The Swiss surely are making a name for themselves in the Worlds, especially these days with Spartacus taking his fourth TT title. Of course we’re all waiting for the marquee event of the men’s road race but I’m sure Switzerland is proud to house the TT gold medal as well. The small, beautiful, and neutral…
Month: September 2010
I remember two principle things from the 2007 Men’s Elite Road Race. First, my favorite rider at the time, Danilo Di Luca, was barred from starting due to his implication in the Oil for Drugs doping investigation. Second, there was a controversy over the fact that Paolo Bettini had refused to sign the UCI’s Code…
Greg Lemond wins his second World Championship at the 1989 Worlds in Chambery, France
Americans, I think, generally feel they play just on the far side of the boundaries; that perhaps history doesn’t apply to us. We are quick to forget the past and our sights are always focused away from today and towards tomorrow. We are a country who feels it deserves it’s place in the World Order…
Verona, Italy, 1999. You’re 259 kms into the World Championship Road Race, and you find yourself in a select group of nine riders. You look around and see you are surrounded by a veritable who’s who of the pro peloton. Ullrich, Vandenbroucke, Zberg, Konyshev, Casagrande, Camenzind. “Do these guys even know who I am, or…
We love our niche categories here at Velominati. Titles such as Reverence, Evanescent Riders, Defining Moments and Anatomy Of A Photo give us the impetus to bring you some entertainment when we may be somewhat low on inspiration, you might say. And if a sub-category can supply us with one article idea, then why not…
Like a kid at Christmas, that’s how I felt today. There was the opening of some cool presents, one old, some new, all awesome. The Bosomworth finally turned up, and the Chorus gruppo was awaiting it eagerly, like baubles waiting to be added to the old tree every year. I spent the afternoon stripping, cleaning,…
We gather here today to pay our respects to one of the icons of our great sport, the cycling cap. The perfect union of form and function and an excellent example of why the former follows the latter, and why together they are beautiful. The brim is just long enough to shield the eyes from the elements,…
I’ve got some really cool students. Every year I instruct a course in winter camping, whereby a group of students and I go out into the BWCA wilderness for a few days. Last year’s trip was particularly interesting. It was fairly cold by Minnesota standards with temps dipping into the -30F range at night and…
It’s funny how malleable our definition of “local” becomes when emotion gets involved. Seattle is a fiercely independent town where “local” is meant to imply your immediate neighborhood and we struggle to consider people who inhabit a community less than a kilometer away to be little less than an étranger. On the other hand, I have yet to meet a cyclist in…
Yesterday, Cyclops posted a link to a story about the abandonment from the Vuelta and subsequent retirement from cycling of Jose-Luis Arrieta. Nice work Cyclops. This man deserves a special mention. He’s pictured on the far right above and just a glance at his kit indicates the length of this man’s years as pro. Unless…
I’ve spent a lot of time of late looking at ‘vintage’ road bikes on the interwebs. It all started when thinking about what my ‘dream bike’ would be, and invariably the frame material of choice was steel. Beautiful modern-day frames from the likes of Baum, Speedvagen and Italian classics Colnago and De Rosa were high…
This picture makes me think, “There’s a right way to ride the cobbles, and a wrong way.” Those riders who have raced on the cobbles of Flanders and Northern France will tell you that riding the stones fast takes a “something” that can’t be taught. The trick seem to be finding a subtle space between…
I have to admit, until BigRingRiding bestowed upon us the honor of gracing their site with our humble image, I had never heard the term “Inhaling a Wasp” being used as a climbing tactic. My Great Aunt once swallowed a wasp; she was rather portly and since I think the wasp might have been in her…
As Frank mentioned in his response to the Evanescent Riders piece on Pascal Lino, there is a modicum of research that accompanies the relics of my memory to bring the riders and races of the 90s back to life. Whilst trawling the interwebs for usable images, I came across this awesome shot of our latest…
For Danish cycling, before Bjarne Riis, there was Rolf Sørensen*. Before Rolf Sørensen, there was Ole Ritter. Ritter was a badass, a champion, rode Bianchis for Bianchi. He had himself built the lightest bike available at the time, by a company that specialised in making the most badass handlebar tape in the history of this…
Festina. The name alone instantly conjurs up the spectre of doping, and in particular the 1998 Tour de France, when soigneur Willy Voet was caught with a cache of medications that would've done Pfizer proud. That the term “Festina affair” has become synonymous with 98 and the name of the watch company, has clouded the…
It only takes the most cursory glance through the Lexicon to realize that we have a special love for nicknames here at Velominati. I’m not sure what it is that compels us to call things by some made-up name instead of the actual ones; it almost seems like we’re bragging that we know something well…