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Bill  On The Road

 by: Bill Oetinger  9/1/2010

Recap redux

For better or worse, I’m going to cobble together another of my “loose ends” columns this month, even though I did two of them, back to back, in March and April. These retrospective rehashes of past columns used to come up about once a year for me, but now I’m raking over the same issues rather more frequently than that. What can I say? These darn topics just won’t die, or at any rate, I just can’t stop chewing on them.

First off, I want to finally--finally!--report closure on the bike path battle along Santa Rosa Creek. I first wrote a column about this called Us Vs Them…Again in July of 2009. You can reread it if you’re so inclined. In fact, if you didn’t read it when it first appeared, I urge you to do so. If I may say so, I think it was one of my better efforts, and it covered some interesting, provocative issues. But if you don’t want to revisit that piece, I’ll summarize it thusly: paving of a two-mile gravel path along the top of the flood levee beside Santa Rosa Creek had been working its way through planning and permitting for many years--since the late '80's--but had been held up by some opponents who ultimately turned out to base their objections primarily on the premise that leaving the path gravel would prevent “skinny-tired” road bike riders from riding there; that paving would mean they would have to share their path with "folks who only want to go fast"…aka road bikers.

Eventually, after what seemed like an endless round of hearings, the County Supervisors finally sent the opponents packing and awarded the paving contract, as I reported in my first follow-up on this in April. At that point, I said the paving contractor was just waiting for the ground to dry out before getting to work on the project. I can now tell you that they did their work at the end of June and had the trail open, with smooth new asphalt, just after the Fourth of July weekend. I can also tell you that it’s a wonderful extension of the existing Santa Rosa Creek Trail, and that I have been riding on it frequently, including this morning. What’s more, I can state that I have as yet seen not one single instance of a road bike rider, or any other cyclist, riding at more than a moderate speed along the path. I don’t doubt that it happens every so often, but I’ve yet to see it myself. Whenever I’ve been out there, it has been a haven of peace and tranquility, with all the trail users seeming to mix and mingle amicably.

The only problem with this otherwise happy-ending story is that, hardly a month after the paving machines rolled off the path and the contractor went on to his next job, the paving is developing an extensive webbing of hairline cracks. It looks as if the substrate was substandard and that the top coat is slumping out to both sides a bit, opening up "stretch mark" type cracks down the middle. So far, they don’t affect the quality of the ride, which is at this point silk smooth. But if they continue to grow, it could be a problem, once winter weather goes to work on the fissures. I've just been talking today with some political insiders who tell me that County staff and the contractor are currently discussing what to do. It won't be an easy fix if they force them to redo it.

So, while I dearly wish I could put a period after this story and call it done for good, the paving problems may cause it to be the project, and the story, that just won’t go away. I promise not to inflict any more installments of this saga on you unless something really extraordinary happens. For now, let’s just say the path is done, and is delightful, and somehow they’ll deal with the cracks, before they get so big that skinny-tired road bike riders start falling through them.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of Santa Rosa, our other Us Vs Them bike path impasse may also be nearing some final resolution. This is the path on a public easement through a private, seniors’ development. I first reported on that one in a column in September, 2008, then followed up with more news in February, 2009. I wish I could tell you that that long-running stand-off had been settled, but it hasn't, not just yet. In fact,  I can't really tell you anything about it right now, as I have been sworn to secrecy while the wheels of justice are grinding away. All I can say is that things are in process and that I may have news to report soon.

So let’s move on to another old topic that won’t go away: people being distracted while using electronic message devices, be they phones or texting or whatever. I first talked about this in a column in February, 2008, then took it up again in another piece in , 2009, and finally really laid into it in my column in March of this year. I appear to be something of a Luddite voice crying in the wilderness on this topic. Even my best friends roll their eyes when I start ranting about it, then excuse themselves so they can take a call. But I'm sorry, it needs to be said. This latest look at the topic is a bit more lighthearted than my last one, but the underlying points remain the same.

Three small items:

1. Did you happen to see the Sixty Minutes interview with Dr Martin Cooper a few weeks back? He’s the project manager/engineer with Motorola who is generally credited with bringing the cell phone to the world in 1973…its inventor, more or less. He’s still alive and very active and quite a character. In the interview, he recounted his first phone call on his first cell phone. He was walking along the sidewalk in Manhattan and called up his rival engineer at Bell Labs to tell him his team at Motorola had beaten them to the finish line in the quest for the first commercially viable cell phone…and while he's talking on the phone--the very first cell phone call ever--he steps off the curb into the path of a car and is nearly run over. We almost had the first case of a fatality from being distracted on a cell call within the first minute of the first call ever made!

2. This one is about using your cell phone while riding your bike, and it's as compelling an argument for not doing so as anything I’ve seen yet, even though it involves no injuries or fatalities. Matt Wilson is a cyclist in our club and a pretty good rider. On May 1, he traveled to southern California to participate in the Borrego Double Ordeal double century. So…a couple of hours into the ride, he's in the lead, off the front, all alone (and if you know Matt, you know he can stay the distance and finish off the front). He’s approaching a rather complicated intersection with somewhat confusing course markings on the road (according to Matt). Just as he nears the turn, his cell phone rings. Naturally, he has to pull it out of his pocket right away to see who’s calling. (It was another of our club members, wondering if Matt wanted to go for a ride that morning, unaware that Matt was in the midst of a double at the other end of the state

So while Matt is busy reading those itty bitty letters on his phone screen, he blows through the confusing intersection, misreads the arrows (because he's mostly paying attention to his phone), and goes off course. Seven miles off course, or a 14-mile round trip. In the end, he finished third in the double, 24 minutes out of first and four minutes out of second. At, say, 20 mph, those 14 extra miles would have cost Matt about 42 minutes. So, had he not elected to mess around with his phone at that critical moment, he would have finished first by around 18 minutes.

You think Matt--or any one of us--wouldn’t love to be able to claim a first-place finish in a double century for part of our life's cycling resumé? Too bad! Who knows if he’ll ever get that close again? And he blew it because he couldn’t wait a few minutes to check the message on his phone.

3. A very small item: I was nearly taken out on a bike path this past week by an adolescent boy on a skate board. Why the almost-accident? Because he was texting while skating. I could see it coming. He was clearly in this own private space, thumbs bobbing away, eyes glued to the little screen, as he came rolling toward me. I kept figuring he’d look up, notice me, and adjust accordingly, but he never did. At the last second, I had to yell at him, and it was like waking up someone from a deep sleep. He was utterly amazed to discover the real world going on around him. Had I not yelled at him, he would have plowed right into me.

It ends up being a funny anecdote, but it could have been serious. It's the latest item to add to the long list of all the ways people can find to be disconnected from the real world while they're in thrall to their little electronic toys.

Finally, on an entirely different topic, let's revisit Levi Leipheimer. This harks back to my column from just last month, so you shouldn't have to dig too deep into your memory vaults to recall the gist of it. To recap: our hometown hero was having a good but unspectacular Tour de France, in the midst of the top ten, when he lost almost nine minutes in just a few miles on the queen stage to Tourmalet. What happened that day? I still have discovered no explanation for that crucial jour sans except the tweet about a bug running through the Radio Shack team. But it turned what would have been a very respectable 6th-place finish into a rather forgettable, regrettable 13th-place finish.

In the month since then, Levi has done his best to put that lapse behind him, and he's done so in a rather remarkable way. First, on August 14, he entered and won the legendary Leadville 100 mountain bike race, in the process lopping something like 12 minutes off the course record set last year by his erstwhile teammate Lance Armstrong. We know Levi can ride off-road. He does a lot of it while training here in Sonoma County, including racing in and winning assorted Grasshopper races in the winter and spring, which are often half-road, half-dirt. But to just jump into the most prestigious off-road, ultra-distance race of its kind and not only win but blow the course record out of sight…that is impressive.

Then, just three days later, he entered the Tour of Utah one-week stage race. (Hey, I'm in the Rockies…might as well get in another event in the same neighborhood.) One week and six stages later, he was the winner of the event. He hung around in the Prologue and Stage 1, then took control in the first mountaintop finish in Stage 2, winning and taking the GC lead, which he then defended through the remaining three stages. What makes this especially interesting is that he did it without the help of any teammates. I don't mean he had a weak team around him. I mean he had NO team around him. Competing against full squads from all the best teams in North America, Levi entered alone, as a team of one, wearing some weird Radio Shack/Mellow Johnny race kit we've never seen before. All week long, he kept saying he couldn't possibly win without a team; that he was just here to have fun, etc. But in the end, he did win, and very convincingly.

It reminds me of how he won the Cascade Classic out of Bend, Oregon a couple of years ago, with only Chris Horner riding shotgun for him. But he didn't have even that one helper to watch his back this time, and the Tour of Utah is a more difficult race with a deeper field than the Cascade Classic. So this was really quite an impressive accomplishment. No, it is not the Tour de France, nor even the Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse or other, prestigious one-week tour in Europe. The level of talent on the North American circuit is just not the same as it is over there. Still…impressive nonetheless, and both these dominating victories beg the question: what happened on the Tourmalet and why wasn't Levi just that little bit better over there, in the crucial month of July? File that question in the dusty old folder labeled, "What if…?" Close the file drawer and move on.

With Levi reaching a certain age, it isn't possible anymore to say, "There's always next year." His next years are dwindling down to a precious few. But based on his month of August, we can at least entertain ourselves over the winter with some tantalizing expectations for at least one more year to come…not to mention the Worlds, in the more immediate future. (I never make any predictions about the World Championship race, even privately, to myself. It is always such a crap shoot. You never know what will happen.)

Meanwhile, even as the Vuelta a Espanna is getting going this week, we are seeing major changes in the configuration of the pro peloton for next year. Lance is gone, finally and--we hope--for good. The Schleck brothers have left Saxo Bank to lead their own, new Luxembourg-based team, and they’ve brought along a pretty good chunk of Saxo’s inner circle with them: Jens Voigt, Stuey O'Grady, Jakob Fuglsang. Alberto Contador has left Astana to take the place of Frank and Andy as team leader at Saxo Bank, bringing some of his best Spanish domestiques with him. Denis Menchov is leaving Rabobank for Geox, a new team being constructed out of the remnants of the former Footon-Servetto team, one of the weakest in the Pro Tour rankings. There were rumors that Radio Shackers Horner and Janez Brajkovic might be headed to Geox as well, but Johann Bruyneel insists they are still going to be there to assist Levi. Back at the Shack, newbies Taylor Phinney and Tiago Machado could soon be challenging Levi for the spotlight on that team.

Cervelo Test Team announced rather unexpectedly that is is disbanding in December after just two years, leaving a lot of riders in unemployment limbo. The best of them will land on their feet though. Carlos Sastre will be joining Menchov at Geox, presumably to be Menchov’s best mountain lead-out man. Thor Hushovd and Heinrich Haussler will be absorbed into Garmin Transitions. In fact, it looks as if Jonathan Vaughter's Garmin team will take over quite a bit of the discarded Cervelo baggage. A team with three top sprinters (Hushovd, Haussler, and Farrar)…how will that play out? And a number of possible GC riders (Vande Velde, Hesjedal, and young Tejay Van Garderen). A team to watch.

It has been a busy transfer season, with still quite a lot of shuffling to go. The pro peloton is going to have a very different look next year. New teams, new leaders, new alliances, new dynamics. We're not even done with 2010 and 2011 is already looking to be all sorts of interesting. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s enjoy what should be a very competitive Vuelta, the Worlds, Lombardia, and all the rest of what’s left of this excellent season.

Okay then: a lot of looking backward and a little looking forward. Always a good combination as we move toward autumn and the end of another cycling season. But even if there aren’t that many races left on the calendar, there are still plenty of days left for your own riding, all the way through what we can hope will be a lovely Indian Summer, always one of the best times of the year to be out and about on a bike. So get out there: explore our newly paved bike path before it crumbles to bits, leave your cell phone unanswered in your pocket, and pretend you’re Levi Leipheimer for the day.

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net



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