Hincapie La Fawnduh

Location: Greenville, SC 

As good as yesterday was, riding in the Hincapie Gran Fondo, today has been the perfect storm. I've been knocking shit over, tripping on shit, and generally feeling like anything I touch or come into contact with has got a bad thing coming. I half-expect the chair I am sitting on to just decide it is sick and tired of keeping me off the ground. 

Yesterday, I was up at 5:30AM in order to drive myself the 22 miles to the parking area for the Hincapie ride. I thought of everything except the fact that it would be pitch black and the three mile ride from the parking area to the start/finish might be hairy without lighting.

And it was. I remembered immediately what I don't like about group rides. They all start maddeningly early, the only coffee available is gas-station mud, and everyone is groggy and in dire need of a solid shit. The 60-dude-deep line at the Throne Depot just 30 minutes prior to the start was good evidence of this.

Big G and me. 

As a summary, there is a lot of sucking up to be done if you are interested in doing a group ride of this size.

But once the sun came up and the announcers voice came over the 1,300 or so riders that George Hincapie and Cadel Evans and a host of other cycling celebrities had made their way to the start (presumably rolling out of their warm altitude tents at La Bastide, onto a preheated toilet a full two hours later than the rest of us); that's when things got exciting.

Bibbed at #674, that put me at 673 riders behind George & Co. By the time every douchebag in front of me had finally clipped in and was rolling, I was 6 minutes back once I hit the start line. And I did not have any plan or pipe-dream of ever racing, as it was not a race in the first place, but I kind of did think about how cool it would be to ride along guys I have followed and cheered for in person, both here and in Europe. Not to mention the annoyingly passive little guy I consider to be a legitimate TDF winner/World Champion.

I will admit to being a bike geek, and this was like comic-con for cyclists. There are NO other sports were you can do this. There is no opportunity for the majority of us ever to play golf with Tiger, or play catch with Cole Hamels, or bang your favorite porn star. Fine, maybe not bang your favorite porn star, but like, hold hands and fondle a bit.

The one hot chick present. 

I finally caught up to the Hincapie group at around mile 60. I had been trading leads with a guy in a Carmichael Training kit for about 10 miles. I guess I was in a bit of a zone because it wasn't until about ten minutes into it that I realized it was the Chris Carmichael, part of the collective bullseye that is the "Lanscandal®." Had a good time with him, although I don't think he was quite prepared and looked to be in a bit of a bother, as Paul would say. We shared a tweet afterward, which was, um, which was gay.

I hadn't stopped at any of the rest stops but clearly the Hincapie group had, since there was no way I could have caught up to them in 60 miles. I didn't even realize who was present until I heard the unmistakeable mousey accent of Evans. I turned around and shook his hand and said "congratulations." I'm not sure he was certain what I was congratulating him for, nor was I to be exact, but he smiled and thanked me.

There is Zabriskie. And George. No Vandevelde, no Van Garderen ( I later realized they had gone off with the 50 mile group or just hopped on the SAG wagon with the kegs and the groupies.)

I don't care who you are, even if you are a world-class cyclist and somehow mistakenly stumbled onto this blog, you would have been pretty excited to ride along in a group of 30, maybe 40 guys, for the last 20 miles and have the group be populated by these names.

The last climb of the day found me right on the inside of Evans the whole way up. The guy on his left was talking about kids and families and how wonderful it all was and then came the quote of the day: the guy asked "does your wife cycle?" and Evans replied, "Ah, no, my wife is a pianist," but with his accent, and even without it, it sounded like "Ah, no, my wife is a penis." I almost lost it and had to cover myself quickly on that one.

The motorcycles whizzed by and the cops took the lead and I looked up onto the wheel of Zabriskie and further down to Evans and Hincapie and I admit, I had a little race fantasy. It was great. I was a star-fucker and I knew it and I kept my mouth shut.

When we pulled into the finish at The Bastide, people were lining the road and the announcer was going bat shit. Everyone had their phones up, recording, taking pictures. I could see people looking at me thinking "is he someone? is he anyone?" and then realizing that no, I am not anyone except a guy who ended up on the sweet end of the stick on this day.

Taking a break on the way back
to parking. New Belgium Beer at hand. 

And despite it not being a race, I did place 7/34 in my age group and 15/93 overall. But that's just people on Strava and Strava sucks at calculating averages, especially when you stop. I have no idea where the time-chip results are posted.

I have to say, I was most nervous about people being stupid and saying something about the Lanscancal®  or somebody making a statement, but there was none of that. It was just a super hard ride that everyone seemed to really enjoy.

I enjoyed it as well, but I can't say that I enjoyed it more than I would have on my own, because I really didn't see any of the sights, or take in the views, or pause for a moment at the peaks.

But the thrill of riding next to a TDF winner and also a guy who, despite what you may think of him, lent his shoulder and his legs and heart and lungs to the another for 19 years straight, and not ever positioning for the spotlight; that was an experience I won't forget.