Someone is taking this Cogal thing seriously, except for the malted recovery beverage drinking part. And maybe we need to remove the “casually deliberate” from route pace description. One person’s casually deliberate is another person’s lactate threshold. I know this from personal experience. Well done here, from start to finish, even you Alex. VLVV, Gianni…
As Cyclists, we are uniquely subjected to the changing of seasons. The green canopy of forest that we ride through in Summer gives way in Fall to one of orange and yellow that mimics the fire of sunset. Just as those hues give notice to the changing from day to night, so do they now signal…
For more than three decades, I’ve been obsessed with Cycling. Not just the business of being in love with riding and training, but with following Professional Cycling as well. When I was young, I pored over the photos in Winning and other magazines that made their way into my possession; their spines were cracked to pieces…
Let us thank @The Oracle for contributing this guest article. We haven’t been putting up many guest articles so it’s good to have something substantial to begin with again. I don’t think cyclists are any more or any less addictive or OCD than anyone else. We are just humans who love to ride the bike….
I kind of like the fact that I still have to look up what number certain Rules are. Some stick in my mind, usually due to their relevance to my everyday riding and living situation. That’s how I could justify hairy legs over a ride-barren winter, loose-fitting (I refuse to call them baggy) shorts for gravé…
They say hindsight is twenty-twenty; it is only with the knowledge gained through experience that we are able to reframe the past in its proper context. Bike racing in the 2000’s will forever be known as the blood-transfusion era, the 90’s the EPO era, and the 80’s that of steroids and amphetamine. Hopefully we don’t let…
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…
As far as Cycling and racing iconography goes, Paris-Roubaix sits at the very zenith. It’s the most revered race among fans not only because of the pavé and the punishment it hands out, but there’s also the traditional finish of the race in the old velodrome, and what are possibly the most photographed showers anywhere in…
Or as Bob Roll keeps calling him Bri-ann Holm?! I have three reasons right off the top of my head as to why Bri-ann Holm is a badass. The first is he offered to cut off Dan Martin’s ears if he didn’t finish in the top ten of this year’s Tour de France. Martin finished…
There are very few experiences as incredible as riding a bike; the wind in your face, the sensation of generating speed under your own power, the balance of forces that almost magically hold the bike suspended upright. It is the closest we humans will ever come to feeling the miracle of flight; it is the closest…
One evening, an elderly Cherokee brave told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “my son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is…
This was going to be an article about Rule #45. It is amazing how much time is wasted and matches burned when professionals stop for that second bike change to get back on their #1. With all the jigs available to team mechanics it would seem they could set up five bikes exactly the same….
You have three questions going through your mind: How far to go? How hard am I trying? Is the pace sustainable for that distance? If the answer is “yes”, that means you’re not trying hard enough. If it’s no, it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re looking for the answer “maybe”. Chris Boardman,…
Rule #33 has to be one of the most discussed, deconstructed and divisive of all the Rules. I suppose there’s something about grown men who are non-professional cyclists taking a razor to their pins that brings out some strong emotions and it never fails to generate conversation and opinion. But really, who cares what someone else does…
I imagine that unless you’re a Cyclist, it is quite difficult to understand what it’s like to ride a bicycle on the open road amongst traffic. It is a vulnerable feeling to be riding along a road with limited or no escape routes, surrounded by vehicles who outweigh you by several orders of magnitude. Particularly when you take into consideration…
It’s a little late to be writing about the road races in Rio…but gawd damn, they were both so good that I can’t help it. Chapeau to the designer of the course, especially the finale. A very tough climb followed by an equally tough descent followed by an utterly flat but long run-in to the…
FFS. It is Friday, finally, and this is what this week has felt like: I kid, I kid. We actually have no idea whether T-Rex was actually that color. The wine, well, depending on your poison. Today marks the third anniversary of our fallen comrade and community member Jon Lennard’s passing. His memory rides with me still…
As Tyler Farrar rode by in the other direction, we gave each other a subtle wave; not the wave between friends, but between brothers of the road. On another day, I might have turned around and chased him down, like the first time I’d seen him riding locally. Not so much to bother him or to ride with…
Cycling is made up of hundreds of minute details, forming a larger entity which is generally simplified and viewed as the intrinsically simple act of riding––or racing––a bicycle. Getting on and pedalling, fast, may be the crux of winning the Tour, Roubaix, or the local B grade crit, but if it is held as the most important aspect, then…
As a longtime titanium bike owner, I’ve always been jealous of a beautiful painted frame but Ti and carbon frames don’t need paint like a steel frame needs paint. But I want some painted beauty. It’s like buying a white car; I can’t do white, need some color. So between a Ti frame and a…