I saw the Black Crowes in concert some years ago, and as the band swung into their first number, Chris Robinson casually strolled onstage wearing head to toe white sequins. Later in the show, he remarked that nothing quite makes you feel like a virgin like wearing white. The color white is indeed a bold statement….
I spent the entire winter doing morning Spanish Interval Sessions, wherein one dons all their winter riding kit (including wooly hat) before climbing aboard the turbo in a hopeless attempt to sweat themselves thin. The flaw in the method is less in its commitment and more in its lack of effectiveness, although the magnitude of the commitment feels…
I was recently asked how one is supposed to handle the delicate situation when departing a traffic signal and you are unable to clip in immediately. The obvious answer is that you’re supposed to clip in right away (use your toe to position the pedal and then pop your shoe into it) but I admit…
Outside of East Flanders, little is known of Bart Vanacker’s elder half-brother Fons. Around the streets of Ronse, however, The Fons was a regular sight, well-dressed, perfect hair with a beaming smile and “hallo!” for everyone whose path he would cross on his daily walk to Fons’ Flandrien Farming outlet, the business he’d established in 1974 in…
Europe is full of history, ancient buildings filled with original masterpieces of art that you can spend days discovering. Looking at these artworks lasts but a moment, the only way to retain their majesty by memory or memory card. Other works of art take different forms, and some of these can be taken with you….
I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. -Vincent Van Gogh Poor old Vinnie may have been Dutch, mad as a cut snake, riddled with gonorrhea, a romantic in the most insane sense, and a raging alcoholic, but despite these encumbrances he knew a bit about the use of colour. He also spent…
Live music is better than recorded music. It’s a given. Having that connection, where you’re sharing the same space as the artist is a unique experience that can’t be replicated on a plastic disc. To receive the gift from the giver personally is a moment of intimacy not possible if it arrives in a package in the mail….
Ya don’t fuck with a Planckaert. Do so at your own peril. And that’s any shorts length debate settled, too.
I’m not a good dancer. I’ve come to this conclusion not through study but through ridicule and injury. Apparently it demands the ability to exhibit control over your limbs in some rhythmic capacity where “rhythmic” is defined both as “not chaotic” and “not stationary”. To make matters worse, this extends to all your limbs, not…
Waiting has never been my strong point. I’m anxious, but don’t really suffer from anxiety. Good things come to those who wait isn’t at the top of my list of proverbs to live by. Do What Thou Wilt always has been, though; kind of a Just Do It for early 20th century Satanists, and me….
To keep chickens is to walk a path towards introspection. From the songs they sing after laying an egg (which I assume is “chicken” for “I’m Every Woman“) to the sheer glee they show when they find a worm in the mud, chickens provide a perfect example of living life in and for the moment. The…
Every time we get on our bikes, we are playing a game of Russian Roulette. We take care to maintain our machines, to make sure they are in perfect running order, we look after our bodies to maximise our performance, and we, hopefully, abide by the rules of the road to keep ourselves safe from…
Freddy effortlessly demonstrates Rules #80 and #82, the Three-Point System, and the Goldilocks Principle while his mechanic calmly swaps a mortal’s wheel for one that can withstand his ferocious sprint. All the while, a young Colonel Sanders looks on with bemused disapproval. For anyone still wondering whether the 70’s was the coolest decade ever, it was.
Everyone knows that the quality of one’s character is measured by the size gear they can push, particularly when going uphill. It is also a well-established fact that no self-respecting Flemish Pro would ever ride a Compact, no matter what condition their knees are in or how ferocious the gradient. Which, by extension, means that…
If you ever doubted for a minute that the hardmen of yore drafted the blueprint for The Rules, you need only look at these fine examples to be reminded that no matter how limited the resources they had to work with, they still managed to do a better job of Looking Fantastic than we ever could….
Yes, I know, I have a major thing for Boonen. But come on, wouldn’t you? Look at those guns. Look at that position on the bike. He even makes that ugly Specialized helmet look good. He even makes that ugly Specialized Roubaix look good, come to think of it. And those White Ladies? Kill me…
What do you do during the off-season when your name is Roger de Vlaeminck and you’re a certified organic free-range studmuffin? You roll down to the local Six Day in your Chick MagnetTM tweed suit and bring the ladies in for your pals while you stay Pre-Race Kelly, that’s what.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’d need a thousand just to describe the carefully disheveled cap placement. I’d need another grand just to describe the positioning of the cranks or front skewer or downtube shifters. I’d be another mille mot in the hole to discuss the fit of the jersey or the white…
It was Frank’s recent post that started all this. Mentioning Breukink always makes me think of my friend’s saying, “I have a Breukink in my Van Hooydonk” as his excuse for coming up short on a long training ride. Maybe that’s only funny during a long training ride. That phrase put me back onto Van…