The Story of the Giro d’Italia
Earlier this week we ran an excerpt from Bill and Carol McGann’s latest release, The Story of the Giro d’Italia, Volume II. I don’t think I can do anything here to recommend this book more highly than the incredible narrative the McGanns wove, but this is my chance to comment on it directly.
Yeah, so this is going to be a favorable review. It’s like that.
The Giro is an odd event. It’s not the Tour de France transported and translated to Italy. While that statement is hopelessly broad and not properly rooted in objective, evidential detail, it’s got to be said. It’s just a different beast. The Giro has often been political in a way the Tour can’t approach. Its formula has been tinkered with in a way that would cause the board at Coca-Cola to gasp.
This is the second half of his survey of the race. It begins in 1971 with Gösta Pettersson’s victory and takes us through wins by Merckx, Hinault, Moser, Indurain, Pantani and ends with Alberto Contador’s 2011 performance. It’s quite a ride.
What the McGanns have done is to give you a look at the race in its proper perspective. It’s not just the couch, it’s the couch in your living room. And I should add here that while Bill is the rabid racing fan, Carol is the meticulous editor, and Bill demonstrates his class by crediting Carol as his full partner. To say this account is dispassionate misses the point. There’s plenty of passion in these pages. Bill doesn’t have any trouble telling the reader when someone delivered a ride worthy of a champion. It’s easy to sense the excitement he felt as he scoured old Italian newspapers and books in his quest to illustrate those days that are woven into the history of the Giro. His real talent is to strip the partisan favoritism that comes with nationalities. You end up cheering a bit for everyone—the guy who kicks ass, the guy whose ass got the kicking, the gregario who humbled himself for the team.
And while it may seem like a semantic point, the McGanns haver termed this the “story” of the Giro instead of the “history” of the Giro because it is meant to give the larger human drama that plays out. It helps to paint why non-cyclists could care so much.
McGann Publishing has put out quite a collection of books at this point. There’s plenty of good reading for a rider waiting for the Tour to start. Check them out here.
The Void
A few of the usual suspects: (l-r) Joel, Adam, Eric, Rob, Gary and Padraig
Since returning from Nice and wrestling with jetlag I’ve been inputting each of the rides I did on my Alpen odyssey with Erickson Cycle Tours. My plan had been to capture each of the rides with my Garmin 705, but as it went south the moment I plugged the Europe map chip in, that wasn’t possible. It has been painstaking work and has involved peeling some waterlogged maps apart. So it goes.
Under ordinary circumstances I’d keep the exact routes quiet in an effort to protect Erickson’s limited intellectual property. There’s more to a great bike tour than just getting over the right cols. However, the impetus to protect isn’t at work this time around for reasons that require some explanation.
Truth told: I don’t know a cyclist who is more familiar with the roads of the Alps than Glenn Erickson. He has been riding these roads for more than 25 years and his initial introduction to these routes came from former Grenoble resident and cycling writer Owen Mulholland—one of the two foremost English-language experts on the Tour de France (the other being Bill McGann). Yet with that endorsement out of the way, Glenn isn’t looking for more business. He’s in his 60s, has Parkinson’s and is likely to gradually wind down his business over the next five to seven years. All of his 2011 tours are already sold out. He doesn’t so much have returning clients as a very extended family.
As much as I want to recommend Erickson Cycle Tours to you, Glenn has asked me instead to focus on the beauty of the Alps and roads that most tour companies don’t go anywhere near. It’s a selfless act, really; one that has left me befuddled.
The lynchpin of a great tour operation is really the relationship management has with the hotels. That’s where Glenn’s wife, Nancy, comes in. She has been the one to nurture the relationships so that when an Erickson group shows up at the front door of a hotel, tour participants are treated as friends of friends rather than Americans, and that’s quite a difference in some places. Nancy has been the one to handle logistics, making sure that hotels meet Erickson’s standards while also allowing them to maintain an exceptional value—generally $4000 for two weeks.
Glenn and Nancy are something of a two-headed genius at creating tours that offer seamless riding. While their perspective seems none-too-extreme on its surface, there’s one distinction that I’ve yet to see another tour company emulate: You never, ever get in the van before a ride unless you ask. Erickson tours are designed so that you ride from one hotel to the next. Unlike every one of their competitors I’ve ever traveled with, no Erickson ride ever starts with a shuttle to the start of the actual ride. The benefits of this particular operational parameter are almost too numerous to name.
Should you wish to recreate the Route des Grandes Alpes on your own, it’s easy enough to find the route (and we didn’t stick to it religiously, ourselves), but with the routes we used you gain the advantage of knowing where you can find hotels that are both good and affordable. It would be pretty easy for a few friends to rent a van and take turns driving sag from Geneva to Nice. And I guarantee you’ll want a rest day (or two) in there somewhere.
It’s my sincere hope that as Glenn and Nancy transition toward retirement someone steps in to offer tours of a similar appeal.
Of course, there was a selfish side to my uploading all my rides to Map My Ride. I’m a data guy and two weeks of exquisite riding with absolutely zero data wasn’t easy to endure. I wanted to know the grand total on my mileage and my climbing. Early estimations were that we’d ride about 1000 miles climb roughly 100,000 feet.
In the past, my experience in the Alps, Pyrenees and Tuscany was that the riding generally hits a ratio of 100 vertical feet ascended for every mile ridden. On this trip there were many days where we blew that ratio to smithereens. There were days where we had more than 133 feet of climbing per mile.
My final tally was just more than 750 miles ridden and more than 92,000 feet climbed. And while those two numbers are super-accurate, the elapsed times given are very approximate. Between the map checks and food stops our elapsed times weren’t something we were too concerned with and I had no way to accurately gauge.
The Route des Grandes Alpes is a rare itinerary, both for its difficulty and in the rarity of the tour companies that have the ability to actually support such a tour. There’s a market for tours that do more than just bag a few cols; the question is who will offer these routes in the future.
Image courtesy Gary Schwenk
The Best Stories of 2009
Our man of the year, Lance, caught in the shadow of his nemesis.
It’s been an interesting year in the world of cycling. There have been some duels for the ages between larger-than-life figures. I decided to ask each of RKP’s contributors to pick their three favorite stories of the year. Some of their answers may surprise you.—Padraig
Padraig—
Lance Armstrong. No other figure in cycling has ever made headlines worldwide the way Lance Armstrong does. Whether it’s his battle to rid the world of cancer, the birth of a new son, doping charges or his battle of wits with Alberto Contador, Armstrong is a headline wherever he goes, whatever he does. He is also significant because no other figure has half the ability to polarize a group of cyclists as Armstrong. To some, he is a virtually convicted doper, to others he is a champion and figure of hope. No matter what you think of him, he has the ability to keep cycling in the mainstream worldwide, which, ultimately, is good for cycling.
The conviction of Dr. Thompson. That Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson was even tried for one felony—let alone six—was a big success for cyclists everywhere. There were more opportunities for this case to go off the rails than can be counted, but some significant points were in the initial investigation, once the case was turned over to the district attorney and, of course, in Thompson’s cross examination. This case will be cited as a turning point in the recognition by the average person that cyclists are both vulnerable to the actions of malicious drivers and have a right to the road.
Doping. From Christian “cycling has changed” Prudhomme, to Danilo “the killer” DiLuca to the blood transfusion kits found among Astana’s medical supplies, one should draw the conclusion that some riders might be cleaner than in the past, but cycling, as a sport, has yet to shed the taint of doping. Prudhomme, the Tour de France director, made the ludicrous statement, “I recently confirmed that ‘there were no suspected cases’ (during the 2009 Tour de France). This means that the fight against doping progresses.” Astarloza’s positive proved his statement was both premature and dead wrong. If anyone should have been fired from the ASO, it shouldn’t have been Patrice Clerc, but rather Prudhomme for making such a reckless statement on behalf of such a storied institution.
Honorable mentions:
The fire sale of Iron Horse bicycles to Dorel. Iron Horse wasn’t a prestigious brand, but it was long known as being a good value for new cyclists. Its descent into bankruptcy was an ugly, backbiting mess full of recrimination and charges of shady deals involving owner Cliff Weidberg and his son, who owned Randall Scott Cycles, a significant debtor to Iron Horse. Dorel (the parent for Cannondale, GT, Schwinn, Mongoose, Pacific, etc.) purchased Iron Horse for $5.2 million at auction, less than what Iron Horse’s three biggest secured creditors were owed, for a classic pennies-on-the-dollar deal. The sale left hanging dozens of unsecured creditors who were owed a combined $17 million as well as CIT Group for another $4 million, and made cycling’s biggest corporate colossus just a little bit bigger.
Lemond v. Trek. Just wait, the plus-size gal isn’t even on stage.
Da Robot—
Contador and Schleck denying Armstrong an 8th TdF. When the Lance returned, so much of the American cycloratti was hoping he’d return to his throne, but personally, I was ready to move on. As the hype ramped up and up and up, through LA’s collar bone break, through the Giro and into the initial stages of the Tour, I was really wishing for the sport to move on. Not to be ungrateful for contributions made, but I was ready for some new legends to emerge. And they did.
Philippe Gilbert’s end of season wins. What I love about Gilbert is his incredible tactical sense and timing. This is a guy who beats riders head and shoulders stronger than he is, by keeping his wits about him and playing them against one another. Not a weak rider, Gilbert shows what racing might be like in the absence of race radios, when smart riders win as much as strong ones.
The emergence of Edvald Boasson-Hagen. While everyone was talking about Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador (myself included) another young rider was winning races (10) and taking the overall in smaller stage races like the Eneco Tour and the Tour of Britain. Boasson-Hagen is 22. He is exactly the sort of rider that today’s top guns should be wary of, because he’s going to get better.
Rick Vosper—
USA Bike industry ignores its mounting inventory crisis for an entire year (repercussions will impact retail pricing and corporate profits until 2012). If you ever had any doubts as to whether bike companies know what they’re doing, well, here’s your answer.
Lemond v Trek: no matter which way it ends up (short of an out-of-court-plus-gag-order settlement), this story still has the potential to become the biggest scandal in US cycling history. It’s also the #1 story the cycling press wishes would just go away: no matter how—or even if—they report it, it’s a lose-lose for them.
American public starts to figure out that bikes are actually a lot of fun (and practical transportation, too). This is THE biggest sea-change in public attitudes about cycling since That Skinny Blonde Kid won some race over in France 33 years ago … although sometimes I liked it better when we were just a bunch of geeks and outcasts instead of too-cool-for-school fashion mavens in skinny jeans and ironic t-shirts.
Bonus: Mavic’s parent company (Amer Sports) puts it up for sale, can’t find buyer, de-lists it, fires its own President. You know the economy’s bad when no one wants a highly regarded company with the lion’s share of a long-term lucrative market.
Bill McGann—
Contador’s Tour win as part of the Bizarro World of Team Astana. I know of no other time in cycling history when, after the designated team leader takes the Yellow Jersey, the team manager wanted to put on sackcloth and ashes. The psychological war Bruyneel and Armstrong waged against Contador remains about the oddest thing I ever saw in cycling.
The death duel between Di Luca and Menchov in the Giro. While I watched it, I tried to forget Di Luca’s past doping offenses (he made sure I was reminded later…) and watched 2 superb athletes fight until neither had a watt left. Menchov’s crash in the final time trial made even the race’s last moments exciting. His poor performance in the Tour showed he had gone truly deep in the Giro.
Grand Tour VAMs. Both the Giro and the Tour had some spectacularly high VAMs (average rate of vertical ascent in a climb). There was one day in the Tour that saw the Tour climbing speed record Bjarne Riis set on the Hautacam in 1996 eclipsed.
Bonus: And the UCI says they are getting a good handle on doping. I’ve got some good ocean-front land here in Arkansas for anyone who believes that. I believe we lost ground during 2009 in the hunt for a clean sport.
Souleur—
Contador wins second Tour de France. The lead up to the race was more drama than MTV’s “The Hill” leading up to prom night. Every day there were hints that all the indicators being tossed out by Astana that “all is well” and “we are all behind our leader” and “Contador is our GC leader.” It was something everyone who listened and watched knew was slick talk and that there was 2 GC riders on the team, neither submitting to the other in reality. To see the dynamics play out was something that kept us all tuned daily for the month of July. I personally cannot wait ‘til 2010′s TdF!!
Fabian Cancellara SMOKES TT world championship. Fabian is a statesman for cycling and in my opinion one of the peloton’s classiest riders. He can be many things, but his TT skills are phenomenal and his lead up to the World TT championship brought us to anticipate a performance, which he delivered in jaw-dropping fashion.
Devolder repeats at Tour of Flanders. I love all the Classics, but I love the Spring Classics especially. Seeing Cav win Milan San Remo was incredible, to see Boonen win Paris-Roubaix was great, to see Schleck win Leige was sweet as well, but to see the Belgian Devolder repeat his win at Tour of Flanders held a meaning that goes to the very core of this race, to his pedigree, which makes him a national hero yet again, and brings this one to the top for me.
Notables: Team Columbia HTC should have an honorable mention notably as they really pulled off greatness in light of adversity, despite the other teams riding senslessly against them at times (Hincapie’s maillot jaune loss in TdF), they stuck it out and perhaps had the team of the year.
The Story of the Tour de France, Vols. 1 and 2
I’ve got Vince Guaraldi playing, the boy is wearing a onesie that says “Not an Elf” and every blog in America has posted a Christmas gift guide … ‘cept this one. Time to get with the program.
The vast majority of all books on cycling are simply information delivery systems. Whether they are training manuals, repair manuals, accounts of racing or biographies of racers, the vast majority of all cycling titles out there deliver little more than facts. Finding a truly gripping story can be kinda hard.
I’ve known Bill and Carol McGann for more than a dozen years. It might seem odd to see two authors listed on a volume, but to meet Bill and Carol is to see their intertwined talents and inseparable efforts. Bill is an ever-rational Don Quixote, easily inspired into new quests, and Carol is his Sancho Panza, the master of logistics and details. And while I have summed up their roles tidily here, the truth is that except for physically, it’s hard to tell where Bill’s efforts stop and Carol’s efforts begin; their professional efforts are that seamless.
In the late 1990s Bill told me he wanted to put together a comprehensive history of the Tour de France for English-speaking folk. I couldn’t deny his passion, but the guy owned a bike company—Torelli Imports—not a publishing house. It seemed just a little hare-brained a scheme, but I was more than happy to play along. I loaned him every book I had on the Tour in case it was any use.
Three years ago the first volume was released, encompassing the years 1903 to 1964. What unfolded in its pages was an unexpected treat. I was suddenly embarrassed that I’d ever wondered what sort of work they’d produce.
The McGanns are keen students of history. They can discuss Renaissance art and architecture, the satire of Al Capp, or any edition of the Tour de France, all with equal ease. Carol lets Bill take lead, but it’s apparent during his occasional silences that she’s as well-versed as he.
When I confessed in a phone call that I had some trouble identifying with the pre-WWII riders and wondered how it was he found racing in such different circumstances so compelling, he was aghast. “Those guys were going bloody hard!” If I can testify to nothing else, I can say Bill knows a thing or two about going “bloody hard.” And he loves it.
What surprised me in reading both of his volumes was his use of novelistic techniques to tell the stories of these great riders. He can kill off a rider’s relevance—indeed, his whole career—as fast as Flaubert killed off the first Madame Bovary. He uses foreshadowing to build drama and hint at coming tragedy in a way that reminded me of Stephen King.
Asked who his literary heroes are, he cites Homer and Tolstoy. Perfect. Stick the two in a blender and you get a sweeping epic that crushes lives, spans generations, rattles politicians, shapes culture. Sounds a lot like the Tour de France itself.
This account isn’t an account of each stage won and passage of the yellow jersey from one rider to the next. No, it’s a big-picture view; the McGanns mine each year for themes of treachery, transcendent efforts, unchecked ego and Sisyphean heartache. In his telling Icarus falls as often as Oedipus gets the girl. (Ew.)
Here’s a classic example of the storytelling in the books. This is from the 1996 Tour:
It took Riis 11 years as a pro to attain this level. It was a performance the 32-year-old would not repeat. Since that Tour victory, Riis has been dogged by accusations of EPO use, accusations that Riis steadfastly denied until 2007. Riis’ confession was an important part of the dramatic events that rocked the 2007 Tour. We’ll save the details of that episode for later. His young charge, Ullrich, became the first German since Kurt Stoepel in 1932 to make the Tour’s podium.
Whew, I feel like Billy Pilgrim—unstuck in time.
Were you to read every word published on every Tour in l’Auto and l’Equipe and someone were to ask you to sum up the events, what your takeaway was, this would be it. With these two volumes you get perspective, a la Leonardo Da Vinci. Off in the distance each of the lines representing the careers of these riders converge and the McGanns are more than happy to tell you what badasses they were.
The books are available through Amazon or from the Bike Race Info website here.
Thanksgiving III
It’s hard to say where the urge to write develops. There are probably as many motivations as there are writers. In the beginning there is a desire to connect with an audience. That currency, the connection any writer forges with his audience, is the paycheck that gets him started. It certainly did for me.
No matter what the subject matter is, sharing something true with another person is a powerful experience. Initially, when I began writing for myself, I wrote songs. I soon moved to poetry when I saw the incredible power of the confessional poets and the surreal majesty and heart-rending tragedy of poets like James Tate and Mark Strand. When I saw what could be achieved in such tightly wound passages I was hooked.
And while seeing someone’s reaction to my work was good enough to get me started, for any writer who persists, there comes a point when the doing is the paycheck. It’s no different than with cycling. We all want to win races, and the image of us thrusting our arms Godward can infect dreams lit by sun or moon. However, at some point you either learn to love the training itself, or you move on to poker or golf or whatever.
Writing, like cycling, is a love of the craft itself.
But writing has an advantage to bike racing. When I post a new piece, it’s like hitting the final kilometer and each positive comment is like a spot on the podium. I can’t say how many positive notes constitute a win, but at some point I feel as if I threw my bike at just the right moment.
The funny thing is that while the reinforcement that comes from a positive comment spurs me to want to write more and to repeat the experience, the comments of the naysayers, those who think I am a chain minus a master link, are the ones that spur me. Those comments have the power to make me dig deeper into my thoughts.
That I’ve found in cycling a vein rich enough to continue to mine year after year amazes me more than I can describe. In this regard, I must acknowledge Radio Freddy and Belgium Knee Warmers. It was in writing for BKW that I discovered an opportunity to take a magazine form—the column—and use it as a vehicle for analyzing my own thoughts on everything from doping to the well of motivation that keeps us riding day after day.
Radio Freddy gave me a very long leash on which to roam. Leaving BKW was a tough choice, but by the time I made that choice, I had developed my own vision for what a cycling blog could do and what I had to offer.
BKW celebrates three years today with a new skin and a renewed commitment by Radio Freddy. It’s great to see and it’s nice to know that RKP will have a sister site out there doing great work. We’ve discussed some cross-pollination. Watch for some joint posts in the future.
As I mentioned, leaving BKW wasn’t easy, but I had ideas of my own, and it’s not cool to take a bike out for a test ride and come back 100 miles later. I agonized about being the only voice in RKP. Fortunately, I got a lot of encouragement from some smart people.
Bill McGann, formerly of Torelli and these days of Bike Race Info, said to me, “You only need one good voice. You’ve got a good voice.” And while I trust Bill like I trust handmade tubulars in a corner (which is to say “all in”), I made the decision to actively court contributors. I’m pleased to call Da Robot a regular contributor. And with contributions from Bill and Rick Vosper (both of whom were working in the industry while I was still in grade school) I can say I’m both lucky and honored.
But that’s the point here; I’m lucky to have a passionate readership, even if sometimes you think I’m Amy Winehouse-crazy. In my mind, the only way you’ll keep coming back is if I give my very best and that, in part, means giving you more than just me.
A lot has happened since I wrote the last Thanksgiving post, but the two big ones are launching this blog and the birth of my son. I’m incredibly grateful for him and the love he has brought my wife and me.
You, the readers have played a special part in this. It’s because of your consistent reading that I have advertisers and those advertisers help me to be able to work from home and care for him during the day. It’s a delicate balance, but one that I anticipate will get a little easier as I become more experienced as a father.
So I am writing now to declare my thanks for you, dear readers. You give me the freedom to follow my many whims as a writer and the ability to share more time with my son than I’d manage in any other working situation.
