There has been some gravel fever going around; there is a lot of talk of new bikes and new routes. I don’t live in gravel country and have not caught the disease, yet. @Antoniv submitted this tale of gravel. It’s a bit long but the race was long too. For those of us who haven’t…
Category: Guest Article
@prowrench is throwing down the greasy gauntlet. There is truth in his words. We already understand the gap between the professional cyclist and us civilians extends somewhere over the horizon. We can ride the bikes, wear nice kit and ride the race routes but that’s about as close as we can get. No one is…
Rule #12 is a beautiful thing. If all but a handful of Rules had to go, Rule #12 would remain. This Rule smolders in all cyclist’s hearts; the need for a better bike has to be there. It just has to. Rule #12 cannot be extinguished while working in the most dangerous or depressing bike-free…
@wiscot reminds us, things have not always been this way. He is a historian of the sport and it’s always useful to be reminded of how the Tour de France arrived to the here and now. The Tour used to be the last grand tour of the season; a way for some to get fit…
This week’s Guest Article comes from our friend, @blacktoolpower (l) and our editor Drummond Moir (r). In anticipation of our book’s imminent release, these two donned their lab coats and headed out to the streets of London to assess the state of Rule Compliance in the city’s commuter crowd. Always remember: leave this kind of…
Bicycles and automobiles- can’t we all just get along? @Kah writes about this universal (do aliens have this issue also?) problem of us co-existing with humans in cars. We all drive cars too and have cursed the occasional cyclists for some good reason. Cars are our greatest threat. We can crawl away from our own…
We’re heaping coals on the Giro frenzy that’s burning in all corners of the Cycling world by issuing the second installment of the monthly BigRingRiding Sur la Plaque series while at the same time kicking off the Six Days of the Giro series where we’ll post six articles on the subject of this, the best Grand Tour…
Unfortunately the weather for 2013 L-B-L looks a lot nicer than the 1980 episode. Then again, if the weather looked that bad, they might have cancelled the race or put them on buses before Bastogne and driven them back towards Liege. Who would be the Badger of the peloton of this year’s race in those…
While the Northern Hemisphere Velominati were busy arguing about who injected what in the old races they’d been using to distract themselves during their indoor torture sessions, down South a bunch of like minded strangers from the internet decided that coffee, hills, sunshine & beer seemed like a great excuse to meet up for a ride…the reflections…
Keepers Tour 2012 veteran @ChrisO is back to his racing ways in Cyprus. Yes, this is not Northern France; let us take a brief respite and go to warmer Mediterranean climes. This is ChrisO’s second guest article about his racing; his first was a stage race, the Tour of Sharjah, last year. Yours in Cycling, Gianni If you…
As many of you know, there’s been a lot of synergy between BIGRINGRIDING and Velominati for several years now. Though BRR and Velominati have very different flavors, we work on a similar principle: foster passion for the sport through a mix of knowledge, history, and humor tempered with a healthy dose of irreverence, all while…
I don’t have to tell anyone around here that @Cyclops is weird guy; most of you have already figured that out, and if you haven’t figured it out, you will soon enough. But weird doesn’t have any negative meaning, if you ask me. In fact, I’d say we’re all weird which makes normal more suspect….
@scaler911 likes beer and pizza, as we all do. I bet Jensie does too. He races more, we drink more, he has to finish each stage at the Tour, us, not so much. There must be a balance to all our cycling lives. Since we don’t have to earn a living racing we can relax…
Somehow Movember and Vajanuary have slipped out of our grasp without too much fanfare. It’s never too late to pay homage to a ‘stash and a rider such as Urs Freuler. Our trusty cycling historian @wiscot has once again stepped up and delivered, many thanks. Yours in Cycling, Gianni Rule #50 exists for a reason:…
Is this still the off season for the people of the North? I hope so. I know it’s -34 fahrenheit where Marko lives so he is only riding three times a week to prepare for the Keepers Tour. It seems @souleur has a little holiday guilt and now that those damn holidays are behind us…
@steampunk dropped this beauty of a photo on us. Volumes being spoken here, none of which makes being a pro look so great. Thanks Steamy. VLVV, Gianni I’ve waxed lyrical on the darker side of le métier on these pages in the past””on the physical and psychological demands that pro riders endure. But this photograph…
It is less than a week from the longest night of the year for us lucky cyclists in the Northern hemisphere. Articles about lighting systems and losing form are what we cough up. @Strathlubnaig has even shorter days than most of us, works at sea, gets out on the bike and writes about it. Rule…
Is anyone else in need of some bike racing? I’m strung out and need a fix. @chrisO has come to the rescue by actually racing his bike and filing a proper report. He didn’t just jump into some Sunday Cat IV event either. He raced a stage race, the Tour of Sharjah, which might be…
I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the Lance affair. That is a long wait. And I’m burned out on the whole doping subject so it’s great @wiscot writes up a profile of Charlie Mottet. Here is a man whose sock height I can believe in. VLVV, Gianni It was, in the…
With the writing of our first book supposedly well underway (but in reality being discussed ad-nauseum in the Boardroom rather than actually committed to text), The Rules have at least been getting some form of attention from The Keepers. When deciding which Rules each of us were to curate, no-one really had much idea what…