out in wilderness
about 11 hours ago | 0 comments
Nothing brings me pleasure like seeing one of these shock jocks out of the comfort zone provided by their call screeners and the ability to hang-up on people.
Moron.
the state of women's bike racing
24 days ago | 3 comments
Here is a photo of a recent cycling clinic sponsored by a couple of local women's cycling teams. The topic was "Riding in a Group".
Number of women I count in the photo = 12
Number of women that raced the recent Finchford-Roubaix Road Race = 2
Number of women that raced the even more recent Eagle Point Criterium = 4
Best way to learn how to ride your bike in a group is to ride your bike in a group.
crazy power
28 days ago | 0 comments
Martijn Maaskant finished fourth in last week's Paris Roubaix. Here is his power output for the last 15 minutes of the race. A couple of observations:
- his attack with a few km to go, puts him at over 600 watts [that's after 250km of racing!!]
- for the next three minutes he held over 375 watts!
More details from the rest of the race here.
clothes
28 days ago | 0 comments
I cannot/willnot cast my presidential vote for someone in a yellow pantsuit.
Even in my own heart I don't know if that makes me a misogynist or a fashion snob.
overcoming
28 days ago | 0 comments
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.
--Albert Camus
Gaps open, representing the chasms of my own weakness. I can see the better riders slowly creeping away. I seemingly cannot respond. There is a moment of absolute darkness. Self pity, mostly, unadulterated misery over my own failures. Stalled in the thoughts of my own futile efforts, I stop. Seriously, stop. No real time has passed, just the time for my thoughts to arrive and leave. I take inventory of the consequences of continuing to quit. How bad would it really be?
Someone passes me on the right. The blackness is gone in a flash of light, and I am riding again. Hard. I get to my passer's wheel. I'm not slowing, but it's becoming easier. There is not less pain, but I am now in control of it. Thinking can be the enemy of overcoming, it must be willed.
recommended reading
about 1 month ago | 4 comments
I heartily recommend Tim Krabbe's The Rider. Its blend of well-constructed sentences and its apt descriptions of actual bike race tactics are supremely enjoyable. And at 130 pages, it's something that could conceivably be read at a single sitting.
The book's opening paragraph:
Meyrueis, Lozere, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.
Snobbish? Certainly. He is a bike racer, no?
By the end, he does provide a sense of why we enjoy this sport, and why we sacrifice so much for it, even as amateurs.
The entire length of the book describes the author's experience in a single European road race; the warm-up, the other riders, the pain, the dream of winning, the uncertainty of how to win even as a veteran.
Check it out, you won't be disappointed.
opinionated cyclist
about 1 month ago | 6 comments
via BikeSnob
Kim, if you're listening. Get this guy booked for the radio show!!