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FROM: The Fat Cyclist

TO: Mr. Lance Armstrong

SUBJECT: Re: First Draft of My Screenplay!!!

Hi Lance,

First off, thanks for letting me be one of the first people to see the screenplay you’ve just completed for your autobiographical movie. I loved it, and am absolutely positive that every cyclist in America would love it too. Cyclists will flock to this film, just as it’s written; they’ll love this window into your world, as well as the drama and pageantry that swirl around the Tour de France. In short, I feel confident, Lance, in guaranteeing that every single cycling enthusiast in America will go see this movie when it comes out.

Which is my gentle way of saying, Lance, that as written, your movie would be a complete and total disaster.

There are only about 6,000 cyclists in America, Lance. And this statistic is no less alarming even when you take into consideration that I just made it up. My point is: if you want this movie to succeed, you need to punch it up. Make it Hollywood-friendly. Give it some heat.

Here, then, are my suggestions for a rewrite of your screenplay, if you’d rather it be a summer blockbuster than an anonymous direct-to-DVD bust.

Change the Name

Yes, Lance, I know that your book, It’s Not About the Bike, was a huge success. But that book was for a different audience. Specifically, it was for an audience of people who know how to read. For a movie, you can’t go telling people what it’s not about. That would be like serving your head on a platter to the critics. I mean, can’t you just hear Roger Ebert opening his review of your movie saying something like, “Lance Armstrong’s movie tells us it’s not about his bike. That’s all well and good, but I wish he would have taken the time to decide what it is about.” (Note to Roger Ebert: I have copyrighted the preceding sentence. Hands off.)

So, then, what should you call the movie? I have a few suggestions:

• Ride: People love one-word titles. They’re easy to remember. Also, it’s both an imperative verb and a noun, so it both describes what you do and what the film is. It sounds strong, confident. Manly. This is my number-one recommendation.
• The Cyclist: This title makes it sound like you are really the only cyclist in the world. Everyone else is just a pretender. There’s also a decent chance that many people will mistake “Cyclist” for “Cyclone,” and we’ll get a fair number of tickets purchased by the disaster-film crowd. Hey, let’s not be picky; let’s get butts in seats any way we can.
• Lance Loves Sheryl: This one’s risky. If you call it this, we’ll need to make sure that the movie trailers emphasize the love story aspect of your movie. The only way we’ll get a greater than .000001% female audience for this film is if we make them think it’s a romantic comedy.

Pump Up the Plot

Your life makes an inspiring story, Lance. Born into a humble, one-parent home, you showed great initial promise as a professional cyclist. Then you got cancer, but suffered through the treatment to emerge a stronger, more disciplined rider. Once you started riding in the Tour de France, you caught fire and won seven times in a row — showing a drive and consistency that is perhaps unmatched in the history of sport.

This kind of storyline is what we in the biz like to call a “non-starter.”

You know what they’re going to do when we pitch this movie, Lance? They are going to tear us to shreds. Here are the easy questions they’ll ask, and how I propose we revise your screenplay so we can be ready for them:

• Where’s the villain? Of course, cancer is the real villain in your life, but that doesn’t exactly work on film, does it? We need someone who is doing his level best to thwart you — not just in racing, but in your personal life. I suggest Jan Ullrich is the right character for this role. We’ll have to tweak his personality a little bit since Ullrich is in fact one of the nicest guys in the whole world, but the motivation part’s easy: with each loss to you, Ullrich becomes more and more bitter, until he (let’s say in 2002) he snaps and vows he will stop at nothing — nothing!!! — to defeat you. He commences a campaign of underhanded tactics all geared toward securing the top spot on the Tour de France podium.
• You mean once he starts winning, he just keeps winning? There’s never a serious doubt that he’ll stop winning? I’m sorry, Lance, but the first act (early promise) of your screenplay is incredibly ordinary, and the second act (enduring cancer treatment) makes you seem more like of a movie prop than an exciting film protagonist. We can tell those parts of the story in about twenty minutes anyways. Then there’s the third act: Tour de France champion. It goes like this: You win the Tour de France. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. It gets a little predictable, Lance. Think about this for a second: Rocky lost in the first movie, and that’s the only one that was any good.
• At the end of the movie he just RETIRES?! I’m sorry to use bold, italics, all-caps and excessive punctuation, Lance, but that’s the way they’re going to say it. I can’t think of a more anticlimactic end to a movie than retirement. I suggest that in the movie, after your final tour you vow to fight crime, or discover a cure to cancer, or something. Remember this Hollywood axiom, Lance: Any scene featuring a retirement must be followed with a scene wherein the newly-retired person is gunned down by his enemy. See any cop movie that has ever been made for an example of this.

PS: This is the first part of a new piece I’m writing; next I’ll tell Lance about parts of the screenplay I think he should shorten or remove, characters that need to be created, changed, and deleted, and what to do about that pesky "first wife problem." I’ll link to the full story as soon as it’s published. Presuming, of course, that I finish it (I haven’t), and that someone accepts it.

PPS: This has nothing to do with cycling, but I spent most of the weekend sitting beside my 12-year-old son, building a video game with him. Mostly I just sat and gave suggestions and ideas; he did the programming and artwork (ie, he did everything and I was a backseat driver). What a pleasure it is to watch your own kid be not just better, but lots better at something than you are.

We finished it yesterday evening; he’s now posted the game — called "Meteor Frenzy" — on his website, minigamemania.com. Click the screenshot below to go to his site and try it out (requires Flash). Be sure to record your high score (I’m pleased to say that I currently hold the number 1 ranking, but I’m sure that will change.).

Oh, and to all the old coots who play this and then come back with suggested corrections on spelling and grammar for the game: that was all intentional. Evidently, using English that feels like poorly-translated Japanese is all the rage with teenage programmers these days.

It’s getting cold here in the Northwest — cold enough that yesterday when I went out for a ride, I only made it as far as the end of the block before I turned around and came back into the house, hunting for another layer up top, and some warmer gloves for my hands.

I started by looking on the shelf in the garage I have for ultra-stinky biking clothes (gloves, shoes, helmets, shoe covers). Nope, not there. I then went on to my dresser in the bedroom. The two bottom drawers are reserved for biking clothes. I found a good thick long-sleeved jersey to wear, and became hopeful that the gloves would have the good sense to hang out near the jersey.

No luck.

OK, I was getting a little annoyed. I moved over to the bottom three drawers of my wife’s dresser — yes, she has ceded the bottom three drawers of her dresser to my bike clothes stuff. The warm glove liners and one of the gloves I wanted were in the first drawer I checked; the final glove I wanted was in the second. So, in a way, this constituted a minor victory: I had found everything I wanted, but hadn’t had to check all of the drawers. This victory is augmented by the fact that I hadn’t needed to go into my "last resort" bike stuff spot: the closet.

To recap: I have a garage shelf, five drawers, and a closet shelf dedicated to bike clothes. Clearly, I have too much stuff.

What Do I Have? How Did I Get So Much of It?

It’s tempting to say I don’t know how I wound up with so much bike clothing, but that would be a lie. And as everyone who reads this blog knows, I never lie. (Unless I think it would be funny or self-serving to lie, in which case of course I’ll lie.)

Here are the highlights of what I’ve got, bike clothing-wise:

• 3 RLX Bib Shorts: These are my favorite bike shorts for warm weather riding. They’ve seen heavy use for years and years. I don’t feel at all bad about owning three pair.
• More than 30 Jerseys: Why do I have an obscene number of jerseys? Well, because bike jerseys have a number of unique properties that, combined, have led to what is known in scientific circles as the Infinite Jersey Accumulation Syndrome (IJAS). To wit:

• Many races and events give jerseys away either for starting or completing. You don’t have to buy jerseys to accumulate them.
• Occasionally, you’ll buy jerseys anyway, because you like the way they look, or you want to look like you’re sponsored, or because you want to look like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
• You need many different kinds of jerseys to suit the weather: long sleeved, short sleeved, sleeveless.
• Sometimes, a marketing campaign hornswoggles you into believing that their jersey material will actually make you warmer, or cooler, or whatever — even though it’s really just another minor variation of polyesther.
• Jerseys never wear out, so you feel bad throwing them away.
• Old jerseys cannot be converted into rags, the way cotton t-shirts can, so you can’t get rid of them that way either.
• As discussed before, jerseys get permanently stinky, so you can’t exactly give them away.

In short, there’s nothing you can do to stop accumulating jerseys, and there’s no practical way to get rid of them. As the number of cyclists increases, IJAS is becoming a serious problem. Top scientists predict that by the year 2018, the entire world will be waist-deep in cycling jerseys. That should smell nice.

• Biking Shorts I Never Wear: I have three or four pair of old Pearl Izumi biking shorts. I have not worn them since I started wearing bib shorts. I do not have any idea why I keep these.
• Knickers: I have a pair of biking knickers, too. I believe my thinking was that these would be useful on the days when it was too cold for shorts, but not cold enough for tights. The thing is, days like that come once every three or four years. Plus, if I recall correctly, these knickers have the worst chamois in the world.
• Too-Tight Tights: I bought a pair of Cannondale (Coda brand) bib tights about two years ago. This is the only cycling item I have ever bought that shrunk. Over the course of five wearings, these tights went from fitting well to being waaaaay too short for me. Cannondale has not earned many loyalty points from me this way.
• More Biking Shorts I Never Wear: I bought a pair of baggy mountain bike shorts, about two years before they became popular. My early-adopter attitude was rewarded by a pair of shorts that rode low, and had a wimpy chamois that does not stay put. These are, to tell the truth, not my favorite shorts. And yet, I still have them. What is wrong with me?
• "Lobster" Gloves: The idea for these cold-weather gloves was pretty sensible: Keep as many fingers together as possible, but have splits where necessary, so you can shift. The result? The goofiest-looking mitten/gloves in the world, keeping your hands in a permanent Star Trek "Live Long and Prosper" salute. They’re not warm, either. And yet, I still have them.
• Lots and Lots of "Air-E-Aetor" Socks With Holes in the Big Toe: I really like Air-E-Aetor brand socks. They’re cool and comfortable in the summer, and warm enough to use into moderately cool weather. But I wear through the big toe well before I wear through the rest of the sock. And for some reason, I don’t throw them away. This is especially stupid, because I am constantly putting on a sock, finding it has a hole in it, and having to find a different sock. And then I do and extra-double-stupid thing: I put the sock I just took off back in the sock drawer. I need help.
• Five or Six Windbreaker Jackets / Vests: I never wear vests. Why do I have any at all? And do I need more than 2 jackets (one to keep at work, one to keep at home)?

Here Comes the Irony

The thing is, I only rarely open these drawers at all. Since I’ve developed the technique of throwing my dirty bike clothes directly into the washing machine, filling the machine up with other clothes from around the house (with four kids, there’s always a load of laundry to do), and starting the machine (I transfer these clothes to the dryer as I put the twins down for bedtime; the drone of the machine helps them go to sleep), I’ve always got a complete set of clean biking clothes in the dryer each morning.

So yes: while I have enough biking clothes that I could wear different stuff each day for about a month, I tend to wear the same thing each day.

A Second Helping of Irony

OK, I’ll say it: there are more bike clothes I really want right now. Specifically, I’d really like to get a couple pair of windproof, water-resistant bib tights for cold-weather commuting.

These would make a terrific Christmas gift, for example (size Medium). 

And Now for the Part You’ve Been Waiting For…

For today’s Banjo Brothers Bike Bag Giveaway, tell me one or more of the following:

• Recommendations for what to do with all this stuff I’ve accumulated
• Impress me with how much bike stuff you have
• Impress me even more with how little you have, in which case by all means, explain your brilliant strategy for keeping your bike stuff from taking over the house

PS: My review of The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles is up on Cyclingnews now.