Misattribution

 My memory fails me: was it four or five years ago that the Pantani ride rolled down Markwood Road at 10 AM in 10 degree weather?  It was cold; cold enough in the field before the start that you already couldn't feel your toes, and you had to wonder, legitimately, if perhaps this was not safe.  It was cold enough that your tires popped and cracked over the hoarfrost in the gravel when you first hit Wesley Chapel, cold enough to make you gasp when you took those first few, ragged breaths on your way up Fox Mountain.  

When I went over the top of Simmons gap, past the mailboxes, and down into Bacon Hollow that year, the perspiration in the sleeves of my coat froze instantly, and unable to bend my elbows, I had a hard time steering.  A while later, having my annual emotional meltdown as I trudged up Brokenback, I realized it was going to take me greater than 5 hours to finish that year, and I hated The Pantani ride.  Pantani was dead.  This was dumb.  It was too cold. 

We misattribute our adversity sometimes.   Only Humans, we are prone to this.  We get carried away by the moment, how hard it seems. I've found myself doing a lot of this lately, hiding out, waiting for Covid to roll back and life - in some semblance of what it used to be - to resume.  It's been tedious, for all of us.  

I sat with my daughter a few days ago, and we played with her tiny stuffed animals on the floor of her bedroom, just the two of us, for an hour.  Her imagination sprawled across the white carpet from the bathroom to her bed, a huge world of Unicorns and puppies and elves and fairies, where she has complete control.  Her tiny friends live busy lives, bustling back and forth from the cardboard box that is their house, to the pile of books which is school, and then out to their extracurricular activities, soccer, hiking club, cooking classes, etc, only barely making it home in time for dinner and bed, only to do it again the next day.  They are inordinately busy.  She has complete control of their lives, and for a moment, her own life.  When we sit together, cross legged on the floor, I see how big her feet are getting, how tall she is now, even sitting down.  I find myself inspired by her wild imagination, the very resilience of the human spirit in times of sustained crisis.  And I'm also profoundly sad that this is all she has right now.  Is it enough?  

My wife ran Pantani about a month ago.  Running.  On foot.  The whole thing.  48.5 miles of swinging her arms and picking her feet up and down - that kind of running.  When she first told me about the idea, I doubted her for the first time in a long time, something I almost never do, mostly because I didn't understand it.  How would that even work?  Do you get a hotel half-way through?  Is there a shuttle?  She walked me through the basic math, how long it might take, where she'd get support, some bizarre concept she called "training" whatever that is, and pretty quickly I came around.  

Then she did it.  

After it was over, she distilled the experience, and her reasons for doing it, down to a few words, "It was better than not doing it."  If 2020 were a bumper sticker, that would be it.  

Pantani this year can't happen in the traditional sense, that being 250 of us getting a little rowdy in the field together before a mass-start down Markwood and...whatever usually happens after that.  But it can still happen, I think.  The plan, at this point, is that I'm going to open the gate at dawn or therabouts on Saturday, Feb 13th, prop it open with the shovel, and not close it until Sunday, February 21st.  Somewhere in there, you can ride Pantani if you want to.  The duration, I hope, will be enough time to space people out sufficiently.  We've all been doing this whole Covid-Dance long enough to know what to do.   It takes space, and time, but I think we've got enough of that to give this a try.  Also, as an added bonus, someone with the right kind of cycling computer and motivation might log a finish time of just shy of 9 days.  

For, the vaccinated elite, do whatever you want together, I guess.  You're living in a different world than the rest of us, and I'm not your mom.  

The rest of us, those waiting until August or whatever for the jab, I ask that - while parked in the field and out on the roads - you maintain your space, ride safely, sob into your own mask, and if you can't be cool, at least act cool for the duration of the experience.  I really don't care what you do or don't believe.  Abstract though it is, someone's life might literally be counting on you.  

Back to my original point about misattribution - I have drawn up a schematic (like most years, on a napkin, where brilliance happens) that I hope will be a helpful tool for you as you navigate the differences between Pantani in normal years, and this year's Covid-Pantani.  As you'll see, the differences are marginal. Pantani sucks either way.

Like most years, since there's really nothing out there, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.  And McCardell.  But mostly yourself.  Will it be enough?  

Space yourself, pace yourself, friends. We will get there, but it's a long way back to the top.  

Up, up, up.  

The plan is there is no plan

The plan is there is no plan.  

It was almost always that way with Pantani.  Most of the days when he attacked, even his supporters were left scratching their heads.  Even in hindsight, "Why there?"  

Instinctive racing, today - in a peloton of 150-some guys staring at their power meters on every uphill - is remarkably ineffective.  Even for Pantani 20 year ago, it usually it didn't work.  But it wasn't just his brand, an athlete's brand in the modern sense being something they craft.  Today an athlete must put an awful lot of thought into things.  Not Pantani.  

Pantani let it rip first, then thought about it.  

That's one of the ways Pantani differed from Armstrong, Ullrich, many others.  Ullrich, in particular, when he went up the road, he went with a purpose.  He'd force it if he had to, the big German.  Lance would too.  It was often bitter, joyless bike racing, but at the very least, someone drew it up ahead of time.  

When Pantani attacked, it wasn't a calculation.  It was the way the sun finally came out over Tuscany after a long day in the rain, and he felt the guy behind him move to take off his cape.  Or, it was the way the smell of damp rosemary hung in the fog on the backside of a climb he'd never seen.  It was the way the poppy fields of mid-summer in France, so slow and gold all day, finally leaned against his shadow in the ditch beside him, goading him.  Everything seemed to whisper, Go.  Just a split second and he was gone.  

The effect Pantani had on fans of the sport was one of mesmerization.  You might, as a viewer, believe in yourself a little, that if a tiny, poor kid with big ears from Cesanatico could make that move stick under those conditions, with the rest of the Peloton in full pursuit to no avail, that maybe you could get up at 3 AM again and feed your baby and get to work on time.  To watch Pantani was life-affirming, even in his failures, even after he was gone.  

I think about that a lot now.  In a year with so many tragic departures, Pantani remains a hero - the Shakespearean kind, for me right alongside Macbeth, and Hamlet, and King Lear.  We have learned something, I think.  Take, for example, Pantani2020, our own little gravel worship of these and other tragic flaws, which drew something like 250 people.  In hindsight, and by 2020 standards, it was enormous.  We were flying a little close to the sun, weren't we?

Many of you have reached out in recent weeks as you try to plan your upcoming year, to ask if we'll be giving it a go again here in 2021.  

As Pantani always rendered it: the plan is there is no plan.  

But maybe it will sort itself out on the road, eh?

Up, up, up.