The Vulture

• It was well over twenty years ago now that I found myself riding with my new team in Death Valley, California. The tour had recently concluded, with my man Laurent Fignon seizing the yellow jersey for fans of wire-rimmed glasses everywhere. With our feathered hair, elastic headbands, and copycat eyeglasses, my teammates gathered for a pre-dawn rollout. Unfortunately, I looked a bit more like Ben Kingsley than my Renault-ELF hero, thanks to a year on the Pritikin diet, courtesy of my new coach. I wasn't the only one, at least. Philip was the other designated climber, but it was cold comfort that the two of us would suffer over bowls of brown rice, black beans, and overcooked chard as the rest of the squad feasted on pancakes, sliced peaches, and sausage. I haven't known with such intimate detail the curve of my own ribcage since those halcyon summers. Nor do I have any interest in doing so, especially if it involves the sort of pain that only comes from riding a 2,000 daily caloric deficit.

  Our sponsor had really come through. I'd been lobbying for Vitus, a battle that I would win a few years later, but with a different team. Max and I both had daily Eisentrauts, but mine was a now a couple cm small. Mssr. Bichet had arranged for the delivery of a dozen shiny new Panasonic Professional 7000s back in May. The Professionals were two seasons old, but still wrapped in yellowing pages pages of the Daily Yomiuri. The first thing that I'd done was toss the stock wheels and replace them with a set of GEL280/330s laced to Campagnolo hubs and shod with Soyo silks. I suppose this bastardized an otherwise all-Japanese kit, but I saw it as internationalizing the thing. I swapped out the 42T for a 39T, rewrapped the bars with orange Tressostar, and dumped the Kashimax saddle for the trusty hand-me-down San Marco Concor. My Panasonic tipped the scales at just over nineteen pounds.

  Although the mercury would soar into the triple digits by noon, it was strangely cool in the valley. Our base camp was a trailer park populated by hardy retirees, lots of ex military folks, and Philip's aunt. I filled my musette with a couple of cheese & jam sandwiches, a handful of fig newtons, two bananas, an extra cotton Campagnolo cap, and a film canister filled with salt and sugar. The climbers were expected to also act as navigators, so Philip and I taped cue sheets to our stems. One last tire pressure check (9 bar), a head count, and we were off.

  The route would take us west, climbing up and out of the valley to Owens Lake, at the base of Mount Whitney. The highest pass was 4,800' and dropped to 3,200' at the Lake. Coach met us at a rest stop in his 1968 VW bus, delivering fresh water and salami sandwiches and bowls of brown rice and black beans. Philip and I had dropped the rest of the team some 50km back, so we stole as many ice cubes as possible into our bidons.

  The sun was blazing now. I slumped against a tree, searching for shade, as we waited for our slow poke teammates. Coach was mumbling something incomprehensible in his odd Flemish-English hybrid, and poking at my handlebars. I allowed my eyes to unfocus as a hot wind suddenly swept sand into my face. It stuck to my legs and arms, and as I tried to wipe it off, I realized that I was sitting in a pile of gigantic black ants. Scrambling to my feet, I did a little jig to get them off. I tried not to think of the remaining eight hours on the bike.

  The next section was mostly flat and rolling, at or around 4,000'. It would follow the ridgeline south, eventually weaving through the Red Rock Canyon and dropping to 2,500' at Mojave. For four straight hours, we pacelined and chatted about cyclocross. There were a few more road races and several crits still to worry about, but we were all much more excited about our first real season racing cross as a team. A couple of the guys were sub 16 minute three milers, and most of us had been racing cross for several years, and if we did well, Coach had promised a trip to Belgium...

  We arrived in Mojave a little ahead of schedule. There had been a tailwind, and Coach had let us do some motorpacing behind the bus for a bit. It was mid afternoon, and we were in the middle of a shadeless desert. We were in the middle of a shadeless desert parking lot, behind a very imposing biker bar. Big Mike was a transplant from New Jersey. A keirin expert and multiple medal winner at track nationals, we'd whipped him into a roadie in less than a season. He rode his father's old BMW motorcycle to school -- when it worked, anyway. "Hmmph. Stupid, fat Harleys," he said, motioning towards the long row of gleaming bikes. None of us had any idea what he was talking about.

  The final leg of the ride was going to be brutal. There were six major passes in the final eighty km, topping out at 8,000'. One particularly painful section of the Tehachapi Pass is a beyond category climb, averaging 9 degrees over 10km. "These are your Pyrenees." Coach had said.

  Philip and I dropped the rest of the guys at the base of the first climb, an easy 3rd category. I hustled over the crest and hammered on the backside, trying to drop him. At the time, I was the better pure climber, but Philip was a much better descender, having spent every winter since childhood with his father skiing in Vail. He quickly caught me. I sat up, marveling at the Panasonic's stability. I'd never experienced a bike that could be ridden no hands on a 60km/hr descent. Philip was already in the distance now, but I could see the next rise coming. It was a bendy, long, and brutal climb. I'd eat him for supper, I thought.

  Mmmmm, supper. It was then that I realized how famished I'd become. Reaching into my musette, my fingers scraped the bottom, returning only fig newton crumbs. But my little film canister still had a bit of life left. I emptied the remains into a half-filled bidon, swirled, and took a big gulp. The feeling was electric. Maybe it was the new secret ingredient, I thought to myself (cinnamon, something I'd read in L'Equipe). Whatever it was, it worked.

  I rolled up to Philip's wheel at the base of the climb. The sun was lower in the sky now, and long the hills were casting long shadows across the road. Soon, we'd be riding directly into the setting sun. I noticed a huge, ominous winged shadow tracing our route along the road. All morning long, we'd seen red-tailed hawks, golden eagles, titmice, black swifts, and long-eared owls. So why was it now, at our most vulnerable moment, that a vulture decided to hover and watch as we suffered up the mountain? I strummed my ribs beneath my jersey like some macabre, bony harp.

  "He can only eat one of us!" I shouted as I sped off.