Armstrong Est Tomble'

I've always been a sports fan. I've been lucky enough to personally witness a few iconic sporting events. In my younger years I played and followed baseball. In high school, it was basketball, but I never attended any significant games. I like football on TV, but rarely even go to a live event. My current favorite live and TV sport is professional bicycle racing. In 1984 when American Greg Lemond was competing in the Tour de France, delayed TV coverage was first carried in the States. Since then, I have followed the Tour closely on TV, and have gone over to France to follow it five separate years. In 2003 I was able to watch Lance Armstrong win his closest Tour de France victory. One particular day was the greatest ever.

 In 1955 our family traveled from Memphis to Chicago to visit my grandfather. My dad took my brother Joe and me to old Comisky Park to see the White Sox  host Ted Williams, the greatest hitter ever, and his Red Sox team. My brother was fan prodigy and knew both line ups well. He was a huge White Sox fan because there were no teams close to Memphis and Chicago was home town to many of our Sicilian relatives. On the other hand, I was a goofball with no vested interest in the game's outcome. Not yet seduced by the passions of tribalism, I had no understanding of the home team concept. I was there for the spectacle.

Over the 80 years where old Comisky park stood, less than 10 players have hit a home run completely over the top of the upper deck and into the streets. That day Williams did it twice, once foul and then fair, the latter a three run shot that was the difference of the game, Boston winning 9 to 7. My brother was distraught over the outcome. I was just stunned by the William's hits. I was too young to understand parabolic trajectory. All I knew was ball appeared to be still rising when it left Comisky Park. I pondered how far it must have gone, my grandfather's house? St. Louis? Memphis?

In 1992 I was in Atlanta. Fulton County Stadium to see Otis Nixon make his fabulous running up the wall catch to save a home run and keep the game going.  The Braves went on to beat the Pirates by one run that night. Weeks later they met the Pirates in the best of 7 National League Playoffs. I attended game 7 when " The Miracle in the Ninth" occurred. The Braves were down 2 to 0 coming in for their last at bat of the season. They managed to score 1 run and with 2 outs, Francesco Cabrera hit a single to left field with the bases loaded. David Justice trotted home from third to tie the game. Sid Bream, the slowest man in Major League baseball, was the on second base. He made it to third looking OK, but the Pirates third baseman must have put a car battery down his pants, because the wheels started coming off as Sid headed home. Barry Bonds, the Pirates left fielder, had the worst arm in  major league baseball. A play at the plate is always sensational, especially if it ends a game. This one would end the season. He was called safe. The play was so close I still can't really tell if he was out or safe, despite the many times I've watched it replayed on TV.

In 2012 is somewhat uncool to say you are an avid pro cycling fan.  The sport has been tainted by the drug scandals and many amateur racers like to whine how much better they would be, perhaps equal to the pros, if they partook. Though never testing positive, as Lance Armstrong likes to say "despite being the most tested athlete of all time", many feel he had more than taken advice from his medical staff.  His American predecessor Greg Lemond was a household name in Europe through the 1980s but he did not alter the landscape for riding here in the USA. When Lance started wining the Tours in 1999, his story with cancer was very well known, and TV coverage was much more widely distributed. Many in the USA enjoyed watching Lance beat up on everyone else in the world while maintaining the Texas swagger. I personally feel I owe him a huge debt. Lance greatly increased the respect and acceptance we riders now enjoy from the previously not so friendly drivers here in rural Georgia, and I suspect, many other states. Let's face it, we are slowing the cars and usually we are not even commuting, just staying on the road for hours, winding up exactly where we started.

In 2003 Lance Armstrong was attempting to win the tour for the fifth time which would tie the previous greats: Frenchmen Jacque Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, The Spaniard Miguel Indurain, and the greatest ever, the Belgian Eddy Merckx. Seven friends and I flew over to the French Alps and rented 2 cars. We rode many climbs and watched some of the most famous race climbs firsthand. Four of us made our way to the Pyrenees  to see the last few decisive days. Lance was primarily dueling with Jan Ulrich, the German, previous winner of one tour and frequent second place finisher

We were staying in the city of Lourdes (see earlier Blog). Having been in the country over a week and attending many races, we had learned the rules concerning when you can be on the race route, and when the roads were cleared of all traffic, including cyclists. We mapped out a route that would bring us from Lourdes to the Race Course at the bottom of the famous Col du Tourmalet. We would climb and descend it, go through the small town of St. Sauveur and pick out a bar where we would could watch the race live on TV after our ride. We would then ride up to the top of Luz Ardiden, the race finish line, and back down to the selected bar. These last 2 climbs are graded "beyond category". We added all the projected  times, and calculated we could just make it.

Mike, Chris, Eddie and I before the ride

We first had to ride out of Lourdes. Unfortunately we were staying in the very center of the town, at the hotel closest to the famous curative waters.  It took much longer to get out of there than expected. We had to weave in and out of  clusters of various clients making their way to the waters. We saw a group of individuals sharing an identifiable extra chromosome and another group with an identifiable chromosome deletion. Every road had a wheelchair lane, and most of the non-afflicted patrons walked in the streets. This put us behind schedule. We had to change the plan from a warm up to an all out four man pace line to the bottom of the Tourmalet. I hate to ride hard without a warm up. By the time we got there, I was toast.  The plan was to then go at our own pace up to the top, meet there, take a few pictures, and descend together.

We ascended individually and yours truly was immediately bringing up the rear. This was a spectacular ride. The climb is 17 km and last 14km has an average grade of 8.5% . Most of the road was lined with spectators, many who had spent the night, and had nothing to do but drink alcohol and cheer all of us amateurs. There was an estimate of nearly 10,000 cyclists riding the last two climbs before the peleton arrived. I had a religious experience towards the top of the mountain. I literally rode into a cloud, stayed in it a while, then rode out of it. When clear, I could see the peak of the mountain (which helped maintain some hope of getting there) and the large cloud below. We gathered at the top, took a few photos in the first few switch backs. Being behind schedule necessitated a faster than planned descent, that had a similar profile to the ascent. Towards the bottom there were few switch backs, just long winding stretches of near 10% decline. We clocked a maximum speed of 62 mph. We sailed through the small town without slowing. One of us pointed to an acceptable looking bar, the others, like bombardiers over a Japanese ship, quietly nodded they had seen the place.

Me descending the Tourmalet ( note rock in back pocket)

At the base of this last climb we were about 10 minutes behind schedule. Luz Ardiden is a 15 km climb and the last 14 km averages 7.7 %  It was every man for himself.  I was dropped by my friends as if I had a rash during a leprosy epidemic. I had been out of drinking water for a while, hungry and tired..When I reached last few switch backs, I saw the others coming down. I made an immediate 180 at the top without taking any photographs. At 1 km from the bottom I was ordered off the bike by the gendarmes, and had to walk the last part, which was not too bad. We made it to bar, ordered a boat load of crepes, the only food they were serving, and took a spot on the floor, close to a large TV.

The real race was well underway and we watched the peleton climb the col d'Aspen, a category 2 climb in that direction, then descend en mas to the base of the Tourmalet. The impostors were immediately dropped and contenders began to battle it out when they reached the small town of La Monge, about 5 km from the peak  Ulrich, nicknamed the The Kaiser, attacked Armstrong close to the top and this looked to be the definitive winning move. Armstrong, appearing to struggle, managed to bridge the gap just before the peak. The lead group of a dozen riders reformed. Predictably, they went down the mountain like kamikazes, and fortunately, with no mishaps.

We ran out of the bar to cheer the lead group just before they started their last climb to the top of Luz Ardiden. After a turn off the main rode they started up, and I would have to say, with a bit more speed than I did. Armstrong attacked early and brought only Iban Mayo the Spaniard for Euscatel (orange jersey) and Ulrich. After a switch back or so, Armstrong, leading, and perilously close to the adoring crowds, had his handle bars snagged by a fan's souvenir musette bag. He was down in instant, as was Mayo on top of him. French TV and radio were screaming  "Armstrong est tomble', Armstrong est tomble' "  Ulrich was just far enough back to navigate around the pile. This sent us to our feet, as if our rising would get Armstrong off the ground. We were screaming like high school girls at an Elvis concert and likely not making the best impression on our hosts at the bar. 

Armstrong did get up quickly, and while peddling to catch the leaders, had his foot slip out of the peddle. He fell off his saddle, landing with his privates on the top tube. He managed to stay upright and was able to realign himself properly. This sensational move further escalated our delight. The leaders more or less soft peddling, waited for Armstrong, something he had done for Ulrich when the Kaiser was victim to a mishap during a previous Tour. Armstrong caught the leading group, rode with them briefly and attacked again leaving everyone. At this point we were hysterical. The last time I recalled being this excited was when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday to JFK.

Armstrong Down (but not out, photo by l'equippe)

He managed to put almost a minute of time on Ulrich and that was more than enough to insure he would win the Tour, as he did about 3 days later, by his narrowest margin. Our ride back to town was as surreal as the ascent through the clouds. We were in a pack of 9000+  riders. Nearly everyone must have been lodging in the Lourdes direction. Cyclists covered the entire road. We were on a small D road going slightly downhill.  The draft was a jet stream. We were doing 30 miles an hour. At any point, there were cyclists as far as the eye could see in both directions. Most appeared to be as pumped as we were, having been there for one of sport's greatest days. The 30 kms back to Lourdes was absolute best I ever felt on a bike. Having eaten only crepes, however, I totally bonked just before we reached the city. I had to sit on the sidewalk, unable to stand. My friends resuscitated me with a Coke and a baguette. I eventually limped back to our hotel. While they were resting, I snuck over to the curative waters.