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A Fred’s Eye View: Heathrow, Scotland and a necessary bit of glitz

Published: Sep. 18, 2007

London Heathrow’s terminal No. 3 is not the place to look for four-staraccommodations.Take my word for it — terminal three is a dank, wretched maze of constructionbarriers filled with the skull-thumping bang of hammers and whirr of buzzsaws. The unforgiving stone floors sport blotchy stains, many of them inhuman-like outlines. It is a cold, desolate place — no one would want tofind here, hopelessly stranded at 3 a.m. on a Friday night.Why, you might ask, am I beginning this mountain-bike column ventingmy hate for Heathrow’s lucky Number three? Ho-ho good question!I’m there, man.A herd of sleeping backpackers got here early and snatched the onlypadded benches. For the handful of poor wretches who stumbled into Heathrowon the last bus of the night, we’ve set up shop at an open Costa Brava.The coffee shop makes a tolerable office, although the unconscious drunktwo tables over is a slight step down from my usual working neighbor, VeloNewssenior writer Neal Rogers.Four long hours until my 7 a.m. flight departs for Denver. Sleep isout of the question. I guess it’s time to write.And to think this miserable scene marks the bookend to my post-World’svacation in Europe’s cleanest nation — Switzerland. Yes, for five sweetdays I rode, hiked and ate Matterhorn-sized mountains of cheese. I metfriendly American ex-pats, and even snooped around the soda-can shapedheadquarters of the UCI (stay tuned for a future story on that adventure).And I mountain biked with a dark-eyed blonde Swiss goddess whose abilityto drop me on descents — not to mention her smile — never failed to makeme blush. But that's a story for some other time.No, atop the docket for tonight’s discussion is the reason I came toEurope in the first place — the 2007 world championships of mountain-bikeracing. Yes for seven days the world’s top off-road racers, and a hostof journo's, gathered in rainy Fort William, Scotland to crown the world’sbest. The week served up heaping piles of mud and fog, joy and sadnessand a few surprises.Julien Absalon taking his record-breaking fourth world cross-countrytitle didn’t fall into that last category. He kept his chasers at bay witha calculated show of domination that was pure professionalism, not luck.No, when “Ju-Ju” crossed the line having mopped the floor with Jose Hermida,Christoph Sauser and the rest of his rivals, few eyebrows raised.Or did they? After all in cycling’s current climate, superhuman successlike that comes from the work of some devious doctor and his syringe collection.In these strange days, when the post-race witch trial follows the post-racepress conference, Absalon must be on drugs, right?Don’t ask me, I don’t know. I’d like to think not — after all drugscan make a man fly uphill in the big ring without breaking a sweat. Buteven Dr. Evil Fuentes hasn’t found a serum to make a man drop like a stonefrom the top of a rocky, twisting mountain.To quote America’s fastest quote machine on two fat wheels, Adam Craig:
 

“That’s the beauty of mountain-bike racing — there isn’t af—ing pill available out there that helps you ride down a mountain faster.”


Well put, Adam — and that’s exactly what Absalon did to open hiswinning gap. I posed the question to two of the sport’s most outspokenanti-druggies, Sauser and Thomas Frischknecht, and both believe Absalonis clean. Frischy pointed to Absalon’s long history of being fast — hetwisted people’s legs off as a junior and U23. Sauser noted that Absalon’smargins of victory are never that big — he simply picks the perfect timeto kick in the afterburners and drop people.But even if Absalon showed up in Scotland with veins full of baboongrowth hormone, would they catch him? Perhaps not. After all, the UCI reliedon the tried-and-sometimes-true hematocrit test at World’s. Yep, the sametest roadies learned to beat when yours truly was still in junior highschool.But the Honda Civic of drug tests somehow still turned up two possiblecheats at this year’s world’s — Austrian Michael Weiss and Spaniard MargaFullana were deemed “unfit” to do battle after posting high hematocritnumbers. Both predictably denied having cheated.Weiss’s result caught me by surprise. The hulking Austrian owns big,muscular legs that could probably tear the cranks clean off his bike. ButWeiss is usually a member of the mid-pack cannon fodder who gets droppedon the first climb. He’s never been on a World Cup podium.Fullana? That’s a different story. She’s a contender. And she’s beensuspect since the late 1990’s when she trained under admitted cheater Gert-JanTheunisse, a former Tour polka-dot jersey winner who still sports a featherymullet. When German Sabine Spitz was asked if Fullana’s high hematocritsurprised her, she smiled coyly.“Not really,” she replied. “It wasn’t the first time.”

More strange stories came out of the week in Scotland — not all of themfit nicely into the nuts-and-bolts racing coverage I worked on for velonews.com.Greg Minnaar’s broken shoulder, for instance, which he suffered in thedownhill Finals, wasn’t revealed until three days after the show had lefttown.Minnaar is a true champ — he owns the laser precision and physical strengthof the world’s current best, Sam Hill. But Minnaar boasts a talkative personalityand charisma that journalists love and Hill lacks. Minnaar jokes and talkssmack. He’s my go-to guy when I’m trying to understand how and why theseathletes fly down mountains at breakneck speed with only a thin layer ofrubber tire separating them from a hospital bed and colostomy bag.Minnaar was the last hope to challenge Hill in the finals, and whenhe rolled across in fourth place sporting a sizable mud stain I saunteredover for a few quotes about the crash. Turns out his shoulder was so badlydislocated it would later be put back into the socket under sedation, andhis scapula was fractured. He grimaced in pain but still blurted out afew lines before being led away to the hospital.That’s one tough guy.Like any off-road contest, the week produced a long injury list. CedricGracia cracked every bone in his wrist after auguring in during the FourCross finals. He produced the injured paw after the crash — it looked likea chubby meat balloon with stubby finger-like lumps.American Barry Wicks was impaled by his not-so-sharp Shimano shift leverduring the cross-country. Wicks bumbled a slow-speed crash and his legflew into his handlebars — the dull edge of the shift lever pierced theskin above his kneecap, gouging out a sizable window into his leg. He couldsee his leg muscle sliding beneath the skin for the rest of the race.Creepy, eh?Giant teammates Adam Craig and Kelli Emmett arrived at Fort Williamsporting fresh, self-inflicted wounds, in the form of giant matching tattooson their asses. The tattoo is the trophy for winning the Single Speed WorldChampionships. It is a huge and unsightly mess of ink — next time you seeTravis Brown or Marla Streb, ask for a peep.In some circles, the SSWC holds more importance than the Olympics, WorldCup Finals and Wednesday night short-track series rolled into one. It ishalf physical test, half drunken freak show — my kind of race.Craig raced the SSWC in a full Canadian tuxedo (denim, head to toe),and Emmett wore a tube top. I asked Craig’s teammate Carl Decker, who racedin a kilt, if he was bitter with his second-place finish.“There’s no tattoo for second place,” the smiling Oregonian remindedme. Turns out he’s been second at the SSWC three years in a row. Good man.Save that skin.
At times during this trip I have felt like Sisyphus, lugging a heavy,inconvenient bike case through the halls of airports, train stations andbus terminals. At times it has cracked my back and squashed my feet, butI feel no remorse for bringing it along.The bike served as my transportation in Scotland — I brought the thingout after learning that Fort William erected a half-million dollar bikepath between town and the Nevis Range race venue. The seven-mile path tookcyclists off of Scotland’s narrow, death-trap road system. It stood asyet another example of the country’s commitment to make the 2007 World’sthe biggest, best mountain-bike race of the year.And it was. The race was one zillion times bigger than anything I’veseen on domestic soil. In the U.S., I trek into the woods to find a spotwhere the cross-country trail loops around on itself to see the action.At Fort William I watched the races on a Jumbotron the size of a three-storybuilding. A helicopter followed the action, and on-trail cameras, paidfor by title sponsor Nissan, filmed the race on the ground.The gravity events boasted even more glitter. Four-cross racers speddown the hill to the bump of techno music. A smoke machine and strobe lightsentertained the 20,000 strong crowd, filling grandstands and clogging thesidelines. Brian Lopes and Jill Kintner stood on a glitzy podium as a barrageof fireworks lit up the sky.It was shiny, it was corporate — it was exactly what the sport’s topend should be.Perhaps you may not agree with that last comment. After all, most mountain-bikeracers pride their sport on its quaint, down-home flavor. I can respectthat. But I also know that at the sport’s professional end, money talks.Potential investors and sponsors want to see fireworks, smoke machinesand grandstands filled with screaming, beer swilling crazy people. Televisionwants to see that too. It proves that, at the high end, mountain-bike racingowns the clout of popularity that, until recently, most of us thought hadgone the way of the Dodo.So with that this column must end — I’m long past my word count, andI fear that my editor may hunt me down, lead pipe in hand. This coffeeshop — and the rest of Heathrow for that matter — has long lost its charm.Nine hours to Denver. I can make that.