Cyclocross in France: Roubaix World Cup

A couple of weekends ago, we completed our 2009/2010 cyclocross spectating season by taking the train up to Roubaix to watch the 8th race in the World Cup series.

The city of Roubaix hosts the finish of the spring classic Paris-Roubaix bike race, which is contested over a bunch of now-carefully-preserved-and-valued super-crappy cobbled roads in northern France. It hosts the finish way more accurately than Paris hosts the start. For the last 40 years or so, it has started in Compiégne, which would be like saying a race from Allentown, PA starts in Philly. Regardless, the Roubaix velodrome is iconic in the bike racing world, a place where the few tough and crazy riders who survive the race finish. And the 'cross race is held in and around the velodrome, which was at least part of the reason we went up.

The Roubaix velodrome. The technical part of the course uses the sliver of steep hillside from where the spectators are standing to the street.

The velodrome and sports park isn't a particularly big place, and they run the race entirely on the grounds. At first glance, aside from the use of the velodrome surface for part of the lap, the course doesn't look much different from my club's Whirlybird course back home, winding around a bunch of playing fields, using the track-and-field sand pits, and eeking out just a little bit of elevation gain on the berms around the fields. But the sliver of land between the velodrome itself and the street provided some technical challenges, including a steep set of stairs (tricky because the front of the stair is wood but the step itself was just soil, which in the mud made for some precariously uneven footing), a couple of tricky off-camber switchbacks, and 2 steep downhills that ended in very short run-out sharp right-hand turns (or, failing the negotiation of the turns, ended in a head-on collision with a solid wall, thoughtfully covered with very thick padding). The first descent was harrowing enough that on the first lap of the pro women's warm-up, there got to be quite a gaggle of riders looking, laughing nervously, and waiting for somebody to dare to push the front wheel over the edge.

The first descent on the lap is a pretty intimidating sight when you're the first to roll up to it...

It was tackled a lot of different ways during the day, riding, running, and plenty of hybrid technique. This is the U23 race.

The second descent is longer and steeper, but the run-out is longer, and the approach is less sketchy than the first. Still, even the leaders in the pro race ran it as often as they rode it.

The atmosphere at Roubaix was really different from the other races we've been at. First, the crowds were smaller. It was still plenty packed in the techy section behind the velodrome, but the rest of the course allowed pretty easy moving around. The crowd was still mostly Belgian, but unlike the races in Flanders, I could hear at least a little French wherever we stood. There were tons of French riders in the younger races, 11 in the U23 race alone. These guys haven't been racing much 'cross, since there are only 2 French riders in the top 36 World Cup standings for the season, so they apparently gave every kid in town a bike and told them to show up on Sunday.

In addition to this pajama-wearing oompah band, there was a drum corp at Roubaix. Overall, there was more silliness and a more relaxed vibe.

There was only 1 beer cart, and no real beer tents, which may explain why there were fewer specatators. The food vendors, much to my surprise, were still Belgian, something I figured the French wouldn't stand for. But France doesn't have a big street-food tradition, and maybe they figured the Belgians who would come to watch the race didn't want (or deserve) French food. Interacting with the vendors at Roubaix was completely different than at the races in Belgium. In Belgium, it's Dutch or English with them, and though they're nice about it (a lot nicer than the French are, certainly), it's clear that by speaking English you're definitely foreign. In Roubaix, I spoke to them in French, which just seemed like the the natural thing to do in France, which it turns out they didn't like or do very well, but they couldn't really complain, being in France and all. It was a strangely empowering series of interactions, perhaps the first time since we've been in France that I felt like I actually lived here. That I was the "native." I almost wished I'd had a beret.

Some things, like curry ketchup, you don't need to taste to know not to eat. But being slower than the average guy, I exercised some regrettable judgement and tried it on my frites.

And in fact, there was a bit of that feeling all day in Roubaix. In contrast to Barcelona, Brussels, Vienna, Stockholm, Tokyo, etc-- or Paris, for Pete's sake-- places we've been over this past crazy year that were decidedly foreign, Roubaix felt very familiar. An industrial city of a bit less than 100,000 people that's lost most of its shine, made mostly of red brick row houses that weren't distinctly Flemmish or Norman or Alsatian, it could have been any smallish-to-midsize PA city: Lancaster, York, Allentown. Hell, it could have been Racine or Kenosha, WI. It felt oddly like home.

The Roubaix train station is handsome and in excellent repair, though there aren't many trains through here anymore.

Roubaix's streets remind of home.

It wasn't all like familiar, though. The Grand Place (hotel de ville) on our walk from the train station to the velodrome was a striking, and very European, sight.

It also felt like perfect spectating weather, with sunny skies on race day. We'd done our 34-degree-and-rain spectating in December, so we were happy for the difference a little sun makes when standing around all day (and it really was all day, because they did UCI officials training between the U23 and women's races, an extra 90 min of just standing around). Like most of the races we've seen this year, the course was crazy-muddy, since it had rained all week. Those steep downhills were as gnarly as I've seen, with even most of the pro men running them, and it was just a long, brutal slog through the flatter sections of the course. It looked like a painful day on the bike, for sure.

Safety Jogger work boots is a major sponsor for many of the 'cross series. As Karen has said, it ain't a cross race without the inflatable boot.

However, the more logical sponsor would seem to be Wellies, because the deep mud has made for messy and treacherous walking all season long.

One guy who isn't getting dirty is Sven Nys. In this promo in Roubaix, pictures of muddy Niels Albert, Lars Boom, and friends, and a sparklingly clean Sven Nys, have been photoshopped together. There's no shortage of pictures of Nys in the mud, so the use of this one is perplexing.

With the various European national championships having run the week before, there was a lot of commentating over the loudspeakers about who was in what jersey. It would be a big day for the Czech champions, with Katerina Nash taking the women's race, the most notable moments of which were the missing Katie Compton (they called her repeatedly at the start line, but she didn't race due to leg cramps) and seeing Dutch national champion Daphny Van den Brand touch wheels with Nash on an early lap and crash hard on the velodrome concrete. Van den Brand got back up and though well-bloodied, held her position to take the overall lead in the World Cup.

Czech sensation Zdenek Stybar won the men's race convincingly, and World Champion and crybaby Niels Albert, who had until that race been leading the World Cup, had a tough day of it and finished well back in 8th place. sniffed after the race that with the broken ribs he suffered the week before, it wasn't possible to "defend my chances in a fair way." Having suffered through some busted ribcage myself in the past 12 months, his toughness is not in question in my book-- I can't imagine the pain of piloting a bike around the slop like that on freshly broken ribs. Chapeau, monsieur! Maybe there's something that happens in the translation from Dutch, but he just can't seem to help but whine in his interviews. There must have been something in the air, though, as even the normally stiff-lipped Sven Nys groused that day, saying that whereas the Czech champion had the luxury of training in Majorca the previous week, he, as the Belgian champion, had Obligations including an early-week race and a team event. Poor Svenny. It's such a burden to be so good.

Daphny Van den Brand got back up a couple of moments after her hard fall, but somebody apparently forgot to tell the emergency crew, who struggled to get the yellow backboard, stationed up at the top of the 2 treacherous descents, down to the velodrome through the thick mud, but not arriving until at least 5 min after she left the velodrome.

A guy who seems to be having a rough time for much of this season is American Jonathan Page. A good technical rider, it seemed like every time up this run/ride up at the soccer fields, somebody was running into him. On this lap, it's Ondrej Bambula (#28) with his shoulder in Page's ear.

Watching these races in person is a totally different experience than watching on TV. I know this, because I watched the TV coverage of it (on Belgian internet: neither of the French World Cup races this season were broadcast on French TV) that night when we got back to Paris. Unless you're lucky enough to be standing where the race is made or lost, as we were at Diegem when Nys broke his derailleur hanger at the top of the stairs, you really have no idea how things got the way they did in the race. But there's so much else you just don't get to see on TV. Like the Mongolians.

There's been a contingent of Mongolians racing in December and January, and since I figure that just about every other nation racing has representation in the crowd, and even the announcers keep calling them Chinese (I don't think Boldbaatar or Myagmarsuren are traditional Chinese names), I focus my cheering efforts on the Mongolians. Fortunately, this doesn't much interfere with cheering for the leaders, because the Mongolian fellas are pretty quickly off the back. Though the only time you see them on TV is when they're being lapped (usually just past mid-way through the race), they embody a lot of what I admire in bike racing: they ride hard and with dedication, but not without a little sense of humor about their situation, they're always taking chances and trying to conquer the lines and technical challenges (at Roubaix, with a little encouragement from our group at the soccer field run-up they managed to ride the run-up more often than most of the other guys in the pro race), and they're good sports, always getting clear out of the way of the front of the race as it laps them and, unlike a lot of the tools who get lapped and then try to draft the guys who caught them (which in my book just endangers the guys at the front of the race-- if you had those skills, you wouldn't have just gotten lapped...), they leave a gap before soldiering on.

Mongolian U23 team member Baasenkhuu Myagmarsura pushing through the slop.

I came to decide at Roubaix that they're a little like Power Rangers, with powers that can be summoned (briefly) on command. In the U23 race, one of the Mongolian fellows (Naran Kangarid) was struggling with one of the zillions of French riders (Dmitri Corriette) pretty far back in the race for several laps. With a couple to go, Kangarid absolutely lit it on the velodrome, as if he'd just been saving energy for the previous 30 min, and just toasted the French guy, eventually finishing a lap up on him. It was amazing. I thought I heard him shout, "Mongolian powers, activate!" when he kicked, but I could be wrong. Anyway, they were fun to watch and cheer, and I sincerely wish the team the best. I hope that when I get back to racing, I can do it with as much class and good nature as they do.

A day at the races

The original idea was that we'd come to Europe for Karen's job and then spend all autumn and winter racing cyclocross in Belgium, which even if not the birthplace of 'cross (which might have been France), is the sport's current stronghold. The Belgians are nuts for cyclocross.

With my slacker employment status, I figured I'd be training like an animal so that I could receive my racing butt-whipping in Belgium like a man, fighting to the end. However, the only animal I'm training like is a 3-toed sloth, and the further realities of apartment sizes in Paris and a year of recurring injuries mean that racing here won't happen, at least not this year.

But that doesn't mean we can't spectate, even if, since we don't speak Dutch, we can't expectorate on par with the locals. We'd considered driving up to Treviso while we were in Italy in order to watch the World Cup race there, but roughly 8 hours of driving in one day was more than we could stomach, even in the Batmobile.

A couple of Sundays ago, though, we rented a car and drove up to Oudenaarde, Belgium, to watch the Koppenbergcross race, a stop on the GVA Trofee series. There are high-level professional races in Belgium pretty much every weekend, and our decision to go to this one was based more on its location and the fact that it fit our schedules than any specific knowledge of the race. We did figure that the famed cobbled climb of the Tour of Flanders, the Koppenberg, should figure into the course and saw some footage from the slop of last year's race on youtube. Looked like a good show.

Driving up was a bit of an experience. European roads change names and numbers frequently, and keeping up with highway numbers can be tricky your first time in a region. Thankfully, you can usually get by following the signs to given places-- often it's pretty easy to tell whether you want the highway towards Paris or towards Lille, for example. However, when you're in a place a.) where you don't know very precisely the relative positions of the cities on the signs, and b.) that's small enough that even knowing where those cities are doesn't much distinguish between the route you want vs don't want, the missing/changing numbers take on new significance. Add in the fact that as soon as you cross from the French-speaking Walloonian region of Belgium into the Dutch-speaking Flanders region all of the city names change, and it can make for hours of fun. It doesn't take a super-genius to figure out that Bruxelles is Brussel or that Gent is Gand, but that Tournai is Doornik, Grammont is Geraardsbergen, Ronse is Renaix or Lille is Rijsel can take longer than you have to decide whether or not to take the turn. Entertaining, for sure. And some of the four-letter words we made up while taking wrong turns sounded impressively Dutch to my French-attuned ears. But we made it to Oudenaarde and were directly by friendly (whoa-- that was a shock, coming from Paris) volunteers to a parking lot.

In reading up on the course and the race's history, we found some information on Christine Vardaros' website, a pro American cyclist we'd seen at some of the local races in the mid-atlantic region some years ago, now plying her trade in Belgium. She had just written a story for cyclocross magazine on the history and behind-the-scenes work on Koppenbergcross. And sure enough, after parking and taking a shuttle bus to the drop point, we walked right past her on RV Alley as she warmed up on the trainer. We chatted a bit, sharing impressions of life in France (she had raced for a French team, previously), and she offered us her trading cards before we wished her good luck and went to find the course.

One of just 2 Americans racing on the day, Christine Vardaros warms up on her trainer during the U23 race. Husband Jonas tends to her other bike in the background, aside their van.

The line of fancier RVs stretches a long way into town. Prime real estate goes to the big-name racers with team vans and supporters' clubs (in full tail-gate mode) further out.

Pretty typical top-racer RV, this one the Czech national champion and consistent top-5 finisher Zdenek Stybar.

The more subdued RV of Jonathon Page, the only American male cyclocross pro to be based in Europe (the other US pros who race CX in Europe do so after the US season ends in mid-December). The door to the rear of these vans is for bikes and equipment, the door up front for the rider.

The most spectator-crowded RV was that of the reigning dominant cyclocross rider, former world champion and current Belgian champion, Sven Nys, who, as printed on the side of the van, prefers to be called Svenny. Svenny had won the previous 6 editions of Koppenbergcross, but came into this year's race a bit frustrated after a slow (for him) early season.

It was a long way from the parking lot to the race course. But just like the fish market at Tsukiji in Tokyo, all you had to do was follow the boots to the course...

... and since much of the race course is in cow pasture, the boots offer double protection when it's muddy.

Perhaps not Paris fashion, but there's room for personal expression even at a CX race.

CX fan in the making: ladybug mud boots and a big sandwich, which this kid was really going to town on.

CX is a big deal in Belgium. Even the handstamp has a CX scene.

The course itself surprised me. We've raced 'cross for 7 years, on courses ranging from tape strung up in bumpy cow pastures to pretty elegant courses fine-tuned over several years. From the videos and pictures I'd seen of courses in Belgium, I was expecting something really technical and diabolically tricked out. Half the course, maybe more, was in cow field, rather like a grass-roots US course. If this course were part of the regional series we race at home, where “flow” of a course is highly valued and climbing tends to be of the short-and-punchy variety, I suspect the racers and other promoters alike would howl at its shortcomings: no barriers or forced dismounts at all, and an almost entirely vertical location. Koppenbergcross starts at the base of a hill, rolls around on some pavement in town (almost never a feature in US courses-- closing town roads for a CX race just isn't done), a little flat grass leading into the famed cobbled Koppenberg climb. But only the lower section, because even the steep cobbles above aren't awful enough to warrant inclusion. The course turns off of the climb and winds down some not-terribly-technical grass before climbing up, and up, and up, seemingly forever to the top of the hill, where it basically turns into a luge run back down to the bottom. Up, down, up, down. But the day we were there, Europe's best riders were beating the snot out of each other on that course, and some 15,000 people were there urging them on. And it was hard not to decide that the idea that any one group holds the Truth about what cyclocross is or isn't, or should or shouldn't be, is pretty ludicrous.

Looking up at the downhill section of the course. Just a ski run taped out in a cow pasture. This was during the U23 race; by the time the pro men started, the crowds had about tripled.

There are supporters' clubs for the various racers, and club members gather at specific points on the course (often marked by a supporters' club flag with the rider's name on it) and have an excuse to wear matchy clothes. One of the most striking differences between spectators there and in the States is the range of body shapes. In the US, most spectators at races are other racers or relations and so tend to be pretty lean. In Belgium, the spectators reflect the general population and so tend to be more, errr..., hearty. Lots of smoking in the crowds. And drinking.

And drinking means peeing. I'm pretty sure this guy thought I was some kind of pervert, but I really just wanted a picture of the porta-urinals. These brilliant contraptions should be required at every bike race in the US. 80% of the racers at a typical US race are men, and probably 60% of the portajohn use is for urination. These 4-person urinals allow for reasonably discrete bladder emptying (admittedly, the Europeans are less prudish than Americans about these things) without tying up the more precious full-service portajohns. Everybody wins.

Aside from CX, Belgium for us is synonymous with good beer. And frites. We're lucky in Philadelphia to have one of the best beer bars in the country, and likely the best Belgian beer bar, Monk's Cafe. Through his relationships with the brewers in Belgium, the owner brings in all kinds of wonderful oddities for sampling, often the only keg or 3 shipped out of Belgium. The beer on tap at Koppenbergcross was Primus, which while better than the beer in France, was not nearly as interesting as we get at home. The frites were similarly utilitarian-- twice-fried as they should be, but made from frozen potatoes. Admittedly, the set-up on the side of a steep cow pasture presents some logistical challenges for fresh food. But even that doesn't explain the meat thing that we ate. There were some corndog-like sausages being fried at the frites stand, and some giant liverwurst-like sausages being sold whole, still wrapped in plastic, both of which were more sausage than we felt up for. So when we spied what looked to be kabobs on the counter, we pounced. The kabobs, stick and all, got dumped into the fryer for a long while and then into a paper boat, which at least slowed by a few seconds the travel of hot grease to our hands. The meat was shriveled past recognition (I'm pretty sure we saw its second frying), which by all accounts was probably a good thing, but the 3 tiny slices of onion were tasty. We later found a stand with bratwurst, which was markedly better. We'll have to go back to Belgium for food and drink beyond CX race vending some other time.

The first uphill on the course, the famed cobbles of the Koppenberg. Though not the steepest section of the cobbled climb, it was still no picnic.

The long off-road slog up the side of the Koppenberg, during the women's race. The pro women really had to grind up this long slope, an accurate indication of its difficulty. The ferocity of the attacking on this climb in the pro men's race was frightening-- it's hard to believe anybody's that strong.

Somebody likes cyclocross. A lot. Even after fried mystery-meat-on-a-stick.

The view down the luge run during the pro men's race. The crowd was 5 deep or more over most of the course.

This corner was particularly tricky during the U23 race, when it was still muddy and greasy. The pros who were warming up afterwards all locked up the rear wheel to slide through it, but by the pro race, it had dried out enough that they were rolling through it. We still saw a number of tangles in it. #9 here is former world champion Erwin Vervecken-- note the rainbow stripes on his sleeve. He finished 1 spot lower than his number this day.

Bart Aernouts (Belgium) and Enrico Franzoi (Italy) fly down the chute...

... but on the last lap, when it counted most, it was Sven "Svenny" Nys who put in a vicious attack on the endless climb and hit speeds on the downhill that warped the time-space continuum. He held his 4-second gap over fellow Belgian and reigning world champ Neils Albert to the finish, his 7th in a row at Koppenberg.

We were treated to a pretty good race, fast and tactical. Though the course had been wet and muddy early in the day, it had tacked up considerably by the time the men took the start. It poured rain for a few minutes just as they were about to head off, which added a little unpredictability to the start. The speed of the world's best both up the long hill and then down the chute was astonishing. A good day out, for sure.

Next up for us is the CX race in Gavere.

Le Tour en France

Despite being in France this year at Tour-time, I wasn't much looking forward to it. I'd rather be exploring France by bike myself, frankly. But despite invites to go ride the great mountain passes with a friend each week through the summer, I'm stuck here in Paris with tendonitis around my knee and riding the local hamster wheel, instead. And so, to get my fix, I've been watching the Tour on TV.

And, surprisingly, it's been a real barn-burner. The opening TT was long enough to create some real gaps, and Fabian Cancellara crushed the field with what looks like a return to his normal form after a tough spring. Then we had a split in the crosswinds in stage 3, reportedly an on-the-fly decision made by the Columbia-HTC team, put out that the other sprinters' teams wouldn't come to the front and help catch the break. Strategies born of anger are rarely good strategies, bike racing or not, but the split in the peloton they created happened to separate Lance Armstrong (in the front group) from his teammate and potential rival Alberto Contador (in the 2nd group), and so made for great television and fueled a press feeding frenzy, especially when Armstrong and his 2 teammates in the front groups started contributing to the split's success. Never mind that Columbia and their general classification leader, Michael Rogers, would give back as much as much time in the team time trial to the Astana boys as they took the day before.

Then the team time trial, for sure another marketing and TV spectacle, where the powerful Astana team took 40 seconds out of Cancellara (and technically his team, although the big Swiss seemed more hampered than helped by his 8 teammates). Cancellara went into the TTT 40 seconds up on Armstrong in the general classification, so the calculations for the leader's yellow jersey went to the tenths of a second, with Cancellara holding on to his jersey for at least a little longer. It seems to this observer that this might have been Mr. Armstrong's only real chance at the yellow jersey in this tour: while impressively fit after several years out of racing and just a couple of months after a broken collarbone, he doesn't seem to have the horsepower to out-climb, or even time-trial, Contador, or his other teammates Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden, for that matter. Armstrong appeared content with his team's performance, which was impressively well-drilled on an extremely technical and challenging course and a day where crashes dominated the TV screen. But he'll have to be disappointed to come so close to yellow if he doesn't get it the rest of the Tour.

Contador, who has been prickly about the incessant questions about his leadership on the powerful Astana squad, seemed genuinely sorry Armstrong didn't take yellow in the TTT (and Contador could be seen pushing the pace in the closing kms, so it didn't seem like false regret). Without the yellow jersey on Armstrong's shoulders tomorrow, when the Tour hits the Pyrenees and has its first mountain-top finish, Contador has more room to maneuver and attack as the leader of his team, if he chooses or needs. His disappointment seemed a little patronizing (paraphrasing: "it means a lot to Armstrong"), but maybe he was disappointed for Armstrong because he wouldn't have the honor of ripping the jersey from Armstrong's shoulders? One senses there isn't a lot of love lost between those two.

Through the tour, Eurosport continues their amusing Planet Armstrong spots, still best for their silly animations. For all of their promotion of the spots on TV, however, Eurosport does a horrendous job of making the short videos easily accessible on their website. But if you understand French, you can find the translated versions here. Heaven help you if you try to find them in their original English format.

And in case you think Armstrong's got an easy ride with his celebrity, check out the chaos in the background of this interview. Is there a single second where somebody isn't yelling in the background to get his attention?

That's exactly why I've never bothered to ride the Tour...

En anglais

This year's Tour de France starts next Saturday in Monaco, and the betting world is expecting Astana to claim the final yellow jersey with Alberto Contador, with Lance Armstrong currently running second favorite in his bid for his 8th Tour win.

Maybe even more noteworthy as a Tour factoid than a potential 8th Tour win for Mr. Armstrong, though, is the team that Garmin-Slipstream is bringing to the party. A read down Garmin's Tour roster reveals 4 riders from the US, 2 from Great Britain, and 1 each from Ireland, New Zealand, and Canada. Which means that for the first time in a long time (did 7-Eleven or Motorola ever bring an all-anglophone squad?) and maybe since 1968, when the UK fielded a team in the last year the Tour was ridden by national teams, a team composed entirely of native anglophones will contest the Tour.

Their native language doesn't impart any value to their riding or worth as people, of course, and one could certainly argue that there are non-native speakers in the peloton who are more articulate in English than many of the native anglophones, but it's just interesting that, after a long run of American dominance at the Tour with US Postal/Discovery and with maybe the single most dominant team this year being the US-based team Columbia, this is a modern-era first.

You want grits with your Dauphiné Libéré?

With the finish last Sunday of the Dauphiné Libéré, a last 8-day dress rehearsal for the Tour de France for many participants, it looks like there'll be no more TV coverage of the pro cycling season at our apartment until the Tour starts on July 4. Quel dommage.

The Dauphiné was fun to watch, with a preview of the form of some self-proclaimed Tour contenders (eg, Cadel Evans and Alberto Contador) in the time trial, an exclusive view of the strengths of probable Tour persona non grata Alejandro Valverde (for suspected doping offenses), and yet another review of Evans' questionable judgement in matters tactical (allowing Alejandro Valverde to escape unchallenged on the Mont Ventoux, instead obsessively defending every attack by non-threat Jacob Fuglsang and looking to others to help reel in Valverde). As at the Giro, where Danilo Di Luca made every conceivable effort to attack eventual winner Denis Menchov after the time trial, Evans was anything but passive after yielding the leader's jersey to Valverde on the Ventoux. In fact, Evans was persistent and irksome enough to Valverde that Contador, whose mantra at the race was that he was only there as a spectator, pitched in a number of times to neutralize his attacks. And with just 16 seconds separating Valverde and Evans, the suspense ran right to the end. As Eurosport's French commentator Jackie Durand says frequently to commend a good finish, chapeau!

I don't expect the same close race among those protagonists at the Tour-- Contador never looked the least bit bothered on any of the climbs or by any of Evans' attacks, and he didn't cede nearly enough time in the time trial to Evans to make the July race between those 2 interesting. Hopefully something/somebody else will bring the spark.

As American amateur bike racers, I think we had a typical misconception about the place of bike racing, and more generally energetic cycling, in France. Aside from the peak of Armstrong Fever, it's probably fair to say that the core of bike race fans in the US is the extended bike racing community itself. Which is a pretty small group. On our limited TV coverage of bike racing in the US, though, we see the huge crowds that line the courses at races like the Tour and Paris-Roubaix. We see pictures of thousands of amateur riders doing the etape, a mountain stage of the Tour ridden on the 2nd rest day, and lots of ads for bike tour companies in the back of cycling magazines telling us how big a part of the culture cycling is in France. And so we assume that France is some kind of cycling utopia, a place where the beauty and nobility of the sport is still cherished by The People, even if not always honored by racers.

And the public is definitely more aware of cycling on several different levels here than in the States. Even the most nattily dressed commute on the city-owned and -maintained Vélib' bikes in Paris. The bike-circuit at Longchamp and the roads of the Chevreuse are lousy with gray-haired fellows on 1980s and 1990s race bikes who ride echelons more intuitively than most US racers ride pacelines. A friend of ours even watched a recumbent bike time trial, complete with standing start, at the velodrome in Bois de Vincennes (though he was the only spectator there). And obviously, with a number of French companies sponsoring pro teams, there must be enough people interested to merit considering the outlay of cash required.

But the notion that it's a national pastime, or even a dignified sport, here is misguided. Professional cycling in France is probably closest to the equivalent of NASCAR at home. Falling well behind football/soccer, and even considerably behind motor sports (which are huge here: superbike is ubiquitous on TV, and there's an array of car race classes too subtle in their differences for me to distinguish), it's more mainstream than in the States, but it's definitely a little red-necky. I think that would come as a surprise to most cyclists in America, where cycling probably has more socioeconomic overlap with golf than, say, pro wrestling.

But the red-neck association is especially true in Paris, where engaging in strenuous exercise of any kind is viewed with a whiff of aristocratic disdain. As a friend who has lived here nearly 20 years observed, sports are unifiers in the US and dividers in France (or at least Paris). In the States, Sunday's game is the subject of discussion at the water cooler for everybody from custodian to CEO. In France, with the exception perhaps of the French Open tennis tournament and the exploits of the National football team late in the World Cup tournament, those with aspirations to class (and in Paris, that's a lot of people) would avoid such banal conversation.

Suits me just fine. I'm breakin' out my "I'm with stupid" sleeveless T-shirt, gettin' a mullet haircut, and settin' a broken washer out on the balcony, jes nexta the still. We got 17 days 'til the prologue, an' I's fixin' to be ready fer it.

A Good Giro

With just the final time trial left ahead, this year's Giro d'Italia has probably already been decided, with Denis Menchov holding a 20-second lead over Danilo Di Luca and more than a minute and a half on his next closest competitor. And while that doesn't leave a lot of drama for the 14.4-km time trial around the sites of Rome, I think this year's edition of the Giro has been one of the more (positively) memorable Grand Tours in recent history.

The 3-week stage races have too often been characterized by passive riding by the self-proclaimed contenders. Afraid to risk the very real spoils of their top-10 placings, there has been a lot of sitting in over the years, particularly when Mr Armstrong had a stranglehold on the Tour de France.

But this year's Giro was full of aggression and risk-taking. After losing the pink jersey to Menchov in the exciting time trial, Di Luca repeatedly and ferociously attacked Menchov on just about every climb. Stefano Garzelli, Ivan Basso, Carlos Sastre, and Franco Pellizotti, 4 of the next 5 places on the general classification (Mr Armstrong's teammate, Levi Leipheimer, is the 5th), have all taken their shots at moving up, sometimes succeeding in gaining time or the stage win, and sometimes cracking. Whatever the consequences for their compensation, it has made for exciting racing.

Hopefully we'll see that carry over to the Tour and the Vuelta.

Ridin' It Old School

As anybody who follows pro cycling knows, the Giro d'Italia ("Italy's Tour de France," for those who don't care anything for cycling, or just want to piss off the Italians) is roughly half-way through its 3-week run. We've already seen a team time trial, several days in the mountains, and though much of the world is watching just to see Lance Armstrong return to Grand Tour racing, Mr. Armstrong isn't really in this thing to win it, whereas the American team Columbia-Highroad has won an amazing 5 of 12 stages (a win in the team time trial, 2 by their young gun sprinter Mark Cavendish, and wins by 2 other riders).

Today's stage was an individual time trial (TT). Breathlessly called the "race of truth" by anglophone announcers around the world, riders in a TT cover a set course, alone, at intervals of 30-sec to several minutes-- drafting is forbidden, so no teammates (or adversaries) to shelter you, encourage you, or drag you to the last climb where you can show off your awesome power. It's just you going as hard as you can for anywhere from 25 min to an hour and a half, depending on the length.

Used to be that TTs were ridden on regular bikes, but since the 1989 Tour de France, when Greg Lemond won the final TT (and by just 8 seconds, the whole Tour shootin' match) using aero extensions on his handlebars, the individual TT has become one of the techiest events in cycling. Whereas climbing well is about power-to-weight ratios, TTing, where the rider faces the full brunt of air resistance at quite high speeds, is about power-to-drag. And so bikes, helmets, wheels, rider positions, and even clothing have all been optimized for this event to reduce wind resistance. As such, the races are quite the visual spectacle, something you might expect to see in a 1950s science fiction movie. The governing body of professional cycling, the UCI, is generally suspicious of technology and has issued rules that limit how aero the bike can be. Like any game of cat and mouse, the bike manufacturers constantly look for loopholes and work-arounds, to give their riders whatever small advantage they can, and to differentiate their bikes for marketing purposes.

TT stud Fabian Cancellara in full regalia

Now, I likes me a TT. Of all of the cycling disciplines, it's the event I'm relatively best at, because it rewards ability to pace onself, flexibility (to get into a low, wind-cheating position), attention to detail, and the ability to motivate yourself (and not get bored) without external input. So I always overperform in flat TTs (where position trumps power) relative to my raw strength/power.

But this flatland-TT-lover was totally grooving on the Giro TT today. It was brutally long, at 60.6 km, which on paper seemed to offer the potential for huge gains in overall time by the TT specialists. Indeed, Mr Armstrong had asserted that teammate Levi Leipheimer would be in the leader's pink jersey at the end of the day. But it was also very technical, with a lot of high-speed twisty corners, and had a lot of elevation changes, notably 2 substantial climbs (with substantial descents after them). It was roughly 90 minutes of full-on pain over a diverse terrain.

As such, the prominence of the equipment was downplayed. The funny thing about TT bikes is that while they're really good at going fast, they're only really good when going in roughly a straight line-- they're definitely not the bike you want to be on for an 80 kph winding descent. They're also relatively heavy thanks to the large airfoil-shaped tubes and deep-section rims. As such, equipment choices were all over the board: full Spaceman aero kit, road bikes fitted with aero extensions (with or without aero helmet), or full man-style, with no special aero equipment at all (except the skinsuit-- gotta wear the skinsuit). The stage was won by Denis Menchov, who would never be called a TT specialist, and the time gains predicted for specialists like team Astana's Levi Leipheimer didn't quite materialize. It was a great stage.

If the UCI really wants to limit the influence of technology on racing, it should encourage (not mandate, for once, please) courses like today's. The riders' all-around skill sets were definitely on display.

Strasbourg

Easter is a Big Deal in France. Friday and Monday are holidays for a lot of people, and the weekend is traditionally spent with one's family, not unlike Thanksgiving in the US. Since Karen had a 4-day weekend, we took the opportunity to do our first traveling in France. Marseille, Bordeaux, and Brittany were all options, but we took the TGV to Strasbourg for no better reasons than 1. neither of us had ever been there, 2. it seemed unlikely we'd travel much there for other reasons, and 3. it was big enough that we figured things should be open over the weekend.

Turns out we could have added a 4th reason: Strasbourg had the best weather in France that weekend, according to the reports from Karen's colleagues on Tues. Low 70s and sunny during the day, upper 40s at night.

Strasbourg is in Alsace, just a few miles from the German border, and the region has changed hands a number of times in its history. German influence in architecture, food, wine, and language are abundant, and the German tourists, prolific travelers with endless vacation if their numbers wherever we happen to be in Europe at any given time are any indication, were in town in droves last weekend.

The city retains its international flavor today not only through tourism but as the site of the EU parliament and other official EU bodies. One can apparently watch the proceedings if it's not Easter weekend.

We had a nice weekend, staying a short distance away from the incredible cathedral. Once you've been in Europe a while, you start thinking that if you see one more gothic cathedral, you'll puke. But the one is Strasbourg is so huge (it was the tallest building in the world through the late 19th century) yet so delicate -- the stone carvings are ethereal -- that you can't help but be taken with it. Oh, OK then, just one more...

The old city is on an island in the Ill, where crooked streets of half-timber buildings meander and empty into large Platzs. Sitting along the river in the sun drinking a carafe of Riesling or Gewürztraminer or Pinot Gris from the local wineries (Alsace is one of the great wine producing regions of the world) or maybe a beer (that German influence), maybe eating a flammekueche (or tarte flambé in the french lingo, a flatbread spread with a little fromage blanc, some thinly sliced onion and some lardons-- done right, a wonderfully light and delicious treat) just out of the wood-fired oven, pretty good life. So that's what we did.

Flammekueche with the ubiquitous green pottery wine carafe

French buildings pretending to be German. Or is it German buildings pretending to be French?

The Ill
Malty gnomy goodness: Belgian La Choufe beers (sacre bleu!) on tap in Alsace

This way to heaven: above the main door to the cathedral

On Saturday, we rented a car and checked out the area to the west, in the hills above the river. It was the first time I've driven in nearly 2 months and my first driving in France, and Karen's first navigating in France. It was wonderful and awful at the same time. Wonderful because the small forested roads in the hills were beautiful, still snow-lined, and almost empty of vehicles (and we didn't get hopelessly lost or broadsided or anything), awful because they were perfect for bikes, and everybody else we saw obviously knew this and was on 2 wheels. Next time. We drove through some small towns, all decked out for Easter, including special Easter cakes and pastries (in the shapes of lambs in repose). Bustling with locals and tourists in the morning, these small towns were completely shut down by afternoon; in contrast to Strasbourg, where the city stayed open for tourists, these towns still did traditional Easter.

Ruins in the countryside
Watchful gargoyle in Rosheim

Dropping out of the hills after lunch, we saw two trucks pulling trailers of 25+ mountain bikes (in France, velo tout terrain, or VTT) up the road. Tourist group? They seemed pretty heavy-duty for that. Then we started seeing tape, and finally cars everywhere with riders in full body armor-- we'd stumbled onto a gravity race. Actually, we'd stumbled onto the course recon for the downhill race the following day.

Judging by the posted start times, there were several hundred riders there in 3 different skill levels and multiple age and gender classes. Each rider was allotted 5 recons of the course, so we went to watch some of it, following the course and the whooping riders from the bottom up through the steeps. There were a few sections I'd be willing to ride, but there was a lot of heinous steep chute-and-drop stuff. Hearing the equipment absorb the big hits made it really obvious why the rigs are different from the cross-country bikes. I've heard plenty of free-riders brag about racing cross-country on their heavy gravity bikes, but it would take real balls (and then a lot of cash for the medical bills) to take a 21-lb climbing bike down one of these runs.

One page of about 15 of the start list

The sound track could have been anywhere-- Nirvana, The Sex Pistols, AC/DC. I figured that standing around watching, I'd at least learn the French equivalents for dude, or gnarly, or sick, but I didn't hear any words over and over again from the spectators. Maybe the French VTTers have bigger vocabularies than their US counterparts-- I didn't smell cannabis. Or maybe they just grunt. My French isn't good enough to tell.

The course finished with a wicked combination of a stupid-steep and rocky chute (most riders took the longer, slightly saner alternative route around it) into a high-speed whoopity-doo that dropped through a twisty rocky chute into a big drop, before leveling off into some high-speed/small air combinations.

Good to the last drop

The entry to the last drop

Why would somebody think to try this? I'll stick to the teeter-totters.

We did Easter mass in the cathedral on Sunday morning, where a chamber orchestra, a choir, and several soloists were performing pieces of a Haydn mass. The music was soaring, especially in that setting, though the mass was split up and interspersed with hollywoody organ arrangements. More wandering through the city, and we finished off the wekend with a very good dinner (perfectly cooked and tender magret of duck in a deeply spiced sauce, veal and mushroom kebabs, and for the 2nd time in 2 months (the other at Dovetail in NYC) foie gras ice cream-- this time paired with a ginger-tinted caramel that had the sweet-pungent punch that evoked chestnut honey: now that's heavenly).

Can't wait for the next trip.