How Did They Miss Him?

 BuzzFeed is practically the definition of “click bait.”  How do I know? I go straight to it.  

Does admitting a vice make someone better than a person who hides theirs?  Jean-Paul Sartre once confessed he preferred detective fiction to “serious” novels. Frank O’Hara once confessed there were only three American poets he preferred reading to going to the movies. (Do people still do that?) And nearly every TV critic says Jerry Springer’s show was the worst ever to disgrace the small screen.  But it ran for, what?,  twenty years.  A lot of people must have been watching, whether or not they would admit it.

Anyway, a day or two ago BF had a piece about athletes who died on the field, court, rink or other competitive arena. (Sorry I didn’t save the link!) Ray Chapman succumbed after a Carl Mays pitch hit him in the head. (Almost believed Mays’ claim that it was unintentional.) Bill Masterton (for whom an NHL trophy for perseverance and dedication is named) collided with another player, fell backward and hit his head on the ice.  

While they, and the other athletes mentioned in that article, met tragic ends, one of the most egregious examples wasn’t mentioned.

Tom Simpson was, arguably, the best male British cyclist before the English riders who dominated major races during the first half of the 2010s. How good was he? His team’s manager and sponsors wanted a young, talented Belgian teammate to help him win.  You might’ve heard of that fellow from Flanders:  a chap named Eddy Merckx.

Simpson had a plan entering the 1967 Tour de France:  He would try to hold the maillot jaune (the leader’s yellow jersey) for at least three key stages and place well, if not stand on the podium, on the race’s final day.  In his eighth year as a professional cyclist, and nearing 30, he knew that more of his career was behind than ahead of him and therefore wanted to make enough money to retire comfortably.

The plan seemed to work during the Tour’s first week, which ended with him in sixth place.  But as the race entered the Alps, he started not to feel well and moved down in the general classification. Other riders in the peloton noticed; a friend and teammate advised him to cut his losses and bail out.  His personal manager, however, insisted that he continue.

On 13 July 1967, Simpson embarked on the 13th (hmm…two 13’s) stage of the Tour, which includes Mont Ventoux.  This climb has a particular notoriety, not only because it’s so high and steep, but also because of its harsh weather conditions and, unlike Alpine and Pyrenean peaks, it is a singular monolith in the Provençe countryside.  So riders might’ve spent the day riding in blazing heat and fierce winds before reaching the “beast.”

So it’s easy to imagine that Simpson’s body was already spent from hours of pedaling when he should’ve been in an infirmary. (His drug use, which he freely admitted and wasn’t stigmatized as it is today, probably didn’t help.) Other riders and observers noticed that he was zig- zagging and feared, not for his ascent, but his descent.

About a kilometer from the summit, he fell off his bike.  His team manager and mechanic urged him to quit, but he was hearing none of it. They helped him back on. He pedaled 460 meters before he began to wobble.  Three spectators tried to hold him up, to no avail:  He collapsed again, his hands still clutched to the handlebars. Team mechanics and members of the Tour’s medical team took turns giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before the Tour’s chief doctor, administered an oxygen mask.  After about an hour, a police helicopter arrived and took him to a hospital in Avignon, where he was pronounced dead.

Was the BuzzFeed writer simply not aware of the Tour’s biggest tragedy? That would be understandable, given that baseball, hockey and other professional sports get more attention in North America. Or did the editors want no mention of Simpson, given his drug use?

I know this much: Click-bait, like television shows or anything else that’s addictive, can lead to a letdown or “crash” when it doesn’t meet expectations or anticipations. Does that mean I’ll stop looking at BuzzFeed? Probably not.

Bowled Over

 My neighbors in my senior citizens’ complex think I’m a “kid.” Compared to some of them, I am:  After all, I am in midlife.

But some days I feel I’ve lived too long.  Like today: I learned that there is actually a “Pop Tart Bowl.”

What I think of what college sports has become could fill at least a few more posts.  As far as I know, the system in which colleges and universities in effect are minor leagues in service to the NFL and NBA (and, to a lesser extent, other professional sports leagues) is unique to the USA.  Even more singular is college football’s “Bowl” constellation. Years ago, there were only a few, such as the Rose, Orange and Sugar Bowls.  Now it seems anything advertised on TV has its own bowl game.

Now, I won’t judge you if you’re still eating those sugar bombs.  After all, as I related in an earlier post, they—especially the frosted brown sugar cinnamon flavor—were an “energy food” for me and my mountain bike buddies back in the day.

But a strawberry (as pink as you can get!) Pop Tart mascot accepting a marriage proposal—or grilling ‘tarts’ like they’re burgers, hot dogs or chicken wings?  Even on the most intense cinnamon sugar high, I couldn’t have imagined such things!

A Danger To All

 As a cyclist, I have always thought, to some degree, like a pedestrian. While I agree, again to some degree, with the late John Forrester’s philosophy of vehicular cycling—after all, in a auto-centric society like the United States,  cyclists are treated as second-class citizens because bicycles aren’t seen as vehicles in the way cars are—I have also seen that much of what’s good for pedestrians is also good for cyclists.  

That conclusion has been reinforced by living in a senior-citizens’ complex located next to a very busy intersection.  I frequently cross it.  So do people who get around with canes, walkers and wheelchairs.  The two streets that meet at that point are busy:  One is a major thoroughfare; the other is a two-way “main street” for this part of the Bronx. One end of that street connects to a “stroad”—Southern Boulevard—that feeds into a highway and includes entrances to the New York Botanical Garden. And too many drivers are impatient or distracted when my mobility-impaired neighbors are crossing to catch a bus.

Sometimes I wonder whether such drivers would behave differently, or if traffic safety laws would be better enforced, if not only drivers themselves, but also those who make policy and infrastructure, understood how often motorists’ bad behavior inconveniences, or even endangers, other drivers.

A wry, sardonic caption accompanied the above photo: “Bonus points for blocking 1/2 of the car lane, too.”