Duck and cover! Our guest article series rolls on with @scaler911’s Anatomy of a Photo. Photo, words, enough said.
Yours in Cycling,
Gianni
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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 put the pain to all who brave this glorious classic. The weather can be sunny, making things dusty – or rainy, making it a slippery, muddy mess. In the words of Orangeman Theo de Rooij, “It’s a bollocks, this race! You’re working like an animal, you don’t have time to piss, you wet your pants. You’re riding in mud like this, you’re slipping…it’s a pile of shit.” When asked if he would do it again, he replied, “Sure, it’s the most beautiful race in the world.”
In 1994, Frenchman Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle was returning to go for a hat-trick. The weather was horrible, raining, cold. The course was shit. 14K in, the rain turned to snow. An attack went off, but that was not to last. The peloton came to life and caught the lone break-away man and an elite selection was made in the revered Arenberg Forest. Duclos-Lassalle suffered a puncture during one of several large crashes in the bunch and lost contact.
From behind, Duclos-Lassalle, Johann Museeuw, and new guy Andrei Tchmil caught the lead group. With 63K to go, Tchmil attacked hard and rode away to victory, becoming the first Eastern block winner of PR.
But what is compelling to me is the photo of Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle and hardman Johann Museeuw chasing. In addition to a fantastic study in the V, notice the steeds: Rockshock-equipped road bikes all around including Johan’s Bianchi. It turns out that that Celeste wonder was a $20,000, one-off, fully suspended road machine that saw exactly one race. The cost, weight and UCI rule change prohibited any further development of those monstrosities. Thank Merckx, those were strange times my fellow VM, strange times indeed.
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View Comments
@Souleur
Seconded!
@scaler 911
" It turns out that that Celeste wonder was a $20,000, one-off, fully suspended road machine that saw exactly one race. The cost, weight and UCI rule change prohibited any further development of those monstrosities. Thank Merckx, those were strange times my fellow VM, strange times indeed."
I think this is a cover-up. That picture background looks an awful lot like your basement wall. Gonna have to do some investigative work next ride leaving from your joint. You shoulda put the powercranks on it though just to make it look that much more outlandish!
@936adl
Personally, I agree. I am such an adherent to the aesthetic of the bicycle that I don't even like modern carbon bikes, I'd rather they were still riding classic steel machines. I was just pointing out that the pros are far more pragmatic than we proles who make our bike choices on looks.
Is it just me, but spare a thought for those chains. Poor Duclos-Lassale's in particular upon that Bianchi abomination has an almost perfect sine wave running through it, and the guy behind's looks even more tortured. Bike chains are the unsung heroes, the domestiques if you will, of the hardman's 'tools' (in @Oli's language)
@Scaler911 great article, and awesome phoo
Photo, obviously. That's the cab sauv talking
Someone pointed me to these a few weeks back - if I had a bike to waste...
Cool post. That was an interesting era. For the youngsters out there, that time was exploding with suspension changes in the mountain bike world, some of it applied to road bikes - for better or worse.
I still could see a front suspension fork being useful for something like Paris-Roubaix, especially with today's fork technology, now light years ahead of '94. Carbon steerer and fork legs. Auto lock out technology from Fox, all now common place for mountain bikes.
Then again, would rather not see that. Detracts from the history of the sport. Same deal with running a fork for cyclocross. No thanks. Let's keep suspension for mountain bikes only.
If interested, I posted a reprint of a '94 Bicycle Guide article in my blog a few months ago - spotlighting suspension forks on road bikes. Some cool old pics and info...
http://yoeddy.blogspot.com/2011/03/from-archives-road-bike-suspension.html
I gotta say, even with the full-suspension, that Bianchi is (to me at least) very very pretty. I don't think I'd ride it, of course... I'd just sit and stare at it with love one day and loathe the next.
@Xyverz
I agree, very good looking.
@frank
It would be interesting to see the weight of that fork. Even more interesting to put it on a bike and do singletrack.
Here's a full video of the 94 P-R...