The Billionaires' Bike Club

Cycling has a strange appeal to wealthy, high-achieving sorts. Maybe it's because the sport rewards effort -- you get out of it what you put in, both in training hours and in Benjamins spent on fancy bike gear. It really helps to have a $5,000 carbon-fiber steed! I know! So here's this group called the "Champions Club," a couple dozen wealthy cycling enthusiasts who donate six-figure sums to development programs for US cyclists. That's a good thing. In return, they get to hang with the pro riders of the Discovery Channel (formerly U.S. Postal Service) team. Oh, and Lance. And of course you need to stay in shape to do that, which is not easy if you're running a billion-with-a-B hedge fund or, say, Wal-Mart, whose chairman is a member (why they don't sell better bikes, or offer bike parking, or build bike paths to their stores, is not clear). Anyway, I did this piece on the Champions, and on U.S. Cycling godfather Thom Weisel, the man who first sponsored Lance, for Outside last July.