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.