The migration to electronic transmissions in cycling is inevitable. Cables have lots of inherent problems; they stretch, rust, break, and get clogged in their housings. Worse, they are part of an imprecise mechanical system that requires constant maintenance and adjustment, and one that can by design only work perfectly in one gear and gets progressively worse the further you get from that “perfect” gear. In short, cable shifting sucks, and it will eventually go the way of friction-shifting.

The obvious solution is the electronic drive-train; once adjusted, an electronic system should need little further adjustment or maintenance since there are no cables to stretch,  and it should work equally well in all gears because an electronic system should be able to set the chain perfectly regardless of the derailleur’s position with respect to the cog in the cassette.  The only problem with electronic shifting is that it takes human control out of the system, which makes it suck even more than cable shifting.

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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!

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.

For most directors, winning Le Tour for the billionth time would make for a successful season, but not for Johan Bruyneel.  It turns out that dealing with the Kazakhi backers of Team Astana really put a stinker on his season.  Add that stress to the considerable logistics involved in buying off testing laboratories and bribing the anti-dope controllers, and you’ve got yourself a busy season.

In a recent interview with CyclingNews.com, Johan finally put a topper on what has been a soap opera-worthy season for cyclists worldwide.

First, there was the comback of Lance Armstrong.  Does anyone else remember him saying that when he retired he wasn’t going to be like one of those other athletes who kept showing up at events after retirement?  I digress.  The Douchebag was back, and it turned out to be a challenge for Bruyneel due, in no small part, to Armstrong’s crash in the early season.  Turns out that Lance was whiney and felt like quitting, but Johan stepped in and threw his own famous quote back in the Texan’s face:

I had to force him: ‘Lance, you have to. You can’t go back now.’ I had to send him one of his famous sayings: ‘Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever.’ I didn’t get a response, but he gave it a good think and pulled through.

Rationalizing the paradox of being ignored and listened to at the same time is pretty stressful stuff.

Much has been made of the team situation at Astana and the tension between Armstrong and Cuntador.  Alberto felt isolated, and maintains that he won the Tour largely on his own steam and without the help or support of his team.  That’s a bit of a surprise, I’m sure, to the 7 guys on the team who controlled the race before 2km to go banner when the attacks came.  The quibbling culminated with Lance twittering that “there’s no I in team“.   This is what Bruyneel has to say on the matter:

He [Contador] continues to say that he won the Tour on his own. That is completely untrue: without the team he wouldn’t have won the Tour that comfortably – maybe he would’ve won it, but still…

It will be interesting to see how Contador rides next year without the support of the most successful Director in Tour de France history.  Speaking of which, what is the real problem with Cundtador?  Apparently, it has to do with questioning the Belgian’s leadership:

The problem was that whatever I decided – the race plan, the team tactics, the riders selection – he always expressed his doubts. We all have the experience: we don’t make mistakes anymore; while Alberto still has much to learn.

One is to take what Johan says and like it, dammit!  Also, I am to glean from this comment that he has become an Honorary Dutchman and has thus stopped making mistakes.  Interesting move.  I wonder who authorized that.  I happen to be on the Awesomeness Panel and didn’t see anything on the subject come through.

Finally, what of the Kazahki backers of the team?  What about those guys?  I guess they were the worst part of his season.  Unpaid salaries and general malfeasance permeated the season.   There was some friction over the direction of the team, it’s image, and who should be on it:

I’m being judged on the results and the international image of the team, not on the image of the team in a godforsaken country such as Kazakhstan.

As a Dutchman reading a quote by a Belgian calling another country godforsaken, I have to ask, isn’t this a bit of a “pot-kettle” situation?  Or was that Pot Belge?

Lance Armstrong and Frankie Andreu are speaking again.  You probably didn’t know (or care) that they weren’t speaking in the first place, but they weren’t.  And it destroyed the world of cycling as we knew it:  a relationship no one gave a crap about had fallen apart.

What happened?  Well, they used to be teammates and friends.  Then Andreu did the unthinkable:

1. He admitted to using EPO during his duties to help Armstrong to his first Tour win in 1999.
2. He testified that Armstrong admitted EPO use to his doctor when undergoing treatment for cancer.

Not surprisingly, Armstrong wasn’t thrilled with either claim, and did what he seems to do anytime he doesn’t get his way: he threw a hissy fit and stopped talking to him.

But everything has been all patched up, in an incredibly passive-aggressive way.  Said Andreu:

I got a phone call Saturday morning that I’m on the Astana detail and in charge of interviewing Lance and the rest of the team.  I was definitely surprised and shocked by it. They told me Astana had called over and requested it. I didn’t understand why or what was going on, but Versus said to go over and do it.

So I guess that does it.