Photo of the day: Style.

A great shot of time trial perfection: A neo-pro named Stephen Roche, 1981.    Exploding onto the scene with victories in Tour of Sardinia and Paris-Nice.  Stylistic perfection contre-le-montre.


This was a Miroir du Cyclisme poster that an old teammate and friend Embo mounted and gave me for Christmas later that year.  Kept it all these years. In fact, it's hanging in my workshop/basement.  

It's a study in cycling style.  Upper body still and relaxed all the power coming from silky-smooth, fluid pedalling, legs clicking over like a metronome.  Roche's form is an icon of purity from a time when timetrials were about stripped-down minimalism:  Lighter wheels.  Skinsuit.  No gloves, no helmet, no glasses.   Aerodynamics then meant holding your 'oeuf' position in the drops.

It's a photo that evokes that feeling we all have from time to time, when you're really flying down a smooth road.   Often it's that first warmish spring day, after a winter of slugging through the wind and cold.  It feels like you've got a tailwind, put it in the big ring, and magically a you're spinning a big gear with fluidity that feels almost effortless.  The sun's out, and you're flying.   You know that feeling, right?

Comments

  1. TedMarch 9, 2012 at 6:13 AM

    I like how even the top of the bars aren't taped - some mechanics even went as far as routing the brake cables backwards (coming down from the brake levers)- and of course taking the front derailleur off and making the chain only fit the big ring and several of the small cogs in back for low resistance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Larry and HeatherMarch 11, 2012 at 10:09 AM

    Yeah, Larry knows that feeling...but it's usually because there IS a tailwind! Interestingly in today's TT to finish Paris-Nice, Wiggins had plenty of aero stuff including the crash hat, but beat the next guy who looked to have only a skinsuit and aero bars mounted on the bike he rode all week, by just 2 seconds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 15, 2012 at 12:41 AM

    That last paragraph is the perfect expression of the the cycling moment.
    Well done.

    As winter looms in NZ, and the knowledge that many hours will be spent fighting the Unbeatable Wellington Wind, it's reassuring to know that the months of upcoming effort and test of determination will make one stronger.

    Cheers
    Mike

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fast EddyMarch 16, 2012 at 6:01 PM

    Thanks Mike. Enjoy the off season down there, and know that wind always makes you Kiwis stronger and tougher...(I remember Graham Miller killing all of us up here over 20 years ago)
    Best,
    Eddy

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time tested, old school early season training advice

Image
I just love the article below. I found it on the web years ago. It's a lecture by Dr. Marco Pierfederici, a trainer who used to work with Eddy Merckx and Italian pro teams back in the ’70 and ‘80s. He delivered this talk at a training camp in Miami organized by a long-gone business called 'Italia Velo Sport'. They imported Battaglin and Francesco Moser frames, Campagnolo and Gipiemme components and other Italian clothing and gear. This innovative, early discount mail order company brought champion Francesco Moser to a winter camp with US amateurs in 1982, and then brought over Giovanni Battaglin and his teammates, I believe in early 1983. The pros spent the days logging early season easy miles with starry-eyed US amateurs, and spent evenings giving clinics to imparting old world 'knowledge'. An old friend and CCB teammate Rick Graham attended that camp. A few weeks later as we were tapping out the miles around Gloucester Mass., I remember Rick talking ab
Read more

Benotto dreams...

Image
Before the US National Road Race Championship, August 1982. Hard to believe now jongens , but once upon a time I could sprint a bike through a crowd fast enough that somebody actually saw fit to sponsor me. It's a faded memory I needed to keep drawing upon several times this past season... Way back in 1981 I was recruited by Constantin Negulescu to join his Northstar Bicycle Club.  The ex-Romanian national team rider had put together an elite US Amateur team, sponsored by a slate of leading Italian cycling brands:  Bicicletas Benotto, Gipiemme components, Ambrosio rims, Hutchinson tires and IscaSella Saddles.   With the exception of Hutchinson (who still makes killer tubeless tires... raced this whole season on one pair), most are brands either dead, or largely missing in action.  But back in '82, well, it was the perfect gear. "Good enough for Roger DeVlaeminck or Moser, good enough for you!" Talk about Christmas morning... I can still remember being in
Read more

Lost races of the Northeast: Le Tour de la Gaspésie

Image
Ever wonder what it's really like to ride a Tour? C'mon, admit it.  Most of us amateurs, from the time we first stomp on pedals in anger, from that first adrenaline rush riding in a peloton, that sound of whirring chains and wind, incubates a dream of riding a ' Tour '.   A real stage race, one longer than the 3 or 4 day long weekend versions available nowadays.  A race with  commissaires,  run from town to town in a place where the road signs are in a foreign language.  A race with stages measured in kilometers, one where words like revitaillement, grimpeur,  hors-delai and  voiture balai  are quickly added to your daily vocabulary. Back in the 1980 and '81, if you were a New England based Cat 1 or 2 rider longing to ride a Tour, you basically had two options:  Get selected for the internationally known Coors Classic in Colorado, or work your way onto a team doing Québec's Tour de la Gaspésie.   While I had neither the talent nor the  palmares for the form
Read more