in cycling history. Knows the professional calendar of races and maintains an awareness of other cycling disciplines.

Triathlete: Perry Roobay? Who's he? Lost on the triathlete is the historical and real world significance of the bicycle. The triathlete's brain is wired to disregard anything bike related that can't be dangled off their handlebars or make them .00017 % faster in a 40km time trial. To them, cycling history is the Unidisc rear wheel cover they used in their first triathlon.

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Cyclist: Reads magazines and books devoted to cycling lore, mechanics, physiology and photography.

Triathlete: Drools over TT helmet windtunnel statistics, Quintana Roo brochures, and Polar heart rate monitor owners manuals. If it doesn't have a shitload of cryptic graphs and numbers or showcase yet another dorky time shaving gadget, the triathlete isn't interested.

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Cyclist: Mixes in days of easy, casual rides that serve as a reminder of what fun riding a bike can be.

Triathlete: Every second on the bike is devoted to training. If you're not riding hard, you're not training, therefore, you're not serious about the sport, and thus, not a real triathlete. The greatest fear of any triathlete is not being identified as one by the public. Therefore, they're in a perpetual state of hypertension. The intensity spills over into every aspect of daily life such as shopping, eating, driving, and shitting. Everything is done in a manic blur of measured convolution.

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Cyclist: Maintains his bicycle with the knowledge that a clean, lubed, well tuned machine is the best guarantee of performance and success. They use the right tools for the job and ensure that everything from the chain to the cleats on their shoes are in good working order.

Triathlete: Surely the greatest irony of life is that of the triathlete's ineptitude with bicycle maintenance. For all the devotion to number crunching and brochure scouring, none of that acquired knowledge carries over to their ability to maintain a clean, working bicycle. Sure they've mortgaged away their life for the Taj Mahal of bicycles and equipment, but the fucking thing never shifts, brakes, spins, turns, or sounds like it should. This is because the triathlete only knows how to use one tool: the hammer. No matter what torque specs are given by any given company, the part is installed with all the grace of King Kong in a glass factory.
The triathlete also has a natural fear of lubricants and chemical cleaning solutions. The typical tri-bike wears a thick coat of syrup from energy drink concoctions, ego boosting numbers from past triathlons (I'm convinced triathlon organizers use impossible to remove number stickers as way to allow triathletes the excuse that it's "too hard to get off" so they can prove to everybody they race), and squeaks and cracks with every pedal stroke because their sweat has seized every part into a hopeless petri dish of fuzzy carbon fiber permanently welded to aluminum. When these monstrosities limp into bike shops, there is a collective shudder felt amongst mechanics around the world. Much like Yoda sensing the deaths of millions of innocent people.

The Tour

When I perpetually get bombarded with retarded questions every year leading up to the start of Le Tour de France, I emanate a certain sense of smugness. "It doesn't live up to the hype" I grumble, and mildly disparage it's standing as the "the greatest cycling event in the world". I recount the Giro d'Italia, the spring classics, the Vuelta, and the World Championships. All usually met with a quizzical look of ignorance and disinterest.

I guess it's a defense mechanism I've developed because the PRO calendar is much larger and more beautiful than just the race that "made Lance famous for kicking those backward European's asses". I also feel like I have to pose some form of public challenge to the cheerleaders on OLN/Versus that have swung from LA's short curlies the past ten years and disparage any challengers to his almighty throne of immortality.

Yet, the Tour starts and I'm drawn in by the sheer magnitude of the race. I love the Tour and it's glorious history and the characters that have been shaped by it's historic importance. The drama and desperation makes my blood boil. I acknowledge that the Tour de France is the greatest spectacle in cycling. I wish I could always compel myself to believe that.

1986 Alpe d'Huez

Sleepwalkers Driving

Some people sleepwalk while they drive. They are cocooned in their temperature controlled and noise insulated world of steel. They fidget with the radio, yammer endlessly on cel phones, eat cheeseburgers, and watch movies on their console mounted DVD players. Driving alone. Vaguely aware of their own existence.

I'm not sure what Ms. GMC Yukon Denali (Denial as Ari says) was doing when she slowly made her left turn in front of me. I experienced that sinister slow motion feeling of impending doom when I was sliding in front of her chrome grilled, cyclist eating, beast on my front wheel. I dodged, pulled, contorted, and braced to make sure that the damage from impact would be lessened. I was a lucky motherfucker.

I escaped the encounter unscathed as a wide eyed and obviously startled Ms. GMC apologized through her closed window. Her mouth was saying "Oh my God, I'm so sorry" but her eyes were bleary and said that the little cyclist in red had just yanked her from her comfortable dream world back into reality.

I nodded to her, tapped my heart, and rolled on. No words to shout, nor anger to unleash. I looked back in disbelief as she pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home.

"I am one lucky motherfucker" I thought. And so is she.

Mad Props Vol. 7

Raymond Poulidour, 15 juillet 1973 - Portet d'Aspet, France

Raymond Poulidour was an accomplished racer, though he was more famously known as the "eternal second". "Pou Pou", as he was affectionately known, had the misfortune of riding in the shadow of two Tour de France greats, Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx.

While he amassed seven stage wins and eight podium finishes in the TdF (three 2nd's, five 3rd's), Poulidour never once pulled the yellow jersey over his shoulders during his 17 year career (1960-1977).

Poulidour was an underdog of epic proportions and the French public adored him for it. He represented the strength and character of the rural class while Anquetil, in stark contrast, represented the cosmopolitan face of modernization.

Pou Pou was the embodiment of courage and vulnerability. I like to see PROs achieve superhuman accomplishments, but I also like to be reminded that they aren't much different from me as well.

Photo credit: AFP

On Doping: My First and Last

I haven't written about doping before. It's the five hundred pound gorilla in the room, yet I refuse to regurgitate all the shit out there. Be it good or bad.

The bottom line is I don't like doping. I don't abide. I think it's a dishonest and belligerent disservice to the cycling community as a whole. I think it's bullshit that the guys I grew up soiling my pants in awe of have destroyed my virgin perceptions of the strength of human will. I feel betrayed and despondent.

I pity the kids that ride their bikes dreaming of one day riding the wheel of their hero. A hero who happens to be doped up on the shit that the terminally ill need to survive for a few more months and usually can't afford. I feel sorry for the honest professionals that have been denied success because of strong morals and resolute decisions. I feel sorry for the sponsors that have given their money and trust to cycling teams only to be given the negative publicity of a group of talented hacks that perpetually cry foul when the piss test police come knocking. And, I feel sorry for the race promoter that has to scramble and plead every year for sponsors that balk at the notion of being linked to a sport that is perpetually affronted by the media with hysterical headlines and ignorant commentary.

I'm tired of it. Tired of it all. I don't even read the print when I see any form of the word "dope" anymore. I've read that shit before. I know it's all more of the same with different names. And I know how it ends. Always with more questions than answers and more accusations paired with incredulous denials.

To the dopers past, present, and future I say "Fuck you". I love you guys, but fuck you all. I don't claim to know the solution nor do I condone the hard-line approaches of some of the governing bodies. I understand the pressure for results. I understand that it's as much a part of professional cycling life as vitamins and energy drinks. I agree that it's a byproduct of competition that is hard not to do, given the shadowy nature and all-or-nothing mentality that the world of professional sport perpetuates. I even understand the twisted logic that says if you don't dope you aren't trying hard enough. I've heard this broken record time and again and I under-fucking-stand.

Still, my perception of a professional, a true professional, is different than what we always see on ESPN and countless other ho-hum sportscasting outlets. A true professional doesn't represent first places, fortune, and obscene displays of conspicuous consumption that the media loves to glorify. The true professional rises above the herd-mentality bullshit of handlers and media dinks. The true professional performs with honesty, dedication, and humility. That isn't to say they don't have faults, but they do the best they damned well can with what they were given.

Doping has been interwoven with the fabric of cycling since Henri Desgrange first began organizing the Tour de France. Right from the very beginning. It will probably continue into the future. Likely forever. I don't hold any fairytale beliefs that it will stop because of the current microscope it's being held under. Cheaters always find a way. They always have. Yet, when they achieve their false wins, stand atop their unearned podiums, and receive their unearned kisses, I hope their hearts are dark with guilt and souls full of regret.