My bike buddy called me to his desk this morning and said, “Check this out.” He started showing me some photos and videos he had taken while riding the trails. I snickered at one point and said, “Ooh! Fat guy on a bike!” He started laughing and said, “Take a closer look.” I was horrified and somewhat humiliated to realize that I was making fun of myself.
It is definitely time to go on a diet.
An apparent week-long rain storm has invaded the city where I live. This is both good and bad… depending on personal perspective I guess.
The good that I see is that the rain is helping to keep the temperatures down a bit. The moisture will also help to pack down the trails which were starting to get a bit loose. The rain is also forcing me to stay off of the bike.
Unfortunately, this is probably a good thing. My foot is still more swollen than normal and hurting more than normal, so I am sure the time off is doing me some good. I’m feeling antsy though. I want to be out there riding.
I suppose I still could ride, but I’m awkward enough as it is on the bike. Add in wet streets and wet brakes and I see some ugly.
I got home from work early yesterday due to the fact that I had to work through lunch. I could have stayed until 5 and taken the hour of OT, but I was hungry and sick of being at work, so I opted to leave early.
I arrived home and checked the mail to see if my swag box for the Fat Cyclist 100 Miles of Nowhere had arrived yet, but I was skunked again. I did see a packing envelope though.
Curious what it could be, I walked up stairs, unloaded all of the various ornamentation that I’m required to wear for work, and tore open the envelope. Inside was the last thing I expected to see… a DVD of Race Across the Sky.
Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t an accidental shipping or a “have a gift on us” type of thing. I ordered it. I simply didn’t expect to receive it so quickly. I mean I only ordered it a couple of days ago.
Excited, I tore off the cellophane wrapping and popped the DVD into the player. After much cursing, ejecting the DVD, blowing into the player, and slapping to the top, the DVD finally started playing. Have I mentioned that I have a really old DVD player? I should seriously replace the thing. I literally bought it a day or two after DVD players were released. It is a first generation that I bought back in late 1997 or early 1998… and it still works.
Mostly.
Anyway, it finally fired up and I sat down on the edge of the couch excited… kind of with the same level of excitement I used to feel as a child when sitting down in the theater to watch Star Wars.
When Race Across the Sky went to theaters, I was only a few weeks into the sport. I literally knew nothing about it. I don’t think it had even occurred to me yet that there might be entire race systems designed around the sport. I thought it was mostly a recreational sport done by a few, but the thought of organized racing simply never entered my mind.
That night, as the lights went out, you could have put a gun to my head and ordered me to name famous cyclists and I would have been able to utter, “Lance Armstrong,” but that would have been it. Today, I’m not much better but at least I know a few more names. I also know a lot more of the sport than I did just a few months ago when this movie was in theaters.
It was like watching it for the first time all over again. I knew the terminology, the jargon, and the lingo. I understood more about bikes and what it takes to ride one. I could grimace in pain watching the long climbs and feel the thrill of the long descents last night like I was never able to before.
I also noticed something I didn’t notice when watching in the theater. The whole production seemed (to me) to be a Lance Armstrong promotional event. The narrator kept harping on “the Lance effect” and how this Leadville would be special for everyone because Lance was there. By the end, I found myself wondering if they would have scrapped the whole movie if Dave Wiens (or someone else) had beaten him again.
I sat there watching the movie awed all over again… floored by the undertaking and understanding much better this time around what goes into a race like that.
After watching the movie and the panel discussion for the second time, I was left with a couple of lasting impressions outside of the impressiveness of the movie itself. They are as follows.
1) Lance Armstrong might have a bit too much celebrity these days. I can’t begin to understand how someone’s life changes when they are constantly in the spotlight and the center of attention, but I can imagine the change would be significant. Still, I found it almost off-putting to watch how he behaved in the movie itself and then in the panel sessions. He rolled up to the starting line at the last possible minute sporting an entourage. He spoke to Dave Wiens, but seemed to ignore everyone else. When he rolled across the finish line, he made a straight line for the barricade, rolled on through with a volume of followers, and never looked back. During the panels, he seemed to relish the spotlight and almost resent it when it was on someone else. When he wasn’t the center of attention, he kept throwing out comments as if he were trying to bring the attention back to him.
2) Dave Wiens appears to be a genuinely nice guy. He was soft spoken, but everything he said was very elegant. He never bragged on himself or bagged on anyone else. He made a point of repeating that the Leadville 100 was about the town and the racers… not the stars of the show. He had a kind word for everyone he passed and went out of his way to thank the volunteers even though he was probably feeling intense exhaustion. When he got interviewed after rolling in behind Lance, he didn’t make excuses for coming in second. If anything, he made excuses for Lance for coming in second the previous year. I loved when he said, “He’s Lance Armstrong. He just came off of the Tour de France. Last year, he had just come off of the couch.”
3) The guy who led the round table panel at the end… was he on the payroll of Lance Armstrong? He kept interrupting everyone else and, no matter what they were trying to say, he would bring it back to, “What was it like riding against Lance?”
I don’t mean any disrespect towards Lance. What he has done and overcome has been nothing short of amazing. I also think it benefits this sport to have someone like him be so public because it gives some weight to what we do. When some butt monkey from ESPN advocates running cyclists down, we have someone who can stand up and say, “Enough!”
Having said that, I think it is even better for the sport that we have guys like Dave Wiens. He seems to be one hell of a classy guy.
I kept thinking last night how much I would love to shake Dave’s hand one day. The only thing is that I think he is the type of person who, after you meet him, leaves you feeling like you were the legend and he was the one who was excited to meet you.
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