Movie Review: Inspired To Ride

The Race Across America (RAAM) was meant to be the ultimate long-distance bike race but spawned a number of imitators—the Race Around Ireland, the Race Around Austria, the Race Across Europe—which followed the same format. This means individual and team categories with support crews. But that clearly was too easy as we see the emergence of races over insane distance that leave the cyclists unsupported and entirely to their own devices. “Inspired to Ride” is a film about the inaugural TransAm Bicycle Race in 2014, an unsupported race across America for “the crazies,” as one contestant notes with approval. It is quite a story.

The rules of the TransAm Bicycle Race are simple enough. Each rider is equipped with a GPS that shows his or her location, letting the organizers and other competitors know who is where. There is no support allowed; no stages; no checkpoints; no drafting. The path followed is Adventure Cycling's Trans America Bicycle Trail, a route developed for the American Bicentennial in 1976, that runs from Astoria, Oregon to Yorktown, Virgnia. It is 6,800 km (4,200 miles) in length and crosses 10 states.

The film focuses primarily on two riders. British ultracycling legend Mike Hall rode the mountain bike ultradistance Tour Divide, from the Canadian border to the Mexican one in 2011, and finished 11^th in spite of a knee injury. He went on to win the inaugural World Cycle Race in 2012, racing around the world in only 91 days, and going on to win the 2013 Tour Divide. That same year he organized the Transcontinental Race, another unsupported event that crosses year with a different route each year and quickly attracts its 350 rider limit. In 2016 Hall won the Tour Divide again.

Mike Hall

The other rider highlighted is Juliana Buhring, who owns the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by a female cyclist. She accomplished this in 2012, two years after learning to ride a bicycle at the age of 30. She had a bruising childhood, growing up in a cult environment, and is proud of her self-sufficiency. Crashing on the second day of the TransAm, she shrugs off her bruised knee and painful ribs and heads east at a remarkable pace. She casually explains that she really needs five days to get warmed up properly. She typically rides 14-16 hours each day of the event.

Juliana Buhring

There is a funny subplot featuring two Italians who Juliana Buhring is obsessed with beating to the finish. One of them cannot believe that a woman who has only ridden for such a short time cannot possibly be going faster than him, a racer with years of experience, and he accuses her of cheating somehow. Needless to say, she has the personality that thrives on this kind of outrage.

The 45 starters in Oregon are a mixed group of riders, with people who could not afford the steep expense of RAAM, or wanted to accomplish something special. The greatest challenger to Mike Hall is Canadian Jason Lane, who is delighted that he can do this and travel around the world, “pretending to be an athlete and not having to grow up.” Lane appears to ride with minimal sleep, stopping at post offices where he has mailed the ingredients for his liquid diet. Jovial actor Brian Steele is 6 foot 7 inches tall and specializes in playing monster roles for Hollywood.

The Trans America Trail does not appear to go through towns of any significance for the entire stretch. The cyclists face rain as they ride along the Pacific Coast, then turn inland to cross mountains. There is sleet and snow although the race is in June. Horrific winds greet the riders as they come into the Great Plains and make their snail-like progress across Kansas. Unlike RAAM, the cyclists need to arrange their own accommodations and find supplies or mechanical help. This often means sleeping at the side of the road and eating, well, pretty much anything they can get. Considering the scale of the enterprise, nobody is carrying all that much on their bike. Jason Lane says that the time for arranging food and shelter is much more time-consuming than he had expected. As the race unfolds the cyclists become gaunt and a lot less coherent than in Oregon. Mike Hall cannot recall what day it is—but then the organizers in their van can't either.

The filmmakers give us little vignettes of others on the road—a Vietnam war veteran on his bike; an Australian lady riding the Trans America Trail to honour the memory of Martin Luther King; two friends, one from Oregon, the other from Virginia, just riding the Trail for fun, with no plan; a bartender proud of his smoking and drinking and honest approach to life.

There is much of the kindness of strangers. A little bike shop in tiny Newton, Kansas, is open at all hours to help the riders; a lady forces money on Juliana Buhrling to buy food; a pair of enthusiasts in a small town offer Brian Steele a free dinner, which he is happy to accept. But even help from friendly people is not enough to overcome health or mechanical issues or just total exhaustion. In the end 25 of the starters make it to Yorktown. Mike Hall, unsurprisingly, has led almost from the first day and rolls up to the monument that marks the end of the race a full day ahead of his closest competitor. It has taken him 17 days and 16 hours. The 25^th rider comes in at 116 days.

Sadly, the road can take its toll. The Australian lady doing her tour never reached the end, becoming another traffic fatality in America. And Mike Hall himself died in a collision in March 2017 after having completed 5,000 kms of the 5,500 km Indian Pacific Wheel Race in Australia and holding second place at the time.

“Inspired to Ride” shows what determined people can accomplish and the joy of each finisher as they come into Yorktown, no matter when, is infectious. The filmmakers have chosen to feature not only the scenic delights of the route but also the rather grim flatlands, with their endless winds and straight roads, to show the diversity of the race landscape. The riders are in their world during the TransAm and it is worth joining them through this well-made documentary.

“Inspired to Ride” is 128 minutes in length and may be purchased as a digital download at https://watch.inspiredtoride.it/. The website also has information about how to host a screening of the film, along with a selection of merchandise.

Learn more about the TransAm Bicycle Race at: https://transambikerace.com/

Movie Review: MAMIL

The acronym MAMIL for “Middle Aged Men in Lycra” has, from its inception several years ago in a British newspaper, always had something of a derogatory air to it. To the majority of people, MAMILs are Caucasian males of a certain age who shamelessly jam themselves into ill-fitting and disturbingly revealing clothing to slowly ride their incredibly expensive pro-wannabe carbon bikes while selfishly blocking traffic. But as a new Australian-produced film--its latest single night showings to be across Canada on Thursday, November 30—indicates, there is so much more to the story.

One would think that the term MAMIL, when first coined, would cause some cheap laughs and disappear soon enough. In fact, with the explosive growth of high-end cycling and all its accoutrements, including those carbon bikes and flyweight components, Alpine tours, advanced training programs, and even better Lycra, the MAMILs did not disappear at all but in fact the word was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2014.

The MAMIL movie opens with a sequence in which a number of person-in-the-street chats in which the interviewees express their unparalleled revulsion at the wear of Lycra. We then go into the world of the MAMIL in Australia, with the Fatboys Cycling Club. The Fatboys, based in Adelaide and operating since 1995, are apparently the largest recreational cycling group in South Australia. The club looks like a pretty typical MAMIL haunt, with about 100 members, early morning group rides and a lot of socializing.

This is from the club's website:

Why do we ride? No one is really sure. With an average age upward of 50, it could be a late mid-life thing. We like to think it is driven by the need to keep fit, lose weight and spend time with our mates. But it is more likely the mix of endorphins, adrenaline and caffeine (and the need to talk crap) that hits us at the end of a big ride. This is when we all get together and remind each other what heroes we could have been and ponder why our families fail to appreciate our cycling prowess. 

But MAMIL is about much more than “cycling prowess” as it tells not only the Fatboys story but of cyclists in Britain, New York, Minnesota, Iowa, and California as well. All of those profiled have very different reasons for cycling and it is clear that MAMILs are a group of great diversity. Cycling is an end to find some kind of fulfillment.

 What are the different reasons for cycling? For many, like the Fatboys, there is camaraderie on the open road, the opportunity to push one's physical limits with others suffering the same effort, to sit around and laugh about it all afterwards. A barrister from Australia with a high-pressure job finds a release on what he considers a self-indulgent vacation as he follows the Vuelta with a tour group. For some it is finding like-minded people, such as the gay cycling group in New York City, or the devout church group in Minnesota. But for others cycling has a much more serious purpose. For example, the East Side Cycling Club of Los Angeles was formed when its founder, who was morbidly obese, asked friends to come with him as he started to ride and not only did his health improve but others joined in seeking the same kind of support. A British father of two seeing his fitness fall apart in middle age was determined to regain control of his life. Another in the UK learned that he had MS and discovered that while his unresponsive right side meant walking was difficult it did not affect his balance on the bicycle. A Fatboy found solace in his club as he suffered from depression. A paraplegic discovers a new world riding a tandem recumbent with his wife.

 A group of friends in Australia rallied around one of their number who was diagnosed with cancer and joined a charity ride and have formed their own club (yes, named MAMIL) that has raised a good deal of money. And an English rider, who regrets that he gave up too early on what might have been a pro racing career decades ago, grits his teeth and hammers away at local races determined to crush men half his age.

Of course, being a MAMIL is not without its downsides. The president of a local racing club has to juggle unpleasant administrative work and steps back, in spite of his success at it, when he realizes how much time it costs. There is time away from the family in order to train, the considerable expense of the equipment, and, worst of all is the risk of very serious injury. Several riders are rolling GoPro stations as they record encounters with hostile and dangerous drivers. There is an interview with what must be the world's unluckiest cyclist, an Australian who gets confused about what has happened in his chain of life-threatening accidents, but who is back out riding with his club while wearing a neck brace. The president of the Fatboys breaks his back in a mountain bike crash.

Being a middle aged male can be tough generally as it becomes an interlude to reflect on a half lifetime of accomplishment as well as goals unfulfilled. The clock is running and everyone in this often amusing but sensitive documentary is aware of it. The barrister, who is agonizing over his trip to Spain as he thinks it is short-changing his partner should be less stressed as she would only need to watch him in this film as he stands on the edge of the time trial course as Alberto Contador blasts by. He looks like the happiest man on earth as he watches.

 

“MAMIL” will be shown on one-time screenings in Canada on Thursday, November 30. For more information about these showings or to get the film into a theatre near you go to https://ca.demand.film/mamil/

Movie Night: “Race Across the Sky–the Leadville Trail 100"

The documentary about the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race that premiered in November finally reached the Great White North for two showings, January 27 and February 7. Although I don’t know much about mountain biking, I thought it would be interesting to attend since there are not a lot of films about cycling of any kind and reviews I had read sounded pretty positive.

I have been to Leadville, Colorado, and recall its Wild West ambiance and the fact that I had a splitting headache. The town is 10,152 feet (3094 m) above sea level, so the air is pretty thin. The town once had a population of 40,000 during the great silver boom of the 1880s but as the mines closed, the community withered.

One of those miners, Ken Chlouber, thought that Leadville had more to offer than underground tunnels and pits and in 1983 he organized the first Leadville Trail 100 race, which starts in the town and proceeds on asphalt, dirt roads, fire roads, and singletrack trails out for 50 miles, where the racers turn around and head back in the opposite direction. In that first race, there were 45 cyclists, of whom 10 actually finished. In 2009, there were 1400 starters.

In 2008, Lance Armstrong, coming out of retirement, participated in the race and came second to Dave Wiens, who was clocking his sixth consecutive win and who set a record time that year. This film, “Race Across the Sky,” is the account of the 2009 race, in which Armstrong, fresh from his third place position at the Tour de France, comes back looking for something better than second place.

The race, from the briefing session in the big gymnasium, to the volunteers on the course, has the feel of a big folk festival. But the coverage by the filmmakers is anything but amateur as they use footage from motorbikes and a helicopter, as well as little interviews with participants, to tell the story. The Main Event, of course, is the race between Dave, the local hero, and Lance, but the other stories are great. There is a woman participating just over a year after a car going 60 mph hit her on a training ride. She had terrible injuries, including a broken back, torn gluteus maximus, and a destroyed ACL in her knee. Her husband, still upset at the memory of the crash, talked about her getting onto the trainer wearing a body cast and brace, and here she was, riding one of the toughest marathon bike races in the United States. Another racer was a woman who had been diagnosed with MS twenty years ago. A lighter note was provided by the cyclist who had ridden all 15 prior editions of the race on the same mountain bike, with the same first-generation helmet, and even with the same front tire!

The filmmakers used a great piece of animation to show the course and illustrate the difficult areas. Then it was off to the races as everyone assembled at 5:50 a.m. for what must have been an ice-cold start. Very quickly, a small group of elite riders formed at the front and these seven would animate the race for the rest of the day.

I had always thought that a mountain bike race would be extremely technical but looking at this race I could see how a road racer would do well. There are some long, flat sections, both paved and unpaved, and if you could work it properly you could gain a lot of time. One of the riders, an Olympic mountain biker, was using drop handlebars to obviously take advantage of these sections of road and get aero. Lance Armstrong quickly showed his tactical sense and worked with another rider to set a blistering pace at the front. Since many of the climbs were fairly open, given Lance’s ascending skills it was obvious to me that he would continue to gain time on the pure mountain bike racers and this was the case. He even rode through the feed zone like a Tour de France champ, grabbing a musette and eating on the fly. And for comic relief, we had the opportunity to see him attempt to fix a flat.  I do have to point out that he rides the entire muddy, rainy, slippery course wearing white shoes.

In spite of knowing what the outcome of the race would be, I found it exciting to watch this impressive event, rolling through wonderful scenery. Parts of the course are simply brutal–one section called the Pipeline follows a right-of-way and seems to be made of rocks and dirt stacked vertically. Remember, cyclists have to descend this on the way out, and climb it on the way back. To add to the fun, the slower participants had the opportunity to enjoy a hail storm as they climbed the highest mountain, which gets you to almost 13,000 feet. At no point is the course under 9,000 feet.

The Leadville Trail 100 is just one of a series of races, including running events as well as cycling ones, that are now taking place in this little Colorado town. I enjoyed the film and would recommend it as an entertaining and, yes, perhaps inspirational, addition to the bike film genre.