Fifteen years ago, a sad farewell

Not much to say about this piece except that it's a tear shed for the old bikie days...

Race With the Devil

You may not be aware of it, but, only months ago cycling was an activity of the counterculture. It was. It had different written all over it.

Bike riders didn't fit in and mostly didn't want to. We drove ratty VW Squarebacks and Microbuses. We shared ratty apartments. We worked undemanding jobs, part-time. We didn't always show up.

Off the bike, we wore Levis and Masi t-shirts, ate pancakes. On the bike, we wore wool, usually shrunk skimpy, patched at the shoulders and hips. We ate bananas and stuffed the peels in our jersey pockets.

When we drank, water from our TA "Tour de France" bottles dribbled down our chins onto our jerseys. We paid no attention.

We rode laps on a circuit looped loosely around society's edge, racing with a middle-class devil. We tried to put serious distance between ourselves and concepts like Couches, Careers, Rotary and Real Estate.

No one had a Porsche; we admired them but no one wanted one. Couldn't get enough people and bikes in one to drive to races. Cost too much to fix.

Dollars, if we had 'em, were units of exchange for cycling paraphernalia that was made in Italy or sometimes France. The idea was not to need much money: work less, ride more. Funny values, huh?

But something's changed, hasn't it? I know that cycling's no longer an underground sport/religion, and I see that today's cyclist isn't a "bikie" the way we were, but...

Has riding itself changed so much? Is a bike ride no longer an end in itself? Is all training merely "getting ready" for something else, maybe a race or a double-century or tomorrow's stressful day at work?

What is a bike ride? Does it exist if it isn't quantified, recorded on some handlebar mounted device?

Is a ride so-many miles at such-and-such a heart rate or perceived level of exertion? Is it a part of a life-enhancing program of weight loss and general fitness activity? Is it simply a component of an efficient cross-training regimen?

Can you imagine it as it was, a Europhilic romance replete with mysterious wonderful sounds and symbols?

Bigger-than-life words and names: Strada Superleggera, pura lana, Criterium Seta, campionissimo. Felice, Davis and Connie, Beryl Burton, Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, Tom Simpson?

We collected exotic literature: L'Equipe, the CONI book, Cycling, International Cycle Sport. We dreamed of races and places like Paris-Nice, l'Alpe d'Huez, Milan-San Remo, Morgul-Bismarck and Giro d'Italia.

Were you there? Do you remember chilly damp mornings and grabby, howling Mafacs? Holes in your Sergal tights, no spare and damn, raining again? Saving for entry fees and racing for cheap toe-straps, cotton caps and ugly pink water bottles?

Probably not, huh? You weren't around. No wonder, then, you never noticed the sad passing of working less and riding more. Of gauging your personal worth by the number of silk sew-ups aging under your bed. Of cycling as a lovely simple way to live.