Tales From The Top Tube: A Chance Encounter With A French Cyclist

An auto shop seems like an odd place to meet a retired professional cyclist. Especially a nearly octogenarian French cyclist in Salt Lake City who raced with the likes of Eddy Merckx. His name is Roger and he let me know, through his thick French accent, that he wasn't interested in letting me interview him. He just wanted to talk to me about his glory days on a bike, the people he raced with and the drugs they did.

He rode his bike a lot, he said. It wasn't like these new fancy things we have nowadays. They rode hard and had high cadences. They did a lot of drugs - amphetamines - so they could ride hard during the day, and sleeping pills - to sleep better - at night. "That is cycling. How it has always been. There is nothing wrong with doing drugs," he reminds me. I remember that "cycling is a sport of cheaters," as I was once told.

I told him he should ride with me sometime. He replied that Salt Lake is too dangerous for bike riding. Riding here is crazy. He then went on to tell me how great the cycling fans in Europe are. How they would cheer him on as he rode, and that to them, he was a celebrity - till he took his kit off. "After a race I was at the train station in my suit with my bike. People who had been cheering me on an hour early didn't even know who I was. It was a strange feeling. They only knew me on a bike."

Jokingly I asked him if he has any racing advice for me. "Stay out of the big ring." Roger tells me, "You Americans are obsessed with the big ring. Get a high cadence and then start using your big ring." Ah, yes, The Church of The Big Ring is where us Americans spend most of our time on a bike.

A half hour later, I left the shop. Roger gave me his history of racing, the auto mechanics all listening in, all of us hanging on his every word. I don't know if I will ever meet Roger again, but I am forever reminded to "stay out of the big ring".

So what church am I suppose to worship at now?

CPPJ

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