Enter The Deuce, Part I
No arc could describe the trajectory of the day. We arrived at the hospital awash in emotions bright as a teenager’s. We smiled through the apprehension of “there’s no going back now.” Of course, that sense was entirely illusory; there’d been no going back since even before the pregnancy test announced “YES” on an August-hot afternoon. There was the kid-on-Christmas-morning excitement as we wondered whether we’d soon meet our son or daughter. But there was the occasional nag, that hangnail of the soul of knowing that doctors had discovered a problem in our child’s chest—fluid surrounding his right lung.
That fluid, some unknown liquid, drove the doctors to decide to induce labor a bit more than a week before our child’s due date. Were it not for that fluid, I’d have been in Denver, my wife relaxing at home. On the ultrasound it appeared as a black L-shaped space in the chest, innocuous to all but the trained eye. To me, it seemed an absence, like something missing, the place on the car where the wheel used to be. How much trouble could it cause? Even the briefest survey was the stuff of nightmares and whole bottles of wine: mal-formed lungs, abnormalities in the heart, Down’s Syndrome.
But if cycling has taught me anything, it’s that life is about playing the odds. Train hard enough, race enough, and soon enough you’ll throw your arms up in victory. More applicable is how we all know that playing in traffic can mean getting hit by a car but in a year of riding you’re more likely to stay upright than not. The odds, as they say, run in our favor.
Human beings are the same way. Our biology is as resilient as rubber and as remarkable as Bach. In 100 clones of our baby, we might only get one with the unmistakable eye spacing of Down’s. One might have a heart like a broken watch and another might possess the lungs of a popped balloon. Nearly all would be fine, normal as sunshine.
All our hopes for the natural path of a labor disappeared with that first dose of misoprostal. Because our first son delivery was induced, we’d hoped this time to experience mother nature’s version of the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Giveaway, that knock at the door that tells you the big day has arrived. The reality is that a seven-syllable condition trumps every parent’s birth plan. So we waited.
And waited.
We reminisced about our son Philip’s birth, something that was easy to do because we were in the very same delivery room. We slept in fitful naps that did little to refresh us. Later, defenses down, with our nurse we counted off the different ways a night with alcohol can go wrong; there were at least four different kinds of spins based on what we could remember of nights that are, to tell the truth, better left forgotten.
Initially, the idea that we knew what day our baby would be delivered was a comfort. It cut down on some of the variables we faced. Shopping for a car seems a good deal less daunting if you’re certain you’re going to buy another Honda Accord. The actual circumstance proved much less decisive; my wife’s labor lasted more than 24 hours. After about 18 hours we couldn’t help but acknowledge that we felt as if we were in a Twilight Zone of labor where we might spend eternity with contractions continuing to come every three minutes but a baby’s emergence staying tantalizingly out of reach.
To break the boredom and remind ourselves of the lives our friends were still living, we checked Facebook between contractions, read encouraging words for momma and scoped all the bragging about who swung the wood at the day’s training rides.
Ah yes, the bike. Wouldn’t that be fun? But who could think of the bike at a time like this? I didn’t have a hard effort in me, but there was no denying I had missed riding for the last three days. Thinking about the bike and knowing what a central role it plays in my life served as a barometer for my emotions, my fierce allegiance to my wife and my unborn child. There was no other place to be. Not to be there would require a coma or death. My bike wouldn’t miss me and the group rides that I missed this week would happen next week, right on schedule.
But those rides were in the future. The future. What might it hold? Between my imagination and that next group ride was the birth of a child. That would change everything, but how big is everything? Would this be a routine birth with a normal baby? Would this be a challenging birth with some hangups? Would this have complications and go Caesarian? Would our child have some sort of profound disability, one that would require so much effort cycling’s position in my priorities would shift, knocked rungs down the ladder of importance into a once-loved hobby?
In a day full of interventions, what brought our child to us was a decisive finger, the Little Dutch Boy in reverse. With less than an hour to go—if my memory is correct—we met the neonatologist who informed us our child was to be whisked away on birth and cared for in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or NICU.
What the what?
Between contractions I was on the phone with friends to find someone who could pick up my mother-in-law and deliver her to the hospital so that Shana wouldn’t be alone when I followed the child to the NICU.
With a final push our child emerged. I stood on tip-toes to get a look at the slimy purple squirm and cried out to my wife, “It’s a boy!” Last time I cut the umbilical cord but this time there was an urgency to everyone present. Even as he made his initial cry, the doctor cut his umbilical and handed him to the neonatologist.
We had yet to touch him. Why was everyone working so quickly? The began to clean him on the warmer and what I didn’t notice immediately was he had stopped crying. Above him, I watched the screen with his vital signs. I didn’t need anyone to explain which was heart rate, which was blood pressure. I watched 160 drop to 140, then 120. Instinctively, I found a spot between my wife and the screen of the warmer so she couldn’t see it. The numbers kept dropping. It was dropping faster than I could comprehend, so by the time I was nervous that his heart rate was less than 100, he was dropping below 80. My resting heart rate has always been low, but this occasion subverted all the joy I see in recognizing a low heart rate. Babies run high, but our son’s rate continued to plummet. The neonatologist was working feverishly to intubate him, that is, add a breathing tube. The fluid volume in his chest, I would find out later, was too great to allow his right lung to inflate properly. And because he couldn’t catch his breath, his body was shutting down less than 180 seconds after being born.
Without intervention, our son would code. I was watching what the death of a newborn looks like. I was watching our son die.
But they got the tube down him and began breathing for him with a bag valve mask. And with that they transferred him to a neonatal incubator and rolled him from the delivery room and down the hall to the NICU. Mayflower movers wish they were so efficient.
I still had yet to touch him. Ditto for my wife.
Did I touch him while he was in the NICU at the delivery hospital or did I have to wait until he was moved to another hospital with a more elaborate and robust NICU? I can no longer recall.
All parents know that touch is crucial in bonding with a newborn in those first moments of life. It’s a fundamental part of the experience, beer to pizza. Every hour that passed that neither my wife nor I touched our son left me feeling anxious and guilty. The experience alone was disorienting, but the feeling that there was something I was supposed to be doing and wasn’t—through no fault of my own—had the confounding effect of frustrating me even as an inner voice chastised me for inaction. But what action could I take?
In honor of his birthday, 2/22, we nicknamed him The Deuce. It also fit given that he’s our second born, and because I felt like his was already getting a second shot at life.
But the nickname was only a placeholder. When our first son was born we realized that none of the names we picked out ahead of time seemed to fit. We had to go through an elaborate bit of paperwork and pinky swears before the hospital would discharge us without having yet named him. We promised we’d come up with a name for him in the next 72 hours and would be back with paperwork filled out.
Having glimpsed the Deuce’s mortality so vividly, I felt a keen responsibility to get him named. It struck me that were something to happen, the clichéd “turn for the worse,” burying a child that never had a name in life would be a tragedy of monumental proportion, a true parenting fail. My wife wondered why the hospital administrators hadn’t started hounding us about the name. I had to point out the obvious: He hadn’t been released.
In fairly short order we arrived at Matthew. There have been a number of men in both our families that were given names beginning with the letter “M.” Choosing Matthew was a way to honor each of them without favoring one over another.
The Struggle Against Hard Edges
Is it wrong to view cycling as a protracted struggle against hard edges? Whether it is the blurred, black curve of a front tire spinning its mass into the sharp point of a headwind or our own minds urging us onward against the angularity of stress and fatigue, everything about the bike and riding decries limits, takes the fight to edges.
Hard edges are insidious. They tell us what we can and can not do. They are borders. They are institutions. They are ‘the man.’ Though they masquerade as clean lines delineating spaces, hemming boundaries or giving the cold comfort of black/white contrast, in reality they are only there to break our bones or divide us, one from another, in our meandering grayness.
Against those edges we array rounded tubes, sleek helmet, butter smooth pedal strokes, every piece of our equipment and every nuance of our movement an attempt to be curved, to slip through life with minimal resistance. Freedom and independence aren’t enhanced by lines and angles.
Riding burrs off the edges of our moods and blunts our character defects. We turn emotion into action, the brain rattle of anger and worry, or hope and joy, converted to watts, an EKG into a sine curve, a boat’s sloppy wake becoming the ocean’s gentle swell.
When we put our noses into the wind, the rolling momentum of that front wheel joining the roundness of the headtube cutting the air, or our backs hunched and canted forward, roundnesses meant to break the will of the wind, we are earning our freedom, our fun. Even the metaphorical knives in our back pockets, the triangles of our frames, are flopped on their sides and arranged for aerodynamic effect.
We push at our limits, and what is a limit but a hard edge? Those edges will fill our lungs to bursting and dull our wits when all we want is a slow roll with some friends, a little weekend fun. Is it so much to ask? Of course, the harder we push against all of these resistances the more easily we slip through. We let them erode and abrade us, but only to a better, simpler form, one that catches no wind, engages no conflict, recognizes fewer limits.
The way forward is round. If you find yourself caught up, caught out, frustrated or stifled, find the nearest roundness and bear down on the pedals. It is the only way.
Image: Matt O’Keefe
The Explainer: Prayers for “The Deuce”
February 24, 2013 by Charles Pelkey
Filed under Mind
Send this guy all the good vibes you can muster.
Kids.
I spent Saturday down in Denver at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, with my 13-year-old daughter, Annika (a gorgeous five-foot-nine-inch blonde, who already has me rethinking my position on gun-control). It was terrific walking the aisles with a budding bike geek, who spent much of the time admiring (and hinting I should buy) some of the most beautiful bikes I’ve seen in ages.
The show also provided a rare opportunity to catch up with old friends, including my buddy Patrick O’Grady, Andy Hampsten and Ron Kiefel and my favorite crazy person, Gregg Bagni. One thing I missed, however, was the chance to catch up with Red Kite’s own Commander in Chief, Padraig, who had planned to be there, but had far more pressing issues at home.
To explain, Padraig and his beautiful wife, Shana, welcomed a new member to their family on Friday. This seven-pound, six-ounce young man is as-of-yet unnamed, but sports the moniker “The Deuce” in honor of his birthday, 2/22. The Deuce is off to a bit of a shaky start and is spending his first few days in a neo-natal intensive care unit, so our thoughts, warmest wishes and best hopes are with the Brady family, Patrick, Shana and big brother Philip. Nothing is more important.
I fully trust that in 13 years, Padraig, you will be strolling through the aisles if the 2026 NAHBS with “The Deuce” and he, too, will be trying to talk you into buying that really beautiful titanium ‘cross bike. Of course, it will be his birthday, so you will have to comply. Start saving your pennies, my friend.
– Charles
Okay, dear readers, it’s time again to sort through the inbox and see what folks are talking about. Let’s start with a follow-up to a story that had long since slipped to the back of my mind.
Hello Charles,
Just read your Explainer about the alleged intentional cycling crash caused by Jonathan Atkins. (see “Assault and bikery in the first degree”)I am a very experienced rider and didn’t even know who this guy was until today when he intentionally nudged me into a ditch during the group Airport ride in Atlanta GA. I rode back into the group after recovering and rode beside this guy and let him know what I thought of his actions in a very verbal exchange. He was very rude, defensive, and gave a ridiculous explanation for why did what he did. He then asked for my name and I made him give me his name first. I know one of his team members Dan Busch (nice guy) and wanted to know for sure if Jonathan Atkins was on his team so I began to ping the internet for information. I’m not one bit surprised with what I have just found; this guy should not be riding with anyone. I will now see if I can add any support to the criminal charges against this guy (yes he was that appalling). Any advice is appreciated.
– Christian
Dear Christian,
As far as I can tell, there was no action taken by prosecutors in this case and Mr. Atkins, as you noted, continues to ride for the Beck Janitorial Cycling team.
I find your story disturbing on many levels, not least of which is that this fella appears not to have learned from his past mistakes. If the details surrounding your incident are true, then you should probably contact USA Cycling and, if you so wish, his sponsor.
Even if this occurred during a training ride, USA Cycling does have the authority to strip a rider of his license. It may be time to raise the issue with the sport’s governing body.
Finally, the thing that gets my interest piqued is that the team lists Mr. Atkins as a “mentor” for younger riders. I generally applaud the idea of older riders – he’s 47 – setting aside their own goals and imparting hard-earned knowledge and an appreciation of the beauty of the sport to those just getting started. Of course, if this story and the May incident prove to be true, he’s the last guy I’d want teaching my son about the intricacies of the sport.
Please, Christian, let me know how this pans out. We’ll follow-up. Meanwhile, the rest of you can feel free to weigh in with comments below.
– Charles
Regarding my recent “Tale of two lawsuits” column, several of you felt that I had been rather dismissive of the readers’ lawsuit against Lance Armstrong and his publishers.
One comment, posted below the story, argued that there were ample reasons for the suit and suggests that I may have mocked the basis of the suit:
Let’s turn this around and ask the question, if someone had filed a lawsuit in 2005 claiming Lance Armstrong had cheated Lance & Co. would have responded with a defamation suit, assembled an army of lawyers who would have humiliated and impoverished the plaintiff(s) into surrender even though the assertions of the plaintiff would be borne out in later years by the admission of Lance Armstrong.
So I can’t mock any plaintiffs’ claims. If memory serves me correctly Lance Armstrong effectively silenced by payment, threats of legal action leading to poverty and outright slander those who called into question the honesty of his wins. I can’t excuse bullies.
– Dave
Dear Dave,
I have to agree, particularly regarding your last comment. Indeed, it’s my general disdain of bullies that was probably at the root of my issues with Mr. Armstrong in the first place.
No, I don’t think doping is, was or ever should be acceptable, but I took far more seriously the bullying of teammates, witnesses and critics. I think the Reasoned Decision shows that USADA did, too. Had Mr. Armstrong simply been a doper, I really doubt that this case would have progressed as it had.
You are correct in saying that any similar suit filed during the days of Armstrong’s ascent would have surely resulted in an immediate countersuit that would have crippled the plaintiffs and the lawyers involved. He used his money, his power and his lawyers to scare critics – and potential critics – into silence.
But, I still have a problem with the whole premise of suing someone for the contents of an autobiography. To begin, the whole concept of an autobiography is an exercise in self promotion. The author – with or without the help of a co-author – uses the opportunity to present himself or herself in the most positive fashion. If there is anywhere where the old rule of caveat emptor should apply it’s reading someone’s story about themselves. Come on.
I’ve read a number of them and my ingrained bullshit detector has been triggered on more than one occasion.
But seriously, what are the damages these “vexed, annoyed and injured” readers suffered? They paid out twenty bucks for what turned out to be a work of self-promoting fiction. They fell for it. Now, they know the truth. BFD. I would much rather see a lawsuit from riders whose careers had been cut short by bullying tactics (Christophe Bassons or Filippo Simeoni, to name just two) or even those who gave up on the sport because Armstrong and his ilk ruined their opportunities to compete fairly. What about folks like Emma O’Reilly, Betsy Andreu, Frankie Andreu, David Walsh? Those folks suffered real and quantifiable damages. But a cadre of now-disappointed, yellow-wristband-wearing fans, who got the wake-up call a little too late? Sorry. I don’t see the harm, beyond getting a reminder of their own gullibility.
This suit, these plaintiffs and these claims are being assembled for a hoped-for class action suit against Armstrong, the publishers and others. This is not about recovering every reader’s twenty bucks, but to allow a creative law firm the opportunity to score big on contingency fees. Let’s say they win a $10 million suit against the defendants A win would be that each affected reader would get a note telling them that they are a plaintiff in a successful class action suit and they will be eligible for, what, 10 bucks worth of credit toward books? Meanwhile, forty percent, plus expenses will go to the law firm. For individual plaintiffs, the outcome is essentially meaningless. For the lawyers, the case is a crap shoot, with at least reasonably good odds for a pay out at the end. This one ain’t about justice, my friends. It’s just business.
Obviously, as an attorney, I admire their pluck, but viewing it as a hypothetical juror, I doubt I’d go for a big damages award. Part of the onus is on the consumer to read with a critical eye, no?
Yeah, the good thing is that, if successful, the suit will result in the proceeds of Mr. Armstrong’s “unjust enrichment” being taken away. (Of course, if the publishers are held liable, perhaps they can, in turn, sue him for having misled them.) Personally, I’d like to see any money go to the people who suffered actual harm, not those who are merely “vexed, annoyed and injured” by reading what they could have guessed was bullshit.
Bottom line, though, I’m still really uncomfortable with that suit and what it means for anyone who writes anything that purports to be “non-fiction.”
Now, of greater interest is the Department of Justice’s decision to join Floyd Landis’ “whistleblower” suit. I’m intrigued. I do wonder about the damages claim, but I am going to spend time this week, working my way through the suit, supporting documents and briefs and speak with far more experienced attorneys about their thoughts.
Feel free to weigh in on this one, too. You can write your comments below, or send an e-mail to Charles@Pelkey.com.
Meanwhile, keep “The Deuce” in your mind. Let’s send this little dude some seriously good vibes, folks.
– Charles
The Explainer is a weekly feature on Red Kite Prayer. If you have a question related to the sport of cycling, doping or the legal issues faced by cyclists of all stripes, feel free to send it directly to The Explainer at Charles@Pelkey.com. PLEASE NOTE: Understand that reading the information contained here does not mean you have established an attorney-client relationship with attorney Charles Pelkey. Readers of this column should not act upon any information contained therein without first seeking the advice of qualified legal counsel licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.
Friday Group Ride #157
I’m not sure how many times I’ve watched the end of 1992′s Milan-San Remo. Sean Kelly chasing down Moreno Argentin in the closing kilometers, in the rain, is the stuff of legend, and the advent of massively multi-player online networking, i.e. the internet, has increased our access to these sorts of motivational moving pictures in a way that previous decades only promised in half-baked sci-fi films.
The internet is a magical place, where each of us can be a star/hero/goat for +/- 15 minutes if the prevailing winds are right, and we’ve done something sufficiently attention grabbing. Cheap, helmet-mounted cameras are the great equalizer, a technology of the people that takes super-rad video production out of the hands of the professionals and straps it to your head. So what if 99% of this proletarian cinema is vomit-inducingly hard to watch?
My own interest in the larger video genre we might call “action sports” has me regularly disdaining the offerings of network television for the attention deficit stoking media of the high speed interweb. I have watched strangers shred gnarly singletrack, climb boulders in South Africa, France and Australia, and descend the world’s great descents on bikes just like the ones I ride.
As an aside, how did anyone make an action sports video before dubstep came along?
This week’s Group Ride wants to know what YOUR 3 minute ride video looks like. Imagine a friend of yours is recording your exploits, or perhaps that you are motivated (and narcissistic) enough to do the job yourself. Where would you be? What would you be riding? And, what music would accompany your heroic efforts?
Image: Sean Kelly at the 1991 Nissan Classic - John Pierce, Photosport International
Detachment
Dan said, “You just know one of these young guys is going to break our hearts,” and I nodded and had to concede that he was probably right. Dan and I still love pro racing, and we talk about it regularly, but it’s hard to deny the shine has come off. We’re looking forward to the Spring one-day races, but it’s different now.
Neither of us was naive. We’d both known the scale of the doping problem in the pro peloton, but the collective confessions that came down in the wake of the USADA reasoned decision filled in details that made what we already knew hurt just that little bit more. It’s like finding out you didn’t get a job and being disappointed, and then finding out the boss’s kid got it instead, that twist of the knife that comes from knowing too much.
I won’t say which young pro rider we were talking about, because it would be deeply unfair, given the problem of guilt by Google, to even mention a rider’s name in conjunction with a problem he or she didn’t cause and haven’t yet even been suspected of. But we’re at that point, the point where you expect more shoes to drop, even if you simultaneously believe things are better now. There is no one in the new generation of pros that I think is obviously cheating, but I’d feel like an idiot if one of them got caught and I was surprised.
I find myself holding back from falling in love with any of them.
And it’s just so deeply unfair, but I’m afraid it’s the reality. What the last generation of riders taught us, over and over again, was not to trust, to stay detached. I am not looking to give up on pro cycling. I enjoy the races too much, and it almost doesn’t matter to me who is racing, men, women, sprinters, climbers, all-rounders. I enjoy the tactics and the spectacle, even if the personal side of the show is more problematic.
Is this what it’s like when you get cheated on by a boy/girlfriend, but try to save the relationship? Some feeling remains. You’re still attracted, but the trust only creeps back very slowly. In public you can smile and laugh, but behind closed doors, in your mind and in your heart, you play it much cooler. You stay angry much longer than you knew you could.
For now, I will go on watching. Look at the image above. How can you not be attracted to a thing like that. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is just two days away. But things are different now. Things are different.
Image: Photosport International
Any Normal Person (updated)
Any normal person wouldn’t be sitting at a computer while his wife struggles to find comfort on the couch in her final hours of pregnancy. Any normal person would have taken a couple of weeks off. Any normal person would keep the personal personal. Any normal person would keep a cycling blog strictly about cycling.
But as has been observed ’round these parts, I’m not any normal person.
Any normal person would admit they’re overwhelmed and at least this much I can claim to share with other, more normal, folks. I’m definitely overwhelmed.
My plan for this week, at least what I scheduled several months ago, was to ride and post in the early part of the week then climb on a flight for Denver. I was to serve as the chief judge for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. After the show I was to return home and then a week or two later my wife was likely to give birth to our second child.
All that changed Monday. An ultrasound was performed that revealed a problem with our baby. It might not turn out to be a big deal, but it could turn out to be an indicator of a profound disability. The doctors scheduled her labor to be induced Thursday night with an anticipated delivery on Friday, when all the specialists would be easily at hand.
I’ve been working on four different posts and can’t bring a single one of them in the barn. I can’t concentrate. And I won’t be at NAHBS, though we’ve made provisions for me to assist the judges remotely.
Like I said, any normal person would take a few weeks off. However, we’re a tiny operation and our advertisers pay for us to deliver eyeballs. And I write roughly half our content. There may come a day when I can take a vacation or even a sabbatical, but right now, we’ve doing nothing so much as failing to deliver on our promise of at least five posts per week.
I’ll post as I’m able. Writing is how I process my world and without writing, I don’t understand much. And I respect that, even with writing, this may come to an outcome I simply won’t understand.
I’m reminded of what a friend once noted prior to a team time trial: “There will be chaos. Keep pedaling.”
Update: Respecting Padraig’s family privacy, I will just say to all well-wishers that a baby boy was born. Father, mother and child are tired.
Lezyne Mega Drive Light
Bicycles and headlights have had a relationship as fraught with unhappiness as Liz Taylor and each of her last 14 or 15 husbands. Cyclists have suffered weak lights with no staying power but were easily mounted, weak lights with plenty of staying power that were difficult to mount, powerful lights that had no staying power but were difficult to mount and occasionally powerful lights with great staying power that took forever to mount and ate up a bottle cage and weighed more than a regulation bowling ball.
As a set of choices, they all left plenty to be desired.
I don’t mind admitting that my core philosophy states that if the sun is not yet up or has gone down for the day, I need to be off the bike. Call that a bias if you like, but I couch it terms of self-preservation because if something doesn’t get me in the dark on the road, I still have plenty to fear when my wife looks at me and asks (in her most disdainful tone), “You were riding where? When?
But riding at the margins of the day, when I’m least likely to be missed means that this time of year, it’s a good idea to have some lights to try to notify less than fully awake drivers that I, too, am on the road and would like to survive the experience. A guy can dream, right?
What I learned some years ago was that the darker it is, the less powerful the light needs to be to illuminate your way. I was working on a light buyer’s guide with co-workers and found that the lights that didn’t seem to be on at dusk were pretty effective at midnight. The converse was the real eye-opener, though. Only the most powerful lights could be perceived as helping illuminate your path at dusk. It takes a lot more power to overcome the ambient light available and the relative dilation of your pupils to pierce dusk than full dark.
That was a disheartening realization for a simple reason. I’m far more likely to be caught out getting home late for a ride and need riding them than I am to need enough lighting to help me ride to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Only the most expensive lights would help. Dang.
The 2012 Interbike show is scarred in my memory because that was the occasion when I made the mistake of staring at a 1000 lumens Lezyne Mega Drive when it was turned on. The entire convention center went fluorescent purple as my retinas attempted to recover. Wow.
Here’s what I hate about most lights: They don’t last long enough. They are hard to mount and remove. They are awkward thanks to cables that have to be strung to battery packs. And as previously mentioned, only depleted uranium is heavier. They are crazy expensive. The Mega Drive solves almost all of these issues.
The light features four modes: the 747 landing-light-esque 1000 lumens, which will go for 1.5 hrs; then there’s the enduro mode which offers a remarkably effective 500 lumens for 2.5 hrs; there’s the economy mode that offers 250 lumens (bright enough for a slow ride on a bike path in darkness) for a whopped in 5.5 hrs; finally, there’s a 250 lumens flashing function that will last for 10 hours—long enough to ride a Tour de France stage at night. It comes with quick-to-mount clamps for either 25.4mm or 31.8mm bars and the mount includes a swivel that will allow you to point the light to the exact spot ahead of your bike where you most want the light, not a foot to the right or the left.
Did I mention that it has the good fortune to look like something that would power Billy Blastoff’s next moon mission? It’s space-agey in a funnily retro ways, but that corrugated surface has actual engineering behind it; the casing is the light’s heat sink. My light, with 31.8mm clamp weighs all of 287g. I’ve eaten bananas that weighed more than that.
The battery is in the light, not at the end of some damn spiral cable nor does it take up a whole water bottle cage. The quick release mount means that it’s easy not just to do a ride without the light, but also to recharge it with a USB cable.
The rides I’ve done with this light have gone so well I’ve literally ceased to notice that I’m riding at night. While I’ve tried the light on the enduro mode, my rides in darkness have been short enough that I haven’t seen the point in cutting the power. Another liability of weak lights is that if you ride fast enough, you’ll outrun the light, meaning that you reach what enters the beam faster than you can process it. I can say with some authority that’s a bad thing if your path is being crossed by bunny rabbits. Been there, almost hit that. I’ve not ridden with another light that didn’t frustrate me at some level.
True story: Our son went missing at home a few months ago. While my wife looked for him, frantically waving a flashlight in closets, I grabbed the Mega Drive and used it in my search because … well because it was brighter than our flashlight.
Okay, so it’s $199.99. That’s not cheap. I won’t argue the point. But this is the first light I’ve run across where I saw the light (was blinded by it, actually) and then figured it was worth every cent.
I still don’t like riding at night, but thanks to the Mega Drive, I’m not so frightened anymore.
The Explainer: A tale of two lawsuits
February 17, 2013 by Charles Pelkey
Filed under Mind
Dear Explainer,
I have been following the Armstrong thing for a while and have heard a lot about law suits that have been filed against him.
There are a couple that have me scratching my head. First is the one that was filed by people who bought and read his books and now say they were cheated out of money because the things were mostly lies. Now wait a minute. Weren’t those books written years ago? Isn’t there a statute of limitations?
Then I wonder about that company that promised to pay Armstrong something like $5 million when he won his fifth Tour de France. Wasn’t that settled like eight years ago? How long can you go back and overturn a settlement that everyone agreed to?
– An Occasional Bike Geek
Dear Occasional Geek,
Yeah, that book suit has me wondering, too. I have to admit, I had fun reading it, though. (You can have a look at that one, right here.)
Two California men, Robert Stutzman and Jonathan Wheeler, have filed a suit against Armstrong and his publishers and have left the door open to sue any number of future defendants, including I would have to assume, the co-author of two of those Armstrong tomes, Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post.
But what are these guys claiming? According to the suit, the two named plaintiffs are hoping to sue on behalf of themselves and any other California resident who bought – and I assume believed – the contents of “It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life” and “Every Second Counts.”
They are seeking compensation for the fact that they and others have been “exposed to and victimized” by Armstrong’s “unlawful and/or wrongful business practices,” which include false advertising, misrepresentation, fraud and deceit and unfair competition.
Wow… all that from a $17 book.
“In perpetrating the fraud alleged herein, Defendant Armstrong acted in a willful, wanton and malicious manner, in callous, conscious and intentional disregard for the rights of Plaintiffs and members of the Class, and with knowledge that his actions and conduct were substantially likely to vex, annoy and injure Plaintiffs and members of the Class.”
These vexed, annoyed and injured plaintiffs are seeking refunds of the purchase price of the books they purchased and other “statutorily permissible damages, attorneys’ fees, expenses and costs.”
The goal here is to assemble a class of plaintiffs, each of whom can make a claim similar to those leveled by Stutzman and Wheeler. Indeed, the attorneys who filed the suit said they expect to assemble a class-action suit that would represent in excess of 100 plaintiffs with claims exceeding $5 million.
The suit is largely based on something known as the “Consumers Legal Remedies Act” (California Civil Code § 1750 et seq), which allows consumers who have been defrauded by any number of deceptive trade practices.
And yes, there is a statute of limitations provision in the CLRA. Section 1783 notes that the actions “shall be commenced not more than three years from the date of the commission of such method, act, or practice.”
A different kind of Discovery
There is generally a good way around the statute of limitations in civil cases. Known as “discovery,” the argument is based on the idea that the statute of limitations clock shouldn’t actually start to tick until that moment you actually discover that you’ve been defrauded.
The plaintiffs rightfully claim that Armstrong engaged in the fraudulent concealment of his doping. They claim not to have discovered that fraud “until at least August 2012, when the USADA imposed a lifetime ban on Defendant Armstrong and stripped him of all his Tour de France medals, and/or October 2012, when the USADA Report was published, and/or January 2013, when Armstrong made his televised disclosures to Winfrey, Plaintiffs did not have knowledge of the causes of action against Armstrong and the other Defendants.”
Okay, I’m not much of an Armstrong fan and maybe I was in a unique position to have reached my point of “discovery” pretty early in the process, given that, for one thing, David Walsh, Betsy Andreu and Emma O’Reilly are friends of mine. But still, these guys are claiming that Armstrong was, until this past summer, in “exclusive possession” of the truth and that, therefore, the statute clock shouldn’t start ticking until then.
Frankly, I think it’s something of a stretch to claim ignorance lasting all the way to the summer of 2012. Walsh’s first book came out in 2004. The facts were out there almost nine years ago.
Speaking, not as a lawyer, but as a hypothetical juror, I would have to say this one is a stretch. I like the suit, largely because I appreciate the … well, mostly because it made me laugh. (I kinda hope they pull it off. If they do, I’m ready to sue Dick Cheney for his autobiography, too.)
Nonetheless, Armstrong probably shouldn’t lose too much sleep over this one.
But he might be awake anyway, since he probably should be concerned about that other case.
The SCA matter
You might recall that big fight Armstrong engaged in with a Texas-based insurer known as SCA Promotions.
Based on allegations outlined in Walsh’s 2004 book “L.A. Confidentiel, Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong,” SCA withheld payment of a $5 million “insurance” policy taken out by Armstrong’s management company, “Tailwind Sports,” in the event that he won his sixth successive Tour in ’04. SCA had earlier made payments for Armstrong’s fourth and fifth Tour “wins” in amounts of $1.5 million and $3 million, as well.
Well, in 2004, the record books showed that Armstrong had won his sixth Tour. The owners at SCA, however, pointed to Walsh’s allegations and said that Armstrong had cheated, arguing that such actions would nullify the pay-out.
The contract called for the case to be resolved through arbitration and many, many billable hours ensued. After hours of depositions, tons of filings and a lot of talk from both sides, the question essentially came down to the fact that the original contract didn’t actually have a provision barring cheating and that even if SCA were successful in proving its allegations, the company still owed the $5 million. The two sides reached a Compromise Settlement Agreement for $7.5 million in February of 2006, requiring SCA to pay the original policy, lawyers fees, interest and other costs.
Flash forward to October, 2012 when the UCI affirmed USADA’s decision to strip Armstrong of all seven Tour de France titles he’d “won,” leaving the top spot on results empty. Logic would dictate, reasoned SCA, that since Armstrong is no longer the “official winner” of the Tours in question, they deserve their money back … along with lawyers fees, interest and other costs.”
Hence, SCA’s decision to file suit in Dallas County District Court seeking vacate that original settlement agreement based on the acts fraud committed by Armstrong and Tailwind in reaching it.
There is a substantial hurdle SCA has to clear if this case proves to be successful. Namely that the original settlement agreement is binding and includes language that would preclude any party from challenging, appealing or attempting to “set aside the Arbitration Award.”
SCA is now claiming that the only way that settlement was reached was due to Armstrong’s fraudulent acts. There are similar discovery issues, but they seem much more solid in the SCA case than they do in the case of the vexed, annoyed and injured readers.
But what about that provision barring appeal?
Most arbitration awards and arbitration settlements contain language barring attempts to set it aside. That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s totally impossible.
Historically, courts will agree to set aside arbitration awards and settlements in only a small set of very narrowly defined circumstances. The reason for that reluctance is that the outcome of an arbitration process is generally viewed by the courts as the end of litigation, not just the close of one chapter and the beginning of another.
The courts properly view those agreements as a valid and fully enforceable contract and, as a result, tend to shy away from overturning them, even when the arbitrators make an error of law or fact.
However, the courts have made exceptions, particularly involving cases in which fraudulent acts were involved in reaching that final arbitration award or settlement.
SCA is alleging that Armstrong, his partner and friend Bill Stapleton and Tailwind Sports engaged in a conspiracy to “defraud SCA and other third parties regarding Mr. Armstrong’s rampant drug use. That conspiracy continued up until Monday, January 14, 2013, when Mr. Armstrong finally admitted that he had lied during the last decade ….”
Now in reading case law relating to arbitration decisions in Texas in particular, often the fraud prompting a court’s interference relates to corruption of the arbitration process itself. For example, if a party to an arbitration agreement finds out that someone from the other side exerted undue influence or bribed a member of the arbitration panel, that would constitute fraud and warrant a court’s involvement.
Armstrong’s lies – and there were plenty – may not constitute the sort of fraud that would trigger a court’s involvement.
What’s interesting, though, is that SCA is arguing that the entire arbitration process was colored not only by Armstrong’s lies to the company, but fraud engaged in with respect to the UCI and USADA, the regulatory bodies overseeing the sport and doping enforcement. Then, add in the fact that Armstrong perjured himself in depositions in the case (he was under oath when he said he didn’t dope) and those could both give a court reason to look.
What looks to be a stronger argument for SCA, though, is that the arbitration case should be reopened on the grounds that leaving it in place would constitute “unjust enrichment” in that allowing him to keep the money earned such a fraudulent manner would in and of itself represent a miscarriage of justince. Furthermore, SCA points to the 2012 “Reasoned Decision” from USADA, which orders that all “prize” monies be returned. That latter one is an interesting argument.
On the surface, the USADA ruling simply means that he has to return the prize money awarded by ASO for winning the Tour. But SCA argues that its payments of $12 million constitute prize money and, therefore, should be returned.
Interesting.
Now, the original SCA agreements were touted as “insurance,” in that Tailwind took out policies that would be paid out in the event Armstrong “won” the Tours in question. So how is that prize money? Well, SCA asserts, that because Tailwind took out those policies to minimize its risk of having to pay bonuses or “prizes” to Armstrong for “winning” those Tours.
SCA is arguing that the ensuing payments, therefore, fall into the category of prizes and, as such, should be returned first to Tailwind and then to the insurance company that paid out the money.
The suit is a damn good read. I’m a lot more inclined to buy the basis of that suit than I am to accept the claims by those parties “injured” by their purchase of a work of fiction.
Either way, both suits will contribute to many billable hours for many of the lawyers involved and that’s not a bad thing, is it?
– Charles
The Explainer is a weekly feature on Red Kite Prayer. If you have a question related to the sport of cycling, doping or the legal issues faced by cyclists of all stripes, feel free to send it directly to The Explainer at Charles@Pelkey.com. PLEASE NOTE: Understand that reading the information contained here does not mean you have established an attorney-client relationship with attorney Charles Pelkey. Readers of this column should not act upon any information contained therein without first seeking the advice of qualified legal counsel licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.
Friday Group Ride #156
I laughed out loud, and it was one of those moments when I was alone, walking back from dropping the kids at school, and I hoped that none of my neighbors had seen me, walking along by myself, laughing like an idiot. I had been thinking about my “season,” i.e. that time of the year where I ride without the sorts of interruptions that keep me off the bike for weeks at a time, things like two feet of snow dropping in a single evening and shrinking all the road ways to high-speed hallways for impatient motorists.
When, I wondered to myself, would my season start?
And really, even thinking of what I do as having a season made me laugh out loud. I mean, who am I? I don’t race, so I don’t train except in that masochistic way that yields some level of spirit-illuminating suffering. I ride hill repeats occasionally, but only the way a penitent wears a hair shirt, to know better what a clean soul feels like.
It was just two weeks ago, as I was riding home in falling snow, that I even realized what’s good about the off-season, that yearly hiatus that comes unbidden in either December or January or February, or whenever the capriciousness of nature turns the endeavor of riding into a survival exercise. I was cursing the snow and thinking of Padraig wheeling along in the Southern California sun and thinking some not-altogether charitable thoughts, when suddenly I realized that being forced off the bike periodically is a good thing.
It keeps me from exacerbating repetitive use injuries to my knees. It allows my body to recover in myriad ways, some of which I’m sure I don’t even realize, and it forces me to pursue other activities that I enjoy but often eschew in favor of riding.
Despite our recent meteorological travails, some friends are riding 40 miles tomorrow in honor of someone’s 40th birthday. Given my current condition, and the current conditions, 40 miles would be a good ride, but family duties have me standing in a hockey instead, watching my boys excel at a sport I don’t even really understand.
I was thinking about missing that ride when I started laughing to myself like an idiot. “When,” I thought, “does my season get to start? And what even does it look like?”
This week’s Group Ride asks when YOUR season starts. Do you even think of your riding as having seasons? And what do those season’s consist of? Club rides? Races? Grand fondos? Or just a long series of solo rides, away from family and responsibilities and the cold, darkness of hockey rinks?
Image: Matt O’Keefe
Zipp 30: First Impressions
Zipp assembled a number of journalists to introduce the 650c Firecrest 404 Carbon Clincher, Vuka Stealth bar, the new 30 and 60 wheels and Elsa and Riken Quarq cranks. There’s not much point to bringing us all together just to talk about this stuff. The hope had been that we’d ride three days, but the Tucson weather had other ideas.
There’s a belief that Tucson, Arizona, is a place to go when you’re tired of winter elsewhere. Just how this belief came to proliferate, I can’t tell. In my two visits to Tucson during the late fall and winter, I have to say this place is colder than most of California and it’s hard to make a case that you’re a winter-free locale if snow can fall there, something that did happen on Monday, killing that day’s ride. This isn’t a criticism of Zipp; it’s a curiosity about the source of what strikes me as a fundamental fallacy. There are stories enough about Discovery/RadioShack training camps with Belgian weather occurring in Tucson that you’d think someone would have amended the Wikipedia entry.
Justin was at the ready to help me set up my bike.
We did manage to get out for two rides thanks to excellent support from Jose Alcala, Justin Koch and Chad Contreras at SRAM NRS. We were provided with Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL4s (those of us who were riding road bikes—guys checking out the Vuka Stealth were on Cervelos) equipped with SRAM Red which was great for me given I’d just finished riding a Tarmac.
For both rides I went out on the new 30 wheels. As I clipped in for my first ride, which came before our tech briefing, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d already seen the rim shape and wondered how they would performer. Of course, that first ride was miraculous. What really made the difference were the special edition testosterone and dopamine-laced Clif Shot Bloks, but I didn’t suspect them at the time. As we were rolling out from the Starr Pass resort, I delivered a 1350-watt 20-second effort, jumped a flock of road runner and then skidded sideways to a stop without folding up the wheels.
Okay, so that didn’t happen.
What did happen was as we descended out of the resort I felt that familiar difference in acceleration that I experience with more aerodynamic wheels. I’ve just spent a bunch of time on the latest Dura-Ace hoops and while they rolled strong, true and reliable, they are to aerodynamic what Marlboro is to healthy living.
Numerous studies have shown remarkably consistent application of the Rate of Perceived Exertion by athletes. I bring that up because a couple of weeks ago, troubled by my inability to think of a more objective way to quantify the difference in experience I have with aerodynamic wheels vs. standard wheels, I began thinking about whether I could view it as a difference in RPE. Bingo. I’ll probably do a survey of my experiences in a separate post if I can put together something that seems sufficiently rigorous to report as responsible analysis. Let’s suffice to say that my experience at effort placed these distinctly ahead of box rims, but not nearly as fast as something like the 303s.
The rider on the right, Jimmy, was responsible for the design of the 30s.
Despite the fact that these aren’t what I’d call light wheels (in my head, 1500 grams is the big dividing point), they were easy to wind up. My takeaway on that is a reinforcement of the wheels’ notable aerodynamics.
According to my Garmin, I’ve got about four hours on the wheels in two rides. I’m impressed by them, full stop. I’m well aware that not everyone wants to spend $850 on a pair of wheels. I’m also aware that there are RKP readers who can spend that much for a set of spares. If $850 is more than you want to spend, that’s fine. But in that $750 to just less than $1000 range, I think these are a fairly remarkable set of wheels.
Yeah, that’s snow in them thar hills.
I love the chance to ride new products; some end up amazing, but others … not quite as much. The funny thing is going to these events is often less about the products themselves than the people there. I had plenty of reasons to stay home: My wife is pregnant. I missed the chance to do a fun ride in Malibu with friends. I also missed a chance to take my son to the skatepark. The days were long, and while the quality of the room was stellar, Having a few boxes show up at home while I stay put would be easier. I go to these events in part because I’m honored that they ask, but also because it’s invariably an opportunity to talk with other people—smart people—passionate about bikes, people who are passionate enough about bikes that they gave up the chance to earn more in another industry by sticking to what most of the world thinks of as a kid’s toy. Just showing up means a chance to learn something.
There’s a lot in the bike industry that excites me, but it’s not everything by any means. In writing about new equipment I’m chasing the promise of something that makes the experience fresh, that renews what it feels like to get on a bike for the first time. These wheels are a great option for those who want a great set of wheels but don’t want to spend top-shelf cash. But why take my word for it? I’ve already heard from friends who were asking how soon they’ll be available so they can purchase a set.
