I have a friend who is borderline OCD. He’ll sometimes wash his hands dozens of times a day, doesn’t like sticky stuff, cats drive him to antihistamine hell and there is a place for everything, with everything in its place. This can be annoying, not only for those around him, but especially for himself. It’s not a great place to be.
The upside is his bikes are always meticulously maintained, fully Rule compliant, or they are in a state of tear-down having last week’s grease freshened up and each ball bearing individually polished. He’s gotten it under control quite admirably these days, and while a chip in the duco of his beautiful steel frame will still understandably piss him off, there’s not the slightest hint of sending it back to Italy to be re-sprayed by the 78 year old artisan who originally painted it, who inconveniently happened to retire in 1984. But you can rest assured the touch-up job he’ll do himself is of paintshop standard.
But I’ve never seen him muck around with his seatpost height. Not once it’s set, anyway.
This poses the question: did The Prophet have OCD? To this observer it seems so, if numerous viewings of Le Course En Tete and A Sunday in Hell are any reliable indicator. The guy was constantly fiddling with his seatpost height. His mechanic must’ve been ready to throw his hands in the air proclaiming “Merde, Eddy! I’ve measured it three times already! Why do you not trust me?”
It seemed to matter little to Eddy that poor Charly had adhered to the numbers scribbled on the lid of his toolbox, taken the slide rule and spirit level to every possible surface and angle, and used his impeccable line of sight to position the saddle just right, exactly where it was requested to be. “How’s that Eddy?” “Is perfect.” “Then why are you borrowing a spanner from RDV’s team car? Hmmm?”
If he wasn’t adjusting his saddle, he was adjusting his stem. If he wasn’t adjusting his stem, he was squirting water from his bidon onto his brakes. If he wasn’t doing that, he was simply laying down the law. The law of The Prophet.
Obsessive? Yes. Compulsive? For sure. Did it affect his ability to waste all comers? Not likely.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/brettok@velominati.com/merckx terryn/”/]
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I'nt it 'cos of the bad crash he had, that caused him pain every time he rode afterwards, or was he like that before hand?
@Martin Cashman
Correct. The crash on the track at Blois that killed his derny pilot meant his back gave him constant pain, that he could partially alleviate by slight variations in saddle height. Although he's freely admitted that altering it actually did little except give him a small placebo effect...
@Oli
That was in 1969, by the way, in the off season after he utterly dominated his first Tour de France, winning every classification. He maintains that he was never anywhere near as good after the crash, although you mightn't agree when you read his palmares!
Frank has a "friend"? Dude: man up. We still love you.
Too bad he didn't have a rock shox reverb. He could have been adjusting all day long with little hassle.
I was thinking about this on my ride today. I wonder how much became psychological warfare. Seat adjustment, moving bidon to the jersey pocket, parting the waters of a puddle. Eventually the peloton would pick up on these and associate it with being dropped like a feral stray. Mind games.
@Steampunk
It's Brett's "friend".
I have a "friend" who has CDO which is a bit like OCD but alpabetical - THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!
That's a beautiful post (and great photo captions) Brett. I pondered that too: quit fucking with your damn seat, your legs have not grown since last Sunday. And the lead photo, can you actually adjust your seat whilst sitting on it, and riding? We will get up in his Belgian grill about all this next month. I'm still confused as to who speaks French and who speaks Flemish but we will make Frank ask these probing questions of Eddy regardless, so we don't get blamed.
His mechanic must have hated him.
I have a "friend" who has CDO which is a bit like OCD but alpabetical - THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!
That's just awesome.
And I agree- i would bet it probably was legit once, and then probably turned into a tell or fidget just to mess with the combatants. As if he needed to do more than mount the bike to have that impact...
@Gianni
I'm sure the regular and sizeable bonuses probably made it tolerable.