Again, It's Not About the Bike

	by Feb 25, 2003

We were all at the base of the Col d’ Aubisque. It was July 17th, the day before the riders in the 2002 Tour de France were scheduled to make their way up this 16-kilometer ascent with a total vertical rise of nearly 1,400 meters. The question rumbling through the heads of the Dunk Rock Roadies was: Could we climb it today and thereby, somehow, help Lance tomorrow? The gradient averaged just over 8% and would take us over two tough hours of strong riding to attain the top. We had already descended 30 kilometers that morning from the Col du Portalet, on the border between Spain and France. Starting above the tree line, amidst buffeting clouds, the five of us had dropped gratefully down out of the chill, skirting milling flocks of sheep tended by dogs that kept them off the narrow road. We swept down at over 60 kilometers an hour. It had been hard to hold the bikes back; at times they wanted to run faster then their masters. In yet another perfect small French village, Laruns, we had gathered our bread, cheese, and ungodly sausages and replenished our water. We finally had nothing left to do but flip out one more nervous joke and start climbing. I saw a rider who appeared to be in his 70s rolling by on an old steel Peugeot, so I knew we weren’t going to be the oldest riders on the climb today. Maybe he was just going 2-3 km up to visit his girlfriend. Or maybe he was going to the spa at Eaux-Bonnes (literally, Good Water) to take the waters just halfway up the pass.


As we started, it was great to see some huge friendly redwood looking trees at the first switchback. I hadn’t known there were redwoods outside of California. As the climb started to bite and my breathing deepened, it was good to set my mind to thinking about problems like that. I thought the redwoods needed fresh ocean fog, and here we were 200 miles from any seaside. How did these big trees do it? Maybe they were just a large species of cedar, the Port Orford cedar, like in Oregon? I kept mulling and the 2nd kilometer was gone. The third km was mild at 5.2% grade. Pretty soon it was gone. Only 13 kilometers more to go. I was starting to heat up and took off my helmet, attached it to my handlebars, and zipped down my Dunk Rock Road jersey a tad. I was along side Peter Thomson , our tour leader, and Hervey Townsend, a fellow Dunk Rocker. Hervey started to breath heavily and dropped back a bit saying typically, “ I gotta get into my own zone.” I knew this refrain; I have ridden thousands of miles with Hervey and he says the same thing on most difficult climbs. Peter and I chatted a bit and climbed on. For the two of us, this was the culmination of conversations we had shared for nearly ten years. I had dreamed of coming to the Tour de France and riding some difficult portions of the mountain stages. I alternated in and out of the saddle to keep comfortable and made sure I was technically smooth for the long effort. I made a mental note to keep my torso still and let the bike rock naturally. I pulled through each circle to ensure that I wasn’t just mashing the pedals. Passing through a small village and five or six switchbacks, I was gradually starting to feel it. I was dipping into my reserves, built up over a summer of New England riding. As we ascended, riders were thinning out. However, there were increasing numbers of picnicking fans scattered along the roadside. I caught sight of a group of 20-30 Postal fans who saw my blue and white faded US Postal hat and hollered, “ Go Lance! “ That was surprising and very lifting. I zipped around the bend with a turbo charge of energy.
By the 11th or 12th kilometer I was starting to labor, but I had been keeping up with Peter. He is fifteen years younger, and had been a professional cyclist in France for many years. When riding with Peter, I know my place--always behind him a bit, but hanging on to his wheel as long as I could. He pulled ahead by 100 meters during a tough 11.3% gradient stretch. Thankfully, we had no traffic to contend with. The tradition seems to be that the entire mountain road gets closed off to all but official traffic by 2PM the day before the Tour comes through. It makes for great riding and all the fans are free to paint the road with their favorite rider names while they picnic away. Whenever I started to really drag, I figured out all I had to do is stare over at a group sitting at an elaborate roadside feast and say, “ Bon appetit.” When you are slowed to 7 or 8 kilometers an hour it takes awhile to pass a group, which is how a glance becomes a pleading stare. This is one of the advantages of absorbing a foreign country on a bike. The pace on the bike perfectly serves up a series of tableaux for the rider’s visual feast. Invariably, the picnickers smiled and responded, “Merci, bon chance.” Or if I looked really terrible to them, they chirped, “ Bon courage.” It always picked me up and I learned to go to that resource as often as I went for my water bottle. On the near 90-degree day on the Aubisque, that was often.

Peter and I pulled into a small mountain village and started jabbering about the climb being challenging but manageable. It was my first ever hors categorie climb. Except for Peter, we had all calculated we had done some category 3 and 4 climbs but never even a category 1, much less an HC. Typically, Peter had a French pastry with whipped cream and bottle of water. I had an energy bar and water. At the local brasserie, the bartender refilled our water bottles like it was something he did every day. Such is the life for a biker in the ethos of the Tour. Riders are everywhere; cyclists are welcome and they rule. A few minutes later, Hervey pulled up and seemed in good shape. His foray into his own zone pulled him through again. We all started to say how well we thought we had done but were sure that the other two Dunk Rock Roadies, Don and Bob were not going to make it. Just as I concluded emphatically, “ No way those two other old guys will make it up here,” around the corner came the two missing old guys. The partnering had worked perfectly and they were grinding in tandem, taking comfort and energy off each other. Don Anderson and Bob White were two of the more recent Dunk Rock Roadies. They were less experienced and admittedly were at lower levels of conditioning. However, they were dauntless and persistent. Don is a former marathoner who spins early in the morning year round. Bob is a world-class worrier with naturally strong legs. We chatted about gradients, the frequent lift the roadside crowd provided, and the dropping temperature. The lead trio was starting to seize up and get stiff so we cheered the trailers, dubbed them “lantern rouge,” in good Tour tradition, and remounted our steeds.

Now, with just four kilometers to go I was sure we were going to make it to the top. The whole team seemed stoked and in good position-no bonkers here. I suffered some with the 9% gradient, but again got a lift as I came above tree line and the orange flags and orange jerseys of the Basques surrounded the road. Peter told me that whenever the Tour route goes high into the mountains, you would find crowds of Basques, dotting the hillsides like California poppies, partying and waiting for their favorite riders to come up. They saw my hat and colors and I became Lance by proxy. They all gave me a sustained Basque cheer I didn’t need translated and I upped the cadence to 90 plus for 30 seconds until I went around the corner out of sight of my new Euskatel Basque friends. I paid dearly for the spurt and, again, began to labor. I stood up and mashed my 39-32 gearing for all I could. I have often said and my riding partners all agree, “On every great ride, there is a time when you wished you were not on that ride.” I had reached that time.

After suffering a while, maybe a long bite-sized kilometer, I started to sense the top. The mountain ridges all sloped upward toward what I was sure was the Col d’ Aubisque. The fog or clouds were rolling past me. I was out of contact with Peter, and Hervey was somewhere behind me. Peter already had warned us that we would not stay long at the top; if there were any wind at all because it would be too cold. Shortly, I pulled into the last gradual rise to the top of the col. Peter was there waiting for me and shook my hand. We hardly had time to read the granite plaque that confirmed what our senses knew perfectly well, before Hervey came up. We got 2-3 pictures and zipped up our shirts and took off. I was tickled by the near certainty that the other two Dunk Rock Roadies were going to make it.

We descended fast past cows with bells dinging intermittently and sheep getting pushed away from the impending circus of the Tour de France. It was so fast that my ears popped. We zipped through a dark dripping tunnel that made me worry about the peloton coming through the next day at 80 kilometers an hour and just losing it. Then we started slowly to climb again. My favorite place in all the Pyrenees is the Col du Soulor, which is this high mountain bowl of open meadows, dotted with grazing cows and sheep. You can look unimpeded across the cirque and see the road climbing up ahead, but it is mild in pitch. It was hardly daunting after the Aubisque. We topped the col together and started a long drop down to the valley floor. I took my time at 40-50 kilometers an hour while Hervey and Peter flew at 60 kph plus. Hervey held Peter off and would not let him pass the entire descent. This takes some doing because Peter rides like the old pro he is and doesn’t take lightly to second place when challenged. We regrouped at the bottom; Hervey noticed that his water bottles had collapsed with the sudden drop in air pressure from the quick descent. We laughed with pride and pacelined at 30-40 kph the last twenty kilometers to the Hotel Chez Pierre d’ Agos where we rendezvoused with the other Dunk Rock Roadies. We all felt like Kings of the Mountains. Don and Bob had, in fact, made it up to the top of the Aubisque, then turned around and gone back to the van and drove around the mountains, passing through Lourdes on the way to the hotel. They swore they didn’t stop for healing waters but, if they did, we understood. They earned it.
Don repeatedly told of looking over a valley on their descent of the Aubisque, “There were hawks soaring out there, and we were above the hawks.” For boys from Connecticut, that was a thrill.

The Dunk Rock Roadies are a bunch of cyclists who have gotten together informally over the last few years to ride regularly and help each other stave off the creeping signs of being over fifty years old. Dunk Rock Road is a short, dead end byway lined by 250-year-old stonewalls in Guilford, Connecticut. This Long Island shoreline town of under 20,000 is famous for its large town green. The town is criss-crossed and surrounded by miles of superb, twisting roads, which offer endless choices for avid riders. Dunk Rock Road is less than a mile long but somehow has 6-8 riders of age who have gotten serious, or at least our version of serious, about bicycling. Our version includes 100+ miles of riding per week during the season and lots of chatting and good-natured ribbing. We all allow fellow riders to talk at length about their latest ailments because we understand that we well may need the same indulgence the next week. But, we are still improving as riders and fancy that we look quite good in our spandex and US Postal shirts. By mid summer we usually lose our winter tummy tires and do quite well. We often push a 20-mile an hour average on our regular Thursday night training rides through a hilly, winding 25-mile country loop. Weekend rides that are longer drop into the 17-mile an hour average, but we can kick it up pretty well if a young buck joins us. Over the years, it has developed into a tight group, which enjoys and relies on each other as we move inexorably into what is supposed to be our declining years.

Our bunch had often talked of going on longer biking adventures and have done some centuries together. We have increasingly become Tour de France and Lance fans. On New Year’s Day, 2002, while visiting Guilford, Peter Thomson said, “Why don’t you get the Dunk Rock Roadies to come over to the Tour this year? I’ll set it up and show you around.” On a cold January day in New England when you haven’t been on your bike in weeks, what could sound better? We looked up the route on the Internet and started to plan and dream right there. Peter went back to Spain after the holidays and I started to feel out the Dunkers. In a few weeks I had the token, but binding, $10 deposits of five of them and we were on. Later in the winter Peter laid out a route and secured a series of fine hotels for us. By spring we got our gears changed to assist us in serious climbing and really started to spin. We were all very concerned about getting blown off the mountains in Spain and France. By late May, Peter had started climbing in the Pyrenees and did the Aubisque in driving cold rain. He said it was difficult, but he thought the Dunk Rock Roadies could handle it. Then we saw a picture of the Aubisque in the June 2002 issue of Bicycling. The phones hummed on the evening the magazine was delivered. We all had our copies, but Bob said it for everyone, “ We’ve never done anything even close to this difficult, I don’t care what Peter says, we’re sunk.” Scared and motivated we went up to the “quiet corner” of Connecticut to practice longer hills one weekend. Later, we went up to Vermont and did over 90 miles one day with lots of climbing in the Killington region. Clearly, we were improving, especially in our minds. We kept yelling at each other that we loved hills. Both Bob and Don confided to me that they weren’t so sure of their preparation. They needed more time in the saddle (TITS) Well, time was nearly gone. They’d have to get their TITS in Europe. But, I assured them we would stick together. I again reminded them what a good rider and good leader Peter was. We were going for a vacation, not a torture session. All for one and one for all, as earlier French musketeers used to say. Such as it was, the old guys were ready.

The successful ride over the Aubisque confirmed, if not our readiness, at least our dogged determination. We were not a group that would be put down easily, and certainly not quietly. The cry became, “If we can do the Aubisque, why not the Tourmalet?”

After a good night’s rest and an evening watching the Tour promotional booths being set up at a village square as we loaded up on more great French food and wine, we followed Peter’s lead the next morning to Trebons. We were seasoned now and saw this as just another standard issue, picturesque French village. It happened to be 20 kilometers from the base of the Tourmalet that made it the perfect launch site for our attack of the next stage. We all felt the effects from yesterday but got pumped as we retold stories of our stellar efforts. We were clearly all relieved that nobody had collapsed or embarrassed himself. Peter had calculated that the best vantage place for this key day of the race was going to be 4-6 km below the summit of La Mongie. As we slipped on our shoes and topped off air in our tires, Hervey had the only mechanical problem of our entire 8 days--he flatted right in the gravel parking lot. Ten minutes later, we were off in the gathering throng of riders headed up the valley. We stopped and grabbed some fresh baguettes and sweets in a local boulangerie. Today, we were so confident we even grabbed two bottles of wine and slipped them into our second water bottle racks. As we resumed our ride toward the Col de Tourmalet, I could hear Bob White, who we called Dr. Blanco on this trip, trying out his nascent Italian, “bonjourno.”

The bike is the perfect conveyance to approach and see the Tour de France. On any given mountain stage, 200,000-300,000 people space themselves along the route and wait for the few seconds it takes for the leaders to whish by and for the half hour for the rest of the riders to sweep on up the course. Stage bike racing is not a spectator sport in the traditional American manner. It is not passive; rather, it is participatory at its best. You need to hike or ride to get to the best spots; you need to eat and chat for hours waiting for your favorites to fly by. At 40-60 kilometers an hour, they flash by in a blur of color surrounded by dozens of other bright streaks that lasts just seconds. There are no inning changeovers, no huddles, and no free throw breaks. On the flats, the peloton comes at you like a steam train with a thunderous roar, and then is gone. If you are on a steep section of a mountain, you get some break visually, as even the biking gods get slowed down to 20-30 kilometers an hour on 8-10% grades, especially if they have already done two similar climbs earlier in the day. Remember, we did the Aubisque the previous day; this day, stage eleven, the Tour gods did it two hours earlier.

We climbed together through three or four villages and met fans from Philadelphia, Copenhagen, and Minnesota. Don Anderson, mulling life through his grinding, came up with the telling wisdom that kilometers were much better measurement than miles, “They are just perfect, bite sized.” By the time you get really ground down by one kilometer, you come across a new roadside sign, which indicates the gradient of the next kilometer. It’s a fresh start. The crowds were large and boisterous today, as if they knew that this was a key day of the race and that they were all in for a treat. Everyone seemed aware that Laurent Jalabert was on a solo breakaway since before the Aubisque and that he was making a heroic ride in what he had announced was his last Tour. The French and all Europeans were positively basking in the sunshine and the possibility of France’s first stage win in 2002. We found a perfect spot 4 km from the top where we could also see back down the valley miles away and catch the winding train of the promotional circus and finally the leaders of the race, surrounded by the inevitable Tour motorcycles and cars. The Tour harbingers were helicopters, which signal the arrival of the leaders. We all got alert and checked the valley repeatedly. Jacko, our new, huge triathlete friend from the Netherlands, kept us current translating the radio reports. We had got to know him and his family while we shared a picnic waiting for the excitement to come. From Jocko we knew that Lance was in a lead group chasing Jalabert who had broken away for nearly 100 km. Jalabert’s lead was shrinking. Suddenly, Jaja was in sight and he went by at a good pace--maybe 25 kilometers an hour. Thirty seconds back came three more: Roberto Heras, Lance Armstrong, and Joseba Beloki. Lance was shouting orders at Roberto. It sounded like, or rather looked like,” Andelay, andelay” or” Allez, allez.” I didn’t really hear anything because I was so overcome; I started to lose all my senses. Blood rushed to my head, and when I opened my mouth to yell, nothing came out. I just gulped like a guppy, and then they were past us, heading up to the finish. All the multilingual chatter was that Lance had started his push at a bend in the roadway just prior to passing by our vantage spot. He was definitely really kicking it over as they went by us. As they went out of sight I found my voice. Only then, I yelled to my teammates, “Go Lance!” as the peloton came sweeping by.

Shortly, we heard from Jacko that Lance was pouring it on and did pass Jaja and pull away from the other two to take the stage and the yellow jersey. It was the day he called Heras, l’ homme, “the man,” and said he couldn’t have done it without him. We later read that he was yelling for Heras to slow it down some as he could barely hang on. It seems it is difficult for novices to tell what kind of masterpiece is right in front of them. As I said earlier, bicycling racing is not a spectator sport.

However, we saw Lance take the yellow jersey right in front of us, on a mountain we knew because we rode up it, every bite-sized kilometer. We were there for the key moments of the 2002 Tour de France. We were very happy. Together, as Dunk Rock Roadies, we had climbed where the Tour gods climbed and we felt young.