With Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012 stitched up and in the history books, the challenge of documenting the trip became immediately obvious; how do you take the myriad impressions, experiences, and perspectives and put them down in a meaningful way – let alone in a way that can somehow be digested. Surely, to document even…
With Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012 stitched up and in the history books, the challenge of documenting the trip became immediately obvious; how do you take the myriad impressions, experiences, and perspectives and put them down in a meaningful way – let alone in a way that can somehow be digested. Surely, to document even…
With Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012 stitched up and in the history books, the challenge of documenting the trip became immediately obvious; how do you take the myriad impressions, experiences, and perspectives and put them down in a meaningful way – let alone in a way that can somehow be digested. Surely, to document even…
With Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2012 stitched up and in the history books, the challenge of documenting the trip became immediately obvious; how do you take the myriad impressions, experiences, and perspectives and put them down in a meaningful way – let alone in a way that can somehow be digested. Surely, to document even…
It’s referred to as the Hell of the North not for the misery the race causes on its riders, but for the landscape the route carries the riders through. Terrible, unimaginable things have happend there. Napoleon’s troops marched those lands, falling by the thousands at the bayonet and cannonball. More recently, the First World War took place there,…
The Hardmen. They inspire us; we aspire to be one among them. They drive us to be better cyclists. They are the solitary voice among the thousands in our heads that tell us to keep pushing when all the others tell us to stop. Their long shadows look on in approval as we pull on…
The first Velominati Scottish Cogal is in the books. Organized and supported by Clan Engine, it looked to be a beautiful Scottish day on the bikes. V-kits and casually deliberate in Callander, this Cogal thing is catching on. VLVV, Gianni Engine Report Remember how you used to go to bed the night before Christmas excited?…
You can’t be blamed for thinking it matters which way your wheels are pointed, or that you believe they both should be headed in more or less the same direction at any given moment. From when we first start riding a bike, we’re told this is the case; after all, you only have two wheels on…
This has been in the works for a while. I don’t want to take up too much time as you all have a lot of reading to do here. Rodger has an opening ramble then introduces us to the whole crew. Rob added his two cents worth and Xyxax wrote a perfect final report so…
It was Marko’s love letter about fi’zi:k’s points-of-contact that started this off. It led to a conversation that resulted in us heading off to Belgium with some fi’zi:k point-of-contact items to test. Most stimulating was the notion of testing Italian cycling shoes. Both Marko and Gianni have publicly admitted their cycling shoe issues. Marko has shoes for…
There’s been so much cool stuff going on this week that we’ve hardly had time to scratch ourselves. Riding Roubaix, watching the Ronde, meeting and riding with The Lion of Flanders, and drinking enough Malteni to keep the brewery solvent well into the next decade isn’t an easy gig, but we’ve done it. On our…
It’s crazy to me how fast two months from peaking goes by. At Christmas time I remember thinking how distant the Keepers Tour 2012 felt and that I’d have plenty of time to train. Now that time is measured in weeks instead of months and my feelings tend more toward doubt about my form. Cycling…
Focus groups are forced marches out of the safety of our locked and darkened offices to delve into group work that would certainly be accomplished by one person, namely you, with much more efficiency and elegance. As it happens, the suspicions you’ve had about the dude you’ve successfully avoided conversation with for three years in…
It’s so close I can almost taste it. The mud. The dust. The heavy Spring air, turning to rain, blown across the fields of Flanders, where many a battle has been fought, in trenches and on wheels. Battles fought against other men, battles fought within each man. My own mind is in battle; am I…
Riding bicycles brings people together. It forms bonds. Bonds that can last for years, lifetimes, transcending distance and even a total lack of contact and communication. Friendships are forged through a common passion shared only through the medium of the internet, as we experience here on this very site. It’s a unique entity that has…
It hasn't always been this way, where we thoughtlessly disembogue 140 characters or less in messages sent into a medium where our crimes against language, spelling and grammar will live for ever. There was a time when we wrote letters. These letters were carefully composed and penned onto thick, quality parchment paper and sealed in…
This was not going to be the Race of Truth. My wife and I were descending different routes to our vehicle. I was on the route with the tooth jarring pavement and tight corners, she was not. BAM! Oh scheiße, I’ve got flat rear! The tire exhaled air and water vapor in one great blast….
That is my question. Both want to be considered great cyclists, not great French cyclists. It is a cruel and heavy burden to be an excellent French cyclist. When are you going to win the Tour de France? Bernard Hinaults don’t come around very often, maybe never again. Hinault was the French Merckx; winning was…
I’m struggling with how to open this conversation without sounding like what I’m assuming my grandparents did when I was growing up. Maybe it’s because I’m just now clawing my way into some of the wisdom they had, or maybe I’m just less of an idiot than I was when they were moving their lips and…
I’m compliant with Rule #74: no Garmin, no cyclometer, just an uncluttered cockpit. I’m not anti-data, if I could generate some awesome data I’d like to know about it. If I was racing I would train with data. I just got bored with looking at the numbers and not doing anything about them. When my…