It is October, the last VSP of the season is up, there is still some race in China no one cares about. The road racing season is over. It is time for a little Velominati reflection. We tried to put in as many women’s races into the VSP as we could. They get little press,…
The Archives
The memories still foment in my mind. They don’t keep me up at night, but they are there, hidden in the recesses of my recall mechanism or whatever it is called, sitting there waiting, waiting to remind me of the darkest day of Keepers Tour ’12. The day of the Ronde, and the horrors that…
Along the lines of what Bruce Dickinson famously decreed while espousing the medical benefits of cowbell in the remedy of rare types of influenza, I put my shoes on one at a time – just like you. But after I’ve got my shoes on, I ooze fluidly harmonic articulation. As Cyclists, we wield the mighty…
La Vie Velominatus is set to become the subject of intense scholarly analysis next week, as Frank Strack will receive an honorary PhV from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (chapeau to @ten B for the PhV). It’s been a heady week for the cycling types around these parts; Strack will close out festivities that included…
I must admit to not having read most of the cycling memoirs in the Works. I may eventually but the local public library doesn’t carry any of them and never will so I’ll have to buy them or ask Frank to tote everything he has to Hawaii. I did get off my wallet and buy…
Joop Zoetemelk was a hard man, a tough nut to crack. He specialized in getting second place, a talent he developed under the doctrine of Eddy Merckx and mastered via the harsh tutelage of Bernard Hinault. It’s very seductive to lean back in our armchairs and draw the conclusion that our sport’s Eternal Seconds, as…
Its hard to say precisely where the line lays, but I’m certain I’m well on the wrong side of it. I never notice lines as I pass over them but I can usually tell after I have because it feels suddenly liberating to leave reason, sensibility, and convention behind. I find them very restrictive –…
What does this have to do with the Worlds? Nothing, but it makes me laugh and includes a wicked photograph so this is the guest article today. @roadslave joined the 2012 Keepers Tour for the full week of riding and ranting and he was excellent at both. He rode at the front with a Chris…
The EPO Era threw up some surprise World Champions from the early ’90s to the mid ’00s. Riders juiced to the gills meant that the rainbow jumper could go to anyone who not only had the form on the bike, but their program sorted and the luck on the day. You could throw a dart…
What is the best pro team kit ever? I’m talking team kit only, not a leader’s jersey, national team jersey or the national champion jersey. Not the worst either, for those are legion and worthy of a much longer article than this. @wiscot and I exchanged emails about Urs Freuler and the fantastic Atala kit…
What I have always loved about Mountain Biking is the immersion into the woods; the sense of solitude that comes in the wilderness that is lost entirely in the convenience and hustle of the cities I’ve always lived in. What I always hated about Mountain Biking is that my mountain bike never feels enough like my…
Last week, I rode through a bit of history and came out thinking of the future. I rode over Old Blewett Pass, which used to connect the Washington towns of Leavenworth and Cle Elum. Old Blewett Pass was decommissioned in the 1950s and a new road (US 97) was built through Swauk Pass — now…
@snoov moves the topic away from Lance, doping, EPMS, and Berty’s Spanish adventures. Our brains are so crammed with nonsense our childhood memories get jammed deep down into the center. A memory waits to be released and sometimes it’s a remembered smell that floats it up to the surface. VLVV, Gianni My front tyre has…
As we gingerly assembled outside the gite, the Belgian sun shining for the first time in the three days we’d been in the spiritual home of cycling, the conversation was muted; what do you say to a legend of the sport, an apostle in his parish about to hold a sermon on two wheels? I…
It was Frank’s recent post that started all this. Mentioning Breukink always makes me think of my friend’s saying, “I have a Breukink in my Van Hooydonk” as his excuse for coming up short on a long training ride. Maybe that’s only funny during a long training ride. That phrase put me back onto Van…
I’ve said it once before, but it bears repeating now: adherence to Rule #29 carries with it the ultimate mission of the aspiring Velominatus, which is to geek out endlessly over the minimum amount of gear which yields maximum security in the event of a mechanical incident while riding. The goal here is twofold. First, with no…
Does a bike have a soul? I can’t make that argument, I don’t think I do either, actually. But we do invest a lot of emotion, pride and dare I say love in our bikes. We form emotional bonds to inanimate objects all the time. My favorite old dead car had to sit in the driveway…
The name Laurence Ernest Gunderson is not one that the general public know too well, at least before the events of the past week. The US cyclist was relatively famous within the sport, but ask Joe Average who he was and you’d be met with a blank stare. But now, he’s back-page news on newspapers…
Erik Breukink, pictured here on the far right in the 1987 Giro, was on the upswing of what seemed to be very bright future. From a young age, he appeared to be a natural Grand Tour rider, so the Dutch teams he perpetually rode for did what Dutch teams do best, which is heap loads…
When it comes to weight and body dysmorphia, we cyclists can go toe-to-toe with any thirteen year old tween who has done their time flipping through the pages of Vogue and Sixteen. However fit and thin we might be, at some point it dawns on us that we’re not as light as we could be….