Certified hardman and aesthete, the Swiss rider Hugo Koblet.

There are those who are challenged to find the value of aesthetics in a sport which requires eating 11T cogs buttered with chain oil for breakfast and drinking kegs of Rule 5 at dinner. Ye of the Congoscenti, I present you with the following photos of some of the quintessential hardmen of our sport who rode during an era when merely climbing aboard a bicycle – let alone to race one – was an act of stony hardness which, by comparison, casts modern riders into the realm of the indolent.

Indeed, these were men who rode over the same mountain passes that we ride today, but did so on unpaved roads aboard bicycles weighing 20 kilos.  They turned massive gears out of necessity, and rode races that were many times longer than those we see today.  These were men who wore motorcycle goggles for a lack of any cycling-specific eye wear; who wore their spare tires in a figure-eight pattern looped over their shoulders. These were the hardest men imaginable.

Most of them also rode with a comb in their pocket to ensure they always looked their best the moment they stopped pedaling their machines.  These men were Giants who understood that the finer things in life and in this sport are what make it worthwhile to suffer so.

So next time you pack your energy gels and inner tube into your jersey pocket, make sure you leave room for a comb.

A bunch of men, those.

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Schleck suffers a dramatic mechanical and the loss of his Yellow Jersey: Photo Bettini Photo

Of all people, a Velominatus knows that our sport is a civilized one; it is steeped in tradition and etiquette and rife with unwritten rules. High on the list of unwritten rules are those that outline acceptable behavior when various hardships befall the leader of a Grand Tour. One of the reasons such rules exist is due to the brutally difficult nature of our sport; in the context of stage races where crashes and mechanical incidents are a part of daily life and can have a major impact on the competitive landscape, such conventions and agreements form a foundation in the quest to find the winner of the events through athletic, tactical, and strategic superiority while minimizing the impact that misfortune may have on the final outcome. The Golden Rule in this case is that riders are never to attack the race leader when they suffer a crash or mechanical incident.

At the Giro d’Italia, on Stage 7 over the Strada Bianchi, the race leader Vincenzo Nibali crashed and was left to struggle behind.  The question was raised then, why did the leaders not wait for Nibali, the fallen Maglia Rosa, to rejoin before continuing to race? One reason might be that Nibali wasn’t considered a legitimate threat to take the final win.  Another reason was that the race was on in full force and as such there were too many riders already attacking at the moment of the crash.  Justified or not, the sportsmanlike thing to do would be to wait. They didn’t, and in the end it had little impact on the result (the winner, Ivan Basso, was also held up in the crash), but a small bit of our accepted etiquette died with the decision to continue on.

Today at the Tour de France, we saw a similar situation where the Brother Grimpeur the Younger distanced rival Alberto Contador before a mechanical eventually saw him lose his Yellow Jersey.  Schleck had to stop to right his dropped chain, and while he did so, Contodor came by him and pushed his advantage home, all the way to the finish.  In the end, Schleck lies a few seconds behind Bertie, and in truth the 30 second lead he had before the incident was likely not enough to win the Tour. Indeed, little has changed in the reality we face in the coming days: Andy must attack Contador if he is to win this year’s Tour.

One thing that has changed, however, is that Contador has proven something I have long suspected: he is a rider whose ambition to win is greater than his sense of sportsmanship.  Marko has written in these archives about the A.C. Enigma and his ambivalence towards this rider.  Bertie has given us little reason to love him, aside from his blistering accelerations up the steepest grades in the mountains.  He has also given us little reason to hate him, for we know little about him. For me, the greatest riders are those who perhaps do not win often, but they lose with class and dignity, and they fight. Riders who display dignity and respect for the sport and fellow athletes in the midst of dishing out huge helpings of Rule 5 is what endears a rider to this particular heart. Jan Ullrich is the prime example of this; his sportsmanship on the slopes of Luz Ardiden in the face of an opportunity to win the 2003 Tour is unmatched.   Even after spending year after year being beaten by Armstrong into second place; he still had the overriding sense of sportsmanship to wait and resist pushing home the advantage when Armstrong crashed.

In our sport, a champion is one who holds the unwritten rules of conduct in higher regard than a trophy.  These are the athletes who understand that the very manner in which they set about achieving their results will be woven into the fabric of their career and weigh more heavily than the golden trophies of their victories.

At the end of the day, little has been decided in the outcome of the Tour.  The one thing that has been determined is that Alberto Contodor is not a true champion, for he would rather win another Tour de France than show his fellow colleagues (not to mention the fans of this sport) the opportunity to discover who is the strongest through head-to-head competition. Alberto Contodor has shown his true colors as a great rider for whom winning is more important than sportsmanship.

Tomorrow will dawn with a renewed opportunity for Andy Schleck to also show his true colors.  Will he protect his second place and race conservatively into Paris, or will he rise up to fight and try to win the Tour despite today’s setback?  I have a feeling that we are about to be treated to the latter.  I certainly hope so.

Alberto Contador did not need to wait today.  But he should have, for ours is a civilized sport, and we, fellow cyclists, are not animals.

F Grimpeur, Banged but not yet Felled - Photo Courtesy of Universal Sports

First and foremost, as a cyclist and a devoted fan of this sport – a Velominatus, no less, – I express my deepest sympathies to the riders who crashed in Stage 2 of the Tour de France.  Blame was cast around, but as pointed out by Ben, there were many months of opportunity for the riders to  express their concern about the route – yet no one did.  That is because it was a good route; one raced by Eddy Merckx so many times the very climb whose descent caused the carnage in today’s stage bears a statue of his likeness.

In the end, the organizers cannot be held responsible for bad weather, and the riders cannot be held accountable for reacting in collective self-preservation when sticken en masse. Perhaps the stage finish should have been contested, and perhaps some will rue today’s lost opportunities, but the strongest riders in each competition will prevail, I’m sure of that. The lines between sportsmanship and Rule 5 were murky, and it really got everyone talking.  We’re all eternally biased by our views and our passion; that’s one of the things that distinguishes us from “science” and makes this a “sport”.  And goddammit, I love it and if there is one thing we do here at the Velominati, I hope it’s that we have a chance to say what we want to say and have a conversation.  No matter how wrong everyone else is.

The point I’d like to make is that what makes each of us a professional in our own little discpline is our ability to separate what we want to do from what we are paid to do.  Tomorrow’s stage three is a case in point.  Let today be what is was; Stage Three will feature a rough ride over some of the worst roads in Europe.  But, the men bouncing over those roads will not be amateurs out for a Tuesday group ride.  These will be professionals – many of whom are paid very handsomely - and their job is to race their bicycles across the route that the race organizers have laid out.

They are paid handsomely for a reason: their job is difficult and not many can accomplish what they are asked to do.  To be a professional cyclist means being able to do things and endure pain that I am humbled to imagine (quite frankly, I’m afraid of needles).  But the reason there is a paycheck waiting at the end of the day is because the professionals are providing a service that is worth paying for.

That “service” happens to be  entertainment.  If you’d like to protest the route, you have several months before the race to do so.  Once the race starts, protests have no place in this sport.  A professional should get on with their job, no matter how difficult it is.

I feel horrible for any rider denied their chance to a “fair” race – including Banged and Felled, Gesink, and Farrar – who may or may not be broken – but the fact remains: this is a bike race and shit happens.  You are paid to race a bike because you’re better at it than we are, and because competition is unpredictable, despite the fact that it may break our hearts.  In that light, to neutralize tomorrow’s race would be as bad as if we’d found a motor in Spartacus’ Shiv at the Prologue; it would be devastating beyond what any of us can justify in our passion of this sport.

Let me conclude this article with Five Ghosts from Tours Past, in case you still think today’s racers have it too hard:

1. The first Tour was 6 stages and 2,428 kilometers.  This year’s Tour is 3,642 kilometers in 20 stages.  That’s 3.06 times less Rule 5 than in 1903.
2. Dérailleurs were illegal until 1937.  Mountains weren’t, though, so riders had to loosen their rear wheel and reverse it to have a (marginally) better gear on the way up or down a hill.
3. In 1913, Eugene Christophe has to repair by welding his own fork after a crash in the village of Sainte-Marie-de-Campan (my favorite  village in France).  He refused assistance as being helped would render him disqualified from the race.  It was each man for themselves in 1913.
4. In 1963, the Tour organizers reduced the length of the individual time trials (plural) from 111 kilometers to 79 kilometers.
5. As recently as 1983, the Tour’s passes still contained unpaved roads.

A couple of rough roads don’t seem so bad when you look at that list.

I ask the Pro Peleton: Please don’t neutralize the race tomorrow.  For better or for worse, this is what you’re paid to do.  And next year, when the roads look this sketchy, take it up with the organizers in a professional way so everyone – the fans, the riders, and the organizers, all know what to expect.

A Velominatus' labor of love: working on a bike

Each of us remembers how they became a Velominatus. For me, it was at Grimpeur Wielersport, in Zevenaar, The Netherlands. Its the perfect place: a small shop, on a small street, in a small town, in a small country, run by a Giant of the Sport, Herman van Meegen. I haven’t been back in years, not since my mentor and original owner was forced to retire due to a nagging back injury.

Despite it’s diminutive appearance, inside this small shop existed a world vast beyond my wildest imagination. The owner spoke with the soft ‘G’ – typical of the Dutch dialect in the region.  Former head mechanic at Helvetia – La Suisse, and later for Team 7-Eleven, he had previously wielded a wrench at the world’s major events including Le Tour before opening this shop. He knew everyone. Pros strolled into his shop on a regular basis. Imagine the awe of a thirteen-year-old Velominatus Novus as Erik Breukink wandered into the shop and dallied about for a bit.

But it was the tales and experience from many years on the Pro circuit that made those visits to special to me.  He explained in detail the way Steve Bauer preferred to ride a smaller frame than his contemporaries or how Pascal Richard liked the tension of the spokes “just so” as he laced a set of wheels for my dad.  He showed me how he filed out the holes in the hub flange to cradle the spokes better and reduce the chance of breaking one.  He built wheels on a truing stand he built himself and to which he affixed a micrometer.  He told me that a perfectly true wheel will never go out of true, not even on the cobbles.  ”Maar het moet werkelijk perfect zijn.” But it has to be absolutely perfect. Sounds like something you need a custom truing stand and micrometer for.  (That bike is now something like 20 years old, and has never seen a spoke wrench; the wheels are still perfectly true.)

He was personal friends with Eddy Merckx and picked up a frame my dad had ordered after dinner with The Man at the factory in Belgium.  A prototype Campagnolo saddle with titanium rails and air bladder that never made it to production somehow found its way atop my dad’s seat post.  I can’t imagine how his insides churned as my dad insisted on having a set of Scott Drop-Ins installed on that bike.  He never uttered a word about it, opting instead to teach me how to seamlessly splice two rolls of bar tape together to accommodate the long bars – a skill he picked up wrapping the bars of riders who wanted double-wrapped bars on the tops but not the drops at Paris-Roubaix.  He taught me to cut my cables short and solder them before cutting for the perfect, sleek finishing touch.  He taught me how to “feel” a bolt to get it just the right amount of tight – where it holds but the soft aluminum doesn’t strip.  He taught me to trim soda cans and tuck them in between the bars and stem of a handlebar that persistently slips.  But most importantly, he showed me the intricate beauty of our machines.

He also stocked a backpack called the “Body Bag” which I always felt could have used a more sensible name and whose marketers perhaps missed a nuance in the language.

Apart from his poor choice in backpacks, this was a man who understood the finer things about bicycles, and I’m grateful he took the time to teach me even a tiny little bit of what he knew.

So, I leave you today with this question: if you could ask a pro bike mechanic – perhaps even one on the ProTour circuit – one, single question, what would it be?

Sean Kelly -1988 photo:Barry Sandland

This photographer knew the picture that people would remember and that would shine a light into Sean Kelly’s character wasn’t of his face; the story is all below. These are legs only a cyclist could love.

In 1988 these legs won Paris-Nice for the seventh time, Gent-Wevelgem and his only Grand Tour Victory, the Vuelta a España, at that time, held in April. He raced to win from Paris-Nice in March to Lombardia in October with no peaking, or vacations, just single minded ambition.

You have to stay with the lithe Spanish climbers to win Vuelta. Kelly’s legs show no extra fat and no lack of might.

There he sits on the top tube of his Vitus 979 Aluminum framed race bike, answering questions in his hard- to- decipher Irish brogue. Even in black and white, one can see he is deeply tanned. No sunscreen and no Look pedals for Sean- he was possibly the last man in the peloton to switch. He always rode a bike that looked too small and cramped. Perhaps this wouldn’t have worked for anyone else but how does one argue with his method?

For all The Rules followers, study the socks. Ponder carefully, for this is what yours should look like: white and the perfect height. This is the way to set off tan, veiny, incredibly powerful legs. Do your legs look like these? No, I didn’t think so, but these socks would be a start.

The Rules readers might also study the gearing; maybe a 23-tooth sprocket as his largest on his seven speed freewheel and 52 and 42 chain rings up front. This must have been a very hilly course. Rule 5 was his middle name.

For my money, American writer Robin Magowan‘s books and articles about this cycling era are without peer; his summation of Kelly is perfect.

It is customary to talk of Kelly as quintessentially an Irish rider. For my part, though, I think it helps to place Kelly better as a cyclist to see him as the last of the Flemish riders. This is usually a title associated with the post-war rider, Briek Schotte who has become appropriately enough the man in day-to-day charge of the de Gribaldy teams. As exemplified by Schotte it stood for a certain type of mentality, willing to suffer, narrowly focused, and hard, hard, hard. Kelly had all this in him from his Irish small farm background: the outside loo; the dogs that have to be chained before you can step from your car; the one career possible, as a bricklayer on a construction site, stretching away and away into the grey mists. On the positive side, along with the self-reliance, came a physical strength that even by peasant standards is impressive. In a profession of iron wills, there is no one harder.

Roid Landis going bonkers on a jet-fueled ride.

I for one, would love to have a clean sport, but simply don’t think it’s possible to get there.  That said, it can certainly be cleaner than it is, and I welcome any progress we make in that direction.  All the same, I also can’t bear the thought of the racing being any less exciting or the notion that the Grand Tours be shortened.  In terms of increasing viewing enjoyment, I would suggest they pave the mountains with rough cobblestones, turn on the rain, and double the length of the stages.

That means I am part of the problem; as long as I delight in seeing the kind of racing we’re watching today, I have to admit that I am culpable for placing the kinds of demands on the sponsors, teams, and athletes that make doping seem like a good – if not the only – way to give me what I want.

All that aside, our sport does more to fight doping than any other sport, and I’m proud of that.  I am sickened, however, by the lines fed to us by every cyclist who fails a control: “I am innocent.  I didn’t even know what EPO was until I got my positive test and I looked the substance up on the internet.”

Sure.  My grandmother knows what EPO is, but a professional cyclist does not?

The usual team management response of “Drugs?  In our team?  No!” is not any more palatable. We all know that doping is is the rule, not the exception, so if you’re caught, please show us the respect to admit to it and move on.

To further the complexity of the problem, cyclists who have admitted to doping and have cooperated with investigations have been given very little leniency - both by the authorities and the public.  You only have to look at the matter of Roid’s admissions and accusations and the breadth of the reactions it has caused to see there is a no-win scenario for the riders.  Roid is considered a liar; the accused are assumed guilty.  And, given the state of affairs, none of the cyclists face very attractive choices when it comes to speaking out or admitting to any wrongdoing.

So, I applaud Slipstream Sports for their statements in regards to the ensuing investigations that are being initiated as consequence of Roids accusations:

We created Slipstream Sports because we wanted to create a team where cyclists could compete 100% clean.

It is an organization built on the core values of honesty, fairness and optimism. It is built on the belief in our ability to contribute to changing the sport’s future through a persistent commitment to the present.

Today, we continue to follow these core principles. We are very encouraged to see the incredible strides cycling has taken to clean itself up. Though it is important to acknowledge pride in the fact that cycling has never been cleaner, we find ourselves at a critical moment in cycling’s evolution: confronting its past.

The founding concepts of Slipstream Sports were put in place for riders committed to competing clean during their time at Slipstream Sports. We have total confidence not only in our anti-doping culture but also in our riders and staff. Everyone who works for us came here knowing in advance what we stand for as well as the standards to which they will be held.

We cannot change what happened in the past. But we believe it is time for transparency.

We expect anyone in our organization who is contacted by any cycling, anti-doping, or government authority will be open and honest with that authority. In that context, we expect nothing short of 100% truthfulness – whatever that truth is – to the questions they are asked. As long as they express the truth about the past to the appropriate parties, they will continue to have a place in our organization and we will support them for living up to the promise we gave the world when we founded Slipstream Sports.

I’ve never felt that ultimatums are the way to gain cooperation from people, and have always thought the approach by the UCI, National Federations, and teams to be counter-productive to the fight against drugs.

Slipsream’s statement is the first that I’m aware of that reflects an organization conducting itself rationally with respect to that goal; they are saying that any rider in their employ who cooperates and responds to the investigation transparently and truthfully will have a place in their organization.  That means that admitting to doping prior to joining Slipstream Sports is not grounds for dismissal.  After all, since the organization’s goal is to provide an environment where cyclists can compete 100% clean, they are necessarily admitting that the sport is in it’s majority dirty, and therefor that their riders may have a doping past.

I’m very encouraged by this, but we’ll have to see what happens.  Of course, Slipstream stating they won’t fire the riders doesn’t mean the Federations won’t sanction them, but it’s a first step in the right direction, and I hope that spirit gains momentum.

Question: What would Jens Do? Answer: HTFU.

I thought I was the only one.  It was a truth I admitted to myself only in the darkest hours of the night, when you lie awake and are faced by those haunting thoughts that are otherwise whisked away before they float to the surface.

But now, I can say it: I am afraid of crashing. Especially of equipment failure.  I never climb aboard my bike without having made a cursory check of all important parts: inflate the tires, check the headset, check the brake pads, bolts and cables, check the quick-releases.  (There is something in the name “Quick-Release” that unnerves me and forces me to harbor a doubt that they will release suddenly and unexpectedly.)

I’ve been particularly nervous about it the last week or so.  This year, I’ve noted that I’m descending and cornering faster; my confidence in my bike handling skills having skyrocketed since picking up mountain biking again. In the last week, I switched to a new pair of shoe (the White Ladies, passed on to me by John), and since doing so I’ve occasionally been clipping out of my inside pedal when leaning into a turn. It turns out that having your foot attached to your pedal contributes considerably towards staying upright.  (On a side note, I wonder what the connection is there?)

Crashing is part of cycling and, like most of us, I’ve spent my time on the tarmac.   Sometimes bad, sometimes not so bad.  Like the time when I borrowed an English friend’s bike and pulled on the front break instead of the rear.  And the time I overshot a corner racing my sister down a mountain in New York.  Sometimes you pick yourself up and ride home, other times you head to the hospital.

The risks increase when racing, of course, and the scariest of all my crashes was the first time I went down in a bunch during a race.  (I’d like to take this moment to thank the guy who thought he’d win the race by going through a non-existent gap from the middle of the field in the middle of the race.)  The first time you find yourself suddenly laying on the road being hit and fallen on by other cyclists is a moment that is occupied not by any realization of what is happening but instead by trying to assemble the fragments of information being sent to your brain.  You first become aware of what happened after you stop moving and continue to hear the wheels whizzing by your head as the rest of the riders (hopefully) avoid the carnage.  The feeling of helplessness is particularly acute as the desire to remove yourself from the road washes over you.

But watching the Pros, they seem to take it in stride.  I long held the view that after crashing so often, they have grown accustomed to it and generally don’t mind hitting the deck.  They are hardened by the reality of their occupation and get on with their job.  But I was happy to read a piece in the New York Times that said otherwise.  Jens Voigt, cycling legend, hardman extraordinaire, and Velominati hero, is also afraid of crashing, as it turns out.  Not only that, but so are the other Pros.

No matter how long you’ve been in this sport, there’s always that fear of crashing in the back of your mind, especially in the rain.

Crashing, as we are all aware of, is not a very pleasant experience. Everybody is scared of it, no matter who they are.

Not a very pleasant experience?  There’s an understatement.  I would say that crashing ranges anywhere from “Sucking” to “Fucking Terrifying” on the “Bad Things That Happen” scale.

That that in mind, take this spectator video of Boonen’s crash in the Tour of California.  The riders yelling just before the fall, and the distance they slide is rattling.  The callousness of the fan who scampers over to pick up Boonen’s bike with no interest in the rider’s well being before yelling at his friend to photograph him “quick” like it’s some sort of trophy is staggering.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obviously not a cyclist, that one, because cyclists cringe and relive their own crashes any time they see a fellow Velominatus go down.

The way they used to do Rule 5

While walking about town, one of my favorite things to do is to puruse the commuter bikes locked up outside stores and study some of the gems being ridden around.  Sometimes, I come across a really special bike, and marvel at the notion that the bike’s owner might not have any idea what piece of history they’re riding.  For example, I saw an old Vitus, decked out in 7-speed Dura-Ace, beat up and locked up to a lamppost in Ballard yesterday, it’s owner no-doubt unaware that Sean Kelly taught the world the upper limit of the word Hardman aboard that same bike. Then there was the Concorde painted up in PDM colors, which to my knowledge was never available in the States, so I can only marvel at how that awesome piece  found it’s way to be locked up outside a cupcake bakery (also in Ballard).

This past Friday night, I was walking by Prost on my way home from the local market when a full-carbon Bottecchia caught my eye.  This was obviously not a commuter bike, this was a full-fledged race bike complete with the Dura-Ace 7900 groupo.   Had this been a steel steed – like the Vitus – it would have occupied a completely different place in my mind, but I was surprised to find almost nothing interesting about this machine, despite the considerable significance of the name it bore on it’s downtube.

It got me wondering what it is about the old, handmade frames that captures my imagination so.  Am I little more than a hopeless romantic, trying in vain to recapture the appeal cycling had when I was a younger lad?  Am I the Jack White of cycling, trying to get on with Rule 5 and pretend technology does little to make us better cyclists and instead just makes everything too easy?  As much as I’d like to think that’s the case, I also know that I would never give up any of my 10 cogs, brake-mounted shifters, deep-section rims, and stiff frame.   The undeniable fact is that when it comes down to my Number One Bike, it’s Rule 43 all the way.  Besides, Rule 10 implies that all that stuff doesn’t make riding a bike easier, it just makes us go faster.

I think the bottom line is that as more and more bicycle companies outsource their manufacturing operations to countries like China and Taiwan, the allure of the “hand-built bicycle” diminishes.  My steel and aluminum Bianchis were hand-built in Italy, by an Italian framebuilder who cut the tubes, placed them in a jig, and welded them – making little mistakes along the way.  Each of those bikes are completely unique and have a different ride quality from every other bike in the world; that’s the magic of “hand made”.  The very top-end carbon frames still have this same quality to them since the sheets of fiber are laid into the mold by hand and, even though they’re built in Asia, the frames are all still slightly different from one another and you can still sense the human intervention in the assembly line when you study the frame.

But what of the the companies who know and care little for carbon and have turned to producing frames made of it purely to satisfy market demand?  In this case, what does Bottecchia know of engineering a frame not made of tubes, but of fibers?  These companies excelled at picking steel tubesets and identifying ideal geometries through experimentation, not engineering.   To them, frame building was an art form, not a science. Seeing this carbon bike in front of Prost, the first place my mind jumped to was the stories of factories in China that produce identical frames for countless bands, each differing only in the address on the shipping labels.

I suppose that’s why those old bikes laying in dusty piles in the forgotten corners of good bike shops or leaning up against a downtown lamppost hold such intrigue; each are a work of art, with their own history hidden inside their tubes waiting to be retold.

Frank Schleck sporting a set of round bars with a classic bend.

I almost look forward to riding in bad weather because it means I have a perfect excuse to climb aboard my old Bianchi XL EV2, which currently serves as my rain bike (see Rule 12 for more information on bike requirements). Some bikes just seem to fit, and you feel it with every turn of the pedals. Sure, the frame’s about as soft as George Hincapie at the sight of a cobble stone, but I love the way that bike feels – and I always have. That’s something I really love about hand-built bikes – they all have their unique personality; both my Bianchis are hand-built according to (fundamentally) the same geometry, but somehow the EV2 just fits me like a glove.

One of the things that struck me the last few weeks riding the EV2 is that I really like the feel of round bars. Several years ago, I made the switch to FSA K-Wings for my main bike, believing I would never look at round bars again.  Not only did I love the comfort of the wide, flat platform at the tops of the bars, but I loved the scalloped perch they make for the hands when riding on the hoods. Imagine my surprise, then, as it recently began to dawn on me that the round bars on EV2 felt bit better in my hands, especially when climbing – both on the tops and the hoods.

It got me wondering about the peculiar choices that Pros seem to make with regards to their handlebar choice. It’s no secret that many Pros are notoriously finicky about their gear and in some cases refuse to upgrade from trusted pieces equipment to a newer model, especially when it comes to the touch points on their bikes. Lance Armstrong famously refused to ride Shimano’s SPD-R line of pedals after pulling out of a pair during the finale of a World Championship Road Race and, to this day, rides an old model of saddle, the Rule-Breaking Concor Lite (which also happens to be the second-ugliest saddle ever made, with the Selle SMP taking the win on that one). Similarly, Damiano Cunego Tom Boonen both refused to upgrade to the Time RSX line of pedals from their Time Impacts because they preferred the feeling of the metal pedal body on the old Impacts (I have a pair of these and they do, oddly enough, feel quite different from the RSX.)

When it comes to handlebar choice, it seems the majority of riders prefer round bars, and many also prefer a classic drop – not to mention aluminum (*shudder*). You have to search pretty hard for a Pro who rides a K-Wing or Cinelli Ram, and it also seems a minority even use an anatomic bend; most claim that the classic drop provides more hand positions.  I am not sure I understand this argument;  it seems to me that the classic drop would really only offer more places to build up sore spots on your hands when riding in the drops.  Are the round drops better for concealing amphetamines?  What am I missing?

That aside, I love the look of the classic bar bend, and as I contemplate switching from my K-Wing to a round bar, I find my mind drifting slowly towards a classic bend as well.  After all, if it’s good enough for the Brothers Grimpeur, isn’t it good enough for me?

The salute says more though than just “I win”.  It can say a lot about the rider employing it.  Take Pantani’s crucifix salute as an example:

What does this say about Il Pirata?  Does the Jesus-pose portray his ego and a sense of himself as some sort of exalted cyclist?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  Perhaps it broadcasts the iconic imagery of his Roman-Catholic up-bringing  and displays it in a way many of his Italian countrymen can identify with.  Who knows?  To me, this photograph is art in the sense that we take from it what we see in it as individuals. What this salute imparts to me is a sense of calm after the storm.  It is a letting go of sorts, sublime catharsis, freedom.  I see a figure that is truly in the moment and aware of nothing else, not even himself.  It is beautiful and exemplifies the rewards of our sport. Rewards which can only be reaped through dedication and effort. It also illustrates Marco’s awareness, conscious of it at the time or not, of the elegance of cycling.

Contrast that to this:

What of this man of Manx and what he’s trying to put out there with this salute?  A chamois was included with my bike shorts?  Hey everyone, my sac’s down here too?  Or, this is titled “Ballerina Pose On Bike”? I am the “Total Package” and will take all comers in the octogon?  It may portay the effort and dedication but certainly comes nowhere near elegance.  Hell if I know what is says, other than “Cavendouche”.

So what’s a good salute?  It’s hard to say as there are no Rules governing the salute.  So, I’ll submit the following:

A cool salute should:

-Convey the rider’s commitment to cycling, extended effort, and pleasure in winning.

-Convey a certain sense of spontaneity and not seem in any way contrived (unless you’re the Lion of Flanders and have just proven a…well, unless you’re the Lion of Flanders because then you’re just plain badass).

-Dispense with any sort of pantomime, weapon imagery (two links there), or baby toys.*

-Show some class and deference to the history and beauty of the sport.

Maybe it’s easiest to characterize a cool salute similar to how politicians describe pornography.  It’s hard to define but you know it when you see it.

*In all fairness to myself and to avoid contradiction, I realize that the last link regarding baby toys speaks volumes about the rider employing the pacifier in it and that it is probably about as elegant as that rider can get.