Gil lets us borrow his old Schwinn tandem, a black behemoth that weighs 50 pounds and was built sometime in the late 1950s. Prior to loaning us the tandem, Gil and some friends back in Southern California used it as an around-town cruiser. Swift and I sink $500 into the bike and work side by side getting it back into racing shape.
Once the tandem’s up and running, Swift and I take it out to the T-Town track. Something about the bike feels special. It won races before we were born. The heft gives it a solid feeling. We know it won’t break down on us, or make it easy for other racers to push us around. We affectionately name it Big Bertha.
Tandem racing requires complete cohesion between the two riders. We must perfectly time our movements to keep the bike moving forward quickly, and in a straight line. If we don’t jump out of the saddle and sprint in unison, disastrous results will ensue.
I’m taller than Swift—6 feet 2 to his 5 feet 10—and the shorter rider typically sits on the back of the tandem. But because of his racing experience, Swift pilots the bike. He’s in charge of steering the tandem and telling me when to jump. As the stoker on the back, I’m the spotter. Like riding in the second seat of a fighter plane, I tell Swift how close our opponents are behind us and on which side they’re approaching.
I’m also at the complete mercy of any dangerous maneuver Swift might use to try to win. Swift likes that I’m fearless. I don’t freak out; I just hope he doesn’t kill us.
At senior nationals in Redmond, Washington, most of the top competitors have trained together religiously. Swift and I only have a couple of hours of practice together before the tournament begins. But what we lack in familiarity, we make up for in speed and tenacity. Swift’s a shrewd tactician and a deft bike handler. I boast the limitless energy and ignorance of youth.
At 400 meters in length, the velodrome in Redmond is huge—the size of a running track, but with banked corners. The velodrome’s size caters to the big tandem bikes, leaving plenty of space to maneuver. Swift and I will benefit from the long straightaways. We won’t need to worry about tactics if we can pedal fast enough.
The tandems go faster than individual bikes, and they can go fast for nearly twice as long. Tandem match sprints take place over 1,500 meters to 2,000 meters, instead of 750 to 1,000 for individual bikes. The sprint on a tandem winds up from as far out as two laps from the finish. Rarely does anyone pass in the final turn.
In the qualifier for the sprint tournament my legs turn like a turbo booster on the back of the bike. I’m eager to erase my disappointing performance at junior worlds in Moscow. Swift points Big Bertha where we need to go. I propel her down the track. We qualify second. Only the defending national champs, Bart Bell and Tom Brinker, beat us.
We dispose of our first two opponents in straight rides and enter the finals against Bell and Brinker. Tandem racing on the velodrome is the cycling version of bumper cars, and Swift prepares for the match by putting on elbow pads and stuffing hip pads into his shorts. He looks like the Michelin Man. I never wear pads. I want the other racers to know I’m not afraid of getting hurt.
In the first ride Bell and Brinker get an early jump on Swift and me. They take off at the start of the first lap and soar out to a demanding gap. The race already seems over as we exit the second turn. But I punish the pedals, and Swift slips Big Bertha into their draft coming into turn three. By the time we exit, he’s got the bike even with Bell and Brinker. We cruise ahead as the finish line approaches and win by the width of our front wheel.
On the second ride, Bell and Brinker attempt intimidation. They push us high up the track and try to block us from passing. But we don’t wait. We start our sprint with a lap to go and move outside of Bell and Brinker on the back straight. They ride us up the banking of the track. My right arm scrapes the rail at the top of the track and my left shoulder bangs against the opposing stoker.
But Big Bertha holds steady. At 430 pounds of combined weight, Swift, Big Bertha, and I aren’t easily pushed around. Bell and Brinker don’t realize I thrive on contact. We pound the pedals and exchange elbows. We gain control out of the last turn and fly across the line, battered but not beaten.
I’m only the second US racer to win both junior and senior national championship titles in the same year. (The other racer is Mark Whitehead.) I’m 18 years old and headed to worlds, again.
In France, I room with a 20-year-old track racer from Indiana named Erin Hartwell. “Call me Erv,” he says shortly after we meet. His nickname dates back to his childhood. Because he was the only white kid playing on an all-black youth basketball team, the other players nicknamed him after Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Erv, for short) to help him fit in.
I quickly learn we’ve pursued nearly parallel paths in pursuit of Olympic gold. Like me, Erv grew up in a rural, blue-collar community near a velodrome—in his case, the Indianapolis velodrome. He’s down-to-earth and hardworking. He sees competitive cycling as a route to a better life.
Even the births of our Olympic aspirations mirror each other. At the age of 7, Erv watched Bruce Jenner win gold in the decathlon. Erv turned away from the television and told his mom, “One day I will be the Olympic champion.”
On our bikes, we’re both sadists—but in different manners. I enjoy making my opponents suffer during repeated bouts of sprinting. Erv races the kilo. He derives a sick pleasure from self-inflicted agony.
Erv calls the kilo the siren song of sprinting, both beautiful and brutal. He tells me the event’s beauty lies in its simplicity: just man and machine clocked over the international standard unit of measurement, 1 kilometer.
The brutality, Erv says, comes from a kilo racer’s constant testing of the limits of human physiology. Humans can sustain a sprint, or anaerobic effort, for about 1 minute—or almost exactly how long it takes to race 1 kilometer on a track bike.
During an anaerobic effort, the body produces lactic acid, which the muscles use as fuel in the absence of oxygen. As lactic acid production outpaces the muscles’ ability to utilize it, the muscles send a signal to the brain—which the mind interprets as searing pain. Stop. Now. Or you might die, the muscles scream.
Over the course of a kilo race, as lactic acid levels rise and oxygen molecules deplete, the severity of the pain increases. During a kilo effort, a racer feels as if he is receiving a lethal injection of lactic acid.
Erv is built to race the kilo, both physically and mentally. His muscles can quickly absorb and utilize lactic acid better than nearly anyone in the world. He’s also adept at ignoring those painful messages his body sends his brain.
Outside of our training sessions, where Erv’s deadly serious, he’s boisterous—and always up for antics. One of our favorite gags involves prank calling other US riders from the hotel room phone. “Bonjour, monsieur,” we say, badly imitating a French journalist. “I would like you to meet in the lobby for interview, and wear your full racing form, s’il vous plait!’ Then we race down to the lobby and hide behind a planter. The racer steps off the elevator, fully dressed in spandex with a wide, proud smile across his face, and we laugh hysterically.
Even our differences complement each other. Erv carries himself with an assuredness that others sometimes perceive as arrogance. Confidence is not a facade, he shows me; it comes from thorough preparation. He never lets distractions affect his performance. Control what you can control, Erv tells me.
One day as we’re hanging out in the hotel room, Erv and I start talking candidly, and maturely for our young age, about our passion for track racing. “I want to do something positive for the sport after I’m done competing,” Erv says.
“Me too,” I say.
We decide to chase our Olympic dreams, and then help others achieve their dreams.
The velodrome I compete on at the world championships is built on an island park at the center of a little lake in Lyon. The track was constructed nearly 100 years ago and is surrounded by a dense forest filled with mossy vegetation. Its banking and length is similar to the
T-Town track’s.
Everything about the senior world championships seems inflated, bigger and better than any race I’ve competed in. The event begins with an opening ceremony and features live TV coverage. The other national teams show off their sparkling new equipment, while I’m given a hand-me-down skinsuit (which I’m asked to return after my race). Even the physical size of the athletes impresses me. I’m clearly a boy among men in comparison to the German and Russian sprinters.
I can’t wait to perform on the world’s biggest cycling stage, but during the qualifying ride Swift and I lack focus. We slowly circle the top track on the laps preceding our flying-one-lap time trial. I wait for Swift’s signal. We ride one lap, then two. We should start sprinting, but we don’t. We approach the start-finish line and the officials call us off the track. You’re done, they tell us. We miscounted the laps. We rode our qualifier at a warm-up pace.
Because we were riding at the top of track, we didn’t even trigger the timing strip laid across the sprinter’s lane and clock a qualifying time. The officials could take pity on us and seed us last in the tournament. They could give us a reride. But they don’t. They disqualify us. We’re sent home from France without even racing.
In the spring of 1990, I start college and try to forget about the disastrous worlds trip. I like college, but I don’t like college. I major in secondary education and enjoy the business classes I take, but while I should focus on lectures and taking notes, I think only about bike racing. At my current rate of progression, making the ’92 Olympic team is a feasible objective. I dream about winning an Olympic gold medal, not economics.
My buddy Tim Quigley moves from New Jersey to Trexlertown so he can attend classes and race at the T-Town velodrome more easily. My mom offers Tim a room at our place. Tim insists on paying $100 in rent. She reluctantly agrees.
As the fall weather turns from balmy to brisk, it gets even harder for Tim and me to concentrate during class. Winter is coming. Soon layers of snow and ice will cover the Lehigh Valley roads. Our opportunities to ride outside are diminishing. Sunlight streams through the classroom window. “This is killing me,” I tell Tim. “Let’s go ride.”
For me, the collegiate races seem like a step backward, too. I’m accustomed to top national and international competition. Instead, I race against a meager group of kids going to class full-time and racing track. Additionally, the coach, Jim Young, sees I’m not buying into his system.
By the end of the semester, I’m yearning to resume racing against the best in the world, and my enthusiasm for school is waning.
In the summer of 1990, I resume tandem racing with Swift. I’m continuously making progress as an individual sprinter. The previous year I placed eighth in the match sprint at senior nationals, and I opened this season’s Friday night races at T-Town by winning the keirin final. But racing the tandem allows me to face the top international sprinters, an invaluable experience.
In June, ABC-TV comes to T-Town for an event called the US Olympic Cup. The network is ramping up their coverage in advance of the ’92 Olympics and will broadcast the tandem finals live from T-Town on a Sunday afternoon. A host of international stars fly in for the race, including the three-time defending world champions on the tandem, Frenchmen Frédéric Magné and Fabrice Colas. Swift and I want redemption from last year’s world championship flop. Now’s our chance.
We face Magné and Colas in our first-round match, during the preliminaries on Friday night. Instead of a best-of-three format, the winner of just one match moves to the next round. The French duo leads off the start line. But they don’t want the front, and try to force Swift and me into the lead with a track stand. It’s a psychological ploy as much as a tactical maneuver. Swift doesn’t relent. He halts our tandem beside the French pair.
We sit, motionless, for what seems like minutes. But the experienced French team’s bike handling bests ours. We lose our balance and topple over onto the track. Magné and Colas smirk. A few giggles come from the crowd. The reigning US national sprint champion, Ken Carpenter, runs out and helps us back up. He pats my back.
The officials order a reride. I was tense and jittery before the fall. Now I’m pissed. We start the reride. Magné and Colas jump us with one lap to go and open a gap the length of an entire tandem. Swift and I don’t give up. We hammer the pedals and gain on them along the back straight. We’re even in the final turn, and shoot to the lead with just 50 meters to go. In the photo finish, I’m raising my arms as we cross the line. Magné and Colas come in several bike lengths behind us. We forget about Lyon, France.
Magné and Colas win their way out of the repechage and Sunday, on live broadcast TV, we meet them in the finals. They lead off the line again, and again try to force us to the front with a track stand. This time Swift rides past them and into the lead without stopping. The French shadow us as we creep along the top of the track.
With two laps to go, Magné and Colas drop underneath us and start to wind up their sprint. Swift sticks to their rear wheel. Before the race, Gil told us to go underneath if they leave the door open, and that’s exactly what we do. Magné and Colas come out of the turn too high, expecting us to pass on their right. The sprinter’s lane opens up. It’s like the Red Sea parting in front of Moses. Holy crap, there’s the move. We dive underneath them. Magné and Colas look at us with exasperation as we pass on their inside. They jump again. But it’s too late. They can’t catch us. They fade.
I cross the line on the back of the tandem, looking into the stands and soaking in the cheers of the roaring crowd. We just beat the world tandem champions. We wave American flags on our victory laps.
Despite the big win with Swift, and my continued progression as an individual sprinter, I feel aimless. To make ends meet, I work part-time at Schuylkill Valley Sporting Goods. In the off-season, Gil gets a job there, too. We sell shoes and stock shelves, but we goof off a lot too. The general manager is a buddy and he takes us back in the warehouse for impromptu football games when business is slow. “Go long,” he yells at me, throwing me the ball where Gil can tackle me into a pile of boxes. I like the job, but like college, I don’t love it.
As a junior racer things felt so certain. I imagined a path leading directly to Olympic glory. But I witnessed senior worlds. I’m aware of the gap between my current ability and the top individual sprinters in the world. I can see the years of sacrifice closing the gap will require. I’ll need focus to achieve my Olympic dream, but most of all I’ll need to persevere. No one will hand me a gold medal. I’ll have to earn it, no matter how long it takes. Heck, it might even take another decade to win gold, who knows?
At the end of the summer in 1990, senior nationals comes to T-Town. Swift and I repeat our victory in the tandem sprint, still aboard Big Bertha. We’re selected for the worlds team, and head to Japan, where we aim to medal.
For the trip to worlds, Swift and I finally get a new tandem, handcrafted by Koichi Yamaguchi, a master frame builder from Japan, who now lives in Colorado. The bike is a beauty, glossy white with yellow accents. It’s constructed with oversized steel tubing developed in partnership with USA Cycling, specifically for track sprinting.
We arrive in Japan, unload our cherished new tandem, and head to the velodrome to practice our sprint. During one effort, we’re going all-out coming into the third turn when a tire fails. Miraculously, the tire stays on the rim. We don’t crash. But Swift is shaken up. “We could have died,” he says, stone-faced. He can’t get the incident out of his head.
It’s the last time Swift ever puts his full effort into a tandem sprint. In the first round, he rides scared. We lose and fall to the repechage rounds. In the repechage, we lose right away, too, and fall out of the worlds sprint tournament in only two rides.
Something needs to change. I realize that if I’m going to win a medal at worlds on the tandem, Swift won’t be the driver. He’s technically proficient, but not willing to risk going on his ass. To drive a tandem aggressively, you’ve got t
o be damn near crazy. “You need to drive,” Gil tells me.
Back in my room, I ask Erv if he’s ever wanted to race tandems. He’s fearless, like me, plus, his giant anaerobic capacity makes him perfect for the long sprints tandem racing requires. During practice one day at the track in Japan, Erv gets on the back of the bike and I drive. Swift watches us as we test out the new partnership.
Erv and I click on the tandem as well as we do off it. From now on, I’ll drive.
5
THE CROWN PRINCE OF AMERICAN SPRINTING
ERV AND I start the ’91 season by beating a pair of world-class Italians in a tandem tournament at T-Town. We make a great team, but it’s obvious our respective futures lie in our individual events. I’m winning with regularity on Friday nights at T-Town, and later in the summer of ’91, the Feds select me to race in the Pan-Am Games.
I travel to Havana, Cuba, for the Games. The Pan-Ams are akin to the Olympics of the Western Hemisphere. It’s my first opportunity to represent my country at a major, multisport competition. I’m given my first glimpse of what it means to be an Olympian. The event is a congregation of some of the best athletes in the world, not just the best cyclists. No one asks me to give my skinsuit back. Instead, I’m loaded up with USA-branded clothing and gear bearing the official Pan-Am logo.
Cuba provides an especially striking introduction to an event of this magnitude. On the evening of my semifinal match in the sprint tournament, the Cuban pursuit team is also scheduled to face off against the Americans for the gold medal. No one in Havana wants to miss the race. A passionate, rowdy Cuban crowd packs the aisles of the national velodrome. Despite sweltering humidity, those who can’t get inside the stadium stand 20 deep along the chain-link fence bordering the edge of the track. The musty smell of thousands of sweating bodies fills the air.
The Price of Gold Page 6