Anatomy of a Photo: Sean Yates V. 2.0
Sweet Jesus, here is a DS you can’t bluff. Having Raas, Tchmil or Sean Yates as a director must make you a better rider; you will be getting little sympathy from the team car with one of these guys behind the wheel. Some ex-racers really let go when they retire but only Sean Yates looks meaner and leaner after he quits the pro peloton. This photo is quite a contrast to an old photo from his early years in the professional ranks.
We have always held Sean in very high esteem. He has always appeared unstoppable, indestructible, a cyclist who actually might end up winning a bar fight. I bet he can put some of the present climbers on the Sky team in a spot of bother on the flats any time he rides with them. He even looks bandaged up here like he went down in a corner. And that black wrist band, I reckon it is a HTFU, Rule V special. No need to speak to a rider when he drops back to the team car to moan about the work being done on the front for Cav, just a quick look towards his black wrist band is all it takes.
Don’t f___ with the man with a panino!
I dare you to point out the Rule #51 violation to him.
Ladies and gentleman of the jury. I submit exhibit A.
@Steampunk
Yeah, I think he get’s a pass for just about everything.
@Gianni
+1!
@Steampunk
I believe his yellow band says “LIVESEAN”
“…a cyclist who actually might end up winning a bar fight…”
Brilliant. (R Costa he ain’t.)
3 pack of HTFU wristbands ordered.
@G’phant
I’d like to see Sean and Lo Sceriffo goin at it…
I know a lot of hard bastards, so I know a hard bastard when I see him.
Him.
@brett
ewwwww, I couldn’t watch two of my favorites doing that. Better to see either one whipping up on Robert Ferrari, right on the finish line.
@brett
Actually that might be the perfect counterweight to the fabled Stuey v Jens mini-pump battle. Set the two confrontations up on antipodean points on the globe & that way the extreme levels of the V exhibited in each battle will cancel each other out and ensure the planet isn’t thrown off its axis…
GQ magazine advises against mirrored aviator sunglasses for everyone except Robert Redford.
I think they should add Sean Yates to the list of exceptions.
@G’rilla
I think you should stop reading GQ…
Funny, I’m thinking more trainspotting than GQ, but that makes me like the pic more…
How did he get so thin eating that crap in his left hand?
When you are this hard it is important that you demonstrate the fear you strike in to all around you at every possible opportunity, in this case by casually slouching against your team Jag, facing the wrong way on a one way street munching on your keebab with extra chilli sauce and telling all passers by….”Ill ride in a couple of minutes once I have finished this bad boy” I salute you Sir Yates!
@Adrian
I do not think that he actually eats it. More likely he just beats his riders with it and swings it round for emphasis.
@Buck Rogers
Maybe he could visit my favorite Ferrari in a dark alley with it and teach him three points make a straight line!
You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Oh yeah? OK.
@Buck Rogers
It reminds me a bit of Brad Pitt’s character in Ocean’s 11–always stuffing his face with some godawful junk food, but still exuding the sense that he is a 100% cool customer that you do not want to fuck with.
Sean’s answer to Eddie:
“I can’t stand you where I eat.”
@The Oracle
Read #2
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-actors-who-do-exact-same-thing-in-every-movie_p2/
Don’t mess with the man with no eyes.
Holy. Shit.
I had no idea that I might actually want to wear rubber wristbands again. Now that’s a cause…
The guy who took the photograph deserves a medal just for daring to stand so close and point a camera at him….looks like he wasn’t impressed.
@tomb
I remember seeing these on the CSC team some years ago. Can you post the URL where you got them from?
Actually, I’ve always thought the coolest thing about Yates was how fun it was to properly pronounce his first name “Shourn.” Kinda like: @Frank. you suddenly feel an urge to speak with a Hercule Poiroit accent when in his presence.
I really like the fact that so many retired PROs stay fit & still ride. That doesn’t happen with many other sports or the athletes. They just let themselves go. Yet another beautiful thing about being a cyclist – when your bibs feel like a girdle you know you need to quit fucking about and start riding more. Or else.
Definitely must be tough to go back to the team car and try to complain to Yates that you’re having a hard day.
Speaking of Rule V…pretty impressive sprint win today after a meeting with the pavement.
Just ordered the value pack. Yeeeeaaaaahhh.
http://www.laughingstock.com.au/store/
I bought the three pack
Fuck Ya Gianni! That’d be a hard relationship as a racer; so much wisdom, but I’d be afraid to ask. Kind of like a drill instructor.
@Ron
Not all of them though;
@scaler911
Ahhhhh, poor LeMelvis rears his head again.
@wiscot
“Friendo”. Throw a bowl hair cut on him and he could be the creepy killer guy from “No Country for Old Men”.
@scaler911
I think he is sprinting for the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich stand. Actually, it’s his bitterness that is the saddest part.
http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4f140eb2ecad04e126000012/hunter-s-thompson.jpg
I thought I’d seen this picture somewhere before – “Fear and Loathing on the Road to Milan” perhaps?
The OP picture reminds me of the sheriff from O Brother Where Art Thou.
That sandwich looks unrealistically good.
@Ron
I think I remember reading in peleton or Rouleur that Sean doesn’t ride anymore due to a health problem.
@Keepers
If I am wrong about that I’d appreciate you not divulging my whereabouts to the man.
@scaler911
The before and after are tough to reconcile.
I’ll remember the former, but its hard with things like this floating around. You can do it, though, because a Google search will keep turning this kind of stuff up.
@frank
The two may be tough to reconcile, but having met the guy, I gotta say he’s still one class act. And even with the weight he’s put on, he could probably still out-climb and out-ride me any day.
http://velominati.com/wp-content/uploads/readers/frank/2012.05.10.16.37.15/taste91-lemond.jpg
Holy crap, lookkit them guns!
@Jim
He might’ve just taken that sandwich from some…along with their milk money.
I’d be very good money for the video of Lo Sheriffo and Sean walking down the alley together towards Ferrari. They don’t even have to touch him. At 50m, he wets himself and faints.
@Cyclops
Your friends have abandoned you, Cyclops.
Is Yates cycling’s answer to soccer’s Vinnie Jones?
@Nate
I know he still trains when he is traveling with Sky, he used to own the 50 mile time trial championship in England. Ouch, that’s a Hardman’s race. Wiki said he didn’t race anymore due to heart problems, but really, what does wiki know. Can you be this thin if you aren’t riding lots?
@scaler911
Maybe he is super nice, or the sad clown behind those glasses, another mystery wrapped up in an old blown Vittoria tubular. We will get @Roadslave to get to the bottom of this. Go for a ride with him, have six pints, get to know him.
@Gianni
I could well be confused. He sure looks like he still rides.
@Gianni
I didn’t know about his heart, but certainly that can thin you out. But, as much as it pains me to say, a heart condition and being thin kinda points backwards to PED’s. Ah, well, he’s still a legend in my book.
@frank
I do remember LeMan. Thanks for that.
@frank
I can’t get enough of those LeMan photos. I really love the one of him descending in the world champ kit with a big grin on his face.
@Nate
Rest easy Nate, if anyone is confused here, it’s me. I cannot remember where I read that article about him still training, maybe an old Cycle Sport mag. They all blend together.