Defending the Throne
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When Lance Armstrong announced he was coming out of retirement in September of 2008, many presumed he would take up his career where he left off—winning the Tour de France. Popular speculation was that Johan Bruyneel’s protege, Alberto Contador, by dint of his young age could conceivably rack up a longer streak of wins at the Tour de France than Armstrong. And if there’s anyone who hates to be beaten, it’s Mellow Johnny. Some took a more cynical view. At the point of Armstrong’s retirement, Team Tailwinds, the company behind the US Postal and Discovery ...
Friday Group Ride #32
It's early yet. There is still plenty of time in Grande Boucle 2010 for a violent plot twist and/or turn. Tours de France (see how easy it is to pluralize that?) are pretty much plot twist machines. You just start one up and out come the thrills. And so, even though it's early, this week's Ride is about the Tour that was. This Ride has got to last us all through the weekend and into next week, by which time we'll have the benefit of about ten minutes of hind sight. Clearly, this race will be remembered as the one where Lance ...
Schleck Attack Sequence
What should or should not have happened following Andy Schleck's chain-throwing attack has been sufficiently argued and discussed and even apologized for. I don't wish for it to be discussed any further here. That said, John Pierce sent me a sequence of photos he was able to capture in the seconds following the race's now most infamous attack. In and of themselves, the photos are fascinating. Will they or should they change your mind in any way? Let's hope not; but for those of us who like to dissect things, these images freeze a race-changing event. I've uploaded the full-size images so ...
Chaingate
This was a moment that has been coming for a long, long time. Were we to take a trip with Sherman in the Way Back Machine to visit any of the editions of the Tour de France prior to, say, the ascendancy of Ken Kesey, we’d find a peloton made up of working class men who operated by the Code of the Road, a set of rules granite hard, literal as a genie and without loophole. These men shared work, bidons, pee-breaks and more. They preyed upon weaknesses of flesh and will, but never the machine. There’s plenty of footage showing ...
FGR #31 Wrap
One got the sense from watching the finish of Stage 12, the extended confrontation between Julian Dean and Mark Renshaw and the subsequent reaction of the commissaires, that TdF officials were more embarrassed and angry than anything else. The ouster of Renshaw from the race seemed more of an emotional reaction than a calmly reasoned one. "How could you sully our race with this behavior?" might have been the question. The answer was an emphatic, "Ce n'est pas possible. (It's not possible)." No one that I've spoken with believes relegating Renshaw was uncalled for. His expulsion is another thing. Many respondents ...
Revelations
The last ten days have surprised me for one unusual piece of news after another. I’m not normally one to write the grab-bag post, but because so many disparate pieces of news have elicited the same reaction in me, I figured the uniformity of my reaction is enough to include them in the same post. I’ve followed discussions about rate of ascent (VAM) on Tour climbs with some interest. While I have found some of the numbers reported troubling, I haven’t been willing to place too much faith in those numbers because it’s hard to be certain of just where the ...
Body
Defending the Throne
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When Lance Armstrong announced he was coming...
Friday Group Ride #32
It’s early yet. There is still plenty of time in Grande Boucle 2010 for a...
Schleck Attack Sequence
What should or should not have happened following Andy Schleck’s chain-throwing...
Chaingate
This was a moment that has been coming for a long, long time. Were we to take a...
FGR #31 Wrap
One got the sense from watching the finish of Stage 12, the extended confrontation...
Read More Posts From This CategoryMind
IdentitiesThe end of the Tour de France gives most of us back our lives, but not Bjarne Riis....
Retirement Party
The 2010 Tour de France came down to just two riders and one mountain. So Alberto...
Ambivalence
My legs feel like Eric Zabel’s face looks. I’m not sure I really ever experienced...
Friday Group Ride #31
The best lead out man in the business, Mark Renshaw, didn’t race his bicycle...
The Great Showdown
On July 1, 2010, the 2010 Tour de France looked as if it would be one of the most...
Read More Posts From This CategoryMachine
2011 Felt F1
Felt introduced its 2011 line of bicycles yesterday at its headquarters in Irvine. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine how a company of just 58 employees can do so much in a year. They have a new full-suspension mountain bike called the Edict. There’s a full-carbon version of the company’s ground-breaking Virtue. There’s a redesigned... [Read more of this review]
The Department of Goods
Back in the early ’90s I ran across a catalog for a Utah operation called Sierra Trading Post. It was the very first mail-order retailer I had run across selling closeout products from high-end outdoor manufacturers. The market has changed a great deal since then, with a great many new retailers entering the market and the paper catalogs giving... [Read more of this review]
Cannondale’s New Sheriff
Back in the 1990s Mario Cipollini was getting fined by the UCI with the frequency Cristiano Ronaldo seems to be fouled. The Lion King couldn’t just show up to a stage of a grand tour and ride it. No, he had to put on a show and when Cannondale became the sponsor of Cipollini’s Team Saeco, in them he found a willing partner to make an entry... [Read more of this review]
Ritchey Logic WCS Carbon Curve
I wish wrapping handlebars was easier or that I was less lazy. There. It’s out. Now I can begin recovery. I’m such a nerd for ergonomics and comfort that if adjusting handlebar and lever position was anywhere near as simple as say, adjusting saddle position, I could spend whole weekends playing with lever and bar position. In truth, while I do... [Read more of this review]
Giro LXLF Gloves
Giro, for those who haven’t been paying attention to one of the world’s top helmet manufacturers, has entered the glove market cannonball-style. That’s in addition to the eyewear and other accessories that the manufacturer has moved into. It was a risky move. Giro’s place as one of the top three helmet makers is virtually decreed by government.... [Read more of this review]
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