Monday, February 16, 2009

Thomas Peterson ....

... Thank you for making my day!

Well, at least part of it any way.

I was watching the Tour of California race coverage this morning, and I noticed with great interest that Peterson had made it into the break, and that there was a pretty significant climb (Bonny Doon rd) later in the stage. I figured if Peterson could stay with the break he would have a chance to show his stuff, if he really was a climber.

And then … my wife whispered something in my ear, and you know, when your wife says something suggestive, well, you just have to turn off the dope scope, rip off your clothes and …. put on your cold weather riding gear and go for a ride. Mrs. C is definitely into her new bike and last week we thought that Saturday and Monday looked like ride days. We got a nice chatty 36 miles in. We rode down to Bill n’Bea’s in Centralia for a bite. I had the grilled cheese and pickle, and we shared an order of fries. On the way back we had a pretty good dose of headwind, helps with those French fry calories.

But when I got back I checked out Cycling News dot com and sure enough “Peterson Takes the Win!” There are so many angles to this story: “Worst to First in 3 simple stages”, or of course, the aforementioned “Local Boy Makes Good”. Regardless, I just love the whole thing. A young guy comes in last in the prologue, and two days later, on Stage Two, he wins the stage!

This is the kind of story that sports writers ought to be just eating up. You don’t have to be a sleuth, or an ‘investigative journalist’ to get this out. Anybody with even a mild interest in the sport not to mention an assignment to report on a race should rightly be able to stumble over this with his eyes tightly shut.

But instead, what do we get? Lance Armstrong is a maverick because he wears a helmet with a bill (mtn bike style), or Floyd Landis has a bad day. Floyd Landis has a bad day? Sheesh, six riders abandon the race today, at least one went off in an ambulance! Tell me about your bad day Floyd Landis!

Please, cycling writers, leave the “Titans of Yesterday” stories to the Life Magazine, and ESPN reporters (mile wide, inch deep) and give us; the bike geeks of the world some of those great stories of the race within the race.

It was sort of funny hearing about how crappy the weather was. I don't mean to pooh pooh it, it did look really crappy and I actually felt sorry for eveyone involved. It would be so nice (I assume) to ride down the Pacific Coast Highway on a sunny February day, and it would be better pub for California, but hey, some days you just have to go out for a day of rain on the bike. Come on you PCH Rando's, let's hear your personal stories on this!

5 comments:

  1. It isn't too often that I wish I had cable...

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  2. Well, ATOC would be a serious dissapointment. The coverage is absolutlely dismal. The weather is so bad that the video feed is (has been) distrupted ... lots. That's too bad because the route looks to traverse some fantastic country. Then again it's VS, the bass/bull riding/cage fighting channel, and it is obvious that pro-bike racing is seen as a way to up the ratio of adds to actual race broadcast time. I'm thinking they're thinking they have found a way to make this 'bahsickle stuff' pay.

    If you click over to FatCyclist you will get a flavor. More Enzyte and Therapedic mattress adds than actual race broadcasting. I think Fatty would be much less cheritable in his faux live blogging (live blogging while watching the broadcast on TV?) except that he's getting into name dropping (Bobke, ChuckIbis) and so he's not gonna get the good stuff for his livestrong challenge if he actually says how bad the broadcast is.

    I'm not sure if it is funny or pathetic to hear Phil Liggent anouncing distances in miles, temperatures in degrees F, and shilling for the next round of bull riding offerings. Only in America.

    Dr C

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  3. I hate to say it, but that was half the fun of watching the Tour last year. It was a real train wreck. I couldn't turn my eyes.

    I was reading the Velonews coverage of the Peterson won stage and you wouldn't even know that he was racing if you weren't paying attention. Apparently Levi was kind enough to just give him the stage win. How kind of him.

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  4. I want to comment on "Robert" and you wouldn't even know that he was racing if you weren't paying attention.

    I'm not sure how familiar you are with the stage nor racing tactics. Tom was in the break of 10 riders that started 10 miles into the race that was over 100 miles long and he was in the front of the media the whole time.

    He was was 11th overall last year in Tour of Calif (at only 21 years old). If you had read other reports you would find out that the last place in the prologue was due to a mechanical rather than a poor ride - he missed his start by over 2 minutes so do the math. So from that very low start he turned the world upside down over night and by riding smart using team tactics and sitting on (as his coach wanted) he won a stage. There are tactics in the pro peleton! Levi was chasing leader's time and all he was interested in was to put time on the other contenders, two of which are Tom's team mates. Tom shouldn't help Levi make time on his team mates.

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  5. Les;

    The way this blogging business works, I can't send you an email message because your comment does not provide me an email address, so I'll put this here and hope we can get in contact if needed:

    I am down with you on race tactics, as well as the actual and potential for the future that Tom represents. It is clear that Tom rode as hard, probably harder than probably all of the riders in the Peloton. When I saw he was in the break I had high hopes, and he delivered, big time, Woo Hoo! That he was even able to hang with Levi on the finale says a lot about his motor.

    I'm sure that Tom finished according to his DS's instructions, and if you read Levi's post ride comments he too understands that Tom was performing as any responsible racer would given the circumstances.

    Really waaaay too bad about the flat, as I mentioned in my post last night.

    Keep the comments coming, lets get some Tom Peterson buzz going!

    PS: Are you a friend or relative of Tom's?

    Yr Pal Dr C

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