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May 2, 2004
Tour de Georgia
By Lionel Putz, Esq.
Episode 3: The final chapter
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"Let he who has not eaten sausage and drank beer for the past 20 years cast the first criticism" |
After the hellishly-long Friday I'd spent in the US National Team car after the red eye from L.A. and the drive to and from the race, I was not all that excited about getting back in the car to drive to see the Stage 6 finish atop Brasstown Bald, which I have renamed in LA's honor as simply Brass Ball. This stage was about as far away from Atlanta as humanly possible without starting in South Carolina. I finally got out of bed, cleaned myself up, and got in the car. We stopped at Chik-fil-A. Who in the hell puts pickles on a chicken sandwich? What is wrong with these people? In addition, as a rather "rural" route, there weren't a lot of six-lane freeways leading to the race course. Half the way, we had to contend with the winding two-lane roads I'd encountered on Friday.
Stage 6: Missing the Brass Ball climb
Just as it looked like we'd made it to the final climb just in time, we met up with some locals at the bottom of the climb who told us there were 100 people up the road, but that race had gone up a different fork that wasn't shown on the internet map we were following. As a result, the race was effectively by us already, unless we could get up to the last three miles before the field reached it. We drove up the road as far as we could, trying not to kill anyone.
About a mile up, I started to lose hope. People were walking back the other direction, suggesting the pack had already gone by. We decided to keep going as far up as we could, just to see what was going on.
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Then we hit it. At the top of the fork was this road that almost looked like something out of a strange dream. It had all the appearance of a road, except is was completely vertical. It looked like you'd be driving up the side of a refrigerator, as though your car might tip over backwards if you were stupid enough to try it. It seemed impossible that anyone rode up this way. However, there were people walking down suggesting the impossible had, in fact, occurred. I couldn't imagine how you could keep your front wheel on the ground, much less pedal, unless you were out of the saddle the entire way. Then, I figured, you back wheel would just slide out. Pretty insane.
Looking at that thing, I figured any of the smart teams wouldn't have parked on top of that rock. I figured riders would be coming down eventually and we might see some old friends on their way to the team cars. Sure enough, I look up and see Eki coming down the hill. I call out his name, but he doesn't seem to hear me. Plus, he seems unsure about which way to go at the fork. He goes down the way we came up (although I hadn't seen any team cars in that direction). Next, George Hincapie came down. He also stopped at the fork. I asked him if he'd heard the latest on Craig and he said yes. He looked pretty good considering. He followed Eki down the hill. Moments later, Tony Cruz goes by in the other direction. He's going so fast I don't even have time to call him to tell him Eki and GH went the other way. That bummed me out. First, Tony is from my neighborhood and rode my local Saturday ride all winter as training. Spanked everyone. Second, I was afraid he was going down this monster hill the wrong way.
Then I see THE MAN. Our pride and joy. Mike is hauling down the hill with Damon Kluck. I call out Mike's name. He hears me and looks over. I've never seen Mike look this tired. Although he clearly just wants to get off the bike, he graciously rolls over to me. Then I realize just how tired Mike is, as he asks where the team car is before even saying "hello" to me. I told him about the confusion as to which way to go. (I found out later that George turned around before straying too far, but that Eki had to hitch a ride back up the climb.) Damon looked to have no interest in stopping and I didn't want to keep Mike as he really looked like he needs to get some rest.
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But despite his fatigue, Mike couldn't wait to tell me about the strange encounter he'd had with a band of crazed Mike Creed fans as he was riding up Brass Ball. I didn't see it, but it sounds like it was magnificent insanity. I think we've posted photos of most of the alcoholics Mike met on the way. Apparently, MikeCreed.com has had more impact that either of us realized.
Suddenly, I noticed a crowd was gathering around us. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Then it dawns on me. These people think Mike is somebody important! A guy asks for an autograph! I've never seen this happen to my man before. The only time he's ever asked for an autograph is when he uses his credit card, assuming it's not over the limit. A woman asks him to sign her '03 Postal jersey, not realizing that Mike didn't ride for the team then, although Damon, 10 feet from us, did. It was funny to watch Mike in his tired stupor, reluctantly giving out autographs.
I let Mike go, as he was exhausted, but as he was riding away, he invited my wife and me to the USPS post-race party at the team hotel. He did have the presence of mind not to announce the time and location in front of the now 100 people surrounding us and told me to call him later for details.
Mario makes the scene
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Watching the finish on Friday, I was thinking Mario was actually one hell of a climber. It looked like he was leading the grupetto. Mikey told me Tom Danielson had noticed the same thing about some of the sprinters racing for Fassa Bortolo in Italy. The "sprinters" are pretty damn good climbers. Later, Mike told me people were taking turns pushing Mario all the way up to the top of Brass Ball. Oh, well. Not that good. Cipo may have some trouble fulfilling his promise to JML to finish the TDF, if that's the case. I don't know who plans to push him up the L'Alpe d'Huez ITT.
I think most people have an exaggerated sense of how big most of these guys really are. People think Mario is a giant. He's actually no taller than me, 6'1." Probably weighs under 175 and he's solid muscle. He has big shoulders and a narrow waist and huge thighs. However, compared with somebody like Mike, he is a giant. Mike's probably 5'10" (optimistically) and maybe weights 145 lbs. God, I wish I was young again.
By the way, am I the only one that finds it ironic that Phat Eddy Merckx would criticize ANYONE for being fat? I don't know why Jan Ullrich has to put up with this crap from a guy who's now as big as a team car. As it says in the Bible "Let he who has not eaten sausage and drank beer for the past 20 years cast the first criticism." What's really funny is that when Eddy was racing, he was not that small. He's a tall guy. He was always bigger than his competition.
Anyway, as luck would have it, Mario comes rolling down the hill and climbs off right in front of me. Apparently, DV has rented a camper that looks like something rednecks would take on a fishing trip. Even Mario looked pretty tired. He got in the camper, took a shower, reemerged, put on a nice new Nike t-shirt just slowly enough that my wife could get a good look at his six pack (my wife later had the nerve to comment on what pretty blue eyes he had), and then proceeded to accommodate the autograph requests from the throng. I was wearing my Inter footy jersey, so I thought Mario might catch my eye, but he clearly was in no mood to play and wanted to get back into the camper, turn on the porn, and eat a Snickers bar like a real American.
We ended up driving toward Atlanta with Mario's van in tow. I thought about waiving one of the five jerseys I'd brought hoping to get his autograph, but realized, I'm just too old for this kinda stupid fan stuff. In a different setting, maybe. But I wasn't about to hang out the window and make an ass of myself.
Horner's Dodge Stratus
All the poor teams, or guys who came from Europe and couldn't bring over their team cars, were given a complementary Dodge Stratus. I noticed Chris Horner's white Dodge Stratus passed us as we were driving home. That guy has been bald as long as I've known him, and that's a long time. I waved and he looked to be in pretty good spirits considering there were no fireworks on Brass Ball.
The reality is that for Horner, this was the Tour De France. For LA, this was a warm up lap. For anyone to compare their results in this race is ludicrous. Horner did his thing, but lost 45 second in the ITT. He never made back a single second. LA was never threatened by him or CSC. LA owned this race and he wasn't even trying.
Stage 7: Dawsonville to Alpharetta
By Sunday's stage, the race was effectively over. We decided to pick a couple spots outside of Alpharetta, which we anticipated would be a madhouse. We caught the pack twice on the way in due to some wise course management. At the first stop, guys were going so slowly; I coulda made a break. Mike noticed me and called my name, as I was easy to pick out being the only one stupid enough to be wearing a thermal National Team vest in 90 degree weather with 100% humidity.
Gave the National Team car the appropriate "Jonathan" yell and got the hell out of there. By the next point five miles later, the pace had picked up and USPS has moved to the front to keep LA out of trouble. Mike had his intense face on. JV looked to be napping in the front seat of the National Team car. It's a tough job, so Ben Turner's gotta do it. Frankly, with all the press and frenzy of the week, I suspect my buddy JV was pretty knackered too.
My dinner with Mikey
We made it to the post-Postal party at the hotel just in time. Very VIP. Only about 50 people at the most. Primarily family and friends. Very laid back. The woman who checked us in told us how proud everyone was of Mike and they thought he was going to be the next Lance Armstrong. And this is from someone who has NO reason to kiss my ass. I felt really good for Mike, as it was obvious that the team understood that the rookie had done a stellar job in a tough race. I was very proud of him.
After cocktails and a few hors d'oeuvres, Dan Osipow served as master of ceremonies, calling each rider up to ask a question or two about the race. Everybody looked pretty tired and no one really wanted to say much. Dan thanked Daniel Rincon for all the "wind breaking" he'd done during the race. That got a laugh.
LA was pretty funny. Dan asked LA what he thought of the crowds up in the north Georgia mountains and Lance said "Rome, Dalton, Dahlonega, these are my peeps!" Guess that's why they helicoptered him off of Brass Ball. Dan then asked him what he thought of Brass Ball and LA said I guess the road builders up here said "well, we could do 10 miles of switchbacks. Nah, let's just go straight up." LA also said that they looked at the official course profile every morning and just didn't believe it. Apparently, Mario rode up to LA at one point on Friday and ask him if it was supposed to be like this and Lanny said he wasn't expecting this constant rolling either.
I guess Johan summed it up best: "I guess we need to look for a new sponsor." That is the shame. Tough to break up a party like this one.
Luckily, for us it wasn't entirely over. My wife and I got to hang out with Mike and his girlfriend, Candy Smores. She is as sweet as her name and far too good for Mike. She looks like she can handle him, though. Time seemed to fly and we were having a great time. It does scare me how much Mike and I share the same sense of humor. George and his fiancé were there, as well, so we all hung out for a bit. George is such a nice guy. He was really concerned about Craig Lewis and actually visited him in the hospital two days later. I know that meant a lot to Craig.
Monday, Monday
Getting to the airport Monday morning was not bad, but it was raining pretty hard. Amazingly, we ran into Candy Smores on the rental car return bus heading for the airport. Frighteningly, she had agreed to take not only her own bike back to CO, but Mike's road and TT bikes packed in his USPS bag on her flight. I volunteered to help her with Mike's bikes and tried to lose her in the crowd, but with no luck. We got her to United and said goodbye. On the way to fashionable AirTran, Horner and the Webcor boys went by. I gave Horner three fingers as congratulations and he smiled as we passed by. What a race.
