Motivation is nothing new

What motivates you?

For me the answer to that question has changed as I’ve gotten older and had more responsibilities added to my life.  The two biggest motivators for me are my wife & son.  When I got into cycling, neither was in my life and would not be for another 3 and 5 years done the road.  At the beginning cycling was about fun, it was a stress relief and a way to escape the shithole that was my life at that time.

Later and to this day, cycling became a way to manage my cholesterol.  To date I’ve never been put on any sort of medication, my doctor trusted that cycling would with changes to my diet, take care of things and it has.  How the determination of my high cholesterol came about is a tale for another time.  I will provide a tantalizing hint and that hint?  Hydraulics.

Since 9 July of this year, I’ve had another motivator constantly rattling around inside my head.  On that day we (as in the wife, son & I) were headed to a cookout.  I on my bike and they coming along a little while later in the car.  Whenever I get the chance, I always ride to family gatherings or events, so long as there is a place I can change and wifey can meet me there.

The day was beautiful and because the house we were visiting had a pool, I was looking forward to a refreshing swim after the ride.  I’d passed many small ponds on my way, which only served to make my potential swim that much more enticing.  However, the swim and cookout weren’t to be part of my agenda that afternoon.

I came upon an intersection in East Concord, NH, one that I’d ridden through on at least a half dozen occasions with a local cycling club.  That day I was alone, descending a hill at speed (30mph) and took to the center of the travel lane to make myself more visible to the cars entering and exiting the intersection.

NOTE: Because I was traveling at the posted speed limit, I was/ am able to take the lane by law.

As a cyclist you develop an almost uncanny ability to know which vehicles will try and sneak out in front of you and which will wait for you to pass by.  The car that pulled out in front of me was a case of the former.  Except for one small detail, the driver did not look or if she did it was such a fleeting glimpse that did not allow her to see the guy bedecked in red, white & blue with flashes of yellow on his helmet.  How pray tell do I know this and state this so matter of factly?  She never made eye contact with me.  Even wearing sunglasses I can stare down motorists and give them a shake of the head to indicate, nope bad idea, I am going much faster than you think I am.

Like many I am prone to profanity at times and as you’d imagine this was one of those times.  Except I only unleashed a brief torrent in the seconds I had available to brake.  You see, the motorist in question pulled out in front of me with less than a foot between us.  How exactly she did not see me is something only she could attest to, and possibly only under cross examination; but I digress.

Now physics was never one of my strong suits.  Coasting to pass does not begin to describe my high school physics experience.  But I do know that nothing nor no one but the Flash or Superman could have stopped so short, so suddenly.

The sprinter Mark Cavendish says he can remember every minute detail of his victories as though time slows for him.  That was the case with me, I remember yelling at her.  I remember her reaction and face when she saw me (all too late of course).  I remember thinking what would become of my wife & son.  I remember hitting the car.  I remember the sound of my bike impacting the rear of her car.  I remember thinking this is going to hurt.  I remember being thrown up and over the trunk.  I remember hitting the pavement.  I remember my head bouncing off the pavement.  I remember rolling and coming to rest on my hands and knees.  I remember seeing my bike, lying in the middle of the road, the front wheel not where it should be and knowing it was gone.

The only thing I can’t recall?  How my left knee was gashed open.  Most likely my knee struck the end of my drop bar, but at this point who knows.

The next 10 minutes or so were a blur, between people coming to check on me, EMTs, the police and having to call wifey.  I soon found myself packed into the back of an ambulance.  All the time I sat on the ground assessing my body for damage, the driver a young girl stood off to the side visibly upset – as she ought to have been.

I was lucky that I walked out of the ER that day.  I was lucky that the driver was cited for failing to yield. I was lucky that the officers who responded understood what had happened and that cyclists have rights too.  I was lucky that she has motor vehicle insurance as it is not mandatory in NH.  I was lucky that her insurance company came to its senses when they saw my wrecked bike and realized they got lucky that I was not still in hospital so they paid me the full value of my bike.  Later they would value my life at less than what my bike was worth.  Could I have fought them for more money?  Sure, but I wasn’t after a payday and just wanted it all behind me.  However it does amaze me that they’d value property more than life.

A few days after the accident we went & got the police report.  The officer at the scene had come to the ER to check on me and followed up with a call the day after.  From those conversations I knew that they were citing the driver and I was the victim.  She had failed to yield to an oncoming vehicle – me.  However the statements given by the driver and her boyfriend got me riled up.  As one would expect they lied, blatantly outright lied and tried to put the blame squarely on my shoulders.

 In fact the boyfriend had the gall to be upset that I did not talk to them while I sat there bleeding, my finger swelling and utterly dejected at the thought of losing my bike.  You see often in situations like this, just as with cars insurance companies won’t pay out the full value of bicycles.  And anyone that knows me well knows my bike had been built up overtime and was an expensive piece of gear. In fact I'd hazard a guess that the wheelset on that bike i.e. the front & rear wheel cost more than her car was worth.  That this ignoramus wondered why I did not speak to him or his gal pal is fuckin’ unbelievable.  

Their attitude is what motivates me now along with my walking out of that hospital that afternoon. I was lucky and feel an obligation to do something to educate the masses regarding the value of life.  A bicycle is not just a child’s toy.  A bicycle can be a high performance mode of transport from a to b.  A bicycle can be a form of therapy, a form of medication, a thrill ride.  A bicycle is about absolute joy and sheer pleasure. And above all else a bicycle is a celebration of life.

Yield to Life: Regarding the SUV and a 12 yr old Boy in Dover, NH

I read with disgust this morning how an SUV struck a bicyclist and not an adult cyclist mind you, but a child, in Dover, NH.  I’d ask what it is about cyclists that get the ire of motorists, but I know the answer to that question.  As an avid cyclist myself, I find myself shaking my head all too often at the ignorant and fool hardly behavior of other cyclists.  For instance since school has resumed, I’ve seen several kids riding in the dimly it, pre-sunrise mornings in Barrington, NH sans helmets, headphones on and no reflective clothing or lights.  Or there is that old chestnut, cyclists riding more than one abreast and not getting single file when a car comes up from behind.  Cyclists have a right to use the same roads as motorists.  The argument that we don’t pay usage fees such as excise or registration fees doesn’t wash for those who use it as an argument to get us off the roads.  Until this past year I didn’t have a child, yet I paid taxes that went to educational services; you didn’t see me complaining.

Now back to the 12 yr old, the boy who was struck down.  He was lucky, yes his arm was broken, but he lived, all too often we hear of vehicle cycling interactions that do not end on relatively happy notes.  This woman disregarded the rules of the road.  I looked on a map, she would have had to stop and cut over a lane.  The Boy had to turn right, thus he had the right of way, not her and it was her responsibility to stop and yield.  What was she doing that she did not see him?  Or for that matter how important was her eventual destination that she had to endanger the life of another person.  The fact that neither she nor the other motorist who scolded him stopped to actually check on him, speaks a great deal to their humanity, of that there can be no argument.

As we’ve seen with this scenario, the cyclist vs. motorist interaction always favors the motorist – always.  The physics of car/ cyclist interactions dictate no other outcome than damage or death to the cyclist.  So why is it so imperative for someone to put another person’s life in danger?  The next time you see a cyclist and have to turn into a lane they are in or pass them, remember to yield to life because that person is someone’s father, mother, daughter, son, brother or sister, not some random person who you don’t know.
In my next blog or the one thereafter, I'll discuss my own experience in the car/ cyclist arena.

Yield to Life.

Thoughts on Lance or Why I Don't Care If He Doped

Last May (2010) a firestorm erupted when Floyd Landis admitted to doping to win the 2006 Tour de France.  He’d tested positive, been to trial to clear his name and failed.  Most cycling fans believed him guilty and a few held out hope that perhaps he was the victim of poor science.  All that came to an abrupt conclusion when he admitted his guilt.

However, the story did not end there, since then he has made allegations concerning Lance Armstrong and several former members of the USPS cycling team.  Tyler Hamilton also has made allegations, but he too like Floyd is a disgraced former rider.  I applaud both of them for coming clean, but to me it seems a bit like sour grapes and or a publicity stunt.

Those that know me well enough to know that cycling is a big passion of mine have asked me over the course of the last year what I think of this story.  Specifically do I think Lance cheated?  As someone who discovered the sport of cycling through him, his exploits have always had a special place for me and his battle to return to a sport where no one wanted him inspired me in a situation I went through in grad school.

I discovered the sport of cycling through him; prior to 2004 I had heard of Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France and Greg LeMond but never took an interest. In fact, I had thought that because he rode for the US Postal Service Team, that he was a mailman who competed in the Tour like other people compete in the Olympics!  I didn’t realize cycling was a sport of professional athletes.  It had been close to ten years since I had regularly ridden a mountain bike. Then one July day I saw the finish of stage 17 where Lance came from several hundred meters back and beat Andreas Kloden (Team T-Mobile) to the line. From that moment I was hooked. I’d played little league (not very well) and followed the Red Sox, but I knew I could ride a bike, but I didn’t know they could be ridden like that. I got It’s Not About The Bike and became a fan and lucky for me an uncle owns a bike shop so I was able to get into the sport at a cost that was a bit less than it would have been for someone else.

So by now you might be asking yourself, okay so what is the point of this? Well I’ve noticed that there are two Lance camps divided between those who dislike and believe he doped and those who go beyond the fanboy mentality. I would fall into the grey area somewhere in between.  As someone who grew to love the sport beyond just one rider I’d categorize myself as being on the fence. Now I’ve seen all the pro Lance material and read the books. I’ve also read the Ashenden Interview and read what Betsy Andreu has stated. I’d like to think that I’ve been presented with as much evidence as is possible and because as an archaeologist I was trained to look at the facts and from there come to a conclusion that I would be able to. However I still can’t decide, maybe part of me doesn’t want to come to a decision.

And in reading the Ashenden interview on NYVelocity I got to wondering was there ever any background on why Damien Ressiot from L’Equipe was doing the article in 2005 and needed Lance’s dope control test results? I guess for me I’d like to know what came first the tests or the original article. What was the intent of the article as originally intended? And maybe this will never be known now. The point I’ve read both here and I believe in the Ashenden Interview being that the lab didn’t know whose urine they were testing, but if the reporter got the test results back first he could have passed that information along.

And of course there is the argument that if everyone else was doing it, was it cheating. This point I know has been brought up as well as the argument that EPO wasn't banned back then. This is similar to the arguments for & against both Barry Bonds & Mark McGwire in relation to the home run record and Major League Baseball's abysmal stance on doping and PEDs.

I basically reduce my feelings on the subject matter to this.  The Tour has to some extent always been dirty.  Regardless of what Henri Desgrange intended, in fact one could argue it was his puritanical and almost sadomasochistic rules that forced the riders to cheat.  Go back and look at early Tours, the riders were hard men that had to do whatever they could to survive.  Long before Floyd Landis was stripped of his crown Maurice Garin was stripped of his tour victory for cheating – he took rides on trains.  During the Golden Age of cycling, post WWII, Gino Bartali would send riders to inspect the hotel room of his great rival Fausto Coppi, to see what sort of medicinal aids were in the trash.  I believe it was Jacques Anquetil, first five time winner of the Tour that said, the Tour cannot be won on water.  Doping has always been a part of cycling and only in the last 13 years or so has it become something that is discussed in the open and treated harshly. 

Lance from an early age was a gifted athlete, of that there is no doubt, just research his triathlon career.  The cancer changed his body mass.  Look at early pictures of him from his Motorola days and compare those pictures to his USPS period and you’ll notice a heavier rider early on.  The guy had an engine and a massive chip on his shoulder, which allowed him to win.  Did he seek out other ways to ensure victory, maybe, but so did others and in the end he still beat them.

When I got into the sport of cycling in 2005, for me it was all about Lance.  I got a Trek because Lance rode Trek.  I got a Giro helmet because of how they supported him during his cancer treatment.  I got other gear all because Lance used it and then when he retired I looked for other cycling stars to follow and that is when I really fell in love with the sport.  At the same time and over subsequent years I found that it was his engine and determination more so than the gear that mattered.  In cycling, high end gear differences really come down to the riders engine.  Case in point, Fabian Cancellara, 4x World Time Trial Champion, Swiss TT Champion and Olympic TT Champion, has ridden several different brands of bicycles to his aforementioned victories.  And so I became less of a fanboy and a more balanced fan of cycling, I fell in love and delved into the history of the sport and the athletes that make it up – past & present.

So honestly, I don’t care one way or the other if he doped.  He was still the better athlete and put on a great show.  Lest we forget professional sports is entertainment, no matter what we’d like to think.  And part of me thinks this investigation is based on sour grapes.  With all the food recalls we hear about, shouldn’t the FDA be worried about that and not a guy that brought hope to millions of people and provided an entertaining spectacle?  During the seven year period that he ruled over the Tour, he only had one instance of bad luck (2003 on the climb to Luz Ardiden), which in itself is a record.  Thus even if he doped I don’t care, because he wasn’t the first and he wasn’t the last.  He put 110% into the Tour and winning it and did just that and in the process brought hope to millions of people, not just cancer patients/ survivors but to anyone that has ever been laid low by something and told you can’t. 

He said I can and he did.