Realistically, by the time you read this, it's probably more like the night before. And you're up late, thinking about throwing in the towel, blaming the weather, your spouse, your kids, your bike, your bike shop, anyone; trolling the Internet for info that might lead you to believe the Pantani ride has been cancelled on account of a doping scandal or local pestilence, and generally behaving like a small child.
In that case, welcome to the ride. We'll see your unprepared, lazy ass tomorrow. God help you.
But in the event that you've actually ended up here 10 days before gametime to get the skinny on how to prepare, you're probably still too late. Cram training a fortnight before an event has been proven to be *detrimental to your performance (*citation needed.) But, what the hell, since it's this blog you've turned to, it is this blog that will point you in the right direction, that direction being almost directly up.
Ahem...
Pantani Ride Training and Preparation Recommendations (10 days out.)
woooosh.
1) Ride the skinniest, iciest singletrack you can find. Now since it's, you know, January, your options on this should probably abound. Unless you live anywhere around here, and the 70 degree, two-day deluge that we just got soaked the white stuff right into the brown stuff, rendering it impassable. Have patience. Clearly, you already have that mastered, given that you're training for an event the week before it, but chances are we'll get some more snow between now and then, and you'll be able to prepare your power sliding and out of control brake squealing adequately to make it down Wyatt mountain in one terrified, trembling piece.
This experience brought to you by The Giro D'Ville. There's strong, and there's Girostrong.
2) Tire selection. Give some thought to this, and of course, watch the sky. I know this has been debated to death, not just tire width but also tire circumference, tire color, and tire smell, but honestly it's pretty important. Having formerly come from the school of thought that it's hard to go wrong with those nokian 2.5 DH's, I've turned a corner in the last few years and subsequently thrown up a lot less on steep, hard climbs, of which the Pantani Ride has 5. Worth considering.
3) Recon. Notice I don't actually call this training. No,indeed, it will do you very little good at this point to go climb brokenback ten times in your big ring unless your goal is to be on the couch with ice on your knees for the next month. But a little spin around the lollipop, or across fox mountain, or even just driving out into Greene county and having a look at how terrible that stuff seems will likely get you in the right mindset to either show up stonefaced and ready for a fight, or quit early.
4) Take up running. This isn't actually my advice, but apparently that's Kev29ers form of preparation leading up to the big day. It's sad. Watching your old riding buddy at a social event trying to line up a man-date for the next day to go running at Ridge Road feels a lot like seeing a toe tag on his cold, stiff corpse. I went through that. It hurts. But I do have his big bike still stashed in my basement from the last time we went riding (2 months ago) and his brakes failed. So his memory will, if nothing else, live on. Or maybe he'll show up looking runner trim and, dare I dream it, Basque, and get to the front and stay there?
Fuzzy, soft, and blissful is the recipe for forgetting. Thanks Mom.
5) Submit your sock size. That size being about a men's 10, because these puppies are already made. But you heard it here first: there will be a wee giveaway this year for the first finisher on a singlespeed, technically two giveaways, and they're pink, soft, and cozy on your tootsies on the drive home in the wake of the terrible things you just did to yourself. Hand knitted by Momma T herself. So while your carpool buddies are trying to rub some life back into their frostbitten feet and popping the kind of puss-filled, throbbing blisters that hiking a cross bike for 3.2 miles on a 20% grade rewards you with, you'll already be well into the denial part of the grieving process and, even sooner, ready to do it all again next year.
6) While we're on the subject of winners apparel, wash the KOM Chapeau and the Pantani jersey. Zach, the Chapeau probably needs a sound, deep cleaning, maybe use some turpentine, bleach, scrub it as hard as you can, and whatever you do, never ever feed it after midnight. Qwadsworth, I know this probably goes without saying, but a real winner dry cleans the Pantani jersey, has it starched and pressed, and shows up looking dapper. Dress how you want to perform, that's all I'm saying.
7) Steal pictures from other cyclebloggers websites, try to draw them out to participate in an effort to feel better about your own poor performance. OK, that's just for me. But here we go.
I can't get more blatant than that.
8) Buy booze. I'm looking at you, Metro. Not only the highly-caffeinated, prize for the fastest dad kind, but also the mid-pack, hoppy, ease the pain before the ride home kind. I know that you know that I know what I'm referring to here, and that's good enough for me. And probably good enough for David Reid again as well.
9) Establish allies. Teamwork, as a part of cycling, is often credited for winning at the front. But it's far more often overlooked as credit for just finishing at the back, and that's a shame. Sometimes, just having a friendly, agonized face to suffer near will get you over the hump. If it helps the process, take a little road trip out to Kentucky the weekend, car-talk your boys into a little strategy, and watch Cross Worlds happen in person. Because, if nothing else, you might absorb some speed via osmosis.
10) Consider that the painful part of cycling, which is sure to find you on Sunday the 10th given your very late consideration of the subject, is actually what makes it good. If it didn't hurt, everyone would do it, which I have difficulty even imagining but I don't estimate it would be quite as fun. So by that logic, pain is what makes the effort worthwhile. Remind yourself of that a few times on the way to the top of your own mediocre finish.
It started back on Ventoux a few days before. Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong, both of them doped right to the outer limits of what was medically conceivable at the time, put in an attack on the rest of the leaders of The Tour De France and rode out of their minds - right past the memorial to the late Tom Simpson - up, up, up, straight into history. At the line, side by side, Lance let Pantani have the win.
Two weeks ago, local weather prognosticators around town predicted that we'd have as much as 10 inches of snow in a day. Much build up and panic, as the local lot is prone to, and we got...rain. Emotions around town ranged from relief to disappointment to anger, but I was mostly just curious: what's the first emotion to go through the local weatherman's mind when he wakes up the next morning, looks outside, and sees how wrong he was? Surprise? Amusement? Embarrassment? Is he scared for his job? Does he feel irrevocably alone?
Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's winter. But I wonder about Pantani at moments like that. Did he know Lance was doped on Ventoux that day? Did he care? He'd spent the last twenty years of his life grinding down his big chainrings and his molars into stubs on the steepest, hardest climbs in Italy. And this, this...Texan, could give him a little wry smile, downshift, and ride away from him. Weathermen, in a sort of natural pattern that is common to unnecessary jobs, probably don't care that they blew it. Brush it off, blame it on El Nino, and move on. But forecasting the weather doesn't put a person through the extended kind of torture that training as a professional cyclist does. Every winter, Pantani would train, and he'd diet, and he'd dream, and I'm sure he'd see Lance in his sleep, imagine dropping that American sonofabitch just as soon as they hit The Madeleine or The Galibier, or whatever kind of awful steepness would finally be enough to show everyone that Pantani was the better man.
So what emotion was the first one to go through Pantani's mind that day when Lance beat him up Ventoux, and then let him have the stage win at the top? He'd spit when he mentioned it, a gift. Racing was divine. For Pantani, to gift a stage win was blasphemy. Especially from Lance, his nemesis, who had nicknamed him "elephantino" referring to his height and his ears. You can't call a guy "little elephant" and then let him win a stage beside you on purpose.
Naturally, Pantani was furious. Suicidal. He called a press conference in Courchevel, glowering with anger, and declared, "If Armstrong thinks it's all over, he's wrong. In any case, he's not finished
with me."
The next day on the way to Morzine, Pantani attacked. Right out of the gates Pantani rode completely
outside of his ability, acknowledging that today would be his last day in the
Tour De France, and just wanting to blow Lance up and show the world that Lance
was still mortal, still beatable by someone, even if it would never again be Pantani.
Pantani rode himself into the ground that day, and the Texan chased him harder than he should have.
So when Pantani pulled the plug, defeated and completely blown and let Lance ride by with what little he had left, I hope he at least managed to spit at him, see the"oh shit" look cross his face just that one time, and know that Lance would
fold further up the road. Sure enough, Lance, dehydrated from chasing
Pantani all day, gave up 2 minutes to Ullrich on the way up to Morzine, and
nearly lost the Tour. His losses that day, tricked as he was, gave the cycling world pause.
In hindsight, Lance lost like Pantani lost - with the throttle wide open.
Pantani's
erratic behavior on the way to Morzine that day was not something out of character. He'd
rather quit a race than lose. He'd rather leave professional cycling than be
Lance's pet. He'd rather die than be elephantino. And his death, like so much of
his life, was marked with pain:
"For reasons that were at first unclear,
he'd destroyed everything in the hotel room: the furniture, the mirrors, the
plugs in the walls, not in an uncontainable anger, but in a persecutory
delirium; in sheer paranoia. Apparently, to stop some alien entity from
entering, he had piled the furniture against the door...As a means of
suicide, cocaine is a poor option. A heroin overdose lets you sleep to death. To
kill yourself with coke, you need a lot of money, and even then, you can't be
sure it will kill you. Marco probably took some time to die. It was an ugly
death." -Dr Giuseppe Fortuni, Forensics Medicine, University of Bologna
I don't know anything at all about about Heaven. But I do know that death - at the very least - is the great equalizer. And if Heaven gets the OWN network, and if it's possible for Marco Pantani to tune in this year, if only to see that oh-shit-look furrow Lance's aging brow one more time, I hope he does.
What would be the last thing Patani would think, there in Heaven, watching his old foe's downfall, before he turned off the TV and went riding? What did he think, for that matter, when he checked into that hotel room on the Mediterranean and decided he'd had enough?
I beat you here, Lance.
But the gap is smaller than you think.
18 days until Pantani Ride 2013, and the cold has officially snapped. This, I'm told, it's what separates the proverbial wheat from the barley, or something like that, and dudes who have ambition get out and train anyway, and those who don't, don't. Weather like this makes for a nice clean split in the peloton on Pantani day once we hit wesley chapel on the way to Fox Mtn. Rest assured I'll see you on the barley side of that split when the time comes.
Maybe not on the barley side of the breakaway this year: my bro Shawn T. At first, I ignored rumors of him training and racing this year as just ballyhoo around the shop. Then I started to see some tracks here and there on the local goods, and he registered for SM100, and he put in a couple 4+ hour days back to back, and then I looked up one afternoon and saw him ride past my window not once, not twice, but thrice in what appeared to be sub 35 minute paranormal laps back to back to back. And I have to admit, he whipped by in the way he used to.
So yeah, training. As a little prep, C-Ham and I went out on Sunday morning and rode the whole course, not exactly winning time fast, but not bad either - and my legs hurt until Wednesday morning. So I guess that means something,though I can't really say what. What's more, it's a strava segment now, albeit a really infrequently traveled, rarely noticed, 48 mile segment with, like most things strava, no women involved.
And while we're talking details, maybe we can talk registration - which there isn't - but there is a facebook page with some really dangly, half-assed commitments and some jawwing about this and that. 42 riders so far, which means almost nothing really.
But this is beautiful:
Robert Issem's Pantani Ride Machine
Now I don't know Robert, at least I don't think I know Robert (if I do, sorry, Robert) but with a bike like that I feel like I know Robert. She's a beaut, let 'er rip.
Other talk of carpools, rental bikes, tire selection, and things that I don't understand are happening there on facebook. So if you can't find the info here, which you probably can't, maybe try the great pillar of reliable information that is Facebook, and if that doesn't work either, just show up on Feb 10th and it'll probably work itself out, whatever it is.
Lots of Madones in the news today. Not in a good way.
But what the hell, sometimes bad coverage is better than no coverage at all, and when it comes to the mainstream media you can't be too picky. And anyway, who is the happiest ghost wearing pink on the top of Mt. Ventoux today? Marco Pantani. Might have been a gift, but at least it was a level gift (and by level, I mean about a 22% incline.)
This, quite obviously, begs the questions: what exactly happened between The Manimal and Qwadsworth on the top of Brokenback in 2012, and was it a gift, and who was doped and who wasn't, and did Qwadsworth suck the Manimal's wheel only to drop him when things got easy? All shades of grey, questions that have, until now, remained unanswered.
But Oprah is now a cycling pundit, and that means no stone will go unturned. Because, unfortunately, if Bob Roll can't bring you back from the cycling dead, you've got limited back up options, and Oprah's probably your last shot.
What follows is the no-holds barred interview, conducted over the course of 2 plus weeks, between the embattled 2012 Pantani Ride Champion Gordon Qwadsworth, and none other than the former talk show legend herself. A brilliant piece of reporting, coveted by news anchors and celebrities of all kinds, Qwadsworth chose to give Oprah (and only Oprah) the full skinny. Here it is:
OPRAH: First things first: did you see me moon you when you rode by my office today.
Qwadsworth: Oh hell no. I'm moving way too fast to make time for anything so asinine. Get it, ASSinine. Because you mooned me. You know, like, your butt?
OPRAH: Officially, and yet still remarkably unofficial, you won the Pantani ride last year. What was your time? What happened at the front of the race?
Qwadsworth: I won't comment on how it broke down on the mountain, that's between "us and them" as Pink Floyd put it. Let's just say The Manimal and I left Brokenback worse off than we found it.
OPRAH: Wait, but without television coverage at the top, no one even knows who was there.
Qwadworth: All I know is when Bob Anderson took off down the mountain we were on our own.
OPRAH: So Bob was there too? But he abandoned?
Qwadsworth: OK, it went down like this. At the top of Simmons Gap (maybe, but I could have made that up) Bob "Where's your kittens at" Anderson informed us he had to get back home and promptly dropped off the side of the mountain, cutting his own trail line-of-sight style home. So we headed down the gravel, figuring that the Anderson Path was probably not the intended route. We got lost more than a few times, Manimal and I charging up the road and blasting back towards the farm once we had completed the rough stuff.
OPRAH: So you stuck it to the manimal when you hit the pavement. How did that go down?
Qwadsworth: The front is always a lonely place you see...lonely like a Australian highway with Mel Gibson hot on your tail. But I donned my best mustachioed Pirata grimace and hammered it home! Manimal in tow of course since we all know he gets a little dazed when the dirt stops. Then I pipped him at the line.
OPRAH: Was it a gift? How did the Manimal handle that?
Qwadsworth: That rhymes. Awesome. How does the manimal handle anything? With a baby seal between his teeth and a grimace on his face.
Oprah: On a level playing field (that field being about a 22% uphill grade), who is the top dog, you or him?
Qwadsworth: Tough for anybody to call that a level playing field but, if the field is leveled out at the 22% range, then Manimal's gearing definitely takes the cake, I only run a 32 cog out back so forget spinning, but we all know my mama didn't give me these legs. So I can hold my own. I think we're a pretty fair match there.
OPRAH: Tell me about your training this winter?
Qwadsworth: My Training eh? 20 hours a week is the ballpark goal, fair mix of road and offroad, sometimes on a terrain appropriate bike. I'd say "training" is pretty much like this:
but more dubsteppy.
So Somewhere between Metro and Marco if you know what i mean.
OPRAH: What's your favorite bike to ride? Favorite place to ride it? Favorite training ride? Most likely place to see you puking after a hard set of intervals?
Qwadsworth: Honestly favorite bike to ride? SuperFresh, as featured off the front at this years Paranormal, twenty-nine inches and rigid, oh and covered in glitter. Favorite place to ride it? Anywhere the MAN tells me I cant, YEAH!!! I rode Preddy Creek recently, it was pretty incredible. I'm a big fan of that fast, flowy, machine built stuff dude. Wish i weren't, but like Harvey Milk I just wont deny it. (not sure if I can say that on live TV, Oprah, but I'm feeling you, baby). So anything wide open and full throttle, gotta let the Quads breath from time to time you know. Ryan Fawley says I have "acceptable" bike handling skills so I guess I stick to the fast stuff.
OPRAH:
So, I get these updates from Strava, because I like to suffer vicariously through the winter training plans of other people. Here's an example from today:
That's the whole email, just updates about you. Can you explain what exactly is happening with my strava feed? Are you the only person I know riding? Or just the only IMPORTANT person riding, and Strava KNOWS that?
Qwadsworth: Maybe I rode that much, maybe i didn't. Did a nice little 240 mile road ride last fall, so you just never know, but then I rode 5 miles on the rollers a while ago too. All over the map man, just like a game of Risk with Shawn Tevendale. I can't guarantee I'm the only important person on your strava feed, I understand Eric Schofield Stravas, Horvath even ran the other day I saw, but I am the only Gordon W. Wadsworth...and that's saying something.
OPRAH: What exactly is that saying?
Qwadsworth: What is what saying?
OPRAH: What you just said?
Qwadsworth: I didn't say anything.
OPRAH: Did you ride 156.1 miles yesterday?
Qwadsworth: Yes.
OPRAH: So, this subject has sort of been debated to death, but what do you think about the Pantani Ride course and what bike do you think is best for it?
Qwadsworth: The Pantani course is a lot like this sex dream I keep having about Joan Rivers. It starts off pretty hot, she's young, I'm into her, she's digging me. But then I get her up to my room, and all of the sudden it's more like one of those naked at a public election dreams, but Joan is still there, and holy shit, she's way older than I thought, and then the whole dream goes Sci-Fi, and she's got this huge green lizard tail growing out of her tits. And then it gets really violent, and I have to escape, and I won't go into details, but it's moments like that when you're glad you're not on a road bike. That's how the Pantani ride is.
OPRAH: What about a Cross bike?
Qwadsworth: I firmly believe Cross bikes aren't half the tool some folks claim they are. Look at Sven Nys, put him on a fatty road bike and he can rule the world, but give him a bike which can go anywhere and he falls to pieces. Case in Belgian point. And I can slay some gravel and dirt on my skinnies.
OPRAH: When Tupac sang, "Picture me rich rollin 100's" what wheel size do you believe he was referring to?
Qwadsworth: It sure as hell wasn't some 650b trash. I mean come on people, you cant have your cake and eat it too. Would you ask for free health care AND donuts at your polling place? I don't think so.
OPRAH: Do you have a coach?
Qwadsworth: Coach? I pretty much get my guidance from the BRC blog....is there another option?
OPRAH: Okay, let's get scientific. What do you eat on race day?
Qwadsworth: I know Bob Anderson's kitten quotient increases on the bike, but that's just calorie output I think. Baby, I'm a sandwich makin machine, I'll pack a marmite and buttered toast sammie sometimes, pbj&a, hamandcheese, you name it baby and I'll take it on the bike, I once ate a ziploc bag full of rice and beans on the bike. I feel like Pantani specific nutrition should probably be some type of prosciutto, mozzarella cheese, and of course a half kilo of Colombian woot-woot.
OPRAH: So, back to the Pantani ride, how do you foresee it playing out this year? Who is a threat to your title?
Qwadsworth: Threat to the title, baby, ain't no threats. Just eurotrash rave tunes from what I can tell on Youtube.
Kids these days man, they think Pantani was all about pink onesies and bandannas. Well they got a whole pile of hurt comin their way! 22% of gravel wont let up kind of hurt. But in all seriousness, I think Metro Solo can come down a mountain, and I understand Horvath is sitting on good cross fitness; presuming I don't roll in from lap 6 to find him fully dressed and holding a beer that isn't mine. Yeah I just said that.
OPRAH: How many nights per week do you wear the Maillot Pistachio to bed? How does your girlfriend feel about this?
Qwadsworth: Every night. And she's pretty offended by this point. But the jersey is in great shape.
OPRAH: Which Wittwer would a whippersnapper whip if a whippersnapper could whip a Wittwer?
Qwadsworth: Great question. I've been thinking about that for a long time. The correct answer, I believe, is that a whippersnapper can't whip a Wittwer in the first place - they're all too fast to catch.
OPRAH: Looking past the Pantani ride, are you planning on racing singlespeed or gears this year?
Qwadsworth: I plan to slay it on both this year. Tidewater Challenge eluded me again this year, even though the effort required to wrest victory from my hands nearly killed Matt Bailey, so some SS will have to happen. I also have some titles to defend, including a 6Warrior Creek, and I may even give Nationals a shot in both the PRO race and also SS, that is presuming I can zip tie my wig to my helmet in between races, no 'do no deal.
OPRAH: OK, last question: Do you use, or have you ever used Performance Enhancing Drugs?
Qwadsworth: I've never tested positive.
OPRAH: But have you ever used them?
Qwadsworth: I'll cut you, you filthy prying bitch.
OPRAH: So that's a yes.
Qwadsworth: Look, I'll say it again, these quads are all natural, 100 percent pure, unadulterated, HGH free, genuine unaltered hams, and though they've crushed the souls of many a man, they've never, ever taken the needle and they never will. You can touch them now.
Oprah: Let's go to commercial. I'm going in.
The transmission ends there for the most part. It's hard to say what happened next, but you can sort of make out some squealing and gibberish, and it does sound like Oprah says at one point, "unlikely proportions for such a skinny little white guy" but it's hard to be sure. In any case, Qwadsworth still maintains his innocence, at least when it comes to drugs. The rest of us shelve him with all of our other shady heroes - Bo Duke, Lassie, pretty much the whole A-Team cast, and the like - and we are left with little recourse but to watch and wonder.
Feb 10th. Get to the start line and see for yourself.
"...stage racing has always meant weighing up the potential of the stages to
come, and riding accordingly - riding, it might be said, in the future tense.
Marco had no future tense."
-Matt Rendell, The Death of Marco Pantani
Eight or nine years ago, I can't recall exactly, when Shawn and I decided we'd pay homage to the late Marco Pantani and trudge up Simmons Gap in ten inches of snow, it could only have been described as amateur. We had no real plan or purpose, outside of self-inflicting a little pain in the spirit of mutability, and I'll be honest, I ran up that thing, I didn't even try to ride it.
Met-Pro
Last year, edging up on a decade later, my yard looked like the start of a pro road race, albeit a really d-league pro road race with some alcohol abuse and a costume or two (more like a cross race then.) But seriously, the amount of pro level firepower that departed down Allen road at 10 AM gave the whole scene a sort of legitimacy, and it quickly became apparent that the likes of me were not going to be hanging around the front for very long.
Now, here we are, The Pantani Ride 8 (or maybe it's 9), and rumors of legit contenders abound. Not just the usual suspects either, I'm talking about the Far East (to me, that's past Richmond) to Rocktown and beyond. As such, when you've got legit talent showing up in your yard for your event, even if that event is unapologetically bush league, you've got to pick a date. So here it is:
The Pantani Ride Sunday, February 10th 2013, 10 AM at 555 Allen Rd Earlysville VA 22936
Noteworthily, 555 Allen Rd is now also known as 4215Col Win Hill Ln, but chances are your GPS and your sense of direction have no idea about that, so just plug in 555 Allen Rd and you should at least make it to the starting line. After that, no guarantees.
Also possible, a rainout option could push us to Sunday Feb 17th, although I'm not sure why I'm even mentioning that. If you've ridden Pantani in years past, you know that conditions would have to be outright impassable for that to happen.
And while I'm linking to evidence and misinformation from times gone by, and since not much has changed, and if you've made it this far you probably know what's what, and I don't have much else I can say about it until I complete my interview with Quadsworth (which is taking a fortnight because he's actually out training, that sissy) I might as well apply these, links to Pantani Ride nonsense from years past, all of them meticulous in their ambiguity and devoid of any real direction, but enough to get you by:
But here's the key: Sunday, Feb 10th, 10 AM, 555 Allen Rd in Earallysville. Get there.
Monument to Marco Pantani near his birthplace, Cesanatico, Italy
Tune in next week, or maybe sometime thereafter, for an interview with last year's champion, GW Qwadsworth, read the papers, and place your bets. And keep looking down bacon hollow rd for that awful right hander and some local color:
I really can't get enough pictures of Todd humping someone next to this sign.
Blog, I've been bad to you. Nary a post since election day. The shame I feel is sharp, deep, and it lingers, and I know I've let you down. Look, you and I haven't really been on the same page these last couple of months. Holiday stress, lots going on at work, and, I can't continue to lie, there's another Blog that I've been seeing. But that's OVER. It meant nothing. Plus, that blog started to get comfortable and put on some weight and so that was pretty much that. So I'm still here. And I'm ready to be a part of your life again, OUR life again, Blogsie. Let's at least commit, you and me (mostly you) to let me back in again, and I know that I'll try to not let you down too much again very soon or at least be honest about it when I need to take a 2 month hiatus in Belize with some saucy, tarty little blog-minx that's like hellfire in the sack at first but that, in the end, doesn't compare to you. Because I love you. What do you say?
Besides, in 6 weeks:
We've got an interview to falsify.
We've got a race to run.
