Lance Armstrong, Kirby Puckett and the harrows of hero worship

“Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.” -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

In some ways, I feel obligated to write about Lance Armstrong. After all, he built himself up to be Michael Jordan of cycling, and as an avid cyclist myself, I should be devastated in some way to hear him admit to Oprah that it was all a steroid-fueled lie.

However, if I tried to claim devastation, that would also be a lie. Armstrong's much-anticipated interview aired for the first time on Thursday, but I didn't seek it out on TV, nor did I really care what he had to say. In my mind, Lance admitted his guilt back in August when he announced he wouldn't fight the charges leveled against him by the United States Anti-Doping Agency. He hadn't publicly confessed to steroid use at that point, but silence often says more than words ever could in the court of public opinion. The Oprah interview did little more than confirm what the majority of us already knew about the fiery Texan.

From a personal standpoint, even before the announcement last August, it didn't really matter to me whether Armstrong was guilty or innocent. Armstrong may have been the most decorated cyclist in history, but he was never a hero or inspiration to me. I got into cycling for the health benefits and because I enjoyed the travel and adventure aspects of it; I didn't get into it because I dreamed of winning the Tour de France.

Consequently, the cyclists I look up to most aren't the Greg LeMonds and Lance Armstongs of the world. It's people like Eric and Christie Nelson, who biked from Minnesota to Argentina because they wanted to "let the world impact them." Or people like Delicia Jernigan, who biked across the U.S. by herself to raise money for suicide awareness.

Mind you, that shouldn't suggest I wasn't impressed by Armstrong's achievements. I admired his ability to dominate the sport as much as the next person, but I'd feel the same about any athlete regardless of what sport he or she played. His story of beating cancer and raising millions for cancer research was and is heart-warming, but it would be just as inspiring to me if it were a different person of similar fame and fortune.

I tend to be very skeptical when it comes to worshiping pro athletes and other celebrities. They may be revered in the public eye for their personality and accolades, but who they are privately could be something completely different.

In my own experience, hero worship of athletes often leads to heartbreak and disappointment.

Growing up, Kirby Puckett was more than just a baseball player to me; he was a God. The star center fielder for the Twins represented everything I loved about baseball. He hustled, he played Gold Glove-caliber defense, he delivered clutch hits and he did it all with a smile. I idolized Puckett to the point where I wanted his number on all my little league jerseys, cried during his retirement announcement (a tough day for 11-year-old me) and watched the 1991 World Series highlights on a regular basis.

I didn't just admire his talents as a baseball player; I looked up to him as a person as well. Puckett was long considered one of the "good guys" of baseball; a short, stocky, happy-go-lucky dude who played the game with joy and worked tirelessly as a humanitarian when he wasn't hitting home runs. Other ballplayers dealt with steroid accusations, substance abuse and legal troubles, but Puckett always seemed to rise above it.

However, that turned out to not be a lie. Only a year after being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001 -- an induction ceremony I begged my dad to take me on a road trip to see -- reports surfaced that Puckett's wife Tonya threatened to kill a woman over an alleged affair she had with him, and that another woman filed a protection order against Puckett, claiming to have an longstanding extramarital relationship with him. Later in 2002, Puckett was arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman and groping her in a restaurant bathroom. He was later acquitted of the charges, but the damage to his image had already been done. The nice guy persona he spent years cultivating was replaced with that of a cheating husband who showed about as much respect to women as he did to opposing fastballs at the plate.

In 2003, Sports Illustrated published a revealing cover story about Puckett's fall from grace in which both his ex-wife and former mistress described his behavior as being "erratic" and "abusive." Some of the more eye-popping revelations in the story include incidents where he strangled Tonya with an electrical cord, threatened her by putting a gun to her head and once admitted to his mistress that he openly despised doing the charity work he was so revered for. "He always said how much he hated going to the hospitals," she told SI. "He became more [vocal] about how much he hated it after he retired, but he always said he hated it."

I remember being absolutely devastated by all of this. The beacon of virtue I looked up to all my life and dreamed of meeting one day turned out to be anything but virtuous. I didn't know what to do with myself after that. It was like finding out that Gandhi was secretly a KKK member or something.

Eventually, I adopted the same mindset about Puckett that I currently have with all pro athletes: I don't need to respect them as a person to admire their remarkable gifts. That's probably the biggest reason why I wasn't heartbroken by Lance's admission: I never held him on a higher pedestal than being a great athlete. He may have SEEMED like a good person in all the fluff pieces written about him over the years, but then again, so did Puckett.

Now that Lance's confessions are out in the open, some of his more vehement supporters over the years have been the most critical. ESPN's Rick Reilly wrote:

"When he says he's sorry now, how do we know he's not still lying? How do we know it's not just another great performance by the all-time leader in them? And I guess I should let it go, but I keep thinking how hard he used me. Made me look like a sap. Made me carry his dirty water and I didn't even know it."

I sympathize with Reilly's feelings of betrayal. They're pretty similar to the feelings I had back in 2002 when I found out my hero was a hoax. It hurts when you deeply admire lets you down, especially when it's someone you defended so passionately. But in a way, it also makes you more of a realist and serves as a reminder of two important life lessons: Nobody's perfect and perception doesn't always mirror reality.

I'll never look up to another athlete like I did with Kirby Puckett. And truthfully, it's probably better that way.

Re-evaluating Faribault's bike trails

I feel that I owe the city of Faribault an apology.

While working for the Free Press in Mankato, I wrote a column a couple of years ago criticizing the Sakatah Singing Hills Trail for being a subpar trail and that it had the potential to be so much more. Among other critiques in the column, I wrote that Faribault did a poor job accommodating visiting cyclists on the Sakatah.

It made sense at the time. I had ridden the Sakatah trail on numerous occasions at that point and the only lasting memory I had of Faribault was the Dairy Queen located on Highway 60 near the outskirts of town. When I did a 2-day bike trip from Mankato to Red Wing (the inspiration behind that column, by the way), my experience with Faribault involved navigating busy roads to get to Highway 3 and narrowly avoiding the wrath of an oncoming semi (ok, it probably wasn't THAT narrow, but still).

The town hardly seemed bike-friendly and there was nary a local eatery or point of interest to be found. I didn't even know that Faribault had a "historic downtown" area until I looked it up on the Web after that trip.

It definitely wasn't the best impression to have about a town and it certainly didn't aid my enthusiasm about moving to Faribault for a new job. When I accepted the position, I chalked up the lack of bike friendliness as an acceptable drawback of the town. I figured I could make regular trips to the Twin Cities if I wanted to bask in a cycling culture. Besides, after last summer's back roads adventure to Lanesboro, I'm convinced I can make any town accommodating to my biking addiction (provided it isn't comprised entirely of interstate roads).

However, after settling in at Faribault for a couple months and doing some research  on bike trails for a story I wrote for the Faribault Daily News' annual Profiles publication (coming out this week!), I've come to discover that a lot of the stuff I wrote in that column was uninformed and misguided.

For one thing, the notion of charging a daily fee for riders on the Sakatah (a suggestion I made in the column after spending some time on the wonderful Cannon Valley Trail) is an impossibility because the Sakatah is a state-ran trail and thus gets maintained by state funding. The Cannon Valley Trail, on the other hand, is a privately owned trail and is maintained almost entirely through those daily rider fees, meaning they don't have to wait in line with other state projects for funding.

For another thing, I've come to discover that the Faribault isn't so bad when it comes to cycling. As a matter of fact, it more than holds its own.

I came across the Straight River Trail during a cold winter run in January near the downtown area. I didn't think much of it at the time, mostly because my extremities were freezing and I wanted to get home. But after browsing through Google Maps (a great starting point to find bike trails, by the way), I discovered that the trail was a lot more than a brief pathway connecting a few city blocks. It encircles nearly half the town, stretches more than four miles and runs right past several downtown restaurants, the Rice County Fairgrounds and the local disc golf course.

While out biking the other day, I also discovered that one of the side extensions of the trail links up with some of the paths on the south end of the River Bend Nature Center. I didn't take the time to explore the park's trail system extensively, but judging by the maps,  the RBNC will definitely be seeing a lot of me this spring/summer. Aside from the Straight River Trail, I've also found a few other smaller recreational trails in town, most notably on the north end of town between Hulett and Park Avenue.

Really, the infrastructure is in place for Faribault to be a great cycling town. There's good scenery, good points of interest and a logical mapping to avoid the traffic of major roadways. I don't see it topping Mankato as the best cycling town on the Sakatah Trail (sorry, I have a soft spot for that town), but with a little work it could easily turn itself into another Northfield, a town that has made cycling and pedestrian-friendly walkways a point of emphasis in its downtown area.

The biggest step forward from here for Faribault is to link up its in-town trail system with the Sakatah in a way that invites cyclists to spend some time downtown. As I've learned from both my research for the story and getting a general feel for the town, that step is already in progress.

According to an article last fall in the Faribault Daily News, the construction of a pedestrian underpass between Highway 21 and Highway 3 is in progress and will be completed sometime this summer. The project also includes linking the underpass with the trail near Hulett Avenue and overhauling the intersection with a traffic light, turn lanes and a realignment of Park Avenue.

Once that project is complete, city planners will turn their attention to linking the underpass with both the Straight River Trail and the Sakatah Trail. Future projects related to those goals include building a trail through North Alexander park (funding is already in place for it) and constructing a bridge over the Cannon River to reach the Sakatah Trail facility (no funding in place, but I'm told its in the "design phase").

Beyond their goal to link all the trails of Faribault together, these projects are also tied to the Mill Towns Trail, a planned recreational trail between Faribault and Cannon Falls that will eventually link up more than 80 miles of trails (factoring in the Sakatah and Cannon Valley trails).

At the risk of rehasing the story I wrote for Profiles (I'll either post a link to it or post it directly on my blog after it's published) and making this blog entry longer than it already is, I won't go into too much detail about Mill Towns.

Still, after taking all of this into account, it's pretty safe to say that my first impressions of Faribault were incorrect.

So Faribault, I hope you can accept my apology. Your town definitely isn't a black hole for cyclists that I thought it was, and I look forward to exploring more of you in the future.

My first scraped knee of the year

Even the most seasoned of cyclists can take a tumble from time to time.

It's kind of unavoidable if you go riding enough. Sometimes there's an unforeseen obstruction in the road that you don't spot until it's too late. Other times, it's a careless motorist that's oblivious to your existence.

In my case, it was the combination of a sharp turn and some unforeseen mud on the bike path near Riverfront Park.

I was trying to get in a quick 10-mile ride on my dinner break on Wednesday and decided to bike the Minnesota River Trail from Sibley Park to the Sakatah Singing Hills Trail changeover. I figured I'd been neglecting that stretch of trail this spring (not without good reason, the downtown trail entrance near my apartment is still closed) and an evening with pleasant weather was as good a time as any to revisit it.

The ride was going wonderfully at first. I was enjoying the river scenery and the stresses of work were melting away like they always tend to do when I'm out biking.

When you ride on a trail enough times, it kind of becomes second nature. You bike through turns a little faster because you know exactly how they bend. You also know where every hill is and what side of the trail to bike on so as to avoid potholes.

Despite my spring-time hiatus, I have that type of familiarity with the Minnesota River Trail. I've ridden on it a countless number of times and the right-hand bend in the trail near the amphitheater in Riverfront Park is one that I'm very well acquainted with.

However, that acquaintance does not include the mud that was caked on the trail. Having not noticed the mud ahead of time (again, I'm almost too familiar with the trail and probably wasn't paying enough attention), I took the turn at a speed I normally would have and the end result was my bike tires giving out from under me.

Pavement, meet leg.

Total damages from the fall: A silver dollar-sized raspberry on my knee (not going to post pictures of it because that would be gross), a scraped-up leg and a busted mp3 player. Not my finest moment on bike.

But as the old saying goes: Failure is not falling down, but refusing to get back up. I've taken my share of falls and had my share of bad luck on a bike over the years, but that doesn't stop me from getting back out there.

I always figure misfortunes are a way of testing your mettle. My response to the latest test? I biked to softball league yesterday and went for a 12-mile ride in the rain today.

My passion for cycling runs deeper than a mere scrape on the knee.

Bike Snob review: He's not so snobby after all

Admittedly, I'm a late bloomer when it comes to Bike Snob.

The popular, NYC-centered cycling blogger remained off my radar until I came across a review of his book last year. The book, titled "Bike Snob: Systematically and Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling," came in response to his hugely successful blog that has been drawing readership in droves since 2007. Likewise, his book has also been a huge seller.

Unlike health & fitness-centered cycling blogs, the Bike Snob pokes and prods at the cultural aspects of cycling. He's critical of all types of bikes (matter of fact, I'm a little scared to think of what he'd say about my 2-wheeled transport, probably nothing good), rips on hipsters and basically holds nothing back when it comes to daily nuisances that annoy him. The result of which is a rant-filled blog that covers a rainbow of societal topics and makes more movie references than one would care to keep track of.

I don't know how it took me so long to discover this cycling-centric gem (I'm guessing it's because I live in Minnesota and because I do enough reading at work), but I've grown to enjoy the Bike Snob's blogosphere ramblings (check out his blog here). His cultural jabs can be rather biting, but for the most part, it's all good-natured ribbing.

However, a lot of his topics are difficult for me to relate to, as his blog is very urban-oriented and Mankato isn't exactly a sprawling metropolis. He can write about bike messengers all he wants, but I doubt I'm going to spot one cruising on Madison Avenue anytime soon.

By comparison, his book turned out to have a much more positive tone. Instead of poking fun at the foibles of others, he actually does a great deal of poking fun at himself, talking about his early cycling experiences with his BMX bike as a kid and his early career as a bike messenger.

His personal experiences help establish that, at the core of things, the Bike Snob is really a huge cycling enthusiast. He loves bikes and clearly feels strongly about them being one of the world's great inventions. As the Bike Snob puts it, a bike:

"can give you the feeling of freedom and speed you get from riding a motorcycle, the sense of well-being and peace you get from meditating, the health benefits you get from an afternoon in the gym, the sense of self-expression you get from learning to play guitar, and the feeling of victory you get from completing a marathon." (page 11)

In that regard, the book is considerably more accessible than the Snob's blog. Rather than worrying if his social commentary is going to hit close to home, you can sit back and enjoy the writing of a man who loves his bike.

For the novice cyclist, the book serves as an introductory guide for anybody looking to get into biking. There's a brief, wonderfully-lampooned history lesson on the bicycle, a section on the essential repairs all cyclist should be able to do themselves and a few safety tips everyone should adhere to (like looking around for stuff you don't want to run into).

That's not to say the book reads like a "Cycling for Dummies" guide. Instead, the Bike Snob's book seeks to take away some of the fear surrounding cycling by pointing out that bikes are user-friendly machines that everyone can use. You might use the wrong chain lube or fall off the bike a time or two (Lord knows I have), but those are learning experiences you can build off of.

For the experienced cyclist, the book is a reaffirmation of why we love cycling to begin with. It also serves as a wake-up call for people who take themselves too seriously on a bike.

Which brings me to the social commentary aspects of the book. Like his blog, the Bike Snob's book is full of em. However, he keeps his rants brief and the reading pace brisk. There's still a healthy dose of pop culture tidbits (he may have hit max capacity for "Forrest Gump" references and even referenced "Krippindorf's Tribe" at one point), but they never get convoluted to the point of bogging down the points he's trying to make.

Some of his points were pretty thought-provoking as well. I found myself spending the most time on his chapter breaking down all the different types of cyclists, mostly just because I wanted to see which category I fit into.

Like any other well-written, opinion-based work, I found myself disagreeing with the Snob from time to time. He claims cyclists never have the feeling of impotency a motorist has being stuck in traffic, whereas I can attest from my sunburn-filled trip to Blue Earth last summer that it's very possible to feel impotent on a bike. I also take exception with the Snob saying that there's no such thing as a "biking culture." If a cycling-centric event like RAGBRAI isn't a cultural experience, then I don't know what is.

But really, that's half the fun of reading his book if you're an avid cyclist: finding things to disagree on. The Bike Snob has built a name for himself in the blogosphere by expressing his opinion.

There's plenty of opinion in his book, but the joy in reading it doesn't come from his usual social commentary. It comes from his refreshingly-open profession about his love for cycling.