Beauty and the Bicycle (way long!)

[snapdragen]

From the Washington Post:

Beauty and the Bicycle: The Art of Going the Distance

By Sarah Kaufman

LE GRAND BORNAND, France -- Follow the Tour de France for any amount of time and it becomes clear that this bicycle race is not just a sport and a science -- it is also an art.

Get past the maddening caravan of commercialism -- garish corporate trucks that toss hats, candy, refrigerator magnets, key chains, sausages and sachets of coffee to the 12 million to 15 million fans who line the route. Ignore the company logos on every uniform, car, bus, truck, motorcycle and crowd-control barricade that accompanies the race.

Overlook the fact that the aftermath of a Tour stage is one big rolling traffic jam, a bloated crush of support vehicles, team buses and hundreds of press cars, not to mention those driven by the fans, ferrying thousands of people down narrow mountain roads to inns and cafes in tiny villages that have exploded in population.

At the center of this madness is what the Tour is truly about: a celebration of an exquisitely simple, infinitely refined means of transportation.

The bicycle has undergone myriad improvements but is essentially unchanged since its design was perfected early in the 20th century: two wheels, frame, crank, handlebars, seat. It is a profoundly modern masterpiece, with the aesthetic simplicity of two circles and a triangle. It is both locomotion and, under the power of the Tour riders, a weapon -- a means of attacking and destroying opponents.

It is also delicate. The Tour bikes are a scant 15 pounds, with wheels as thin as your little finger. Their most important parts look improbably delicate: the filament-like spokes, feather-light wheel rims, the rear-wheel cassette tiered like a wedding cake with gleaming sprockets. Put the components together with skill and artistry and you have a machine capable of delivering its rider up precipitous Alpine passes and then sending him down at highway speeds.

The two rest days during the three-week-long Tour are a feast for connoisseurs of bike components. The team mechanics station themselves in the parking lots or on the sidewalks near their hotels, cleaning, polishing, lubing chains and making intricate adjustments to dozens and dozens of the Maseratis of the bike world. Passersby chat with them, admire the bike frames, inspect the cassettes and their layers of teeth, ask pointed questions about torque and stiffness and depth of wheel rims. You'll see people -- men, usually -- park themselves against any nearby wall for an afternoon of ogling.

"The perfect bike -- you can't ride it" in the Tour, says Craig Geater, a New Zealander who has worked as a mechanic for Team CSC for four years. On a rest day earlier this week in the south of France, Geater was in the parking lot of his team's motel in the ancient Roman town of Orange, washing one of the team cars. He had just spent the morning building a new bike, a carbon fiber beauty manufactured by the Canadian firm Cervelo -- but it turned out to be too light for Tour requirements.

The ideal machine, Geater said, would be "as stiff as possible, so when a sprinter gets out of the saddle it doesn't go sideways. But it needs to be comfortable and look nice; and when you pick it up it feels light." He nods at the other mechanic, who has just hoisted a bike off its stand with one hand, as easily as you'd lift a broom.

"A bike at the end of the day is a bike," Geater said nonchalantly. "There are good ones and bad ones. We're lucky that at the level we're at we only work with nice bikes." But the beauty of this race is not entirely about the bike.

There is also the reedy, lithe and attenuated look of the riders in their Spandex shorts. Here, the human form is whittled down to the essential, to exactly what is needed to speed the bike and nothing more. That means powerful thighs and bulging calves, and above them strong back acting as a fulcrum against which the leg muscles can push. Everything else -- arms, shoulders, waist, hairstyle -- is as trim and light as possible to ease the sprints and the struggle up the mountains.

Man and machine are an inseparable match, a yin and yang of form geared to function. Bike and rider combine to create a unit of incomparable force, agility and grace. This is apparent off the race course as well. Each morning a horde of fans and journalists clusters around the team buses as the riders emerge to line up at the start. Watching the cyclists swing a leg over their bikes and effortlessly navigate the gaps between autograph-seeking children and TV cameramen and mechanics' cars jockeying for position is like watching fish darting through a coral reef.

On the road, you see a multitude of riding styles. There are cyclists who thrash their way up a hill, rising out of the seat with knees splayed, the bike swaying from side to side nearly as much as it surges forward. Then there is five-time winner Lance Armstrong, who has studied every nuance of form. His upper body hardly ever changes whether he's standing on his pedals or not. As his feet pump out his trademark quick and tick-tock cadence, his shoulders and back are rigid and square. He is an unswerving, 155-pound Mack truck that surely strikes fear in the heart of any cyclist who glances over his shoulder and catches sight of the advancing Texan.

But no one can top Frenchman Richard Virenque for finesse on wheels. The domineering mountain climber is incomparably smooth on the bike. He glides up the road like a sail in the wind, elegant, not an ounce of wasted effort in his forward rush. An avid downhill skier, he understands the fine transfers of weight used to slip swiftly and efficiently over snow. Shooting down a mountain descent on a bike, he incorporates the same silken sense of flow. You see him swish by and you can imagine the moment set to music.

The peloton, as the main pack of riders is called, is an improvised dance on wheels. The teams start each day with a plan -- send the strongest climber out to the front to lead a chase and tire out the others; cling to the front to set a fast pace and wear out those following. But throughout the day, riders must react to their colleagues' moves with skill and instinct, anticipating hazards and attacks. The best of them thrust and parry with a velvety propulsion married to a chess master's mind for strategy.

The team time trial in the Tour's first week, where entire teams raced one by one against the clock, was an especially artful demonstration of choreography on rubber and road. Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team won that race, their graceful single-file pace line -- where one rider pulls briefly at the front, then swings to the side as his teammate comes to the fore -- serving as a model of well-rehearsed rotation contributing to relentless velocity.

The Tour is a fierce competition where men endeavor to outdistance and demoralize their opponents over hundreds of miles of punishing terrain. But there are moments of solidarity that put a compassionate polish on the cold reality of the contest and demonstrate the beauty of sportsmanship.

Iban Mayo, captain of the Basque region's Euskaltel-Euskadi team and a bantam-weight climber of driving ferocity, was considered a threat to Armstrong's quest for a sixth consecutive victory. But Mayo crashed and lost time early in the race, and during the first climb into the man-eating mountains of the Pyrenees, a series of mechanical problems with his bike left him so hopelessly behind the leaders' infernal pace that he veered over to the side of the road and unclipped his feet from his pedals. Clearly, he meant to quit.

His team car pulled over (were Mayo's managers reminding him about his contract?), as did his teammates, and after a few moments of discussion Mayo got back on the bike. His teammates gave him quick pushes up the rise. When he rejoined the peloton, members of other teams also put their hands on his back, encouraging him, giving him little shoves up the slope that was lined with the notoriously impassioned, orange-clad Basque fans who had come by the busload to cheer their team. Less than a week later, Mayo would abandon the race, but that day the peloton helped him save face.

The peloton has had other opportunities to aid comrades in distress. One steaming day the Quickstep team car pulled up alongside a suffering Thomas Voeckler, a member of another team, and passed him water. Another day, Virenque, who rides for Quickstep, hung back to help Voeckler, a fellow Frenchman who at that time was wearing the leader's yellow jersey. With the veteran Virenque riding in front, easing Voeckler's battle against the wind, the younger rider was able to rejoin the peloton and finish in enough time to hold on to the leader's position for another day. A Tour commentator hailed Virenque that day as a "bon Samaritan."

Talk to the professionals and you'll hear different angles on the aesthetics of biking.

"The art side of me isn't really the biggest," confessed Floyd Landis, Armstrong's stellar Pennsylvanian teammate who a few years ago could be found mountain-biking in the Maryland foothills. "But maybe what's most compelling about it is how everything else disappears and you're completely focused on what's right around you." For the competitors, there is art in concentration, in losing yourself in the moment, in entering the zone. And, for those who have given up the frenetic pro pace, there is satisfaction in now being able to savor what they had always been too busy to notice.

"The beauty of cycling is riding in nature," said Jean-Louis Gauthier, an assistant for the Credit Agricole team. He helps pack the riders' lunch bags and hand out water bottles, following the cyclists in a team car. But 25 years ago he was competing in the Tour de France, riding on the team of Dutch Tour winner Joop Zoetemelk.

It is only now, Gauthier said, that he has been struck by the artfulness of his sport. It's the smell of the countryside that he pedaled through that lingers in his mind, he said. In the villages, it was the fragrances wafting out of pastry shops and bakeries.

"The problem is that there was no time [to appreciate them] in competition," said Gauthier. "Now, as I drive by, I think, 'Ah, yes, that's a beautiful route.' "

[pedalfaster]

Nice!

I see the article was from the Post. It's great to see cycling in the mainstream press.

In the "Lance Gets 6" post there was some discussion about Mr. Armstrong's influence on the popularity of cycling in the US.

On the "not so good front": if one didn't want to read a "spoiler" before one had a chance to watch a Tour stage on one's own, one had to avoid reading mainstream web-news sites such at CNN, NY Times, and Yahoo News. The cycling sites have the decency to "hide" spoilers off of the front page.

On the good side:

Are we (Trek dealers) selling more road bikes? Yes. Heck yes!

I am hoping that this year's Tour Fever is a bit more long-lasting the the Lemond era. I have hope because this time around there are so many other talented US riders scattered throughout the peloton.
Everyone knows who Lance is, but many people now know "Tyler" and "Levi" and "Bobby" and "Floyd" as well.

[snapdragen]

and Ivan, and Thomas, and Richard.........

Originally posted by pedalfaster
Nice!
Everyone knows who Lance is, but many people now know "Tyler" and "Levi" and "Bobby" and "Floyd" as well.

[jobob]

Let's not forget George and Allessandro

Great article, Prof. snapdragen - thanks for posting it.

[jobob]

Are we (Trek dealers) selling more road bikes? Yes. Heck yes!

That is really great to hear!

Just curious, are people interested in buying Treks specifically, or is there an increased interest in road bikes in general?

And how many people have asked you about the gold Trek Lance rode in stage 20? Is it actually going go into production or is it a special one-of-a-kind?

[pedalfaster]

There is an interest in road bikes in general. We are actually selling more road bikes than mountain bikes these days and have already run out of a few of the entry-level models.

The fact that Trek is so well-publicized now definitely helps the brand. People know the name and trust the company.

The road-riding craze reminds me a bit of the running craze in the 70's/80's. Suddenly everyone wants to be a cyclist. I hear more people comment that they "just want to get in shape" or "the doctor told me to loose some weight" and instead of running or walking or going to the gym they think "get a bike".
If watching the Tour helps with the public's perception that "hey riding a bike looks like fun!".... that's great. I just hope the fad sticks...other wise we'll be seeing some very good deals on gently used road bikes in the next year!

I haven't been asked the "Lance bike" question yet. My bike shop job is only PT on weekends and I haven't worked since the last stage. I don't believe there are plans for the gold-bike to go into production, but I could see it being offered as a Project One option in the future. Everything is possible with enough $$$

[Irulan]

that is so much better than the typical sportswriter cr*p that comes out every year about "they can ride a bike but REAL atheletes play football"...

Norm Chad did that last year, and someone else, can't think of the name basically regurgitated the same thing anout cyclists not being a real sport.... Oh, brother... I'd like to see one of these American Sportswriters in a bike race...

~I

[Steph_in_TX]

We read the gold bikes are going to be available in a few months for about $10,000. So let's all run out and get one!!

[jobob]

So who you 'spose will be the first to get one? Sheryl Crow or Robin Williams?

- Jo("sure, next time I win the lottery")bob

Anyhow, if I had that kind of money to blow on a bike, this is where I'd go - complete w. shiny stainless steel lugs and S&S couplers

http://www.vanillabicycles.com/
... pretty stuff...

[snapdragen]

Oh yeah, love those Vanilla bikes!

Originally posted by jobob
http://www.vanillabicycles.com/
... pretty stuff... [/B]

[pedalfaster]

Originally posted by jobob
Anyhow, if I had that kind of money to blow on a bike, this is where I'd go - complete w. shiny stainless steel lugs and S&S couplers

Fun game

If I had 10K to spend on bike stuff I'd sink 2K into a new road bike, 2K into a new mtb and ~$500 into a 'cross bike.

I'd donate 1K to bicycle advocacy ($500 to IMBA, $500 to LAB).

The rest I'd used to fund a road trip!!!! for my new bicycles.
East coast, west coast and points in-between.

Ok...reality check...if I really ran into an *extra* 10K it would go towards my daughter's college tuition....

Back to work....