Fitting yourself to your bike properly and being comfortable while riding is probably the most important aspect of cycling. It doesn’t matter if you’re riding the Worlds Lightest Bike or your Clunker Rain Bike/commuter; if you feel good on your bike, it will be a pleasure to ride. My 10 kilo, 8-Speed Shimano 105, fender…
Category: Racing
The tour has been over for a week now, not that I really noticed. And that should have been a capital ‘T’ in “tour”, right? Mea culpa. And a yawn. Don’t get me wrong –I have nothing against the tour. I even think the route was fine (they rode their butts off around France, what more…
Flandrian. While its real definition is a lot more complex than I’d ever imagined, it’s a word that is bandied about frequently here in relation to weather matters far less serious. If it’s bucketing down, a stiff breeze blowing or the air has that frosty bite to it, we are inclined to state “It’s a…
The scorching sprint-dust and verbal detritus emanating from the Manx Mouth hasn’t even settled on the Champs Elysees, and already talk has turned to next year’s Tour. Not surprising, as most of the armchair (and ‘expert’) assessment of this year’s race has been less than complimentary, to say the least. So already we look ahead, hoping…
The Tour has wrapped up for 2009 and it fulfilled it’s usual place in the calendar as the biggest – but not greatest – cycling event of the year. It was strange getting up this morning and not having the Tour blasting on Versus while we got ready for work; I miss Phil and Paul…
Well, it’s time for predictions using my carbon ball, which is lighter if less effective for peering into than your typical crystal ball commonly used for these types of activities. Status Check: Condator has pulled off the impossible duality of being both the best climber in the world and the best time-trialist. Some people…
For those cyclists who might shop at the Big and Tall shop, we are a minority, we stand out in a pace line, we don’t go up steep hills well but we all should worship at the altar of Eros Poli. Eros Poli! When one is named John, Poli is already deserving of idolatry. A…
Today was perhaps one of the best days of bike racing of the season – brought on by my trusty favorite pair, the Schleck Brothers. As promised by the organizers, the last week of the race is shaping up to be a nail-biter, despite two incredibly boring weeks of racing. On paper at least, today…
This Tour seems to have been dominated more by gossip than by racing, contributed to in no small part by a rotten route. The press seems to have whipped up more interest in who is leading Astana or Saxo-Bank than in the race itself. But some riders seem to love nothing more than complaining to…
About 30km into the stage today, Fabian Cancellera (aka: Swiss Bear, Spartacus, Big Baby, Freak…) pulled up beside me, sat up and reached inside the front of his jersey while shouting in his loud cheery way, ‘Millar! I have a present for you!’ –David Millar, Stage 12 It turns out David Millar had lost his…
As an objective, rational, and calculating cycling fan, I’ve never been able to get excited about any rider on the now-defunct Gerolsteiner team. This is mostly because they committed the unforgivable crime of employing teamwide, systematic ugly kit selection. Those guys looked so unbelievably ugly in those nasty, turquoise unitards that several of my television…
It must be really getting to Cadel. The constant calls from the media and the fans (myself included) to “have a go”. Attack. Stop sucking wheels. And lo and behold, when he does, he gets pummelled from all quarters regardless. Which isn’t totally unjustified. I mean, had he taken a shot of ‘Landis-juice’ and thought…
I haven’t seen a Tour de France stage as uninteresting as today’s stage to Arcalis since, well, since 2005. What was special about 2005? The Bruyneel/Armstrong team. Different teammates and different color jerseys, but what we got was the same uninteresting racing we endured for the 7 years between 1999 and 2005. One of the…
Let’s get this straight; Yes, I’m an Aussie, not a Yank. Alas, it doesn’t automatically mean I’m a huge fanboy for Cadel. And if I was American, I wouldn’t be carrying the torch for Lance, either. Patriotism has never been big on my agenda. I love my birthplace, for sure, even though I have chosen…
Well, here we are, on the eve of the first mountain stage. Tomorrow’s stage 7 will climb to Arcalis where we will begin to have a much clearer picture of what the Tour will bring over the next two weeks. Status Check. Armstrong is best positioned to take the Yellow Jersey, but his ace-climber teammate…
As the early kilometres of Stage 5 rolled by, with the usual early break forming, the protagonists being assessed for their chances of actually making the move stick, one name stood out from the rest; Thomas Voeckler. “He’s just a media-whore” was the expert opinion of a colleague. I begged to differ. Ever since his…
I’m going to come out and say it: Jan Ullrich is my favorite rider, ever. He had it all: class, strength, talent. On top of all that, he was also tall and he was big. He was Frank’s Perfect Storm of cycling. I am not a fan of doping in sports, especially in cycling. At…
Am I the first to make this pun? Probably, because I suffer from a condition called “Awesome”. I could validate that assertion by doing a search on The Google, but that sounds overly complicated and likely to yield results that I’m not interested in seeing. Mark Cavendish – or “Cav”, as those for whom uttering…
I wanted to take a moment to talk about my favorite Tour Favorites. And, the best way of doing that is to go over which of the Favorites annoy me or don’t look cool enough or have never raced on Cervelos. So, onto Frank’s inaugural “How Dost Though Annoy Me” list. Alberto Contador. Primadonna. I…