I recently upgraded my phone, tablet, laptop, and TV to their most modern respective operating systems. These devices are now are so interconnected that they know what I want long before I do. In fact, I might not want it all, but no one can tell because I’m already doing what they told me I want…
I could feel the power in my body as I breathed in the warm Spring air and pulled lightly on the handlebars; strength flowed from my lungs and shoulders into my chest, through my hips and down to my legs which churned over with alarming ease. With every change of gradient, I either stood on the pedals to maintain the…
Diego Ulissi did us all a service on stage 4 of the Giro. Not only did he win in the best way possible for a rouleur with a sprint – by not having to sprint – he timed his attack so perfectly that he only had time for a split-second salute, and an even quicker…
I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft… As for me, give me a fixed gear! — Henri Desgrange I like to think that any time a rider running a…
I profess to understand every mannerism and habit of the Cyclist. I’m Dutch, and I’m a writer, so it all comes pretty naturally. The problem is that thinking you understand something and actually understanding it are two completely different things; the first is confidence, the second is wisdom; there is no Venn diagram that has an…
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…
We are bipedal creatures. Fact. Bipedal locomotion sucks. Also a fact. This makes being a human somewhat challenging in the sense that we don’t have opposable toes or a tail with which to swing from tree limbs. Swinging from your tail seems a little bit like bliss, if you ignore the associated demotion back into the Food Chain….
“It’s Francesco Moser, with his distinctive style, his still, aerodynamic position on the bicycle is an imposing sight of almost effortless rotary action.” Whoever the narrator in A Sunday In Hell is*, he got that little nugget spot on. If you want to know how to pedal a bicycle, you can do no better than to…
As surfing is to skateboarding and vice versa, so is motorcycling to cycling and… yes, ok we’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, or at least elaborating on, as I’ve been experimenting with a crossover technique gleaned from the world of MotoGP racing: the Rossi Leg Wave. Or, as I like to call it for the…
My training hasn’t gone as I’d like it to be going. My days keep getting loaded up with things that pay the bills more than they add to the account at the V-Bank. It’s part of not being a Pro, I suppose, as if to spite my obvious talent which is a sort of talent sleeper cell…
One of the things that strikes me most about the English is they don’t appear to have developed any sort of “inner dialog”. It seems anything that passes through the brain is parlayed directly to the tongue; if the thought being expressed is an insult to you, it will generally include a query for confirmation: “You’re not…
To keep chickens is to walk a path towards introspection. From the songs they sing after laying an egg (which I assume is “chicken” for “I’m Every Woman“) to the sheer glee they show when they find a worm in the mud, chickens provide a perfect example of living life in and for the moment. The…
I love wine. I mean, I like beer and scotch and can’t resist ordering a Vesper whenever I pretend to be a gentleman spy, but I love wine. As a semi-professional drinker, the biggest worry I have is that should my as-yet undiagnosed problem with alcohol become a diagnosed problem with alcohol, I’d have to stop drinking wine. A full…
Stupidity is a powerful force never to be underestimated. Geese are a good example; a more stupid vertebrate one would be most challenged to come across yet should you wander into a flock of them pecking about peacefully in a field, one is likely to erupt from its grazing to grab a billful of your ass and commence beating you savagely…
The Whale Shark is the biggest nonmammalian vertebrate* on the planet, rivaling the dinosaurs for size. How do you feed yourself when you’re that huge without loading up on carbs all the time? Easy, you swim around with your mouth wide open for 22 hours a day and hope enough food swims in there to take the edge off the…
Tempo means time in Italian. Riding tempo means riding steadily, like a metronome. It is an important skill to have and since it’s Italian, it sounds cool. What it does not mean is riding at a constant speed, half-wheeling or killing it at the front. Riding at a constant speed is like having cruise control…
Climbing is something I enjoy more than I am good at it; any time I see a new road pointing up to the heavens, I find myself irresistibly drawn to explore where it leads. Every season I come to the conclusion that my training routes are all very hilly and I arrive at the brilliant idea that…
There was a time when the world was painted in hues of black and white. Right and Wrong were separated by lines painted in such a thick, heavy paint that even to wander close was to already alter your very nature. The Elders taught us on which side we were to dwell and what evils would descend upon…
I don’t know how a guy who shows off the better part of a half meter of seat post comes to the conclusion that his saddle is too low, but that precise thought occupies an enormous amount of time. Ever closer looms the minimum insertion point on my seat pin, yet I am irrevocably bound to…
“You ruined a heap of photos!” Not the words you want to hear when the photos in question are ones you didn’t shoot, but were in. “How?” “You’re too low, too compressed.” At least he didn’t say I was ugly. “And you’re ugly.” When you work with professional photographers, you pick up a few tricks…