Great Ugly Cyclists

While the tour was on I was really struck by the Specialized ad with all the gang talking about the one percenters in cycling and how super doper the new Specialized bikes were.

What really caught my eye, was just how aesthetically challenged Ralph Aldag was. As a person sporting a set on wing nuts myself I am 100% empathetic of the predicament one finds themselves in when you ears that are as big as a pair of children’s thongs, but Ralph seemed to be struggling also with a somewhat lopsided face situation. Now it may be that he is suffering from some sort of Bell’s palsy type issue, which if he is I apologise, but it did seem to me that for Ralph it was simply a case of being hit rather severely with the old ugly stick. I did a bit of research from his riding days, and he does not look that bad. Kind of a cross between Jan Ulrich and Frank Vandenbrouke or maybe the lovechild of Der Keiser and Staffi Graff. So for Ralph it was just a case of not aging gracefully.

The above combined with negative remarks about Cadel Evans’ and his cleft chin pixie look, got me thinking about who would be the greatest ugly cyclist to have pushed the pedals?

Given that the old Alpe Du Heuz featured in this years race it was actually a pretty easy choice. Two time winner on the Alpe and third overall in the early 80’s was Dutchman Peter Winnen. He actually kind of had a few of Cadel’s attributes physically, but with red hair and more freckles. That really just about says it all.

Come Ride With Me

I live on King Island which is in the middle of Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania.

Turns out there is a pretty unique event happening in November, to coincide with the 150 year celebrations for the Cape Wickham lighthouse. It will be a 100k bike ride taking in the three "towns" on the Island. Given that there are only about 1200 people here they are not really big towns.

The ride is 85km tar with about 15 km dirt roads, a couple of good climbs and plenty of undulations. Riders will go from one end of the island to the other. Unique as there is hardly any cars on KI. The event will run in conjunction with an 80k ultra marathon with all participants finishing at the lighthouse at the one time. Pancake breakfast at the start apparently, and sure to be plenty of crayfish, abalone and calamari floating around that evening, not to mention the best cheese and beef in Australia.

Website is www.kingislandlight150.com

And, there is an email bike@kingislandlight150.com.com

I will certainly be having a ride. Here are a few pictures to show you why you should come.

Oh Cadel WTF Have You Done!!!

Its 30 years since I had my first bike race. Back then the only way that you could find out about what was happening in the world of cycling was to get one of the foreign magazines that were available, but these were usually about 3 months old when you got them.

I had two uncles that were racers and they would give me a pile of magazines to take home when I dropped around – they usua

lly slipped in the odd playboy as well which was a bit of a win win for a young fella like me.

There would often be European cyclists at my nan’s house as well as they would get billeted out there when they came across to race the Bendigo Madison and other track events, so I got to meet Danny Clark, Stan Tourne, Tony Doyle and Alan Dipple, and they often spotted me a few bits and pieces and kept me up to date with what was happening.

Phil Anderson was the man and my getting into bikes happened at a time when there was still plenty of blokes riding who had raced with him before he went to Europe. They all said that he was otherworldly in his ability, but he was just another Aussie racer. It gave everyone a bit of perspective that the best in the world were not that much better than the best in Australia when Phil was able to hold his own with guys like Hinault. Suddenly possibilities started to open up for a new generation of cyclists.

Cycling was however still far from a mainstream sport and you copped a lot of shit for riding a bike. I am not sure how many people really had much of an idea of who Phil Anderson was, let alone Allan Pieper.

Once the doors opened however the sport has developed its foothold into something of an hysteria. Neil Stephens, Robbie McEwan, Stuey O’Grady, Brad McGee, Baden Cooke, Simon Gerrans and others have meant that cycling has become part of the mainstream sporting landscape, and this has had the effect of cycling suddenly becoming cool.

Cadel wining the world champs was another big step forward, but the winning of the Tour was what was really going to cement the sport in the Aussie consciousness. No it has happened.

It is almost surreal to me when I think of myself as a 12 year old kid reading black and white magazines, and now reflect on being able to watch the stage last night live with my wife, with non-cycling friends texting me with their positive comments.

Hopefully the guys that paved the way get some reflected recognition from the broader public and some of their great achievements are acknowledged and celebrated by a new generation.

Well done Cadel on a race that you and all cycling fans should be proud of, and thanks everyone else for allowing us to be able to recognize and celebrate this achievement as part of our mainstream culture rather than just as part of esoteric subculture.

Cheers Lads

Cadel - will he win????

Well it would certainly look like it. While I am patriotic there are a number of things that are hard to like about Cadel, but you have to hand it to the boy in the tour so far.

For the record, my guess is that Cadel has Asperger’s syndrome. That’s not meant to be a joke, I really think he does. This means that he does not relate to people in the normal acceptable way. If he was a bloke that worked with you in your office you would think he was a weirdo, but harmless. But he is not an office worker, he is a sporting superstar, even if he is the least charismatic bloke you are ever likely to meet.

He gets shit canned for not riding with “panache”, but I doubt that he even fully understands this concept. He rides in the way that gives him the best chance of winning and plays by the odds. No gambling for Cadel – it’s strictly by the percentages.

In a way mountain biking was a much better match for his temperament than road riding with its esoteric “teamwork” underpinnings. Cadel, I am sure had the comment “happier playing with himself than others” written on his junior school reports. Who else would volunteer to the media that they thought that they were suffering from “Gargoilism”??

So he is about to win the tour – the magnitude of this achievement is pretty unbelievable. For a square peg the likes of Cadel to have reached the pinnacle of the round hole which is road cycling, is testimony to a force of will that exceeds what most of us can comprehend.

Cadel will struggle with the publicity that comes with a win in the tour and in many ways it is a double edged sword for him as it will bring more scrutiny to the clear weaknesses that he struggles with in other areas of his life, but gee what an effort.

World Champion and winner of the Tour de France for an Aspergery kid from Katherine – who would of thunk it.

Racing

So I had my first couple of races for years during the last two weeks. I only had my new/old bike which I had only ridden for about 45 minutes prior to the first race, but as they say in the classics you have to be in it to win it.

Race one was a handicap – which is generally the way it goes in club racing in Australia in the country towns. Basically the a bunch of blokes rock up to a windy wet piece of road in the middle of nowhere and in groups of 3-6 ride their rings off to try and catch the group in front and stay away from the group behind. It is pretty much a team time trial for most of the race until the groups might start to come together near the end.

Back in the good old days (BITGOD), I was a scratch rider meaning I was in the last group to go, but having not raced for 5 years, I was kinda hopeful that I would at least get a chance to settle back into things for a couple of races, but I always say you have to be prepared to take your medicine and that it is not the handicappers fault that you have let yourself turn into a fat sack of poo for the last half a decade, and so if I was put on scratch I was just going to have to suck it up.

They took pity on me and I was put into third scratch. There was just three of us and so I thought we would just cruise along and wait for the groups behind to catch up and then I would be able to see how I was actually going. It was freezing cold and wet – welcome back. I was OK right at the start but once warmed up I was actually going really well. We caught the group in front within 15km and only one of them managed to stay with us. We passed other riders who were not able to stay on and before I knew it we were coming into the last 5km with no sign of anyone behind, and there seemed to be one rider about 500 meters in front. I rode on the front for the whole last 5k and instructed the other guys to let me lead them out for a good sprint. Anyway the guy in front won by 20 meters and we rolled in together behind. Scratch and second scratch were about 1 min 30 secs behind, so even though there ended up being about 8 of them, they only took 3 minutes from us. So back to scratch for me straight away after 1 race, which is kind of good and bad!

The most significant thing about the day was that the club now has a set of proper club rooms with change rooms and all. This led to the situation where I spent 10 min talking to one of the old guys from the club who stood there naked swinging a piece about the size of a babies leg, while I was packing something about the size of what you would use as bait if you were trying to catch a medium size trout, but shit what can you do?

Second race was a scratch race with about 9 facing the starter in A grade. I had done a couple of big rides during the week and felt pretty crap right from the start. I realized a scratch race was going to test me with lots of surging and general carrying on, and I was right. I managed to stay with things easily for the first 2 thirds of the race, but once the attacks started I could not follow strongest couple of blokes – was not far off though.

BIKE

Well I have just returned from 2 weeks on the mainland to sunny (not) King Island, where we discovered that rats had infested the house while we were gone. They actually ate the arse out of a pair of Bec’s nicks, but that’s a story for another time.

My first order of business when I got back to Melbourne was to pick up my Cannondale. True to his word my man had a new cassette there waiting with the bike which I would describe as straight but a little sad. I didn’t stuff around as it was Saturday morning and I had made the call that I was going to race the following day, so I got straight into getting the thing set up. A good clean and things were looking OK. The original ksyrium’s were a little tatty, but they were straight and all spokes seemed OK. I wacked in my seat and post, and the stem and bars I had brought. New bar tape and some lube and we were starting to look OK. I had a pair of new GP4000s tyres to put on, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the rubino pro’s that were on it were almost brand new, so they will come back as training tyres.

Issues seemed to be limited to shagged brake pads and a rattly bidon cage bolt. It really also needs some new cables and a new headset, and I will do these next time I am back on the mainland. But she was looking OK. One drama was that I was sure that the Caad4’s that were threadless were 1 1/8th inch alloy steerer tubes, but mine is 1 inch steel, but a quick whip down to the local bike shop set me up with the right size spacers.

Pumped the tyres up and went for a spin. As expected it was nice and stiff. The original ksyrium ssl’s were pretty harsh and these combined with a stiff frame meant that she was a bit of a bone shaker over rough sections of road, but I don’t mind that. Took about three goes to get everything adjusted right, and a few practice sprints told me we were ready to go. First race for years the next morning.

Old Pro's

I really love “old pro” stories. By “old pro” I am talking about the Australian version, not the trendy European.

In Australia you had the League of Professional Wheelmen, which were a group of what would now be called semi-professionals who made a few bucks from their chosen sport. They would race in the track carnivals and road races around the place and you could make a decent coin if you had your wits about you.

The common denominator was that if you were part of this crew you were a hard arse. Almost always working class and with a high proportion coming from small country towns like Bendigo, Ballarat and Shepperton.

My starting cycling coincided with the demise of this bred. In my way of seeing it this has been cycling’s loss. Genuine hard men have been replaced by an altogether softer breed. Besides old pro’s were always good for a laugh even if they were not trying to achieve one.

I remember riding in a group once and a local “Old Pro” was holding court on various theories about training, mental toughness and tactics. We got on to the subject of weight and “form”. “Old Pro” had strong views on this and made a comment which stopped the conversation in its tracks.

He stated in a voice devoid of one once of humor that:

“You will know when you are in absolute peak condition because you will be able to fart without lifting your arse off the seat.”

So next time you hear someone going all gushy about cycling being like “chess on wheels”, remember that back in the days when the old pro’s ruled, it was an altogether more simple sport.

New Bike

OK – I have holidays coming up and am going to have a race or two while I am back on the mainland.

I thought I would put my money where my mouth is and get a stiff old school aluminum bike cause that’s what I am always going on about is best for a beefy boy like me.

So trawling through ebay like you do… I comes across a early 2000's Cannondale CAAD4 in my size, full dura ace 9 speed and original Ksyrium SL wheels. Now there are a couple of things the kids should know about the old made in the US of A dales before they go handing over their pineapples.

1. CAAD 4’s 5’s and 6’s are basically the same beast except that a CAAD 4 has a nonintegrated but still 1 1/8th inch fork, and the CAAD 6 has the Cannondale Hollowgram bottom Bracket and crankset.
2. Hollowgram was good back in the day, but a set of second hand ultegra 10 speed cranks is just about as stiff and cheap as chips to replace the BB on.
3. All are the same tubes and geometry.
4. Integrated headsets are for the birds – a nice Chris King nonintegrated for me is the shit.
5. One Mario Cipolinni rode the good old CAAD 4 to about 300 Giro stage victories. He actually preferred the CAAD 3 which was a bit stiffer in the rear end. Now while my mate Marriott does not mind something stiff in the rear end – most of us are happy with the bit of compliance that the CAAD 4 onwards curvy stays give.

Now if you are going to get a Cannondale, you might as well go for a Saeco red one which this little ebay find was, so as they say in the classics, we were onto something of a winner.

No how much would you pay for this little baby you say? Well how about 605 smakkos.

Now this story gets even better, as when I rang the guy to arrange pick up and asked about what it might need to be race worthy so I could get a few bits from me old mates at probikekit, he tells me that I don’t need to worry about a cassette as he has a brand new dura ace one that he will throw in that has never been used. That children is 100 bucks + right there.

A bit more ebaying finds me a new Ritchey Pro stem for 25 bucks and a pair of Oval bars (me likes the bend and is what I had on my much loved Avanti Team Corsa) for 10 bucks. This gives me a 31.8 bar and stem combo for a nice stiff front end, which is what you really want (take note Marriott). I already have a good selle italia slr seat, Ritchey WCS seat post and a new set of chain rings lying around, so an afternoon in the shed and this slightly tatty ugly duckling will be a kick arse swan.

Now I can choose to either run the Mavic’s or my ambrossio excellence 32 spokers with dura ace hubs. Either way they will be having a new set of Vittoria Rubino pro’s pumped up to 130psi.

Oh to see the look on the face of Tony Mirabella when the not so Fatsprintking, rocks up on the stonking red “Lion King” Ballarat Vets sprint destroyer.

Steel???

Two of the three bikes I own are steel. This is not because I have any type of fetish for the stuff, but just because they were cheap and seem to last a long time. One is an old racing frame and the other is a touring bike. They both would have been good bikes in their day but they would both be at least 20 years old now.

Now you might be thinking that I am going to go into a deeply philosophical but somewhat esoteric rant about how “steel is real” and all that guff. Wrong my furry friends. After riding the stuff for 25 years, I am starting to get the shits up with steel a bit.

Now before any of you rich gits who have brought a custom made, chrome lugged beauty cough up your double shot latte’s, I feel I have to give a bit of context. Steel is fine for a beater bike. It is makes a really good training bike and it is still what you should be touring on. What gives me the shits about steel is the way people have gone all misty eyed and romantic about it.

Let’s start getting some perspective here. My steel “race” bike would have been a pretty good thing back in the day. It has nice angles and it rides comfortably. On a windy downhill, it feels as good as any bike I have ridden. So I should love steel right? Wrong. It always feels like the tyres are a bit flat even when I have 130psi in em. It is molto heavy and if I don’t keep spraying a gallon of fish oil into every orifice every couple of months it starts rusting. My favorite real race bike was made out of Columbus Airplane Alloy tubing. Man did it have some zing. It was a bucking bronco of a bike that always felt like it was ready to go. Climbing or sprinting it wanted me to smash the pedals. You felt everything that was happening, every little ripple in the road. It was here for a good time not a long time, and true to form was always a chance to bust behind the bottom bracket one day without notice.

My steel frame feels like it wants to take a little snooze when I am riding it. It has feel but it has no zing. I can almost fall asleep while I ponce along, as it just sort of glides majestically over the road. It never looks like it is going to break, but it aint gunna break free either.

And that the thing, aluminum frames are yesterdays news now. I suppose it makes sense. I broke about 5 frames when I was racing. I used to ride them to the point where I though they were going to break soon and then offload them, but sometimes I went a little too long… Now steel is kinda back in, sold to “purists”, who want to be able to justifying spending as much money on a frame as a cheap car by saying that it has “character” and that it will last a lifetime blah blah blah.

Each to his own I suppose, but for my money, your best bet if you want to get a buzz out of cycling is to keep an eye out for an older high end alloy frame. It will rattle your fillings out and you will have a very sore arse after 100k, but man will it have a bit of pep when the going gets hot. A steel frame will allow you to seem cool, and a carbon fiber frame is what you are meant to buy as a good consumer, but a good aluminum frame will make you feel like Cippolini in the sprints and Pantani on the climbs. Give one a try if you get the chance.

Pics are steel vs how it should be done.

Cycling Wizards

One of the great mysteries to me of cycling, is how few pro’s have, or have had a proper beard. For “proper beard”, read a big bushy Ned Kelly number. Definitely no sculptured goatee’s. Now I would accept a Sean Connery, well groomed beard, but even these are hard to find.

I knew that Sean Eadie, Aussie sprint star of the late 90’s to early 00’s had a good one, but I always thought that he was trying to be a bit clever by half and that it was an image thing rather than a real love of the fluff that drove him.

Just when I had given up hope of a pro beard bearer, I can across something that frankly shocked the hell out of me. It was not just a bad beard by cycling standards, but was possibly the worst beard I have ever seen in any arena.

For those who need a scary example of why personal grooming should be taken seriously, lest a picture be taken of you that will lead to your mocking for years after the offence took place, I present you with Chris Horner in his Mercury days. Rock on Merlin.

I am the ....

Today I was out surfing with a group of 15 year old girls. I run a program for young people on an isolated island and we do a lot of surfing on totally deserted beaches.

As we were waiting for the next set of waves to come in, one of the girls asked about sharks. I earnestly explained that we were close to the continental shelf and that the shallow water from around the island dropped to the very deep water of the great southern ocean not far off the coast, and this meant there were lots of sharks around.

I explained that the sharks would hunt for the seals that had colonies on the rock islands around the coast. I then said jokingly that it was a pity that they probably looked a lot like seals with their wetsuits on.

One of the girls looked me in the eye, emotionless, and said "Do they attack walruses?"

My First "Real" Bike

Like most people my age, my first bikes and gear were hand me downs, from various people. A frame that was given a quick spray with hardware store spray cans and a mish mash of old wool jerseys, knicks with rock hard chamois which inevitably allowed your balls to slip down the side and get crushed between the seat and the side of your leg, and an ancient pair of black perforated leather shoes.

Getting my first “real” bike was one of those peak life events that remain etched into your consciousness. Now understand that your first real bike was still going to be a second hand bike, but it was going to be “your” bike and you were going to have to buy it.

I grew up in the town of Bendigo in central victoria and Bendigo was famous for “The Madison”, a cycling event that seemed somewhat out of place for the small country town that it was held in, often attracting people like Danny Clark, Tony Doyle, and Stan Tourne, to come and ride – world champions all and genuine superstars of track cycling. There would be a whole load of Belgian and Dutch cyclists come over to race the Madison and other track races around the place. It was from this rich mine, that my bike appeared. The custom was that the riders would sell all their gear before they returned to Europe for some extra cash, and that equipment starved Bendigonian’s would snap it up.

My bike had originally been the road training bike of a Dutch bloke who no one could remember. It had been purchased by someone in the club and was coming up for sale. It was a white Plum Vaniquer, with yellow stickers. It had a yellow “turbo”seat and campagnolo groupset bar the white modolo speedy brakeset. It had mavic singles (tubulars or sew ups) and was a pretty classy looking machine, wearing the scrapes and scars of a number of years of training and racing.

My favorite part was the aero campag seatpost which looked, to my eyes at least, to be the classiest thing ever to have been invented. The bike was a perfect fit for me and I wanted it bad.

I had some money saved up and seeing my pain, my parents chipped in a few bucks, and it was mine. A beat up old bike that was just about worn out, but boy did I love that bike. I only raced on it and it was cleaned and oiled to within an inch of its life after every outing. And then of course it sat propped in my bedroom, waiting for the next chance to be unleashed.

Learning the Ropes

When I was a kid, I did most of my training on my own. None of my friends were cyclists and so this was just the way it was, particularly as we lived out of town and back in those days there was no such thing as the Sunday bunch – just a group of hard arses who would put in about 150 k for their “long” ride and who made it pretty clear that you were not welcome until you had paid your dues. Dues really just meant that unless you rode off scratch or second scratch you could piss off.

Anyway, one day I was riding along when I saw a bloke riding about 500 meters in front of me. I put my head down and buried myself to catch up. I was so shagged when I got to him that I needed to sit 20 meters behind for 5 minutes to catch my breath. When I could talk I rode up beside and asked if I could ride along with him, which he grunted would be OK.

The guy was one of the hard racers of the club, getting old but still very competitive. He was riding tubulars (singles to us when I was growing up), with a spare tucked into his back pocket. We rode along for a while and he started to chat and ask me a little bit about myself and to give some advice about cycling which I was lapping up.

After a while my eye caught his leg and I realized that he was only wearing one sock. I nonchalantly mentioned the missing sock. He didn’t look at me, but said “Oh yeah – I needed to have a shit a while ago and I used it to wipe my arse”.

While in retrospect I can see that this is a completely predictable explanation, at the time I have to admit that it threw me a bit. All I could come up with was “Oh that’s was a good idea.”

And so my education started.

Who is Responsible for Manscaping in Professional Cycling???

Look, let’s face it, there have always been cyclists who fancied themselves a bit, and played up to the crowd with their good looks. Clearly Jacques Anqitil and Rudi Aldig thought they were pretty hot stuff back in the day and perhaps spent a little too long in front of the mirror some mornings.

This was however contrasted by the fact that cycling was a hard working man’s sport and most cyclists were, how should we say, pretty rough around the edges. You might want to scrub up a bit for a special occasion, but this was a little bit like making an effort to clean up before you went to church – it was a socially accepted expectation.

Clearly when Francesco Moser came along, the game started to change, greater media coverage and the increasing value placed on the cosmopolitan meant that Moser started to create a template for the young up and comers that was as much about how you looked doing it as what you actually did. Make no mistake Franky was a hard arse and so there was respect and jealousy mixed in with the contempt for his swarthy Mediterranean looks.

This started to create a cultural divide. Hard working men with rough heads in Belgium, and good looking nancy boys in Italy. The French went a bit 50/50 as is their custom. All this fed into a change in the demographic of the average peddler in the new cycling countries, where cycling was becoming a bit of a rich boys sport and rich boys want to look the part.

With Fabio Baldato things started to get a bit out of hand, it is here that I believe the real manscaping issue started. Maurizio Fondriest had passed the baton of good looking Italian cyclist onto Fabio, and Fabio decided that he was going to start going for the sculptured goatee and oiled hair overkill. While Fabio was sprinting down one side of the barriers (a hazard I might say with the amount of slippery hair product being sloshed around), Mario Chipollini was fostering a ridiculous Glenn Close like perm down the other.

So next time you see Phillipo Pozatto looking like a picture of what would be in a dictionary entry for “Metrosexual”, you have a slightly better idea of how we got to this sad place.

Why is it so hard to create a good cycling uniform???

Before we had "brand management" and dorky blokes wearing bad glasses telling us how to present our "core values" as an organisation, designing cycling kit seemed to be pretty easy.

For a start you only had to worry about the jersey cause everyone had the same black knicks. My guess is that the manager’s wife would suggest a nice color and you would just whack whatever logo you had on and maybe add some stripes or something....

Whatever happened, the kit seems to my eyes at least to be about 1000 times better than most of the guff we currently get served up. Its bad enough when the HTC stuff gets worn by Cav, but when you have to follow some sweaty arse in white knicks for 30k on a Sunday morning ride you can really come to hate the stuff.

So what are the shining examples of how it should be done so the kiddies can see the way forward? Well lets look at exhibit a and b in the classic Bic and Salvarani tops - still available at hipster retro type places (which unfortunately means you cant buy them unless you are a wanker. But if you have an original then get that sucker out there, itchy wool and all). Clearly this is the way you do it - so come on team managers. Get with it.

Some like skill are going retro which is very good. I vote for Panasonic getting back into the protour - Phil Anderson in the big Oakley’s was pretty cool.

The modernish kit I liked was the short lived Asics - it helps if you have a manscaped Italian who has spent a lot of time practicing his victory salute wearing it at the end of Liege Bastogne Liege.

Great Bald Cyclists

In the modern world of stage managed media events and slick PR campaigns, we don’t get to see that many halfway baldies in sport anymore. You see every middle age dad figures he can look like a genuine “hard arse” the moment his widow’s peak starts to show, by going the full shave. It’s a reverse psychology thing. An affliction that should see you scorned as a dorky pussy can quickly be turned into
the complete opposite with a pair of 10 buck clippers from Big W. This is not the time or place to go into a sociological study about how being bald can also somehow make you tough, but it does raise the interesting question about the greatest half bald cyclist….

The only criteria is that they must be people who were still battling on gamely against the odds, believing that no one had noticed their rapidly receding locks. There is a chance that they were just half bald and proud. If this is the case they should be saluted as the genuine hard men that they were, but I personally have a huge believe in the power of denial.

OK, the first cab off the rank is the great Joop Zoetemelk, tour winner, world champ and genuinely classy rider who is somehow underrated when compared to his contemporaries. He was a classic daggy dad style and seemed to be half bald from the time he burst onto the scene. Marco Pantani started to fancy himself as a hard man after he became successful, but for me its his carerra days that will always be remembered – half bald and riding in mock stretch denim knicks is a look unlikely to be repeated. That is off course unless someone from the local bunch really wants to freak out the punters early one Sunday morning.

But the winner is of course Barne Riis. It is incorrectly assumed that his nickname, Mr. 60%, related to his heamatacrit level, when in fact it was his scalp to hair ratio. 60% scalp. While Ivan Basso is clearly on the decline hair wise, his manscaping and compulsory helmets will undoubtedly mean that we will never again see the likes of Bjarne’s sweating bonce bouncing up the Alps.

Wheelsucking versus Good Tactics

I get increasingly peeved off with people claiming that anyone that did not do 75% of the work at the front of the bunch is a wheelsucker (as in a person who only follows other riders wheels and does not do their fair share of work to ensure that the group is able to be in a position to win - not to be confused with the loony tunes type "weel sucker" which is a person of low intelligence prone to being taken advantage of by less than scrupulous characters. But anyway, enough of all that.

What I don’t like is the insinuation that a person who is tactically astute and made good decisions to allow others to do work at key times was in some way undeserving of winning. The commentary on this at times shows how little many "fan's" actually know about cycling. So let’s look at this contentious issue in a little more detail.

Tim Krabbe wrote "the" book about cycling when he wrote "The Rider". It is such an eye wateringly good explanation of cycling that I am actually tearing up a bit as I am writing this. So you should really read this book if you want to understand cycling at a deep level rather than the superficial that seems to be the way we are going. As a taster, he states "cycling is about licking your opponent’s plate clean before you start your own meal". This is a good starting point for further discussion of what is good tactics and what is wheelsucking.

Example 1 - Six riders have broken away with 40 km to go in a race in a club race. The main bunch is chasing furiously behind as 5 of our 6 breakaway riders swap turns off the front. Rider number 6 sits back and refuses to do any work. The other 5 have a decision to make, do they worry themselves with non-worker or do they get their heads down and allow themselves a chance of victory? They decide to just ride and as they approach the finish, with the bunch meters behind, our boy sitting on comes around and easily wins the sprint.

Verdict - His name goes in the paper, but it is a hollow victory and he deserves all the scorn he receives and will most likely be talked about by the old timers as a "sitting on (the Aussie term for wheelsucking) bastard" for the next 20 years no matter what he does from this point on.

Example 2 - In a club race with 15 riders, people start attacking with 10 km to go. Attacks are followed by counter attacks and it’s all very dramatic and exciting. The strong non sprinters know that they have to try and get away from the sprinters and the sprinters know they need to hang in there. With 2km to go, rider A launches a huge attack and gains 20 meters. There is a hesitation in the bunch as riders wait for each other to chase and at this point rider B launches from the back of the bunch and tries to bridge across to rider A on their own. They reach him with 1km to go. Rider A motions for rider B to come around and help work to the finish, but rider B sits impassively on his wheel. Bunch has now got itself organised and is coming fast. Rider A sees this and pushes on to the line. Rider B starts his sprint 200 meters out and manages to easily pass rider A, who is also passed by three riders from the fast finishing bunch in the last 10 meters. They don’t catch rider B however. During the post-race sandwiches rider A complains long and hard about "sitting on bastard" rider B.

Verdict - A cool and smart ride by rider B nets a well deserved victory. A risk needed to be taken, but it was worth it. Rider A is pissed, but the reality is that rider B did exactly what he should have done and after bridging across and connecting with 1k to go, they had no obligation to come to the front as they were getting ready to sprint. 10k to go would have been a very different story.


It is very easy to see any tactical decision as "wheelsucking", but this is overly simplistic. You should only be on the front in cycling when there is a reason to be on the front. Attacking 20 times and then claiming everyone was wheelsucking is just tactical stupidity.

Some good tactical rules of thumb:

Attack once and attack well.
A counter attack is better than the first attack.
Any attack in the last 2km is your last attack so give it everything.
Always attack from behind, the faster you can come past the better.
If you know you are the fastest, then your attack should be with 200 meters to go.
If you know you are not the fastest, then waiting for the last 200 meters is stupid.
Be very clear about how fast you actually are - if you have never won a sprint, then you are not the fastest.
If someone else is likely to chase, then let them go first if you are prepared to take the risk that they won’t.
If you are not prepared to take the risk then react immediately.
Be prepared to lose 10 races for every one you win.
If someone won't work then the last person in the group just keep rolling off the back and constantly make them come around to catch up to the bunch. They will start working pretty quick.
If there is an aggressive and classy rider who attacks and a good sprinter in the group, who is known for not working, let the aggressive rider go - they might repay you the favour down the track. Don’t just keep riding the fastest guy to the front.
Don't give up if the pack is 20 meters behind you with a couple of km to go. No one wants to close the last bit of a break and you can hold an advantage to the end if you keep focussed
The most satisfying way to win a bike race is to ride away on your own. This may happen in one race in your life. On a day where you have good legs and you feel like attacking every time the pace drops, wait until 5km to go and attack from the back on any type of climb. Don’t look back and ride to the finish. Hope someone there has a camera.