“Terrorism forces us to make a choice. We can be afraid. Or we can be ready.”
– Tom Ridge, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
– Veronica Quaife in “The Fly”A lot of people were making fun of Tom Ridge the other day, and I’d love to be able to say I wasn’t one of them. But having been raised amid the duck-and-cover slapstick of the Cold War, when a grade-school desk on an Air Force base was my best defense against a Soviet SS-7 ICBM, the notion of swaddling my World War II-era house in plastic and duct tape was a real blast (you should pardon the expression) from the past.

While you wait for Christo, who has turned Glad-wrapping things into an artistic career of sorts, to expand on this homeland-defense theme at a Home Depot near you, try to remember that shrink-wrapping the average stick-built suburban bungalow against anthrax, VX and radioactive fallout is akin to rolling a rubber on before diving naked into a shark tank full of blood. Or so it seems to me after spending many an air-raid drill contemplating the dried boogers underneath my desk in a drafty classroom at Randolph AFB Elementary School.

Still, as the talking heads are fond of repeating like so many immaculately coiffed parrots, everything has changed, and I can only assume that this includes bicycle racing, where grade-school desks are in short supply, though grade-school mentalities abound, especially if Robbie McEwen hasn’t had his nap and is all tired and cranky.

So just in case, here’s an updated duck-and-cover manual for the Lycra-and-titanium set:

• Be prepared. Terrorists, unlike the White House, do not spend a year or two calling press conferences to announce where and when they’ll be relocating you to a smoking hole deep in the earth. Like Jacky Durand, they attack where and when they feel like it – say, while you’re off the front at the Tour de Industrial Park, that $10 prime practically in your wallet.

As the crisis unfolds, amid the rattling of Kalashnikovs, the thudding of satchel charges and the shrieking of masters racers demanding their entry fees back, you may not be able to get back to your Ziploc-bagged Toyota Celica and its Igloo cooler full of salami, Cheez Whiz and PBR.

Thus, the savvy bike racer will toe the start line wearing a Kelty Tornado 4000 internal-frame backpack laden with freeze-dried food, bottled water and filtration system, camp stove with extra propane canisters, strike-anywhere matches, flint and steel, flashlight, radio and extra batteries for both, a loaded Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol with three extra magazines, two boxes of ammo and cleaning kit, hunting knife, plastic sheeting and duct tape, compass, night-vision goggles, gas mask, first-aid kit with potassium-iodide tablets, sleeping bag and bivy sack, extra clothing, jungle boots and foul-weather gear, toilet paper, the U.S. Army Survival Manual, an English-Arabic dictionary, and a fake mustache, some Neutrogena Instant Bronze and a black beret just in case Allah really is on their side.

They’ll be clocking you with a sundial at the state time-trial championships, and a calendar at the Mount Washington Hill Climb, but hey - you’d be a lot slower if you were dead.

• Know where you are in the pack. Never has this traditional caveat been more important. When the sirens start yowling, you don’t want to be anywhere near the pony-tailed lefty in the tie-dyed jersey redolent of Humboldt County bud, patchouli oil and stale tear gas from the Colorado Springs peace rally. He thinks war was the band Eric Burdon was in after he split from the Animals. Slot in next to the lantern-jawed dude with the scars, the thousand-yard stare and the “Death Before Dishonor” tattoo, whose first race was probably on a captured VC bike on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

• Keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Like, say, the sudden appearance in midpack of a swarthy gent wearing a “Jihad Velo” jersey, a jet-black ’stache that makes Uncle Joe Stalin’s bushy cookie duster look like someone drew it on with a 3H pencil, and a rocket launcher. Don’t panic: Simply wave over the nearest motor ref’ and ask that Saddam Junior be DQd under USCF rules, specifically chapter 194, subsection 42, paragraph 3, line 78, to wit, “Permissible facial hair: Bicycle racers shall wear only the Van Dyke, goatee or ‘soul patch.’ (Exception: See ‘Tour of Qatar).”

• Trust no one. Especially in the feed zone. A positive dope test is the least of your worries if that volunteer wearing the kaffiyeh and an evil leer hands you a smoking water bottle. Better to be a little dehydrated than a whole lot disintegrated.

• Don’t just be informed - be an informer. Take a page from the administration’s book and make terrorism work for you. For example, a bunch of masters from the People’s Republic of Boulder pretty much win everything around here just ’cause they, like, train and stuff, instead of staying up until midnight, drinking wine and jotting down odd concepts. So I’m gonna Photoshop® Osama into one of their team pics and FedEx it to Donald Rumsfeld with a Baghdad return address. Before you can say semper fido, their first race this season will be against a platoon of Green Beanies from the 10th Special Forces, and the last podium they’ll ever see will include a trap door and a noose.

Unless, of course, they’ve prepared for the worst and are crouched under their desks, cocooned in duct tape and plastic.

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After reading the above, surely you realize that the pointless screechings of the hopelessly deranged author bear no resemblance whatsoever to the lofty principles espoused by VeloNews, VeloNews.com, Inside Communications Inc., our sister publications, investors, our employees (full-time, part-time, temporary and permanent), our suppliers, subscribers, parents, children, our second cousin in Cleveland, the Department of Homeland Security, Donald Rumsfeld and the doped-to-the-eyeballs former pros who dominate Colorado masters racing, where “drug testing” means taking a bong hit and croaking, “Good shit, dude,” between clenched teeth.Furthermore, the author has asked us to remind you that he does notactually advocate wrapping yourself in plastic and duct tape "unless youare Elle McPherson, stone naked, and ..." well, you get the point.Anyway, if you wanna go ahead and tell us (and your fellow readers)what you think this of this article, its author or the topic, why not dropus a line at Webletters@7Dogs.com?We'll post some of the better ones. We promise.