Videos du jour: Rik van Looy
September. Back to school jongens . OK, enough of this marginal gains, carbon fiber stuff. Today's class filmstrip is a good ol' black and white, behind the scenes, old school metier - lifestyle lesson from none other than the winningest classics rider of all time: The Emperor of Herentals himself - Rik Van Looy. Check out a great RTBF profile I found here . This was filmed in early 1964, so call it 50 years ago. OK, it's in French...but a good video compilation-summary of the entire career of the only man to win ALL the classics. Not even Eddy Merckx did that! I dig the opening clip of Rik training - likely filmed at his favorite winter-training venue - Lake Garda. A pedal stroke that exudes power and ease at the same time. In the interview that follows he talks about 'twice-a-day' training rides, and piling on the km (starting with 40k in the morning and 40k in the afternoon and building from there) to get ready for the season. 4,000 km.