From Bianchi to Giro d’Italia: My Love for the Bicycle

 I finally learned to pedal without constantly stopping or crashing, round and round the garage and then on jaunts of a hundred yards down the street—maiden voyages that seemed like I had crossed the country—on a small red Schwinn. A Huffy dirt bike followed with the requisite wheelies and occasional jump down a hill in the yard, then the department store ten speed, facilitating travel to friends’ houses. When I was fourteen, though, and finding limits with my current steed and having discovered a touring event called the Minnesota Ironman when hundreds of cyclists rode past our house on a route of either 62 or 100 miles, I knew I had to do it, too, stated the case for something more substantial and my parents helped me buy my first racing bike.

         It was a Bianchi, that color Bianchi, the dreamy, other-worldly celeste green that was then in fashion and has come back into style of late. It was clean, it smelled of fresh grease, never-ridden rubber tires and a leather saddle, the frame smooth to the touch and bearing the blue stickers which spelled out its brand, so full of vowels, enticingly foreign and suggestive of another land that for decades had worshipped the sport I’d just discovered. I kept it in my room, marveled at it, washed it, adjusted brakes and wondered where it would take me. Sometimes I rode it, too.

         One of the first cycling maxims I learned was that crashing was not so much about the ‘if’ but the ‘when’. It was only a matter of time, I was told. For me it didn’t take long. First came a head on crash with the front grille of some monster of a car driven by a seventeen year old on a rainy day ten miles from home as I was making a left-hand turn. I came to with a ring of people standing around me, couldn’t feel my legs for a few seconds and was taken away to the hospital by ambulance. There was the broken right hand in a crash a couple hundred meters from the end of a road race two years later and a summer of washing dishes and gaining dexterity with my left, some road rash acquired on group rides, one tumble involving a horse who jumped his fence before running alongside the pack and then cut bravely in front of us. He escaped unscathed.

         There was never any question of stopping, of course, of giving up the sport just because maybe, possibly, the next crash would be much worse. We’d even started wearing helmets and I lived in Minnesota, not in the French Alps. The draw of cycling had not too much to do with its apparent danger. Even before the racing aspect began to appeal to me it was the freedom of the bicycle, the travel under my own power, the ability to explore new roads on my own and without a map, the sounds of wind, cranks and gears and the regularity of the pedaling cycle coupled with my breath, the smell of asphalt or rain or freshly cut grass or even, on chilly days, the warmth from underneath vehicles while waiting at stop lights; it was feeling satisfaction of effort and fatigue and it was the discovery of the sport. It was all of this that kept me coming back to my two-wheeled friend.

         I learned that cyclists didn’t stop due to misfortune, however serious. In 1996 there was Lance Armstrong and his testicular cancer (which spread to lungs, abdomen and brain), his surgery and chemo and rehabilitation. Oh yeah, and his subsequent seven Tour de France victories in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. But even before him came the first great American cyclist comeback story, one who wore the maillot jaune in the Tour even before Lance. It was Greg Lemond, he who was shot by his brother-in-law in 1987 (after his 1986 win of the Tour de France) while out turkey hunting, suffered from lead poisoning and carried 37 shotgun pellets embedded in his skin for the rest of his racing career. After struggling with appendicitis and with tendonitis in the knee he made an awesome comeback in 1989 to win the Tour in its final stage, a 25 kilometer time trial in which he had to make up 50 seconds on Laurent Fignon who led him in the overall standings. Leading the equipment revolution in time trialing by using aero helmet and aero bars, Lemond blasted through the course in an average speed of 54.545 km/hr or about 34 miles per hour (a speed difficult for most to achieve even for a few seconds on a downhill—give it a try!) and bested his rival, winning the Tour de France by 8 seconds. A come back within a comeback. Inspiring? And how.       

 

         The man against himself aspect of the time trial and that day Lemond took the Tour with his unfathomable performance probably played a part in my subsequent competitive leanings. I drifted more towards triathlon where decent biking and running (and very average swimming) added up to more competitiveness than in cycling or running alone. It couldn’t be beat for variety, either, and there was always some aspect to get better at. After some years away from the sport I came back to enjoy it in 2003 and raced for four seasons, including a few cycling specific events on a race car track. I even bought a new bike. In 2006 I dug into my savings and purchased special race wheels. I tweaked my training schedule and thought I was finding smart ways to train better and get faster and I did, for awhile. Then, training for the 2007 season, I did too much (a quantity so difficult to determine until after the fact) too soon, didn’t listen to warning signs from my knee, didn’t rest enough, didn’t want to give up, didn’t want to quit, kept hoping the next round of physical therapy and exercises would be the one that would finally cure me, but every time had those hopes dashed with recurring problems from the knee. I haven’t been able to race since.

         When I knew I’d be coming up for sabbatical all sorts of possible destinations came to mind. We finally decided on Italy. Lucca, a city of about 85,000 in Tuscany, would be our new home town for the year. “Why Lucca?” many people here have asked us. Besides many other factors (not too big, not too small, centrally located with good train system, etc.) it seemed to come down to the fact that Lucca itself was flat, the area inside the walls had many reduced traffic zones facilitating walking and cycling, and the town was encircled by a car-free twenty-foot wide four kilometer path. I guess I kind of also had in the back of my mind impossible dreams of riding with Italian cycling squads through the mountains, having coffee at a bar Sunday mornings with the local club before heading out on a three hour ride, but had consciously seemed to have settled on my new world of great-grandfather-like two-wheeled locomotion. Flat terrain, pedestrian speed, close range. Lucca would fit the bill.

         I could still watch cycling, and I was in Europe, and not far from France, so within a couple weeks of our arrival I arranged a brief foray to see the stage of the Tour de France that went through Briançon. This experience in itself deserves a whole blog post, but I’ll just summarize it by saying it was the highlight of the summer even though we only saw the riders in person for a few minutes as they rode through town and up a steep hill.

Then there was the under 23 European Cyclocross Championships right here on and at the base of the walls in Lucca! Mud, running up hills, powerful cycling, flashing colors, broken bikes, determination, courage—all this and more were on display throughout the day's races. 

And finally last week the Giro d’Italia itself. How amazing to be able to walk to the train station, take a thirty minute ride to Montecatini Terme and see the riders arrive after nearly seven hours of racing! 

I even got to stand with hundreds of others post-race, squashed together as Italians do so well, and watch the live taping of an interview about the day’s stage with some of the top riders, including today’s world best sprinter, Mark Cavendish, and one of the world’s best sprinters in the 90s and early 00s,

Cavendish and baby daughter soon after stage 11

Mario ‘The Lion King’ Cipollini (who, it turns out, was born in and still lives in Lucca!) or, ‘Super Mario’ as he was often called—or simply, loudly, followed with a blast of an airhorn, “MARIO!!!” which the crowd called out several times. The next morning I drove, bike in tow, close to the Tyrrenian Coast, parked, and rode a kilometer or two to the town where that day’s stage would start. After admiring the teams’ large and colorful coach busses and their squads’ scores of top of the line bicycles on display and watching kids get autographs from any pro rider who appeared, I started towards the start line, as did the Giro riders themselves. It didn’t feel too bad to get passed by the likes of Ivan Basso or his teammates.

         The morning after our arrival in Italy I had poked around in the basement and, in a dark corner, found two adult bicycles that, given the encrusted dust, cobwebs and animal hair, looked as if they hadn’t been ridden in a few years. After some serious scrubbing they looked like they’d be usable and indeed, after the addition of a kid seat to each, we’ve ridden them every day, whether to bring Niko to and from school (we bought Ingrid her own bike), pick up groceries, ride into town for special events,

or basically for any type of commuting or transportation within a two or three kilometer radius. It’s also true that we were trying to go without a car, and did so for five months, but finally yielded to the pressure of cold and wet weather, difficulty keeping up with the groceries and a desire to explore more than trains or combinations of trains and busses would allow and rented a car for the rest of our stay. I became quietly fascinated by the spectacle of the daily riding world here. How could these Lucchese people manage to talk on a cell phone while weaving in between thick pedestrian traffic and avoid crashing much less putting their foot down? It was a sixth sense, I was sure, so unnatural was it for me to see folks in their seventies and eighties agilely guiding a bicycle through town along with two sacks of groceries and only occasionally ringing their bell to ward off would be blockers of their path, 

a mother in heels headed to daycare then work, so stylish and so smooth in her riding despite a fifteen month old on the tiny seat in front of her and a three year old on the seat behind her, the nonchalance with which scores of riders soldiered on in the rain holding umbrellas overhead. So this bike riding and bike culture was a bit different than what I’d experienced back home but I was getting used to it and at least I was rolling myself—albeit with a bike I could hardly lift with one hand.

         Have you ever had to work hard to convince yourself some less than desirable condition was okay, or even good? As in “yes, whatever it is is not great but quit complaining already?” Like you know you want more somehow, you want it to change but don’t want to admit it because you know you should be happy with how things are and try hard to appreciate what you have, keep hoping that this bad situation will resolve and work actively at trying to change it but it never does, you keep trying to think this way, to convince yourself, but have trouble succeeding? Yes? Let’s have a beer together sometime. I can relate. While my knee permitted me to commute around short distances on the flats, I couldn’t help feeling the excitement and joy of the sport of cycling all around me, noticing cyclists in 

groups meeting for a lunch hour ride, weekend training session, individuals out for a morning spin, every one dressed up in what looked to be professional kits. Back in the States this would make you the fodder of skilled racing cyclists’ jokes, the over the hill weekend rider shaving legs and dressed in the latest and most colorful pro team’s jersey and shorts, complete with matching shoe covers and helmet, but it is a given in Lucca. Here it is all about la bella figura. There actually are quite a few pro teams that train in the area, too, especially from the Netherlands, from what I’ve been told. But mostly those I see are everyday cyclists and they don’t even necessarily race but do dress to the hilt and draw nary a glance in town or in country, so common a sight they are. I am one of those husbands and dads who will almost always remark to his wife and kids, “hey, look at that cyclist/group of cyclists!” the instant they’re visible, so exciting it is for me to see them. Lauren and the children are used to it and gamely put up with me but since the injury I’ve had that surge of excitement pointing them out but it’s been followed by a bit of emptiness and a tinge of resentment and the effort of trying to be happy with what I have (at least I can walk!).

         A guy can only exert self-control for so long, though. I finally threw caution to the wind and talked with Cristiano at the local bike shop. He took my measurements and pieced together a decent used road bike with a compact gear system which would allow me, in theory, to go up hills, however slowly. 

I knew the risks at stake and that my knee hadn’t been doing great, but just couldn’t help it. The depth of the bike culture here and the enticing hills encircling the city were too much for me. So there I was, he of the Bianchi racing bike bought in the States twenty-five years earlier now the proud owner of a Trek bought in Italy (and guess what? the bike shop even bears an English name ‘Fast & Furious’ !)! I still like to think I have some rationality and hopefully bring a bit more wisdom to bear than before, however, so I didn’t immediately (or later, either, in fact) head out on a mountainous multiple hour adventure. Over several months I’ve probably gone out only fifteen to twenty times on rides usually around an hour long. My speed? Well, the readout is in kilometers per hour, so without doing the conversion to mph it looks pretty good! My actual, slower speed really doesn’t bother me much. Although that and getting into the danger zone with longer distances preclude me from group rides the small adventures I’ve had on this bike so far have already made the purchase worth it. I’ve ridden up through olive groves during harvest on switchbacks, explored back country roads barely wide enough for one car, come across small churches several centuries old, descended through small towns at a pace making me thankful for a bike with quality brakes, gotten away from the pollution of the plains and smelled fresh grass, flowers, mud, found the clean air with my eyes, too, making the views of the nearby Alpi Apuane mountains and Alpennine mountains even more stunning.

         If one has never found the deliciousness of the sweet and bitter in competition, if one has never been drawn to it repeatedly and felt extremely alive and challenged at the same time it might be hard to understand why a person would put his body through such struggles as are necessary to find his potential, to find his limits. One of the beauties I found in endurance sports was the opportunity to compete against myself, to overcome perceived obstacles and find ways to improve that didn’t depend so much on how well others performed. But there was the flip side of that where limits were not accepted and improvement gradually became more important than enjoyment and satisfaction with what I had. Watching the Giro riders, all younger than me now, as they prepare for a day’s stage, I realize they no longer appear so much as immortals and superstars as Greg Lemond did to me when I was a teen. I appreciate what they can do, and am still amazed by it, and inspired, but it is somehow different. And yet, watching them race I vicariously feel the thrill of competition. Even as they start a stage, I can read the anticipation on their faces, the determination or joy or nervousness. That day is another opportunity to challenge themselves and push themselves to their limits. Many make the sign of the cross as they head off past the official start line, knowing that they can do their part but that there is always chance out there, too, that there is the unknown, a new day’s adventure to come. They have not yet met their limit, have not yet realized their potential, and the possibility and hope present in them is palpable.

         Inching up Tuscan inclines or cruising down them, rolling steadily across the plains, the dreams of athletic improvement I had most of the first part of my life have been replaced by another vision of transformation that will be equally, if not more challenging. So simple in theory but difficult in practice, it is to get back to what spoke to me initially in the early days of the Bianchi, to in every moment appreciate whatever situation presents itself, to notice more often and savor the strain of muscles as they move, the taste of a drink of cold water, the rich odor of a freshly plowed field, a smoothly spinning chain and cogs, the sight of a little boy pedaling, slightly unbalanced and jerky, away from his Dad who’s let go of the boy’s seat, has stopped jogging after him and let his son ask a few times, “Do you still have me?” letting the question go unanswered, letting him pedal away and set off on the rest of his life, making his own adventure, a whole world to discover.