It is October, the last VSP of the season is up, there is still some race in China no one cares about. The road racing season is over. It is time for a little Velominati reflection. We tried to put in as many women’s races into the VSP as we could. They get little press,…
Category: Guest Article
What does this have to do with the Worlds? Nothing, but it makes me laugh and includes a wicked photograph so this is the guest article today. @roadslave joined the 2012 Keepers Tour for the full week of riding and ranting and he was excellent at both. He rode at the front with a Chris…
@snoov moves the topic away from Lance, doping, EPMS, and Berty’s Spanish adventures. Our brains are so crammed with nonsense our childhood memories get jammed deep down into the center. A memory waits to be released and sometimes it’s a remembered smell that floats it up to the surface. VLVV, Gianni My front tyre has…
Bradley Wiggins; have we seen too much of him now? The answer to that would be yes, unless you are British. Thank god the British road race strategy blew up in their faces. Had Cav won the Olympic road race we really would all be in a spot of British bother. @blackpooltower has a theory…
Even Wiggo said it’s just a bike race. Bike racing may be just that but Cycling is life. And Love is life and it’s amazing when they all get tangled up together. We first heard from @Farzani months ago; a Belgian in training. She said she had an on-going story to tell and asked if…
When we announced Keepers Tour 2012, one of the first to put up his hand and pony up for the Cobbled Classics experience was my good mate Rigid. When I first met this Wellington rider four or five years ago, his enthusiasm for cycling (on and off-road) was evident, but his grasp on the finer…
@eightzero is throwing down the sweaty gauntlet here. He has a vision of a V-kitted, Rule compliant freight train of pain. Normally this post would be directly slotted into the Cogal section but it technically is not a Cogal: it has an entry fee, it’s too organized and people will not get lost. We have,…
We are lucky to have @wiscot as a contributor of guest articles. He eschews the carbon ball for real research and his love of cycling history is heartfelt. As the Dauphine winds down @wiscot spins a story of real toughness on the bike. VLVV, Gianni It may have been late May in the south of…
Morten Okbo joins us on the second rest day of il Giro (even though it really feels like only the first rest day) to tell the tale of the Giro making its start in his homeland of Denmark. Morten is a long-time reader of Velominati, but distinguishes himself amongst our Guest Contributors as also being…
It is my great pleasure to bring @Dan_R’s article to the Velominati. Frank has recently written about cycling as an addiction. It’s a “good” addiction but it is more than that. We worry about our Strava numbers, debate sock height, but forget that the simple act of cycling with others can offer more than just…
Keeper Jim and I came across Meg Fisher during an icy-rain Rule #9 training ride on Mercer Island in March. The first thing that struck us was that there was a good rider up the road, one of the few braving those cold, wet, early morning hours. It wasn’t until we caught up to her that…
Finally we can speak to this Paris-Roubaix mythology. The Keepers Tour group rode twenty-one sectors at something much slower than race speed. After the first sector we regrouped and we were all stunned by how bad it was. Twenty more sectors of that? That was horrendously tough. The first sectors are the easy ones. The…
While the rest of us where bickering over the style in which the finale of one of the most exciting editions of Milano-Sanremo played out, @Pedale.Forchetta was busy behind the finish line, living and breathing the reality of the race. He spent the day following the race to photograph the riders and tifosi and generously…
Our balaclava wearing friend, @Oracle, submitted this winter reflection on the V. The article is a little ripe, but for many, spring is still a long way off and the gym or a balaclava are the only solutions to some tough questions. Yours in Cycling, Gianni — This past winter, I went round a bit…
One couldn’t get much further from Shropshire, England than Adelaide, South Australia (in more ways than just lat-long) and yet here is another Velominatus, shaving his legs and going for his first 160km test ride. I can’t resist the far flung symmetry of these two great guest articles. 3500 riders, closed roads, Old Willunga Hill,…
One of the cairns on the unknowable path to Cyclist is riding one’s first unimaginable distance. In the non-metric world it would be the first 100 mile ride, an unholy distance if one has never done it. And there is nothing for it. Come up with a rationalization, a plan, an excuse, something that forces…
The fear of crashing is there but we can’t let override our pleasure in cycling. @mblume writes of this and underplays his riding the Haute Route. That ride alone should be a long article about abiding Rule V. Yours in Cycling, Gianni As a transplanted American living in Europe for 12 years, I have had…
Duck and cover! Our guest article series rolls on with @scaler911’s Anatomy of a Photo. Photo, words, enough said. Yours in Cycling, Gianni — Ah, The Queen of Classics. Hell of the North. L’enfer du Nord. Call it what you will, every spring we Velominati cherish this monument. Every April the course is set to…
@wiscot’s article speaks of cyclists of our youths and Jan Raas made a big impression on the young Gianni. Do the Dutch have a harder Hardman? He went on to become a director-sportif and I pity the riders under his command, they must have suffered like dogs. I cannot find a photo to document this…
This week Velominati is publishing a selection of guest contributions. It shouldn’t be fun but it is, until it’s not. I’m talking Rule #9 here and @King Clydesdale brings us a perfect example of why a Rule should be a Rule and why the proof is in the riding. Yours in Cycling, Gianni — Sometimes…