1999
 Yankees in King 'Cross's Court
"The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man.
One must believe that Sisyphus is happy."

-Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

By Patrick O'Grady

IT WAS A DAY OF PORTENTS. Beelzebub told The Weather Channel that Hell had gone to hell, now that Oliver Cromwell, Hitler and John Wayne Gacy could go snowboarding. A squadron of winged pigs was spotted over Salt Lake City, which was expecting a very hard rain indeed. Jesus was back and in Washington, D.C., where Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky and Congress soon found themselves fielding questions a good deal harder than the softballs pitched underhand by CNN.

And an American won a world cyclo-cross championship. When I saw the news on the 'Net, I assumed it was an acid flashback. I've seen a lot of things over the years, and not all of them were there. I could conceive of -- even approve of -- a smelly air raid by flying swine on Salt Lake City, if it targeted the pimps, panhandlers and prostitutes turning the Winter Olympics into a badger game. But a Yankee 'crosser atop the podium in Poprad? Puh-leeze.

What a Wonderful World's This Would Be. Americans have beaten their heads against the stone wall of European cyclo-cross for decades and come away with little more than headaches. The Euros must have come to view the U.S. teams as a Palookaesque collection of Terry Malloys, with few skills, little hope and even less support from their UCI-anointed cycling "family" than Malloy got from his brother Charley the Gent in "On the Waterfront":

"You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit.... I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it."

Bums no more, if ever they were. It takes a lot of heart to climb into the international ring, particularly when your national federation doesn't even hold the ropes apart for you. Cyclo-cross isn't an Olympic sport, they say. It takes dough to buy an International Olympic Committee member, even a little one, and 'crossers haven't got any.

Payback's a Bitch. But now that medalists Tim Johnson and Matt Kelly have scored some of the coinage nearest and dearest to the Olympic heart (if you don't count dollars), watch the same chair-warmers who wouldn't pay the freight take credit for what the athletes delivered.

To be fair, VeloNews reported in February that USA Cycling was promising "incentive payments" to Tim, Matt and Will Frischkorn. Still, if every U.S. team's travel expenses were contingent upon race results, damn' few American cyclists would ever leave their houses, much less the country.

Happily, while some of us were grumbling, others were thinking. Colorado cyclo-cross promoter Chris Grealish has proposed that the feds dedicate 50 cents of his $2-per-racer insurance surcharge to supporting next year's world's team -- a move he says could raise $2,500.

Meanwhile, in the Usenet newsgroup rec.bicycles.racing, Danny Callen suggested passing the hat to reimburse this year's team, which brought home America's first-ever medals from a cyclo-cross world's.

"I think it's kinda sad that the U.S. cyclo-cross riders have to support themselves and foot the bill to get to the world's every year," the cyclo-crosser wrote. "So ... I had this crazy idea that we ought to take up some kind of collection and distribute it to the guys over there."

Money Talks; Guess What Walks? Doubly inspired, a few of us decided to create the American Cyclo-cross Foundation, to funnel contributions to the team that represented us at this year's world's, and to the teams that will follow them. Directors include Chris, Danny, Charles Pelkey of VeloNews, Chris Zigmont of Group Zigmont, Lyle Fulkerson of the Kiron Group, Tim Rutledge of SBS-Redline, Tim Johnson, and me.

Checks or money orders can be sent to the American Cyclo-cross Foundation, account number 103-555-5, Colorado Mountain Bank, 1000 Main Street, Westcliffe, CO 81252 (include the foundation's name and account number on your check).

Cyclo-cross may never be an Olympic sport. Given the revelations out of Utah, it's probably just as well. Nevertheless, any cyclist who represents the United States at a world championship should have a few presidential portraits in his wallet to keep him from getting homesick.

© 1999 Patrick O'Grady/Mad Dog Media. First published by Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. For more about the ACF, see http://www.ris.net/~velodog/acf.html.
c r o s s r o a d s
updated 11/24/99

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