On Rule #49: Keep the Rubber Side Down
Gobbles already violated Rule #95 this year when he became the first rider to celebrate winning a Monument by lifting his bike over his head as if he were some kind of savage; not a Belgian road Cyclist, the most civilized of the Cycling Breed.
But Rule #49 is another matter altogether. It astounds me whenever I see a bicycle helplessly turned upon its handlebars and saddle while the pilot optimistically leverages every muscle in their face to inspect the vehicle for evidence of its mysterious ailment. (Surprise ending: It’s the rider, not the machine.)
We, the Velominati, we see the Cycling world through a different lens. We see Cycling through the rose-colored lense of our passion and our reverence for the history, culture, and etiquette of our sport.
Hence, I find myself in disbelief to find none other than The Prophet himself, cluelessly riding alongside his team car in 1976 with a spare bike on its roof inexplicably turned upside down. This was the Year of My Birth; I feel a little bit sullied knowing that such an atrocity occurred while I was in gestation. (It also might explain a few things about my temperament.)
It just so happens that 1976 was the year in which Merckx began his irrevocable slide towards retirement; perhaps his failure to spot the upturned steed was an early sign that the fire in his breath was starting to temper.
@Rick
Boy, Jan Janssen was surely the Clark Kent of cycling, wasn’t he? Bespectacled nerd shows up with small carryall and bike.
“Hi, can I help you sir?’
“Yes, I’m here to cause pain and suffering and be awesome.”
“Ah, Mr Janssen, sorry, didn’t recognize you in civilian clothes. Right this way.”
Here’s Joop winning in 1985: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewA2Ssh8jVM
The commentary is typical 80s American shit. Zoetemelk didn’t “steal” the race, he had two teammates in the break and it was a canny move in that he knew the others wouldn’t drag the two other Dutch riders (Van de Velde and Veldscholten) up there. Remember, Van de Velde won the Giro points title three times, young rider in the Tour, the Dauphine Libere.
This, from wikipedia is pretty interesting:
He was distinctive in the peloton for his lean, long-legged appearance, his smooth pedalling style and his long hair. He rode in support of riders such as Joop Zoetemelk, whom he could pace over mountains at impressive speed, but he was also capable of winning on his own. Success came to him early and, he said in an interview with the author Jan Siebelink (“Pijn is genot”) that he had trouble coping when that success began to dry up. Van der Velde said he remembered shivering at the start of an Italian race, the skin of his arms wrinkled in goosebumps, because of the amphetamine he had taken just to start.
Addiction to amphetamine and a lifelong habit of petty theft, which he said came from seeing his father bring home things he had stolen from work, brought him into trouble with the law. He was caught stealing lawnmowers and breaking into post office stamp machines to raise money to cover his addiction and his gambling. The jail sentence and the loss of all he had won forced him and his Belgian wife, Josée, to sell the villa they had owned. They moved into a series of anonymous houses and apartments. Van der Velde began hospital treatment for his addiction and became deeply religious. He began work on building sites, rarely saying who he was or what he had been, to rebuild his self-esteem. For many years he tried to keep his address and his identity secret.
Wow.
@frank
Dunno… I would normally agree with you about the tape color, but look at this promo photo. All the tape is white. However, I’m willing to wager that either 1) they went all white for the photo shoot, and for races it was back to everyone else wearing blue; or 2) there are only 6 bikes in the photo so they very well could have all been Eddy’s.
That said… have a seat before you take in this monstrosity. I’m sorry to say, I don’t think that race photo was an anomaly. (trigger warning: this fucker will cause you immense pain and suffering, and substantial V drainage; look at it quickly then avert your eyes and pretend it never happened. Unfortunately this may be one of those things you can’t un-see.)
@wiscot
Amazing; but to be clear that is Van der Velde, not Janssen that the passage is talking about…
@frank
5:39 “frankly Gary I’m a little surprised we’ve had a crash like this in a pro road race.”
I can’t even…
@litvi
I suspect they are all Eddy’s bikes – the lead photo clearly shows the other two bikes with blue tape.
@litvi
Inline dancing! Let’s dance, put on your black shoes and dance the blues.
@frank
I think I agree they are all Eddy’s bikes. Which gives us a much better explanation for the final chapter: the last nail in the coffin was having his bikes mounted upside down, on purpose, repeatedly. As it turns out, not even the Prophet could withstand that barrage of open and notorious disdain for the Rules. Such a tragedy.
@frank
Jeazhus fucking Christ, is he an extra in a Fellini film here???
@frank
Hadn’t LeMan chased down every fucking guy that went up the road to that point and finally he just said, “fuck it, I’m not chasing another guy down” and, of course, that “guy” ended up winning it. LeMan was so fucking strong. He took second in the sprint if I remember correctly through that haze of Grand Marnier on a Friday night in Germany with a big ride set for tomorrow.
@Buck Rogers
Yes indeedy. I think LeMond was getting tired of chasing everything down and when Joop went, he thought “fuck it.” In the break of 13 that contested the finish (The next rider, Kim Andersen, came in at 13 seconds) there were 3 Dutch, 2 Italians, and 1 each from the US, France, GB, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Switzerland. Clearly the Dutch had the upper hand and were not going to chase their compatriot. No-one else wanted to drag anyone else so Joop soloed away. LeMond beat Argentin for the sprint for second.
One of the more well-deserved WC wins, that’s for sure.
@frank
My apologies for not making that clear. The quote is about Van de Velde, not Janssen.
In 1988, Johan van de Velde was first over the top of the Gavia on THAT stage. He lost 47 minutes by day’s end. The conditions were THAT bad.
@Buck Rogers
Your hazy memory is correct, LeMan did take second in the sprint. In the post race interview he said he expected the Italians to chase down Joop. Unfortunately for Greg it was too close to the finish line.
@Rick
Fucking LeMan! What did he have … two wins and two seconds at the WC, right??? (fucked if I know–third glass of Grand Marnier is just BURYING me in bliss, Baby! Nothing like finally being off call after 10 days straight!
This wheel change talk has me baffled. Are people often struggling with this? Lie the bike against a bush or on some grass drive-side-up, do the work, then drop the upper jockey (correctly indexed) onto the 11, with left hand on seatpost, right hand on wheel rim, give the derailleur cage a gentle shove down-and-back and job’s done? Unless you have those weird horizontal dropouts… in which case, call the team car, because you need to abandon the race ASAP
@Teocalli
You rang?
@Mikael Liddy
That would be the one yes.
@frank
Oh god, I’m absolutely thrilled the oversized belt buckle trendy has died. I guess Tom was too busy on training rides to hear the news. I really thought those were some ugly as belts. (Also thrilled the deployment of cargo pants as “biz cas” has died, HATED seeing people in shirts and ties…with cargo pants. Eck!)
And thank you for bring up denim, as I haven’t mentioned my No Denim Policy in too long. Don’t even own a pair, much less wear denim.
@Ron
I’m cool with jeans, but wear them less often as other options are available. Cargo pants or shorts? No fucking way. The devil’s garb. Just horrible.
People wearing shirts and ties (that’s good, I have more ties than I can count and when appropriate wear them 3-4 times a week) but with cargo pants? Who raised these people FFS! That would be like wearing sneakers with a tux. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Speaking of ties, I have a thing right now for the straight blade knit tie. Just got a couple of cashmere beauties on sale from Saks. Everyone should have a black silk knit tie in their wardrobe.
I don’t know who raised them. I definitely live in a bubble on a daily basis, so when I go out in public these days I’m generally shocked at what people wear around town. It’s depressing. It seems, like with wealth and politics, we have two extreme ends. It’s either a dandy who looks to be model for the clothing company, far, far too done up for an average day OR it’s a guy in stained sweatpants with his slippers on. The world is a bizarre place these days.
@frank
And I’m sure each bike has a slightly different saddle position so Eddy could swap them during a race. You can’t always count on a French newspaper strike to give you time to stop and make adjustments, after all.
@Ron
My VMW has a saying when we pass some people, she mutters “Have you no mirrors in your house?”
@MangoDave
Bitch please.
@frank
I watch that video and notice that the bikes all look the same. Compare with today so much difference. All the different bikes today are each much more distinctive. Consider a Super Six vs a Venge vs an F10 vs a Madone. All very differently designed and styled bikes in the Peloton today vs back in the skinny straight steel tube days.
@Randy C
They might look the same, but I’m pretty sure there was more variation across bikes in the peloton then. A 54 Venge, is a 54 Venge, is a 54 Venge – they’re all from the same mold. T’was much easier to customise geometry with tubes and lugs.
@Randy C
I see what you mean, though. The bikes do vary in looks a lot more today. TT bikes aside, aero bikes, superlight climbing bikes, and endurance/cobble bikes (often ridden in the same race) look totally different from each other, and two examples of either of those categories can look very different.
My point was that even on the same ‘brand’ (just decals, really), two riders from the same team, ostensibly riding the same model, might have quite different geometry in reality, back in the pre carbon day.
@litvi
“…but the delay can also be used for adjusting one’s saddle…”
[Inserts crappy screenshot of A Sunday in Hell, 26 minutes in.]
@stooge
Not forgetting that “back in the day” or at least pre carbon, many of the top riders bikes were not what they seemed from the team colours and “manufacturer” logos but were actually artisan custom builds by the likes of Pegoretti. You could open spot them with different rear dropouts.
@stooge
Not forgetting that not only were they different geometry they were sometimes (often?) not the purported manufacturer bikes at all but rather made by the likes of Pegoretti. The rear dropouts were always a good id of a non manufacturer bike.
From ‘net “In the days of a steel and aluminium peloton, Pegoretti was the apprentice to world famous framebuilder Luigino Milani, who was a favoured contract builder for many of the pro teams. After his apprenticeship Pegoretti continued to build for the pros, with Indurain, Pantani and Cipollini all having ridden his frames. “
@Ron
Run out of medication again?
@stooge
The geo question though today is not in the length of the frame tubes but dialed in with stem length, angle and saddle set back. So the geo variation for sure exists. Heck, probably more variation in different bars on 10 bikes today vs entire peloton back then. And wheels too eh ?
And as @Teocalli points out that was a strange circumstance with frame builders building bikes and then the bike sponsor’s logo being on the bike. Hampsten’s Huffys built by Serotta. Armstrong on Trek Litespeeds. LeMond’s Lemonds were Calfee (?) Just wouldn’t see that kinda thing today.
This is time of year I watch the inter webs for photos and news on next year’s new models. I just really dig the new bikes. See latest pic’s of new Tarmacs are showing up.
Cheers
the new Tarmacs look like BMCs
or Canyons. or…
@stooge
Geometry on carbon bikes can be customized. Obviously, easier if the bike is tube to tube construction like the Colnago C60. Monocoque frames would require a different mold, which is a more expensive proposition. But for the “big name” manufacturers, an expense they might be willing to incur for a big name rider. And then there’s always Sarto, who reportedly has built custom frames for pro riders that replicate the manufacturer sponsor frame but are completely custom (geometry and layup) for the individual rider.
@Ron
I’m OK with anyone’s personal style choice, so long as they are taking pride in their appearance. It shows you have respect for yourself as well as those people whom you encounter during the day.
The sweatpants and so forth is just disgraceful. The most insulting thing, to me, is the couples you see on the street where the girl looks pretty and put together and the guy she’s with is a total slob with his baseball cap on – probably backwards. Grown men in baseball caps…news flash! We know you’re bald(ing) because…you’re wearing a baseball cap! Go bald with dignity. (I’m speaking from observation, not experience. My hair is still FANTASTIC.)
Seattle is interesting – you have the over-made dandies, the hipsters, the grungies, the business people, and the techies all mixed in. It really makes you appreciate people who take care in their appearance and stop being so stuck on your own personal style. I’ve seen some people pull off some rad shit that I would never in my right mind attempt.
@MangoDave
+1 badge to you! (It’s been out of use for too long!)
@litvi
Close second!