#DougShapiro

[saulkamionsky-blog]

"I got stronger and stronger" - 'The Bullet' looks back

The Tour de France, one of the most-watched sporting events with an average TV viewership of 2.6 billion, currently has cycling fans fastened to their sofas.

Unbeknown to many, a Jewish cyclist competed in the world’s most popular multiple stage race in 1985.

New Yorker Doug Shapiro caught the cycling bug as a youngster despite initially being exposed to football.

"I grew up just outside New York City and played soccer – like most kids," says Shapiro, who was the third ever American to finish the Tour, following Jock Boyer and three-time winner Greg LeMond.

"When I was 13, during the off season our coach suggested that we do another sport to keep fit. There was a German language professor in the school who ran a cycling club, so I joined it and we went to see a race, I was like – Wow! I want to do this."

The following week he rode that very same race and won it.

When he started the 1985 Tour de France, however, he had a very different motive. In cycling parlance, he was a domestique for Joop Zoetemelk, 6 times second in the Tour De France

"In my role I had to keep [Joop] out of the wind, bring him food and drink from the car, keep him at the front coming in to climbs," Shapiro says.

But, despite undertaking this crucial role, Shapiro showed what a special rider he is by finishing 74th out of a field of 220 riders.

"Joop didn’t speak English and my ‘Nederlands’ wasn’t the best; but most of the rest of the team spoke English. I found that I got stronger and stronger as the race went on – it was very rewarding for me," Shapiro says.

Hoping to also get stronger as the race nears its climax will be the riders considered by cycling aficionados as amongst the favourites for this year’s Tour, including Geraint “G” Thomas, Nairo “Nairoman” Quintana, Vincenzo “The Shark” Nibali and Rigoberto “Rigonator” Urán.

And Shapiro has something in common with all this year's favourites - a nickname. The Bullet. This weapon-like sobriquet was due to the immense power he possessed in his armoury as a hill climber and sprinter – a combination of traits that has seen modern sensation Peter Sagan win the points classification in the Tour a record equalling six times.

Shapiro was a member of the American Olympic Team in 1980 and 1984 respectively. However, he was not able to participate in the former due to United States participation in the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott, for which he and his teammates received a Congressional Gold Medal at the White House.

With a medal in his trophy cabinet, an emboldened Shapiro went on to win what was then American's top cycling stage race - the Coors Classic in 1984 and he describes this as "probably my biggest achievement."

"Many of the riders who rode the LA Olympics were there and the likes of the 7-Eleven team were riding, too. There was a guy called Bob [Eucher] there, he was a talent scout for Kwantum and he saw my performance. That led to a ride with a composite team in the Olympia Tour of Holland where I went well – and the Kwantum contract came from there."

This race was so highly cherished that, in the subsequent two years, it was won by LeMond and five-time Tour de France champion Bernard Hinault. The latter would go on to win the 1985 Tour ahead of LeMond and Stephen Roche.

Tejay van Garderen, America’s brightest hope, has already crashed out of this year’s Tour and Shapiro also fell victim to "some very bad accidents" in his cycling career.

“In 1987 I was out with Eric Heiden on the bike," Shapiro says. "We were on the way to the cyclo-cross Nationals, test riding some new tyres on the ride there. I slipped, came down and broke my femur, Eric had just started at medical school and I might have died were it not for him being there.”

He was even more unlucky in the following year. "I was in the break of four at the Coors Classic in Reno and the four of us came down on a corner. I was OK but as I got up, the bunch rode into me at full tilt," Shapiro says. "I was in a wheelchair, I couldn’t walk, and my leg has never been the same since. I came back in ’89 – my last race was in September of that year and I came second.

A year later, however, Shapiro was back in the sport albeit in a different way. He acted as the technical advisor and technical writer for the video "Cycling for Success,” produced by the 7-Eleven Bike team. The video was the first of its kind to offer cycling safety tips and techniques.

Today, Shapiro, who resides in Marin County, California, owns and operates Shapiro & Associates.

“It’s a thing that’s very close to my heart. Now I’m a crime scene investigator in situations where cyclists and cars have collided. But I also keep in touch with guys like Chris Carmichael and Bob Roll and watch all the races."

He is still just 59-years-old, but the man who can be described as a ‘Doug of all cycling trades’ is also a public speaker and has hosted many cycling training camps and educational seminars for bike shops, cycling fanatics, and racers of all levels.

In addition to his years in the pro peloton, he’s also been hit by a car. It was not the first time that he experienced both physical and mental pain simultaneously, but he certainly knows how to bite the bullet.

#DougShapiro #tour de france