I have to admit, until BigRingRiding bestowed upon us the honor of gracing their site with our humble image, I had never heard the term “Inhaling a Wasp” being used as a climbing tactic. My Great Aunt once swallowed a wasp; she was rather portly and since I think the wasp might have been in her cocktail I'm reasonably certain she wasn't riding a bike at the time – to say nothing of climbing. I believe my Great Uncle poured a pint of motor oil down her throat to treat the situation and I'm assuming that he did this as an erstwhile remedy and not out of vindictiveness. I can't imagine it was “pleasant” in the traditional sense of the term, although the family story doesn't detail how it all worked out for her, the oil, or my Great Uncle.
But back to cycling. I think what all of us here at the Velominati like most is The V being dished out using a Big Gulp or bigger container. At the end of the day, there is little less interesting than watching a herd of robots pedal their bikes up a steep hill without the least bit of emotion or effort showing on their faces, but with loads of speed in their legs. Common competitive wisdom is to never let your rivals know you're suffering, but bollocks to that. Whether I'm on the bike or watching a race, nothing beats seeing it all left on the road, with the pain of each magnificent stroke showing on the faces of those doing the dishing.
Inhaling a Wasp is the look a rider has on their face when they've dropped their jaw down like the shovel on a front-loader, scooping up mouthfuls of air in an effort not to quench, but to fuel the fire burning hot in their lungs and legs. Jan Ullrich was the master of this look, and any time I'm engaging in a long climb, steeled against the suffering I know is to come farther up the road, I channel my best Ullrich look and take solace in the notion that despite the squares I'm pedaling, perhaps I might at least look a the slightest bit like Der Kaiser.
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@pakrat
I just guessed at it, but I'm not sure of the precise ages of some of us; I think our average is around 40 or so. Maybe a bit more. I may have misjudged Brett's age; not sure if he's a shriveled fuck because he's old or because he's spent a lot of time in the Aussie sun.
@frank
re Cav: the spitting issue is bad, but (and I'm trying not to be (partisan) those reports, or at least the Haussler one, were tenuous to say the least. There was never any consistent source of those claims as far as I'm aware.
I *think* the lead-out train started back in the mid-to-late 80's with Superconfex (but now I'm having doubts and think Panasonic might have done it first) when Jean-Paul Van Poppel rode for them. But the one thing that most people seem to have forgotten is that Cav's early victories were done without a lead-out and he's shown he can still do the same, look at the Champs Elysees this year. And as Geoffrey Grosenbach points out, wasn't Merckx the same?
@Jarvis
Oh, for sure, Cav has done with/without the lead-out trains; I"m not saying that I don't like him for his train - I don't like him because he's such a dipshit. I find bunch gallops rather boring for the leadout trains - Cav's is good now, but Fasso before, and Saeco before that. The only time I liked it was Cipo's zebra train in 2002...there was something about watching a pack of zebras lead out the Lion that tickled my fancy every time.
@Geoffrey Grosenbach
I think Merckx was considered a robot. When Anq was on form, he was a robot, too, but his form fluctuated wildly, so he was harder to predict that way.
As for Merckx, I am fairly certain he was very strongly discouraged from taking the start exactly for the reason you describe; Merckx was too dominant and they wanted to allow another rider the chance to shake it up and make the race more exciting. Merckx's team controlled the races with an iron fist, and when the road pointed uphill, Merckx went to the front, but it in the big ring, and just mashed away until he was alone.
I'm not sure I've ever committed this opinion to page, but I think if I had been watching the racing at the time he was riding, I wouldn't have been a fan of his; I would have cheered for De Vlaeminck, or for Gimondi, I think.
That aside, he was pretty incredible from a record standpoint, and the man had loads of class. He is the prophet, Obey the Rules.
@frank
now, you know I'm not a massive Ullrich fan, but this is more important than anyone's loyalties, what was going on with his shoes? He never had a decent pair, look at what he's wearing in the main picture...I only seem to remember him have some scruffy abomination of an Adidas/Time bastardisation with no name on.
@Jarvis
Good question. Indeed, his shoes left something to be desired. That said, in 2003 he wore a pair of DMT's with three velcro straps that were the epitome of class:
Ah, now that is something I missed and it now looks like the ones I remember were proto DMT's.
Think he might have needed a fourth strap on those just to keep the bulk in #chubster
Cav's a knob. Sticking your fingers up while crossing the line and then mumbling some preposterous story about Agincourt and the English longbowmen just makes him look like a looby whose PR team have their hands rammed up his arse, somehow reaching all the way to his larynx. It's not just the spitting, it's his overall knobbity and cuntitude.
That said, the way he ripped the legs off the race on the Champs Elysee this year was one of the coolest things in sport. I reckon it had a bit to do with novelty of the side view camera on rails, but holy crap! That was special.
In a much smaller context than the Gesink display, Cameron Meyer inhaled a few wasps today at the Tour of Britain. He was solo for 30-odd of the final 40km, then stuck with the Tony Martin train leading to the Constitution Hill climb in Swansea (which is cobbled, and allegedly hits 30% at times). Chapeaux. The race has actually had some surprisingly good racing this year too.
Re. Armstrong, robots, and the like, an interesting piece on Michael Barry's blog. (He has good stuff there, and I've always thought him an articulate and thoughtful rider/writer.
Toward the end, he comments:
I'm not a newfound Lance fan, but I made a similar kind of comment about his performance on the cobbles in the VSP thread during the TdF, and while Barry is a former teammate, I think there's something to this. If anything, I think Lance ended his career on better terms (for himself, anyway) than if he had walked away last year.
@Hawkeye
Consti Hill isn't 30%, it's rumoured to have a very short section of 25%, but I think is in the main 20%. I used to live on about 20m along one of the roads off it and the turn into my road was probably 25%. Didn't have a road bike in those days though, but did singlespeed it in 32x16. You can't ride up it any more as they've put barriers across it to stop the joyriders.
There was an interview with Magnus Backstedt today where he said back in '98/'99 he had a bet with Stu O'Grady and a couple of others as to who could big ring it and he said they all did...nut