The Galleria in Milano last year had another fine example from the world of cycling.

B2B 2012

Bob's artistic photography meets Lew's cool nonchalance...  

2012 Wombat 100

Happy as a pig in mud!

Trofeo Senza Fine

Thirty days from today the winner of the 2012 Giro d'Italia will be presented with the Trofeo Senza Fine (trophy without end) in Milano on Sunday, May 27th. At a ceremony today the trophy was installed in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milano, it will remain there during the race.

The Giro begins May 5th in Herning, Denmark.

 From: http://italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com.au/

Bay to Bay 2012

With most of the TdL boyz riding the second annual Bay to Bay ride this Sunday it seemed appropriate to revisit some very amateurish footage of last years event to set the mood...

Facebook for cyclists

I use Strava .. now with iPhone or Garmin

Get started:
1) Grab a GPS device (iPhone, Android or Garmin).
2) Go for a run or a ride and tear it up.
3) Sync your activity at Strava.com and make history.

Game on,

- Andy

http://app.strava.com/athletes/172401

Thanks to Andy  (Mr IBM) 

A word from the bike guru...

Been meaning to post this - http://www.loosescrews.com/ - lots of new, obscure bike bits for sale and related technical info in a no-nonsense, well organised site. Service is 100% - just took delivery of a bunch of hard to find parts which arrived super quick.

So, for those of us with the time and inclination, a great resource for restoring that old thrasher to full glory.

Cheers,

Anthony

Tour toujours

Research shows that most of the TV audience in France for the Tour de France tune in for the scenery.It's probably true outside of France also.

InnerRing has an interesting look behind the scenes at the planning that goes into all those great pick up shots they use...especially as filler when the race is less than totally fascinating.

The local displays that are designed for helicopter coverage have always intrigued me as to how they come to be organised.  This gives a little of the background.

'Some of the story is written well in advance. The often elaborate displays in fields by farmers are planned and the French farmers’ union even emails the GPS co-ordinates to Ooghe (the TV director) so he can be sure the TV helicopter cameras are ready'.

http://inrng.com/2012/04/tour-de-france-tv-preparation/#more-8307

Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2012

A classic scene from last night's LBL monument.

How much do the Belgiums love their cycling???

Thanks to Steephill/Sirotti

The Dirty Dozen

Thanks to Bob for this beautifully crafted taste of some of the magnificent mountain bike trails in Victoria's North East.

The next project is to start ticking them all off....

The Third Man

Fiorenzo Magni was always the third man of the Golden Age of Italian cycling that was dominated by Bartoli and Coppi. Despite that he was Italian National Road Champion three times, won three editions of the Giro and many other races.

Her was never a great climber but often managed to stay in contention through sheer bloody-mindedness.

To quote from the man himself:

"In the 1956 Giro I fell on the descent from Volterra and I broke my collarbone. The doctor said to me  'You can't ride'. But I put some rubber sponge on the handlebars and I rode the time trial. I used up four pairs of shoes by trying to brake. Then I rode over the Apennines. But on the uphill time trial at San Luca the pain was too much, so Faliero Masi cut a tyre for me and ties it to the handlebars and I held it in my teeth. The next day in the Modena-Rapallo stage, I fell again and I broke my upper arm. I feinted with pain. I was already on a stretcher. But I got up and the group waited for me. And I finished the Bondone stage in the snow."


Most of us don't go out if it looks like possible showers.

Quote taken from John Foot's Pedalare! Pedalare! Bloomsbury 2011

Mur de Huy

Looking at the post race photo's the 2012 Fleche Wallone classic on Steephill I couldn't help but compare how good we  looked at the top of the Mur de Hoy last year, compared to Philippe Gilbert yesterday.

But then again we did it once at a glacial pace, not three times at race pace. The peleton's speed up such a vicious climb is just incredible:

http://www.sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone/MG_sportnieuws/MG_wielrennen/1.1277135

A great result also for GreenEDGE in second place.

Northern Loop

A beautiful Autumn day out for Alan and I (aka the steel bike boyz) today.

We called into the St Andrews Bakery Cafe, as directed by Michael, but regrettably there is not enough mid week traffic to justify opening.

We had to settle for some refreshment at the pub next door.

It's an old fashioned sort of place. We fitted in just fine.

Eddy 'in '72. Eddy Unbelievable.

From Padraig at RedKitePrayer:

Last year I wrote a feature that examined Eddy Merckx’ 1972 season for peloton magazine. I put forward the idea that it was the single greatest year of cycling any rider had ever put together—would ever put together. In winning Milan-San Remo, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Giro d’Italia (four stages along the way), the Tour de France (seven stages and the points jersey), the Tour of Lombardy and the hour record, he put together in one year what would be a fine career for any other cyclist. And if you examine all the minor stuff he won along the way you get the impression that his vocabulary didn’t include the word “peak.” He was badass on a full-time basis.

Wilier = Long live Italy, liberated & redeemed

I had always thought that the classic Italian bike brand Wilier was a very unItalian sounding name. John Foot's excellent history of Italian cycling  'Pedalare! Pedalare!' ( a bedside reading must for tragics like me) provides the explanation.

Italians often use the letter 'W' as an abbreviation for the word viva - 'long live' - so it is common to see banners such as W l'Italia or W il Giro. The patriotic expression (bearing in mind this was at the end of the war) 'W l'Italia, liberata e redenta' (Long live Italy, liberated and redeemed) thus gave birth to the name Wilier.

Very patriotic indeed.

No Power Bars or Gels here..

Seeing this photo gives cause to lament the fall in culinary standards on the Grand Tours since the early Giros. 

Amstel Gold

With the Amstel Gold running this Sunday it seemed a good time to revisit the finish of the1983 edition of the race.

What an unbelievable hero

Omega Pharma backstage pass

If you've got 10 minutes to spare this is a fantastic insight into the planning and the behind the scenes race team for Tommeke's fourth Paris Rouibaix win last Sunday.

Paris-Roubaix

The screen saver that I never seem to tire of...

To download copy and paste:

http://www.grassyknolltv.com/2012/paris-roubaix/photos/page-02/010-PIC271383308.jpg

Thanks to Steephill/Sirotti

Paris-Roubaix...the Trophy

de Rooij: “It’s a bollocks this race! You’re working like an animal, you don’t have time to piss, you wet your pants. You’re riding in mud like this, you’re slipping, it’s a piece of shit…”
Tesh: “Will you ever ride it again?”
de Rooij: “Sure, it’s the most beautiful race in the world!”



Slosse is a family-owned stonemason business from Orchies in northern France, a cobblestone’s throw from the route of Sunday’s race in Orchies. The company was started by 1898 and has flourished since, these days supplying everything from bathroom tiles to tombstones and shiny bank atriums.

But it has a tiny sideline and for the past ten years it has supplied the trophy for Paris-Roubaix. Some races offer gold trophies, some have silver cups, but Paris-Roubaix rewards the winner with a block of stone.

At first our only worry was that the cobble could fall off when the winner lifted the trophy above his head

The company’s Bertrand Duhem goes out every year to look for the trophy, hunting in ditches and roadside verges. These are real cobbles but unlike some hooligan fans looting the countryside, Duhem doesn’t rip the stones out of the road. Instead the countryside is full of fields and many farmers dig them up and place the awkward stones by the side of the field so they can plough, sow and reap without these vast stones mangling their machinery. Duhem only has to harvest these discarded stones. “I get the best, the most square. This year I got them in Tilloy and Brillon“, he told French newspaper La Voix du Nord.

Once back in the workshop, Duhem’s colleague Jean-Jacques Allou takes over.  The first job is the base on which the stone will sit and this is from local stone too, in this case a “blue” stone from the area. Normally grey, when polished the stone does take on a blue tone. In total Allou makes about 20 a year, no word on who gets them but there’s a junior edition, an U-23 race and maybe some VIPs get one as well. But they’re still exclusive, “we’ve got a deal with the Amis du Paris-Roubaix not to sell them” says Allou, even if a few entrepreneurs offer copycat versions for tourists.

From InnerRing.com

One tough mother..

Luis Ocaña, a rider more famous for crashing out of yellow in the 1971 Tour, after he crashed into the back of Merckx and while lying trapped under his bike had a fast approaching Joop Zoetemelk ram into him. The incident was famous because it took him out of yellow and the race, giving it to Merckx, who refused to wear yellow the next day. The picture above shows just how unfair the Tour was to him. He had four abandons, but this one was probably the worst. He was so incapacitated from the crash and streaming in blood, that two team mates had to hold him up on his bike and push and pull him to the finish. All in the hope he could start the next day, which unfortunately he didn’t.

From elcyclista.com

Where does the Tour of Flanders really start?

Let's ask Paul Sherwin

Thanks to SpeedMetalCycling

Felice Pasqua

The Easter break started early with an excellent day on Mt Donna Buang yesterday.

It can't get much better than that.

Don't try this at home...

When a YouTube clip gets over 1.1 million hits in a matter of days you know it's gone absolutely viral.

When it's about riding a bike around Fairfield in Melbourne then you've just got to have a look.

You won't be disappointed.

Make my day...

For those that stayed up late last night to watch the Tour of Flanders live on SBS there was a wonderful moment of celebration of a young Belgium fan captured by the TV coverage after Tomek scored his record equalling third win in this monument. Priceless.

Rapha + Tasmania

For the full 5 minutes clip:

http://www.rapha.cc/van-diemens-land/?cm_mmc=email-_-300312-_-textlink-_-diemen

Thanks to Ross for this wonderful tour of western Tassy in full Rapha glory.