Lance looks thrilled

A couple years ago Trek unveiled their 2008 Madone road bike in Madison, Wisconsin. This new Madone was a break from the OCLV frames we’d seen from them in the past, so it was a big deal for the company. The Madone was launched with a lot of fanfare in a theater in downtown Madison with not only word wide press but their dealers as well. After the presentation was over, myself, a friend and a few marketing people from Trek decided to go out. It was still early and we’d heard Main Street was the place to be. Long story short – we stayed out to a point that the company’s marketing people who were with us and our ride back, called it a night. I’ve been lost in all sorts of foreign countries and found my way to my hotel so I wasn’t worried about getting back to the ours in Madison.

When the bars closed my buddy and I found a cab that would take us back to our hotel for the remaining amount of money we still had in our pockets. Good times.

The following morning all the attending journalists were going to ride the new Madone and the recently retired Lance Armstrong was going to join us. Needless to say that was like throwing chum into the ocean. All the journalists were worked up into a frenzy about getting a chance to ask Lance something. As we prepped our Madones in the hotel parking lot, Armstrong, out of the blue, rolled over looking to get the ride started and over with. I actually don’t blame him. He must have known he was going to get hammered with cycling questions during the whole ride. I had another idea though.

We rolled out of the hotel and immediately it began- the jostling to be next to Lance. I snuck my way behind him and I could already hear him fielding such questions as, “what was your favorite climb?” Finally, I slid in next to him and introduced myself. I asked the obligatory questions about the Madone, he responded appropriately hitting all the bullet points in describing the bike. After his replies I deviated from the script.

I launched into telling him about our time on State Street. He seemed to be honestly interested in the good time my BFFand I had. Perhaps it was the welcome break of describing over and over the ride qualities of the Madone that made my conversation interesting. By the time I was done regaling him with stories of passed students in the gutter, tossing a sofa into the street, running up bar tabs and waking up CyclingNews’ James Huang for cab money, it was well over five minutes. I knew that it was better to end the conversation on a high note of our stupid late night antics than just puttering out with a lame story of eating hotel breakfast food. I told him thanks, slid off the front and back into the group of quote hungry journalists.

Lance gives the low-down on the Madone

An American journalist rode over to me and asked me how I was able to spend that much time talking to him. I said think about it, he’s rich and (at the time) single, what do you think we talked about?

On press junkets the company educates journalists on their new product. But I like to think that on that trip I educated some people on the potentiality of the good times to be had on State Street.

I'm completely jet-lagged but I'm here in Pau for the start of the
Etape. I slept on and off last night and woke up at 4:00am wide awake.
I watched a few hours of CNN till breakfast was served. Later this
morning we are going to pick up the Project One bike I designed. It's
the Madone 6.9 with full Red group and Bonteager PowerTap wheels. I
also have with me the new Garmin 705. Once the ride is over I'll be
able to download all this info to see how bad I sucked. Nothing like
quantifiable numbers to prove that ugly fact.

Here's the short version: my shoulder/neck is still f'ed up and I'm
sitting in the LAX concourse waiting for my flight to France. For
those not keeping up with my occasional posts I'm partcipating in the
E'Tape in France as a guest of Trek. They are hooking me up with a
Project One Madone that I pimped out. Sometimes it's good to be Neil.
Anyways, I should have been training but instead I've been going to
physical therapy for my bum shoulder. But I do have a plan. My doctor
prescribed me Vicodine which I plan on taking viberally as soon as we
have wheels up. Once in France I'm switching to wine till the day of
the ride to help deaden the throbbing pain. Once the ride is underway
I'll just cruise the whole time. I'll bring my camera and snap shots
along the way. I'll post here as well as on the ROAD Magazine site. I
have another hour before we take off so maybe I'll post again. I bore
easily.

At the top and contemplating life’s mysteries

My legs are smoked from today’s training. To get you up to speed, I’m still training for L’ Etape, a 165k ride which includes the Tourmalet and the Hautacam (stage 10 of this year’s Tour). Once it was all said and done I rode for four hours for 53 miles and climbed 8,400 feet. My ass hurts…

WTF! Almost to Baldy Village and there’s another car over the side.

Going across the plateau to Baldy we came across these dumb asses who crashed their cars.

I’m out training on Mom Day with decline editor Mark Jordan for top secret training up Glendora Mtn. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

There is a new wrinkle to my preparation for my ride in France this July. I have to go to the doctor to have him certify that I’m “in shape” to do the 165k ride. I’m just worried that he’s going to take my blood pressure, reach for the latex gloves and ask me to drop. All I know is this Etape du Tour better be damn good.