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Archive for the ‘Nostalgia’ Category

Look Pro: The Hunchbacks of Notre V

by frank / Dec 3 2012 / 114 posts

The flat back position is perhaps the greatest lie ever told in sport, provided you ignore any of the racing we’ve seen in the last decade or two.It is possible, I suppose, that when we talk about a flat back, what we really mean is that on an elementary level, all curves are really just a series of straight segments connected at an angle; wh...

In Memoriam: The Proper Head Badge

by Marko / Nov 23 2012 / 64 posts

The days of the proper head badge, I’m afraid, are numbered. It seems it used to be that any road bike with a pedigree that was really worth riding was festooned with an artful adornment on the head tube. By that I mean something made with a bit of heft, stamped or cast of alloy and riveted front and center. More and more though we’re s...

The Eye of Sauron

by frank / Nov 19 2012 / 132 posts

Aside from wheels staying in one piece and the frame holding together, the thing we take most for granted when riding a bike is how our bodies instinctively respond to and absorb bumps. The human body is, in fact, an incredible shock-absorber; our arms and legs are capable of flexing and shifting in ways that no mechanical suspension is capable of...

Anatomy of a Photo: Casually Deliberate Masterclass

by frank / Nov 9 2012 / 62 posts

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’d need a thousand just to describe the carefully disheveled cap placement. I’d need another grand just to describe the positioning of the cranks or front skewer or downtube shifters. I’d be another mille mot in the hole to discuss the fit of the jersey or the white socks and b...

The Thin Boundary Between Casual and Deliberate

by frank / Oct 22 2012 / 135 posts

Cycling and crashing are the kinds of things that come together whenever you liberally combine Newtonian Physics, skill, and overconfidence. In other words, I’ve been falling off my bike for nearly as long as I’ve been climbing on it.One of the more memorable crashes of my youth involved the commute home from my high school and a lady...

La Vie Velominatus: Clean Bike Day

by frank / Oct 15 2012 / 132 posts

It seemed so easy, when I was young, to decide who to love and who to hate. These days, life is a complicated web of heroic deeds and dark shadows. As we get older, it appears our heroes and villains get mixed up.Fortunately for us, Cycling is about much more than bike racing. It is about loving the machine, submitting ourselves to the cathedral ...

Anatomy of a Photo: Cornering on Cobbles

by frank / Oct 12 2012 / 72 posts

A lot of things taken for granted in Cycling go swiftly out the window when cobblestones are introduced to bicycle and rider. The notion that your wheels should both be pointed in the same direction at any given moment, for instance, or that that they should in some way be in alignment with the direction of travel of the rider/bicycle unit, such as...

The Eternal Seconds: Heroes or Villians?

by frank / Sep 26 2012 / 56 posts

Joop Zoetemelk was a hard man, a tough nut to crack. He specialized in getting second place, a talent he developed under the doctrine of Eddy Merckx and mastered via the harsh tutelage of Bernard Hinault. It’s very seductive to lean back in our armchairs and draw the conclusion that our sport’s Eternal Seconds, as they’re called,...

La Ruota

by frank / Sep 24 2012 / 193 posts

Its hard to say precisely where the line lays, but I’m certain I’m well on the wrong side of it. I never notice lines as I pass over them but I can usually tell after I have because it feels suddenly liberating to leave reason, sensibility, and convention behind. I find them very restrictive – claustrophobic, almost. They force me...

One-Eyed Wonder: CX-V

by frank / Sep 12 2012 / 208 posts

What I have always loved about Mountain Biking is the immersion into the woods; the sense of solitude that comes in the wilderness that is lost entirely in the convenience and hustle of the cities I’ve always lived in. What I always hated about Mountain Biking is that my mountain bike never feels enough like my road bike.I was but a budding...
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