Field Report 17:
Tour de France - July 19, 1999

By Jeff Bell
 

Hi folks! Cybercafes are not as easy to find in parts of Europe as in South America, Australia and the South Pacific! I've been dying to send reports but have been out of luck!

The past month I've:

• Trained for a couple weeks in comfy, but grey sky territory of Luxembourg. (I'd look at those blue round "no parking" signs with the red slash through them and think "no blue sky".) Beautiful, typical European farming towns and Manet-esque summer fields, and the contrasts of nearby Germany, Belgium and France to get quick culture comparisons going.
• Drove north through Denmark then by ferry to Fiordlands of Norway and was blown away by the great amount of rugged, stunning fiordland and the great distances. Then fly North, way North to Tromso, well above the Artic Circle where the sun never set. A stunning place, and very hip, considering it's distance from...well, everything. I never realized how much I cherised nighttime. I was so glad to see it turn dark when I got back.
• Drove way too much, all the way down to Italy, for a scheduled boat trip in that giant pond, the Med. Believe me, lots of sailors have lost their lives out there, we pounded through some force 7 winds and sat safely in port during an even windier day. Confirmed that Italy is in fact the best place of all. The Italians would agree.
• Drove more again. Back to France to follow the Tour de France. Rode my bike along with some American hammerheads. Not to mention the American hammerheads winning the race. Statistically speaking, the Tour de France would have to be one of the most difficult sporting events to win. Lot of people can ride a bike. Not many can ride over 30mph for over an hour on a hilly, windy course.
• The Galapagos story and the tale of what comes next is going have to be a different email, these are central stories to this year's travels, but ... I'm not sure I've got it all summarized, digested yet in my head. I look forward to telling these stories. Meanwhile I'm parked in one of my favorite places, warm night summer Paris. It's July and the end of the year of travel is near, not yet though.

Unless you're a bike nut or got a lot of time on your hands, you may wanna stop reading here. I sent this to my bike club. On the other hand, this real life story, the story of Lance Armstrong and USPS is one of the most moving stories I know. At least to me.

About two years ago, Lance Armstrong, a Texan, married, at 25 years old or thereabouts, was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He appeared to be a candidate for the best American rider to come along since Greg LeMond. How good was he, this would be champion? Just how good was he, and would he beat the cancer, much less return a stronger rider? Would this be a tragic story, an eternal question mark—a man that might have been the world's greatest rider of his day, but was cut down early on?

Here's my (long winded) report of my observations of the Tour de France, having had the fortune of witnessing four stages roadside beginning with the stage before the Metz time trial and ending with the Alpe d'Huez stage.

I have to say that the story of the US Postal Service team's accomplishments and Lance Armstrong's life story has been one of the most moving, inspirational good stories in memory. I've felt moved often. Here's some of what I saw:

First Day

The long stage ending in a sprint finish where Cippo took it. I watched from a town a couple of hours from the finish. The streets are blocked off hours before the riders come through, the wait must have been 2-3 hours. Near the expected time, the crowd at one point became incredibly quiet. Butterflies were in my stomach, the anticipation was incredible. As it turned out, the riders were still far away, the approaching helicopter eventually signalled their approach. A single breakaway rider came through, followed a minute later by Jackie Durand, a Frenchman, who swerved wildly a couple of times, perhaps out of a state of tiredness. Frankie Andreau wrote in his on-line diary that Jackie got his award for the dumbest rider, always in failed breakaways. But I think I know the motivation. Every day the French paper, L'Equipe, puts a picture of the one French rider that did anything of note front page. Jackie, pirate headband and all (they sell these things in bike stores, made out of what looks like a piece of team jersey material), was pictured in all his glory. His sponsor, the Casino supermarket chain, must love him. The riders were caught 4km from the finish. The peleton hates these guys, because they just make them work hard to catch them.

Time Trial Day

Spent all day watching the time trial which started at 10:30 and finished at 5:00. The most striking thing of all was what I saw in the face of two American riders: Lance Armstrong and Bobby Julich. I must have seen two dozen riders sign in, warm up, and then take off. If I hadn't known who was who, I would have guessed the winner. All the riders but one had serious faces on. Lance on the other hand appeared as if out of nowhere with excitement written on his face. And when he could repress it no longer, he flashed an involutary smile that went ear to ear, I thought perhaps the camaras caught it too. The face of a champion who nearly lost his life to cancer and whose day had arrived for him to prove that it was in fact a world champion that was nearly cut down, who lived to show the world a great story. When Lance's halfway split came on the big screen, 1:40 ahead of Zulle's time, a gasp went up from the mostly French crowd, and then cheers. When the rider's come in, the fans bang the sides of the wooden barriers to a deafening roar and I was told that Lance's reception was the loudest, and that he went by in the sort of blur you'd expect from a rider going somewhere around 30-35mph. His AVERAGE speed on that hilly, windy course was 49kph, over 30mph.

Bobby Julich was the second most striking face in the peleton. I can't describe what his face evokes, but the only analogy I could think of is the face of an owl in mass of other winged creatures. He had a few days of dark growth on his face and some sort of large clear glasses attached to his aero helmet which he peered out from under. His face evoked a silent, but powerful prescence. The news I heard from people who could read the papers was that Julich rode the course with total abandon and found himself saying to himself on one downhill turn, "I'm going too fast, I not going to be able to stay on the road." And his wheel drifted outside the pavement at 90kph and down he went. It was a real shock to a lot of people, including the French fans who talked of Julich as one of their own, one of their hopes, a rider free of controversy. The rumor I heard is that Julich wants to go back to riding on the USPS next year, to be back with the other Americans.

(Incidently, it was a bit humorous to learn that of the team sponsors, Casino is a supermarket chain, Polti makes vacuum cleaners. Merckx's famous Molteni [sp?] team was a company that sold fish.)

It was interesting to take note of certain riders:

Eric Zabel. The most applause, a hero's welcome, a deep felt ovation from the crowd. He crashed the day before, got up, and then pulled out of his cleats in the sprint, swerving sickeningly, but keeping the bike up somehow with the two feet on pavement rolling skating move. He had visible road rash on his face and knee. Frankie Andreau's diary says that Zabel got pebbles in his cleats in the crash which caused the pullout.

Virenque. Had the most fans, I remember a little girl, perhaps 10 years old with a polkadot T-shirt she had made, with polka dot flags in her hair and on her sleeves. Virenque arrived relatively late, walked and acted self-consciously, looked incredibly small and less memorable in real life than his photos (his thick book with his mug covering the front page against a yellow background being on sale in bookstore). With hands at his side, he waved once to the crowd with a palm which was down at knee level as he walked.

USPS team members. I yelled out. A crude American fan. Seems the French weren't into applauding all but a few riders. There must have been some French groupies who dug our guys, because they were the only riders which a few French accented girls would yell out for. "Fron-que!" "Ke-von!"

Cippo. The coolest, the most over the top of them all. Big buzz, lots of yelling. Cippo denied the fans nothing, played it confidently, cooly. Faced the audience whenever possible, made the MOST warmup passes back in forth of ALL the riders. Between him and Virenque, they have the extremes of star behavior covered. In person he looked taller and slimmer than I expected. A regular build by all accounts, no big clues except that famous face that this was the greatest sprinter on the planet.

Tom Steels. The counterpart to Cippo. He LOOKED like a candidate for the greatest sprinter on the planet, his legs were absolutely huge. I'd never seen anything like it in a bike rider.

Some Saeco guy rolled past me early in the day out in the crowd. I'll never forget looking down at the spider web of tiny veins in the small bit of thigh muscle visible between his knee and shorts. LeMond describes in his book how lopsided the biker build is, but you have to see some of these guys at this level to appreciate this. Absolute greyhound upperbodies and massive lower body muscles. One guy was on a wind trainer getting warmed up and his back looked like a skeleton, all the ribs and vertebrate exposed, no visible fat or muscle, attrophied arms.

All these guys were trim, but some hardly looked like climbers, and it was interesting later to see some of these big guys climbing strongly on Alpe d'Huez, like the big Italian champ on the Saeco team, who seemed like he belonged as a US football halfback.

That night Lance showed some more of what he is made of. On TV he described how the competition had been considered carefully and he was certain that Zulle was "his most dangerous competition". He went on to say that he was going to focus on Zulle and for the most part not split his energy by worrying about Olano, the World TT champ! His analysis couldn't have been more sharp, carefully considered, or stated more appropriately. It put Zulle, who finished 2nd the following day, on notice that he was a marked man by his team. Had to be tough for Zulle to face such a tough competitor, someone who seemed just a bit stronger in every way than himself. Demoralizing for Olano too. My roommate had a theory that Olano was a 'head case', susceptible to a psych-out.

Col d'Galbier Day

This climb (only part of the climbing on this stage) is evidently the most epic of the climbs in the Alps (not Pyrennes) supposedly contains 6,500 ft. of climbing. My roommate, Dr. Bob (Anderson), a Colorado masters racer who knows or knows of many AV masters, went up it in 2:15. He said he felt a bit "ragged" at the end. It has a false summit about 1,000 ft from the top.

It rained, it hailed, it was brutally cold. And the Postal guys performed in epic fashion. They covered the road four wide early on, and at the end Kevin Livingston was STILL right in front of Lance chasing down the likes of Virenque and every other great climber in the Tour.

The noise was deafening as the leaders went by the switchback I was on. And some guy in a van had the TV coverage on nearby, so I could see the very race I was watching simultaneously on TV. The helicopter noise was loud. There was an air of chaos and danger as cars raced ahead missing fans and other cars by inches. Lance had a look of determination and confidence on his face. Everyone was putting out and you could see rider after rider take glances up the hill, with glance of hoping beyond hope that the end was close.

The peleton was completely shattered. Considering that the large final pack came by 20-30 minutes behind, it was a miracle how many Postal guys managed to stay near the front on that climb. At that point it was clear that Lance had risen to champion level, unequivocally, and he proved it later that day by attacking 10km from the top of the hill finish. The gap he opened up on his two attacks was amazing, hopefully you saw that on ESPN.

Alpe d'Huez

An ESPN camaraman interviewed me on the Galibier—where are you from? vacation? how long have you been there? As a spectator to this drama, this great cycling story, I kept thinking: there must be some way I can help, give encouragement. On my last day I realized that my role was to just witness this great story, to perhaps pass the story along to someone who would enjoy it. An allogorical story of how a great gift, life, can be lost before it has a chance to experience all it's glory, or can nearly be lost but saved, highlighting it's glory all the more.

For the best climbers, Alpe d'Huez, even at the end of a long climbing stage is perhaps a 45 minute climb. Imagine a steeper Highway 9, with sharper switchbacks.

The pitch is steepest in the first km and the km or two which are 3 or 4 from the end. The 21 switchbacks are in fact a blessing or a curse, giving most riders a brief break (they are relatively flat) or a launching pad for those that can recover and attack (such as Pantani would have done). Once again, USPS had a rider, Tyler Hamilton this time right in front of Lance were I was stationed a couple switchbacks up the road. It was hot out, tough conditions, and the USPS was doing an incredible job! Lance himself looked determined, but like he had more bandwidth left than the competition. My guess is that he played it smart, didn't try to win the stage. But had he not had the yellow jersey, Lance Armstrong's name would be up there on the hill next year. Each turn has a name of previous Alpe d'Huez TdF stage winners.

The one thing I will remember is the face of the Banesto rider one minute off the front on the climb. Total pain in his face. I was sure he'd be swallowed up, but just how long would he be tortured? There was another guy like this 50m behind the trailing pack on the Galbier. He was hanging on for dear life, looking like a critical organ was being removed. If he failed to catch back on, likely his Tour was over, he'd be outside the time limit. One old guy in the crowd ran out and pushed that guy for 50yds uphill. Believe me, it made a difference to his speed, but I still doubt the guy caught back on.

The top 3km prior that morning had been a packed block party and I was surprised to see the lay of the land of the finish. It was potentially a brutal stage sprint finish—small downhill going into 500 meters, flat until 200m, and then pretty generously uphill for all of the last 200m. (The Champs d'Elysses is also not flat, half of it is nicely uphill, making for a nasty, touch crit ending.) That night we saw Bastille Day fireworks in Grenoble. Looking back it seemed to fit the story that was unfolding. Jim O. was interviewed in the paper the next day and the headline was "Lance is unique". Ulrich had been unlucky and Pantani had in effect chosen not to compete, but Jim believed that Pantani would still be two minutes behind Lance if he were there. He described how Lance had come to him after winning that stage after Fabio C. died and saying that he felt the power of two riders. It was a stage evidently Fabio had marked as one he would try to win.

For Lance to even consider such thoughts said a lot about this guy Armstrong. This great story couldn't have all happened to a better guy.
 

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