Sent this story to pezcycling.com
Submitted to PezCycling.com story 7/2/06
Tour de France Challenge
by Joe Berkeley
You have no right to be here, in this country, in July, on these legendary roads, participating in the Tour de France Challenge. You’re over the age of 40. You have a family, a career, a house, and a stack of bills that need to be paid.
You should be at home, in the basement, fixing the broken sump pump. Or up on the roof sweating while you mend the pesky leak around the chimney. Or painting the long-neglected porch.
But for once, you look at the long, grim list that never gets any shorter and say, “the hell with it.” In September of 2005, you decide you want to do the 2006 Tour de France Challenge. The idea of riding the entire 3639 kilometer course sounds insane, so you have to plot and scheme.
You get the permission from the boss, then the boss’s boss. Next, you see the most important boss of all, the spouse.
When they all say yes, you’re like the barking dog that finally caught the car. Now what?
Well, you just can’t show up and expect to ride the Tour without training for it, so you hire a coach. Joshua Dean Powers knows what he’s doing, as he rode the Tour last year, and coached Kevin Mahaney, a regular guy if you can ignore an Olympic silver medal in sailing and a successful career in business, to the finish line.
Coach Josh makes you buy a Powertap SL so he can monitor your progress. Then he creates a regimen that doles out a three week to one ratio of punishment to recovery.
To get the workouts in, to keep the job, to stay married, you get up at 4:00 am to ride the bike. During the coldest months, you become an intimate friend of that wretched contraption, the trainer.
Everywhere you go, the bike goes with you: on the vacation, on the business trip, even up the freight elevator at work, so it may sit behind your chair, the ultimate workplace perquisite.
Coach Josh, he who is 28 years old, and tips the scales at 129 pounds, advises you, he who weighs in at a more substantial 165 pounds, that you won’t be consuming the cookies or the ice cream or the Coke and the Gosling’s Black Seal Rum that make life bearable. No, no. That’s not for you, tubby. Instead, you get home from work, shovel a small plate of pasta into your gob, and collapse in bed by nine.
Financing the Tour de France Challenge involves some sacrifices as well. And the money you saved from not buying the loudmouth soup isn’t going to be enough.
You sell the boat that you helmed to a national championship. You sell another boat that served you almost as well. Warren forgive us, you sell the four sacred shares of Berkshire Hathaway B stock you bought five years ago. You scrimp and you save for the tuition, for the cycling clothes you need to train, for the components you wear out at a startling rate.
While you’re out on the long training rides, you start to notice all of the cars you could’ve bought with the money you’re spending on the Tour. But you ask yourself, “does the world really need another 40-year-old bald guy tooling around in a used Porsche 911 to the tune of Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days?’” Hardly.
You read that A-Rod of the Evil Empire has a mantra that he repeats to himself before he steps into the batter’s box. Without the benefit of a mental coach, you write a little mantra for yourself. It goes like this:
“Shut up and ride.”
The mission statement propels you through the torrential rainstorms, the cold winters of Boston, through the bleak northwesterly winds and the cackling northeasterly gales.
The Powertap, the homicidal bastard on the handlebars that measures every pedal stroke, informs you that you are now 14% stronger than you were when you started the program. Weight is down to 156.5 lbs. Power is up to 341 watts for an 8 minute effort.
One week before you get on the plane to go to France, you find yourself in the Emergency Room of the Mass General Hospital lying face-down, sunny-side up on a black vinyl stretcher. The sore on the back of your left leg became a boil, the boil became an infection, and now your left quad is two inches greater in diameter than your right quad. As Dr. Andrew Reisner delicately puts a hole the size of a dime into the sore the size of a golf ball, you feel the dream ending. You tell Dr. Reisner to do a clean job, for in one week, you’re going to start a 2,100 mile ride. He looks at you like you were dropped on your head as a child.
The first two days are not encouraging. On day four, you finally get the proper meds. Ironically, the training, which has made you susceptible to disease, has also made you strong enough to fight it. Your body roars back to life. Dr. Tso, Dr. Berger, Dr. Ferguson, Dr. Julie Joyce, and Nurse Janet Mulligan all do their part.
As a result, the dream doesn’t die. You get on the plane. You get to Strasbourg, France. You meet your teammates, the others over the age of 40 who put the ho-hum, and the humdrum on the shelf for one glorious month, for once in a lifetime.
It’s odd to be part of a team after ten months in the isolation booth of training. But if you’re going to complete this Tour, you have to work together. You couldn’t survive alone.
On Friday, the 30th of July, the day that the great Jan Ullrich and the amazing Ivan Basso, as well as countless others, were suspended from the Tour for suspicion of drug use, you ride the prologue route, as well as the first stage, from France to Germany and back in 5:44:35.
You take care of the first ride in a business-like manner. The team finds a rhythm quickly, and the vibe is good.
The roads in France are different than those in the States; smooth, narrow, and less predictable. Sidewalks appear in the middle of the road, and you run one over by mistake. But it’s not that tall, so you ride it out.
Coach Josh, as you would suspect, can ride forever. He sits up on his bike pretty as a picture. Erin monitors morale from the van. Joe Tonon, our director, joins you on the road as soon as things are smooth in the vans. Patrick on the staff keeps up the good cheer.
As a guest on the trip, you take your pulls, but in all other respects, you are a protected rider. Your bike is washed and maintained. Your food is prepared. You have a bag of gear in the van, with your name on it. You never take it out of the van, because you might forget to put it back, and it will do you no good in the hotel.
When you need water, you raise your hand and the ultra fit Jimmy whisks your empties away and supplies you with cold, full bottles. Coach Josh is the shepherd, and he makes sure his flock is drinking and eating plenty. Collectively, nine riders go through 130 bottles today.
The karma among the teammates is good. Paul, Alberto, Rob, and Mark are all happy to be here, all looking forward to doing a good ride. When the day ends in a parking lot on the edge of Strasbourg, you get out of your cycling clothes as quickly as possible and clean up with baby wipes. Bryan hands you a recovery drink that you must consume within the next 20 minutes. Preparation for tomorrow starts today.
The only pet peeve tour Director Joe Tonon has is this: if there’s something wrong with your bike, tell Bryan the mechanic at the end of the day. You can’t slow down the team in the morning, when there’s no time to fix it. If there’s something wrong with your bike, tell Bryan today.
Soon, you’ll know everyone’s life story, and they’ll know yours. So you pace yourself. Conserve your energy. Hush your inner wise ass and celebrate every moment that you’re sitting on a seat on a bicycle in France rather than upon chair in a waiting room at the Mass General Hospital. It’s time to shut up and ride.
Joe Berkeley is riding the Tour de France Challenge to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation. To make a donation, visit
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=153534&lis=1&kntae153534=955D14805EB944B6B924D9BCF4E1F371&supId=77548271
Tour de France Challenge
by Joe Berkeley
You have no right to be here, in this country, in July, on these legendary roads, participating in the Tour de France Challenge. You’re over the age of 40. You have a family, a career, a house, and a stack of bills that need to be paid.
You should be at home, in the basement, fixing the broken sump pump. Or up on the roof sweating while you mend the pesky leak around the chimney. Or painting the long-neglected porch.
But for once, you look at the long, grim list that never gets any shorter and say, “the hell with it.” In September of 2005, you decide you want to do the 2006 Tour de France Challenge. The idea of riding the entire 3639 kilometer course sounds insane, so you have to plot and scheme.
You get the permission from the boss, then the boss’s boss. Next, you see the most important boss of all, the spouse.
When they all say yes, you’re like the barking dog that finally caught the car. Now what?
Well, you just can’t show up and expect to ride the Tour without training for it, so you hire a coach. Joshua Dean Powers knows what he’s doing, as he rode the Tour last year, and coached Kevin Mahaney, a regular guy if you can ignore an Olympic silver medal in sailing and a successful career in business, to the finish line.
Coach Josh makes you buy a Powertap SL so he can monitor your progress. Then he creates a regimen that doles out a three week to one ratio of punishment to recovery.
To get the workouts in, to keep the job, to stay married, you get up at 4:00 am to ride the bike. During the coldest months, you become an intimate friend of that wretched contraption, the trainer.
Everywhere you go, the bike goes with you: on the vacation, on the business trip, even up the freight elevator at work, so it may sit behind your chair, the ultimate workplace perquisite.
Coach Josh, he who is 28 years old, and tips the scales at 129 pounds, advises you, he who weighs in at a more substantial 165 pounds, that you won’t be consuming the cookies or the ice cream or the Coke and the Gosling’s Black Seal Rum that make life bearable. No, no. That’s not for you, tubby. Instead, you get home from work, shovel a small plate of pasta into your gob, and collapse in bed by nine.
Financing the Tour de France Challenge involves some sacrifices as well. And the money you saved from not buying the loudmouth soup isn’t going to be enough.
You sell the boat that you helmed to a national championship. You sell another boat that served you almost as well. Warren forgive us, you sell the four sacred shares of Berkshire Hathaway B stock you bought five years ago. You scrimp and you save for the tuition, for the cycling clothes you need to train, for the components you wear out at a startling rate.
While you’re out on the long training rides, you start to notice all of the cars you could’ve bought with the money you’re spending on the Tour. But you ask yourself, “does the world really need another 40-year-old bald guy tooling around in a used Porsche 911 to the tune of Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days?’” Hardly.
You read that A-Rod of the Evil Empire has a mantra that he repeats to himself before he steps into the batter’s box. Without the benefit of a mental coach, you write a little mantra for yourself. It goes like this:
“Shut up and ride.”
The mission statement propels you through the torrential rainstorms, the cold winters of Boston, through the bleak northwesterly winds and the cackling northeasterly gales.
The Powertap, the homicidal bastard on the handlebars that measures every pedal stroke, informs you that you are now 14% stronger than you were when you started the program. Weight is down to 156.5 lbs. Power is up to 341 watts for an 8 minute effort.
One week before you get on the plane to go to France, you find yourself in the Emergency Room of the Mass General Hospital lying face-down, sunny-side up on a black vinyl stretcher. The sore on the back of your left leg became a boil, the boil became an infection, and now your left quad is two inches greater in diameter than your right quad. As Dr. Andrew Reisner delicately puts a hole the size of a dime into the sore the size of a golf ball, you feel the dream ending. You tell Dr. Reisner to do a clean job, for in one week, you’re going to start a 2,100 mile ride. He looks at you like you were dropped on your head as a child.
The first two days are not encouraging. On day four, you finally get the proper meds. Ironically, the training, which has made you susceptible to disease, has also made you strong enough to fight it. Your body roars back to life. Dr. Tso, Dr. Berger, Dr. Ferguson, Dr. Julie Joyce, and Nurse Janet Mulligan all do their part.
As a result, the dream doesn’t die. You get on the plane. You get to Strasbourg, France. You meet your teammates, the others over the age of 40 who put the ho-hum, and the humdrum on the shelf for one glorious month, for once in a lifetime.
It’s odd to be part of a team after ten months in the isolation booth of training. But if you’re going to complete this Tour, you have to work together. You couldn’t survive alone.
On Friday, the 30th of July, the day that the great Jan Ullrich and the amazing Ivan Basso, as well as countless others, were suspended from the Tour for suspicion of drug use, you ride the prologue route, as well as the first stage, from France to Germany and back in 5:44:35.
You take care of the first ride in a business-like manner. The team finds a rhythm quickly, and the vibe is good.
The roads in France are different than those in the States; smooth, narrow, and less predictable. Sidewalks appear in the middle of the road, and you run one over by mistake. But it’s not that tall, so you ride it out.
Coach Josh, as you would suspect, can ride forever. He sits up on his bike pretty as a picture. Erin monitors morale from the van. Joe Tonon, our director, joins you on the road as soon as things are smooth in the vans. Patrick on the staff keeps up the good cheer.
As a guest on the trip, you take your pulls, but in all other respects, you are a protected rider. Your bike is washed and maintained. Your food is prepared. You have a bag of gear in the van, with your name on it. You never take it out of the van, because you might forget to put it back, and it will do you no good in the hotel.
When you need water, you raise your hand and the ultra fit Jimmy whisks your empties away and supplies you with cold, full bottles. Coach Josh is the shepherd, and he makes sure his flock is drinking and eating plenty. Collectively, nine riders go through 130 bottles today.
The karma among the teammates is good. Paul, Alberto, Rob, and Mark are all happy to be here, all looking forward to doing a good ride. When the day ends in a parking lot on the edge of Strasbourg, you get out of your cycling clothes as quickly as possible and clean up with baby wipes. Bryan hands you a recovery drink that you must consume within the next 20 minutes. Preparation for tomorrow starts today.
The only pet peeve tour Director Joe Tonon has is this: if there’s something wrong with your bike, tell Bryan the mechanic at the end of the day. You can’t slow down the team in the morning, when there’s no time to fix it. If there’s something wrong with your bike, tell Bryan today.
Soon, you’ll know everyone’s life story, and they’ll know yours. So you pace yourself. Conserve your energy. Hush your inner wise ass and celebrate every moment that you’re sitting on a seat on a bicycle in France rather than upon chair in a waiting room at the Mass General Hospital. It’s time to shut up and ride.
Joe Berkeley is riding the Tour de France Challenge to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation. To make a donation, visit
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=153534&lis=1&kntae153534=955D14805EB944B6B924D9BCF4E1F371&supId=77548271
posted by joe berkeley at 1:40 PM
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