I'm a cyclist and cycling fan, so naturally I spent four hours behind a metal barrier at the top of Telegraph Hill yesterday to get a good look at the finish of the 1.9 mile prologue to the race. In only its second year, the Tour of California (or more romantic Tour DE California) is already the most prestigious American road race, so some heavy hitters from across the pond come over for the event. I mean, that guy just a few feet from me, that's Thor Hushovd!
I'm a planner, so an hour before the first rider departed, I parked myself about 100 meters from the finish line, Sunday crossword and race roster in hand. Lovely day, incredible athletes, beautiful Specialized Angel nearby. Started crossword puzzle, struggled, but gradually teased out some answers. Prologue begins. Cowbells, annoying inflatable plastic bang sticks, riders flashing by at 20+ mph despite a serious gradient. The area starts to crowd up with fans climbing the Filbert steps, the parrots fly in formation overhead. ("Did you see the movie?" "No, did you?") .
My roster tells me which rider will be next up the hill. A few others around me have rosters too, so someone usually announces to the crowd the name and the team of the next guy coming. Problem for me is that I have a couple of real wags to the right and to the rear of me who can't resist attempting a witticism with every rider announced. Examples follow:
Idiot Right: "Next up is Kyle Gritters from Health Net."
Idiot Rear: "Nitter Gritters!"
Idiot Rear: "Josep Jufre Pou? He must get hassled a lot with a name like that..."
Idiot Right: "When he goes by, let's shout 'You're number two, you're number two!"
These are some of the more painfully memorable comments - most were just ill informed speculations about nationality - there was a long discussion about whether the designation AUS meant Australia or Austria, despite the fact that the rider's name was Rory Sutherland. I was torn between keeping mum and turning to point out that "Rory" and "Sutherland" would seem to indicate one of those countries over the other, but I opted for keeping mum.
I'm still having a good time - I can see, I have the crossword for the interstices in the action, the weather is fine. Then, midway through the event as the finish gets more and more crowded, a spectator decides that the 7 or 8 centimeters between my back and the rock wall behind me are ample space for him to squeeze into. Idiot Right and Idiot Rear are also affected by this, and an exchange ensues about squatter's rights and selfishness. Asshole Latecomer (AL) has the name "Maureen" tattooed on his right calf surrounded by bright red and orange flames. He tells them that he "got past" his selfishness a long time ago and that maybe they ought to do the same - this while his kneecap is repeatedly digging into my shoulder blade (I'm sitting on the ground).
Rather than point out the irony in his statement, I keep mum. Keeping mum is often my way of approaching conflict, much to the dissatisfaction of a goodly number of my intimates. I'm close to finishing the crossword and some of the bigger names are coming up the hill, so I'm trying to focus on the good parts of the experience. Then AL starts pulling out a bulky and quite sophisticated camera with a pole thing he attaches to the camera. I tune out until he extends the pole thing so that the camera is directly in my line of sight of the roadway, the line of sight I had husbanded so carefully for over three hours.
When you are a big guy, you have to be extremely cautious about how you respond to indignities, because there are lots of people out there who will view conflict with big guys as potentially physical. In this instance, I figured sarcasm was the best way to go, so I turned and looked back at AL and simply said, "You have GOT to be kidding me..." His response: "What? You're just sitting there doing your crossword puzzle!" Yes AL, I have ventured to the most congested place I could find in San Francisco, found a spot on the pavement that for some reason is coveted by many other people, and it has nothing to do with seeing the cyclists at all! You are a selfless genius! (Actually, I just stared at him incredulously for a long enough time that he left only a minute or two later.)
Idiot Right and Rear then rhapsodized about what a jerk AL was as they made up more bon mots about the riders - guess what brilliant onomatopoeia they came up with when Alexandre Moos rode by? When Levi Leipheimer finally passed by (he is pictured above after the race - thanks for looking down Levi), I realized that my afternoon of sincere fandom had been seriously undercut by my fellow fans. The peril of public fandom is that you often come face to face with people like you who are simultaneously very much not like you.
I am trying to follow the first stage of the tour on www.amgentourofcalifornia.com, but for some reason their site makes no sense at all. Ah well, there are always shots of the Specialized Angel to soothe me:
If you care, my favorite team this year has got to be Team Slipstream, both for their aggressive stance on clean riders and their really cool argyle pattern jerseys. One of their unknown riders, Jason Donald, came second in the prologue. He was working as a garbageman in Colorado last year, imagine that! Will garbage pickup become the next health craze, the Pilates of tomorrow? Great workout and simultaneous benefit to society!
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