The 2014 Strade Bianche race was a super fun race to watch! I highly recommend watching it [HERE] on YouTube or downloading it from your favorite torrent site. Peter Sagan (Cannondale) is such a powerful and fun racer to watch, but was outdone by Michal “The Kielbasa King” Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) who was in freaking beast mode. Watching the pros racing on the white, dusty gravel of Italy was just the motivation I needed (along with a couple high-octane beers) to finally enter the 2014 Barry-Roubaix.
I just wish we mortals would be racing on roads as dry and dusty as those pros found in Tuscany!
The road above is just a sample of what we’ll be greeted with this Saturday at the Barry. My friend Mike was down near Hastings today and drove a bit of the course to do some recon. Yowza, it looks like it’s going to be a sloppy one! I could write about tire and bike choices and all that jazz, but I’m not sure it really matters… I’m a lycra-expanding, aging cyclist that was never that fast to begin with and getting slower with every beer and every slice of pizza I throw down my gullet. On top of that, the roads are going to be shit-tastic (although thankfully lacking the ice of 2013) and there are like 100,000 people racing. Doing this race (and just about every race I do anymore) is all about the experience and getting outside after a long winter.
I guess I’ll go dig up my fender, although I am not sure it will make a bit of difference.
BRING ON THE MICHIGAN MUD!
Top photo: original via CorVos/PezCyclingNews, with PS monkeying by me.
Bottom photos via my cantankerous friend Mike Seaman and used completely without his knowledge or permission.