I’m not sure if I’m more impressed by the wrench leaning out of the car to do his chain lubing business at the 1949 Tour de France, or the freaking tree trunk legs on Gino Sciardis. Look at those freaking things! There are roid-head body builders that don’t have legs that good.
Side note: Digging the wool jersey that Gino is sporting too.
Mountain bike pioneer Charlie Kelly in a promotional photo (circa 1980-ish?) taken by Gary Fisher for their company– MountainBikes. According to Kelly’s personal (history packed) website, the bike in the photo was Fisher’s as he couldn’t yet afford one of the very bikes they were selling.
Back then, you paid $1,300 up front to a couple of California hippies, waited a month or more and eventually you got yourself a 28 pound, fully rigid mountain bike.
Check out Kelly’s site for a shit ton of amazing photos and information about the early days of mountain biking. It’s pretty cool to see so much history of a sport that was invented during my lifetime.
I wouldn’t say that I have anything against Lance Armstrong (except the lying, cheating, megalomania, sociopathy and making me feel like a Goddamn fool for all those years I supported him and his teams as they doped themselves to the gills to win bike races). And I wouldn’t dare to say that Lance does–or ever has–smoked grass, done mescaline, high powered blotter acid, cocaine, or a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, raw ether or amyls.
But I do think that he obviously got locked into a serious drug collection and had the tendency is to push it as far as he could. Only his drug collection had more to do with EPO and the like rather than Hunter S. Thompson’s laundry list of illegal, mild to hardcore and dangerous, recreational drugs.
I hate myself. Not for all my normal reasons but because the very first thing I thought of when I saw this photo of Francesco Moser wasn’t about him, his bike, the race he was doing or the Cheshire Cat shit eating grin the dude in the car is sporting… it was that the font used for the sponsor’s name on the team car is Bodoni Poster Italic. Not a huge fan… Unless I’m doing some 70s looking project, then it’s pretty darn cool. I on the other hand am just an idiot.
Gravel circa 1994 – 26″ wheeled mountain bike and hip pack (not being used for Enduro™) included.
Apparently motor-paced racing was all the rage back in the early 20th century. I’ve seen a few photos from races here and there, but this one has to be one of my favorites. I’m not sure which subject I find more interesting and/or odd; the 10-year-old kid in his underwear, racing a bike with 14 inch wheels or the steely eyed, leather clad, Oliver Hardy looking motorcyclist who appears to be on his way to a Judas Priest concert as he straddles the fuselage like it’s a giant, metal phallus.
It’s been said that racers could get up to 60 miles per hour, I’m not sure how fast this little dude was going, but I am certain he would have kicked my ass.
Now cue up the song below and imagine Oliver singing it.
Pseudo hashtag-a-go-go: eddy, cannibal juice, pipes, chops, burns, legend, mineral water chug contest, sponsor gawker, eddy don’t use no hashtags, no photo of post-chug cannibal belch
Photo originally found at fabbricadellabici.com
Monkeyed with by me to get vintage newspaper feel I wanted.
Beverage provided by Perrier
It’s only mid-October, but with the leaves falling, you can’t help but think that the snows will be here soon enough. Time to yet again formulate a winter time survival plan for fitness and sanity… and to look at photos of cyclists who are way tougher than I was or will ever be.
I love pasta and I am done trying pretend that I don’t, or that I can eat Primal or Paleo for more than a week or two before I realize that life is too short to not eat pasta (or beans for that matter). I’m sorry, but Italians have been eating the stuff forever and Italy has produced some pretty freaking legendary cyclists– none of which I recall being fat in their racing days. So as I often say on this blog (and in my daily life) “fuck it.” Or in this case, “Fuck it, I’m eating pasta.” Moderation and miles on the bike seems to work best for crushing pasta and not having to move up a belt size.