Comments about Cycling | Steve Tilford

No rest for the weary is an appropriate saying. I’m kind of weary, or maybe just a little beat up. Trudi, on the other hand is just tired and jet lagged.

I am just tired from riding my MTB at altitude for 5 days. My body wasn’t used the the jarring and it is telling me so. My lower back hates me.

Trudi finished Tour of California, which was a sleep deprivation race for support, then flew to Winston-Salem to support Taylor and Brent from BMC. The time trial started at 7 or 8, but the support had to get up at 4am to drive out to the course to set up. So that was 1am California time, just about the same time that she was thinking about going to sleep a few days earlier.

She flew to Denver to hang for one day, then we drove from Denver to Topeka on Tuesday. I then took her to the airport yesterday and she flew back to Belgium. I just talked to her and she landed, took the train to the BMC service course, now is driving from Belgium to France to pick up some riders for the Critérium du Dauphiné, which starts on Sunday. That is some pretty steady movement.

I have a press conference to go to this morning. I’m getting inducted into the Shawnee County/Topeka Sports Hall of Fame in a few weeks and they are doing an announcement at the Chamber of Commerce this morning.

I’m not sure what I’m doing after that. Tomorrow there is a NCC criterium, the Oklahoma Pro-Am in Oklahoma City. But the race starts at 9pm and then the Tour of Kansas City is at 8 am on Saturday. It is 5 hours from OKC to KC, so that would be hard to do. I’ll have to mull that one over today.

Okay, just I should get cleaned up to be presentable this morning.

Trudi and Tucker walking before the flight yesterday. Tucker rolled around in a muddy puddle trying to cool off. He is pointing butterflies here.

At the airport.

Newspaper clip about the Hall of Fame deal.

The most famous of all gravel races is happening right now about an hour southwest of me, the Dirty Kanza 200. I know a bunch of people that are doing it. Quite of few of the local Topekans I train with are racing. My brother Kris is riding a tandem with his friend Rita. Then Roger, Eric and Keith are all doing it solo.

My team mate, Brian Jensen, who won the event two years ago, decided kind of last minute, to race. He tried to talk me into starting, which is the only way I’d do it, helping him. But, I’m not good enough to even do that right now. He’ll be fine.

There are lots of good riders here. Ted King did a blog post about his DK experience, so far, yesterday. Rebecca Rusch is back. Man, does that girl travel and do some crazy shit.

I wish all the competitors good luck. The DK is a race where luck plays a big part. A thunderstorm moved through Topeka at about 2 am and I couldn’t help myself to check the radar to see if the course was getting wet. It wasn’t. Good luck.

Last year was a disaster with hardly half the riders finishing. Brian flatted numerous times and finally broke off his rear derailleur about half way through. This year it is going to be hard and fast, a new course record, by time, since it is not the same course even year.

Live tracking of the DK200 is here.

Also, sad news about Muhammad Ali and cyclist Jocelyn Lovell. Both died yesterday after long battles. Muhammad with Parkinson’s disease. Jocelyn with being paralysed after being struck by a cement truck.

I never met Ali. I would have loved that. My friend Dennis, from Cable, spend a few hours with him alone in Illinois one stormy night. Dennis said that Ali’s hands were so quick you couldn’t even see them move. Ali was the most famous athlete the world has even seen. And he lived up to it. He lived by his standards and never wavered. That will be his legacy.

I had the pleasure of meeting and racing against Jocelyn. He was the first “professional” rider I saw venturing from Kansas. I ran into him in the shower in a dorm in Milwaukee when I was 14. Man, was he intimidating. Legs like tree stumps, an earring, a serious bicycle racer.

I didn’t know him that well, but most riders either loved or hated Jocelyn. I loved him. I understood his humor, his mentality and laughed at his outbursts.

I wrote a post about him a few years ago. Here is another one from Canadian Cycling Magazine. It is a real article, not just a blog post by me.

Anyway, I wish all my friend’s and all the other riders, a safe race today. Many will be out there past dark. It’s a sad day with two sports heros pass on the same day. But it is just part of life. I hope they both rest in peace. They are deserving of that.