So I raced against Christian Vande Velde at the Northbrook Velodrome (website by yours truly) way back in 1990 something. One week I broke away and he (a junior!) bridged to me (a mighty Cat. 2!) and he sucked my wheel for a lap or so to recover as is customary but when I pulled up he attacked and dropped me. I thought – what a dick move! He was likely thinking… man this guy is slow, gotta go! The next week the exact same thing happens but as he catches me I swing up. I’m not gonna get burned twice and I’ll send a message to this green horn that he’s gotta play nice and work with others. His dad, whom I later was informed was an Olympic cyclist, is yelling at me on the back stretch to “work with him to win you #^%$#^%” or language to that affect. I didn’t work with him and we didn’t win and I didn’t appreciate color commentary from some overzealous biker dad. I pulled up after the race to inform senior Vandy not call me a mother trucker because his son needed to learn how to race a bike. HA!!
As of today Christian (07/19/2008) is in 3rd place in the Tour De France and I’m sitting in front of an LCD display and keyboard at plus 40lbs from that fine day. If Christian happens to drop by the office I’ll show him how to properly file a TPS report. Nice one eh!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Vande_Velde