Riding With the Posties
By Peter Schindler

Paul Pfeifle and I were invited by Jeff Spencer, Lance's Chiropractor to spend a weekend with the US Postal Service. It is a special weekend that is organized once a year for the team and sponsors and invited guests to get together both socially and on the bike. It is called, "Champions Weekend."

Needless to say, we were very excited about the prospect of riding with Lance, George, Dylan, Antonio, Roberto, Christian and the rest of the team. So we decided to drive to Scottsdale. We departed Brentwood at two-thirty on Friday, January 11. Big mistake. We left way too late. It took us almost three hours to get to Pomona. After four hours we had finally gotten to Palm Springs, but we still had another four hours of driving in front of us. Paul put the hammer down. Another error. He got a ticket for speeding in Blythe. The cops were pretty nice after we mentioned that we were on our way to Scottsdale to ride with the Postal Service, but they wrote Paul a ticket nonetheless.

As we sped through the desert, we opened the sunroof to see the incredible milky way. Living in Los Angeles, we tend to forget just how beautiful the sky is at night. At ten-thirty our time, eleven-thirty Arizona time, we arrived at Jeff's house. He and his lovely wife Christina had prepared a very special welcome. We were each give an official team hat, a glass etched with the US Postal logo and a couple of pins. Jeff gave us our itinerary for the weekend which included a 6:45 wakeup call the next morning.

Sure enough, just as I had finally drifted into something resembling sleep, Jeff was waking me up. I felt pretty bad. Later it would turn out that I had a pretty severe sinus infection. I thought I had bronchitis as my lungs burned with every breath. Nonetheless, nothing was going to keep me from riding the most exciting ride of my cycling career.

The three of us headed out the door at quarter past seven into a really cold morning. And it was downhill all the way to the Fairmont Princess Resort where the team was staying. By the time we had ridden the five or so miles to get there, I was cold to my bones, as was Paul, even though we had on all the expected warmers.

After helping ourselves to the scrumptious buffet which included eggs, pastries, oatmeal, pancakes and the rest of the usual suspects, we sat down with George and Dylan. Oh yeah, on my left was Tom Weissel and to my left another sponsor from Chicago named John. Turns out John used to live in Century City and frequented Ernie's regularly. We exchanged stories about Taylor and the days of that infamous shop. Jeff had gone off to work on some of the riders.

George was trying to persuade Dylan to come to Maui and ride up Haliakala. Paul was able to engage both George and Dylan in conversation while I sat there, still shivering from the cold. Eventually, I had to hit the head and there I had my first encounter with Lance.

As I rounded the corner that led to the restroom, all of a sudden I was face to face with the man himself. Being the smooth, suave talker that I am, I managed to mumble, "Hey" to which he replied "Hey." But behind Lance was a rather rotund gentleman carrying a jar. After hearing him instruct Lance to wash his hands before using the jar, I realized that this guy was from the UCI and was giving Lance a drug test. Quickly I excused myself so that Lance
could have his privacy. Later it turned out that Paul had pretty much the same experience with George Hincapie.

On the way back to the table, I saw Antonio Cruz and stopped to say hello. Paul and I were both were wearing our La Grange kit and Antonio remembered us from the banquet ride. Roberto Herras was also at that table.

Jeff eventually reappeared and told us that the UCI guy had come to Lance's room while Jeff was working on him, and had taken him from the room for testing. It turned out that George Hincapie and a couple other riders were tested as well. Although no one on the team has ever tested positive, the UCI is unrelenting in it's belief that Postal Service riders must be using something to achieve the results that they have.

As we headed out to our bikes, Jeff introduced us to Mark Gorski, Jan, Brunheel and Frankie Andreau. Paul has the gift of gab and was able to chat with everyone to whom we were introduced. I just stood there and tried not to stare. Former world downhill champion, Miles Rockwell was getting ready and Paul knew him so we were able to talk with him for a bit before the ride began.

There were perhaps eighty riders getting ready for the ride. In addition to the team itself, there were the sponsors and their wives and friends, all decked out in full Postal regalia with the appropriate team bikes. Once everyone had their helmets and shades on, it became difficult to tell the real guys from the not so real guys. This would come back to haunt me later in the day. The sponsoring club for the ride was from a local shop by the name of The Bicycle Ranch. They had some very strong riders there as well.
Then there were some guys from the Carmichael camp as well as a few other invited guests. But the predominant theme was Postal Blue with Trek bikes.

Now Paul had told me that this was going to be a fairly easy ride as the team would not want to drop the sponsors so I was hopeful that in spite of feeling pretty crappy, I would be able to sit in the peleton. Alas, that was not about to happen. Later we found out that the team had been instructed to ride at the front and avoid contact with the civilians. We rode out of the hotel parking lot went about three miles before hitting the opening stretch of road
which was a little steeper than San Vicente. All of a sudden we were doing eighteen and then nineteen miles an hour, uphill. This was not a good sign. Then Lance came roaring through going about twenty-three and I was off the back with almost everyone else who was over forty. Paul was able to hang on until about three or four miles from the top. The initial climb was fourteen miles and it was around twenty miles to the spot where everyone, save the
Postal team regrouped. The Postal team, along with some hard-core racers went on to ride another 28 miles of very steep rolling hills while we awaited their return. I rode about five miles out that road with a small group, but we wanted to turn back before we got caught by the team. I was very happy that I did not try going the full distance as the road followed one of my favorite axioms, that which goes down, must go back up again. The downhill was almost fifty miles an hour, so you can imagine how steep the climb back
was.

After waiting for a while, and chatting with various riders, including Bill from Nike who designs the Nike cycling shoe, (made by DMT), the pack came into sight. I snapped a few photos and hurriedly jumped on bike as it was apparent that these guys were not stopping. We immediately were doing a brisk 35 downhill. Okay, that I can do. In fact I was even amongst a bunch of Posties, so I was in no danger of being dropped. Wrong. I was with the riders
who looked like team riders, but were not. We made a left hand turn and all of a sudden a rather large gap opened up. I sprinted as hard as I could and just caught on as the pack made a right turn and headed back towards the resort. Now we were doing at least 35 and sometimes forty, of course all downhill, but it was not coasting. And then just a few riders in front of me, I noticed a Postal uniform but with world championship stripes on the sleeves. And there was Paul next to him just chatting away. So I worked my way up, waited my turn and finally I am riding next to Lance. I was able to conclude the earlier conversation with a nod of my head and then I decided I would just suck his wheel for a while. That is when Lance blew snot which hit me directly on the shin. I am having that part of my body encased in Lexon. Please do not make fun of the way it looks as I am hoping that Lance's DNA
will eventually enter my bloodstream and make me very strong.

Finally we arrived at the resort, chatted with Antonio, took some photos and decided to ride back to Jeff's house. Five miles has never seemed so long. It was now almost seven hours since we had first departed Jeff's house that morning. And it was all uphill to the house. When we arrived, Christina informed us that the team was having lunch at the resort and if we hurried through our shower and change of clothes, we could join them. So we did just
that.

Lunch consisted of chicken, tortilla soup, some fruit and lots of deserts, but surprisingly, no salad. The riders kept to themselves, so Christina, Paul and I took a table and talked amongst ourselves. I also made the acquaintance of a very nice doctor from the South Bay named Richard Wexler.

After lunch we headed back to the house. Paul went to his room and I went to mine for a quick nap. Two hours later I awoke feeling like a truck had run over me. Paul and Christina were going to meet the team at a restaurant in Phoenix, but I was just too wiped out to join them. When they returned they said that it was a good time, but once again, the team had kept pretty much to themselves.

Jeff has a room in his house decorated with mementos of both his cycling and chiropractic careers. Jeff was on the 1972 Olympic team. There were signed yellow jerseys from Lance, autographed photos of Greg Le Mond and Tiger Woods along with various medals, trophies and an old bike. But what stuck out most of all were the telegrams and e-mail's from Lance thanking Jeff and vowing to never ride another TDF without him. By the way, Jeff is available at Robert Forster's once a month.

By seven-thirty on Sunday morning, Paul and I were on the road back to LA. We stopped for breakfast in the middle of the desert, stopped for gas somewhere else I had never heard of and then we were back on the road. We encountered a couple of real traffic jams and after arriving in Brentwood at two-thirty, vowed to never drive to Scottsdale again.

Thank you Jeff and Christina for your hospitality and a time that will be treasured forever.