Queen stage legends

-- Pedalling through the night

Who remembers the second place getter? In sport, winners take all, including mindshare.

But sometimes events conspire to distract gazes and steal attention from the winners. For example, Tour de France’s Stage 11 is perhaps better known for Australian Mark Renshaw’s head-butt than the winning rider. Then there’s the other Australian rider, whose squeaky voice overshadows his own head butting infamy by such a margin that no one cares how he performs.

With all eyes on France’s annual bicycle tour it’s hard to imagine the feats of a local rider distracting one's attention from the breakaway heroes of France’s roads. That is until news of LABC rider Mike P’s performance, on Stage 17: Pau - Col du Tourmalet 174km, filtered through.

Perhaps better known for his pre-breakfast marathons and as the inspiration for Heineken’s experimental sports nutrition programme, Mike P’s commendable Stage 17 finishing time of 5:03:29 plus 0:04:15 (coincidentally, just one second longer than the time of that well known rider from Texas) wasn’t the only thing about his performance stealing the thunder of Luxembourg’s fast pedaling, stage winning insect.

As the peleton rolled out from Pau, sometime around 10pm Thursday evening, New Zealand time, Mike pedalled his rollers into life.

Positioned in his lounge and facing a large television sufficiently cranked up so that Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen drowned the whirr of the rollers, Mike found a comfortable position immediately behind team Radioshack.

His race preparation had gone smoothly – a large water resistant mat would contain all the sweat and natural breaks, and three bottles of Raro were positioned within easy reach. The only complicating factor was his Soigneur, who refused to work past 11:30 p.m. His final pre-race act was nailing hardboard over an internal window to stifle the noise coming from his lounge.

Getting down to work, his natural high cadence style helped him ride to the ebb and flow of the peleton. The hours rolled by and it was only during advertising breaks, as other riders radioed team directors, that Mike rose from his saddle, allowing blood to flow back into his nether regions.

Just over five hours later, moments after the Schleck-Contador embrace, Mike crashed, the severe gradient of the Col du Tourmalet disrupting his roller’s gyroscopic forces. However, he quickly remounted, crossing the finishing line behind Radioshack’s Lance Armstrong. 5:03:29 plus 0:04:15 in the saddle – sometime shortly after 3:00 a.m. Friday, Mike stopped pedaling and dismounted.

Bloody legend.