Tradition and innovation sit mostly comfortably alongside each other in Cycling. The bicycle itself is inherently a very simple machine, the basic design of which has remained the same for centuries; frame, two wheels, cranks, saddle, handlebars. It’s what has been done to these elements along the way that has shaped what the modern road…
I get to certain parts of my training when I begin to crave his blows, especially in winter. Winter is the time of year when training is a time for reflection and spending hours on the bike. Thoughts of hill repeats and intervals don’t creep into even the dampest corners of my mind as I…
Returning to your roots can be both a rewarding and sobering experience. The nostalgia one feels for the halcyon days of youth, the memories of carefree times in the sun with the only concern to make it home in time for dinner, the hidden alleyways and secret spots where the bike would take you and…
It has not escaped my attention that as I’ve evolved away from my original profession as a software developer and moved towards systems and solutions architecture and management, that I have tended to focus more on the theoretical aspects that support its fundamental principles rather than on the discrete activities that drive its execution. Being further removed from the work, it…
Even if you don’t own an espresso machine, you might want to own one of these. It’s art. It’s form and function in a seamless little object. If you do own an espresso machine and you call yourself a Cyclist, you will be very happy if you do own one. This tool is reason enough…
Do we love our inanimate objects too much? I don’t think so. I remember getting home from yet another Sunday ride, completely ruined. I had to thank my bike for getting me home again. I love my bike. Modern centaurs, we are not Cyclists without out bikes. @gaff sent this in from Sweden. He does…
The Prophet had never been dropped by anyone in a race-threatening situation during his entire Grand-Tour career. But he was dropped on this, a relatively minor climb to Pra Loup due to a combination of circumstances involving a chest injury, overconfidence, and savvy Frenchmen who could read the road surface well enough to understand what side of…
I pump my tires up every single day, and every day it is the only part of Cycling I don’t like. The act of pumping while holding the pump in place is itself a bit of a bummer, especially if you are trying to do it in your Cycling shoes because your brain is too small to…
The Giro ended on Sunday in Milano. Three weeks of Italian immersion have been completely worthwhile. I knew May was going to go this way but a DVR that dutifully records hours of racing every day…I’m only human. Italian TV does a fantastic job covering each stage. The Giro becomes a travel log of the…
We are a sick lot. We have no morals whatsoever. I understand why others are wary of us, why café patrons reel in disgust, why real men driving utes want us dead. We attempt to assimilate while at the same time exhibiting no shame of our middle-aged bodies swathed in a thin shield of no real protection (for us or…
One of the best, most memorable (and repeated) lines from the movie In Bruges is “it’s a shithole”. Of course this isn’t true; Bruges (or Brugge in the local parlance) is a beautiful city with many a charm to captivate the senses. On my third visit to the city during Keepers Tour 2015, the shithole…
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…
Not too many people espouse the virtues of Daylight Saving Time, much less chose to write about it every bloody year. But Daylight Saving Time is my favorite day of the year, no question. Better than Christmas, Sinterklaas, or my birthday. Combined. The reason is simple: Daylight Saving is the day of the year when it becomes feasible to…
Ya don’t fuck with a Planckaert. Do so at your own peril. And that’s any shorts length debate settled, too.
This article started off as a Reverence for the Camelbak Podium, and might still be, who knows, it’s late and my mind is scrambled. As often happens when searching for a suitable image for an article, tangents often appear from nowhere and derail the original train of thought. Soon one finds oneself careening out of control…
The modern day Pro cyclist has many disadvantages stacked against them by comparison to their forefathers. They have to ride plastic bikes with little or no distinguishing character or discernible caché; they must willingly or perhaps unwittingly subject their body to an array of questionable “training techniques”; and they have to spend every waking hour…
Cyclists love socks. I know I do. I’d make a point of collecting as many pairs as I could from every race, event, shop or rep that I ever happened upon. Some were so good that I still have them, others, well, let’s just say they were “re-homed” long before they got the chance to…
Jens Voigt is set to retire as we speak, having one final crack at a long break in some race in the Cycling backwater of the USA. Is it fair or fitting that he should go out like this, slipping out the back door with little fanfare, while others have been doing a farewell tour of…
Never forget your roots, they say… OK, I’m a child of the 70’s, and back then bicycles were as big a part of my life as they are today. We’d always be out riding, building tracks and jumps, and tinkering with our Dragsters, stripping them down to emulate our motocross heroes, with varying results. All these memories came…
July 13 2014 marked the 35th anniversary of the seminal ‘cycling film’ Breaking Away. 35 years. Nothing stays popular for that long, right? Things get dated, lose their edge (if there was edge in the first place) and eventually become irrelevant (I’m looking at you, Rolling Stones). Yes, even legends get stale if left out too…