Fast forward a couple of years and my passion has grown. A couple of major bike races have graced American soil: the Tour of Georgia, the Tour of Missouri, and the Tour of California. All three have sported some elite teams every now and then but the "grand slam" of bike races still only was raced in Europe. Until this year.
For the first time, this year's Tour of California included most of the pro teams that will participate in the Grand Daddy of Races (Tour de France). Better yet, this year's ToC ventured far enough south to include San Diego. That meant I had very little reason NOT to go to it. So I did.
I didn't know what to expect from a bike race, never minding a truly elite one. I guess an equivalent of my first pro experience is if your first experience of a football game was the first round of the NFL playoffs. Still, only two teams participate in that whereas there were the top 7 or so teams in the world involved here.
Another striking difference was the accessibility of the athletes. I was able to talk to several of the best riders in the world just scant minutes before the start of the race. Anyone I wanted to talk to, I could have. Except Lance. He was insanely hounded. But I still saw him ride by only 5 feet from me before the start. You'd be lucky to get a glimpse of some football star and that would only be after the game if he chose to trot by the stands in celebration. These guys just popped out of their RV and signed autographs and posed for pictures with anyone who so desired. And this happened literally 15 minutes before the starting gun. I kept thinking to myself, "these guys should really prepare for the race" but I guess they have bike stands in their RV to warm up.
As an aside I can definitely see how Lance's bike got stolen. The bikes are just left propped up against the team RV with seemingly no one watching them. Look how close I was easily able to get to snap this shot.
Pictured here is a Rock Racing bike with the words "Sexy Beast" attached to its frame. These are several thousand-dollar machines! The riders are inside preparing and there is no one overtly monitoring them. Though there was a mass of people outside I felt I could have climbed on one and ridden away. In afterthought, I am remorse. Note to self for the next race.For my first race experience, I positioned myself a couple of hundred yards away from the start line to view the actual competition. I caught an unidentified Astana rider (neither Lance nor Levi) on film.
By the time I took a picture of the group ("peleton" in bike speak) they were gone. I spent about 90 minutes commingling and all the action whizzed by in less than 3 seconds. Luckily I had a plan to drive to the finish line another town away and view the action there too. (They race for several hours at a time so that was pretty much everybody's plan.)What I haven't mentioned yet is that not only did I drive but I toted my bike too. I parked within a couple of miles of the finish line and rode my bike in, thereby allowing myself access to the race course and the streets closed to auto traffic. That's the best way to do it, I discovered.
At the finish line there were plenty of booths set up to pitch wares and what not. I scored a free tee shirt for owning an Orbea bike from the Orbea reps. I scored a free pair of bike socks for trying on a pair of weird-ass but wholly cool "anti-shoes," MBT or something like that. It felt like walking on a cushy ball. Herbalife tossed me a sweet bag for giving them my email address and I won a tee shirt from Chipotle. I forked over $15 for two Garmin-Slipstream (one of the elite teams) water bottles. These are the new-fangled Camelbak, no drip kind. Awesome.
After the marketing phase of the race I decided to establish a position to watch the end game. Seeing how the absolute finish line was insanely packed I opted to cruise down the course on my bike to alleviate some fan pressure. I established a position 3 kilometers (yeah, bike races are measured in metric...I think it's like 400 fathoms or something) from the finish line. There was hardly anyone around me. I was able to cheer the riders on as they rode by within a foot of me. Literally. But since it was a relatively flat part they rode by pretty quickly. Still it was fun.
When all the riders passed I decided to ride to the finish line and check out the post-game activities. On my way in I ended up getting yelled at by a race official to get off the course but I didn't know that until I rode passed her. Sorry. (Not really.) But as I got closer to the finish line I saw a group of riders riding around to cool down. So I did what any idiot amateur would do: I hopped on their wheel and rode with them. I even snapped a picture during that.
What other sport can you actually participate with your favorite athletes? Shooting hoops with LeBron? Pass'n'catch with Manning? A few holes with Tiger? Forget it! I was riding with some Columbia (another elite team) and Garmin riders! Me! Dude who can barely scale 800-foot Soledad without trouble (see Facebook profile picture) and dudes who just conquered 5,000-foot Palomar.I followed them to the relatively undisclosed location where all the team RVs were located. I don't think I should have been there because the security gave me a weird look on the way in but since I was with the other pro riders they probably thought I was a friend. Once inside I was again treated to unbelievable moments. I wore my Wisconsin bike jersey that day and that proved to be a source of several cool moments. No less than a dozen other fans stopped me to discuss Wisconsin-related stuff. But two really cool moments happened with the teams.
The first was at the Garmin RV. They were getting rid of all their surplus water bottles and some random fan grabbed the last eight. One guy grabbed eight! Like it was his job or something. I tried to pressure him to fork one over by saying "dude, don't hog all of them." Unsuccessful, I resigned myself to not getting an official team water bottle. Just then a Garmin employee grabbed the zealous fan and ordered him to give me a bottle. After the unwilling transaction the Garmin employee said, "I went to Wisconsin. You deserve a bottle." Sweet!
The other moment happened was I was idly tooling around the RV parking lot on my bike when one of the riders said "Hey, Wisconsin." It turns out that was Nick Reistad from Team Jelly Belly (http://jellybellycycling.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/jb_biketeam_bio_nick_r_p11.pdf). We overlapped at Wisconsin in 1995 and we rapped for a bit. It turns out we both have hopes to live in Madison again one day. But the real point here is that one of the athletes sought out a fan. What other sport could you imagine that happening?
Say what you will about the sport of bicycling but I've discovered there is no other equivalent fan experience. And I say this having been privy to some special elite athletes in other sports. I've reffed the likes of Landon Donovan, Cobi Jones, and fellow-Virgo Sacha Kljestan. Soccer stars. I've met John Elway, the second best quarterback to play the game, in a personal setting. I got Joe Montana's autograph (the BEST quarterback ever). I dated a girl who was family friends with Ron Hextall, the best goalie to play hockey and the first to score a goal. Though they were all amenable I am comfortable saying none of them are as approachable for the ordinary fan as the biggest names in cycling.
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