Morgul-Bismark RIP

Way back in the day (the "Olden" days as my kids will soon refer to it) I had a dream of racing my bike. That dream came true and I spent several years racing at a high level. The perks to racing for a Professional team is the goodies and free shwag that you get in exchange for representing the sponsors and killing yourself on the bike. Clothing, helmets, shoes, more socks than you care to wear through in 10 years (I'm still working on some), bikes wheels and nutrition supplies are all part of the package.

My last team bike was an Aluminum custom Morgul Bismark, as pictured here. The bikes had a custom paint scheme that had a chameleon effect when viewed in the sunlight - it changed colors. Morgul Bismark is a famous loop just south of Boulder that incorporates the painful ascent of the "wall" which is about a mile long at it's steepest. This climb was featured in the Coors Classic and also in the movie American Flyer's (with David carrying his bike across the finish line). The legend goes that Morgul-Bismark were names of a cat and dog that were often seen along this route. The decal on my bike had a small drawing of these two animals. This name became legendary in cycling and soon a bike shop was opened on the Hill in Boulder bearing the name. The shop was owned by none other than Davis Phinney and Ron Kiefel. When the shop closed down in the late 90's, the name was purchased by Rainbow Cyclecraft and they began making a few bikes hoping the name would lead to some economic payoffs. I have no clue if they made money on the bikes, but nevertheless the Oilme Professional Cycling team received the benefit of riding their machines for a year or two.

I have moved on from racing and receiving free bikes, but I kept my Morgul in good shape and continued to ride it for fun and to work. Sadly, the bike was stolen from a locked cage wherein my bike was secured with a cable lock. The surveillance tape is fun to watch as the D-bag villain scopes out the scene, breaks into the cage and unravels the bike lock in an astonishingly quick time. He escapes the parking garage riding the bike like he owns it. A police report has been filed.

My stolen team bike wasn't the top of the line anymore and the geometry bestowed a time of engineering past as now most race bikes have a sloping top tube and are made of carbon. The value of the bike isn't going to hurt me as the bike was given for services rendered. However, that bike represented a time in my life of adventure, hard work and the culmination of years of dreaming of racing the big time. Memories are still present in my mind so I am OK with all that...but watching that loser ride off on my bike gave me the feeling that he was snatching my girlfriend and didn't realize what a catch he had.

Post Tour

The 2010 Tour de France is over, summer is on and I am heading back to my last year of law school in just over a week. Alberto's third Tour de France win was perhaps his least impressive and to me it left a little something "wanting." I'm sure this is how the rest of the world felt during the 7 tour victories of Lance Armstrong when they didn't want him to win either. However, last year I enjoyed the race more with the constant attacking of the Schleck brothers and actually seeing gaps emerge from the top riders....gaps not caused by a dropped chain.

While Contador and Andy were very evenly matched, I like a race that has a good chase on the climbs where one rider gets away and the other desperately makes the effort to cut their time losses or catch the guy off the front. But this didn't happen. Also, Contador didn't win a single stage and his showing on the final TT was, shall we say, pathetic. yeah, I know Cancellara is the big stud and wins all flat TT's by a huge margin. But you never saw Lance, Ulrich, Indurain, LeMond or Roche win without being near the top for the final TT.

Next year should be interesting (as always) with both Schleck brothers on a new team (Forming in their home country of Luxemburg) and Contador now riding for their former team SaxoBank/Sunguard.

Other takeaways from this Tour - The french won 5 or 6 stages and took the mtn jersey. This is a rare occurrence in the last 25 years and perhaps it's a sign that truly the peloton is now clean. Also, Team Sky put Brad Wiggins in the hot seat by piling all their tour expectations on his shoulders, to which he crumbled. But I still admire Brad and if he keeps his sights set high, we'll see him once again near the top.

Garmin again posted another gem with their Canadian star Ryder Hesjedal getting a top 10 result. This didn't come as a surprise to me as Ryder has shown good climbing in last years Giro and two years ago pacing Christian VV in the tour up the climbs. The big revelation and excitement for me this year was Chris Horner's top 10 finish. Chris was the highest placing Radioshack rider and his tour consisted of working for others. Chris is a true legend in USA cycling and he is a great interview as well. His strategic mind during a race is well known and it's just too bad that his great result has come so late in his career.

Next up - Vuelta a Espana, Tour of Utah and the US National Champs.