Post-Truth World

A few of you have checked in this week, trying to get the scoop on how Il Pantani shook out at the front.  I can only report that the scoop is still empty, and it's Sunday, a week later.  

There was rumor for a while that Logan Jones-Wilkins won it in a sprint.  Thomas Bouber even had shady, cell phone video to support this rumor - that video showing Logan first, then B-Slow, then Jeremiah in 3rd.  The evidence looked puzzlingly slow, but I don't know much about sprinting after doing Pantani in 2:45 anyway, so I just figured they were smoked and called it Logan's race, won.

Come to find out that Logan only claims third place.  Wadsworth purports to have been 4th, a minute back, and saw nothing.  And Strava might have indicated that Petrylak or Noah rolled in 5th, all of them well under 3 hours.  I hung on for less than 30 seconds of that, so I have no way of knowing what happened on the pointy end of the race.  So I texted B-slow to get the skinny, and so far no reply.  Jeremiah took a shower at my mom's house, then fled to California. So how exactly the finish went, no one seems to know.

Funny thing is, it doesn't matter.  Set aside, for a moment, the fact that racing bikes at a thing like Il Pantani is really just about having fun, and consider first that we're living in a post-truth world, folks, right before it actually falls apart.  Your podium placement at a gravel non-event in some backwoods corner of Greene County means so little now.  Truth is whatever your instagram says it is.  

If it matters to you, Thomas Bouber went home with the Maillot Pistachio, and - if he can get his biceps into it - I think he'll rip the sleeves clean off.  I kept the knitted shorts, because I've raced in them for 4 years running now, and at some point when it comes to bike shorts it's like a common law marriage.  You're bound by habit mostly, but also, you can't get them off.    

Lemme know if you know something I don't know.  Or not.

What a strange time to be alive.  

Up, up, up.

Pantani Lurks, 2/10/19 at 10 AM

Il Pantani will go live, hot, fast, and heavy...this Sunday 2/10 at 10 AM.  2019.

Shortly after, it slows waaay down.

The year of the Pig is upon us.

Whatever this weather pattern we are currently experiencing actually is - human driven ecosystem collapse maybe, or just a natural part of the end of days  - it will come to a decisive end by Sunday.  Pretty good chance we will be rolling west on frozen gravel when we hit Wesley Chapel.



And really, would you have it any other way?  Pantani at 74 degrees just feels, I don't know, inauthentic.  Like if Pantani went up Ventoux at 650 watts, got to the top, and it wasn't windy or exposed or terrible, and then some asshole from Texas tried to gift him the stage.

There are no gifts, people.  Weather included.

Parking, start line, and the finest porta-shovel known to man will all be at the Paranormal field, which is off of Markwood Rd right across from the Claymont subdivision.  There are no facilities there, no water, just a shovel and some TP and a semi-imposing lack of dignity.  If you need an actual shitter, like a real genuine emergency, I want you to know that the top drawer of Shawn's bedroom dresser is always, ALWAYS, open to you, and I really mean that.  Bombs away.

10 AM, the proverbial gun will go off, so don't be late.  After that, it's hard to say.  Being that Pantani is a non-event sort of event, there's no actual course markings, road closures, or any of that.  It's just a group ride, except for those of you who it's not, and chances are pretty good you know who you are.

Here's the route.  Again, interpret this as a suggestion for glory, not instructions to hand your team car driver.  I hope that you know that I hope that you know what I mean, and we'll have to leave it at that for now.

A semi-description of how the ride typically unfolds can be found here.
Additional misinformation can be found here.
In fact, there are gobs of information mashed into various corners of the internet, some of it true.  Very little of it is actually helpful, and none of it is current save this: Sunday, 2/10/19 at 10 AM. All you need to know.

If you still want to know what it's like, don't ask people like this.  

B-Slow, for example, sent me a text yesterday confirming his intent to ride 35 mm tires.  No idea what bike he will actually be strapping those things onto, but it doesn't matter to people like you and me. He's on a different playing field, basically playing a different sport.  Whatever he does, don't do it.

Qwadsworth, too, has confirmed his attendance, for the first time in, shit, a decade?  I'm not sure.  But assuming he shows up with something attached to a lauf fork, I don't recommend you emulate his behavior either.

Dave Flatten has won every Pantani that I would classify as having taken place in HORRID conditions.  What does that mean for Sunday?  Mightn't Jeremiah Bishop show up and pay Flatten back for that cheeky finish sprint 4 years ago?  Then there is Petrylak, Serton, Chris Michaels, others...greatness, left to right.  It's a hard thing to predict who will make it back first.  Logan Jones Wilkins, if Strava doesn't lie, has been crushing hundreds of miles of gravel per week.  But does he even know who Marco Pantani is?

These and other questions, to be answered Sunday, not sooner.

The rest of us, what can we even do?

I, for one, will be preparing my outfit.
 

See it in person on Sunday.

Up, up, up.