Did you guys see this article at Velonews.com about Alexi making a comeback next season. He retired in 1993. And has lived a rough life most of those years since. He got into religion and got his Olympic Gold Medal stolen/lost.

I haven’t seen Alexi much over the years. I think the last time I saw him was at Michael Aisner’s Coor’s Classic DVD reunion.

Alexi and I go way back. I think the first time I met Alexi was at Superweek back in 1977. I met him for sure at a Junior National Training camp, that following spring, in 1978, at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. The start of the Eddie B. era. He was riding for Monte of Italy from Aspen Colorado. He was eccentric then for sure. I’ve raced with Alexi all over the World. And he has never changed.

I have a million Alexi stories. A million and one.

A good one is from 1986. Greg Lemond chose me to race the Professional World Road Championships, after the Coor’s Classic. I was stoked. I had been at altitude for a couple months and the Worlds were in Colorado Springs. Anyway, the way it worked was that Eric Heiden was going to be named to the team, because of his fame. I was going to be first alternate. Eric had already went back to California and started medical school at Stanford, so I was going to ride. Alexi, by chance, was the 2nd alternate.

A couple days before the race, someone calls and tells me that Jack Simes, czar of USPRO, had bumped me and put Jock Boyer on the team. I rode over to the hotel that Jack was staying at to ask him about the rumor. I had never much talked to Jack. He was coming back from a run and I saw him in the lobby. I asked him about getting bumped and he goes off on me. Telling me that Jock Boyer was the reason that the Worlds were in the United States and deserved to ride the race and I had done nothing for the sport and deserved nothing…blah, blah, blah. I didn’t have much to say, for once.

Anyway, I was pissed, obviously. My team director from Levis, Michael Fatka got into the mix at that point and protested something to someone. The day before the World road race, Boyer was still riding. I went out with Tim Hinz, Levis team mate, and went for an all day ride on gravel into the mountains. A couple hours in, we got caught in a crazy hail/snow storm and spent over an hour in a culvert, freezing, while our bikes were getting buried by frozen mush. When it stopped, we limped into Cripple Creek and drank a gallon of coffee each and froze riding the 2 1/2 hours back, downhill, to Colorado Springs. We were destroyed. Late that afternoon, Michael came back and said that it was all fixed and I was back in. Boyer wasn’t on the initial team and he had been added way too late, so I was going to be able to ride.

There was no way that I could race 163 miles, with a gazillion feet of climbing the next morning. I was done. So, I called Alexi, who was living in Boulder and asked him if he wanted to take my slot. He said absolutely and that he’d been training exclusively for the event, which I thought was pretty weird. Anyway, as I called Jack Simes to tell him how it was going to go, I felt a certain amount of satisfaction, even though I was the one that got screwed.

I called Jack and told him I wasn’t going to ride, but Alexi was. Jack calmly replied that Alexi wasn’t going to ride because he and Alexi had an “agreement”. Jack tells me that Alexi was positive for a failed drug test in Crested Butte, a couple weeks before the Coor’s Race, and that Jack wasn’t going to sanction him, to allow him to race in Europe. I immediately called Alexi back in Boulder to ask him if that was correct. He said something like, “the results from the test weren’t back, but most likely it wasn’t going to be good.” And that he did have an agreement with USPRO. I said, “shit Alexi, why didn’t you tell me that before I called Sims.” He said that he thought maybe it would work out for him and he didn’t have anything to loose by letting me call Sims on his behalf. I was dumbfounded. But, Alexi is Alexi. And Boyer raced Worlds.

I am going to enjoy keeping up on the comeback of Alexi Grewal. Super entertaining for sure. I hope he gets the old guy team together for the resurrected Coors Class/Quizno Race. I’d be all in with that.

I love guys like Alexi that keep the sport and my life interesting.

Winning the Olympic Road race in 1984 over Steve Bauer.

An old photo from Nevada City. Alexi is on the right, behind Dale Stetina. You can only see my shoulder. I am next to Andy Hampsten (team mate), who is next to Alexi. Chris Carmichael is on my left.

I raced about a 1/3 of a cyclocross today in Kansas City. I had planned on doing 3/3 of a cyclocross. Not sure what to say other than it is impossible to rotate your legs in circles when both hamstrings are cramped. And that happened in less than 20 minutes. Twenty minutes of racing. I’d ridden 50 miles, at a 20mph average, into a stiff headwind, on a very hilly road, to get to the race. 13 minutes before the scheduled start. Next to Brian Jensen. Not a good thing. They did start 15 minutes late, so that was something. But, not enough.

My hamstrings had been feeling weird all day. But, eating at 8 am, 6 hours before the race and then doing the before mentioned trek, didn’t help much. The weird thing is that I didn’t see it coming. I’ve hardly ever cramped up a hamstring. Never both simultaneously. I had been feeling weird back in Kansas this past week. Allergies or something. But, today I felt pretty great riding over there. But, I did run out of juice as we had to pick up the pace to make the race start. Then, there wasn’t much to eat in the van. And no coffee. Not very good planning on my part, but at local races, I don’t usually cross all my t’s and dot all the i’s. Maybe I need to start. The sport is hard enough, that there isn’t much leeway for sloppiness in preparation.

The course didn’t help much either. It was more of a grass circuit race. 1.5 miles in length. On the side of a hill. 50% up and 50% down. And it had rained a bunch yesterday, so it was super slow. Not peanut butter slow, but sticky slow. Slow enough that I only rode in my small ring down hill pedaling. No rest.

So, I followed Shad Smith, KCCX around for most of the first lap. I was pretty comfortable. I got in the lead climbing back to the start line. The 2nd time over the barriers, I felt a small twinge in my left hamstring and though, “shit, it is way too early for that to be happening.” I backed off a bit and thought maybe I could ride into a pace. Then the next lap over the barriers, both hamstrings cramped. I can’t think of a race I’ve ever been in that I quit when I was leading. But, like I stated above, there is nothing you can do to pedal a bicycle in that situation. So, I just stood on the side of the course as everyone rode by. I couldn’t really move for 10 minutes or so, then just rode back to the van. Josh Johnson, Big Shark, won the race over Jonathan Schottler, Big Shark, with Shad Smith, KCCX, coming in 3rd. (Shad lost the sprint for 2nd because he was never told it was the final lap).

I can’t really complain too much. I haven’t ridden a cross bike one pedal stroke before today, but that wasn’t the issue. I guess I need to address this hamstring thing pretty quickly. There was only 10 meters of running on this course. So, I cramped up after 30 meters of running. That probably wasn’t it. I did have a very hard training day. Not such a hard race day though.

So, if anybody has any intelligent thoughts about how I can address this quickly, feel free to tell me. If not, I guess I’m going to have to try to figure it out myself, which is a long shot. And it won’t be quick.

Not the photo you want to see of yourself at a race.

Early in the race when I was leading (and still riding).

Artsy photo Joe Houston sent.

Bromont hadn't been to a bike race for a few weeks so he was in dog heaven. He loves cyclocross.