For Levi, cycling isn't a sport, it's a lifestyle

The fire road, as Scott Nydam remembers it a year ago last summer, wasn’t so much a fire road as a butchered carving through dirt, rocks and fallen trees. The fire road in West Sonoma County had been long since abandoned and it would have been easy spraining an ankle — walking.

“So here we are, bombing down this fire road on our bikes,” said Nydam, a pro cyclist with BMC, talking about himself and Levi Leipheimer. “There’s stuff everywhere.”

And, oh by the way, Leipheimer and Nydam weren’t on dirt bikes. They were on street bikes.

“About halfway down, Levi turns to me with this big smile and says, ‘In two days I leave for the Giro.’”

The Giro is the Giro d’Italia, the Tour of Italy, one of the world’s premier cycling events.

“Here’s one of the world’s best riders, with a great career, with so many reasons to stay injury free,” Nydam said. “And here he is hauling it down this nasty fire road.”

Santa Rosa’s Leipheimer wasn’t showing off. His personality, his attitude, are quite the opposite — quiet, respectful, almost shy. Leipheimer isn’t an empty brain, either, unaware of the risk. The man is meticulous in preparation, always training and racing with an eye to safe passage.

So what was Leipheimer doing, he the two-time winner of the Tour of California and the third-place finisher in the 2007 Tour de France?

Feeling the bike. Feeling connected the way a great artist feels connected to his brush, the brush feeling like a sixth finger on his hand.

“On a good day, that’s how the bike feels to me, connected,” Leipheimer said.

What if, instead, it’s a bad day?

Leipheimer paused before answering and then responded with a laugh.

“It feels like somebody else’s bike,” he said.

Leipheimer guesses he cycles 20,000 miles a year. Think about that number. That’s criss-crossing America six times. You don’t cross America six times on a bicycle in a year because you were bored playing Sudoku. And you don’t ride 20,000 miles if you feel like you are on someone else’s bike.

“It’s not a sport for me,” Leipheimer said. “It’s a lifestyle.”

It’s a well-paved road, in the redwood forest, quiet, the route going up, the route going down, and around and around. Leipheimer never met a chunk of nature he didn’t like but if you ask him for the one that always brings smiles, it’s that one.

“What other sport,” Leipheimer said, “can you apply human power to go over such wide-ranging terrain? Oh, I guess you could run it but you wouldn’t be as efficient.”

Meaning, a runner wouldn’t be able to cover 107 miles as Leipheimer and his Astana team did Wednesday ... unless he was in ambulance.

Leipheimer doesn’t do those 20,000 miles at a bunny pace on a bunny trail, like Spring Lake.

“Levi loves bringing you right to the edge (of exhaustion),” said Nydam, Levi’s frequent riding partner. “He likes to watch you on the verge of exploding.”

Not a sadist but, rather, Leipheimer is curious. How much can a body, a mind, a will, withstand? Suffering, like breathing hard, is second nature to any top cyclist. It’s a given, it’s necessary and it’s not for whiners. So the Astana riders on Wednesday weren’t that surprised what Leipheimer said to them as they stopped briefly for a snack on their 107-mile King Ridge training ride.

The team was off the road, two magnificent Buddhist temples in the distance on the next ridge, a sight meant for soaking, not for leaving, but after five minutes Leipheimer had enough of Club Med.

“You guys like to picnic?” Leipheimer said gently to the relaxing throng.

Party’s over, that was the message. Time to move. Time to move quickly, adroitly through curves, screaming through straight descents. Watch that power meter on the handlebars, the $5,000 power meter that shows the watts expended, the energy used, all to be downloaded later into a computer for analysis.

So get up off your Snickers, guys, Leipheimer was saying. Time to push. Forty miles still to go. And no one complained. It’s the cyclist’s way.

“I really like to suffer,” Leipheimer said. “It makes me feel like I’m alive.”

A pounding heartbeat on a seat. A vise grip on the handlebars. A flexed calf, a steel thigh, pumping the pedals. Two lungs sucking in air like vacuum cleaners. The body, all of the body, is awake and very much in the moment. The poor bike, it doesn’t have a chance.

“You defy gravity,” Leipheimer said of cycling.

If one has never been passionate about something, this wouldn’t make sense. So many miles. So much pain. Ah, but a man’s passion is his joy, no one else’s. So Levi Leipheimer doesn’t need an audience to explain it, or even one person to agree with it. Just a road through the redwoods to enjoy it.

For more on North Bay high school sports go to Bob Padecky’s blog at padecky.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.