Notes from the road: What’s hard?

By Bryan Jew, VeloNews assistant managing editor

When USA Today ran its recent series on “The 10 hardest things to do in sports,” with the Tour de France landing in eighth place, I was expecting a slew of e-mails to hit the VeloNews.com mailbox, similar to the flood of complaints we got last summer when MSNBC’s Ron Borges made his ridiculous “Lance is not an athlete” argument. Luckily, we were spared the dozens of e-mails from incredulous (and whining) readers asking, “How is ____, harder than riding the Tour!!??”

Sure, I had a few of my own beefs with the series, like how did “Landing a Quad” make it on the list at all? (Haven’t we all agreed by now that figure skating is NOT a sport?) Or how driving a racecar landed at No. 2.

One thing that made me laugh was when they brought in the opinion of experts in fields like physics or physical therapy to back up the claims. One excerpt: “Marathoners run on hard streets. Wharton says the impact of each stride is three to four times a runner’s body weight, transferred from ankles to knees to hips.”

And right now, I’m supporting the full weight of my head, with the forces being transferred down through my neck and shoulders. How come sitting at my desk and typing didn’t make it on the list?

But lists like this are all about stirring up conversations, arguments, passions. For the most part, I was willing to give the series the benefit of the doubt, going with the “well, I’ve never really tried that” justification for many of the items on the list.

The list of 10 that didn’t make it was just as interesting, and included bull riding, heavyweight boxing and the Ironman triathlon.

There were a couple of things, though, that I think were neglected on both lists:

* The 7-10 split: Really, how many of you out there have ever managed to pick that one up.

* The Windmill: If they were going to include a golf item, at least it should have been harder than “Hitting a long, straight tee shot.”

* Surviving the last lap of a Cat. 4 criterium: Now we’re talking hard.

Since we’re talking arguments, how about one quick one while it’s still basically the “pre-season” for the U.S. racing calendar: Saturn vs. Navigators. If you look at who did the most to improve themselves over the off-season, you won’t get many arguments against these two teams (although you might want to add Prime Alliance for adding Jonathan Vaughters and David Clinger, or Schroeder for Miguel Meza and Chann McRae). If you wanted to declare a “pre-season No. 1” like they do in other sports, I think the argument comes down to Saturn and Navigators.

So let’s take a closer look.

Last season, this would have been a no-brainer, with Navigators having its best season ever and Saturn definitely having a down year. But this is 2003, and Saturn strengthened itself in just about every area over the winter. Chris Horner for an overall leader, Tom Danielson as super-climber, Nathan O’Neill as resident strongman, Charles Dionne as all-arounder with a fast finish, Phil Zajicek as unsung up-and-comer. After his performance at the Tour de Langkawi, the acquisition of Danielson now looks like an absolute steal. And when VN associate editor Neal Rogers came back from a pair of Saturn camps over the winter, he was practically drooling over the level of talent on the team.

What about the Navs? All they did was add Henk Vogels, arguably the best one-day rider racing in the U.S., and Chris Wherry, who had as good a season as anybody out there last year. They also brought on board Justin Spinelli and Jeff Louder, both of whom have spent the last few years toiling in Europe and could surprise some people in the U.S.

In stage races, you have to go with Saturn. With Horner and Danielson, and if Trent Klasna’s healthy, Saturn is just way too deep, with too many weapons to go to in a stage race. Wherry could match up one-on-one with any of those guys, but no one on Navigators last year outside of Chris Baldwin showed themselves to be a real stage race overall threat.

One-day races is a whole different story. Mark Walters proved himself with his USPRO championships win, and joined Vassili Davidenko and Oleg Grichkine as the Navigators big-time threats in the hard one-day events, and Baldwin’s no slouch either. Now, throw in Vogels and Wherry , and you have the deepest one-day squad in America.

So who’s No. 1? I’d definitely have to say the Navi …, no wait, Satur …, no wait ….

Well, since I said I was here to start an argument, I’ll go with the yellow-and-red, only because of the increased weight that stage racing carries on the U.S. calendar. But ask me again before Philly week.

Of course, the other argument is, “Does it matter?” Last time I checked, Saturn and Navigators don’t have any head-to-head dual meets, and with the talent out there this year (Vaughters and Clinger, McRae and Meza, Gord Fraser and Mike Sayers at HealthNet), all the teams are going to be banging heads all year long, and no race is going to be a “gimme” for Saturn or Navigators.

I once saw an episode of Different Strokes – you remember it, the rich white guy, slutty daughter, and two black kids ? – that was comprised of a series of recollections from previous episodes. The characters were huddled together on a couch and when each one began their memory, the scene faded away into the actual previously recorded scenario. Strangely, the Love Boat had a similar episode. And Welcome Back Kotter, and Leverne and Sirley, and Three’s Company… It was suggested by a friend that this archetypical format was a way in which the producers could save money by not shooting new footage, not writing new scripts, and not paying actors for scenes they had already performed. I always felt ripped off after spending my time watching these kinds of episodes of shows I usually enjoyed.Yes, your buyer’s guide is unlike the ones out there but no I do not believe you put it together because of that. And if you are a fond (absorbed, attatched, hooked maybe?) reader of VeloNews you’ve already seen all this stuff. What’s new about it? I bought it anyhow. You know what would have been new? Power meters. I can think of four that I would have wanted to see in this issue. (you owe it to me in the next). polar; ciclo hac, srm, tune.ps. I liked the newsprint.daniel
toronto

Ooops, you lost me a little there at the end. I couldn’t stop thinking about Gary Coleman, and his appearance on Star Dates on E! Just when you think the exploitation of ex-celebrities has gone as low as it can go ….

Of course, I didn’t see the whole thing because it conflicted with the Surreal Life. Gary Coleman vs. Emmanuel Lewis. Not a tough choice. Webster’s still kinda cute and cuddly. Arnold? He’s just downright scary.

Oh, the Buyer’s Guide. If you want to suggest in any way that it took less time, effort or money to produce than a regular issue of VeloNews, um, you might want to take that up with our technical editor Andrew Juskaitis and our technical writer Lennard Zinn, but you would do so at your own risk. And it’s Diff’rent Strokes, not Different Strokes!

What to watch for
College basketball. I’m sorry, but, March Madness and more scandals than the Clinton Administration to boot. I knew there was a good reason for them to move Sea Otter and Redlands.

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