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I'm a runner. Well, sort of. I got close to a sub-40 10K once. 11 years and twice as many pounds ago. The same year I did my only marathon. Now however, a mild insanity, fueled in part by the cycling prowess of Lance Armstrong and his Postal Service crew, is edging me incessantly towards the ranks of cycling.
Almost anyone can ride a bike. Learning is a kid's rite of passage. It's healthy and family fun and all that rot. There is however, a whole different level to this game boys and girls. And it happens when you stick a few hundred stringy atheletes sporting thighs of tightly wound steel at one end of a very long road, then tell them to be first to the other end.
If you've never witnessed the pros streaming down the road at speeds that should scorch the paint off their helmets, you owe it to yourself to tune in ASAP. It gets in your blood, believe me. Soon you'll find yourself cheering those few no-name riders in a suicidal breakaway. You'll stare in awe at Lance scampering up the Mont Ventoux with Phil and Paul and Bob on TV clamoring for new ways to stitch superlatives together. You'll start dusting off your 10-speed.
With enough of this it slowly dawns on you that the peloton has got to be a stylin' place to hang out.
The peloton: A congregation of cycling thoroughbreds in a floating safe harbor from Mr. Wind Resistance, all vying to keep their team close to the front, but not first (except at the end). A mixture of flatland speed demons, mountain goats, bodyguards and cycling superstars trailed by an entourage of horn-blowing, equipment-laden chase vehicles stuffed with team directors, medicine men, hottie girlfriends, and bike mechanics. Mechanics the likes of who can change a flat in five seconds. As Johnny Carson would say, wild, wild stuff.