Velominati Super Prestige:
Giro D'Italia 2013
Velominati Community Profile Archive

Velominatus: starclimber

Order: Level 1 Velominatus

Location: Delta BC

Coming soon, but not soon enough. There's some humour buried in that.

@starclimber's activity:

Velominati Super Prestige: Giro d’Italia 2013, Stage 10

Day 5 of the Six Days of the Giro continues with an impromptu VSP event.Lets have a look at where we are in the 2013 Giro. Wiggins must have spent time training in Luxembourg because he’s been descending like a Schleck when things get dodgy before disappearing into the team van to have a cry about it. Hesjedal has put in some good moves and...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. ‘Wait’ of a Nation will probably be another couple of minutes. Sigh. VSP PICKS: 1. Betancur 2. Nibali 3. Wiggins 4. Evans 5. Gesink »

Dirty Romantics

We’re into day three of the Six Days of the Giro series, and it’s time to hit the dirt.If ever a Keepers Tour goes to Italy, then we’re doing this climb. No doubt. Climbing on gravel up a real mountain, what’s not to love? Continue reading...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. I would have thought that too, but my home location regularly drifts in elevation as much as 100 metres. ‘Oh, right, -74 metres, that was when I chose to ignore the bridge and instead rode on the river bottom. Clearly, the virtual power figures were ‘way … »

Pink or Yellow?

We’re into day four of the Six Days of the Giro series, let’s talk trash. Yes the Tour de France started a few years before the Giro and has always been credited as The Tour to win. You win the Giro, you are a stud. Win the Tour and you are a stud for life. Why is that? Is the Tour longer, tougher, more murderous, more beautiful? In the 20...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Has anyone ever looked more utterly fucked than Tiralongo at the finish? Glorious. Hands down, Il Giro. »

Sur La Plaque: Rule #33

We’re heaping coals on the Giro frenzy that’s burning in all corners of the Cycling world by issuing the second installment of the monthly BigRingRiding Sur la Plaque series while at the same time kicking off the Six Days of the Giro series where we’ll post six articles on the subject of this, the best Grand Tour of the year. Y...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. I have self-shaving legs, and arms too for that matter. It’s like I’ve evolved right out of hair in those locations, or I was simply born to observe at least one of The Rules. »

Self-Chosen: Il Pirata & Il Giro

We continue our Six Days of the Giro series with a look at the troubled bond between Marco Pantani and the Giro.Some were meant to be tormented, as though it were preordained that their brilliance should be balanced with fatal flaws. These are tortured souls, whose dramatic highs are equalled only by the devastating depths of their lows. Continu...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Likewise, link fails to open. Bit worried about the work website, also a WordPress item, as I had one ‘unpublished’ bit of spam appear last week, particularly after the problems here. I’ve learned not to say ‘probably nothing’. Poor Marco. All too familia… »

Velominati Super Prestige: Giro D’Italia 2013

Twiggo is dreaming of a Giro-Tour double. He has sent out mixed messages about his Tour ambitions. Will he use the Giro as the ultimate Tour preparation or will be burn all his matches in May and hope he can find another pack for July? He has abandoned his successful 2012 Tour run-up strategy of winning every stage race he entered the previous spri...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Well, I’m a Canuck. Shrug. VSP PICKS: 1. Hesjedal 2. Nibali 3. Wiggins 4. Scarponi 5. Betancur »

The Weight of a Moniker

Young riders rise through the ranks with such promise. We all know the story; the rider who borrows a bicycle and enters a local race and wins. He decides he might be good at going batshit fast on a bike. Mom and Dad buy him a klunker for his birthday and he takes out a license. He starts winning most races he enters locally and rises to the region...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Better that reality than a drug-fueled Flandisy. »

La Vie Velominatus: Lean Properly

There are always at least two ways to accomplish any task: properly and improperly. Drinking beer from a glass, not the bottle; carrying a full umbrella instead of a miniature fold-up; stirring your gin martinis, not shaking them; wearing french cuffs with a suit, not button cuffs. The Velominatus, of course, is drawn towards doing things Properly,...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. @frank Had a tasting of this fine brew last Saturday evening, where it came up second against a 2007 Samichlaus. The Samichlaus is allegedly both the world’s strongest lager and the ‘world’s rarest beer’, which might be a good thing, given the Ministry… »

Velominati Super Prestige: Luik-Bastenaken-Luik 2013

There is something to love about a race that makes a deviation to its route for the simple joy of sending a fleet of professional riders up a fiendishly steep and narrow ramp. The Cote du Stockeu offers zero benefit to the route from a logistical standpoint – in fact, all it does is complicate things. On the way down from the Cote de Wanne &#...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Excellent race, unmarred by my single point. Looks like Hesjedal is rounding into form nicely for the Giro defense. »

  2. Dice tossed. VSP PICKS: 1. Porte 2. Froome 3. Nibali 4. Valverde 5. Kreuziger »

Guest Article: Bernard Hinault’s 1980 Liege-Bastogne-Liege

Unfortunately the weather for 2013 L-B-L looks a lot nicer than the 1980 episode.  Then again, if the weather looked that bad, they might have cancelled the race or put them on buses before Bastogne and driven them back towards Liege. Who would be the Badger of the peloton of this year’s race in those conditions? Discuss. As always, we have...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. @unversio Yeah, Hinault was both unstoppable force ‘and’ immovable object. Great piece, wiscot, thanks. »

Velominati Super Prestige: Luik-Bastenaken-Luik 2013

There is something to love about a race that makes a deviation to its route for the simple joy of sending a fleet of professional riders up a fiendishly steep and narrow ramp. The Cote du Stockeu offers zero benefit to the route from a logistical standpoint – in fact, all it does is complicate things. On the way down from the Cote de Wanne &#...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Bah, this f’n VSP. Shitheads hiding form and springing it on us without warning. ‘Mo-fucking-reno’, for instance. Bah. Fuck it! Ok, for now, at least, fuck it. Later, when I return, I’ll psychically divine the top 5 with nary a moments thought, I will. Y… »

Velominati Super Prestige: La Flèche Wallone Féminine 2013

Last year we saw Evelyn Stevens out-last Marianne Vos at the top of the Mur de Huy. The take home message is don’t start one’s charge too early. Vos should know this finish, having won it four times already. It’s hard to know who is on form in the professional women field as the races are too far apart to infer much from the last...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. OOOOH! Close. Nice work, seemunkee. »

Velominati Super Prestige: La Flèche Wallone 2013

We came tantalizingly close to adding a foray up the Mur de Huy during our excursion to Liege-Bastogne-Liege during this year’s Keepers Tour. But good sense and The Anti-V prevailed, as they are wont to do, and only two of us were left wanting a dig at the most notorious finishing climb in the Classics season.I write this, then, woefully igno...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. And, back to Alba. VSP PICKS: 1. Sagan 2. Gilbert 3. Valverde 4. Albasini 5. Moser »

  2. Shorter race, nod to Sagan. VSP PICKS: 1. Sagan 2. Gilbert 3. Valverde 4. Gerrans 5. Moser »

Velominati Super Prestige: La Flèche Wallone Féminine 2013

Last year we saw Evelyn Stevens out-last Marianne Vos at the top of the Mur de Huy. The take home message is don’t start one’s charge too early. Vos should know this finish, having won it four times already. It’s hard to know who is on form in the professional women field as the races are too far apart to infer much from the last...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Because, really, I do not know, at all. And even if I knew their current form, they’re women. Maybe they’re pms’ing, bloated, ovulating. Perhaps they’re too lean to menstruate. On the other hand, maybe they’re all on birth control. My research ‘there’ sug… »

Velominati Super Prestige: Amstel Gold 2013

Yes it is a race named after a barely drinkable Dutch beer. I have enjoyed Amstel beer, brought to our table by a nice waitress, sitting outside in the Dutch spring. Atmosphere is everything. Do the Dutch brew awesome beer? I drank some good stuff in Amsterdam last spring but I’m pretty sure it was Belgian.Now we begin the Ardennes three race...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. @Blah Chuckle. Unless your peter is saggin’, in which case my condolences. »

  2. Peter Saggin. Blah. »

  3. VSP PICKS: 1. Sagan 2. Gilbert 3. Valverde 4. Albasini 5. Rodriguez »

Cobbles, Carbon, Silk, and Dust

I hadn’t planned to ride them every day. In fact, I had planned to only ride them once and let other people ride them. But, genius that I am, I forgot my ceramic brake pads and had to source some new ones which was a maddeningly difficult process given that Europe observes something in the neighborhood of 363 holidays per year.I was more than...

@starclimber's posts:

  1. Here’s the forecast, verbatim, I shit you not: SaturdayMainly cloudy with 70 percent chance of rain showers in the morning and 30 percent chance of rain showers or ice pellets late in the afternoon. Risk of a thunderstorm late in the afternoon. 70 perc… »

  2. @Deakus I suffered a short-lived life threatening malt-powered mirth chortle upon reading your response, for which I thank you. If only one phase of water would fall from the skies tomorrow, I could get through this weekend exfurioused. I mean c’mon, V… »

  3. @Gianni Oh, I’za waitin’, massuh, I’za waitin! I’za mosly awaitin’ a cobbled skull-fuckin’ in dee mornin’. This ain’t gonna be pretty. »

  4. OH, and as to ‘resonant frequency’, way too sciency for @frank. Or @shitfaced.me, for that matter. It took me a solid 15 seconds to figure out to finish that last sentence with ‘matter’. For that….uh. um… »

  5. Patterns are good. If I pull one more bottle from this case, the pattern potential increases drunkratically. »

  6. PS: Amstel Gold VSP? »

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