Balance. It can be achieved by never deviating from the middle, or it can be achieved by violent swings to and fro. It is said, however, that the great peaks can’t be reached without crossing through deep valleys. Tragically, we were reminded today that our sport is one of great peaks and deep, deep valleys.
Cycling is a sport of risk and danger; the beauty and harmony of a speeding peloton masks the risks and dangers involved. Mountain descents see riders reach speeds of 80 or more kilometers per hour with little to protect them should something go wrong. Stars and watercarriers alike share in the risk; no one is immune.
You have to love this sport intensely to become a professional. The nature of road competition demands great sacrifice in every aspect of the athlete’s life; eat like birds, work like horses, and live like monks. Not only does a professional cyclist spend every waking moment focussed on their sport, but from January to October, they are away from their families as the race calendar carries them all over Europe and, increasingly, the world. This sacrifice is most often in the service of others, as the Stars are few and the Watercarriers many.
While only a few weeks ago we watched as one of these domestiques reached the pinacle of our sport by winning Paris-Roubaix, today we witnessed the tragic swing to the other end as Wouter Weylandt lost his life in the pursuit of his passion. We can be philosophical and say this man lived for his sport and died doing what he loved, but the fact of the matter is that his is a man who, at 26 years old, was in the prime of his life and that he died today is tragic beyond articulation.
As Velominati, we are disciples of cycling. Our lives revolve around cycling. At moments like these, it is unimaginable that life and sport will continue. It will, and we will again reach the peaks. But we breathe still, and our devotion cannot follow where others’ continue.
Today we walk through a valley and mourn as Velominati the tragic loss of a man who gave everything – everything – to his sport. Our deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.
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Thanks, Frank. This is a good and touching piece. One of the things I really appreciate about this site, which you articulate so well above, is its implicit membership in the higher order of cycling community. We can be fans of pro racing, but there is a deeper connection here. Always informal and typically impishly playful, but cycling's illuminati help bring the cycling world together for me and make connections that make riding and fandom all the more palpable. Sad day.
Hard man defined. In like a Lion out like a Lion. RIP Wouter.
And it pales in comparison to the death, but I also feel bad for Angel Vicioso. His win will forever be attached to this in his own mind and those of the tifosi.
And David Millar, the first Brit to wear all three Grand Tour leader's jerseys.
A shame, but again, I realize these are tiny, tiny footnotes on the much bigger sadness of Wouter's passing. I just got engaged and the thought of leaving my fiancee behind after getting killed on the bike is tough to think about. It's even worse that she was pregnant.
My thoughts go out to his partner (wife?) and family and friends.
Nicely said.
Just noticed Ale-Jet's winning photo from yesterday, Weylandt is about two rows back between Ale-Jet and Cav.
@ steampunk - Very well written, my friend.
A lot of what goes on here is funny, silly, & jovial. And, I've never met any of you. But, I do feel like being a part of this site community, reveling in the races, agonizing over the tiniest details of the bikes & the gear, and following all that goes on in the peloton has brought me to a new level of appreciation & dedication to cycling.
La Vie Velominatus during both the lows & the highs.
A beautiful post from the Leopard Trek site.
As a father of a beautiful 2 and a half year old and two weeks out from our 2nd I was saddened and shocked by this terrible news....it is truely gut-wrenching to look at my boy and then think that Walter will never know his baby, or the baby its father. That is surely the greatest tragedy. On this terrible day it is a shocking wake-up call to us all that these things happen to guys who we couldn't hold a candle to on our best day...sadly it is us "wannabe's" who are often at the greatest risk on public roads with traffic. As I tell some of our younger guys, please remember, much as you can bang on about shitty car driving etc, having "But I was in the right" on your gravestone is no consolation to your friends and family. RIP Walther and our thoughts go out to his partner. Take care everybody else.
@Lee
Hopefully someone will collect all the interweb testaments to WW and preserve them for his child to read. Consolation, of a sort.
That visual condolence card from the team is great.
- It shows us a smiling Wouter.
- It expresses the true sadness his cycling club feels over his death.
- It shows an awesome looking, happy, Belgian PRO cyclist in his prime. What a beautiful thing: a big dude in some sharp kit, with a boss hairdo, smiling like he's on top of the world.
I think Wouter was thinking: "Yeah, I get paid to be and look this awesome."
A loss to see him go. From what Farrar wrote in his open letter, Wouter sounds like a fun guy to have ridden bicycles with. A ghost in the peloton for Tyler, I'd think. Easy to miss a guy who was that awesome of a cycling pal.