18 and Life: an ode to the 90's

The 90's were awesome. To be clear I'm not living in the past, I was a terrified geek in the 90's, and I'm not about to try to relive that... just saying if you weren't around you kind of missed out. Let's put it in perspective, we all started listening to some really good but kind of silly music, and none of us knew about the importance of fresh veggies and protein until The Zone. Literally, a book had to come out and tell us that those two things are important to healthy living.

I don't know how we got through it, but then again I have no idea how everyone didn't die in the 80's.

Let's get back on track, if something happened in cycling, we either had to be there at the actual event, or wait a couple months until the pictures came out in print magazines. Print magazines. Words printed on real paper. The pictures were from the same guy who wrote the story and he had to go to a place and wait to have them actually developed.

I remember once speaking into a payphone. In a booth and everything.

Concerning the road side of cycling, there was Indurain and Pantani and later Lance, all doped to the gills and crushing each other. Cipo was in there, too. I guess I have to say "allegedly" at this point, though it's all pretty much been chronicled. Cold war being over and all, that was our new arms race. I remember hearing from a euro-pro that Indurain, and I was a fan, wasn't even that great of an endurance athlete. "His breathing was loud and not natural when he overtook you." It was a glorious, deadly, tragic time to be watching athletes.

There were the bad trends as well. Regrettables like Skid Row's guitarist sporting an ear-to-nosering chain.

And then there was John Tomac ruling the entire mountain bike world on a drop bar bike. Do you even know how far ahead of his time this guy was? Let's look at one image:

Skinny tires, less than 3" of suspension (be honest), cantis and drop bars. Change the wheel size and that's a semi-modern gravel bike. He even cut the number plate to hell. When I'm on a lonely fire road, I try to look like that guy. In fact, I'm always trying to basically be that guy. 

More 90's fodder to come.