Even though in today’s mountain bike world the bikes are better, the clothing more appropriate, and there are more trails to ride, there’s no denying the early 90s were the Golden Age of Mountain Biking. Just look at these fellas, and tell me I’m wrong. Tomac knew what was up. You don’t get such a badass…
Category: Racing
Ok all you roadies, listen up. You’re not gonna like what I’m about to tell you, but it’s the truth. And sometimes, the truth hurts. You ready? Road cycling owes a lot to mountain biking. “You what?!” I hear you screaming at the monitor in disgust. “Road cycling has been around for more than a…
The Skype conversation went like this: Brett: “Remember Laurent Dufaux?” Frank: “How can I forget? Twat.” Brett: “What was that fucker on? Always hanging on in the Alps, suffering like a dog but never once did he attack. Ever. Just always hanging on.” And that was all that was said on the matter. Our little…
My trouble isn’t with being a good descender; it is with cornering and stopping – and sometimes both. Or, as G’rilla puts it, “Descending is like sex; how good I am at it has nothing to do with how much I enjoy it.” Descending is demanding and requires great skill. It is not a time…
Think back to the early days of mountain biking. A bunch of friends, getting to the top of the hill any way they could, not needing to ride up at any great pace, saving themselves for the real buzz, the ride back down. It didn’t matter who got tot the top first, as long as…
Domination, at least from the spectator’s point of view, can quickly wring the suspense and excitement out of watching an event. In most cases, the sporting events we look back on most fondly are those most closely fought; even in recalling my own competitions, those where my winning margin was smallest feature most prominently in…
There is a sense of weightlessness that accompanies speed; a strange feeling for any Earthbound creature who temporarily breaks Gravity’s relentless grip – an intoxicating blend of liberty and a sense impeding doom. The day I learned to ride a bike, I felt this sensation spread through me like a virus; immediately my eyes cast…
I’m not too proud to admit to having multiple phobias against various things. That’s phobia multiplicity. Having a phobia against something is very simliar to having a normal phobia, except that in addition to being irrationally scared of something, you also harbor a stifling grudge against it. Also possibly irrationally. For example, I have been diagnosed with…
It’s not a secret around these parts that William Fotheringham is my favorite Cycling journalist. Growing up as a budding Velominatus in the isolated island known as North America, I could count on one hand the publications that even mentioned Cycling, let alone provided reliable coverage. Winning Magazine and Velonews were my source for race…
Update: You can watch the live stream (assuming it works from the velodrome) on the Velominati channel at USTREAM. When you log in, you’ll first see my little test video of my puppy eating grass. Please disregard me yelling at it. That never happened. I have always considered myself to have a good imagination, something…
We’re into day three of the Six Days of the Giro series, and it’s time to hit the dirt. If ever a Keepers Tour goes to Italy, then we’re doing this climb. No doubt. Climbing on gravel up a real mountain, what’s not to love? In fact, you could probably do an entire Italian Gravé…
Was Paris-Roubaix the best of the Spring Classics in 2013? Milan-Sanremo was amazingly photogenic, Ronde van Vlaanderen was inevitable but Roubaix was just about perfect. We all prefer the wet and gray “This weather is good for us” Roubaix yet this race’s drama transcended the fine spring day in the North of France. There is…
Winning one Monument in a career is more than most Pros will ever achieve. Winning two in a season, nearly impossible. Winning two a week apart, it has been done more than a few times, by only the toughest of men. The Ronde and Roubaix both have cobbles but that is about all they have…
My first article on Velominati was to introduce one of my favorite cyclists, Eros Poli. I refered to him as a domestique on the Mercatone-Uno team. This faux pas was properly pointed out much later by @KaffeineKeiser, a commenter who suddenly surfaced and unfortunately submerged just as quickly, like Das Boot in the Straits of Gibraltar.* I…
As a dyed-in-the-wool Northerner, my time living in the South was a mixed bag. Southerners think differently, speak differently, eat differently, and prioritize life differently than do Yankees. In many ways, I became a better person during my time in the South, learning to relax a little bit and stop chasing my tail over everything all…
Cycling is hard; I’m not leaking any trade secrets with that statement, but it feels good to say it anyway. No Cyclist avoids suffering, but of those who venture into our world, there are some who seek to limit it while others choose to embrace it. Then we have a handful of characters who consider…
In order to win one must first make it into the selection. The selection, as it were, can take many forms; a lone break away, a small group, or half the peloton. It can happen within the last 500 meters of a race as it does in a sprint finish or, more rarely, from the…
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…
Cycling and crashing are the kinds of things that come together whenever you liberally combine Newtonian Physics, skill, and overconfidence. In other words, I’ve been falling off my bike for nearly as long as I’ve been climbing on it. One of the more memorable crashes of my youth involved the commute home from my high school…
As I gaze across my living room and see the final packages of the Spring Order’s V-Kit ready for shipment, I’m reminded that the time has come to finalize the Summer V-Kit Order. We will close the order August 3, 2012 – assuming we reach our minimum order quantities set by Castelli – which will…