Jens Voigt: The permanent steward of the keys to the Pain Locker.

It’s a good question, this: who in their right mind would willfully hurt themselves doing something they “enjoy”? I’m guessing psychologists have a word for this type of behavior, and I’m not afraid to assume it’s not a flattering one. Indeed, we are all of us completely nuts.

When I’m not filing TPS Reports, it’s my job to help businesses not make technical problems any worse than they already are; occasionally I even help solve one or two. On the good days, I might sit behind my computer and do some actual “work”.  On the bad days, I try to remember what I actually did despite being busy from the moment I set foot in the office, if not before that.  No matter which of these shapes my days take, I come home feeling ready for a ride.

I generally look forward to that part of the day; to changing into my cycling kit, mulling over which cycling-specific eye wear to use and which lenses, before heading down to the basement where the bikes sleep. I like to spend a few minutes cooing over the stable while I pretend not to have already decided to take out Bike Number One; then I make my final selection and ready it for the road.

Being too fat to climb means that I am prone to snakebite punctures caused by my fat ass bouncing the back tire on the rim, so by necessity, I check my tire pressure before every ride (I’ve never had a flat on a Continental GP4000, by the way).  I check my quick releases.  If I didn’t clean and oil my chain after the last ride, I’ll clean and oil it.  I’ll make sure everything is shifting properly.  I’ll check the brakes, hang my helmet from the stem as stipulated in Rule 76, and roll my steed out into the garage where she’ll wait for me while I fill my water bottles and slip into the white ladies.

All the while, work will be knocking around in the back of my mind; be it the annoying things that happened during the day, the items I didn’t get around to, or whatever it is that will transpire tomorrow.  As I roll out onto the street, I’ll be preoccupied by little things as I settle into the rhythm of the ride.  Things like trying not to get hit by the idiot in a car who seems to be texting his buddies that he Hearts Huckabees.  Or I’ll question the decision-making process that encouraged the girl waiting at the bus stop to buy pantaloons that are three sizes too small.  Despite these worthwhile distractions, work will be knocking around in the back of my mind.

Climbing – or more precisely, the pain induced by climbing – is my favorite escape. When I’m on form, I’m encouraged by how good it feels to climb at tempo. Let me digress for a moment to point out that what a Velominatus defines as “feels good” diverges a bit from the traditional definition; by “good”, I mean to indicate that there is a tension in the legs – they hurt but feel strong – and the lungs ache as more air is taken from them than can possibly be pumped back into them, but they don’t feel like they are turning inside-out. “Feeling Good” is the only the beginning.

Then comes picking up a spade, cramming it into a mountainous heap of Rule 5, and turning it over on yourself. There is a strange freedom in the sensation you get as the pain rises through your body; it starts in the legs, and then in the lungs.  Together they swell and grow into each other as the pain consumes every bit of consciousness and affects the vision – colors become simultaneously more vibrant and desaturated.  The mind takes on a singular focus to keep the legs turning, blood pumping, and oxygen flowing; any thought not directly associated with keeping up the effort is pushed out.  A cyclist’s pain is a singular, focused peacefulness. From a Buddhist perspective, there might be something of the shadow of Enlightenment to it, that singular Oneness of Focus. Except that pain bit. I’m not a Buddhist, but I think they might not really be into that side of things.

It’s only during those moments – when I’m suffering like sweet baby Jesus on the cross – that my work doesn’t occupy at least some portion of my mind; the singular indulgence of pain clears everything away, and when I climb off the bike – destroyed – and after I’ve finished my post-ride beer (you need carbs after a ride, you know), everything seems just a little bit clearer.  By clearing away the noise, it makes all the problems in life seem a little less insurmountable.

75 miles of unimproved dirt

Last fall, a wrench at the small LBS in town alerted me to a new race that was being put on for the first time just south of where I live. The Heck of the North is organized by a former Ely local named Jeremy who was inspired by a couple other gravel road races in the region. When Dean told me about the race last fall it was too late for me to schedule it in so I set my sites on it for this year.

Registration is free and riders are picked through a mail-in postcard lottery to limit the field to 75. Coordinating all this, not to mention route recon, land access issues, and the race day itself demonstrates Jeremy’s commitment to cycling and the cycling community. There are no broom wagons, sag support, feed stations, race marshalls, or route markings which I think is cool. Self-reliance in navigation, mechanicals, and nutrition will all add to race tactics.

So yesterday I completed my first long gravel training ride of the year in preparation for the Heck. A friend of mine and local hardman named Mike left me a message when I was out in the field asking if I wanted to join him and some other friends on a similar route to the Heck that they’d been mapping since last year’s race. The three of them had competed in the race last year and their take-away was that they needed to train more on gravel.

The route started and ended in Grand Marais, Minnesota on the north shore of Lake Superior. This is a spectacularly beautiful area book-ended by the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Lake Superior with the Sawtooth Mountains running directly through the spine. Our roll-out was along the Lake on tarmac for about 6 km. We then headed north up Lindskoog Road and the start of the gravel for about a thousand feet of climbing over 3 km. My legs were being beaten into submission after spending the previous eight days in a sea kayak. I hadn’t ridden in ten days and sea kayaking is as opposed to cycle training as couch surfing.

After Lindskoog the road turned into a fast rolling ribbon of dirt followed by a 50kph gravel descent back down to lake level. The next climb was much more gradual than the first where at 35 km we found a five gallon container of water and fresh carrots that had been left out for us by a friend of one of my mates on the ride.

From there we began heading into bumfuckedegypt looking for Green River Road. Once we found it we were treated with what can only be described as bone-jarring, filling-loosening rocks. We never did see the Green River but concluded that at one point we were riding atop its parched bed. It was fun while it lasted but I know at least three of us were happy to be back on to the gravel.

We caught about 500m of tarmac on the Gunflint Trail and began the climb up Pine Mountain which is the second highest point in Minnesota. Afterward we enjoyed a couple dozen km of rollers on a ridge top until our second stop at the Devil’s Track Lake Store for a bidon refill and snacks.

Heading along the north shore of Devil’s Track lake we made an easy 7 km or so on more tarmac until it terminated in more gravel. The tarmac allowed us to set up a quick four-man paceline which we continued onto the gravel for several km. I’d never ridden a paceline on gravel before, let alone a 32kph one, and I think we all relished the quicker pace and teamwork.

After contouring the ridge of an esker for a while we began a long, steady, rolling descent back down to lake level. This was perhaps the quickest pace of the day and was a testiment to Cory’s thoughtful route planning as it allowed for a fast-pace and the subtle use of different muscles.

At about 90k into the ride I found myself sliding off the backs of my mates wheels on the climbs. ‘No worries’, I told myself. ‘These dudes have done this more than I have and I’ll just settle into my own pace.’ Usually I’d catch them on the rollers and a couple times they were kind enough to wait at a stop sign for me to ride up.

The sufferfest hit me the hardest as we began our last climb of the day. Cook County Hwy 6 starts a bit above lake level off Hwy 7 and climbs for another eight hundred feet or so before linking up with the last stretch of tarmac back into town. I was expecting not to show my best on the climb and was fine with that. What got me was the freshly graded gravel that went on and on for about the next 7 km. At that point in the day I was pretty spent and was struggling a bit to find my rhythm on the fresh grade which felt like riding on marbles. What follows is a transcription of my conversation with my buddies as I rode up to them waiting for me:

Me: “That fucking sucked.”
All: Laugh
Mike: “Yeah that climb followed by the fresh grading was painful.”
Shawn: Laughs (this guy finished on the podium last year in the classic race at the American Birkie, he’s tough as nails)
Mike: “The fat lady has begun to sing, eh?”
Me: “The fat lady is not only singing, she just laid a Cleveland Steamer out on my chest.”

The rest of the ride was a blast. We rode pace a km or so up to the Gunflint again and drafted eachother on the tarmac for the final few km into town. When it was all said and done we’d ridden just shy of 150k, 130 of it or so on gravel, in just under six hours. The only downside was that I developed an odd knocking sound in the head tube of my ALAN, probably from the Green River Road. I’ll have to check that out soon. All in all it was a great experience and great training for the Heck of the North. I look forward to doing it again.

Pave Training or Teeth Rattling Bullshit?

When President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the huge stimulus package, into law I figured he was probably doing his job and putting some peeps to work. Merckx knows this country needed some help and I voted for the guy so I thought ‘what could possibly go wrong?’

That was until this huge contraption chiseled out three-quarter inch deep by three inch wide by eight inch long crevasses in the road I ride 80% of the time. The rumble strips are supposedly designed to keep drunks and other crappy motorists from falling asleep and putting their car in the ditch. I suppose that might work. But fuck-all if they’re not a pain in the ass for cycling.

At first I thought they’d be a handy little audible signal that would broadcast an approaching car from the rear that had veered onto the shoulder. This warning would alert me to grab hold of the bars tightly and hit the ditch myself. Upon reflection, it seems the only signal they would broadcast would be that of my impending doom as I still would not have time to get out of the way and the last sound I’d hear would be that of a twelve decibel rubber fart. These sizeable divots also hold water for most of the day after a rain. It’s not that I mind riding wet surfaces but damn if I have to clean my steed twice as often.

I suppose they’re not all that bad for solo rides. Occasionally when I glance back I might get a little surprised by drifting over and riding over the strip which I’d prefer not to do. But riding with a partner or in a group has become a pain. As it stands, the shoulder is barely wide enough for two riding abreast. Switching off pulls at the front now requires crossing back and forth over the rumble strips. This leads to images of fatiguing and cracking carbon fiber, loosening teeth fillings, and choadal jackhammering. Not fun.

Sure I need revisit Rule 5 and keep riding my local road. I have and I will. But damnit, as a voter and a taxpayer aren’t I entitled to giving a little feedback? I realize, Mr. President, that you’ve got two wars to “win”, a global financial crisis to solve, and a bit of a leak in the Gulf to plug, but did you have to jack up my road too?

One of the switchbacks on the Cooke City side of the pass

It’s been called the most beautiful highway in the world. That, as with most things, can be left to debate. What’s not debatable, however, is that the Beartooth Highway, which runs from Red Lodge Montana to Cooke City Montana via Wyoming, is a great place to ride a bike.

I had the opportunity to ride part of the highway to the summit on my way west to the Tour de Blast. Back in the day I had led backcountry skiing trips in the area but had never been there in the summer, let alone with my bike. So when I made plans with the other Keepers to join them for the TdB, Frank suggested I detour south of the interstate to ride the Beartooth. Frank’s suggestions, at least when it comes to cycling, are usually spot-on so I took him up on it.

I passed through Red Lodge, 5500 feet (1697m), and drove the highway to Cooke City, 7572 feet (2307m), the evening before my ride. This was a good opportunity to see what I was in for the next day. The road starts its ascent to 10,947 feet (3344m) right off the end of the main drag in Red Lodge. The road surface is phenomally smooth new blacktop which is barely wide enough for two cars to pass without pulling in the side mirrors. This was the case for 80 km over the pass and down about 1/3 of the other side. Thirty kilometers down on the Cooke City side of the pass, the road was under construction for about a 15 or 20 km stretch. Heavy equipment and road workers had the road torn up to one dirt lane for most of this stretch. It was at this point I had to make a decision. I either had to turn back and ride the Red Lodge side or drive back up through the construction in the morning and start the ride about 25 km short at the Top of the World Resort, 9400 feet (2865m) and ride to the summit from there.

I opted to drive back up from Cooke City in the morning. Although it meant considerably less riding it allowed me to ride the much more scenic side of the road. It’s not that the Red Lodge side is hard on the eyes it’s just the Cooke City side stays in the high alpine environment longer and is more dramatic. This side of the road is also steeper which I thought would be a more interesting test for my flatlander legs. As it turned out, the flatlander legs did fine on the average 10% grade. It was the flatlander lungs trying to suck oxygen at altitude that challenged me. I didn’t remember being as winded during my backcountry skiing career. All it took was a glance at my right thigh and I was up the road without a problem.

The ride was spectacular. It was not a stretch for my simple mind to imagine myself riding the Passo di Gavia as I passed through corridors of snowbanks 3 meters high. Marmots stood and watched me pass by from their rocky perches. Tourists gave me strange looks and even snapped pictures as they drove slowly past in their climate-controlled SUV’s (I was the only cyclist on the road that day for some strange reason). My Beartooth experience even came full circle as I saw a couple skiers hiking a ridge getting ready to earn their turns on an early summer corn harvest.

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All in all I’d love to go back and do it again from both sides and from the bottom. As it turned out, it was the perfect yin to the Tour de Blast’s yang four days later. What the TdB lacked in weather and views, Beartooth Pass more than made up for in both categories. However, the TdB provided for great commeraderie with friends which was lacking on my solo ride up Beartooth. No worries, it’s a rare day that all the pieces of a perfect ride come together and this day was, for me, as good as cycling gets.

The other Mr. 60 (photo: Sirotti)

To describe Piotr Ugrumov’s professional career as fleeting may be a tad on the unfair side.  While he enjoyed a good deal of success in his early years, he also seemed to burst onto the bigger stage of the Giro and Tour from relative obscurity, at least to this observer.  Looking back through his results though, reveals a talented climber and time triallist who used those assets to pick up a win at the Baby Giro (the Giro d’Italia for amateurs) in 1984, backed up with the Young Rider classification in his first crack at the Giro in 89, 8th on GC in 1990, and 2nd behind Miguel Indurain in 1993.  But it wasn’t until 1994 that the Latvian made his mark on Le Tour, and when he did, it really did appear to be a remarkable performance.

This was also the year that the Gewiss Ballan team ran roughshod over the peloton, coinciding with their collaboration with Dr Michele Ferrari.  Berzin had also ‘come from nowhere’ to win the Giro, and the now infamous 1-2-3 at Fleche Wallone was in the books with a huge asterisk next to it.  With Ugrumov skipping the Giro, he came into the Tour with a fire in his belly, and rocket fuel coursing through his veins.  Still, by the time he’d appeared on the radar in Stage 17, where the Colombian Rodriguez sucked his wheel all the way to the summit finish at Val Torrens before taking an classless win, Ugrumov only seemed a bit player in the bigger production of the world’s greatest race.  The next two stages were to elevate him into a much larger role.

Somehow finding remarkable powers of recovery after his day-long breakaway, Ugrumov went on the attack again, this time soloing into Cluses over two and a half minutes ahead of Indurain and Virenque, with Pantani even further back.  Then, the following stage saw him smash the long mountain time trial, putting 1.38 into the Pirate and 3.16 into Big Mig, catapulting him into second overall, a position he would maintain all the way to Paris.  And all this at the tender age of 32.  A late bloomer? Perhaps.

He would never reach those heady heights at the Tour again, although a 3rd at the 95 Giro and 7th at the 96 Tour are none-too-shabby in anyone’s books.  Yet, the ‘magic’ that had imbued him and his team in 94 was somehow never as potent, and a couple of seasons of mediocrity would spell the end of his career.  But Ugrumov did have one other impressive number next to his name; after being recorded as 32% in December 1994, his haematocrit level had jumped to a massive 60% in May 95, right in the middle of the Giro, and two days after following Rominger and Berzin in for 3rd in a TT.   

In a bizarre footnote to his involvement with the darker side of cycling, Ugrumov lived in an apartment directly across the street from the hotel where Marco Pantani met his death, and was planning to pay the Pirate a visit when he was told of the deteriorating mental and physical state of his former climbing foe.  He never got to make that visit, and we’ll never know if it would have made any difference to Pantani’s fate.  What we do know though, is that Piotr Ugrumov was one of the few riders who could challenge, and beat, the sport’s best climber on the biggest mountains of Italy and France.  Just how he achieved such feats, well, could it be all in the numbers?

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Book review: The death of Marco Pantani by Matt Rendell

It’s always a let down for a fan to realise his or her idol is not all that they were held up to be.  And while I was somewhat a fan of Marco Pantani, it was neither a surprise nor a let-down to read about his troubled life, and his subsequent sad, lonely death.

It wasn’t a surprise, or a let-down, to read that possibly his whole career was fueled by a dependence on recombinant EPO, among other performance enhancers.  I knew it while watching him win the Tour in 98, I knew it when I watched him vainly struggle to hold the wheel of a super-charged Armstrong in the 2000 Tour, and I knew it when I saw him valiantly try to re-capture his former climbing prowess against the lesser gifted, yet somehow superior Simoni and Garzelli et al in the 2003 Giro, his ultimate swansong as it would eventually transpire.

Did I care that he was loaded?  No.  All his contemporaries were, it was no secret.  Did I get an invigorating thrill from watching him fly up iconic mountain passes while holding the bars in the drops, sitting, standing, always accelerating, striving to get to the summit as quickly as possible, to shorten the suffering as he often stated?  Hell yes.  He was an entertainer.  He was a craftsman.  An aesthete.  And he was a loner, foregoing any real support from a team that lacked talent and panache, something that probably pleased him as he loved to be the centre of attention.

And just as he rode alone, he lived alone.  Although he was surrounded by an entourage who all claimed to be doing their best for him, ultimately he was neglected by them, and left to die a lonely, depressed, paranoid and disturbed man.

The Death of Marco Pantani doesn’t try to dispel the notion that his career was based on deception, nor does it try to glorify it.  It is a stark assessment of the facts, and only the staunchest of tifosi could argue against those facts.  But it still hits hard to read of such a spectacular fall from grace, the downward spiral from the pinnacle of the sport, and indeed from the pinnacle of celebrity, to a demise that one would normally associate with that of a rock star or actor.  Maybe that’s how he saw himself, and how he thought it would be befitting for him to be remembered, like an Elvis, a Jim Morrison or even a James Dean.

Just as we still buy CDs by The Doors, and watch Viva Las Vegas or Rebel Without a Cause and take pleasure from the experience, so too will we remember Les Duex Alpes in 98, or l’Alpe d’Huez in 95 and 97, not because we were watching a flawed individual, but because we were being entertained by a consumate showman, a master of his craft at the height of his profession.

And for that I can only be appreciative.  RIP Marco.

The Velominatus’ domain is the road. The road is where we practice and hone our craft, work through the agony, and search for the ecstacy of riding. Paved trails are the domain of the family, casual rider, greenway commuter, and rollerblader. The only trails I’ve ever really ridden were those linking my old neighborhood to the campus where I attended grad school or the trails we used to take disabled clients on rides when I worked as a Therapeutic Recreation professional. That is until last Tuesday.

Tuesday morning found my Velomihottie and I in Grand Rapids (bottom left on the above map) for an appointment. She needed to drive back to get to work but I had all day so I threw my bike in the back of the car to ride home to Babbitt (upper right on the map). Originally, I had planned on riding the roads home. But upon further consideration, I thought I’d hop on the Mesabi Trail and give her a go.

It was more than just a fleeting interest in riding the trail that spurred me to check it out. Politics and my profession played a role as well. On the political side, I felt the urge to support the efforts of Jim Oberstar, a lifetime local and Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation Committee. Uncle Jim, as I call him, is an avid cyclist and was key in securing some of the funding for the trail. He’s been a strong advocate for the Rails to Trails movement in the states and has been vocal about more people cycling not only for fitness but also for daily transportation. On the professional side I felt a duty to be a consumer of one of the recreational resources I ask students to study in a course I teach.

So after my Velomihottie sped for work I donned my Velominati Kit and set out for the LBS in Grand Rapids to purchase my trail pass. One can purchase an annual trail pass for $15 or a two-day pass for $5. Lack of funding for trail enforcement means that my $5 was really just a penance of support, as one could ride this trail everyday and not get checked for a pass. But again, I felt morally obligated to chip in and as it turns out it was $5 well spent.

The Mesabi Trail winds through Boreal Forest and over and around tailings piles from historic and current iron ore mining operations. Many of these old open-pit mines fill with crystaline blue spring water and are hundreds of feet deep. These are some of the same places high school friends and I would charge around on our motocross bikes, cliff jump into the water, and drink beer carefree under-age twenty some years ago.

The trail is not completed yet. At the 150k point, near Aurora, I jumped back onto the road for the remaining 50k to my place. The differences between the road and trail were stark. I missed the remote feeling, silence, traffic-free, and more technical curving aspects of the trail. But immediately upon hitting the road my cadence meter shot up about 15 rpm and my average speed increased by 5kph.

At the end of the day I felt like a had the best ride of the season thus far. I’m not convinced I’ll spend a lot more time on the trail but it certainly was a nice respite from the road, provided an interesting way to see familiar places from an alternative perspective and re-acquainted me with some old stomping grounds.

A.C. - Photo: Ian Langsdon/EPA

With the Spring Classics now turning to debates over motorized doping and the hardman’s GT over, perhaps it’s time to start turning our gaze toward the Tour de France. Sure, there’s some sure-to-be good racing between now and then, but who cares? The TdF is next up on the VSP and we here at Velominati need to start conjuring up picks.

When Alberto Contador won the Vuelta in 2008 I was pretty excited for the guy.  I walked down the hall to a fellow cycling fan and colleague’s office after reading the race report on VeloNews and asked if he’d heard.  “Dude, Contador just won the Vuelta!” I said.  “That’s the past three consecutive Grand Tours he’s entered and three consecutive wins, really impressive. (15 months to be accurate but who’s counting)  Guys just don’t do shit like that anymore!”  And now he’s four for four.

But oh if things were that simple for me.  Pesky investigations, rumors and accusations stemming from Operation Puerto led to subsequent inquisitions of El Pistolero.  This eventually led to both the UCI and Spanish courts issuing statements that no legal action or sanctions would be pursued.  Later his new team, Astana, was banned from the Tour in 2008 because Veino was doped to the gills and swung through the Jiffy Lube for a 20 minute oil change the year before.  And then the whole media-fueled shitstorm started with that guy from Texas joining Astana.  Blech!  Trying to ignore the A.C. – L.A. drama of last year’s Tour was probably about as difficult as riding the Tour itself.  If anyone managed to get through the Tour without hearing about that B.S. they deserve an honorary Maillot Jaune and a kiss from two podium girls.

Throughout all this, perhaps even in spite of all this, A.C. continued to win races.  Okay so he didn’t make the podium at Paris-Nice last year, a race he won in 2007 and again this year.  The coverage would make one think that a 4th place finish in the Race to the Sun was disgraceful and that he’d lost his touch.  He bonked and bonked hard on the sixth stage.  But with wins at Volta a Algarve, Vuelta a Pais Vasco, a podium finish at the Dauphine, and becoming the Spanish National TT champion, A.C. was proving himself to be the best all-arounder in the peloton.

So what are the impressions we get of Contador?  Bruyneel has tossed out mixed messages.  On the one hand he’s the most explosive and gifted climber he’s ever seen.  On the other he’s some type of prima donna who rides for himself.  I would too after having to buy my own TT wheels and proving myself to be the strongest rider in the peloton only to be treated like a neo-pro.  Of course don’t even bother asking a Livestronger about Alberto.  Anyone who get’s in the way of another coronation for The Boss (read COTHO) has got to be arrogant, selfish, and just plain mean.  Okay, so Contador’s pistol shot salute is sort of lame and contrived but so what?  It’s a hell of lot better than playing telephone.  And he’s certainly not the most entertaining guy in interviews.  But I haven’t seen anything that makes him out to be anything other than pragmatic and perhaps even introspective.   He actually seems kind of chill.

In a recent interview in Cycle Sport America, David Millar had a few things to say about Contador (of course, Millar has a few things to say about a lot) . The gist was that Alberto went to war against Johan and Lance last year both in the press and on the road.  He won on both fronts.  He also spoke of the respect A.C. is garnering in the peloton, his strength on the bike, and the perseverance he’s maintained through all this.  On that classic bonk and subsequent stage in 2009′s P-N, he had this to say:

When you watch a race, you want to believe riders can stay away in a break.  That’s what’s exciting. It does still happen, like with Contador in the last stage of Paris-Nice (2009).  He’d been humiliated the day before.  He got the hunger knock and blew his nuts off.  Lost the jersey and was lying third or fourth.  Tragedy.  I said, ‘Watch Alberto go tomorrow.  First mountain.’ Nobody believed me. I said, ‘He will, he will, it’s Alberto.’  First Mountain, he went, from the bottom.  That’s old school.  His team didn’t set him up, he just went.  There were still 100k to go.  He attacked the whole peloton and he was still away at the end.

We saw this on the much bigger stage of last year’s Tour as well.  After getting caught out of a decisive split in stage three the L.A. show was supposedly on.  If you believed 1/3 of the guys on Versus and most everyone else you would’ve thought El Pistolero was now second fiddle.  Lance’s smart riding aside, THIS WAS ONLY STAGE THREE PEOPLE!   Enter the Arcalis.  A.C. took off to the consternation of the entire Astana team and  1/3 of the guys calling the race on Versus and turned a 20 second deficit into a 2 second lead over his soon-to-be-former teammate.   He was letting it be known that he was the strongest rider on the Astana team and the whine fest was on.

So what can we say more objectively about Contador?  Well, his light-as-a-feather climbing style has been compared to Charly Gaul and Marco Pantani.  Suffice it to say, there’s not another rider in the peloton who can really compete, day in, day out, with Alberto in the mountains.  He’s proven he can rip a TT course as well.  His performance in last year’s final ITT at the Tour was decisive.  Maybe he’s not the greatest at reading a race or making it into all the splits but I’m afraid to say that those are dying skills.  With race radios and directors barking orders into a headset non-stop, what rider really needs to think for himself?   And as far as needing a strong team to win this year, let’s not forget last year.  I’m not entirely convinced he needs a squad of super-domestiques to pull him through the Tour.  Maybe just a few solid riders will do.

When A.C. won the Vuelta in ’08 and pulled off the virtual Grand Tour trifecta I was a fan.  Then, for reasons I don’t fully understand, I thought I didn’t like him.  Then I was confused about why I was trying not to like El Pistolero.  I really still don’t know what to think of the guy. I guess I’m indifferent towards him. Regardless of what I or any of you think, the promise that he’ll continue to ride with dominance on the climbs and strength in the TT is going to shape the Tour this year .  This time, it’d be nice if there were a few guys who could keep up.   It’s not his fault he wins races, it’s everyone else’s.  Trying to beat Alberto and win the GC is what’s going to make this year’s Tour exciting, not a comeback, not a team leadership struggle, and certainly not a cat fight in the media.

A familiar sight in the 1993 Tour: Jaskula (at back) and Mejia hang on in the Alps

While the talk of the week has been on the Fraud Landis Chronicles, whether he cheated (of course he did), whether or not he’s telling the truth (he is, this time) and whether or not Pharmstrong is a doping, fraudulent COTHO (he always has been), my head has exploded trying to make sense of the naivety of those still duped by the belief that one man, and one man only, is the sole clean rider of the last twenty years.  For the sport that we love is a dirty, corrupt one.  And I really don’t give a flying fuck.  I’ve known for a long time that our heroes are flawed human beings, just like you and I, yet I still love it.

So I got to thinking back to the early days of my love affair with pro racing and Le Tour in particular, and the July evenings rushing home from work to catch the half-hour highlights package on SBS TV.  How enthralled I was watching the classic battles in the heat of the French Alps, as these giants of the road repeatedly attacked each other, in huge gears at speeds that seemed superhuman.  Because they were.

And while I was recalling these great memories, some names were dragged from the recesses of my mind, pushed back there by the fact that they weren’t big names of the peloton, but nonetheless were elevated among those legends whom we still revere. For a fleeting moment, three weeks to be exact, these transients became superstars, transformed somehow magically from nobodies and elevated to the highest level in one of the toughest races in the world, then disappeared just as quickly.  Miracles do not happen, no matter how much some shamen try to make you believe they do.

The 1993 Tour stands out in my mind for some of the best racing I’ve witnessed in the race to this day.  I still have the VHS tapes of the race and love to revisit them occasionally, marvelling at the pure diesel power of Big Mig, the accelerations of Rominger, the Lazarus-esque rides of Chiappucci, the long, failed solo escape of Robert Millar over the Bonette.  Classic stuff.

But it was the performances of some previously undistinguished riders that stood out.  One Bjarne Riis, 107th two years earlier, suddenly 5th.  One Johan Bruyneel, who finished 7th and set the fastest ever winning average speed in stage 6 (since bettered only twice, once in 1999 by coincidence).  Two days later, one Lance Armstrong took his first Tour stage win, before abandoning while in 97th place.  One Alvaro Mejia, a Colombian grimpeur who was ever-present in the mountains.  And one Zenon Jaskula, a Pole who’d had some solid results, but never anything to match his remarkable 3rd place in the 93 Tour.

So who the hell was he?  Apart from success as an amateur in Polish national time trials, and also in the Sun Tour in Australia, his biggest result was 2nd in Tirreno-Adriatico behind one Tony Rominger in 1992.  He rode for Team MG-GB in 92 and 93, alongside the likes of  Tchmil, Cipo, Ballerini and later-proven dopers like Rebellin and Museeuw.  He was in good company, at the right time as EPO was flooding the peloton and the racing was becoming supercharged.

Every night as I watched, his name would be mentioned more and more by Phil and Paul.  They had no idea who this guy was either, but were equally as impressed/surprised/baffled by his performance as I was.  With Indurain and Rominger doing their best to annihilate each other over the big Cols, there’d always be the same faces hanging on to them like barnacles on a ships hull.  Riis, Mejia, Jaskula.  They were revelations.  They were riding like men possessed.  They were juiced to the gills.

Rather than just hanging on, defending his GC position of third, not making too many waves, Jaskula must’ve been thinking it was all too good to be true, and with the magic potion coursing through his veins probably making him feel like Superman, he took his chance for ultimate glory.  Stage 16 to Saint-Loury-Soulon saw him outsprint Rominger and Mig after they decimated the field on the last climb.  The speeds and ferocity of the attacks were incredible.

Jaskula looked somewhat sheepish on the podium in Paris, and Indurain and Rominger had a look of “who the hell is this guy?” as they shared the steps with the unheralded Pole.  Perhaps he knew that he would never reach such heights again, that this performance couldn’t possibly be repeated, and that he would rest on his laurels and fade into obscurity with a huge question mark over the validity of its credibility.

And then, he was gone.  Other riders would emulate his ephemeral performance in years to come, products of the influx of doping programs masterminded by the new breed of team management and sports ‘doctors’.  And of course, the wonder drugs they administered.  I didn’t really know what was going on back then, but I knew the racing was enthralling, and in hindsight it’s easy to see why.

Dutchman Michael Boogerd carries the flag in Amstel Gold

The inaugural Velominati Super Prestige kicks into full swing this week with the Amstel Gold Race to be held Sunday, April 18.   Sunday will be the second race in the season-long series and is an opportunity to unseat current series leader and rainbow cog wearer, Rob, who took the lead last week by predicting two podium finishers.

We are happy to report that all post-prediction samples came back negative for clairvoyance-enhancing substances, although several readers did return samples showing high caffeine and alcohol levels.  Those readers have been issued letters indicating that they have been placed on a watch list and may be subject to further scrutiny.

This week’s winner will earn an “Obey the Rules” bumper sticker  and all reader’s points qualify towards the final prize of the free Velominati Shop Apron.  If you are inclined to enter, simply post your predictions for the top five placings in the comment section.  Good luck.

Rules and results are posted Velominati Super Prestige page.