2010 Tour of California Big Bear fans

AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA
A Day with the Fans in
BiG BEAr
Story and photoS by Mark JohnSon
W
hat is it about pro cycling that makes
fans toss common sense and comfort
to the wind?
Take Oscar Guillamondegui. The once
clean-shaven trauma surgeon from Tennessee spent six weeks growing a Fu Manchustyle mustache. His wife hated the bristly
rope clinging to his face like a caterpillar. His
colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center mocked him.
Then he flew to California, drove up to
7,000 feet and spent 10 hours in the sun
waiting for one hirsute rider to come by during Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California: Garmin-Transitions’ Steven Cozza.
From the side of the road, where he sits
on the tailgate of a green Toyota pickup with
his brother Chris, a mechanic at B+L bikes
in San Diego, Guillamondegui explains: “I
decided I would grow the Fu Manchu as a
member of Cozza’s Army.” The GarminTransitions pro cyclist sports the same hideous facial mistake. As his tooth-breaking
surname suggests, Guillamondegui is a descendent of immigrants from the cyclingcrazy Spanish Basque country. The cycling
madness must be genetic.
Like many fans lining the final climb of
the cruelly mountainous 135.5-mile queen
stage of California’s grand tour on May 21,
Guillamondegui came to see the locals. “I
like to see our American teams on display.
It’s a wonderful event. I think it’s getting
bigger every year and hopefully it will really
push the limits of what cycling is in the United States.” Though a doctor, Guillamondegui says hanging his MD diploma on the wall
pales in comparison to cheering on Cozza.
“I’ve waited my whole life for this moment.”
Although the stage from the high desert
town of Palmdale to Big Bear Lake appears
to lack the concentration of crowds that
packed Palomar Mountain in 2009, fans at
the summit of the final Big Bear climb—
7,112-foot Lakeview Point on California
Route 18—speculate that crowds are thinner because spectators are spread over the
day’s seven category climbs, and because it
is a workday.
That said, spectators lucky enough to
spend a glorious spring day
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among the pines of the San Bernardino Mountains are no less enthusiastic
than those on Palomar. They just have more
space to enjoy themselves.
Bob and Laura Boyd from Solana Beach
drove up the mountain early in the morning
to secure a good viewing spot. “Last year we
were with the Triathlon Club of San Diego
up on Palomar Mountain,” Bob recalls. “It
was a huge group and we had a great party.
We decided we needed to do it again.” Laura
adds, “We love bike racing. We are junkies.”
Asked if they are cheering for anyone in particular, Laura points out three names popular with fans on the mountain: “Lance Armstrong. Levi Leipheimer. We love George
Hincapie.”
Bob adds, “People who are not into cycling don’t appreciate what these guys do.”
They dismiss Floyd Landis’ accusation of
widespread doping in the pro peloton. “It’s
a shame. I think they have cleaned up their
issues,” Laura says.
Some fans come from afar. Really afar.
Tienkie Venter and her husband Eugene
Bonthuys are South Africans living in the
3:07 PM
Cayman Islands. Venter works in the banking industry, and took holiday time to fly to
California to watch the race. The South African couple is also partial to the American
Garmin-Transitions squad. Both are decked
out in Garmin jerseys and jackets. Bonthuys
cracks open a box of rainbow-colored chalk
and sets about covering the road with designs
in the team’s trademark argyle pattern. The
road is not yet closed to traffic, and every
time a vehicle comes through, fans down the
road holler “car up.” Bonthuys scrambles
out of the way.
“We went to the Tour de France last year,
and that was a really big high,” Venter explains of their trip to the Amgen Tour of
California. “We decided that this year we
can’t not do anything, so we decided to come
here as a good alternative.” Both are fans
of Garmin-Transitions riders Peter Stetina,
Christian Vande Velde and, of course, the
team’s new South African sprinter Robbie
Hunter.
Bonthuys explains that they didn’t go to
the finish 10 miles up the road at Big Bear
Lake because it’s flat. “I brought p. 50/
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my camera along, and I want
to get a couple of good shots, especially
of Peter Stetina, as he’s wearing the white
Rabobank Best Young Rider jersey today.
I wanted something where I’ll see the guys
climbing, see a bit of the mountain and not
be too crowded.”
He adds that he prefers California over
the French Tour. “The Tour de France is
very controlled. You can’t get close to the riders; everything is always fenced in. It’s a good
race to view, but a very tough race to actually
chat to anyone, get autographs or get pictures with the riders.” Referring to the day’s
stage, which throws miles of climbing at the
riders but then ends with a gradual descent
into Big Bear Lake, Bonthuys opines that the
only thing the Tour of California lacks is “a
proper mountaintop finish.”
Ken Randall from Eugene, Ore., is hanging out next to the South Africans. His Tshirt reads “vive le lance.” This is his first
pro bike race; he’s seen two stages so far. “It’s
exciting. It’s awesome. But this is the one I
really wanted to see. The big climbs. That’s
why I’m here.”
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The racers are scheduled to
arrive by 3 p.m. By 1 p.m. spectators, combining a day of race watching with a day on
their bikes, stream past.
A guy in a gorilla suit with a bottle of wine
in one hand and a beer-can holster around
his waist loaded with Pabst Blue Ribbon
eggs them on—it’s encouragement through
humiliation. “Faster! Try harder!” he cajoles.
Triathletes with aero bars earn special indictment. “Get aero! Get aero!” the gorilla roars.
One cyclist accepts the gorilla’s offering of
screw-top wine. The rider quaffs the bottle
of red, looking like a 1930s rider in the Tour
de France.
A cyclist with long, blonde hair weaves
up the climb. He conspicuously lacks a lid.
“Hey hippie,” yells the gorilla. “Get a helmet!” Another rider retorts, laughing: “Just
because you are a primate doesn’t make you
a human!”
Across the road from the gorilla, Gary
Snyder from Ontario, Calif., eats tacos he
prepared in the bed of his pickup truck. He
loves that the race brings the best riders in
the world—Tom Boonen, Armstrong, Mark
Cavendish, Andy Schleck—to his California
doorstep. “The last couple of years we followed the whole thing from start to finish,”
Snyder explains, adding, “you should have
gotten here earlier, I already ate all the tacos.”
Next to Snyder, Chris Burcham wears a
Green Bay Packers shirt and a Viking helmet. His son Nic sports a Cat-in-the-Hat
style headdress flamboyantly adorned with
peace signs plus a giant hand, like those at
the ball park, also printed with the word
“Peace.” Nic points to his mom down the
road. She has a giant piece of cheese on her
head.
The dedication to cycling is deep. Martin Figueroa, Steve Hesse and Irene Renteria have a battery-powered TV set up in
the back of their hatchback. They recline in
folding chairs and eat snacks while watching
a DVD of the 1993 Tour de France. “We
pretty much do this every year,” Figueroa explains of their three-day weekend. “We start
on Friday and follow it to the end. p. 54/
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change
the world.
change
your life.
what could
be better
than that?
p. 52/ It’s a fabulous race.” Next year
they plan on following the entire eight-day
race.
Michael Kacsmaryk lives in southern California’s Moreno Valley. He races at the masters level and came up on his Suzuki motorcycle for the day. He gets out his wallet and
proudly shows his credit card. It’s personalized with a photo of him and cycling TV
personality and commentator Phil Liggett.
A few feet away, Steve Clause is drinking
an Oranjeboom beer under a Caltrans sign
that warns motorists of race delays ahead.
Though he now lives in Las Vegas, he is from
Belgium, a country where cycling is religion.
Clause likes what he sees in the United States
and the Amgen Tour of California. “America is a big cycling power,” he notes. “Now we
have big, big names. I’m really happy cycling
is growing here.”
Down the road, Herbert Juarez hangs out
by his black truck. Juarez is from Guatemala
by way of Orange County. He sports a Red
Sox cap and came up the mountain with his
bulldog Dillinger and El Salvadorian friend
Douglas Amaya.
While Amaya does not count himself a
cycling fanatic, he likes the notion of a day
in the mountains. “I want to see them struggling, gasping for air,” he says, when asked
what he expects of his first pro bike race.
Juarez originally saw bike racing as a child at
the Tour of Guatemala. “My father exposed
me to it. And I always had a thing for cycling. When I came to the States I embraced
it, I loved it. Ever since they started the Tour
of California I’ve been following it.” Amaya
adds, “This is a great day for cycling.”
Soon the thumpity-thud of an approaching TV helicopter reverberates across the
valley. A race public-address vehicle rolls
through; a six-rider breakaway is two minutes down the road and includes American
George Hincapie. A woman screams, “They
are coming! Whoooowhooooo!” Someone
cranks The Who’s “Wont Get Fooled Again”
on a car stereo. A California Highway Patrol car drives by announcing, “They are a
mile back.” The upward trickle of support
vehicles becomes a flood. More CHP. Medical car. Photo motos. SRAM neutral support
vehicles. Race officials. Sleek VIP cars carrying corporate sponsors.
Then, like a rabbit from a bush, the breakaway materializes. A United Healthcare rider chips off the front and swooshes through
the crowd. A few minutes later the chasing
pack arrives to a cacophony of cowbells.
They look fried on a day that sees 28 riders—nearly one-quarter of the field—abandon or finish outside the time cut.
Levi Leipheimer sits on his RadioShack teammate Jason McCartney’s wheel. Behind them,
Liquigas rider and 20-year old wunderkind
Peter Sagan looks comfortable. Chris Horner
dances by in flashing yellow shoes. A phalanx
of screaming, flapping pilot fish run alongside
wearing cheese-heads, gorilla suits, horseshoe
mustachios, Ironman superhero masks and cow
horns. After the field passes, fans stop, pant and
squint at their cameras to see if they got the shot.
More than half an hour later, the laughing
group—the non-climbers who just want to finish the stage intact—rolls through. They are
wrecked, but the crowd bangs away at cowbells
like these are the mountain goats head-butting
their way into first. The gorilla offers the riders
wine.
The exhilaration of the moment hangs in
the air like a mist. Half an hour later, the news
comes through—young Sagan takes the win, his
second stage in as many days.
Guillamondegui is stoked. Cozza tossed him
a water bottle. He can go back to Tennessee,
shave the ‘stash, become a doctor again—a man
complete.
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