Dr. Forbush Thinks

A few weeks ago I was invited to join a peloton. Of course I didn’t know what a peloton was, but I was able to infer its meaning from the context of the conversation. The invitation was to ride our bicycles across town and up some incredibly steep road, then stop, and watch as the cyclists from the “Amgen Tour of California” come racing up the hill.

As I have written here several times in the past, I am in much better condition than I was just three years ago. I am aerobically fit, from my daily workouts at the pool and my weekly jogging expeditions. But, my experience on a bicycle is not very recent. About 15 years ago my bicycle was my main transportation to and from work. I road a couple of miles on the bike trails in The Woodlands, Texas. And, I road a couple of miles each way to work in the rains of northern Germany. But the bike riding wasn’t really enough to keep me fit, because I managed to put on a few pounds even with the cycling. I rode, but I never made the trip a challenge, cycling was just another mode of transportation.

Since I hadn’t ridden my bicycle for quite some time I knew that it needed some maintenance. A quick look showed me that my tires were basically rotting on the rims and one of my brake cables was about to break. I bought new tires and inner tubes, but the little piece of brake cable wasn’t a standard part at the “big box” sporting goods store that I visited. The salesman suggested that I visit a “bike shop” to find the piece that I needed.

One might want to reflect on this little incident, if we remember that the “bike shop” is having difficulty competing with the “big box” sporting goods store across town. The “bike shop” is actually a neighborhood sporting goods store that also repairs bicycles in the back of the shop. The “big box” store has only been in town for about a year. I ended up buying the tires and the inner tubes at the “big box” store and then traveled across town to see if the “bike shop” had the piece of cable that I needed. I spent about $20 at the “big box” store, and the bike shop had the small cable piece I needed for $2. They also had the tires and inner tubes, but I had already bought them at the “big box” store. Obviously if other patrons behave the same way that I did it is easy to read the writing on the wall - the “bike shop” really isn’t going to survive. When I realized what I had done I looked around for something else that I might need. And I found a $20 bicycle pump that I thought that I might like to have, and I bought it. But, this was a charity purchase that I didn’t really need to make. Most people don’t even think in those terms, so I began to lament the demise of the “bike shop” before it has happened. We will all loose the ability to find those “little pieces” that the “big box” store won’t keep in inventory because they don’t sell that fast. We’ll end up needing to go online, find these things, and order them “next day” delivery instead.

With all the parts in hand I attacked my bicycle. I tore it apart and then put it back together again. I even used the new bicycle pump to fill the tires. I petitioned my family to go on a bike ride so I could test my handy work. Of course I was greeted with a blank stare questioning my sanity. My wife, feeling guilty, joined me on a short ride of about ten miles. The bicycle seemed to be in working order - ready for the peloton.

My brother-in-law works at a big “bike shop” that actually sells high-end bikes to professional racers. His store sponsors at least one race a year and maybe more. He sent us a professional bike-racing shirt that I thought would be appropriate to wear on this journey across town and into the world of bike racing. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I figured that bike racing wasn’t really as popular as the Super Bowl or the World Series. I figured that we would ride up the hill that was blocked off from automobiles and we would find ourselves alone, as I expected the typical overweight out-of-shape Americans to stay at the bottom of the hill and root from there if they even decided to watch the race at all.

I was slightly surprised when I met up with our peloton and discovered what cycling enthusiasts they were. Two of them had also wore their cycling jerseys. Three of them had very nice bikes, where mine was at least 20 years old with about 20,000 miles on it. At least it had new tires on it.

Well, as we started off I felt at ease knowing that these guys had major cycling experience. They used cycling hand signals to worn us of potential dangers, like cars. They knew how to ride through traffic and signal to the cars. And, I just followed their example. All of my cycling experience was basically on bike trails or in bicycle friendly countries. So, I followed, watched and learned.

We rode for several miles until the hill emerged ahead of us. I anticipated the hill looking forward to testing my ability to climb it with my bike. Of course the riding became slower and my heart pounded harder as we began to climb. And eventually I stopped and walked my bike a short distance up a very steep section. Then I hopped on the bike and pushed ahead a bit more. Then I was completely embarrassed when one of the experts in our group asked me why I didn’t down shift my gears. Well, I had down shifted my rear gears, but I completely forgot to do the same in the front. And, of course that made things much easier.

We rode about 1 mile up this hill and found a sharp turn in the road where we could wait for the professionals to race by. And, to my surprise the crowd had not thinned out on this stretch of the course. People were crowded and they clutched their cowbells. In fact, as we rode by many of the people rang these cowbells “just for fun” as they waited. The crowd was quite large. I imagined that the number of people crowed along this mile up the hill was larger than the number of people that gathered for the last parade that I attended. And, the people seemed to be more excited than the crowd at the last parade that I attended. Many of these people had chalked messages on the road as they waited. “Floyd was Framed, ” “Go Levi,” and “Super Fan” were some of the messages that I remember. But, the road had hundreds of these. I couldn’t imagine that any of the cyclists would even read them, but you never know.

The particular spot where we stopped had a Fox News TV camera set up on a tripod. At the time we had no idea who owned the camera, but later in the evening some footage showed up on the local Fox News affiliate taken from that vantage point. It also helped to have “Super Fan” choose this spot to root for the cyclists.

Super Fan is a guy who wore a big fuzzy wig, a red, white and blue jump suit and a red, white and blue cape. The guy was obviously an attention seeking person possibly with a mental disease. (;-}) And, he managed to get himself on the evening news acting like a loony, so got some of that attention that he was seeking.

We waited for over 30 minutes to see a couple of minutes of bike racing. First we saw a few cars and motorcycles traveling the course 10 to 15 minutes ahead of the cyclists. Apparently they are looking for loonies like “Super Fan” that might decide to disrupt the race. Super Fan got a lot of coverage on the local TV station, but he didn’t have a message. Perhaps if he were protesting something or making another statement the advance cars might figure out a way to detain him before the cyclists were to reach that spot. Behind these advance cars were several units of police, on motorcycles and in cars. These guys yelled at the crowd that walked into the street as we waited for the cyclists. More motorcycles and cars came through until finally the first group of riders came riding through behind a motorcycle that stayed just in front of the leaders.

Well, I certainly appreciated the effort those cyclists made as they pumped their way up that hill after my earlier attempt. It was amazing to me how close those guys hung together as they climbed that hill. The skill they demonstrated to me went beyond the simple ability to power that bike 650 miles across the California landscape. Controlling that bike, in that pack of cyclists pushing up and then racing down the hills, is certainly beyond my ability. Being there and witnessing the actual event is difficult to put into words, simply because so much was happening that made the event and writing about it can only be done by excluding so much.

After just a few minutes the cyclists had passed and we were on our way to the next vantage-point. As it turned out the cyclists went up the hill and around a loop. In about 30 minutes they were due to pass by once again. So, we rode back down the hill to another place to wait for them to come around their loop. And, as we waited it got colder and I began to freeze. One of the guys in our peloton made a break away and decided to ride the five miles from where we were to the finish line. But, I decided to wait instead of ride basically because I had a meeting back at work that I didn’t want to miss.

As we waited the Girl Scouts came by and sold us cookies. As I imagine this phenomena 20 years hence I see businesses exploiting this by selling soft drinks, hot dogs, ice cream and more. Once they identify the “hot spots” where all the people come to wait for the racers fly by the venders will fill in the vacuum.

The ride back afterward was fast. Most of the ride was down hill, except for a short segment uphill and into the wind. Most of the ride was effortless, aside from that little climb that I pushed hard against. But, that little fight just before arriving at my destination brought back memories of those professionals climbing that hill. My struggle made me want to fight harder. But, I wondered how long I could keep up that fight. One quarter of the way up that hill was tough, but the professionals had ¾ of the way more to go up that hill after almost 100 miles of riding. Wow.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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