Cipo gets punked on Italian TV.
The Archives
Is it awesome to wear team kits? Yes, but took me a long time and a trip to Italy to have this revelation. Looking good in matching jersey and shorts is cool.
In the roughly six months since launching the Velominati, we have gradually moved from covering races, rumors, and doping to pouring over the very essence of what makes ours such a special sport – its history, culture, legends, traditions, races, and its physical and cultural challenges – and how those threads fit into cycling’s colorful…
Followers of the Keepers may remember a while back that the Head Keeper, Frank, was having a dilemna about whether or not to run Nokon cables on his steed, and indeed which colours would suit said machine. I'd been running them on my previous Roubaix, mainly to get the 'Zabel-esque' shifter cable routing, with some…
The Rusty Chain award, an award going to the la grand Douche of 2009. This year’s top contenders are Rebellin, Schumacher and Di Luca.
As the year comes to a close, I find myself thinking back to the most memorable moments of the 2009 professional racing season. Overall, it was a pretty good season with some of my favorite races were won by my favorite riders; Liege was won in magnificent fashion by my boy Andy while a few…
Oh behalf of the Keepers, I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Here’s to a great 2010; let the season begin!
Issue 15 just arrived on my doorstop, and it is especially good and is going to take a good long time to work through all the way to the back cover. But I can tell you about the beginning, which was particularly captivating. It started with a great piece on Jeremy Hunt (written by Domestique/Journalist…
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…
I’ve been riding for long enough to know that what “feels” good and and what “is” good in terms of technique are two independent sets with a small intersection; it’s very important to put a lot of thought and research into what you’re doing to make sure it offers a benefit. Research takes “work” and…
It is probably the most famous mountain in cycling. Almost 14 kilometers, 21 numbered hairpin turns. It lies in the the Isère valley, which is narrow and surrounded by mountains so rugged they look as though they were cast in a single day. These mountains are steep and brutal and spring up abruptly from the…
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…
I could see it from where I was sitting on the terrace outside the cafe. The street dropped off towards the valley where the river used to run before turning and rising steeply – too steeply for how I was feeling – up along the dam and out of the valley. What was worse was…
I’ve reflected on my bike stable, where it started and where it is now. Peugeot PX10-LE. 1977. A champagne gold hunk of French madness. It was advertised as Monsieur Thevenet’s current racing model but I doubt he got this. The frame was nothing out of the ordinary but copper wire wrapping at the spoke crossings,…
Every now and then, I see a headline that I know won’t soon drift from my memory. Frank Vandenbroucke was found dead today in his hotel room; he had apparently died of a blood clot. The death reminds me of a similar headline in 2004, of the death of Marco Pantani. Both capable of incredible…
Unless you spend a lot of time with the Dutch, you probably don’t realize how awesome we are. We can pretty much walk into any situation and immediately understand the landscape and explain to all the non-Dutch in the room precisely why they are inferior. For the mathematically-minded, let me put it in equation form:…
After narrowly losing Milan San-Remo to Mark “The Manx Mounth” Cavendish, Heinrich Haussler was in agony. Many people might have been delighted with his accomplishment; he darted off the front of a highly controlled bunch and made an unexpected result which would make his one of the most recognized names of the 2009 cycling season. But…
I am facing a major problem; one not easily solved. One of our principal Keepers – Brett – had made mention of the most important element of cycling: the Rules. While the Rules are ambiguous, they are also very clear. Not so much “clear” in the sense that any of us really know what they…
When I went to bed last night, I thought about the World Road Race Championships, and whose name I would be reading this morning as the new wearer of the rainbow stripes. Even though I thought of this name, I didn’t really expect to see it at the very top of the tree. But when…