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Archive for October, 2009

Bruyneel’s Bad Year

by frank / Oct 30 2009 / 28 posts

For most directors, winning Le Tour for the billionth time would make for a successful season, but not for Johan Bruyneel.  It turns out that dealing with the Kazakhi backers of Team Astana really put a stinker on his season.  Add that stress to the considerable logistics involved in buying off testing laboratories and bribing the anti-dope contr...

Tales of a Cyclotourist, Part I: 1994 LBL

by frank / Oct 23 2009 / 17 posts

I could see it from where I was sitting on the terrace outside the cafe.  The street dropped off towards the valley where the river used to run before turning and rising steeply – too steeply for how I was feeling – up along the dam and out of the valley.  What was worse was that I could see the other riders in the distance struggle u...

Bikeography

by Gianni / Oct 20 2009 / 19 posts

I’ve reflected on my bike stable, where it started and where it is now.Peugeot PX10-LE. 1977. A champagne gold hunk of French madness. It was advertised as Monsieur Thevenet’s current racing model but I doubt he got this. The frame was nothing out of the ordinary but copper wire wrapping at the spoke crossings, sew-ups, 52 x44 Stronglight...

VDB: 1974-2009

by frank / Oct 12 2009 / 25 posts

Every now and then, I see a headline that I know won’t soon drift from my memory.  Frank Vandenbroucke was found dead today in his hotel room; he had apparently died of  a blood clot.  The death reminds me of a similar headline in 2004, of the death of Marco Pantani. Both capable of incredible rides, both prone to devastating depression, b...

Expect The Unexpected

by frank / Oct 8 2009 / 6 posts

Unless you spend a lot of time with the Dutch, you probably don’t realize how awesome we are.We can pretty much walk into any situation and immediately understand the landscape and explain to all the non-Dutch in the room precisely why they are inferior.   For the mathematically-minded, let me put it in equation form: Continue reading...

Second Place: The Agony of Winning at Losing

by frank / Oct 2 2009 / 6 posts

After narrowly losing Milan San-Remo to Mark “The Manx Mounth” Cavendish, Heinrich Haussler was in agony. Many people might have been delighted with his accomplishment; he darted off the front of a highly controlled bunch and made an unexpected result which would make his one of the most recognized names of the 2009 cycling season.  B...