Spartacus doing what he does best: dishing out pain.

I find professional athletes – cyclists in particular – an impressive bunch.  They are hard, disciplined people who ply their trade in some of the most atrocious conditions imaginable.  To become professionals, they have to be good at what they do, and smart enough to learn how to continue succeeding despite the gaps between the top of the sport continually narrowing.    They have to learn to live right and train right.  They have to listen to their coaches.   They have to learn to control their mind and to override the signals their bodies are sending.  They need to be smart enough to read an ever-changing race and smell the right moment to make their move; disaster and glory can be separated only by a split-second reaction born out of intuition mixed with experience and intelligence.

But the best athletes are also a little bit dumb.  Men like Fabian Cancellara, Jens Voigt, or Tom Boonen; these are the men who flog themselves for hours on end and, when their bodies are about to break, dial it up a notch and lay it all out on the road.  A smarter man would, under those circumstances, say, “You know what?  This is nice, but I can also go less hard.”

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.

When Mavic released their Mektronic groupo, I jumped on it like a pothead jumps on a bag of Doritos.   Sadly, I very quickly became disenchanted with the system.  For starters, it would only shift the rear derailleur electronically; the front was operated by an enormous cast-iron lever that looked like it was forged in the middle ages by a monkey with one eye.   I felt like an executioner on the gallows pulling the lever every time I shifted from the big to little ring.

Unfortunately for Mavic, the front shifting was the best part of the system.  The Huangism “Press and Forget” was coined to describe the process for shifting.  This was supposed to mean that you didn’t have to think about shifting once you pressed the button to shift; the “reliable” system would deliver a perfect shift for you without you having to worry about it.  What it really meant was that it had a mind of it’s own. Every time I would press the little yellow button to shift, I sent myself on an emotional roller coaster ride as I waited to see what would happen.

On the good shifts, a second or two would go by and then it would shift.  On the averages shifts, it would not do anything for a little while and then shift at a surprising time, like right when you gave up and got out of the saddle to power over the hill you had intended to downshift shift for.  On the bad shifts, it would just never shift or shift without the button being pressed.

It got worse when riding close to a radio tower where radio frequencies were strong.  (Mektronic was wireless and functioned using radio frequencies.)  There was a television broad-cast tower on one of my routes, and on several occasions, riding by the tower would cause the whole system to reset and stop working at all.  It was like the Mavic version of the Blue Screen of Death.  That said, not shifting was much better than the cases where it would shift without input.  The worst experience I had was on a group ride out by the airport in Minneapolis when the derailleur shifted from the 12 to the 23 in a single instant because some guy in the control tower spilled his coffee on the switchboard or something, causing the chain to snap and me nearly crashing as the group sprinted for a yellow sign.

Another problem with Mektronic was it’s gargantuan size.  The levers were too long and  were banned by the UCI as they offered a non-regulation aerodynamic hand position (the unfortunate pro teams who were sponsored by Mavic raced an even uglier stubby version of these levers).  The derailleur was enormous, with a bulbous extension to accommodate the ratchet pushrod that provided the shifting mechanism and which was prone to snagging other items around the bunch like wheels and rider’s feet.  In a crash during a crit, I tore off my derailleur hanger when my bike hit the deck.

Eventually, I abandoned ship and moved back to a good old fashioned Dura-Ace 7701 drivetrain.  There’s something very comforting about knowing that a steel cable is running between my shifter and my derailleur; I don’t know about you but if I need to shift, I really can’t be bothered with waiting for a derailleur which was apparently programmed by a disgruntled software engineer from Microsoft to decide if it’s going to go ahead and shift or not.  But maybe that’s just me.

Electronic shifting faded into the background as Shimano and Campagnolo quietly worked on prototypes over the past decade.  Campagnolo and Shimano were both slated to release their fully electronic groupos last Fall, but Campy eventually decided against putting the expensive set into production due to the economic climate at the time.  Shimano, on the other hand, did release their version despite a whopping $3250.00 for the derailleurs, shifters, and batteries.  A complete groupo runs upwards of $4500-$5000.

On the plus side, it appears that Shimano has actually designed a good system.  Aside from it being a bit expensive, all reviews and stories point to this being a really reliable and effective system.  The system is wired, so outside interference is limited.  The front derailleur is electronic and, provided it is set up properly, will reportedly never drop your chain.  Shifts are lightening-quick and reliable.  The system self-feathers the chain, running silently in every gear.  Even ‘Cross racers are using it in the the mud and crud.

I’m anxiously awaiting my first opportunity to try it out.  Accepting donations now.

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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/ 0 http://www.velominati.com/blog/general/franco-ballerini-1964-2010/ http://www.velominati.com/blog/general/franco-ballerini-1964-2010/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:05:22 +0000 brett http://www.velominati.com/blog/?p=2150

photo: bettiniphoto

Sad news today that two-time Paris-Roubaix winner Franco Ballerini was killed in a car rally accident.  A man who lived for the cobbles, a true legend of that particular race, and the sport.  R.I.P. Franco.

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More here.

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 aroma.  The taste.  The ritual of the preparation, and the anticipation.  It’s more than just a drink.

Coffee is an integral part of cycling and cyclists lifestyles.  But, like Campy versus Shimano, or white socks versus black, the way we imbibe the magic bean can be just as polarising.

We received an email from a reader with a suggestion for The Rules. Rob infers that anyone partaking in a soy-based brew, or a ‘lite’ milk additive, should be ceremonially beaten.  ”Harsh but fair” he believes, such as we always imply with The Rules.

Already I am receiving unflattering, downright tempestuous emails from my fellow Keepers regarding my soy intake confession. Yes, I unashamedly admit to this ‘foam pas’ and will accept any abuse like a man.  A soy-drinking man, dammit!

But no matter how you enjoy your bean, there’s one thing for certain;  coffee is good.  Some say it should only be consumed black, sans sugar, in a ceramic cup.  Others, like Rob, suggest it can be enhanced with a small amount of milk, i.e macchiato. While everyone has different tastes, I’m sure most of us would agree that caramel, butterscotch and excessive amounts of foam, sprinklings and flavourings have no place in any cup.

And personally, I feel that the very act of sitting in a cafe in Lycra is a little more embarrassing than drinking soy. Call me a hippy, call me lactose intolerant, call me soft, but at least I’ll never be a ‘cafe racer’.  Not in my own town anyway, maybe in Belgium…

This is the tale of the day I caused Paolo Savoldelli to crash out of the Tour de France.  It happened in a flash, and the details are fading into the cobwebs of my horrible memory; if you’re interested, you can read a more detailed account in my original post on the subject.

Our trip to the Tour in 2006 was no less memorable than the trip to Alpe d’Huez in 2003 and in some ways more so. Instead of heading to the Alps, we went down to Pla-de-Beret in Spain to watch the race on its first major mountain stage.   It was a very different experience as a spectator than the ones we had in France.  The Spainish were more poorly organized than the French were, but at the same time, were trying to rule the crowd with an iron fist (a police officer threatened to arrest us for parking in a parking lot).  What resulted was a much less spirited and lighthearted atmosphere and much more gesturing towards officers with their backs turned.  But still lots of fun, of course, because after all – it’s still the Tour de France.

The race passed with it’s usual procession: the caravan, the racers, the team cars.  Then came the groupetto.  This was 2006, and my boy Tomeke was riding in the Rainbow stripes as world champ.  The problem was, I was on the wrong side of the road to appropriately photograph him (I have very exacting standards).  Being a man of action (and focused on the race coming up the mountain), I jumped across the road just in time to set up for my shot.  It felt a bit like being a super hero or a Jedi; the speed with which I moved was incredible.   So too, unfortunately, was the speed of Paolo Savoldelli as he was descending the wrong way back down the the climb – while the race was still going on.

He plowed into me like a crash test car into a brick wall.  Lucky for me, I’m a big fat Dutchman.  Unlucky for him, he was a skinny Italian pro with no helmet.  Blood pouring off his face, he screamed at me what I can only assume was a stream of curses, sprayed his eye with water, jumped on his bike and rode off.

The next day, we were back at home base in Aspet and watched the race as it passed through town in the early parts of the stage.  Paolo was off the back already with a big wad of gauze over his eye.  He dropped out later that day.  His contract was not renewed, and he retired after a few years of anonymity in smaller teams.  I, on the other hand, continue to suffer from the effects of the dislocated shoulder as a result of the collision.  But only when I strain it during the odd ass-kicking I dish out on hippie fixie douches.

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But the truth is, what we’re witnessing here is the sapling of a future Keeper.

Those of you who have been studying our catalog of The Rules will have noticed that eyewear is to be cycling-specific, and should always accompany you on your rides.  There is a functional reason for this: your eyes are a valuable asset which you want to protect from UV rays, debris, and wind.  There is also a stylish reason: in this age of near-universal helmet usage, your helmet will look way too bare on your noggin without the balance provided by your eyewear.  (It is not acceptable, by the way, to wear a full beard as a counter-balance to your helmet.  The only “cyclist” ever to wear a full beard was that Russian Guy in American Flyers, and I think one look at that guy will explain to you why that doesn’t work.)

I have cultivated a life-long obsession with finding the perfect pair of sunglasses.  It started when I was a kid, buying authentic imitation Oakley Blades at the local Fleet Farm so I might look a bit more like my childhood cycling hero, Greg LeMond.  I ran through lots of cheap pairs that looked like Oakleys (but weren’t) until I was perhaps 13 years old and I bought a used pair of old black Blades from my dad who had just bought a fluorescent yellow pair of Mumbos.   I remember sitting in my room, mesmerized by the iridium lens and running my finger over the white “OAKLEY” logo on the earpiece.  I was well on my way to looking like a Pro.

But eyewear satisfaction proved temporary and elusive.  By the time I owned the Blades, they were already terribly outdated, with the the Mumbos replacing the Razorblades, which replaced the model I had.  My quest continued.

Eventually, I purchased my first pair of Shots, beginning a 15-year love affair with Briko.   In the Nordic skiing microworld, these babies were the shit because they had the full ski goggle-like band that kept them on your head and allowed you to perch the glasses safely on your hat without worrying about them falling off during a race.

This seemingly minor detail inadvertently changed my life, as I became consumed by the details of how best to wear hats, and how best to pair your sunglasses with them.  In skiing, it became a very carefully studied system of wearing your hat using a technique I call the Three-Point System where the hat sits just above the point where your spine enters your skull, covers the tips of your ears, and comes to rest close above the eyebrows.  The sunglasses must then be perched upon the hat at just the right height and just the right angle in order to maximize what my dad always teasingly referred to as “the Pro Look”.  (It goes without saying that “the Pro Look” also involves a carefully cultivated facial expression and a plethora of other accessories.)

This also influenced my technique for wearing cycling caps as well.    (I hereby formally confess to breaking Rule 11 as a reckless, fool-hearty youngster.)    When the cap was worn visor-forward, it could not be too high or low, and could never be tilted too far forward or backward, with sunglasses to be be placed just above the brim.  If the cap was worn visor-backward, its positioning bore great resemblance to the Three-Point System, with the back low to the eyebrows, sides just above the ears, and the visor just above the nape of the neck.  The sunglasses in this configuration were always perched high up, towards the top of the brow.

The problem with the Briko Shots was that, unless your name happened to be Mario, they looked terrible when used on a bicycle (and thus came dishearteningly close to breaking Rule 25), and as such I ran through various iterations of Briko models and spent gobs of money in my quest for the perfect pair of riding shades.

The matter has been further complicated by a related ailment: I am overcome by a feeling of overwhelming claustrophobia caused by wearing sunglasses when I’m exercising at my maximum.  This was true during my ski racing career, and is still true today, whether I’m riding or skiing.  If I’m hot and fighting to get enough air into my lungs, having sunglasses pressed up on my face and pushing down on my nose is a feeling I cannot tolerate.  At the same time, I’m sensitive to light and wind in my eyes, and as such generally need to wear them.  Without getting into this too deep, I’ll just state that it is important for me to easily and quickly take my sunglasses on and off.  The problem was solved for me when ski racing by the Shots’ ability to easily, quickly, and securely get shoved onto my hat, but it has been an ongoing problem for me as a cyclist since there has never been a good place to quickly and easily store my sunglasses when I’m hot.

Until recently, that is, when helmet manufacturers started building helmets that receive the earpieces of your sunglasses with little or no hassle.  Unfortunately for me, my Brikos at the time had earpieces that didn’t slide properly into my helmet and for this offense were cast aside.

Based on evidence that the Pros were able to stick the Oakley Radars into their helmets with no issue and still managed to look cool, a few years ago I decided to return to my Oakley roots and buy a pair.  (White, of course.  Because that’s the coolest color.)  Ever since, I have been absolutely amazed at how good these sunglasses are.  The hydrophobic surface coating keeps water beading off them, so when you get sweat splashed on them, can spray them with your water bottle and they clean right up.  If you overheat when climbing, you can pop them into your helmet and maintain your Pro Look.  The Radars are the perfect cycling eyewear.  At long last, mission accomplished.

Imagine my amazement, then, when Oakley released the Jawbones.  They are ugly and look like they’d be even hotter than normal sunglasses, with no open-air system between the glasses and the cheek.  Besides, the dual-color version that many pros have been sporting is no good whatsoever and should be abandoned as quickly as possible.

What was the deal with the Russian guy in American Flyers, anyway?  That guy was a jerk.