Tino Tabak

Up until a week ago, I’d never heard the name Tino Tabak.  Tonight, I’m brimming with anticipation about reading his life story.

The Kennett brothers have produced a series of great books on some of New Zealand’s most successful, least successful, hardest, most famous, infamous and iconic cycling heroes. Their latest offering, written by Jonathan, looks at arguably the most naturally talented of all the subjects, the often-times controversial Tino Tabak. This evening I was lucky enough to attend the launch of the book at Wellington’s National Library.

Without going into too much detail (mainly because I know little of his story), Tino mixed it up with the likes of Merckx, De Vlaeminck, Maertens, Zoetemelk, Kuiper and Post on Europe’s biggest stages in the 70s.  He is the highest Kiwi finisher in Le Tour (18th in 1972).  Almost won Ghent-Wevelgem.  He could’ve had it all, almost did, but saw it slip away.

He had a few wines, signed a few books, told a few stories, and engaged everyone in that room.  Foyer.  Church.  We were his disciples.  He was a God.

As he was signing Rachel’s book, he said to her “I hope you enjoy it, but please don’t think I’m a bad person.  If you do, read it again, and if you still do, well that’s ok too.”  Keeping it real, all these years later.  Can’t wait to get my teeth into it.

*This post first appeared on More News From Nowhere November 3 2009.

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Tchmil and his signature grimmace. Photo Graham Watson.

Few images inspire the Keepers more than those of hardmen grinding away large chainrings on roads of antiquity built as cattle paths in northern Europe. Throw in some grey skies, hordes of beer soaked Belgians lining the way, windmills in the background, and of course, Flandrian Mud, and the first word that comes to mind is most likely “hardman”.  Go ahead, try some free-association, Rorschach style.  Flash a picture of Boonen, Hushovd, or even Freire in front of a Velominatus and ask what the first word that comes to their mind is.  I’d be willing to bet my last cog it’s “hardman”.

Hardman status is not easy to attain and certainly begets cred.  But the Rules don’t really stipulate how one becomes known as a hardman.  It’s generally agreed upon that A) One’s palmares must include some success in the spring classics.  But this doesn’t necessarily include La Primavera as it’s not north enough and there are no cobbles.  B)  It certainly helps if one’s name is of a northern European dialect and includes double “o’s”, a “de” or “van” in the middle, or three consonants strung together somewhere.  But that’s not hard and fast either as there certainly have been southern Europeans who’ve achieved hardman status.  And C) it seems there must be a certain level of independence.  One does not become a hardman by sucking a domestique’s wheel for 150K only to win in a 15k solo attack up a climb.  Hardmen ride out front, take chances, are aggressive, and drive the pace. But then again, sucking the stream of a lead-out train to win a sprint seems to at least contribute to hardman status.

There is a type of hardman though that is unequivocal.  The Flahute.  The term Flahute is thought to be coined by French journalists after WWII who used it endearingly to describe their Belgian neighbors, the cyclists who rode the legs off their rivals over the pave and through cold, rainy conditions.  These were people that had just had their country torn apart by war.  People who gave themselves one choice, pick beets all day or become a cyclist.   Either of which led to a career of suffering. One of which may have also led to praise by his countrymen and perhaps even glory.  These are riders, it has been said, that consider le Tour to be a series of long training rides.  The exception that proves this rule is, of course, Eddy Merckx.  Roger De Vlaeminck, Mr. Paris-Roubaix and a noted Flahute, defines them this way; “They’re just those guys who know how to ride faster than anybody else over cobblestones and in the rain.” Flahute has also been defined as the only guy who finishes a 200k race that 125 guys start. Franco Ballerino was one.  As was Johan Musseeuw.  In addition to the riders who have been catalogued here at Velominati I would like to add Andrei Tchmil.  Let’s take a look at why Tchmil is a Flahute.  He rode le Tour five times. He finished it twice having never won a stage.  But he throve in cobbled classics.  His win in the 1994 Paris-Roubax is legendary.  He rode away from Ballerini and Baldato in the final kilometers of that year’s mudfest in commanding style after doing battle earlier with Musseeuw.  Only 48 riders finished that year. It was George Hincapie’s first P-R.  He did not finish. Tchmil knew how to suffer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The thing of it is it’s much easier to come up with a list of riders who aren’t Flahute.  And that’s how it should be.  Of the current generation of riders one stands out as having Flahute potential, Tommeke. Other than that, who is there?  Yes, we currently have hardmen but Flahute?  I wonder.  As this year’s spring race calendar continues to unfold perhaps we’ll see.

One could fire up a blog and title it Flahuteminati.  The problem would be the scant number of riders to write about.  But even though the tales would be small in number, they would be worth repeating and reading about over and over again.

Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle showing his Zed colors.

Getting each new copy of Rouleur is almost a religious experience. It is printed on heavy paper, and has a particular smell about it; the pages are printed with a mat finish, so the heavy, rough pages feel a certain way in your hands as you turn them. There is no other periodical that I’m aware of that has the same feel to it; reading each issue is an experience unto itself.

Issue 16 came yesterday, and it has some incredible features, including a retrospective on Team Z – one of the coolest teams ever – and a history of Shimano – one of the most iconic component manufacturers in cycling.

As I thumbed the pages through my first pass of the content, I took some photos in an effort to share the experience.

Of course, you’ll have to order one for yourself for the full effect.

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Take, for example, the Periodic Table of Professional Cycling, published by Cyclocosm.  This is the product of what I have to assume is a chemistry major with idle hands who lacks the initiative to become a Meth dealer.  It’s beautiful, actually – a work of art; I could print this and hang it on the shop wall.   And, aside from it’s aesthetic qualities, it’s also surprisingly informative: besides showing the common (and sometimes made-up) abbreviation for each race, each element provides information in terms of it’s length, how long it’s been run, it’s name, and it’s difficulty and significance on the professional calendar.

This is the internet at it’s best, if you ask me.  Which I realize you didn’t.

]]> http://www.velominati.com/blog/general/periodic-table-of-professional-cycling/feed/ 2 http://www.velominati.com/blog/racing/il-piratas-1998-bianchi-the-elusive-stallion/ http://www.velominati.com/blog/racing/il-piratas-1998-bianchi-the-elusive-stallion/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:21:14 +0000 frank http://www.velominati.com/blog/?p=2131

Marco Pantani destroys the field on the Galibier of the 1998 Tour de France.

In 1998, Marco Pantani staged one of the most prestigious coups of cycling by winning the Giro-Tour double.  He made this run aboard what I believe to be the most beautiful bike in history, a Celeste steed with a yellow section of frame starting at the seat collar and spreading out down the tops of the seatstays, top tube, and seat tube.

Very little is actually known about this bike; it was a one-off creation made especially for Il Pirata by the Bianchi Reparto Corse division which makes all the top-end bikes for the company.   Some say the frame is aluminum, others claim it was boron.  The frame undeniably used a compact geometry (this is commonplace now, but it was unique in ’98), but whether the top tube sloped up or down seems to be a point of contention: did the top but slope up to give a longer head tube to bring his bars up to accommodate his unique in-the-drops climbing style or was the top tube sloped down towards the seat tube in order to reduce the weight of the frame and increase the stiffness of the rear triangle?

The bike has captured my imagination for a long time.  I love the way the saddle and tires match the portion of the frame where they intersect in what I call the “Yellow Cluster”; the vision of Pantani climbing out of the saddle on the Col du Galibier with those flashes of yellow swaying back and forth as he danced up the mountain remains one of the coolest images of cycling.  I studied his bike extensively when I was building my Bianchi XL EV2 and I mimicked it’s setup, choosing a yellow Flite saddle and solid yellow tires.  To this day I love the looks of that bike, and Pantani’s setup has even influenced one or two of The Rules.

I’ve searched the net over for information on his bike, hoping that at some point someone would find and catalog it for the world.  Occasionally, there will be an article posted somewhere that covers the bike, but each of these has ended up a disappointment as upon closer inspection, it is revealed that the bike is not in fact his tour-winning bike.

I did, however, find one article on Campy Only which appears to showcase the real deal.  It comes from an account by a fan at a post-tour criterium in 1998 where Pantani made an appearance:

Here you have the pictures of Pantani’s bike. Note that he is using tubulars on his Electron wheels, even for this small race. He seems to love this bike. In the Giro he used the normal team bike on the flat stages, but since the mountains he has not been apart from this ultralight “hillclimber” (except for time trials). I think the weight is about 7 kilos, but is is of course a very small bike.

The use of a downtube lever and the modified Ergo lever is a funny detail. It is very unusual these days to see homemade stuff like this on a pro’s bike, and he even won the two major tours on it–it’s a classic bike, this one!

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Recently on CyclingNews.com, they did a Retro Bike review of Pantani’s 1998 ride, reportedly stored at the Bianchi museum.  I was thrilled and dove into the photos, looking for answers to questions I probably didn’t know I had.  Unfortunately, closer inspection revealed a host of problems with the bike;  I am sad to report that this is not in fact Pantani’s bike, and in all likelihood did not even exist in 1998.  It appears to be nothing more than the Bianchi team replica frame clumsily loaded with a 1999 Campy Record 9-speed groupo.  The items that give this fact away are: non-compact geometry, carbon Ergo levers, no front down tube shifter (and accompanying left-side Ergo lever with guts removed), black and yellow tires (instead of his solid yellow tubulars), and silver Time mag pedals (he rode red ones in 1999).  This could possibly be a late-season racer or a 1999 trainer, but in any case, it is not his 1998 Giro-Tour winning magical steed.  Since it appears his real bike eludes even the Bianchi museum, my only hope is that he kept it for himself and it resides somewhere in the Pantani estate.

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The author starts with a two-page rant asserting that it is, in fact, about the bike and anyone who says otherwise stands a nonzero chance of be a douchebag. Those aren’t his words – I’m paraphrasing a bit – but it is the gist of what he’s getting at.

Then comes the following quote. This particular section describes “a friend” who is at this stage of his marriage not allowed to mention his bicycle in his home for fear of suffering a painful divorce as a consequence. I’m assuming part of the risk is that he would somehow loose his bikes in the divorce. He is relegated to a small room where he and his cousin may mention la bicicletta.

It is there that he and his unhinged cousin, the one who wears his heart rate monitor while gardening, yabber on pedantically about life’s rudiments such as Speedplay, VO₂ max and float while their incredulous, shell-shocked wives deal with all the peripheral stuff – their children, their homes, the public preservation of the sham of normalcy, every single thing that is not cycling. My own father retains expensive bicycles in three separate European countries. My mother has a 25-year old microwave oven.

That actually sounds a lot like my own parents, aside from the fact that my mother actually has a good number of bicycles of her own – including an old-school Aluminum Alan and a Scalpel – although I suspect her accumulation of bikes has more to do with my father’s guilt than with her desire to groom a stable.

We are a strange lot, we cyclists.

Hardmen of the 1970 Paris-Roubaix

To me, there is nothing cooler than riding in awful weather.  It automatically associates you with the Spring Classics, held in wet, wind, and rain, over the the worst roads you can imagine.  There is no image of cycling that I love more than of a tough Belgian Pro dressed in knickers, arm warmers, cycling cap perched beneath their helmet, grimace upon the face, and rain pouring from the skies.

The only good thing about winter and spring training is the fact that simply climbing on the machine that day means you are an automatic badass.  Hell, you don’t even have to ride hard, just being out means you’re awesome.  But I’ll be honest: I never ride harder than in the pouring rain, the drops of water dripping off my cycling cap tapping out my rhythm like a metronome, looking down at my knee warmers and shoe covers and imagining I’m cutting my teeth as a Pro on some godforsaken road somewhere in Belgium or Northern France.

Today was actually a beautiful day, but it was cold, so I dressed in my warmest gear and headed out on the road, Badass by Association.  It’s one of the Rules.

I even took some shots of myself, Dan O Style.  How did we satisfy our narcissistic self-portrait needs before cell phones?

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Things were always better in “the good old days”.  That’s what my mate Johnny Klink always says, especially when we’re talking about mountain biking (which is 99% of our conversations).

We were turned on to the sport around the same time in the early 90′s, and even though we didn’t meet until the latter part of that decade, we’d witnessed the halcyon days of the sport.  At least that’s how we viewed them.

It didn’t matter that bikes and components were heavy and clunky by todays standards, at the time a sweet steel hardtail with an undamped fork (if you were really lucky and/or rich) weighing under 30lbs was the epitome of a ‘dream machine’.  I’d scour the U.S. magazines for the latest race results, even if they’d only make their way Down Under months after the fact, but the internet was still years away and it was all I had to go on.

Revelling in the glossy images of the stars of the day, two riders always were prominent at the top of the results in NORBA and World Cup racing:

John Tomac and Ned Overend.  The Young Lion and The Old Stager.  The flairy, gifted bike handler and the gritty endurance machine.  Johnny T and The Lung.

Their nicknames summed up their differing personalities, both off the bike, and on the race course.  Different, but similar in the fact that they were head and shoulders above the rest, and never far apart.

Photo: Nutsy Fagan

I was always more of a Ned fan, though ‘The Tomes’  was also right up there in my MTB fandom. I probably leaned more towards Ned as my days of riding in the gung-ho style of Tomac were rapidly fading in the rear-view mirror, and I was advancing towards the veteran category which Ned could’ve easily been racing in, instead of laying waste to men a decade or more younger than him.

Johnny Klink gets so excited when he talks of those days, recalling the equipment they were using, the kit they’d be wearing, and the iconic images that they left inscribed on our psyches.

Tomac, hunched over the drop bars, the American Eagle emblazoned on his helmet, blitzing the technical sections, leaving everyone in his wake. Overend, in the pink and yellow Specialized Stumpjumper jersey, climbing the steeps of Durango or Big Bear, where he was king of the thin air, leaving everyone in his wake.

Johnny T

Even in their fading years on the circuit, when the Euros started to dominate and the Americans suddenly were pack fodder, they were never far apart. I remember watching them at the 95 and 96 Worlds, in Germany and Australia respectively, battling away for 30th or 40th place, yet still garnering some of the biggest cheers and support from the spectators.

They were the real stars, the riders of, and for, the people.  Not many of them around today.

Ah, the good old days indeed.

Tomorrow, We Ride

About a year and a half ago, as I was just starting to get really serious about cycling again after dabbling for about a decade, Michelle bought me every past issue of Rouleur and got me a two-year subscription.  This is not a bike magazine.  This is a quarterly publication for cyclists.  It is printed on thick, heavy paper, and each issue is rife with pieces written by pros talking about a particular race, or mechanics putting in a 10 or 15 page piece on why they love tubs, how they select them or age them for a race, and how to glue one onto a rim properly.  This isn’t fluffy stuff about Astana’s soap opera politics or What’s Hot and What’s Not; these are pieces you read over and over again: a long account by Robert Millar about the stage to L’Alpe d’Huez when he took the Polkadot Jersey in the 1984 Tour.  Chris Boardman’s discussion on his Athlete’s Hour Record attempt, focusing on his collaboration with Royce and the effort that went into building the wheels for his ride.

Each issue starts with a two-page spread of an epic scene from road racing folklore on the left page, and on the right a well-chosen quote referring to the scene.  The first issue I opened had a photo Eddy Merckx, complete with grimace on his face, accompanied by the quote, “On some days I would sit on my bike, weeping from the pain.”  The next was of Bernard Hinault, growling at an empty road, paired with, “As long as I breathe, I attack.”  Seattle is filled with short, steep climbs similar to the Ardenne with gradients of up to 25% and up to 4km in length; one of the hardest things for me as I clawed my way back into cycling form was the pain of hauling my fat ass over our route and its 1.5km vertical.  These spreads reminded me to shut up and ride.  In cycling, suffering is glory.

If the life of a cyclist is about suffering, why do we do it?  Well, the fact is that on rare occasion, you don’t suffer.  I’m not talking about those days when you top up on amphetamines or EPO; I’m talking about those days when you find the rhythm and when you find that place in your head where pain doesn’t tread.  Many have sensed it, some have claimed to have felt it but haven’t, and fewer still have actually found it.  The French call this La Volupte.

I recently read Jean Bobet’s book, Tomorrow, We Ride.  This isn’t a biography of his older brother, Louison, but instead is a book about his life as a cyclist.  Obviously, that life is deeply intertwined with Louison’s career, but none-the-less, this book is about a passion for cycling that goes beyond careers and racing results.  In some places it is historical, in others touching, and yet in others is downright funny.  But mostly, it’s about a love for a cycling life. Jean recounts two cases where he found La Volupte.  The first was a training ride with Louison around Lake Como before the Giro di Lombardia.  You can almost smell the thick, misty air by the lake as he describes their ride and the perfection of that moment on the bike.  The second was on a lone training ride on the Cote d’Azur where he floated up one of the climbs on his route in perfect harmony with his machine and the gradient.  La Volupte is fleeting, and the spell is usually broken by some external interference, as was the case for both of Jean’s accounts.  On Lake Como, it was broken by the horn of a passing vehicle – on the Azur, by taking a sip of water from his bidon at the top of the climb.  In an instant, La Volupte is gone and what remains with us is an unquenchable thirst to find it again.

La Volupte translates roughly to “voluptuousness”, and while the first thing the mind goes to is a sexual definition, my favorite is, “the property of being lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses”.   In a sport where pain is worn like a badge of honor, those times when cycling is lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses are what makes us want to climb onto our bikes again tomorrow.  When Bobet returned home from his ride on the Azur, his brother asked him how it went.  His answer was simply, “I was flying today.”

I spent Memorial Day weekend in Boise, and on the actual holiday I headed out for a big ride with my brother-in-law. We started at 2800′ elevation, and ended up at the local ski area, Bogus Basin– where the parking lot is a mean 6200′.

It was a great ride, until the skies opened up in a downpour and the temperature dropped to 45F. Sensing disaster (and knowing the nearest brewpub was over 3000′ of vertical away), I did the only sensible thing possible. I walked over to a phone booth alongside the deserted ski lodge, tore out the first 100 pages, and wadded the pages up inside my thin cycling jacket. My brother-in-law raised an eyebrow, and I responded that it’s the closest I’ll ever be to a real Tour experience.  (Can anyone confirm that tour riders used to do this… I know I read it somewhere.)  Anyway, I like to think his hypothermic convulsions were much more severe than mine during the decent, but that’s pretty subjective.

[originally posted on ishouldhavebeendutch.dutchmonkey.com]