HAVE HEAD, WILL TALK

Over the weekend I was at a (surprise!) mountain bike race. The Cougar Mountain Classic at Sears Point in Napa.

I wasn’t there to race, but instead to provide TV commentary for Fox Sports Network. I’m a decent mountain biker, which in no way suggests that I have any idea how to provide commentary during a bike race.

The race organizers had assembled a wagonful of mountain bike pioneers and Hall of Famers for me to “interview”. Gary Fisher, Otis Guy, Charlie Kelly, and Alan Bonds. These are people I know and admire and while we were taping I could not think of a thing to say.

However, I occasionally possess an uncanny ability for the illustrative historical anecdote, witty non-sequitor, or keen insight...but only later when the audience is me, myself and I.

I’ll be out on a grocery/video store ride and another biker will wave and yell, “Hey Marla... Run into any trees lately?”

I can’t think of anything to say so I just grunt and focus on my cadence.

On the way home, my messenger bag stuffed with organic milk, free range chicken, growers’ cooperative decaf coffee, I’ll cough out something lame like, “No, but I’m trying to save a few!”

During the six hour drive home from the bike race, I was able to think up a litany of penetrating questions, funny follow ups and concluding epigrams. I was so entertaining that I even turned down the radio so I could listen to myself better.



Fat Tire Flyer...

Charlie Kelly, who raced the very first documented mountain bike event in history, had handed me a grip of old “Fat Tire Flyers” saying, “Here, take ’em. I was the editor. I printed way too many and have been moving ‘em around my house from pile to pile for twenty years. I thought that they were going to be valuable someday.” He shrugged.

But, did I utter a single comment? Did I say anything of note at all? My “thank you” for the mags was polite, but not prolix.

Last night at home in bed I thumbed through Flyers. They were a bit brittle, and thin. Mostly high school year book photo quality. Hand drawn cartoon ads for Famer John Tires and for cloth covers to protect brake assemblies from mud.

Right there on the cover of one of the staple bound 1984 ‘zines was Dave Mac, my team coordinator! I had no idea he was so old school. Rigid forks. Steel frame. Toe clips. And check out those high-thigh tight shorts. His velo cap turned backwards gangsta style!

I was getting sleepy, but then a thought popped into my head. I squinted at the cover once more. Oh yeah. There was Steve Tilford. And Stetina. And...Jimmy Deaton.

I shut off the light, dropped the Flyers to the floor beside the bed, and twisted into the pillow.

For just a second there flitted the kernel of a funny comment that I could have made at the interview. Something about a ‘safety meeting’. But then, the thought was gone.

I guess that’s why I’m only mountain biker.



NOTE: If you’re on the West Coast, check out the coverage of the Cougar Mountain Classic on Fox Sports Net on October 1st.