Paul Sherwen, 1956-2018

Look, I'm just a fan--I never knew the man. But the dulcet tones of Phil & Paul were the soundtrack of my intro to, and most of my watching of, pro cycling. How it could possibly be interesting to watch a bike race for six hours. The attacks, the dangers, the hard-working ennui of sitting in the bunch waiting for the final 2 kilometers of a sprint. How team tactics, no matter how weak or strong the legs, could win, or kill, a race. How a 200 meter long increase in the gradient of a climb could be enough to completely blow one's engine and destroy one's stage-win dreams. How GC could be decided by a moment's inattention, an ill-timed drink break, a minor mechanical. The historical significance of a 12th-century chateau, precisely what bottle of wine he and Phil enjoyed with what entrees the last time the Tour de France chanced this way. And yes, the brief, exhilarating naivete of believing that sporting miracles do happen, that a 7-man train ticking impermeably up a fourth straight Alpine climb could be just impossibly strict training and perfect symmetry of spirit, that one man could shine that brightly, without guile, cheating, and the ruthlessness to use personal tragedy and the sympathy it rightly engendered as a cudgel to all challengers on the road, but particularly off. That, once exposed, such things were an anomaly, a scrubbable stain on a beautiful sport, its essential purity untouched by the fleeting minutiae of individual vanity and sordid scandal. In the US, for years he and Phil together were cycling's only TV ambassadors, both riding and shepherding the Armstrong era's ridiculous ratings to Stateside coverage of other races, the perfect Giro, the maddening Vuelta, the brawling combat of Paris-Roubaix. And who better to recall and recite the precise career trajectory and sing the slender palmares of every unsung workhorse who ever snuck out of a breakaway, benefitted from the dismissal or just other ambitions of greater riders, or cracked within meters of the line after the daring dash of a lifetime? If a name got misidentified here and there, if an entire generation of commentators, journalists, and even fans was left to grapple with its own complicity, these were far outweighed by the obvious love for the sport that he so thoroughly engendered in others. Condolences to all who knew, loved, and worked with him. No other commentators have ever replaced him, and I can't imagine any ever will. Thank you, Paul Sherwen. You'll be missed.