El Cyclista

05.13.12

The Slide Luck Bikeshow NYC, May 19th

It is a cycling extravaganza of art, film, rides, music and raffles. Part of the National Bike Month celebrations in New York this looks like a great night out. Held on May 19th from 6pm – 9pm at Hostelling International Flagship at 891 Amsterdam avenue. Check out the link for more details http://slideluckbike.eventbrite.com/. If you are in town, like bikes and a good night out, this is where you should be on the 19th.

Nice Kit Spot With Leigh Holmes

Thanks to Leigh Holmes for buying full kit and then proceeding to get it in between some of my favorite riders, Russell and Dean Downing. Ever since I saw Russell kill a bunch of Pro Tour riders going up St Pats hill in Cork I have had nothing but respect. On one of the worst days I have seen to race in, and on a day when thousands turned out to see Lance Armstrong (who climbed off at the bottom of the hill), they got to see Russ survive a succession of attacks from HTC to take a massive result. Cheers Leigh – the socks are in the post.

05.10.12

Team Time Trial With Quadruplets

05.05.12

This Guy….

… is my tip for winning the Giro (Scarponi the guy in pink, not the pooch). I watched him in person “testing his legs” at Liege-Bastogne-Liege going up La Redoute, and he was definitely holding something back. Or, he was just very dis-interested and a bit cold. He comes out better and better every year, and last years performance should have given him the confidence to go for the top step. Also, now supported by a bigger and better team as a true leader he will be fresher when he hits the very vertical last week. The Tifosi who love him will probably give him an extra few watts and a little push up the climbs as well. This is all what I am telling myself because he is leading my fantasy Giro team. This post may well of course have completely jinxed him.

05.02.12

The Moulton Standard Dissected

The Panniers Of Maastricht

The Panniers Of Maastricht might sound like a great name for a band, but that is not why I am posting. On our days away from the classics walking around Maastricht and Bruges it was pretty obvious that the primary way of getting around town was by bike, and in a country where commuters all look pretty much the same, some are making a huge effort to infuse a little bit of color and personality into their ride. We kept spotting these customer made panniers which definitely stood out against the grey stone streets and overcast skies. Incredibly practical and beautifully designed. Although on reflection sticking a larger than life shot of you kid on your bag might be taking it a little too far…

05.01.12

Super Tresse 2000

They don’t do packaging like they used to. Some cloth bar tape that I found in Belgium (at the Exceller Bike Shop). The packaging also points to two very European branding trends. The first is adding in this case the word “Super” before a product to give you the impression that it is the best. The second is adding numbers after a name or brand to give you the impression it is new and innovative. Which of course is time locked, and gets dated very quickly. If they had really wanted to make the Tressoplast tape VERY modern, they should really have called it “Super Tresse 2000“.

04.26.12

The Exceller Bike Shop / Bruges / Belgium

In a city where the primary mode of transport seemed to be by bike, it takes a little effort to stand out from the crowd. In Bruges pretty much everyone was riding the typical dutch commuter, or sometimes a modern hybrid. But every so often we would spot someone on a classic Moulton folder, or a beautiful Pashley Guv’nor and wonder where they were picking them up. On one of our days off from the classics wondering around the streets I think we found the place, the wonderful bike shop Exceller. Over a cup of coffee with owner Christian he talked about how a love of design and all things well made became his way of defining what products he would sell through the shop.

He carries everything from beautifully built bikes (Pashley, schindelhauer, Cooper and Creme to name a few) to accessories, tools and the clothes you would expect to find in a quality boutique shop. But by coffee number two the good stuff started to unearth. Custom built lugged steel stems built by the same frame builder that built the original Merckx frames as executive paper weights. Handmade bells and pedals by Søren Søgreni. Custom saddles by Gilles Berthoud. But maybe my favorite of all was a box of Tressoplast cloth tape that I hadn’t seen in years. If ever you are passing through Bruges this shop is well worth a visit, especially if it is during the Tour when the stage starts in the main Square, Christian informs us there will be live coverage, sausages and beer served in the shop.

04.25.12

Ardennes Week

Last week I went back to the races in the Ardennes as a fan. No passes and no privileges, just someone else trying to get a look at the pros, the bikes and to soak up the atmosphere. The ambient story around a race and how it changes from country-to-country is something I was hoping to capture. The more races you attend, a cadence and pattern emerges that seems to be present in all of them no matter where you are, although each will present its own unique personality. Amstel, the Dutch classic, was organized chaos from the start village to the finish. Flèche Wallonne is one of those races that make cycling such a unique sport; how we can get so much access to the stars stuns me. It is the working class race of the Ardennes, the start village sandwiched between a factory and a football stadium. Liege-Bastogne-Liege is ASO getting reading for the Tour. Planned, controlled and everyone kept at arm’s length, at least at the start village. This didn’t seem to stop the riders reaching out to fans, and the course—well that is a whole other story. I pulled a selection of the shots that I got here, but I have enough that I hope to do a book, so that is the plan. Not sure how long it will take, but it is now in the works. More to come on that; in the meantime I would love to hear what you think of the shots.

That bottom right-hand corner of Belgium has a very unique feel, very different to the rest of the country. Let me dispel any myths that Belgium is flat, bar a few bergs. The climbs of the Ardennes are hard enough to test the legs of any of the mountain goats, and the races are long and hard enough to make most race strategies go out the window. In these races, the strongest usually win—they basically wear you down. Their personality carved out of being sandwiched between France, Luxembourg and Belgium has created some not so subtle cycling rivalries. This was demonstrated best when the Nissan/Trek car containing Bruyneel got “bathed” in beer coming up La Redoute, and one drunk young fan removed a nice deep section Bontrager wheel from the roof of the car as a souvenir. Gilbert was born on La Redoute, so the local support is somewhat opinionated, especially about the two brothers from just over the border in Luxembourg.

The weather, not usually a cyclist’s friend in the Ardennes, adds a whole other dimension to riding there. Usually when the drive into a region is marked by a large number of wind turbines, it is a pretty good pointer as to what conditions to expect. This year the low temperatures added to the mix. Standing on La Redoute, the weather was changing so much I started to fear the race would get cut short. We ran into Chris Horner in Brussels airport, on his way back for the Tour of California, who described L-B-L as one of his most epic days on a bike. He abandoned with hands so frozen he couldn’t use his brakes and shifters. Chris Horner is no soft lad. Planning for the weather there is near to impossible. The starts were marked by riders signing on in the sun, then rushing back to the buses to get shells and layers before the neutral rollout. In the space of one 15-minute section at Flèche Wallonne we saw sun – rain – hail – sun. There were numerous stories of riders stranded in the hail too far from team cars on the narrow roads to get shells to cover up, leaving them wet, cold and hungry on some of the hardest parcours in Europe. The site of a cold and bonking Nibali seizing up in the last KMs of L-B-L was hard to watch.

04.17.12

A Report From The Ardennes

No matter how many times I see Pro riders I am always amazed at how skinny they are. Standing in a cold and damp Markt Square in Maastricht at the start of Amstel Gold, it doesn’t take much to imagine how illness and chest infections can take hold. The young riders on the teams, this maybe their first “big” race, look scared and fiddle with their bikes much to the annoyance of their mechanics. Others (the workers) look resigned to the 265 km of pain that lies ahead. The favorites don’t reveal themselves to the last minute, and bustle their way up to sign-on with their game-faces on (apart from Chris Horner who was riding around smiling and saying hello to everyone, the gent that he is).

There were a few nice moments before the off. Seeing Thomas Dekker welcomed back amongst the Dutch fans, a young guy on a second chance and looking glad to have it. Seeing how Oscar Freire, after leaving Rabobank, is still held in the hearts of the Dutch fans. It is hard to stop cheering for a guy after he’s been doing it for 8 years, and this was before he launched himself off the front in the finale in what is probably his last time up the Cauberg. And lastly, how a shiny new bike never gets old. A Pro build with a slammed stem just looks good. Ten of them lined up against each other, looks even better.

It has been talked about before how accessible the stars of this sport are. Maybe more surprising is how accessible the tools of the trade are. Bikes are touched, lifted and left exposed until the riders throw their leg over. Yesterday we drove around a lot of the Flèche and Liege courses, my first time in this part of the racing world. The Ardennes are hilly, very hilly, and the wind blows a lot, and seems to always be in your face. One down, two to go. I am going to have a lot of photo editing to do….