What Bike Should I Ride for Pantani?

For years, when people have asked me what bike they should ride for the Pantani ride, I have referred them to a bit of Qwadsworthian wisdom that he was given in a peyote-dream long, long ago.   It goes like this:

"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."

I pasted that in fuchsia because, you know, peyote and all.

Recently though, someone reminded me that Joan Rivers had passed away, and I should stop publishing such filth.  Joan Rivers would never let a scuzbucket like Qwadsworth see her lizard tail, even in a peyote dream.  And they are absolutely correct.  So I had to go back to the man, the oracle himself, one more time and get a more up-to-date quote from him about what bike he would ride at Pantani and why.  And he responded a little something like this:
Mountain bike. They are for mountains.

If Pantani had ridden MTB he’d have never died.

He’d be toking up in the green room snacking on jelly beans

It's hard to argue with that logic. In fact, it made me go a little misty-eyed. If there's one thing that this world could use a little more of right now, it's a stoned, mountain biker version of Marco Pantani - professing the truth about what's important in life and how close he came to self-destruction - and helping to get others back on track to the good life.

But since we don't have that, we have Qwadsworth.


Which is OK, but obviously not the same.
Still, it's fair advice about what bike to ride at Pantani, and how to live your life.

Not convinced?
Me neither.  I have long suspected - even before B-slow rode around the Pantani course in 2:39 or some such bullshit - that a straight up road bike, in the right conditions, on the right day, with the right legs, is way, way faster (despite the fact that I have exactly none of those things.)  So I reached out to B-slow to ask.  Keep in mind he once rode Pantani on his hardtail mtb too, only getting pipped at the line by Qwadsworth in a sprint - so he's done the ride ridiculously fast both ways.  Here's what B-Slow had to say on the matter:

If I give one bad piece of advice for Pantani it’s that I see no reason you can’t ride a road bike. I train on those roads all the time. But other things I do: avoid alcohol for long stretches, ride 20+ hours a week, have salads for dinner and go to bed hungry, and race across the USA. The safe bet is always the MTB. You will never be upset you chose a mountain bike. It’s sort of like grabbing that extra layer of clothing when it’s cold. You’re never mad to be a little warm and you’ll never be mad to have a little more grip and gearing plus mtb shoes are (sort of) made for walking. Just ask Will.

Is that advice?  I'm not sure.  But again, it's hard to argue with that kind of logic.  Especially the part about Will Leet walking, which, as I may have mentioned, is one of my favorite moments of all time.  

But can you really trust a guy who used to do this?

Maybe?  Look, I don't have all the answers.  Nor do I actually have a point.  Mostly, I'm just trying to hide from the reality of what we'll be doing to ourselves in 10 short days, and debating what bike to ride is as good as anything else.  I'll gladly accept other questions to distract you from the awful truth about next Sunday, so fire away.  

Foe example:  Why don't Qwadsworth and B-slow both show up, mtb vs road, and solve this shit once and for all?

Why, after all, the hell not?  

Up, up, up?