Tuesdays with Wilcockson: Greater parity means tougher finishes
[Editor's note: Due to an extraordinary amount of travel with little to no down time for posting, we've been a bit quieter than usual the last couple of days. It's why this post is a day late. Thanks for your patience.] Over recent years, scientific training methods have brought a sort of parity to pro cycling that allows more and more riders to finish races together, even tough ones. As a result, to avoid too many mass finishes, organizers are making race finales ever more difficult. Just look at the two major stage races taking place this week and the number ...
A Ride With Omega Pharma-Quickstep
Late last week I received a rather last-minute invitation from the PR machine at Specialized. They were wondering if I might be able to carve out a day to spend with Tom Boonen, Levi Leipheimer and the members of Omega Pharma-Quickstep's Tour of California squad. After a quick consult with Mrs. Padraig, I started packing. I mean, who says no? Now, I'm not going to try to snow you. We all know that this was a visit that didn't carry the journalistic weight of a post-race press conference. Like I care. I am, at my core, a fan of all things ...
Tuesdays with Wilcockson: A birthday ride
Most cyclists set some sort of challenge each year to give them an incentive to get into shape. For many years, my challenge has been a long ride in the Rockies west of my adopted hometown of Boulder, Colorado, on my May 5 birthday. I began this now annual rite of springtime at age 50, when I mapped out a 50-mile route to ride with a couple-dozen colleagues from the office. It was a day of strong southerly winds and only half the group made it to the final loop through the foothills. I’ve been adding a mile to the ...
Friday Group Ride #116
Junket is a word for a trip made at someone else's expense, as in a press junket. It is also a sweet, milk-based dessert thickened with rennet. RKP's main and tallest editorial practitioner, my friend Padraig, will be enjoying one of these two things over the weekend and into next week at the invitation of the Specialized bicycle making company. The thing which Padraig will be enjoying—like me, you're still hoping it's the milky dessert—will include a ride with the Omega Pharma-Quickstep team, or at least, those riders who will be racing the Tour of California. The roster, as it stands, ...
6 Questions for the 2012 Giro d’Italia
The 2012 Giro d’Italia begins this Saturday in Denmark—here are 6 questions on my mind heading into this year’s first grand tour. 1. Will Taylor Phinney be the first American since Christian Vande Velde to don the Giro’s maglia rosa? Looking over the Giro’s start list, there appear to be few riders able to defeat American Taylor Phinney in the 8.7-kilometer individual time trial that opens the race Saturday. From there, two field sprints are likely to follow, then a travel day and a team time trial once the race returns to Italy on Wednesday. Phinney’s BMC sqaud holds no GC aspirations—it’s ...
Tuesdays with Wilcockson: Wiggins—Always destined for greatness
Bradley Wiggins takes stage 1 at the Tour of Romandie It can be fun working as a journalist in cycling. Not only do you get to travel to distant lands, interact with different peoples and witness amazing feats, you also get to know the athletes who make cycling the most beautiful sport in the world. One of the more intriguing characters I’ve met is Bradley Wiggins, a fellow Brit, who celebrated his 32nd birthday this past weekend by winning his third major international stage race in less than a year: It was the Critérium du Dauphiné last June, Paris-Nice in March and ...
Body
Tuesdays with Wilcockson: Greater parity means tougher finishes
[Editor's note: Due to an extraordinary amount of travel with little to no down...
A Ride With Omega Pharma-Quickstep
Late last week I received a rather last-minute invitation from the PR machine at...
Tuesdays with Wilcockson: A birthday ride
Most cyclists set some sort of challenge each year to give them an incentive to...
Friday Group Ride #116
Junket is a word for a trip made at someone else’s expense, as in a press...
6 Questions for the 2012 Giro d’Italia
The 2012 Giro d’Italia begins this Saturday in Denmark—here are 6 questions...
Read More Posts From This CategoryMind
Friday Group Ride #118
It’s National Bike-to-Work Day here in the States, or as I like to call it...
Live Coverage: Stage 13 of the 2012 Giro d’Italia
Live Coverage of Stage 13 of the 2012 Giro d’Italia, a 155km 122-km stage from...
Being Cyclists
In college, when I was doing an extremely rewarding and valuable liberal arts degree,...
Friday Group Ride #117
No one can stay on their bike at the Giro d’Italia this year. From the roll...
The Distractions
After the first, second and third innings, as my son’s team finished batting...
Read More Posts From This CategoryMachine
First Ride: Cervelo P5
Last week I was invited to a small media camp that gave me the opportunity to spend some time on the Cervelo R5 and be among a select group of people to have actually ridden the Cervelo P5 time trial bike. Now, I don’t ride a lot of time trial bikes, but I’ve ridden enough of them over the years that when I climbed on the P5 I knew instantly... [Read more of this review]
SRAM Red 2012 Installation
So last week I laid my hands on a SRAM 2012 Red group. To use a more colloquial phrasing, you might say that my stock has risen enough with the folks in Chicago that they were willing to provide me with a group for review. It suggests they have some regard for my work. Which is pretty cool, considering we’re this tiny, independent blog thingy. My... [Read more of this review]
Giro Apeckx Shoes
When I first pulled the Giro Apeckx shoes out of the box, my reaction was lackluster. The problem wasn’t with the shoe, it was with me. It just took me a month to figure that out. What I didn’t appreciate when I first looked at them or when I first wore them or even when I got back from my first three-hour ride in them was what a value... [Read more of this review]
Rapha Grand Tour Shoes
When I heard (through a somewhat cryptic email) that Rapha was going to offer cycling shoes, I need to be honest and admit that I was more excited than intrigued. My duty as a reviewer obliges me to maintain a certain skepticism about any new product. Alas, I’m a bike geek and some companies tend to do consistently good, if not excellent,... [Read more of this review]
Wabi Woolens Long-Sleeve Jersey
Every now and then I encounter a product so well done, so dialed in conception and execution that I end up at a loss for words. It’s as if the reviewer in me comes up against a massive existential, “Well yeah.” Were I French, then I’d be thinking, “Mais oui.” And while I’m not French, I mention that phrase... [Read more of this review]
Fi’zi:k Kurve Saddle
In the last 10 years a funny thing has happened with saddle design. Saddle shapes have become ever more diverse in an all-consuming quest to improve comfort and decrease the chances that your undercarriage will suffer any negative side effects as a result of logging long and/or frequent miles on a bicycle. As those shapes have evolved (gotten... [Read more of this review]
First Ride: SRAM Red
SRAM’s Bill Keith discusses New Red with Slowtwitch meister Dan Empfield. Back in January I was charged with writing peloton magazine’s look at SRAM’s new Red group. To do my job I was equipped with six or seven images and a bunch of copy. Then I went to work, connecting dots, describing features and noting differences. I was forced... [Read more of this review]
The BMC Teamelite TE01
The BMC media event I attended included not one but two bike introductions. Yesterday I had the opportunity to ride the new Teamelite TE01, a hard-tail 29er. Don’t worry, RKP isn’t changing its editorial direction, but we’ve made the decision to start including some off-road content when it seems appropriate. And this bike was so... [Read more of this review]
Read More Posts From This Category
