My Man Crush & the Holy Trinity of Cycling

Back of Cavendish, Full-On Fabian 2010 TOC

You’ve seen the video, heard the stories and all of sudden Sasquatch’s thick matted fur is all up in your grill so close you crinkle your nose and squint your eyes at the Yeti stench.  Yeah.  Mmmph.  You urk back a little puke and say to yourself, “That’s a beautiful Big Foot.”  Seeing Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen up close is sort of like seeing Sasquatch, only you’ve never stood on the couch cushions shouting as Sasquatch grits his teeth and pounds the pedals under the red kite with the contorted faces of those he’s dropping in view between his 4 day beard and his shoulder.  I saw Boonen, Cancellara and Hincapie together last year at the tour of California.  My wife blasted me for my giddiness as I angled the camera to capture all three in the same photo.  To her I looked like a tween snapping photos at a Justin Bieber concert.  To me, I was witnessing a cycling holy trinity. 

Stay Thirsty My Friends

Quite a few women read this blog.  While some of you may want to have mad wild Belgian/Swiss RV sex with Tomeke or Fabian after the finish of this weekend’s E3 and Gent-Wevelgem, man crushes are nothing like that.  Let it be clear, I do not want to boom with Boonen.  I don’t want Cancellara to wear my ring on a chain around his neck.  A man crush is nothing sexual or gay.  A man crush is something of appreciation, like seeing the perfection in the Brawny paper towel guy’s beard, admiring the timelessness of Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World, or the suaveness of the Old Spice guy.  Advertisers are well aware of this.  Dos Equis, Brawny and Old Spice would be out of business if a video ever surfaced of Heidi Klum cleaning the bathroom counter with a Brawny paper towel, a Dos Equis beer in the other hand and a stick of Old Spice in view on the cabinet. 

Beautiful, yes.  But, what The hell Am I looking at?

The emotion behind a man crush is why grown men’s mouths gape and eyes rise in wonder at the cornerstone of the Empire State Building.  It’s why men marvel at the bland smooth concrete massiveness of the Hoover Dam and insist on “popping the hood” and peering at the engine of a Ferrari.  It has nothing to do with understanding the engineering principals behind these wonders.  It’s simply the sight of pure blunt-force perfection.    It’s man beauty.

Stoic Boonen 2010 Tour of California

I think that’s what I see in Boonen and Cancellara.  I saw both of them in person, together at the start of the Big Bear state of the Tour of California.  Boonen, minutes later would drop out of the race.  Cancellara would be pack fodder.  It didn’t matter.  Like the great pyramids and Notre Dame Cathedral, their cache of wins and hard-guy moments earns them a timeless respect.   Conversely Frank Schleck winning the Criterium International did nothing for me.

Holy Water Bottles

I could be going to hell.  If so, my wife and a bunch of racer type cyclists from Milwaukee are coming with me.  Woo hell!  The most extreme epic ride ever!  I’ll wear my helmet with the horns.  We’ll have a Papal Peloton!  I grew up Catholic, went to Sunday school, received a coupla sacraments, know the Lords Prayer and Hail Mary by heart and in all my worldly Theological studies I’m certain that drinking Holy Water at least gets you a few whacks from a Nun’s yardstick.  I’m almost positive that somewhere in the bible it says “Drinketh the wine and thou be seateth at the right hand of the Lord.  Guzzleth the Holy Water, and thou gets few jabiths in the keester with a hot rusty pitchith fork.”

If you’ve been angry because there hasn’t been a new blog post in weeks, I’ve been on vacation.  Rule #1 with this blog is that riding comes before writing.  So while on vacation in Wisconsin we tagged on to the Holy Hill Ride, Milwaukee’s regular Sunday morning pilgrimage to a spectacular spired church perched on a scenic hill 35 miles or so out in the sticks from downtown.  Superweek, aka The International Cycling Classic, also features a stage through Holy Hill country.  This is the second time I’ve done the ride.  I grew up in Milwaukee, but my passion for road cycling didn’t arise till I moved to Cincinnati.  Therefore the only times I visited Holy Hill were on Christmas and at 1am with a six pack of Mickey’s big mouth beers during prom.  The Holy Hill ride ranks right up with Cincinnati’s covered bridge ride, skinny farm roads leading to a place that’s always better reached by bicycle.  Like most cities and their Sunday ride traditions, this ride has been going on for a long time.  From what the peloton of 30 or so said, the Holy Hill ride has been going on probably before the Green Bay Packers won their first Superbowl, but after Harley met Davidson.

Milwaukeeans will try to fool you to thinking that the topography is hilly, mainly by calling people from Illinois “flatlanders.”  Since I’ve moved away to a place that actually is quite hilly, Milwaukee for all practical purposes is as flat as a pancake with a few thick ripples of syrup on top and running down the side into Lake Michigan.  But.  But.  But, for some reason that only a geological genius can explain, there are a few areas that were not smooshed by glaciers.  Holy Hill sits on top of one of them.  The wooded hill probably rises 300ish feet above the farmland below.  Not quite Cincinnati high, but definitely tall enough for a 3-4 minute climb with a couple of soft switchbacks capped off by two steep stabs to the cornerstone of the church.  Of course, King of the Mountain points are in full effect every Sunday.  While, I did not win the surge to the top, I think I certainly made a few locals fear that the out of town guy may spank them on their own hill.

At the top, we stopped for a natural and to fill up the bottles.  The temp was tickling its way toward 85 degrees.  The group split up.  Some stopped at a small out-building with a restroom and bubbler (Wisconsin speak for “drinking fountain”).  The rest of us, stopped in front of this little grotto with what appeared to be a natural spring watched over by a statue of the Virgin Mary.  In plain English, the sign next to the spigot said, “Holy Water.”  Now, I’m no Theological expert, but I’m pretty sure this would lead most god fearing people to believe that this water was meant for blessing and quenching the thirst unfortunate souls and not for guzzling in 28 ounce quantities.  Despite Mary’s furrowed brow of disapproval, everyone filled their bottles from the tap and made holy water jokes in the shadow of the colossal cathedral.  H.  E.  Double toothpicks.

Regardless of our apparent sin, none of us were struck by a bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky.  However, someone did get a flat tire right there at the grotto.  Coincidence?  I dunno.  Regardless, no one wrecked on the way home.  Maybe it was blessed.  We went on to have a wonderful vacation in Wisconsin.  Who knows?  They say the body is 70% water.  For a few days, maybe ours was Holy Water.  Is that doping?

The Joker & Cycling Heaven: A Milwaukee Area Group Ride With Team Extreme

There’s a joker on every group ride.  I love him, in a bromance kind of way.  With impeccable timing, the joker’s the one who “accidently” drops a 4 letter bomb at the top of the climb to Holy Hill.  He’s the guy who wonders out loud why a road would be named Amy Belle and how promiscuous she might have been in a rural Wisconsin tool shed.  He’s the one who stands on the pedals before a ripping downhill, bursts into an Irish accent and liltingly shouts “time to bomb down frickin’ Donegal.”  Inappropriate but innocent, the joker keeps the ride alive.  The joker makes late winter’s cropless windswept farm roads and the first four hour ride of the season bearable.  It is just one of the reasons I try to hook up with a local ride when I travel.

When you travel with your bike, there’s no need to pour over maps, ride by yourself, and stop every few miles to make sure you’re on track.  Next time you travel, email a few local clubs or teams wherever you’re going and inquire about riding with them.  Cycling is a social beast.  Name a cyclist who doesn’t enjoy riding with new people.  Just be honest about your ability and remember that you’re a guest on someone elses ride.  This past weekend I hooked up with Team Extreme Cycling in Thiensville, WI for their regular Saturday ride from Extreme Bike & Ski to Holy Hill and back.  It all started with a simple email from one cyclist to another.

To: patrick@teamextremecycling

Got your email from the wicycling.org website.  I’m a cat 3 rider in Cincinnati.  I race for BioWheels bike shop here.  My family’s in Mequon and I’ll be in the Milwaukee area Saturday for a reunion.  Was wondering, since you look like you’re located in Thiensville, if there’s a group ride on Saturday that I could latch onto.  

From: teamextrememtnbike

Hi Joe - Thanks for the email. (Here’s the info on our group ride Saturday.)  Hope you can make it.

Saturday March 14 Afternoon Edition Group/Team Ride

Departure Time: 1:30pm

Departure Location: Extreme Ski & Bike (the Shop)

Route: Holy Hill and Back including the Rustic Road Sections (40-45 miles); no drop!

I did make it.  The ride with Patrick & Team Extreme to Holy Hill was the highlight of the weekend, no offense to my family party which was the focal point of my trip. 

The ride met at Extreme Bike & Ski in Thiensville, WI, a great shop, well stocked and for lack of a better term extremely friendly.  I would never have discovered it had I not ventured out of my cycling travel cocoon.  As the riders gathered, chatted, filled bottles and tires, I realized I was a few cents short of enough cash to pay for a CO2 cartridge.  Kindly, the woman behind the counter re-rang it up with one of the team guy’s discounts and all was good.  When’s the last time something like that happened on your road trip?  I was just one of the regular guys on the regular group ride.  Its little things like that that’ll make me pop in there next time I need something or recommend the shop to someone I know in the Milwaukee area.

The bike path behind the shop led to the farm roads just north of Milwaukee’s suburbs of Mequon, Germantown and Richfield.  They were flat by Cincinnati standards, but had enough curves to keep it interesting.  I barely remember seeing any cars till our double paceline crossed over the freeway.  The pace was perfect, just hard enough where the guys at the front were working hard, the guys behind could talk and the joker could poke fun at joggers and innocent landmarks.  The gradual incline of the farm roads gave way to the rolling hills of the lake country surrounding Milwaukee that make up a stage or two of the International Cycling Classic a.k.a. Superweek.  Hogsback was a favorite that bombed, rolled and twisted its way between the farms and Holy Hill.  The highlight was the climb to Holy Hill, 900 vertical feet of switchbacks topped with a cathedral in the boondocks.  Holy Hill is cycling heaven.

Sunday Mornings

The sun is doing it’s best to burn the frost off my windshield and the fog from the Ohio River Valley. Like a human coco bean radiator, I take another sip off coffee and unzip my jacket. There’s always an interesting story Sunday morning’s on NPR. Today, I think it’s an interview with a producer from a TV cop drama, but I missed the beginning where they mentioned the show. He’s actually been to real murder scenes and I laugh when he reiterates the fact that saying “c’mon, shoot me” is about the dumbest thing you can say if someone in real life points a gun at you. I’m halfway through an Odwalla Bar and about a half hour from today’s cyclocross race venue.

Just this past Saturday, my wife and I were spinning and watching the “Pure Sweet Hell” video. Some CX nut from Portland was saying how cross is sort of masochistic. My wife quipped with a smart-assed raised eyebrow, “is that why you like it?!” Caught off guard by her subtle humor, I spurted out something like, “no, I like it because it’s short and really hard.” I chucked inside and we kept spinning. As the yuk wore off, I started to think of why I like cyclocross.

I do like it because it’s short and hard. While I do like racing bikes in general, I’ve never been completely fond of the all-day long endurance mountain bike races. I don’t get excited for the Mohican 100 and Pisgah Death March like I do for cyclocross. Every form of racing is hard in its own right, but for some reason I prefer the red-line racing over the “oh god I hope I can endure this beating for another 4 hours” variety.

But, cyclocross is more than that. It’s the little intricacies, most of the time nothing to do with the actual bike riding, all rolled up into one package that keeps me coming back every weekend. It’s trying to quietly stuff a cowbell in the pocket of my backpack without waking up my wife. It’s loading up the bikes on a chilly November morning and seeing my neighbor tip-toe out to grab his newspaper in his underwear and suddenly realize that someone spotted him in his boxers. It’s feeling compelled to make a sign of the cross midway through evening hill repeats in Mount Adams as I rest and take in the vista overlooking the Ohio River Valley from the gate of the Holy Cross-Immaculata Church.