I really like bike racing.
 

I mean I really really love it. It's been years since I actually raced and I stopped following racing for a while in the mid-90s, but I've rekindled my love for professional European road racing.

1. What is it that y'all love about it?

2. Who's your all-time favorite racer?

3. What other sports do you follow?

1. The tactics (not so much fun with race radios now though), the specticle of watching a big race, the cameraderie (like Ullrich waiting for Lance in the TdF last year), all those muscular shaved legs with crazy tan lines (ok maybe not ;) ).

2. Where to start? In no particular order, Lance, Greame Obree, Chris Boardman, David Millar, Nicole Cook, Cipo, Pantani, Jeannie Longo, Alec Zulle, the list is endless.

3. Religiously: F1, World Rally Champs, World Superbike, Moto GP (I like my motorsports :) ). Try to keep track of: Rugby, soccer (English 1st Division), baseball (Go Mariners!), various British motor racing champs.

I hate answering my own ? but feel like I should.

1. Tactics. The fluidity of an unsettled attacking peloton. The cat and mouse games of a breakaway group in the last few km. A team working as a perfectly oiled machine while leading out their sprinter. The insanity and sheer power of a bunch sprint. The suffering in the mountains and in the TT.

2. Merckyx, Kelly, De Vlaemnck, Hampsten, Alan Peiper, Moser, Fondriest, Zabel, Delgado, Rominger, Indurain, Abdoujaparov, Duclos-Lasalle, Roche, Argentin, Armstrong.

3. Soccer and NFL football.

1. What is it that y'all love about it?
Everything! I really love to watch guys when they're on their game and can just ride away from the pack. Tafi in the 2002 Tour of Flanders, he just kept attacking and attacking until one finally stuck. Museeuw in Paris Roubaix the same year, a 40+K solo victory in treacherous conditions. Watching spring classic races on video is the only thing that keeps me from going insane on the trainer this time of year. Trying to log 10-12 hours a week in the basement is brutal but almost tolerable with Phil and Paul guiding the way!

2. Who's your all-time favorite racer?
I just narrow it down by nationality. I'll pick the Belgians.

3. What other sports do you follow?
NBA basketball. It's been a good year to follow the Timberwolves.

I not only love watching bike racing but I think I'd lose it if I couldn't physically race myself. I dig every aspect of it including the danger and how painful it can be at times. I even enjoy having a coach ride you when you feel like you just can't give anymore. The best is picking one or two guys at the line in a sprint to get into the money spots. It may only be 30 bucks but it buys beers for the guys you ride with.

1. it's a season-long soap opera on wheels. the heros are larger than life, yet, from my own cycling, i can identify with their triumphs and catastrophes. and... let's face it, the strategies and tactics are amazing, right up to the "anaerobic chess" of the sprint finishes.

2. erik zabel, the lion of flanders, steffen wessemann, jan, vino, dudu, cipo. i loved jaja with passion, and i'm waiting for the next great frenchman... tchmil was great, and i always cheer for ludo dierckxsens. hard men. [among the women... lyne bessette and nicole cook have my heart.]

3. cyclo-cross and rugby [they're actually teh same sport]... and hockey.

1. On a personal level, I find the dynamic, vibrant movement in the peloton to be the most magnetic part of bicycle racing. You feel like you're part of a shifting, changing, evolving body charged with electricity. I also get a reward from team riding and the shared bonds it develops.

2. I consider character and personality along with the actual riding of the bike when rating favorites, so Merckx, Kelly, and Jalabert are three of my favorites. Lemond is up there. My friend's Don Cernanec, Ray Martinez, and Jon Dooley are of course my all-time favorite riders. Favorite female cyclist was hands down Nancy Neiman-Baranet, since her book had a huge impact on my development as a cyclist. After that it would be Sue Novara and Sheila Young. Then Jeannie Longo. Then that platinum blond who used to race in SoCal in the 80's. Anyone remember her name? I think she was scandinavian.

3. The only other sports I follow closely are boxing(used to box) and college football. Used to follow motocross racing and GP racing but not anymore. Nascar and horse racing on the periphery-Mark Martin is my favorite driver.

1. I love the watching a group of riders fighting it out on a climb. Seeing everyone straining against gravity, against each other, then watching one emerge victorious is great. Seeing riders flying up hills, seemingly in defiance of logic is wonderful. The TT and TTT are also some of my favorite parts. The special machines used and the fact that it is simply man versus himself. The TTT is simply poetry in motion when done correctly.

2. Have to love the climbers, Heras, Mayo, Sastre, Zueblida (sp?)

3. None really

There's something oddly beautiful about the cruelity of mountain stages. It's survival of the fittest in it's purist form. Riders struggling to maintain contact with the front. Riders exploding and getting dropped without so much as a look from the rider passing him.

1. What is it that y'all love about it?
Strategy: So much more is involved in racing than just pedaling....read "The Ride"..by Tim Krabe....good stuff

2. Who's your all-time favorite racer?
Armstrong, Hamilton, Mayo, Zabel.....the list goes on

3. What other sports do you follow?
NFL football, NBA, Red Sox, Mountaineering....odd combo i know

1. The pain and suffering and how winners have to get through that barrier...cycling, at the professional level is a brutal sport.

2. Eddy (who I saw win a TdF when I lived in Belgium...then saw his racing career come to an end with a fans punch to the abdomen during a finish..he was never the same after that) and Lance, simply because of what he has had to overcome and that I have lost too many relatives to cancer...and that both of these guys elevate the performance of those around them to higher levels, the mark of true leaders.
Bernard Hinault, because he simply refused to lose.
Greg LeMond, the first true American cycling champion.
Andy Hampsten, for the Passo di Gavia in 1988...again a symbol of the brutal nature of pro cycling.
All the guys who race CAT IV and V...they are the backbone of bike racing in the US.

3. Auto racing mostly(NHRA, IRL, F1, NASCAR), Miami Hurricanes football...the Pitttsburgh Steelers...Butler University basketball....the 3500 student private school that is my alma mater that made the Sweet Sixteen last year in the Big Dance. Beat Louisville and Rick Pitino.