I haven’t been riding much, because I’m in full-on dissertation mode. I did ride up Marin Ave about a week ago, and will shortly post some thoughts on that. In the mean time, I had this little project sitting around and thought I’d post some of it. Before I became a full-time musicologist, as a composer I wrote a few radio-documentaries (or German Hörspiel) and have always had it in the back of my head to do something on the idea of climbing. In particular, there are some nice parallels between an “idea of up” and Glenn Gould’s “Idea of North,” which is, in a way, my touchstone for the genre.
So what follows in a draft of the introduction I would read for such a radio piece. The rest would be composed primarily of interviews. I have some people in mind for that, and will probably start contacting them soon (Doug?!?), but I don’t expect to actually start working on this until after my dissertation defense. Enjoy!
On July 27, 1998, the cycling world was treated to an exceptional feat at that year’s Tour de France. After an opening week marred by the disqualification of the entire Festina team for systematic doping, the defending champion Jan Ullrich seemed poised to consolidate a second victory in as many years. The script for winning a Tour de France seemed all but inevitable. After five years of Miguel Indurain’s victories, one by the Dane Bjarne Riis (where Ullrich also finished second and scored a brutal stage victory in the final time trial), and the previous year by Ullrich were all accomplished in much the same way. In each of those years, the winner would gain massive amounts of time during the time trials, while keeping challengers on a short leash in the mountains.
Those mountains, the very monuments that were treated with such reverence by aficionados of the tour, had become almost irrelevant to the final outcome of the race.
At the time trial on Stage 7 at the 1998 tour, Ullrich had followed the script to perfection. He won by a minute over Tyler Hamilton and his closest competitors for the climbs lost over three. While the Italian Marco Pantani had escaped to win on Plateau de Beille, Ullrich seemed in command of the race when the peloton reached the Alpes, and Stage 15 to Le Deux Alpes. After allowing a few inconsequential riders to escape on the first climb of the day, the Col de la Croix de Fer, an elite group of riders assembled in the torrential rainstorm on the Col de Galibier. A Frenchman, Luc Leblanc, sitting four minutes down on Ullrich attacked twice, each time Ullrich responded with a viciousness that left audiences wondering whether anything could be done to break his hold on the race. Words like “superman” and “unbeatable” had been used frequently in the preceding week.
Shortly after catching Leblanc for the last time, all that changed. Marco Pantani, having waited patiently through the attacks by Leblanc, accelerated from the group leaving Ullrich isolated and bewildered. The effortlessness of Pantani’s attack changed all assumptions about Ullrich’s presumed dominance in the space of seconds. Leblanc made another attempt bridge the gap to Pantani, but cracked before he could catch his wheel. Pantani, meanwhile, flew up the mountain, catching all of the day’s previous breakaways. By the time he crested the Galibier he had regained almost his entire three-minute deficit to Ullrich. On the day’s final climb to Les Deux Alpes, Pantani dropped all of the remaining riders and finished the day over nine minutes ahead of Ullrich. He took the yellow jersey by almost four minutes over the next closest rival, a lead he maintained to Paris. This provided confirmation that the Tour de France could be won in the mountains, a fact that would be validated several times over the next decade.
But for all of the drama of Pantani’s ride, a drama in which the climbs themselves played no small part, Pantani claimed to dislike climbing. When asked why he climbed so quickly, he retorted that he only did it because he wanted the climb to be over. It is difficult to gauge how seriously to take such a statement. Pantani would be suspected of doping several times over the subsequent years and was ultimately found dead of a drug overdose in 2004, leaving more questions than answers about his motivations and mental state. What does seem clear, however, is that Pantani was more of a racer than he was a climber, in spite of the mythologies promoted by his fans. For Pantani, going uphill was incidental; he was a climber because he excelled at it.
This documentary is not about riders like him. No, there is another sort of rider—one to which I proudly number myself—for whom the competition, that is the racing, is incidental; we climb for the love of climbing. What draws us to spend weekends seeking out a new hill with a particularly severe gradient profile? What, moreover, draws us to subject ourselves to the inevitable torture of attempting such hills, even when our level of fitness dictates we’ll suffer more than someone like Pantani ever would? This documentary gathers together several cyclists who are all suited, in their own way, to provide insights into precisely these questions.
On July 27, 1998, the cycling world was treated to an exceptional feat at that year’s Tour de France. After an opening week marred by the disqualification of the entire Festina team for systematic doping, the defending champion Jan Ullrich seemed poised to consolidate a second victory in as many years. The script for winning a Tour de France seemed all but inevitable. After five years of Miguel Indurain’s victories, one by the Dane Bjarne Riis (where Ullrich also finished second and scored a brutal stage victory in the final time trial), and the previous year by Ullrich were all accomplished in much the same way. In each of those years, the winner would gain massive amounts of time during the time trials, while keeping challengers on a short leash in the mountains.
Those mountains, the very monuments that were treated with such reverence by aficionados of the tour, had become almost irrelevant to the final outcome of the race.
At the time trial on Stage 7 at the 1998 tour, Ullrich had followed the script to perfection. He won by a minute over Tyler Hamilton and his closest competitors for the climbs lost over three. While the Italian Marco Pantani had escaped to win on Plateau de Beille, Ullrich seemed in command of the race when the peloton reached the Alpes, and Stage 15 to Le Deux Alpes. After allowing a few inconsequential riders to escape on the first climb of the day, the Col de la Croix de Fer, an elite group of riders assembled in the torrential rainstorm on the Col de Galibier. A Frenchman, Luc Leblanc, sitting four minutes down on Ullrich attacked twice, each time Ullrich responded with a viciousness that left audiences wondering whether anything could be done to break his hold on the race. Words like “superman” and “unbeatable” had been used frequently in the preceding week.
Shortly after catching Leblanc for the last time, all that changed. Marco Pantani, having waited patiently through the attacks by Leblanc, accelerated from the group leaving Ullrich isolated and bewildered. The effortlessness of Pantani’s attack changed all assumptions about Ullrich’s presumed dominance in the space of seconds. Leblanc made another attempt bridge the gap to Pantani, but cracked before he could catch his wheel. Pantani, meanwhile, flew up the mountain, catching all of the day’s previous breakaways. By the time he crested the Galibier he had regained almost his entire three-minute deficit to Ullrich. On the day’s final climb to Les Deux Alpes, Pantani dropped all of the remaining riders and finished the day over nine minutes ahead of Ullrich. He took the yellow jersey by almost four minutes over the next closest rival, a lead he maintained to Paris. This provided confirmation that the Tour de France could be won in the mountains, a fact that would be validated several times over the next decade.
But for all of the drama of Pantani’s ride, a drama in which the climbs themselves played no small part, Pantani claimed to dislike climbing. When asked why he climbed so quickly, he retorted that he only did it because he wanted the climb to be over. It is difficult to gauge how seriously to take such a statement. Pantani would be suspected of doping several times over the subsequent years and was ultimately found dead of a drug overdose in 2004, leaving more questions than answers about his motivations and mental state. What does seem clear, however, is that Pantani was more of a racer than he was a climber, in spite of the mythologies promoted by his fans. For Pantani, going uphill was incidental; he was a climber because he excelled at it.
This documentary is not about riders like him. No, there is another sort of rider—one to which I proudly number myself—for whom the competition, that is the racing, is incidental; we climb for the love of climbing. What draws us to spend weekends seeking out a new hill with a particularly severe gradient profile? What, moreover, draws us to subject ourselves to the inevitable torture of attempting such hills, even when our level of fitness dictates we’ll suffer more than someone like Pantani ever would? This documentary gathers together several cyclists who are all suited, in their own way, to provide insights into precisely these questions.