Dead Elvis Grin

Quoted from my favorite Tour de France Book, "Lance Armstrong's War" by Daniel Coyle.

"In the winter of 2004, hope was swirling mightily in the misty air. Armstrong's rivals might have been different nationalities, riding for different teams, but the hope moving inside them was identical, a kind of quickening that could be summed up by a single image that glowed in each of their minds: the Dead Elvis Grin.

The Dead Elvis Grin is a term coined by a German jouralist, which refers to Armstrong's facial expression when he's pushed to the edge, when he can go no harder. In bike racing, as in poker, looking cool and impervious is the same as being cool and impervious. Racers thus spend a lot of time studying one another for what card players refer to as tells: the imminent signs of cracking, the moments of supreme vulnerablility, when one good push can decide a race. Some tells are so obvious as to be regarded as amateurish: the pleading downward glance at the legs, the death-grip on the handlebars. But since champions don't exceed their limits as much or as often, their tells tend to be more subtle, and gaining knowledge of them is akin to cracking the entry code to a bank door; it doesn't get you the cash, but it gets you inside the building.

For Fausto Coppi, the two-time Tour champion, it was a vein behind his right knee, which bulged prominently (his rivals would assign teammates to shadow Coppi, shouting a predetermined code word when the vein appeared). For three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond, it was a pattern of sitting and standing, combined with the distinctive way he rocked his shoulders. Eyes tend to be a giveaway, the soft tissue reddening and puffing. Cyclists were among the first sportsmen to take to wearing sunglasses during competition- not to help them see out, but to prevent others from seeing in.

When it came to concealing his tell, Miguel Indurain was the modern era's king, so much so that when he cracked on Les Arcs in 1996 while trying for his sixth Tour victory, none of his rivals would comprehend what had happened. They looked around, half panicked- where's Mig? Had he fallen? The knowledge gradually dawned: Indurain had indeed fallen, in the largest sense. Later, explanations abounded: he was too heavy, he'd overtrained, he had forgotten to eat, but the bottom line was that he'd cracked right next to them, and he'd done it so beautifully that nobody had noticed. It was the perfect cyclist's demise: five and a half years of impermeable stoicism followed by a few seconds of collapse, the sphynx crumbling into dust.

Armstrong had been Indurain's worthy successor, often ascending the steepest climbs with such seeming ease as to make the mere opening of his mouth worthy of note. His full-blown crack had not been sighted in years, not since a day on the Col de Joux-Plane in the 2000 Tour when the mercurial Italian, 1998 Tour de France champion Marco Pantani, famously put him over the edge by charging off 130 kilometers from the finish of a particularly hard six-climb day, forcing Armstrong to chase, and ultimately to suffer what he'd called "my hardest day on a bike."

All that changed at the 2003 Tour, as the peloton had a front-row seat for a new show- Armstrong's almost-crack. It was unveiled on stage 8 to Alpe d'Huez, exhibited vividly during the stage 12 time trial in Gaillac, and continued on the folowing stage to Plateau de Bonascre. It was a little different every time, but it usually began with Armstrong changing positions on his bike- standing, sitting, standing again, rooting around for more power. Then he would lean forward on the handlebars, throwing his body weight into the pedals, his head tipping forward and his eyes peering out of the tops of their sockets, as if he were resisting an invisible hand pushing his head down. His face would turn red, then ashen. The furrows in his forehead would deepen, and his eyes would fix, and as they did, his upper lip would slowly rise up over his front teeth, a half-snarl, half-smile that resembled a...Dead Elvis Grin! Bingo!

But through the winter, few spoke openly of Armstong's vulnerability, not Ulrich, not Mayo, and certainly not the ever-polite Hamilton. Why should they? Everybody knew that Armstrong used detraction as fuel, reading every article, remembering every quote. Why not just let the forces in play- fate, fame, age, scandal- do their silent work?"

Thank you! Fantastic!

When riding hard, I like to model my facial features after Eki. As someone (probably Bruyneel) says in that book: "Eki always looks like sh*t."

(Having met him twice in person, I can say that when not suffering he looks not like sh*t, but stunning! Sigh! :o )

lol I don't just make a faced, I sing a song!!! My partner and I sing the vonage tune when it gets really tough (you know it who who whowhowho)!!! Yes a dead give away but it makes us laugh and we pull through!

That's an awesome article. Veins at the back of the knees, eh?

Ever since I sunburned the inside of my lower lip to a poufy blistered ouchie, I've retrained my face to an almost dimpled grin (smile aimed back instead of up so it takes more muscle which relieves the stress better, and exposes less soft inside-of-the-mouth tissue as well as a little less donkey-teeth and horse-gums). The windier or colder it is, the more of my face is included (you can smile with your eyes like that too, so a squint looks happy almost). So people see me riding on a nasty day and think I'm ferociously happy (okay, usually I am, my endorphin producers work really well).
I think it's had a significant change in how the world perceives me and if I'm feeling Californian, maybe it changes the karma of the world. I get smiles and waves (even half an hour ago when I was just getting my hot water for tea in the campus cafeteria) when I don't even think I'm greeting somebody.
And when you have to ride hard because you have a cooler and a blender and 10 pounds of ice and 10 pounds of ingredients on your bike and you're tooling along with the MOnday riders, they *really* think you're a partie animal! (They charged off to Philo... couple of us tooled along and tootled back and arrived almost the same time and amazed 'em all with our sweet concoctions. Like, bicycle lifestyle, DUDES!)