Graced

In July 1985, during my first full year of bike racing as likely the smallest and worst junior in the history of the world, I followed the CBS sports broadcast of the Tour de France each weekend, with unwavering anticipation and dedication. During the sprint into St. Etienne, Phil Anderson pinched Bernard Hinault into the crowd barriers. The Badger, as the French called him, fell spectacularly and broke his nose. Through the following mountain stages, Hinault etched forever into my conscience, the resolve to fight on as he continued with a pair of black eyes to his 5th Tour victory in Paris.

Beyond my comprehension at the time and more importantly was the issue of Hinault’s rivalry with American teammate Greg LeMond and the subsequent foundation of a battle royale to be played out in full the following year. As an impressionable child in utter awe of what I was watching on TV, all I took away was that Bernard Hinault was a bad-ass bike racer.

A month later, armed with a Kodak instamatic camera and Duran-Duran hair, I jumped into the Badger’s face to get this shot in Sacramento during the Coors Classic. Hinault smiled at me. Not in a posed, fake-hug instead of an autograph way, but in a true candid moment. He could have just as easily jumped off his bike and beat the Hell out of me as he did to picketing workers blockading the Paris –Nice race the previous year. Instead he smiled at me. As he maneuvered past, he patted me on the head and mumbled something in French then disappeared. For all I know he could have said I was an annoying little runt. It didn’t matter. One of the greatest champions in the world graced me with his presence like a back alley pope.

Off to the side, watching me resolute, was Charley Berard a red-headed career domestique for the Badger. Once Hinault left, the crowd simmered down and Berard, still standing there against the barriers, nodded at me and said, “Someday, no?” then made a fist and touched it to his chest twice. I didn’t understand the hand motion until years later when I was in France and the old men at the start of the races would make the same fist, punch it twice to their heart and smile then say, “Today, no?”

That “Today” never happened for me. There were a pile of hopes for a someday, close calls with destiny that made the closer I got to accomplishing the dream seem further and further away. Now, years passed, those yesterdays are the poignant lessons of an ambitious youth. A youth where the best day, the day that got me through seasons of worst days, was the day the Badger smiled at me.