YouTube – MARIO CIPOLLINI

The illustrated Man. Photo: Graham Watson

This will be the last of my Cipo photos in a post for a while and only because I’m employing self-control.

To me he exemplifies “Italian Cyclist” and if I weren’t so lazy I would try to find his quote about cycling being representative of all that is beautiful in life.

Watch this silly video of Mario getting punked. The set up is the guy in the little car tells Mario some of Mario’s bike have been stolen and seconds later a camper goes by with some of Cipo’s bike on the back.

Italian hilarity ensues.

One has to come away with a few things from this fine bit of TV: Italian TV looks better than US TV, at least concerning the dress code for the hostesses. Cipo is so cool. I believe he does all this with his cycling shoes on. And his sleeveless jersey with world champion stripes still visible, oh I’m more than impressed. Unfortunately us non-Italian speakers are missing a lot of excellent Italian cursing and taunting here too. Enjoy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHUpmWPCMes[/youtube]

Related Posts

24 Replies to “YouTube – MARIO CIPOLLINI”

  1. @john

    And, I have to ask, why stop blogging about Cipo? That’s like Einstein saying, “You know what? It’s been real, daddy-o, but I’m going to stop with this Physics thing.”

  2. @Marko
    Still, climbing up and jumping down a big drop in your cycling shoes is good, all told he did a much better job than I would have (nancy-boy swings included). I’ve fallen down just walking in cycling shoes. Jumping into a pit to fight two guys (and a camera man?) wearing nothing but lycra and cycling shoes does require some basic bravado few cyclists have.

  3. @frank
    I won’t stop writing about Cipo, I’ll just back off on the frequency. I was going to include the video of him drilling the moto with his water bottle as it amuses me so…OK, if you insist.

  4. @john

    That bidon tossing clip is classic, and what’s up with the moto crash at the end? Certainly are a ton of clips of Cipo on the youtube, some classic rides. Man that dude is strong. I was looking for the rainbow turd clip but couldn’t find it. Your point about the quality of Italian t.v. is well taken as well. I heard on the radio the other day there’s a public outcry there to end sexism in Italian t.v. I don’t see that happening as long as Silvio Berlesconi is in charge of both the country and the boob tube. (pun intended)

  5. @Marko
    Marko, I’ve studied the end of that clip and I can’t figure it out. The driver and another person are down but I see no bike. It looks like the referee Cipo drilled yet he was solo so it seems like it should have been a moto driver and photographer, unless it was a spectator?

    I don’t see Italy phasing out sexism anytime. That’s who they are.

    On another subject, Frank didn’t rise to your well delivered bait the other day concerning mounting instructions. I thought it was GO time. Nice.

  6. @john
    You mean he didn’t sink to it. I prolly shouldn’t have put it out there but he implied I was a sissy for looking at instructions to mount my K-wings. Prolly a good thing it ended there. Besides, we’re good old friends and have used that “humor” with eachother before. Did you know, he called me a bitch after I bought the zipps he connected me to? The zipp connection is where the love is, the banter means nothing.

  7. @john
    @Marko
    What’s wrong with being Sexy? (Spinal Tap)

    Dudes, I figured that, as a guy who threw his pahdner out of bed so his brand-new R3 frame could lay up on the bed with him the first night I had it, it might be best if I left the mounting instructions comment “unsolved.”

    @Marko
    Zipp connection. Straight, bro. Did they come yet?

  8. Gotta wonder how much of that clip is staged – still damn funny though – and I understand no Italian at all. I’ve always wanted to learn Italian, just to yell at motorists and assorted cyclists – would be goof.

    Mario is the cycling rock star. It was cool seeing him in action, including the brief career with Rock Racing.

    And yeah, what’s with TV show hostess outfit? Too bad local cable doesn’t include a few Italian stations.

  9. @Dan O
    I’ve got one good Italian phrase to yell at motorists, “Va Fanculo!” loosely translated, “go f… yourself.” Very useful and fun to say. You are right about Cipo, he is the rock star of cycling. I can’t think of who can fill those shoes. Nobody.
    And thank god he escaped from Rock Racing, what a bunch of tossers. They can’t figure out why they don’t get an upgrade in license. Shouldn’t Ricardo Ricco have signed with them by now?

  10. Thanks to whomever placed the pingback to the “nowhere” blog. The pic of cancellara is awesome. We’re fortunate to be race fans in his day and will one day remember his career fondly. I’m embarrassed to say I don’t recognize the rider in the T-mobile jersey. Who is that?

  11. @Dan O
    There’s a picture somewhere on Pez of some Italian babe modeling some cycling shoes or something, standing in front of a decapitated building. The Italians have it right: sex first, building maintenance second.

    As if that’s not good enough, the Giro presented their 2010 jerseys last week; no dudes need apply for modeling the jersey, only hot Dutch chyx.

  12. Marko, cheers. The Telekom dude is Rolf Aldag, faithful lieutenant to Der Kaiser and The Flying Mullet, and one of the good dopers who actually confessed. He and Zabel are the main subjects in the Hell On Wheels doco, which if you haven’t seen is well worth a viewing.

    Hope you’re lovin’ your 404s, we went to a Zipp presentation for their new NZ distributor last week, with the dude from headquarters in Speedway Indiana who actually designs a lot of their stuff, and it was awesome… not the usual marketing crap that you get at those things, but real tech stuff that was fantastic to listen to and learn about. Basically, any other wheel is just not as good, and he had facts and shit to back it up.

    He also told a great Cancellara story; Fabian told him in his broken English that “when I come to the race with my 808s on my bike, the other riders, they are scary”!

    Frank, how does one “decapitate” a building? You cracked me up with that!

  13. @brett

    To decapitate a building is a complicated, ten-step process:

    1. Be a dumb Dutchman
    2. Be a poor typist
    3. Try to type “delapidated”
    4. Type it wrong
    5. Choose “decapiated” from the Spellchecker’s suggestions
    6. Don’t notice it is wrong
    7. Cock your head to the left like a dog trying to understand English when you read your friends comment saying you made him laugh with the “decapitated” comment
    8. Finally figure out what he’s talking about
    9. Realize your mistake was funnier than the actual right word
    10. Try to figure a way to take credit for the typo
  14. i love the way he just walks over to the outhouse and picks up the wooden thing and uses it to climb in, that really does take some skill to land standing up in cleats.

  15. great video. understanding Italian really helps. “il pedale” love that shit.

  16. @frank my understanding of the dilapidated buildings is that if you finish them the taxes go up exponentially.  Hence you see a lot of buildings that are complete on the inside but missing an exterior finish or with never ending “renovations”. The bust babes in the other hand never end.  As it should be.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.