The broom wagon, or sag wagon, is every cyclist's nightmare. Its the sweep up operation of the race. This dreaded vehicle gathers up the failed, the doomed and the lame. It does this unceremoniously and with no sense of dignity for the rider concerned. The Tour de France has one of course, but you and I don't see it on the TV coverage. Any decent team rider with any amount of status gets his team car to take him away from the scene as quickly as possible, so if you end up in the actual broom wagon it means that you are in such sorry shape that even your own team has left you to the wolves. My team is not pro, so we have a team car that also doubles as the broom wagon, and on Sunday it was firmly of "broom wagon" status for the charity ride with Fast Freddie Rodriguez and two genuine pro teams. For the princely sum of $100 you could ride with Fast Freddie and his Team Jelly Belly squad, plus some riders from the US Clif Bar team.
Fast Freddie is 4-times US National Champion and has a great "palmares" (that's what a cycling CV is called) including finishing second to the great Mario Cippolini in the Milan-SanRemo race in 2002. To ride with him and the other pros was a real privilege, and I was happy to pay for it. The proceeds went to the "Fast Freddie Foundation" - he does things with style, this guy! - which helps local underprivileged youngsters find self-belief and self-worth through introducing them to cycling. As Freddie said at the start of the ride: "we take the ability and opportunity to get out and enjoy a ride for granted. We can enjoy the sun, the hills, the countryside and the company. Some of us are lucky enough to do it for a living, but there are many kids who simply don't have that option. The foundation tries to fix that." He said it with such genuine feeling you had to believe it, and that is exactly the sort of guy he is. Completely genuine, and without any hint of arrogance or ego. He also does things with quite a bit of style. Apparently the previous evening he sent his manager a picture of a nice bottle of wine; then at around 2 in the morning sent a picture of said bottle - empty, with the message: "you'd best give me a call in the morning!" I heard this from other sources, but I guess it adequately demonstrates how tough he was expecting the ride to be. I, on the other hand, was prepared to spend my day on the limiter!
So, off we went, for a beautiful ride through Marin County over to the Point Reyes coast. The ride was serious, inasmuch as the pros were told to keep a "decent pace" and not dawdle about. This might be a charity ride but it wasn't for the general population; it was for club riders and wannabes, and the pace was pretty hot. Fall off the pace, drop out the back and there was only one option: into the broom wagon. They weren't gonna wait! about 20 miles in and I was off the back. I was giving it everything I had and the pain wasn't my limiting factor, it was simply availability of power in the legs. I had no more to give. The back of the group stretched inexorably away. It wasn't by much, but I was losing contact and the more you lose contact the harder you have to work against the wind. So it gets worse. I dragged everything I had out of myself, turned myself inside out but I was still going backwards. Then I felt a gentle hand in the middle of my back, and it gently pushed. I had my head well and truly down but I glanced sideways to see a smiling Freddie. "Don't lose the group; get back in there!" He pushed me up to speed, and back onto the group before going back for another backmarker. The boost it gave to every system in my body was tremendous. My legs gained power; all pain was gone; I felt inexplicably "GOOD". I stayed with the group until the next stop, a couple of miles up the road, and felt very, very Pro. The broom wagon wasn't eating me up just yet. That scenario was repeated a couple of times, each time with a different rider pushing me back on to the group. When I checked afterwards there were about 6 or 7 of us who had been helped in this way. It helped us to continue to enjoy the ride, and I have to say it made me feel very good about cyclists in general and about these team guys in particular. I know, from reading pro cyclists' autobiographies, that riding these events is a bit of a drag. They are populated by wannabes and many of these wannabes think they have bought the right to act like a knobhead to the riders. But these riders were, to a man, great. They treated us with respect (and of course vice versa), and they made sure we had a great day out. They spoke to us on equal terms, answered our questions and offered advice - or a push if necessary.
Thanks guys, I loved it.
