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13 pro riders and 1 knucklehead
Lance Armstrong of Team Astana prepares for a 107-mile training ride Wednesday around Sonoma County, in preparation for the Tour of California cycling race.
KENT PORTER / PDPublished: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 11:42 p.m.
Minutes before the Astana cyclists began their 107-mile training ride in Santa Rosa, one of the world’s most famous athletes made what seemed an off-hand remark.
Standing by his bike in front of the Santa Rosa Hyatt, Lance Armstrong was asked his plans for this ride, part of a 10-day training session leading up to the eight-day Tour of California, which will blast into the city on Feb.15. The King Ridge route had been selected by teammate and Santa Rosa resident Levi Leipheimer for both its scenery and difficulty.
“Just follow Levi,” Armstrong said.
Was he nervous?
“A little nervous,” Armstrong said. “Based on his (Leipheimer’s) home field advantage and his conditioning, we all should be nervous.”
Nervous? Lance Armstrong? It was a gracious rejoinder, hardly anything to remember, and it wouldn’t have been — if it hadn’t been for the knucklehead in the black pickup on Seaview Road in west Sonoma County who made everyone nervous.
“A Ford,” Leipheimer would say later.
The 13 primary Astana riders were in their 58th mile, on a descent of maybe nine degrees, curves and blind corners all the way. Behind them 11 vehicles followed, the Astana team car, photographers and reporters.
Suddenly the pickup passed three cars. On a blind corner. The driver was honking his horn. Gesturing. Cursing.
The knucklehead waited through a couple more blind corners, determined the corners weren’t going to straighten and hit the gas again. The black pickup with the white canopy passed about five cars. On another blind corner. Honking. Gesturing. Cursing.
Yes, Lance, everyone was a little nervous.
Just two cars, Levi, Lance and 11 other riders were between him and the blissful freedom to harass someone else. Boom. The driver hit the gas again. On another blind corner. Honking. Gesturing. Cursing. The knucklehead, if anything, was consistent.
“Weren’t you scared?” Leipheimer was asked later.
“Of course I was,” Leipheimer said. “People don’t realize how dangerous they are when they do something like that. Look, we try to be very respectful on the road. We try to take quiet roads that have little traffic. And I’m sorry for the inconvenience that could have lasted all of 10 minutes.”
On the truck’s last blind-corner pass, the riders, by then quite aware of his presence because of the shouting and the engine revving, had bunched closer together.
“But he still got very close to us,” said Leipheimer, moving his two hands toward each other. “But guys like that, it’s a small percentage. We had a lot of people cheering, pulling over to the side of the road.”
Everything else about the ride was everything Leipheimer had promised his teammates — especially Armstrong. In October, after Armstrong announced his return to cycling with Astana, Leipheimer made a strong pitch to Armstrong about having the team’s Tour of California training site in Sonoma County. In 2008, Astana trained in Solvang.
“I have to give Lance credit for this,” Leipheimer said. “Lance convinced Johan Bruyneel (team director). I like to think this area is one of the legendary areas in all the world. Car commercials, bike commercials are filmed here.
“It’s my playground and I get to show it off to my teammates.”
It was apparent at Mile 46 that Armstrong was enjoying the ride. Astana pulled off the side of King Ridge Road for a snack break. In the distance to the north were two Buddhist temples. In the foreground was Armstrong, posing for pictures, including one with Lance Wallace, a Baptist pastor from Windsor. An amateur rider, Wallace was in his cycling togs, having ridden most of the way with the first group of Astana riders, the Under-23s.
Taking a break, then holding onto one of the photographer cars for a little help in spots going up King Ridge, Wallace now was standing alongside Armstrong, his camera phone capturing the moment.
“It was cool,” Wallace said.
It was so cool, and Armstrong appeared so relaxed, I decided to approach him after Wallace left. I knew of the media ban. Armstrong would not talk to the media while he trained in Santa Rosa.
Armstrong was slightly bent over, having just finished a Coke and a Snickers. That surprised me. I was thinking peanut butter on nine-grain bread with maybe an alfalfa sprout-chaser.
“So how do you like the ride so far, Lance?” I asked.
“Good,” Armstrong said. He had yet to lift his head to see who asked the question.
Then Armstrong did, looked at me straight in the eye like any good Texan does. Not recognizing me from a box of rocks, Armstrong then lifted his eyes to the baseball cap I was wearing that had these words: “Samoa Cookhouse. Established 1893.”
Upon reading those words Armstrong turned abruptly away.
His look was not one of disgust. It was more a look of extreme disinterest. Like, what is someone who looks like he should be driving a bottled-water truck doing up here with the best pro cycling team in the world? Either that or he doesn’t like Samoa Cookhouse.
What I saw, however, was a cycling supernova and his pals finding the 107-mile ride a proper test, something only a pro would call a training ride. It had everything a world-class cyclist requires for preparation of world-class events including, sadly, hostility. Ah, but enough about the Tour de France, Lance.
You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.
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