EXORDIUM BY WAYNE NIELSEN
W
elcome to SubTel Forum’s Issue 95, our Regional Systems edition. If it’s July, it can only be the most awesome time of the year – that being, of course, Le Tour de France! Any armchair aficionado has noticed this year’s marathon race has been anything but normal. Big, experienced names known for several previous Tour efforts have been swept away in mind numbing crashes in the early days. Names expected on the Paris podium are already out of contention, and new, younger
cyclists are openly competing with the remaining race veterans for a spot on the Champs-Élysées. It is, as every year, another amazing, tumultuous race. My daughter’s boyfriend has recently pivoted from being a former NCAA Division I runner to that of cycling. He is spending the summer racing, sometimes multiple times a week, in our 3-state area to earn enough points to move up to the next level. He has painstakingly built-up his bike; he has trained relentlessly; he has “kissed” the pave-
ment on more than one occasion. In one week, he was hit by a car on a training ride and felled in a race by another cycler; he raced anyway the next day, bruised and sore with scavenged bike parts, and even placed. My secret desire is to one day to sponsor a Tour team. I don’t mean like the big names, Cannondale, Dimension, etc.; I mean just enough to say we’re involved. Maybe we could buy their water bottles or something. Maybe I could sponsor my daughter’s boyfriend all the way to Paris. Maybe… So, if you are in Marseilles for the final time trials this Saturday, and you see some fanatic Yank screaming alongside, “Allez, allez, allez.” It might just be me! See you in the Peloton, and good reading,