The Peloton Has Hypnotized Me

The Wimberley-ites are coming out of the woodwork. Today, Wimberley; tomorrow, the world. Shannon passed on my blog to Rebecca, another Wimberley alum. Rebecca, I hope you got my e-mail. Holler if you didn't.

Shannon, you mentioned perhaps one of my favorite movies of all time - Beautiful Girls. No matter what is on, I gotta watch. CNN could be revealing the true story behind the JFK assassination with live interviews of Elvis, Tupac, and the Notorious B.I.G. and I'd still have to watch that movie for the billionth time. Right before my reunion, I mentally assigned roles to the guys I graduated with. And yes, I do make original postures nobody else has ever made before whenever I'm not feeling creative.

Ah, I see you, too, have a magical car where you recreate past and future verbal jousts and always come out the brave-hearted victor, your dim-witted and slow-tongued challengers slithering off in their humiliation. But, the only British accents I do are lines from My Fair Lady.

Now, to sadder news. I have been a bit too excited the past couple of days about the launch of Discovery. I was bummed when Cosmos 1, the first solar sail spacecraft failed to leave the earth's atmosphere last month. Well, today the Discovery's launch was delayed due to a faulty fuel gauge. I'd rather have a week delay than another tragedy, so I'll be patient.

Besides, and finally getting today's title, I have the Tour de France. And no, I don't refer to it as the Tour de Lance. Sure, he's a great athlete and the best rider and all that, but I can't consider myself a fan. I never bought the wristband. However, I am fascinated by the whole tour thing. Mainly because riding a bicycle across a country is something I've never given a moment's pause to. I can sit and watch the large group of riders, or the peloton, for hours though. I like the movement within the group - how riders shield themselves from the wind behind other riders and especially how each rider is only centimeters away from becoming the poster child for "the agony of defeat" on ABC's Wide World of Sports. It's mesmerizing.

However, I do have a Lance Armstrong story, even if I forget the exact details. You see, my family goes back to the Wimberley/Driftwood/Dripping Springs area for generations. My family still holds reunions at Camp Ben McCullough every year in conjunction with the Confederate Reunion, which was started by relatives of Confederate soldiers soon after the war. My wife was absolutely flabbergasted to witness a re-enactment of a Civil War battle on horseback, which not coincidentally, the South won. Just wait, we will rise again.

Anyway, a great-uncle or something like that used to tell a story where he was driving down the back roads of the Hill Country years ago. There was a cyclist ahead of him who wouldn't get over despite the blaring horn from the truck. Well, my relative finally passed the cyclist and one-fingered saluted him; the cyclist returned the gesture. Thinking he had been wronged, my relative slams on the brakes, exits the truck, knocks the cyclist off the bike, and throws the bike over a barbed-wire fence, then goes on his merry way leaving the cyclist on the wrong side of his bike.

Now, I can't confirm that the cyclist was Mr. Armstrong, but he does recount a similar experience in his book.

There, my claim to fame.