Listening

Marco Pantani was bluffing.  No one knew it at the time, but Pantani had set a trap for Lance Armstrong.

It had started a few days before, when Lance had gifted Pantani the stage at the top of Ventoux, and Pantani was furious with the Texan.  Though both of them were most certainly cheating - it is believed that Pantani raced with a hematocrit above 60 at the time - Pantani still understood that Ventoux itself was holy ground.  And he had no doubt that Lance was a complete asshole.  Then Lance called him "little elephant" in the press, referring to Pantani's ears, and Pantani knew what he had to do.

After the rest day, on the way to Morzine, Pantani split the race with 120km to go.  He was well behind Lance in the G.C., but with 120km of road between him and Morzine, anything was possible.  So he put his head down, gave it everything, at a pace so difficult that Lance could barely eat or drink.

Lance was helpless.  To defend his lead from this far out, with no teammates that could match Pantani's pace, Lance was compelled to chase the Italian.  Whatever Pantani was doing, he'd have to follow.

Pantani, though, had no illusions of making it to the finish at Morzine that day, or even finishing the Tour at all.  He had one thing in mind - defiance.  He only wanted to break the Texan.  Well before Morzine, Pantani climbed off, ducked into the team car, and watched the Texan ride on.  Lance was completely blown, on the verge of dehydration, about to have what he would later describe as one of the the worst days of his life.

You wouldn't have guessed it.  Moreso, perhaps, than his aerobic capacity or his tactics, Pantani's greatest gift was his poker face.  He was bluffing that day.  Lance bought it.  We all bought it.




In hindsight, it was that day more than any other that defines Pantani.  With his head down, gasping for air on the way to Morzine, Pantani was putting in the ride of his life - more brilliant than all the days at the top of Les Deux Alps or his attacks on The Galibier, more himself than all the Pink jerseys on his wall.

--

The last time I saw Mark Robbins was at Tuesday Night Worlds in August.  I promised myself that I wouldn't write about Mark here, and I have honestly tried - but I can't help but recognize him now - that easy 3/4 smile, all the miles he rode, the way he fought on a bike - even if it's too late.

We raced that night, then we stood there at the top of the hill above the Mechums river, a pod of blown amateurs, all the hot air finally clearing and heartbeats subsiding, and the sun was starting to set.  Mark asked me so many questions there that night - how my wife was, how our kids were, how my riding was going.  His listening, I realize now, was jubilant.  Mark loved a story.

I told him all about us - Me, my wife, my family, my riding, me, me, me.  But I look back on that evening now, standing there with him right before sunset, and I realize the awful truth, that I didn't ask him a goddamn thing.  Three months later, he was gone.

Before the ride yesterday, we had a little moment of silence for Mark.  Then we shoved off, down Markwood road for the mountains again.  From near the front on a little rise, I looked back, and the line of riders stretched out to the south, all the way back around a curve and out of view.  Were there 200 of us there?  I continue to be shocked - year after year - by just how many otherwise kind-hearted, decent people actually want to come out and do this thing to themselves.  We continue to seek out real, genuine adversity, the same way Pantani did, that Mark did, and we emerge better people, I hope.

After it was over, next to the Downshift van, we reclined in the sunshine and drank that entire keg in less than an hour, the dirty mob of us.  You don't understand the savagery of the Pantani Ride until you see it through the context of how hard that tap worked for those 60 minutes.  I ate some banana bread and tried to soak it all in.  I almost passed out in the sun.

--

In hindsight, if you watch it now, slow it down and look at him there, resplendent in his defiance on the way to Morzine that day, you can see it - that Pantani was not racing to win, not even riding at all: He was trying to tell us something.  This was Pantani finally authoring the story of his own life, his own words that we would only understand about him later, about Armstrong and Ullrich, about this entire generation of fallen idols, failures both dealt to them and self-inflicted.  Pantani was literally dying.

He was bluffing Lance.
But he was trying to tell us the truth.



I hear you now.  I'm finally listening.

Up, up, up.

Hope Springs...eternal?

Saturday - Hope Springs Eternal.  It's still more than 2 weeks until Pantani2020, and you've got time to cobble together a bike, fitness, emotional resolve, antibiotics, etc etc etc.  The list of adverse findings is long, growing longer every day, but you imagine yourself as one of those resilient people, the kind that can and will put a new tire on and add fresh sealant, rather than just plugging that shit, like your life itself, and hoping for the best.  You excel at things, or at least you want to.

But you don't actually ride, do you?  No.  You simply prepare to ride.  It's day one of your plan to get back on track, and you don't ride, and if the narrative of your life needed foreshadowing to hint at what the conclusion would eventually be, this would be it.

Tuesday - Hope springs eternal, though she's getting a little antsy.  The comeback started 3 days ago and, so far, not a single pedal stroke.  So on your lunch hour, you do intervals.  On a spin bike.  At the gym.  You do them, even though after the first one it's obvious where all of this is leading.
You do exactly two (2) intervals and call it good.  Baby steps, you tell yourself, with the toughness and logic of an actual baby.  Hope shakes her head, silently, wondering.

Thursday - Hope springs pretty eternal, sorta, but then Hope watches you have a few too many beers after a night ride, one where you probably should have called an Uber to get home, but you didn't do that.  You lived through it, though, and as much as Hope likes to see you actually riding your bike, you wake up Friday to a pounding headache from dehydration and a gashed knee from some barely remembered contact with the ground.  Were you wrestling someone?  Hope is determined, desperate even, to make sure you do a good hard effort on Sunday, so you ice your knee together, and Hope plots a workout for Sunday morning, bright and early.


Monday - Hope springs...wait, Monday?  How the Fuck is it Monday already?  Hope snaps.  You explain to Hope that you didn't wake her up on Sunday morning because your knee still hurt a little, and cartoons were on.  But, to put a positive spin on things, you did eat three of those salted caramel Honey Stinger waffles to make sure that you can digest them sufficiently (you can) and also because they are delicious.  Hope questions your authenticity in front of the kids, which is fair at this point, but Tuesday, you promise her that you will be skipping work and riding all afternoon, still 5 days to prepare for Pantani.  You can still do this.  Hope believes in you.

Tuesday - Hope remembers a time, long ago, when she loved you and believed in you.  Hope remembers you - the young, ambitious version of you - and she recalls not being disgusted by your breath or ashamed by your presence in public places.  Hope sadly understands that was all so very long ago, and if she's honest, mostly she needed the companionship.  Hope sits and watches now, straddling the top tube of your bike, ready, as noon becomes 2 becomes 4 PM, and eventually it gets dark and you're still nowhere to be found.  On your bike, alone in the garage in the darkness, Hope brushes a solitary tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

Wednesday - Hope needs a stiff drink first thing in the morning just to look at you.  Hope reminds herself that, once upon a time, she loved you, and she'd like to stay for the kids and all, but fuck.
You both know what's coming.  Hope tolerates a jaunt up Fox Mountain and back, but mostly Hope is just along for the ride now.  There's only so much Hope can actually do.  Halfway up Fox, you're wheezing, knee swelling up like a melon, generally oblivious and having an OK time, but even though Hope is there with you, she's really not.  She's just shaking her head, plotting her next move.

Thursday - Hope had good intentions, once upon a time, a positive outlook, but then life happened - like it's happening right now when Hope learns you will be night riding, again, on a bum knee, with zero fitness and a penchant for wrestling when you drink.  And your night ride is both departing AND finishing at Champion Brewery.  Hope throws up her hands in disgust.    Hope pops a quaalude, has a couple glasses of Chardonnay, and hastily packs her suitcase.  Hope is fucking out of here.  Hope wishes you luck at Pantani, but seriously, you're beyond help.  Hope cannot pedal the bike for you.

Sunday - Pantani2020.  You drive to the start line, alone.  You haven't seen Hope in three days.  You park in the field, say hi to a couple of people, and the weather looks OK, but there's a gloom upon you, the absence of Hope heavy on your mind.  But when you pull the bike off the rack, check the tire pressure, and mount up, she's there.
"Hope?"
She ignores you, waiting for your apology.  God she's beautiful.  How could you have been such a fool.
"Hope, I..I..." You stumble to find the right words, "I'm, excited!  I think we can do this."
"ME TOO!"  Hope is joyful, exuberant, with you until the end, or at least for the first twenty minutes.

You'll be better in the future, eh?

Keep Hope alive.
Keep looking up, up, up.

Wikipedia Legit

It's a strange thing to be here at the bottom of the internet - the very bottom - and gazing way up towards the top, at one of the web's most-useful artifices (cat videos and porn notwithstanding) and seeing them way up there talking about us way down here.  

From Wikipedia:

"Each year a loyal group of riders in Charlottesville, Virginia attempts to pay homage to Marco Pantani by meeting on his birthday weekend and climbing the most ridiculously steep gravel climbs in the area. It is a grassroots ride/race that began in 2005 where the winner gets to keep the "Pink Jersey" until the next Pantani ride/race the following year."

Which is pretty neat, right?  

Unless you consider that the riders to which the wiki refers are not "loyal" by any means, or that we meet on the anniversary of Pantani's death and not his birthday, or that we fight, tooth and nail, or at least B-Slow and Qwadsworth do, to wear a Jersey that is the color of a pistachio nut, and not pink at all except for where the blood won't wash out.  

So it's kinda neat, I guess, but not accurate.  

If McCardell didn't write that while he was near-blackout drunk, I'm out of guesses.  

Here's the truth, though:

Pantani2020 is Feb 9th, Sunday at 10 AM from the Paranormal field.  

Everything else is just the rest of the internet.  

Might not be a bad idea to ride your bike this weekend.  

From the very bottom, keep spinning, keep looking up, up, up.  

Revelations (Pantani 2020 is February 9th at 10 AM)

Mother of GOD.

Pantani 2020 is exactly, from this every instant, one month away.  Like it or not, on February 9th at 10 AM from the very same field as the Paranormal, the proverbial gun will go off and away we'll go.  

Truth is, you'll probably like it at first.  It's no Paranormal field party, mind you, but it feels pretty good nonetheless at 9 AM when you pull in and you see all your buddies and their buddies and super-fit looking assholes, all lounging around in the morning sun, pondering where to poop.  But you see, that's exactly where things come unhitched, relative to the Paranormal.  There is nowhere to poop.  Where the Paranormal has boasted as many as 3 porta-potties in recent years, Pantani providers only a shovel (albeit with drop bars) and a roll of T.P.  Where the Paranormal has costumes and kegs, Pantani has extremely fit assholes and permafrost.  This is going to be different, you'll observe.  

When the jostling starts, you might notice that the fittest looking asshole, Bryan Lewis, is lined up near the front but not actually ON the front, which will strike you as odd until you get out onto Markwood and realize that the first 8 miles are all drafting.  Except for one decisive moment when it's 100% absolutely not.  Who on earth would be riding this fast already?  Answer: anyone who wants to get rid of Bryan Lewis.  When he flats in the first gravel section, it's go time.  You're not going to win Pantani by sitting up and taking a pee, waiting for him to come back now are you?  No indeed, someone puts their foot down, and it's well and truly on.  Did you just take a pull at the front of Pantani?  Who, exactly, do you suppose you are?  

Like all the other lies you tell yourself, eventually you find yourself out.  It just happens that this one is especially short-lived.  Moments later, blown up, languishing at the back of a chase group going up Fox mountain, when Bryan already comes back past you, having fixed an entire flat and chased back across a gap that was A MILE LONG within less than three minutes, the painful reality will set in: Bryan Lewis is an extremely fit asshole.  You'll try to explain that to him, gasping for air, but through your drippy saliva lips and panting, he can't fucking hear you.  He'll probably tell you how great you're doing.  Keep it up.  Good job.  The nicest, fittest asshole on the open roads.  And as he pulls away, he can't hear you cursing at him, one of the benefits of how loud 800 watts really is, alongside blind positivity and...is he humming?  Is he enjoying this?  

Pantani Revelation Number One: Goals.  And where one goal falls, erect another.  If you can, eradicate all traces of the first.  Keep moving.   

Let's party, you lie to yourself.  So you fall in with some other fellows, your brethren in their early forays into anaerobia.  Someone says, "let's just party pace it" whatever that is.  

You realize, soon, that party pace is one of those phrases that means absolutely nothing.  Especially when trudging your bike straight up "Flattop mountain" on foot.  So many misnomers, you ponder.  "Riding bikes."  You walk, one foot in front of the other.  How much further, you wonder?  "It is what it is," someone tells you, and you repeat the phrase over and over, signifying nothing.  

Pantani Revelation Number Two: Misnomers.  Pantani, himself, was an icon, fashionable, famous, resplendent, talented beyond imagination.  The Pantani Ride, one would deduce, would bare some resemble to that...or at least sustainable roads.  Some riding, perhaps?  And yet, walking up a 29% mud slope, dragging your bike behind you by the front wheel derailleur side down, weeping snot and curses onto your bibs, here you are.  

Miles later, well past the point that you turned the engine down to survival mode, you'll be shocked by how much snow there is up here.  It's like a little piece of Canada got carried down the Appalachians and dropped, left to die, just like you.  The road alternates between mud, ski slope, dogsled track, ice luge, and back to pavement...over and over again so many times that you begin to lose focus. Some guy, going even slower than you are, stops to let some pressure out of his rear tire for the last climb.  Where are we?

"We're in the spirit world, asshole, they can't see us."

Onward you trudge, deep into the belly of Greene County, where less than 100 years ago the roughnecks that lived out here still spoke Gaelic, still drank unfiltered creek water, still believed in pagan gods.  In a remarkable display of history repeating itself, you do all of that and worse.  It's awful.  You hate everything and everyone around you.  Eventually, you're all alone, still walking.  If there was a viable way to quit, you'd have quit long ago, but with no van or course official or receptacle to actually quit into, you're unable to do anything but trudge forward.  Bryan Lewis, that fit asshole, finished hours ago.  HOURS.  How can it be so much fun, go so quickly for him, and yet for you it's misery and darkness?  Literally, it's getting dark.  

The answer also happens to be Pantani Revelation Number Three: Science.  I've sketched it all out here for you, and like most brilliant revelations, it happens all at once, without warning, and on the back of a used napkin.  

Like it or not, you have to ride back to your car.  So you do.  Eventually.  Back to sunshine(set), open fields, civilization, at least relative to wherever that was that you just were.  And back to the differences between The Paranormal and Pantani.  

Where the Paranormal has gourmet wines, a whiskey bar tended by professionals, a CAMBC grill crew serving the finest burgers and stews, Pantani has this guy:

And, let me tell you, those revelations that you're having now, he had those YEARS ago.  He knows who he is.  And he's here to party.  

Just like you, eh?

Keep learning.  

Keep looking up, up, up.

Pantani 2020 - February 9th at 10 AM

It's hard to get a straight answer about much of anything these days.  Facts are something that we, as a culture, used to do.
But we don't do that shit anymore.

Like when McCardell gave you, the masses, a heads up four days ago that you have 63 days until Pantani, that wasn't quite accurate.  Pantani2020 will be Sunday, February 9th at 10 AM, which was actually only 57 days from 4 days ago, and now is...I'm not sure.  I was told there would be no math.

But Sunday, February 9th, Pantani2020 will go live at 10 AM from the Paranormal field.

Nevermind the fact that I swore two years ago that if Bryan Lewis continues to ride Pantani in under 3 hours, I would make it longer and harder.  And while he has, I have not.
Nevermind the fact that February 9th seems early, especially to the eggnog swilling, candy cane chomping, Christmas cake eating masses.
Nevermind the fact that no one knows if there will even be a 2020 in this vituperatively divided shitpile of a country we have become.
Nevermind the facts.

For my money, there is only this: Pantani2020 will be SUNDAY, February 9th 2020 at 10 AM.
And Bryan will be back before 12:30.

Ride your bikes, folks.  The facts are useless anyway.

Dig?

Up, up, up.

Election Day

Our country began it's withdrawal from the Paris Climate accord today, leaving an already inadequate effort at saving this planet to be done by...whoever the fuck would like to even try anymore, but we did begin selling $5,000 Swarovski crystal encrusted dolls.  The children of the uber-rich will, if nothing else, be able to drown in luxury someday.  This is a good system, everything's fine.

All I did was ride my bike to the local school - where my kids are in 2nd grade - and vote.  Out front, where both political parties hand you a sample ballot of how they'd like your tiny vote to look on paper, people queued up tentatively.

We are squirrelly in the voting line now, Americans.  In a rhetorically divided country, it's tough to stand next to your neighbors and vote your conscience while they vote theirs and not feel uneasy about the whole thing.  These are the same people with whom your kids play soccer or you played baseball or your grandparents are buried next to or...whatever.  So of course there is a real sense of community that you can feel.  There's a bake sale.  There are handshakes and hugs and how's your moms.  There's literally your mom.  But there's a chill too, something beneath the surface that's coming undone.

Hold me down, as Ani called it long ago.
I am floating away.

After I voted, I rode the long way home, down Reas Ford and then back up bleak house, across the gravel at the top, then down the fringe, the beaver dam, across maple and alder-lined single track all the way back up to Allen rd and home and back to...work?  Is that what I'm doing here?  Is any of this going to matter?

Before I finished, I stopped above the creek at the overlook, took a moment that I should take more often to pause and consider big picture.  What is it that I'm even trying to say?
Hello Birmingham, I guess.
If you feel that the vote you cast today lacks real consequence, just wait 12 months.  Our inadequacy today will feel like peanuts compared to our inadequacy a year from now, whatever the result.  And then what?  There we'll be again, together, sorta.  Voting.  Trying.

Drowning?

Hang on, Country.  I can't afford a crystal doll to drown with and neither can you.  I'll keep swimming if you will too.

Up, up, up.

What-What. What. WHAT? The PARANORMAL is Saturday, 10/19.

You can't give the details without first describing the spirit.  And that spirit is THIS:


Oh that first 25 seconds.  When our universe starts to sink a little low in the sky, it puts me back together every time.

So, too, does the first couple hours of The Paranormal.  There's nothing quite like watching 150 costume-clad, entirely uncomposed, bike freaks race and talk trash at 115% threshold.

Veteran Piece of Advice #1: Above all else, go out HOT.  

Then, it all kinda descends into chaos, and racers fold like napkins.  And that's fun too.  Some would say MORE fun.


Whichever you prefer - the racing, the folding, or the general carousing - The Paranormal will go LIVE on Saturday 10/19 at 4 PM right on the lipsticked kisser.  That does not mean, however, that you should show up at 3:45, half-drunk, shirtless, and try to get your number and get to the start line whilst referring to your semi-nudity as a "costume."  No indeed, Veteran Piece of Advice #2 - get there EARLY, and then do all of those other things, and you'll fit right in.

That reminds me of Veteran Piece of Advice #2.5 - Expose your children to this shit.  Though sort of counterintuitive, Kids LOVE Halloween, and they love the Paranormal just the same.  Candy, hillybilly wooden stunts, shredding, and wide open grom-racing to be had from about 2 PM until...well past their bedtimes.  

One must also Veteran Piece of Advice #3 - REGISTER.  Deadline for registration is Thursday, October 17th at 5 PM, which just so happens to be Shawn's 65th birthday.  So think of your cash-entry as a nice little gift to distract him from his zombie-like decrepitness.  Also, just a side note about pre-registration, you people are the absolute worst at this.  Every year, 15 pre-registrants turns out to be 150+ actual racers.  Hey 10%ers: you complete me.  The rest of you should be sealed in a barrel and fired into the sun.

Which brings me to Veteran Piece of Advice #4: Shred first, then booze.  Anyone caught racing with a Blood Alcohol level above .27 will be fed to the Tyrannosaurus Rexes.  Plural.  Rexes.

Which, as water in a river, or pee in a costume, or any one thing which naturally brings you to another thing, brings me to Veteran Piece of Advice #5: Stay the night.  It's like Prom.  There's free camping, and plenty of cops on Earlysville road who will ruin your night far worse than Gordon Wadsworth's frenetic energy possibly ever could.  So just be tolerant.  Sip your cocktail, nod here and there, and allow him to vomit enthusiasm right into your very soul.  You will emerge, wet, but a better person.

That's all I have for you, people.
Sign up, dress up, and show up, up, up.

And don't forget to get down a little.

Until next week...I remain.

- The Haunted Head