Cycling in the South Bay

I was pedaling up Western Avenue with Rudy Napolitano on Saturday. I never pedal anywhere with Rudy except to the extent that he is a small speck receding, quickly, in the distance.

“What’s going on with you this weekend?”

“I’m leaving Sunday for Trento, Italy,” he said.

“Trento, Trento, Trento,” I thought to myself. The name rung a bell. “Vacation?” I asked. The road season had ended the week before at nationals in Bend, Oregon.

“Not exactly.”

“Visiting family?”

“No. Headed off to world’s with Mike Easter.”

“Worlds?” I asked. “World championships?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Like, rainbow jersey worlds?”

“Yep.”

“Where if you win you’re, like, the champion of the whole world?”

He looked over and grinned. “That one. For masters racers.”

“What’s the course?”

“It’s the same one they’re using for the UCI pro worlds. We do one lap. 110 k or thereabouts, with a 20k climb at the end.”

“You’re fuggin’ kidding me, right?”

Again, the grin. “No. For real.”

“Is it like masters nationals? Any wanker with a license and an entry fee can enter?”

“Umm,” he said. “It’s a little different. You have to qualify.”

“How.?”

“They have a list of Grand Fondos that are qualifiers. They want to make sure you can handle Dolomite-type climbs. Grand Fondos are huge in Europe.”

“Dang. So which one did you qualify at?”

Again, the self-deprecating grin. “I didn’t, exactly.”

“So how did you qualify?”

“I got an invitation.”

The sound of my jaw hitting my top tube must have surprised him. “An invitation? Like the FB invitation I send out to my South Bay Year-End Drunkfest?”

“Yeah. Same deal.”

“Holy shit. What did it say?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. ‘We heard you were killing it every weekend on the Donut Ride and figured you could handle worlds.'” Now he was laughing. At me. A little bit. Maybe.

“So what’s the game plan?” I was already trying to figure out what my tattoo was going to say. “I rode the Donut with World Champion Rudy,” probably. The only question was whether I’d put it on my — or on my —.

“There’s a flat section where we might try to get away. It’s Europe, so the climbers are real climbers. Little dudes. 130 pounds, you know? They fly uphill. Maybe steal a march on the climbers and then have an advantage when we hit the climb.”

“And in between now and the race? What kind of training?”

“The hardest thing when you taper, you know, is not eating four bags of donuts and three pizzas every single day. Right?”

I didn’t say anything, having eaten four bags of donuts and two pizzas the day before despite not being on a taper. “Uh, right.” I thought about Mrs. WM’s daily freshly baked hot loaves of bread and the slabs of butter I slayed them with. “You gotta, uh, watch those calories.” My tummy jiggled a bit as we went over a bump.

“Yeah,” Rudy said. Then we hit Better Homes and he pedaled off, hopefully to a pizza-free taper, and even more hopefully, to a great race next weekend in Trento. When he wins, remember that it was me who gave him all that great advice about pizza and donuts. Right?