Someone in Seattle took it upon themselves to add a little personal flair to a bike lane marking recently. I saw this stencil modification while riding up the south-bound side of Dexter Ave N near Fremont. Clearly they’re trying to even out bicycling’s gender gap. Male bicycle road markings DO outnumber female bicycle road markings by thousands, perhaps even millions worldwide.
Posted in Advocacy, Art, Everything Else
Tagged seattle bicycle, seattle bike lanes, women and cycling, women bicycling gender gap
The break in Stage 3 of this years race.
All across America today, people are celebrating Independence Day (and hopefully not actually on the internet like yours truly is right now). It is, at its essence, a celebration of historical achievement by our brilliantly tactical founding fathers. As such, it seems appropriate (if not only tenuously connected) to share this great essay from Red Kite Prayer that draws parallels between the 1976 Tour de France and the 98th incarnation of the race, currently underway.
The essay’s author, Bill McGann, argues that the brutal climbing of this year’s Tour, combined with the dearth of individual time trials, not only make it a climber’s race, but a race that will be decided by the best tacticians as the 1976 race ultimately was.
The 2011 Tour is a victim of Tour boss Prudhomme’s war on time trialing. With four summit finishes, yet only 42.6 km of individual time trialing and no white-road or pavé stage to lend balance to the race, it is effectively a climbing championship.
That brings to mind the 1976 Tour with it’s back-to-back eight stages of climbing plus a Puy de Dôme hilltop finish. Yes, there were 89 km of individual time trialing in 1976, but that year the mountains overwhelmed everything. Also, it featured a war between the era’s two best climbers, Joop Zoetemelk and Lucien van Impe. Perhaps there is a parallel to 1976’s brutal war in the mountains in the coming match between 2011’s most prominent contenders Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador.
Zoetemelk, the better climber that year, lost the race because of a profound tactical failure in the face of Cyrille Guimard’s brilliant management of van Impe. The only major errors that I can remember Contador committing (I’m sure RKP’s readers will remind me of others) involved his dallying in the back of the peloton and missing important moves. I doubt his new director, Bjarne Riis, will let the Spaniard sleep at the wheel in this Tour.
For those of you readers in the U.S., I hope you’re out riding on this holiday. But make sure you get your proper dose of historical reading tomorrow as you nurse your patriotic hangover at work.
I saw this well made mini documentary about World Champion track racer Shane Perkins over on Drunk Cyclist. It’s pretty unreal what he goes through to be the fastest in the world. Guaranteed to make you feel like a slouch about your own training. Then again, I don’t feel bad saying I’ll never be that dedicated to one single pursuit in my life.
Posted in Everything Else, Racing
Tagged hungry beast, keirin world champion, shane perkins, track racing, track world champion
Note from Josh: Sorry for the radio silence around here. I started a new job last week, so that’s taken precedence over The Bicycle Story for the time being. Things should be back to their semi-regular normalcy here soon.
I’m a big fan of Brian Vernor’s work. He’s produced some of cyclocross’ mainstay documentaries. He’s also a great photographer that not only makes wonderful images of cycling, but the people, fans, atmosphere, and culture that surround the sport as well. To be frank, it’s hard not to be a little jealous of the life Vernor has crafted for himself (at least the public image of that life he shares on his blog and through his work). He travels all over the world to shoot photos, make films, and ride bikes. It’s pretty rad.
Like much of his work, the latest film follows that “travel, shoot, bikes” formula. Vernor joined the Jamis mountain bike team down in Chile for the Trans Andes Challenge, a 580-km mountain bike stage race across the Andes. Check out the trailer below:
http://vimeo.com/24301987
Victoria Pendleton is one of track racing’s most successful athletes. Her long list of palmarés includes an Olympic gold medal and several world championships. This short video tells Pendleton’s story of how she was introduced to cycling by her father (a former British grass-track national champion), the incredibly heavy training required to be the best in the world, and how it feels to fly around the track at 75km/hr.