TORNADO TOM

Full dislosure: McQ gots hiself a man crush on Tommeke.  

KICKIN' IT WITH TORNADO TOM

In honor of Big Tom Boonen's victory today at the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders), please enjoy this photo of Tommeke and I hanging out a few years ago at the Tour of California.

MORE PARIS-ROUBAIX IMPRESSIONS

In La Trouée d'Arenberg (the Arenberg Forest), when the breakaway passed by, nobody paid much attention. It was more a moment for us fanatics by the side of the race course to check our positions, to lock in our sightlines for the next minute or so when the big boys, the guys who really mattered, would be passing by—Cancellara, Boonen, Hushovd, Fleche, and so on. They were preceded by a thunderous roar, the crowd erupting as big Tom Boonen—and he does look big; Cancellara appears to be getting smaller and smaller, albeit faster and faster, in comparison—led the peloton through the cobbled road in the woods. At 2.4 km, it’s the longest, but apparently not the hardest section of pave; still, the bikes rattled and thrummed, bounced and jostled like they were riding down the middle of a railroad track.

Boonen, the hometown favorite (“Tornado Tom Frits” read the homemade banner held aloft just down the way), was having fun. His hands on the top of the bars, he appeared to be pulling everyone through, like some beast of burden pulling a plow. Just in front of us he turned around to inspect the damage he’d done just as I remember him doing at the same spot in last year’s race. (Though then of course, I was watching the Versus telecast.) This year though there was a difference: Fabian Cancellara, just two spots behind him, watching Boonen like a hawk, letting Tom do all the work, and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Which of course he would do in historic fashion riding away from everyone with some 30 miles to go.

Arenberg was the second spot we stopped. The first was Inchy, the first section of pave, and we stopped at a spot about a half hour past Arenberg which seemed almost a repeat of what we saw in the forest—Boonen at the front of the peloton doing all the work, Cancellara wisely tucked not far behind waiting for his moment. One wonders if Boonen got carried away in his quest for a fourth P-R or by the hometown cooking of the French-Belgian-Flanderian faithful.

The roar that erupted each time he pulled the peloton past us was deafening. We attended a few stages of the 2009 Tour of California which was certainly exciting, but the depth of feeling-devotion-history here in Northern France was unlike anything there; you felt it in your very soul. Or at least I did.

***

Still jetlagged, for we'd arrived in Paris just two days earlier, we awoke early that race Sunday morning and rode a cab to Gare du Nord where we caught a train to the start of Paris-Roubaix about an hour north of Paree in Compiegne. Narrow streets choked with fat chunky cobbles got us excited for the start as did the arrival of the Team buses—Saxo Bank, Quick-Step, BMC and all the rest.

We saw Cancellara’s bike but no Cancellara; he, along with most of the big names, must’ve waited ‘til the final minutes to sign in for we saw no one of note save for George Hincapie. As we watched and waited, listening to one overwrought rock ballad after another blasting from the PA (“Too much love will kill you, everytime …”—where did they get these songs?), we heard someone say “Hey, you’re from Bellingham, aren’t you?” It was Chris (whose last name I don’t recall), a real nice tall dude I met while racing some of the Indie Series races last summer. (Small world, or what?) Turns out Chris was doing the same thing we were—meeting up with a British group, Sports Tours International, who would be transporting us to several spots along the Paris-Roubaix route to watch the race. Truth be told, the bus—and more specifically, the hilarious, cycle-crazed guys in the back of the bus—from Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Columbia and the U.S.—were probably what made Paris-Roubaix such a memorable experience for us. Most of the bus passengers were in it for a few days—they’d come over from London a couple days earlier, many even riding 112K of the race course the day before. (Oh, how I envied them.) Jen, Bake and I were among the handful or so who were in it for just a day trip.

They immediately welcomed us into their fold, sharing photos, drink, food, as well as hilarious tales of their misfortunes in attempting to ride the cobbles. A couple of them had hands that were absolutely chewed up with blisters from trying to hold on to their handlebars while battling the pave. Perhaps our favorites were the two young British boys—13 and 14—who had brilliant senses of humor.

One had a charming lisp and at one spot while we were waiting for the riders to come through, he noticed a fan across the roadway who’d obviously ridden out to watch, then put a pair of pants on over his shorts. He must’ve removed the white straps of his bib cycling shorts from his shoulders too because they just sort of hung down behind him.

“It lookth like thumone gave him a mathive wedgie,” he said to me.

It did too. And the phrase ‘mathive wedgie’ will now forever be in my lexicon.

McQ's PARIS-ROUBAIX PHOTOS

Gather 'round kids, here're some phots from the 2010 Hell of the North! And shout-out, props and all that to Baker McQuaide (age 11) who came up with much better pics than I did!

Race poster in Roubaix.

Second-place finisher Thor Hushovd survives the Arenburg Forest. (Bake McQ, photo)

Big Tom Boonen on the streets of Roubaix just before entering the Velodrome. (Bake McQ, photo)

 

Close-up of the pave at Compiegne, about an hour northeast of Paris and where Paris-Roubaix actually starts. (Bake McQ, photo)

Fabian Cancellara's winning bike is the front one on the left.

George Hincapie at the Compiegne sign-in.

Baker McQ at work.

After Paris-Roubaix, an exhausted Baker McQuaide and mum Jen on the train from Lille back to Paris.

AREA FAMILY IN FRANCE

A day after witnessing Fabian C. destroy the peloton at Paris-Roubaix, Area Man goes on an hour-long run under the Tour Eiffel, along the Seine to Place de la Concorde, past Esplanade des Invalides and back to Rue Cler. He is becoming quite the Francophile and will no doubt be annoying about it once he returns to les Etats Unis.

LOTS OF FUN THANGS COMING UP

Big few days which leads to an even bigger week and a half or so. First up, we're heading to Seattle on Wednesday where I'll be doing a slide show-presentation thingee for Team in Training at the big REI. Should be lots of fun. Thursday, check out my story in the The Seattle Times Northwest Weekend section about our little exploratory trip of Birch Bay, Drayton Harbor and Semiahmoo Spit.

Also on Thursday, we fly to Paris where we'll be for the next 10 days! Since we're staying in an apartment (near Rue Cler), once we're back I plan to annoy people by beginning sentences that refer to our time there with "Well, when we were living in Paris, we would ..."

Oh, and guess what happens to be taking place during our time in France: the 108th edition of Paris-Roubaix, the queen of the Classics, the Hell of the North. And guess what, we're hooking up with some British tour group to watch the race. Should be a gas, gas, gas.

For old time sake--and to give Tom a bit of a boost for this Sunday's race--I thought I'd run this photo of big Tom Boonen and I hanging out in Pasadena during last year's Tour of California.

TORNADO TOM!

In honor of Tom Boonen's third Paris-Roubaix win, I thought I'd share you you a photo of he and I hanging out together.

TOUR OF CALIFORNIA PHOTOS!

Just got back from a fun-filled trip to California that included three stages of the Amgen Tour of California, trips to Disneyland and Legoland, as well as dinner mit me brother Chris and his lovely family including wife Dee (Happy B-day!) and daughter McKinley. Added bonus: caught up with high school pal Mike D'Annucci whom we hooked up with at stage 7 in Pasadena. Speaking of which, above, please check out the great shot Jen took of the breakaway group, including big George Hincapie on the first of five circuits around the Rose Bowl. Below, Lance Armstrong guts his way through the Solvang time trial held the day before in Solvang. He must be famous or something; we noticed a lot of people cheering for him throughout the three days.

About 10 minutes after we arrived in Solvang, we found Mark Cavendish (who'd won the tour's previous two stages) cooling down after the time trial. He's the man of the moment in professional cycling right now and was gracious enough to give Baker his autograph.
Below, that's me with the giddy grin behind Tom Boonen who'd just emerged from the anti-doping bus where he'd had to make a contribution, as it were.
Below, Jen scores another great shot: this one of the Astana machine on a minor bump in Pasadena. Chris Horner is at the far left, Levi in yellow, and Lance at the far right in the yellow helmet.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND

I promise, this is the second to the last bit I'll put up this year about riding my bike to Artist Point. (Ride 542 is Sept. 7 so next week I'll no doubt write something about it. ) Anyway, two weeks ago it was hot, sticky, and sweaty up at Artist Point. Today, it was foggy and 40s. (See above video.)

Frickin' freezing, it felt. Fall has begun up there at 5,100 feet in this far Northwest corner of the Great Northwest with winter soon to follow. The ride back down was miserable; I was shivering so bad I thought I'd pulled my deltoid right out of my latissimus dorsi.

(By the way, I must hear at least once a month that I look Mike Rowe, the dude who hosts "Dirty Jobs", so if you're thinking it, you're not the first one. Perhaps though, you're instead thinking that in my fetching new birthday-present Quick-Step rainbow jersey I look like Tom Boonen--see below--minus the cool hat.)

Sunday, which felt like Saturday this three-day weekend, the family took a pleasant bike ride down the Interurban Trail to Clayton Beach where there are signs to remind you to keep your clothes on. Ok, fine. We skipped stones, Bake climbed the rocks with a buddy he'd met, and afterwards we enjoyed dinner at Fiamma Burger which has good food, but acoustics that always make me feel like I'm suffering from tinnitus.

So let's the ultra-cool Alejandro Valverde and the above Tom Boonen, who've taken the last two stages of the Vuelta a Espana.

BACK FROM NEW JERSEY

The Bake boy and I traveled east to the Garden State for a week to visit family, in particular me ailing pa who does not do well right now. But, as fellow Jersey-ite Tony Soprano would say, What'ya'gonna do?

Perhaps to distract myself from the serious nature of our visit, I borrowed a bike from Chris Kunkel, with whom I graduated Hoval some twenty-nine years ago. He's a Cat 3 racer who recently scored an Orbea Orca. (Lucky Bastard.) He leant me his steel Independant Fabrication ride, which was great fun. That's me above posing rather uncomfortably in front of the Musconetcong River. Despite what you may have heard about New Jersey, there are some really beautiful parts as hopefully these photos show. We stayed at my lovely sister Kath's house (that's how she makes us adress her, Lovely Sister Kath) in Port Murray, a bustling hub of about 6 in Warren County. It's New Jersey's Skylands, as they call it, and while maybe that's a bit hyperbolic it is hilly and mucho pretty.
The hills be not big nor is they long but they're relentless if, like me, you look for narrow, off-the-beaten-path roads. Of which there are hundreds. Many with interesting names like Foul Rift Road. (Near Belivdere on the Delaware River). Above is Guinea Hollow Road, near Cokesbury and Califon. These are tiny towns settled in the late 1600s, early 1700s and the roads I rode were probably traveled by Hessians and Revolutionary War types back in the day.
Chris's bike didn't have an odometer but I had my altimeter and as I said (did I?) I looked for hills. I climbed some 11,000 feet in the three rides I took which probably totalled 120 miles. So that's about the same as RAMROD. (Which I found out the day before I left that I got into--Woohoo!) Unlike RAMROD (http://www.redmondcyclingclub.org/), these are short and steep, not at all long and sustained. I'd be cruising along the Musconetcong at an elevation of 400, then take a right up some winding road and in not much more than a mile, I'd be at 1,000. So it was alot of that--steep ups, steep downs. (Perfect training for Western's North Shore race, which was cancelled last month because of snow.) The photo just above is Turkey Top Road near Beattystown. Did I mention that Chris's rear casette was a 12-23?

Lots of these roads are on the Hillier Than Thou Ride, a killer, hilly painfest put on each September by the Central Jersey Bicycle Club (www.cjbc.org/). One of these years I plan on coming back and riding it though I think it's usually the same day as the Mount Baker Hill Climb (http://www.norkarecreation.com/). On our last full day, Baker and I got in an awesome hike to the top of Point Mountain, which overlooks much of the Musconetcong Valley. It required a little bit of rock scrambling but boy, was it fun. To cap it off, later that night I found a deer tick on my back. Fingers be crossed that I don't succumb to the dread Lyme Disease. And of course let's redirect our hailing from Stijn Devolder to Tom Boonen who, last Sunday, took his second Paris-Roubaix! Can't wait to watch it on Sunday on Versus (www.versus.com/cyclysm).

FORGOT THE CAMERA THIS WEEKEND

On Saturday Bake took 10th at a chess tournament in Ferndale. (The same day, it turns out, that I forgot my sister's birthday. That's all right, I'm pretty sure she's got another one next year.) Forgot the camera though so no pics of him in deep concentration trying to outwit his opponent. Once again, he took three out of five games, qualifying him for the state tournament in April. (Which he'd already qualified for.)

Sunday was a fun as heck 50-mile ride with the Fanatik team. Out Red River Road where we practiced sprints and attacks and the like, and where the trees were filled with eagles. We must've seen 60 in all.

We also came very close to being purposely sideswiped by a white Mount Baker Cable van, the driver of which we later came upon waiting in line at the Lummi ferry terminal. When members of our group expressed their displeasure at his driving so close, he made it abundantly clear that he was no cycling fan and that we had no business riding on the road. Then we all laughed, shared a hug, and went to his house to watch the Super Bowl. (That last sentence isn't true.)

The above image I found on Tom Boonen's website: (http://www.tomboonen.com/) in the Webshop section. The listed price is 0.00 Euro, which seems about right.