We have the kind of poor judgement that allows us to have a puppy. She’s half pit, half something, and half something else and boasts a lilliputian-sized head. As her Life Coach, I’ve instructed her to focus on growing her head because, as her Uncle Gianni says, no one gets anywhere in this world with a tiny head….
The Archives
My wife and I live in subtropical Maui. We moved here partly to break the horrible cycle of fall fitness followed by winters of undersubscribed gym memberships, eleven minute turbotrainer sessions, weight gain followed by depression and a complete loss of cycling fitness every f’ing spring. Bib knickers worn until May to ride exhausting little…
While all evidence points to the contrary, the 20th century’s greatest twatwaffle LE Gunderson may have got something at least half right after all. Of course it’s about the bike, otherwise we’d be runners. But there are other factors that contribute to what makes us Cyclists which can often be overlooked completely. Not the clothes…
In most situations, silence is an ominous thing that signals impending doom. Having never been in any danger myself, I base this largely on my experience watching box-office movies. As a general rule, I use Hollywood as the principal source of information on all subjects as they relate to doom and politics, principally because I’m loath to do any…
Bicycles and automobiles- can’t we all just get along? @Kah writes about this universal (do aliens have this issue also?) problem of us co-existing with humans in cars. We all drive cars too and have cursed the occasional cyclists for some good reason. Cars are our greatest threat. We can crawl away from our own…
We close out the 6 Days of the Giro with our sixth and final installment. A body at rest, stays at rest. A body in motion, stays in motion. Things get a bit more ambiguous when it comes to a body on a bicycle tearing down a twisty mountain descent at speed, particularly in the…
We’re into day four of the Six Days of the Giro series, let’s talk trash. Yes the Tour de France started a few years before the Giro and has always been credited as The Tour to win. You win the Giro, you are a stud. Win the Tour and you are a stud for life….
We’re into day three of the Six Days of the Giro series, and it’s time to hit the dirt. If ever a Keepers Tour goes to Italy, then we’re doing this climb. No doubt. Climbing on gravel up a real mountain, what’s not to love? In fact, you could probably do an entire Italian Gravé…
We continue our Six Days of the Giro series with a look at the troubled bond between Marco Pantani and the Giro. Some were meant to be tormented, as though it were preordained that their brilliance should be balanced with fatal flaws. These are tortured souls, whose dramatic highs are equalled only by the devastating depths of their…
We’re heaping coals on the Giro frenzy that’s burning in all corners of the Cycling world by issuing the second installment of the monthly BigRingRiding Sur la Plaque series while at the same time kicking off the Six Days of the Giro series where we’ll post six articles on the subject of this, the best Grand Tour…
Change creeps in slowly, it has a way of taking the seemingly immutable and eroding it over time. It’s inevitable; if the great canyons were carved from the solid rock of Mount Velomis by such a soft thing as water, then it should come as no surprise that the Velominati V-Kit would also change with time….
Young riders rise through the ranks with such promise. We all know the story; the rider who borrows a bicycle and enters a local race and wins. He decides he might be good at going batshit fast on a bike. Mom and Dad buy him a klunker for his birthday and he takes out a…
André Leducq was a complete French Badass, with a capital B. He was third, below Merckx and Hinault for Tour de France stage wins. Nicolas Frantz was an equally Badass Luxembourger. He rode to more victories than Frandy Schleck shall ever attain in a few lifetimes. He did win the Tour de France. The crowd…
There are always at least two ways to accomplish any task: properly and improperly. Drinking beer from a glass, not the bottle; carrying a full umbrella instead of a miniature fold-up; stirring your gin martinis, not shaking them; wearing french cuffs with a suit, not button cuffs. The Velominatus, of course, is drawn towards doing…
Unfortunately the weather for 2013 L-B-L looks a lot nicer than the 1980 episode. Then again, if the weather looked that bad, they might have cancelled the race or put them on buses before Bastogne and driven them back towards Liege. Who would be the Badger of the peloton of this year’s race in those…
The simple art of riding a bicycle can be undertaken in many ways. Watching the stylish commuters of Amsterdam going about their business in the most Casually Deliberate way makes you wonder if indeed anyone is actually going about any business at all. I don’t know how anything ever gets done in that city; everyone…
I hadn’t planned to ride them every day. In fact, I had planned to only ride them once and let other people ride them. But, genius that I am, I forgot my ceramic brake pads and had to source some new ones which was a maddeningly difficult process given that Europe observes something in the…
Was Paris-Roubaix the best of the Spring Classics in 2013? Milan-Sanremo was amazingly photogenic, Ronde van Vlaanderen was inevitable but Roubaix was just about perfect. We all prefer the wet and gray “This weather is good for us” Roubaix yet this race’s drama transcended the fine spring day in the North of France. There is…
While the Northern Hemisphere Velominati were busy arguing about who injected what in the old races they’d been using to distract themselves during their indoor torture sessions, down South a bunch of like minded strangers from the internet decided that coffee, hills, sunshine & beer seemed like a great excuse to meet up for a ride…the reflections…
Keepers Tour 2012 veteran @ChrisO is back to his racing ways in Cyprus. Yes, this is not Northern France; let us take a brief respite and go to warmer Mediterranean climes. This is ChrisO’s second guest article about his racing; his first was a stage race, the Tour of Sharjah, last year. Yours in Cycling, Gianni If you…