This comes hot off of Eric Fabers blackberry

@##=#<1,L>@##=# I had realized in early January that I could figuratively kill a few birds with one stone. By visiting San Francisco in mid- February, I could visit my brother and sister in-law and my niece and nephew, catch a couple of actor clients in a show an top it all off by watching the Prologue and Stage 1 of the Tour of California! I left JFK on at 6:45 am on Thursday amid 27 degree weather and entered a terminal that looked more like the heliport on the last flight out of Hanoi. Passengers on standby (no doubt having been stranded the night before) waited with hollow-eyed desperation in the small hope that they might get on this flight. Nope. I was one of the lucky one’s who survived the Jet Blue implosion unscathed. Outsde the Oakland terminal I couldn’t believe what I was feeling.

@##=#<2,L>@##=# Warmth?, Sunlight? It was 70 degrees and it was’nt even Noon yet. Yes!!! I had big plans. Catch the aforementioned cliients show Thur. Night. Hang with the family Fri. Night and take my brother and sister in-law to catch the band The Smithereens on Sat. Night at a place called the Red Devil Lounge. The show rocked! Sunday arrived and I was not too hungover from the imbibing of mass quantities of beer and local herbal ingredients. The start of the 1.9 mile prologue begins along the hip shops and malls in the former ferry terminals that line the East Bay. From there the riders would start on the flats for a half-mile and make a left and go on a small incline for a quarter-mile before a tight left leading to a monster incline straight up for an agonizing quarter-mile until the sign for Coit Tower leads the riders to a series of switchbacks leading to the scenic overview of Coit Tower. I did recon on Friday to give myself an idea where I wanted to be situated to watch prime suffering. I decided that the first switchback off the long straight up slog up Lombard st. would be a nice place. And it was. Before the start I managed to meet and get pics of/ with the following: Bruyneel, Chris Horner, Bettini, Thor, Cancellara and the two cyclingTV guys Anthony McRosson and the Scottish guy whose name I forget, but love when he says in that Scottish brogue (“Looks like Backstedt is in a wee bit of trouble”) I walked along the route and stopped each minute to glance at who was flying by. Hey, a bar right on the route! “The Red Jack Saloon” eh? Don’t mind if I do. “One Stella and a shot of Jack please!” What, the bartender is offering me another shot for free? Well I do have some more climbing to do. Hmmm… oh ok. Twist my liver.

For those who didn’t read about it or watch. It, Chipotle/Slipstream squad (what a name, the kit says “powered by” Chipotle. That’s a thought. How is using “natural” afterburners after eating Mexican not considered doping after the unknown Jason Donald bested the likes of Cancellara and Zabriskie. Donald lead for most of the prologue until the last man – Leipheimer eclipsed him by a full second in 4 min. 49 and change. For Sunday night, I caught a very special screening of the 89′ TDF with guest host Greg Lemond and moderator Phil Ligget at the Caldwell Theater in the Fort Mason section of The Presidio. Beside the aforementioned two, Paul Sherwen and Frankie Andreu were nice enough to pose for a pick with me in the lobby. The place was packed and Phil and Greg had a genuine and funny repartee going on.

@##=#<3,L>@##=# The most memorable stories were thus: Phil Liggett on the penultimate time trial and playing devil’s advocate to Sherwen’s prediction that Fignon would take overall victory decided to put his money on Lemond AND gave Lemond 6 seconds to boot. Well when Fignon finished right after Lemond, he was 8 seconds in arrears. The TV producer yelled in Ligget’s ear “Two seconds off Phil. Next time, get it right!”. Lemond’s “Bad Peach” story is one for the ages. He recalls a stage (I think stage 6) where he grabbed a peach and ate it with about 60km to the finish. In minutes hiis stomach erupted and he lost total control of his bowels. Riders around him stayed way clear as his bib shorts expanded with excrement and he begins dripping profusely everywhere and all over the bike, the wheels and on to anyone with the misfortune of riding his wheel. He somehow battles through and runs to the toilet in the crappy half-trailer (no pimped out tour buses then) removes his bib shorts only to find the toilet removed to make room for boxes filled with postcards with the picture of Lemond’s “teammate” Bernard “The Badger” Hinault on them. If you know about the dysfunctionality of that duo it be of no surprise to anyone as to what Lemond decided to do with those postcards in his moment of need. Liggett also mentioned that Fignon is still so pissed he lost that tour, to this day he refuses to talk about it. So it was fitting that I saw Lemond on this trip because I rented a Lemond road bike from a place near the Haight across from Golden Gate Park called American Cyclery on Stanyan ave. I decided to bike to the KOM sprint at the top of Mt. Tam in Marin along the route from the start in Sausalito and finishing in prologue winner Levi Leipheimer’s home town of Santa Rosa. This route puts the NYC-Nyack route to shame. The only things in common are that there are bridges and hills involved.

@##=#<4,L>@##=# On a brisk and sunny Monday I took off from my brother’s house on Golden Gate ave. and Masonic and headed north first up hill through Pacific Heights and then a fun fast downhill hill of tree-shaded switchbacks through the Presidio leading me right on to the majestic Golden Gate Bridge.. Once off the bridge you fly downhill into breathtaking Sausalito and ride into Mill Valley and look for signs just past Tamalpais H.S. Pointing to Muir Woods. From there, the climbing begins and boy is it beautiful. Pretty soon, I was on the route the big boys of the pro peleton would be riding. Bettini, Basso, Hincapie, Faber? NOT! The only great racer named Faber was Francois of Luxembourg who won the tour shortly after the turn of the century and then bit the dust in a trench somewhere in the Ardennes during WWI. But I digress. I’m 5K from the KOM points. This stretch has a nice mix of nasty inclines and super fast left and rights with the ocean in the not too far off distance. I managed to get from my brother’s house to the KOM points finish just before 11:00 and stake myself a place among the crowd of 300 or so who had gathered at this pretty spot. At 11:45 am they were approaching. I had a great vantage point to watch Quickstep’s Van de Walle (sp?) launch an attack (check out the video!) and take those early points of the stage. The icing on the cake was getting back on the bike and riding back down the hills and back through Muir and on to Hwy 1 again back to the city. I try to visit this city once a year, but this trip was by far my favorite.

. – Eric (not Francois) Faber