Chain reactions

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Chain reactions

It's always best to keep your chain in shape, not let it rust.

It’s always best to keep your chain in shape, not let it rust.

Cyclists know there is no more important component on the bike than the bike chain. Along with the crankset it is the primary device that propels you. A rusted chain slows you down. A busted chain equals no progress.

I’m here to argue that the human back is equivalent to the bike chain. Sure, your legs do the actual running, but they are somewhat more equivalent to the wheels of the bike. They make contact with the ground. But your spine is what lets you stand up, connects the head to the legs, and thus operates like a metaphysical bike chain. Or is it the other way around?

Important chain

Just above your legs, after all, is your spine. Which if you think about it looks a bit similar in construction to a bike chain. All those vertebrae interlocked in a single “chain.” In fact it’s the most important set of bones in your body. Without the spine you are an amoeba. And we all know that a set of sensitive fibers runs down the spine to carry signals all over the rest of the body. It’s called the nervous system. One giant chain reaction within our bodies. And it’s pretty important.

If you don’t believe the human body and especially the spine is a bit like a bike chain, check out these bike chain sculptures by Young-Deok Seo

The Chain Principle

Your bike chain and your back may not work exactly alike. For one thing, your vertebrae don’t rotate up and down your body like a bike chain. But wouldn’t that be cool? You could add lube to your back and replace links or even the whole spine if you needed. And here’s a hint: you need to do upkeep on your spine and back just like you need to keep an eye out for wear on your bike chain.

For a few weeks earlier this summer I was doing core work and strength work and everything started to come together not only on the bike, but in running as well. Strength is your best friend in either endeavor. One can only imagine how valuable back strength is to a swimmer. Keeping the muscles around your spine and lower back in shape can make all the difference in the world to an athlete. Just ask any chiropractor.

But for me recently things got busy and the strength work fell by the wayside for a week or two. Bad boy. Things deconstruct when you ignore the basics.

Chain links

Yet last night was a warm night in Illinois and it occurred to me to run on the track for the first time in quite a long while.

The typical surroundings at most schoolyards and tracks across America are chain link fences.

The typical surroundings at most schoolyards and tracks across America are chain link fences.

Problem is, you have to climb a 6-foot chain link fence to get onto the track near my home. It’s like that everywhere these days. High school sports facilities are pretty much off limits to anyone that isn’t between the ages of 14-18. Locks block your way.

If you want to run on the track you must take your life into your hands and climb over the 6-foot fence and jump down the other side.

That’s not really a good idea for anyone over the age of 40. Typically after age 40, your body just doesn’t engage in that many leaping and landing activities. Back when I was playing 4 hours of hoops every Sunday evening, and still jumping pretty well, a jump down from a fence was not that big a deal.

But as the years go by, and you jump a bit less thanks to the fact that you live a pretty horizontal life while running or riding, your body and brain aren’t as keen for the proprioceptive leap from a 6 foot or even 8-foot fence. Yikes.

Results

But I made it over the fence in one piece.

The track workout pretty much went fine once I got out there and warmed up. Doing a 4 X 400 workout is a strange sensation when you haven’t run that fast very often. I managed a set of four 90-second intervals, or 6:00 mile pace. The first one felt dorky. The second was better. The third got a little slower and the fourth was fun because it was possible to sprint the last 50 yards. Such as my sprint is these days.

Then I warmed down and had to get back out of the track somehow. So I chose an exit toward the right field side of the baseball field where the fence is covered with a yellow corrugated plastic cover. In my fatigued state I did not trust my climbing abilities, and had no interest in stripping a nut by slipping on top of the chain link fence. So I took the round way over, and out.

Stripped chain

That maneuver made me recall one night at the football game in high school. A bunch of girls were trying to sneak over the chain link fence when no one was looking to avoid paying the entrance fee to the game. On the way over, one of the girls caught her jeans on the chain link and tried to jump to the ground. In an instant her jeans were ripped right off her body. She stood there naked from the waist down as the entire top row of the football stands stared gape-jawed at the attractive young woman with no clothes on. A round of applause broke out, and some wolf-whistles too. Her friends gathered round her and attempted to put her jeans back on her body. But they were ruined. So they threw a sweater around her waist and off they all went.

When you’re busy making other plans

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Most of life is a chain reaction like that. You set out to do one thing only to set off a sequence of other events over which you seem to have little control. As John Lennon once put it, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”

Whether it’s a busted bike chain that strands you 10 miles out of town, or a back that tightens up during a run, things just go wrong sometimes.

Chain of fools

Which is why it is not surprising that my back is full of twinges today. Short, sharp pains keep reminding me to maintain good posture. So the question is this: Was it the speed workout that caused my “spine chain” to tighten up, or was it jumping the fence. Was that foolish?

I’m actually thinking it was foolish, along with the dearth of core work the last couple weeks. It’s all a chain reaction. A reminder that it’s the little things that add up to a functioning whole.

Chain reactions, indeed.

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21 Days of Tour de France makes a habit, then withdrawal

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Monte Wehrkamp

It can be a devil of a time getting over your Tour de France viewing habits

It can be a devil of a time getting over your Tour de France viewing habits

I turned on the TV this morning and turned to NBC Sports Channel. Maybe, just maybe, there’d be a Tour de France recap – a special – with interviews and highlights. Maybe Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett would be back just one more morning, starting my day with the pageantry and color of another morning filled with the Tour de France. Just a little more. Please.

But no.

Instead, NBC Sports was running their old standby Best Ever series. Best ever football player, or baseball first baseman, or whatever it is that lets talking sports heads argue with each other in louder-than-necessary voices.

Tour withdrawal

It’s time I face it. Again. Still. I’m in Tour de France withdrawal. Like I was last year. And the year before that. And the year…

They say it takes three weeks — 21 days — for something to become a habit. (They being more than a few expert studies I found just now on the interwebs.) Which is exactly how long the Tour de France lasts.

Every morning in July I get up, make coffee, feed five furkids, and start breakfast for the humans of the house. Keeping me company are the sights and sounds of the Tour, this year on a new, room-dominating, high-def, big-screen TV. Sometime mid-way through the live coverage, I turn off the TV and head off to work, only to pick up the stage later in the evening after I get home and gone on my own post-work ride. The Tour de France bookends of my day. Frames it. Begins and completes it.

Hoped against hope

So I hoped against hope that maybe there’d be just one more day of coverage this morning. Perhaps Tour officials would find it in their hearts to give Van Garderen one more superhuman effort to ride away with a stage win. Let Contador have another chance to see if he and his Saxo teammates could take some time out of Froome and the Sky machine. Maybe Jensie could give us a fairy tale ending and make his famous Shut-Up-Legs solo breakaway stick just one more time on this, his last Tour.

But no.

The Tour’s over (and out)

It’s over, this year’s Tour, just when I’m completely addicted to my new, old habit.

Disappointed but not surprised, I switched over to WGN Morning News. How I wished, just to ease my pain, they would’ve let Phil and Paul guest-host the show.

PAUL: And here we have our shot from the weather copter, Phil.

PHIL: Yes indeed; we’ve got a great look now at what both tourists and locals call “the Bean.”

PAUL: Cloud Gate, I believe it’s actually called.

The Bean, or Cloud Gate as it is really called, brings Chicagoans entertainment in Millennium Park

The Bean, or Cloud Gate as it is really called, brings Chicagoans entertainment in Millennium Park

PHIL: It is! Created by British artist Anish Kapoor, it’s the centerpiece Chicago’s of Millennium Park. You can see already this morning people enjoying the distorted reflections in the polished surface.

PAUL: Yes, and with that we turn our attention to the weather, which will offer a small break to the heavy humidity and oppressive heat we’ve suffered of late.

PHIL: More thunderstorms popping up this afternoon, Paul, so do try, everyone, to get in your afternoon rides early today or risk some wet and slippery conditions.

But no.

Not quite the same effect

No more Phil. Or Paul. Or Bobke or screaming fans getting far too close to the riders for comfort. No more sitting on the edge of the couch wondering if Tejay can pull off a heroic finish. Or grumbling at the steep decline of old favorites like Cadel and Andy. Cheering on new favorites like Quintana and Sagan. Back to reality. Life without the Tour, just as it had become a habit.

However, there is one tiny bright side.

American Hair of the Dog

The USA Pro Tour Challenge starts in just 29 days. Which is more than enough time to return me back to my regularly scheduled life.

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Ever been really lost on the run or ride? Or in life?

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

If you’re a runner or a cyclist, or even a swimmer who gets out into open water, you have likely experienced the awful feeling of getting lost.

Out in the woods

A section of the hill at Johnson's Mound in summertime.

Off the beaten path, the woods can get scary. You can even get lost if you’re not careful.

It doesn’t happen that often for most of us. We run and ride familiar routes where getting lost is not a possibility. But when you’re in a strange new place, or you wander off your traditional routes on a backroad it isn’t that hard to wind up lost. And alone. And wondering how the hell to get back home.

On vacation in northern Wisconsin one summer I took off for a morning run in a National Forest near Eagle River. The morning was cool and the sky was grey and flat. There were logging and ATV trails that made for great running as long as you didn’t slow down. Then the deerflies would get you. Huge clouds of deerflies flipping around your noggin. They could drive you crazy.

It was fun running on the upsy-downsy ATV trails through woods thick with tamarack and birch trees. Maple hardwords were the climax forest in the area, along with leftover stands of white pines. Breeding warblers sang in the trees and pine squirrels shot across the trail. Fawns and their mothers were everywhere, and at twilight treefrogs sang from their perches. You can run forever it seems, when nature welcomes you.

Just a few miles more 

But it can also be deceiving out there. So when I took a new trail and set off to add a couple miles to the 4 mile loop I usually ran, it should have occurred to me to mark the trail back somehow.

Deeper into the woods I ran. The canopy closed over the trail and the trail cut through a hemlock woods that was silent and dark. Then the trail dropped into an area that was heavily logged. The shards of fallen trees were everywhere, and the deerflies were thick. To get away from them took a combination of serious swatting, running and a change of habitat.

Having killed a few deerflies with my hand, I stopped running for a moment and realized suddenly that I had no idea where I was. The sky was no help at all. You could not tell north from south because the sun was absent behind the flat grey skies. There were no clues other than moss on the north side of trees to tell you want direction was what. I tried to call up all my supposed knowledge of nature from years of birding, but that wasn’t much help. I’m not one of those survival type nature lovers. Couldn’t tell you what bark to use for sunscreen or anything like that. All I know is not to wipe your ass with poison ivy. Usually that’s good enough knowledge for a run in the woods.

Glancing at my watch, I noted that I’d already run about 4 miles given the usual 8:00 pace on an easy run. I tried circling back the way I came and found a confounding array of trail options. The main trail was constructed like a feather with a bunch of barb trails angling off into the woods.

Bad omens and bearing up

Some people believe even greater mysteries lurk in the woods.

Some people believe even greater mysteries lurk in the woods.

A band of ravens flew through the woods, low and smooth as they went. The last bird uttered that wild croak they use when hunting. I felt very alone.

There are bears in the Wisconsin woods. Wolves even, in places. Here was I, a skinny runner with nothing but my flimsy running shorts, a tee-shirt and a bandanna. Come and get me wildlife. I’m not much to eat but I might taste sweet.

Out west the mountain lions have on occasion learned to pounce on runners, which act a lot like stupid prey. We all run with eyes forward, in that dull human way, without looking around that much. It’s not that hard for a mountain lion to swing around behind, jump off a rock and put a couple incisors through the skull. Then have lunch.

But none of those thoughts really occurred because I’ve been running so long and love the woods so much that I know there’s always a way out. If nothing else, you run in one direction until you hit a road. Even many of our national forests are so compromised by civilization that you’ll hit a road sooner or later if you run slow and keep moving.

Difference between riding and running it out

I’ve gotten lost on the mountain bike in those same woods. But on a bike you have a friend of sorts along with you. It’s easier to keep pedaling than to keep moving. Usually. Plus you’re likely carrying water.

As a runner, you simply must perambulate more carefully. Being thoroughly lost in those Wisconsin woods on foot, I decided to use a system of right turns at a specific angle if possible, trying to use the approximate tangent of my earlier running path (as best I could recall) to bring me back to some familiar spot on the trail. But it took a while. I was now a full hour into the run. That particular summer my longest runs were 45:00.

It honestly took another 40:00 to find a trail that I knew would lead out of the woods. Stopping for a moment, I bent over and said a little prayer of thanks as is appropriate in that situation. But I didn’t thank God for saving me. I thanked God for not letting me die out there. There’s a difference. Because it did require my own action. I wasn’t carried out on the wings of ravens or dragged to safety by a band of friendly wolves. Instead I believed in my own volition. Even God will tell you that it takes two. Heck, even God needs a Trinity by most reports.

Later I was able to piece together where I’d run, and how I’d gotten lost. It came down to a trail where ferns hung over the entrance. On the way through they did not look like much. But coming back they obscured the trail entirely. That’s how I missed it. The flat grey sky did not help at all. That should have been a possible factor in whether I tried those extra miles. Be sensitive to the conditions.

Lost and found

My wife had been worried, but she also knew that I always found my way out of the woods somehow, both literally and figuratively. But that didn’t stop her and quite a few others at the cabin resort from asking whether I wanted help getting back when I got up to go to our cottage for a beer.

New ways not to get lost 

Compared to running, getting lost on the bike really is a different experience. And nowadays you can usually glance at your iPhone and get back on track in a heartbeat. That’s true while running too. Perhaps GPS has taken away the thrill of getting lost?

Thinking about getting lost

Directions turn up in funny places sometimes.

Directions turn up in funny places sometimes.

There’s an allegory there because it’s just as easy to get lost in other ways in life as well. That feeling of being socially or economically or relationally adrift can make you feel as lost as if you were running through the woods. You look for familiar markers. Go back to church. Or school. Or find old friends or new to help you get re-oriented.

Then one day, if you’re lucky or smart of persistent, the woods of malaise open up and everything suddenly gets clear. You no longer feel lost, and you’re not.

Getting out of the woods

If you’re ever lost–whether out on the road or “just” in your head, it pays to take a moment and try to gain a sense of where you’ve been, where you’re really going and how you’re going to get there.

It’s best if the sun’s out in some fashion, of course. At least you have a prayer when there’s light. But even under dark clouds or dark of night there are ways to find your way out of the woods, so to speak.

The first action of course is to “take stock.” How is your general energy? Your hydration? Your will to return to sanity and salvation.

  1. Be patient. It’s important to take stock whether you’re out on an extended run or ride or embedded in a job search. It’s always important to measure your energy level. Sometimes it is far better to “slow down and walk” while you gather your wits rather than burn up vital stores of mental or physical energy trying to prove to yourself that you can keep going.
  2. Calm yourself. The British World War II saying “Keep Calm and Carry On” was designed to encourage courage in the face of falling bombs and firestorms. But it shows that you can survive a lot more than you think, including being lost.
  3. Pace yourself. It doesn’t help to hurry a job search any more than it helps to run faster when you’re lost in the woods. When you’re trying to find your way home or get employed you’re not trying to set any records.
  4. Believe. If you open up your mind to the world around you, the answers often come walking right up to your feet. So rather than shutting down your entire belief system when things get tough of you get lost, remember that you somehow got to where you are right now. It only stands to logic that you can get back if you believe it possible.

A little help

Of course there’s more than one way to be lost, or be found.

Always keep your head about you whether you are running, riding or swimming.

Always keep your head about you whether you are running, riding or swimming.

I think about another day up at the northwoods cabin when I’d already run a long way that morning and decided to swim out to a floating dock. About halfway out to the dock my arms grew tired and my legs were too. A shock of fright ran through me and I wondered if the strength to continue swimming was really still there. Drowning on vacation? What a horrid way to go.

At that very moment I heard a snuffle in the water beside me. A dog  had followed me out from shore. His nose was dipping below the surface with every paw stroke. It was clear that he also was tired. Possibly too tired to make it to the floating dock. His eyes were wide in panic.

Seeing that dog reminded me that there is always more energy if you really need it. So I reached under the dog and put an arm under the keel of his chest. He was buoyant but you could feel the weight of his body, the fur wet now, and heavy. Together we paddled our way to the dock. He knew his way around to the ladder so I followed him there and helped him clamber up to the astroturf platform. His wet tail dripped a stream of water down on my head.

 Safe at last

Climbing up alongside the dog I flopped down on the deck beside him, arms tired but with a body full of adrenaline from helping the dog. I lay in the hot sun and the dog gave one of those wet shakes that sends water everywhere. Then he stuck his cold wet nose under my nose and let loose a wet snort. He laid his wet body down next to mine and for a few minutes we hung out there together in the middle of a lake with the sun beating down on our bodies.

Once we’d recovered, the dog and I swam back to the shore. Neither of us seemed tired or worried. Something about our shared experience seemed to imbue strength. Once on shore, I gave him a pat and he ran off to do whatever dogs do on a hot afternoon in July. Sleep, mostly.

But the dog also reminded me that sometimes the surest way to get over your own fears, and focus on needs other than your own, is to realize there are others who might need help even more than you. Sometimes when we seem most lost, all it takes is another soul to remind us that we can be found again. Rescued. Saved. Get out of the woods or the water on our own two–or four–feet.

Helping others feel less lost

Want to help someone feel less lost? Sometimes that help is nothing more than a pat on a back during an interval workout or someone pulling you back into the group during a long, windy ride.

At those moments a song by Coldplay comes to mind. “Just because I’m losing…doesn’t mean I’m lost…”

It’s a good refrain to keep in mind whenever you, or someone you know, feels lost. Like the Prodigal Son or the Prodigal Daughter, it feels great to be found. Kinda like you feel alive again.

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Running, riding and the fine art of creatively bitching up a storm.

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Not every run and ride is a soul-lifting testament to the joys of running and riding. Some days just feel like crap physically, and other days your mind just isn’t into it. It seems sometimes that no matter what psychological tricks you employ, your brain and body simply refuse to cooperate.

So you bitch about it.

John Lennon knew how to bitch creatively. Some people claim he married one. He and Yoko transcended all that.

John Lennon knew how to bitch creatively. Some people claim he married one. He and Yoko transcended all that.

Some people think the worst thing you can do for your feeling-like-crap condition is to complain. Negative talk, they say, fuels more negative feelings. Bad energy. Instant Karma. Gonna get you.

But a few of us recognize that a really good, creative rant can go a long way toward killing off negative feelings. Even John Lennon said that a good bout of depression can generate all sorts of creative energy. He should know. He called himself “insane” at some level, yet also a creative genius. And his productivity, when he wasn’t drinking manically with Harry Nilsson, was notably high. No pun intended.

Be careful with  all-positive pricks

So we must first address the philosophies of all those positive thinker types who make millions of dollars blabbing at mouth-breather audiences determined to make themselves into better people.

But here’s the basic fact: When you fill a stadium full of people and give microphones to the likes of the ultimate chimera of Colin Powell or God Forbid, a Donald Trump, then everything that comes out of their mouths will seem like Gospel Truth when actually they’re all pretty much full of shit.

Sheer positivists don’t know anything more than you or I do. But they’re good at pretending they do. Because when you dig deeper it seems that half of them are proven hypocrites at some level. So you have to choose your so-called heroes very carefully, lest you be led down the garden path of deception.

Sure, actual positive thinking has value, but actual gig stadium level pep talks is more about branding and momentum than truly sage advice.

It’s better to learn the fine art of creatively bitching.

When you’re out on your own with a gang of fellow cyclists and runners, feeling pain from head to toe and grinding through a headwind, something within you wells up, and before you know it, the words come out of your mouth and throw a shock wave through the group.

You’ve begun to bitch up a storm.

“Can’t you hold your line?”

“Why are you half-wheeling me?”

“Do you have to run a half step ahead the whole way?”

F

Feeling like shit? If you’re going to bitch about it, be creative.

“I feel like shit. Let’s slow down.”

“Wasn’t this supposed to be an easy day?”

Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. It’s the only thing that feels good to do at the moment. Everything else feels like crap. Some strange synapse in your brain decides on its own that everyone else should be unhappy too.

Chronic bitching

If you get in a habit of chronic, unending bitching, an intervention may be necessary.

Sometimes a friend finally intervenes. A teammate once told me, “You know what, Cud? You need to just shut up and run.”

And I took that advice. It was quite liberating actually. That winter I ran like a madman, setting my 2M PR by 15 seconds and  indoor mile time by 8 full seconds. When spring hit my steeple and 5K times also dropped by over 10 seconds.

It also helped perhaps that I’d met a girl. That cures a lot of bitchy ills fast.

Overtraining leads to bitching 

Yet in the tarsnake world of endurance training there was also some truth to my bitching. Our entire distance squad tended to train too hard, too fast every winter. When we should have been doing smart, slow basework, we were blasting around the backroads of Northeast Iowa at sub-7:00 and often sub-6:00 distance runs. As a result, later in the spring we never fully peaked. Our distance base was worn thin. Something was missing in our muscles.

The same thing often happens in cycling. All it takes is one obsessive nard who’s spent all winter on the trainer to mess up the early season training for everyone. They come out to the March and April rides rarin’ to go. They’ve done 250 miles a week in the lonely confines of their basement and they’re looking for someone to crush. Everyone in the group knows it’s too early to be going so fast every ride but the collective machismo prevents anyone from saying anything. If you do, people accuse you of bitching.

That’s the tarsnake of bitching. Everyone wants to do it, but the first one who speaks, loses road cred.

There’s a better way than killing yourself and bitching about it

One of my talented teammates in distance running decided to actually do something about our annual ritual of overtraining. As a 14:35 5K man, fierce competitor and leader of the team, he pulled me aside and said, “You and I are not going to fall into that overtraining trap this year. We’re going to run for 6 weeks, long and slow, even if we have to do it alone.”

There was no bitching between us. Just long slow runs in the purple twilight of winter, up and down hills, traveling through the Looking Glass of basebuilding. When other teammates bitched that we weren’t “training with the team” we kept our cool and kept to the plan. Long and slow. We emerged out the rabbit hole of winter in fine running shape. He won two out of three distance events at the conference meet. I won the conference steeple and advanced to nationals with a PR.

By not overtraining, we turned out to have a bitching good spring.

Bitching as fine art

We tend to bitch when the pressures of life sneak into our brains, or the circumstances feel out of control.

It’s like we’re saying:  “I feel like shit and I just want you all to know that.”

But you don’t have to be so pathetically pedantic about it. You can turn bitching into a fine art if you try.

So if you’re going to bitch, do it well.

Throw in some sense of humor or start up a discussion to make fun of your state of mind.

Try a few one-liners for starters:

“I feel so shitty even the flies are staying away.”

“If I felt any more like crap you’d need a poop bag to carry me home.”

“I’m riding (or running) so slow even Stephen Hawking couldn’t find me in the universe.”

 “God helps those who help themselves. But what if you don’t give a shit?

You get the picture. Bitch it up with some finesse and flair. You may find your fellow runners and riders having some sympathy and joining the fray. Because here’s one of the universal laws of the universe. When it comes to bitching, two wrongs can make a right. Bitching loves company, especially creative company.

Was the original yin and yang actually a tarsnake?

Was the original yin and yang actually a tarsnake?

Like yin and yang the act of bitching create a magical balance between bitching as complaint and bitching as a release from suffering.

It sometimes takes a double-down negative approach to change your mindset. If you can laugh at what you’re bitching about, you might actually relax enough to run or ride better. And if you still don’t recover and either get left behind or dropped, at least you’ve left a humorous impression on your training partners that will earn you forgiveness later and keep you shielded from a reputation as a sonofabitch who does nothing but complain.

If it all comes undone despite a good, artful bitch session, you simply have to eat crow, fall back and plan for another day. Have a good, solid sulk as your training partners recede into the distance. And say; “So, it’s another day.”

Everyone has bad days, and everyone sooner or later bitches about it. But if you want to make life a little better, remember that in the end it’s not how much you complain, but how well you do it that matters. 

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The tarsnake of no helmets on little kids

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Monte Wehrkamp

Tarsnakes come in many forms, as we now know. My fellow blogger Monte Wehrkamp noticed that the tarsnake of no helmets on little kids in biking contraptions is getting all too common.  
Out and about this weekend, as summer finally hits us square in the sunglasses and flip-flops, I noticed while I was both on bike and in car, a huge increase in cycle-drawn baby carriages. Burleys, Croozers, In-Steps and other brands. Up front, on the bike, is Mom or Dad, usually on a department store hybrid, wearing sneakers and shorts, and almost universally sans helmet. In back, there’s a toddler (or two), and not once this weekend did I see one in a helmet. And I saw dozens.
All it takes is one small fall without a helmet and your child's life could be adversely affected.

All it takes is one small fall without a helmet and your child’s life could be adversely affected.

Oh, sure. You’ve got your reasons for not putting a helmet on your child…

I’m a good/safe/experienced rider. People, I don’t care if Jens Voigt is the rider pulling my child in a trailer. If my kid is in one’a those contraptions, s/he’s wearing a helmet; so should yours.
But I’m going slow. So? Your kid’s noggin is about the same consistency as an over-ripe cantaloupe till s/he is a teenager. It doesn’t take much of an impact to do life-altering or –ending damage.
But, s/he is protected by the trailer. Yeah? One made of plastic, some aluminum tubes, and tent fabric. Guess what? Your kid’s head is on the exact same level with every car bumper, fire hydrant, stump, fence post, garbage can, bike wheel, and curb in the city. The only thing between that precious skull and a Buick’s license plate is some screen-mesh material. The only thing stopping the front wheel or the steel pedal of the bike piloted by the inexperienced rider behind you is a piece of nylon cloth.
S/he won’t wear a helmet. Know what? They make helmets so cool, your kid will beg to wear one. Unicorns, frogs, puppies, kitties, you name it, helmet manufacturers build it. There’s sure to be one your child will think is so fun they’ll even want to wear it to bed.
Look, I know you’re out for a quick ride, something fun for you and the kid(s). What I I want is for it to stay fun. I don’t want you in an ER room, praying to God your child survives — that your fun summer day turned into the worst hours of your life. Mom and Dad, I want you to take hundreds more bike rides with your kids, up through training wheels and someday, a first big-kid’s bike, not blaming yourselves the rest of your lives for taking a ride around the neighborhood without helmets.
Mom and Dad, you can decide whether or not you ride wearing a helmet. You’re adults, you have freedom of choice, and have the information available to make your own decisions. Your child isn’t/doesn’t — s/he depends on you to use your best judgment and do all in your power to protect him/her.
Bike crashes happen fast, out of nowhere, and usually, beyond your control. Just like life. But there are precautions. I’m hoping the one you take is purple with floppy puppy dog ears and whiskers, and it makes your child laugh as you buckle it on before s/he climbs into the trailer.
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One good run or ride can make a summer

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

JackBy Christopher Cudworth

We left at 6:00 in the morning, taking back roads from St. Charles, Illinois to Fontana, Wisconsin on back roads. The route itself was conceived years ago by someone trying to avoid the growing traffic risks and has literally been handed down in the form of a laminated map you can borrow if you want to follow tradition.

The guys in my riding group know the route by heart. For the most part. Once in a while we forget a turn and wind up circling around a neighborhood in McHenry County. But that’s alright too. We usually stop them. Give the guy who called the wrong turn a bunch of shit and get back on course.

Down to three for now

This year there were three of us that started, and one that turned back for reasons of Saturday obligation. We’re always cool with that. Been there myself. The turnbacker usually rides about 35 miles and swings around some lonesome road on their own. That can be a peaceful thing as well.

The last 30 miles are the prettiest of the route going north however. The roads pick up some undulation. You realize you are riding over long lost glacial workings that increase as you enter Wisconsin itself.

 

Where bad roads are good fun

GregSome of the back roads we choose to use are pricelessly bad. Patchworks of concrete and asphalt and concrete with asphalt slapped on top of it and on and on we go.

But there are beautifully shaded sections where the riding is so smooth you don’t even know you’re pedaling. Conversation usually goes quiet on those roads. Some years we’re averaging 20 miles an hour for the 65 miles. Other years it’s more like 18, like this year.

Fontana sunshine

The reward is riding into Fontana, the lake town where the beach awaits. Sunshine on the water and sailboats in the distance. Tanned bodies of women young and old, and guys flexing their weightwork arms.

Many cyclists show up in Fontana on a Saturday. We all look a bit like circus travelers wandering in an out of Chuck’s bar for drinks and food.

Usually people in the bar are fellow visitors from Illinois. When they ask where you’re from, or vice versa, the incredulity starts. “Hell, you rode here? From St. Charles. The hell’s wrong with you?”

To which we smile, explain that road bikes make it easy to cover distance and then take our beers to the table. A little information’s always enough. Leave them guessing about you.

Chuck’s

The food and beer at Chuck’s is always good, especially after lolling around the lake for a half hour letting the ride slide out of your legs. Then you park your carcass on a towel and watch the rest of the world having fun. Beach bunnies carouse. Big jock athletes throw footballs in the semi-surf. Jet skis 150 yards off shore zip around spitting that ridiculous spout of water from the back. Entirely different worlds.

You exist in your own little cycling void. Apart from the world, in a way. And yet such a part of the world you cherish. You stare at your shaved legs in the sun, wondering if they’re getting burned. Later you learn it’s the tops of you feet. And one side of your body. Which goes along with the weird tan lines cyclists have anyway. If you showed up naked in public the police would haul you off for indecency and insanity.

“Look!” the arresting officer would say. “No sane, responsible citizen would have tan lines like that.”

TowelsBut then you encounter a pair of girls cowering under their beach towels as if they were Taliban chicks. And you figure everyone’s a little nuts at some time. And you all have a laugh and figure the sun has something to do with all this. Just ask the egyptians. They all walked and acted a little fun. And their god was the sun.

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Running and riding to the beach

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Assateague-Island-National-SeashoreIn my very early 20s, I was offered a chance to have a free week on Assateague Island if I drove a family’s car down from Illinois to their cabin on the shore.

Problem was, the car was a Toyota Supra with a stick. And I didn’t know how to drive a stick. Not very well anyway.

Stalwart

So it was strange that they let me leave their house with my bag full of running clothes and other crap stuffed into their car… when I could barely back the damn thing down the driveway. I stalled it again on the road in front of their house. But they stood in the driveway and waved just the same. They must have figured I’d figure it out.

Things went pretty well until the first toll booth on the Illinois expressway. Coming into the toll booth hot at about 45 miles an hour, I accidentally shifted from 5th gear to 1st. The engine whined and the transmission groaned, but it definitely slowed the car down.

Arriving at a stop in Pittsburgh provided no relief. That hilly damn down was tough to negotiate with a stick shift and little skill to operate it. Luckily I put on every parking brake I could find, or else the car likely would have rolled all the way to the Monongahela. As it was, a few years later my own stick shift car rolled down a hill and hit a tree. Some lessons once learned can be lost.

The pits

In Pittsburgh I went for a run in the hot June air and the pollution counts were high. The hills were also fearsome bad, steep and unforgiving. I arrived back at the house where my prim and proper aunt from Birmingham stood waiting while I walked up the drive of her Pittsburgh home (thanks to a transfer with US Steel) with sweat soaking my entire body and me smelling like the bad food I’d eaten the day before while on the road. She politely turned her Southern head and ignored the stench as I headed for the shower.

Hayseeds

Our particular branch of the family on my father’s side was the seediest of the bunch. With four brothers and a harried mother we were always sweaty and stinking from playing one sport or another. I knew this was our heritage and tried to keep my clothes organized in the room where I was staying. But somehow they always seemed to escape. My running shoes stank like an unwashed recycling bin and my shorts hung on the chair like a rag full of disease. I felt guilty scooping up all that the next morning and tossing it in the car.

My gracious aunt was sweet and forgiving, giving me a big hug. I did not understand that the child of a brother or sister is nearly as dear as your own even (or especially) if you only see them every 5 years. It’s still a tangible connection. So I hugged her back, best I could.

Rolling southward

The drive across Pennsylvania and into Delaware was uneventful, but rain started up in southern Delaware just as I was headed onto the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. If you’ve never driven that stretch of terrifying highway it is a combination of underground tunnel below the bay waters and a bridge that pops up over the ocean a couple hundred feet. Or so it seemed.

The rain pounded the car and puddles gathered on the low spots. Suddenly the car began to hydroplane. I steered into the swerve and got control, but barely, and the Toyota Supra was going slowly enough by then that 5th gear felt like the engine was made of clay. Frantically I downshifted and found some common ground between the car and the road at the same time. Traffic was swinging up from behind and it was scary to be sitting broadside on a blank road far above the gray bay waters.

The approaching cars did not even slow. They just tore by shedding rain sheets as they went. The Toyota groped its way back into gear and we proceeded on.

Slowly. I didn’t drive over 45 the rest of the way across the bridge.

Arriving in Assateague after running the guauntlet of towns named Thiskill and Thatkill, I wondered if everything down the seaboard really needed to be named “kill,” or was it just my imagination?

Welcome home

When I arrived the skies had cleared and the ocean at Assateague was bright and blue and bold. Brilliant waves broke on the shore and I shed my shoes in the parking lot and ran down to dive into the surf, throwing my shirt off along the way. It was like a homecoming. The salty ocean. The smell of sea breeze. Gulls floating overhead. Willets calling from the angled beaches, shining from the arrival and departure of wave after wave. I sat on the edge and let the clear water wash up and over me.

I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, but wished I did. The surf and shore are meant to be shared by someone else whose skin shines in the sun. That you can touch. Watching the other couples playing in the surf made me feel lonely and sad. So I cleaned up and drove off to find the house where I’d be staying.

Blackbeard’s Ghost

The house was tucked into a pine woods on the edge of an inlet. That night another major rainstorm blew in from the ocean and I should have known better, but was reading a scary book about Blackbeard the Pirate, who used to hang out around Assateague and waltzed about with lit candles in his hair and beard, if I recall correctly.

About the moment the book describe his fellow pirates burying him up to his neck in sand as the tide came in, a windblown pine branch slammed against the window and I jumped clear off the couch. I thought Blackbeard’s Ghost had come to revenge his drowning death.

Still Life with Cowgirls. Or even woodpeckers get the blues. 

So I switched attention to another book, this one by Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It was a sexually provocative book, just like the Robbins book I’d read the previous summer, Still Life with Woodpecker.

I read Cowgirls in a hammock. On the beach. Sitting in the car outside a restaurant. It was a book about traveling, and hitchhiking, and a girl with big thumbs who was really good at hitchhiking. Who got laid a lot. I wished she was real.

The naked shore

The next morning was a great day for running with a big breeze coming off the ocean to keep things cool, and the beach curled away miles to the north. So I set off running and let the minutes roll away. 10. 20. 30. 40 minutes I ran along the hard ocean edge. Then I slowed to a jog and peeled off a shirt. Then shorts. Then shoes. And went swimming naked in the surf.

Paddling around the big waves was liberating and fun. My legs weren’t yet tired from running because I was in 32:00 10K shape and there were days it felt like I could run forever.

Crawling out of the surf, I looked up to see a young couple naked by the shore. Perhaps they’d been camping in the woods and came down for a swim. Not wanted to intrude, I sat down with my butt cheeks sinking into to the hot sand and watched them through the haze of gathering heat. Her bright white breasts shone like seashells, and his butt cheeks looked the same.

“This is the way it should be,” I said aloud.

New inspirations

I still believe that. And we should engage in such fresh freedoms at any age. Take your bike if you like. Go ride hills and get lost. Stare into the haze over the ocean until something genuine appears. Listen to the gulls. Then you’re not so lonely after all. Everything has a purpose if you listen carefully enough. Everything comes to you if you let it.

I spent the rest of the week on similar runs, and birdwatching and sunbathing and generally avoiding reality. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was all the company one needed. Tom Robbins knows his way around a vacation.

Surfer dude and blueberry daquiris

Then I met a surfer dude who lived with two other languid women in a beachside pole house and got drunk with them on blueberry daiquiris till 4 in the morning. The next morning I was scheduled to fly from Assateague to Charleston, SC in a Piper Aztec to catch a commercial flight home. The pilot flying the Piper Aztec at 6 a.m. wryly said, “I hope we have enough runway.” The when we took off and just before we rose from the ground you could hear the sand on the tires.

I didn’t have my contacts in. Just trusted what he was doing. And I was drunk. And free. And young. And stupid. But it was a tremendous flight even though I wanted to throw up the entire first hour. Blueberry daiquiris will do that to you.

Bringing home a tan and a bunch of sand in your shorts pockets is a pleasure at any age. Not having to drive the Toyota Supra home was also, really good.

There’s still a lot of summer left, people.

May you find a good book, a few good runs or rides and maybe get a little sand in your shorts. But only if you’re running back from the beach.

Sand in your shorts and cycling lube do not go together. Trust me on that one.

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Share the Road. Who, me?

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Share the Road comes with a dose of smarts on the part of cyclists.

Share the Road comes with a dose of smarts on the part of cyclists.

I have an ugly little confession to make. No, it’s not that I look dopey in this picture.

It’s that I hate sharing the road with some kinds of cyclists as much as you do.

C’mon, admit it. Even if you’re a cyclist or a runner, sharing the road is a total pain in the ass.  Especially if those with whom you are sharing the road have no clue how to do it. And those people are plentiful.

Transitions

We’re in a huge societal transition, it seems. Bicycles are demanding more of the road but people aren’t ready or willing to give it. In some cases, they aren’t able. They suck as car drivers, frankly. They don’t know the first thing about separating hazards so they blast on through hoping they don’t hit anything, and that nothing hits them.

Just 2 weeks ago a cyclist very near my home was struck from behind by a driver who flat out did not see the rider. They were in a line of cars, the first of which got around the rider, but the last car ran smack into the back wheel of the cyclist. Who was wearing headphones. And no helmet. He was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital.

The driver got a ticket for failure to slow speed in order to avoid an accident. Not really much of an incentive to change a bad habit of driving like a pig, now is it? That’s the tarsnake of our current road laws. There’s not much penalty for running down cyclists.

But you have to question what that cyclist was doing too.

Algebra finally makes sense

So we’re almost almost stuck in some sort of wordplay algebra test in which segments of society are heading toward each other at different speeds and it’s up to us to figure out whether they can avoid killing one another. Cars simply don’t want to slow down for anyone. Cyclists simply want the right to go their own speed.

That’s really not much of a formula for Share the Road. Not if we’re honest about it.

But I keep thinking of the example set by an entire fleet of commercial gravel trucks that rolls back and forth on one of the main roads used by cyclists west of our tri-city region. I’ve mentioned them before. These trucks never fail to separate hazards and be kind to cyclists. Ever. I have been passed or approached by dozens of these trucks over the last 8 years and they are unfailingly polite. They weigh tons and tons and yet they can control their vehicle without pause.

Yet a pickup or minivan or sedan can’t handle a cyclist on the road? We can’t buy that. Can’t settle for the poor excuse that someone else “owns the road” either. Because little kids don’t pay taxes.

The cycling factors

The real answer to all this lies with the cyclists themselves. The education of people who ride on the road is proceeding too slowly to keep pace with the number of riders on the road.

That means many lousy riders are making it bad for everyone else. And we must always account for those who have no intention of getting better on the road. Who are oblivious to all else in life, and riding a bike is no different. Unfortunately that might be 50% of the population if the math holds true from other crucial tests in life.

Unholy thinking

For example, some 50% of Americans interpret the Bible literally even though Jesus by example and the Gospel itself tells us not to do that.

The same group seems to refuses to believe in evolution.

And the value of good government.

Or government at all.

This is called cognitive dissonance.

And unfortunately, thanks to the liberty inherent to our nation, it all adds up to stupidity, motorized or not, set loose on the road.

Even Forrest Gump knew how to put one foot in front of the other. If he’d found a bike he’d have gone even farther afield.

Because, as Mark Twain once said, “All you need is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure.”

Explains a lot

I may have looked stupid but even in my early commuting days, I paid attention to traffic.

I may have looked stupid but even in my early commuting days, I paid attention to traffic.

When I come up behind a group of apparently clueless, aimless riders I get as frustrated as the next person. Generally I ask aloud, “WTF?” and then creep around the rider who sits farthest out on the road. It’s a pain. And I can only imagine how people feel that do not like cyclists as a rule of existence. Road Rage is common. Share the road? Fuck that, they say. And then gun their engines as they tear buy.

It is a strange thing to believe in sharing the road and then encounter cyclists who make it impossible to do so. Should I lean out the window and give instructions on the right way to ride? Then I’m just another screaming guy in the car…Or stop the vehicle and wait for them to arrive, flag them down and give a few hints. Then I’m just a weird zealot.

Nope, the only way to instruct other riders is while you’re on the bike yourself. Everything else looks crazy and dangerous to other riders.

Hope for cyclists

There are many cyclists who really do seem to get what it means to Share the Road. They queue up into single file when a car approaches from behind. Or, if they are in a large group, they form a double line of riders that is predictable, confined and passable.

This all happened before, you know. 40 years ago when the Running Boom hit there were drivers who absolutely hated runners. They’d run you off the road. Throw things at you. Scream obscenities about your Mother.

But all that changed with time, and the runners doing stupid things on the road either died or disappeared. Now there’s very few runners you see doing stupid things. Evolution and cultural pressure has worked its magic.

The same thing will happen with bicycles soon enough. It’s too bad people have to die in the process. About 700 of them a year at the current rate in America. Land of the free and Home of the brave. But you’re not quite free to go where you want on your bike, if you’re smart enough to know that. So for know you’d best be a little brave. Instead.

But bravery doesn’t mean stupid. It takes smarts to ride a bike properly.

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Thinking on your bare feet

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

Of course we know there is a whole movement toward barefoot running, about which some of us are completely convinced and others, completely equivocal.

One has reason to ruminate on such subjects while walking barefoot with the dog on on a Tuesday morning in July. The asphalt was rough and my feet tender. And what should provide relief but a long strip of tarsnake? The smooth black strip of rubberized tar was the exact width of my foot. It was cool to the touch. The heat of the day had not yet reached its surface. Later on it might become the hottest portion of the road.

Tarsnake yin and yang

Was the original yin and yang actually a tarsnake?

Was the original yin and yang actually a tarsnake?

I’ve written plenty about tarsnakes, and how they symbolize the yin and yang of life on the road. Here was an illustration of that principle, unexpected and pleasurable all at once.

When the dog kept walking and the tarsnake ran out, it was back to mincing on the asphalt. How and why would anyone really want to run on the road in bare feet? I confess to not buying in, all the way, to that notion.

Barefoot running is great. On the grass. I need to do that for a couple of reasons. My calves are stiff and short all the way from the knee to the Achilles. Not good. And my arches are spoiled from years of shoes and the addition of orthotics. I am totally dependent upon orthotics to run or my calves are tense and my knees ache. It’s all about biomechanics, of course. But also genetics. Both age and years of consistent running have made it more important than ever to focus on strength as well as endurance. The two naturally go together, people.

Cure rates

Now I know from having gone through physical therapy for a torn ACL that many of our biomechanical flaws can be cured. So there’s a part of me that retains a notion that even a pronation problem in both my right and left foot might be conquerable.

But if not, they can at least be remediated by paying attention to strength training and the resultant stretching that comes with exercising formerly weak body parts into workable shape.

The Big P’s

I’ve seen it happen with chondromalacia in my left knee. The PT cured that. And soreness in my hips? Strength work cured that too. I’ve been adding miles again, with intelligent and gradual increases, and regaining confidence. It’s about strength, not age. It’s about Personality too. Persistence. Perseverance. Perspective. Hell, through a few more “P’s” in there if you like. You get the Point.

So are people who run barefoot more persistent, perseverant and full of perspective than the rest of us? That’s a tarsnake type of question for all of us.

The anachronism of barefoot running also happens to be the most progressive thing to come down the pike in a while. No shoes? Barefoot running? Minimalism? That goes against everything the running industry has thrown at us for 35 years. I speak from experience. At one point I wore a pair of running shoes so thick they could have served as O-rings on the NASA space shuttle, and they could have used that a couple flights, as we all recall.

So it was weird, using fat shoes to make yourself skinny.

Retro toesies

But looking back, there’s really nothing new under the sun about barefoot running. A couple few decades ago we ran barefoot in college. Some of us even raced 4 mile cross country races barefoot. That seemed like a good idea until the acorn cast on the upper campus turned us all into ridiculous Dancing Bears. Hurt like hell. Turns out shoes are good for something after all.

Yet we still sensed barefoot running was good for us. Sprinting up and down the football field at twilight was both a mechanically wise and immensely pleasurable thing to do.

We were ahead of our time in being behind the times.

So it comes down to personality–and the providential gift of decent biomechanics—that make this barefoot running thing practical at all. Some people can hack it because they have good enough foot and leg structure to make it possible. They’re the fortunate ones if aiming to run, or even walk, barefoot.

Others approach the change so determinedly that nothing will stop them from running barefoot. Not heat. Not rain. Not snow. Not even bowed legs or chronic toe jam. But we all know toe jam doesn’t grow on a rolling set of bare toes.

As for little old me, walking the dog barefoot and using tarsnakes to quell the pain is about as far as I’m willing to go on the asphalt. On the grass, I’m going to add some sprints after runs to loosen up these calves of mine. And be a kid for while.

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The Tour de France proceeds on a flawed premise

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

In its 100th year, the Tour de France has much to celebrate. A storied history. Literal ups and downs. Even reinventing itself after years away due to World War II. It wouldn’t do to have Hitler using Messerschmitts to strafe cyclists on the Alpe du Huez, now would it?

Yet for all its transcendence and glory, the Tour de France is still capable of massive flaws and blunt ignorance in its planning and execution.

We saw that in the first stage when one of the team buses from Orica-Greenedge got jammed under the finish line structure, puncturing its air conditioning and stopping the bus in its tracks. Around the world viewers must have been thinking of that childhood riddle in which a truck gets stuck under a bridge. Well, the way to get it out is by letting air out of the tires, right?

Who knows how the bus was finally backed out. No one really explained that to the public during the Tour broadcast. But in the time that organizers spent trying to extricate the mess they had created by creating a finish line structure that was too low for a tour bus to get through, they proceeded to announce that the finish line would be staged at the 3 kilometer mark, a spot in the stage run-in where there were video cameras to record the finish.

There was just one problem with the 3K site. It emptied into a roundabout where the road split.

Fortunately the Tour organizers got the bus backed out and removed from the course. The poor bus driver looked exasperated, sad and fearful all at once. One moment he’d been doing his job and the next minute he was the laughingstock of the ESPN Sportscenter Top 10.

It wasn’t his fault. The bus accident had nothing to do with any of the culpability of the Orica-Greenedge organization. It was the fault of the Tour that the bus got stuck. Thus it was the fault of the Tour that the race finish line got moved back, then moved forward to the finish again. Meanwhile the peloton raced home from 10K out, which is minutes from the finish at the speed of professional bike racing.

And then, a crash. Many riders went down, but one in particular took a hard fall. American Ted King got busted up badly. He rode home in pain and then rode the next few days in pain. This is how the Velo web site described the situation.

American Ted King has been time cut from his Tour de France debut. King struggled in Tuesday’s stage 4 team time trial in Nice, three days after separating his left shoulder in a crash on the opening day of the race.

He fell behind his teammates in the first kilometer of the 25-kilometer ride through Nice and rode bravely on his own through excruciating pain. According to official time, King missed the 25-percent time limit by just seven seconds.

The race jury took no pity on King.

Race officials confirmed King’s time at 32:32.60, and Cannondale officials said they were informed he missed the time cut by just seven seconds.

The results sheet said it all: “HD, hors delai.”

Cannondale officials said they could not believe that the jury would disqualify the injured American. They challenged the decision in person and later by telephone, but were stonewalled.

“They didn’t want to listen to our explanation. Ted was racing with a shoulder injury, and he raced with a road bike. He was very brave. He did not stop fighting. Those are the qualities of cycling, yet they did not want to change their minds,” said Cannondale spokesman Paolo Barbieri. “It is Ted’s dream to race the Tour. We cannot believe it.”

No mea culpa

In other words, the Tour accepted no culpability for their botched behavior and lack of planning on the first day of the Tour. Race announcers Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin flatly but empathetically stated that “this is the toughest bike race in the world…and it’s not fair…but this is the Tour de France.”

They also noted that other riders injured in the first stage crash had ridden with their teams and qualified.

Here’s the really ugly part of this story. The Tour apparently fined the Orica-Greenedge organization for hitting the finish stanchion in the first place.

That’s idiotic. Was there some sort of memo sent out stating that your bus could not exceed a certain height? If Orica-Greenedge had ignored such instructions they might deserve a fine. But that’s not the story. Here’s how it happened according to the UK Telegraph website:

Garikoitz “Gary” Atxa found himself back behind the wheel yesterday, while ruefully contemplating his tragi-comic role as the bus driver who wrought havoc on his first day at work at the Tour de France.

“I’m feeling terrible,” shrugged the Basque. “This was my first day driving the bus so it wasn’t a good start. What else can I say but ‘I’m sorry’? I just hope my team have faith in me.”

They do. Atxa’s Orica Greenedge employers quickly rallied around their man, even paying a 2,000 Swiss francs fine to the International Cycling Union because Atxa’s bus missed the deadline for getting to the finish.

“I was a bit late but I followed the instructions that were given to me,” he explained. “I saw the gantry was a bit low but they said ‘Avance! Avance!’ Others had passed through so I did the same, it was just bad luck that the finish had been lowered.”

It was not just “bad luck.” It was the fault of the Tour de France that they did not check the height of all the team buses, or issue a warning during the race that the finish stanchions had indeed been lowered. In other words, the Tour organizers fucked up. Not Orica-Greenedge or its driver.

Tour crashes

One could argue that bicycle crashes happen all the time in the Tour, and that the bus accident and the crash, along with the ensuing injury to Ted King, were not really related.

Which supports the decision of the Tour officials to eliminate Ted King over his failure to stick with the team during the Team Time Trial.

Decisions like this occur all the time in the business world, of course. As the case brought to trial by the work of Erin Brockovich proved, it’s pretty damned hard to pin a rash of cancer cases on the actions of a particular company dumping pollutants into the groundwater. Even when the facts all point to one cause of action, there are a thousand ways to wiggle out of responsibility thanks to the legal system and how it works. All you have to raise is the probability of doubt and it’s enough to sway a jury, or a judge.

It’s not the law

But let’s get real. The event that led to the crashout of Ted King are related in one crucial fashion. While the bus was stuck under the stanchion, the Tour organizers dispensed conflicting directions to the participants. Sure it was by necessity, but who’s at fault? The riders? Hardly.

The riders essentially forgave the Tour their blundering ways while riding their way into an apparently chaotic finish on the first stage. They could have talked among themselves and pulled the whole peloton to a halt, right then and there. Riders have done it before, when stage conditions proved too insane, or course logistics are deemed too dangerous to safely compete by the riders.

Carry on

But the riders show class despite the high risks of the situation. They completed the race despite the flawed premise presented by finishing under such strange circumstances. Sure, the Tour is not much more than controlled chaos every day. But when buses get stuck and the entire enterprise is compromised, then some sort of consideration should be given to those who might have been victimized by the mistakes at the finish line.

As it stands, Ted King was eliminated from the race for missing the 25% “less than the best” rule on the Team Time Trial.

King was interviewed and for 30 full seconds was speechless at the prospect of being eliminated. He had no words. All the work he’d put in leading up to this, his first Tour, was to no avail.

Later Jens Voigt recalled being eliminated one year under different circumstances, and he’s gone on to great Tour glory and respect, even finished 3rd one year.

As a result, for this viewer the Tour is rolling on with a false premise: that the Tour is far greater than the individuals who pursue it. I personally don’t buy that argument in one key respect. The Tour is human too. It proved that on the finish of Stage One when that bus wedged under the finish line.

But the Tour organizers were unforgiving toward Ted King. They may have the legal right to do as they please, but morally, they fell short of an important standard. They were giving forgiveness, and had none to offer when they were placed in a similar situation.

A certain Bible passage comes to mind, Matthew 18.

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 As he began settling his accounts, a man who owed ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Because he was not able to repay it, the lord ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, children, and whatever he possessed, and repayment to be made. 26 Then the slave threw himself to the ground before him, saying, ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you everything.’ 27 The lord had compassion on that slave and released him, and forgave him the debt. 28 After he went out, that same slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him one hundred silver coins. So he grabbed him by the throat and started to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ 29Then his fellow slave threw himself down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you.’ 30 But he refused. Instead, he went out and threw him in prison until he repaid the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were very upset and went and told their lord everything that had taken place. 32 Then his lord called the first slave and said to him, ‘Evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me! 33 Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow slave, just as I showed it to you?’ 

 

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