On Cyclocross

Load up the car and head out. The rhythm of the drive is a soothing thing, and the venue is always some park you’ve never heard of on the outskirts of town. As the traffic thins, you begin to notice other cars with cross bikes. Each person with their own goals for the day. Each rider with their own rituals.

Some people get overly nervous, circling the Port-O-Johns and refusing to engage in normal conversation. Others overly social, perhaps thinking that if they treat it all as a joke they won’t be held accountable.

Arrive and unpack. Pick up your number.

     “What side do numbers go on today?”

A cyclocross course is a promise of pain. But it’s an exquisite pain… One that distills your thoughts and emotions, discarding useless things.  People say that cross keeps you honest and I agree with that. You’re either fast enough or you’re not. You either force yourself to get out of the saddle on straightaways, or you let the others ride away. I’ve learned so much by racing my bike, and the longer I race, the more respect I have for those who excel at it.

I still want to be one of those great riders. I still want to win. No, fuck that! I don’t even care about winning. I simply want to cross the line as a broken man, knowing that there was nothing else I could have done. In truth, that’s a hard thing to do. And if I’m being honest with myself, that’s probably only happened a few times in my life.

There was a race a few seasons back, I don’t remember where or how I finished. It doesn’t matter. What I do remember was the tunnel vision of the ride. I remember every part of my body aching and the yelling of the spectators. I remember finishing, loading up the bike and sitting in the passenger seat of my car, unable to move. Ten minutes after that, when I finally bent down to change my shoes I vomited all over myself.

There was some truth there... And you either understand that or you don’t. 

On Wout van Aert

From the season opener in Las Vegas to last week’s race in Gieten, Wout van Aert has been dominating the 2015 cyclocross season, snagging victories in every race that he’s entered. It’s a show of force that’s made even more impressive by the youth of van Aert. Having barely turned 21, this young rider is making waves in the professional peloton and forcing the collective will of an entire field of elite racers. On the surface, you may not notice much of a change, but having discovered one unnamed racers personal journal, we are able to get a closer look at the chaos that van Aert is truly causing.

Below is an uncensored excerpt from the aforementioned journal. But Reader beware! These are the private thoughts of a world class rider, and what we can only imagine to be thoughts shared by most of the current peloton

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This tear stained journal was left at the scene in Gieten.

Fuck time and do not speak to me of its relativity. The lights turn green and the clocks start. An hour later Wout has won another race. Well, someone told me that Time is experienced and acts differently for different people. That must be what this is about! A second is longer for van Aert! He can cover more distance because he lives inside of each moment half a pedal stroke longer.

And I tell myself each and every race that the answer is simple. Just sit on his wheel. Murder yourself, turn yourself inside out, do whatever you have to do, just don’t let go of that wheel. But pacing means nothing to him. Respect means nothing. He doesn’t understand the accepted order of things, the way that these races have worked for years. It’s just attack… And I’m beginning to suspect that he’s so young his body doesn’t even produce lactic acid.

Van der Haar should get the hole shot, or Meeusen if he’s feeling frisky. We follow and go hard for a lap or two to get some room. Then we cruise a bit, letting whoever shouldn’t be in the front group roll off and get some sponsor time. They know they won’t last and we know they can be caught.

Laps 3 through 6 are for recovery, Wout!!!!

DO YOU EVEN CARE!?

He’s insane. That’s what it is. This son of a bitch is u23 world champ at age 20 and instead of winning two more times, he decides to come mess with us. Well, that’s just fucking great.

And he’s still on cantilever brakes!!!! That's what bothers me most.

I don’t want disc brakes. No one wants disc brakes. We’ve been racing Zonhoven on canti’s for years. How much better does anyone need to stop? They’re heavier and slower and terrible. But the sponsors want us on disc, so we ride disc. This is the way that professional cycling works, Wout! The industry thinks of the next bullshit you have to have and we ride it. This creates money for our sponsors, which turns into money for us. Do you understand basic economics?!

“Thru-Axle? Oh yeah, you definitely need that. What’s that you say? Oh no, you’ll need to buy all new wheels. That’s not compatible.”

Good lord, if I didn’t get this stuff for free I would have to give up the sport!  And then van Aert rolls up like some Jon Bon Jovi and spits the eye of the establishment. Canti Brakes!

But seriously, dude. I’ve got maybe five good years left and you’ve got like 20 (Sven is proving that). You could be a ten time world champion! With your stupid Time pedals and Neon Socks… Oh, and Niels is your coach. Amazing… I’ve got my cousin writing training plans in our sprinter van. 

And one more thing.

STOP RUNNING SO FAST! This is bike racing, not cross country! If you want to run a four minute mile then go to a track! I hope a Javelin impales you!

OK… I don’t want you to be impaled by a javelin. I just don’t know what to do, Wout. I’m drinking kale smoothies and measuring the rest of my food on a scale. I’m struggling to find watts in everything I do. Having my kids push me around in a wheelchair when we go do errands. The kids I had when you were 12, by the way!

 It’s getting weird. You know when you ask so many questions that you lose the original concept? No? Of course you don’t. You just win. 

You’ve broken me all the way.

Going to lay on the floor now and listen to B sides of the Smiths. You don’t know what a B side is, do you? Maybe I’ll do a bit of weeping...

Then I’m gonna grab that new jar of Nutella in the pantry and just go crazy. That’s what I’ll do. I mean, what’s the point in even trying anymore?

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And the journal continues on in the same fashion for many more pages, ultimately devolving into random words and drawings. Some of the images are rather violent. Some are charged with a sexual tension too graphic to portray.

Quite a few seem to be tear stained.

To see what the fuss is about, check out the video below of van Aert in action at last weeks Superprestige:

On Fort Davis

Seeing the Milky Way stretch across the black of night makes you feel so insignificant that you can’t help but discover an odd sort of freedom. We are but tiny things.

Fort Davis is a secret, and the Davis Mountains a secret cycling Mecca, one of the few places in the nation where you can see a proper night sky. We rolled out to hike many of the trails in the Davis Mountains, but all I could talk about was the last time I biked this area.

The roads out here are scenic, silent and serene. They encourage discovery and help you to rediscover the simple joy of riding a bike. A three day weekend the perfect cure for whatever bullshit happens to be occurring in your life.

Enjoy the photos. If you live in Texas and like to ride, take a three day weekend and get out here.

On Marie Marvingt

Marie Marvingt is better than you.  She’s better than all of us. Even if your name happens to be Tim Cook and you’re reading this on a private jet, being fed grapes by robots, you’ve lost. The wildest part of it all is that at 37, I’ve only just discovered her. Searching Amazon for biographies I can only find French and German language editions... A few used and out of print books in which she is mentioned in passing. In our hero obsessed culture that seems so odd to me. 

Perhaps that’s because Marie Marvingt’s life is too large. I must confess that I don’t really know how to even start this article. Typing words and then erasing them. Starting over and over. I have no reference point. Her life a language I cannot grasp.

Aah! Well, let’s make a mockery of it! Here I go!

I’m going to tell you one story about Marie Marvingt as it pertains to cycling, and that’s all I’ll say. I’m not qualified to write about anything else.

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The 1908 edition of the Tour de France was the sixth running, and featured a brutal 4,488km race broken up over 14 stages. Unlike modern grand tours, the stages occurred every other day. This was by no means a crutch, more a testament to the length and difficulty of each day’s route. The 415km 13th stage from Brest to Caen was a great example.  Georges Passerieu’s winning time of the day was a staggering 16 hours and 23 minutes. With most stages consisting of over 10 hours of ride time, it just wasn’t possible to race each day. 

Marie Marvingt, an exceptional, multi-faceted and already award winning athlete in several other arenas must have thought,

      “This sounds great! I love bikes! Next item on the bucket list, be the first women to compete in the Tour de France!”

The Tour responded with a classic of the time:

     “You’re a woman, so obviously you can’t do this. We’re going with a hard NO.”

This wasn’t really a surprising answer. What was the greatest surprise was what Marie did with the information. In a Phil Liggetesque “show of defiance,” Marie decided to ride every stage of the Tour the day after it was contested. She would complete the exact distance and route alone, not only showing that a woman could accomplish the feat, but also challenging herself and her abilities.

     “Well how about this, distinguished misogynists. I’m going to ride every stage of your precious Tour after the men. What's that? Peloton?  Posh… Who needs one? You just get on your bike and keep going until the end, right? I don’t need anyone else around to help me do that.”

I may have forgotten to mention that Marie’s nickname was “La fiancée du danger.” As far as monikers go, that one's is pretty good.

And as a true member of the Vanguard, Marie accomplished exactly what she said she would. Official or not, she was the first women to complete the Tour de France. Even better, Marie’s times bested several of the male competitors in that 1908 edition of the race. In fact, of the 114 male riders who started, only 36 managed to completed the event two weeks later.

Marie Marvingt was 33 at the time.

She was the first female to complete the Tour. The first female pilot to ever fly a combat mission. The first woman to balloon across the English Channel. She was the first woman to climb many of the mountains in the Alps, and at the age of 15 she canoed 248 miles from Nancy, France to Koblenz, Germany. Even more astonishing, at the age of 86, two years before her death in 1963, Marie cycled the 200 plus miles from Nancy to Paris.

I don’t know why she did these things. I only know that I am humbled by them.

Marie Marvingt, The Queen of the Vanguard.

On New Roads

Discovering a new road is a little treat. It sets back the clock and reminds me of the freedom I felt when I was a child, discovering new neighborhoods as some great explorer. The world of a child is such that a few miles are an entirely different world.  A new universe, three street lights away.

We were the early adventurers, trudging blindly into the storm. Guided by inspiration and inhibited only by what time our parents got home.

As I grow older, it is so much harder to recreate this. In fact, I often forget how important that feeling is.  Stuck in one place too long I suspect. The same routes repeated, and the natural routines of my life slowing smothering my sense of adventure. It’s the way of things. I understand it, but fuck you if you think that I’ll just accept it.

Last week I took the time and spent a few hours on Google Maps, looking at street view images from three years ago and desperately trying to connect the dots. I was hoping to construct the perfect loop. A solo 70 miles on new roads. 

Lay out your kit and fill an extra bottle. Cross your fingers that the sketchy section isn’t really that bad, and pack handwritten directions in a Ziploc bag. On adventures such as this, Garmin’s can’t always be trusted.

It’s strange that some roads emote, and that turning onto them you can pick up on their mood. These Texas Hill Country Highways are just happy to be used. They're pleased that they can take part in my day, and glad to see a cyclist. Bikes travel at the speed of real life. Cars seem to break that rule, traveling at a speed that outpaces emotion.

Up and down over rollers in the heat, crossing the San Gabriel River a few times. Dropping down and then climbing back out of these small valleys. It was a pleasant silence, punctuated only by the odd crossing of deer and rabbits, the sound of my drivetrain as I traveled along. 

Seeing salt rings on my jersey and getting goosebumps in the heat is never a good sign. 97 degrees and I ran out of water twice. I was so close to utter destruction and had to stop at the burger stand by my house on the way in, talking to myself the entire time. Suffering, yet somehow enjoying it.

I limped back the last mile holding a combo #1 in my jersey like some overweight domestique. Crawled up the stairs to my tiny apartment and ate on the floor, not wanting to get my furniture full of sweat. Exhausted, fulfilled, and thinking that I got away with something.

On Winning All Five Monuments of Cycling

Milan-San Remo

Tour of Flanders

Paris-Roubaix

Liege-Bastogne-Liege

Giro di Lombardia

If you love cycling, you love these races. Dripping with history, these five Monuments of Cycling are the oldest and most coveted one day races on the cycling calendar. It’s too much to discuss in anything but the broadest strokes. There is simply too much here, too much history and depth. Races like Liege have been ridden for over 100 years!

A bit of Magic, and more than a little Mischief lives within each of these races. To win, you need to be an exceptional rider: cagey, intelligent and unrelenting. These are races for gamblers. These are for the mind-readers that can see the moves before they happen, following just  the right wheel at just the right time.

Rik Van Looy

Each of the Monuments present their own set of challenges. And each race caters to a slightly different type of rider. San Remo for sprinters. Lombardia for climbers. Roubaix for the big engines and technically savy. In fact, in the long history of these races only three riders have won all five.  You may have heard of them:

Eddy Merckx

Roger De Vlaeminck

Rik Van Looy

And will such a thing ever happen again? In this micromanaged peloton where racing is second to marketing, not many riders will even get the opportunity. Sponsors want camera time during the spectacle of the grand tours. With Lombardia dangling at the end of the season, very few have the ability or want to race a spring classics campaign, three grand tours, and then stay on form for Lombardia. For better or worse, it’s simply not the way cycling teams are now managed.

With technological advances, nutritionists, cutting edge coaching and management, today's racers are rather like F1 cars. When everything comes together, they’re a masterpiece of speed. But that level of perfection requires constant upkeep. The tolerances are so precise that if even the smallest thing is out of alignment the change in quality is drastic. It’s endemic of all sports. The overall quality of the athletes is so much better that the extra 1% is what everyone is fighting for.

 The old Vanguard was a bit rougher around the edges. Those that could win could always win. They raced everything as men. Not as machines.

Our Monuments Bottle celebrates Merckx "The Cannibal", Van Looy "The Emperor" and De Vlaeminck "The Gypsy". It pays tribute to their extraordinary achievement and honors their status as cycling royalty.

They are all Belgians.

They are all World Champions.

 They are all Kings of the sport.

Eddy Merckx, who won each of the Monuments at least twice

On Riding With Old Friends

From Austin you take Hamilton Pool Road all the way down. After you descend for several miles, navigate the switchbacks and cross the Pedernales on that ancient one lane bridge. At that point the road turns into FM 962. And somewhere out there, down a gravel path and over a low water crossing, Louie's in-laws have a little piece of paradise. 

There's an outdoor kitchen and some old cots to sleep on. A stack of wood and a black cat named, Matthew. 

We camp out there occasionally, away from the distractions of the city. On spring evenings the insects, frogs, birds and fauna create a symphony of sounds.

Raucous calls. Subtle songs. There's really no need to talk.

Listening is enough.

Wake up with the sun and throw on your kit. Fill extra bottles and pack extra tubes. These are the magical roads. No cell service. No gas stations. Just the endless rolling hills of central Texas.

Louie, Eddie and I have been riding together for years. We know what the other will do. We know when someone isn't feeling all that well. And we know exactly how to turn the screws when that happens. 

We're teammates and enemies alike.

In a strange way, it's what we want from each other. It's how we learn things. How we discover the truths that hide out at the periphery of our abilities. We push each other because we all understand this.

It's not till the next day that we can admit our weaknesses. We laugh about the attacks, express outrage about the sprint signs we lost and talk shit about our next adventure. Puddle jumping through life until we can meet up to torture each other again.

On Laurent Fignon

In 1983 Laurent Fignon wasn’t supposed to win the tour. He was simply supposed to gather experience. Get miles in his young legs. If things went well, perhaps he could pick up the best young riders jersey. It was, after all, his first full season as a professional.

The Frenchman was a child.

But Hinault was injured and the team had no leader. No one to work for. Bottles were fetched from the team car, but domestiques had no one to give the bidons to. I picture Renault team riders simply reaching the front of the peloton and tossing them away, working to insert themselves into each and every breakaway in the hopes of getting a stage win.

When Pascal Simon faltered and Fignon found himself in first, the young rider just kept pedaling. Too young, too ignorant to concern himself with “The weight of a nation.”  This was an adventure. The dominoes fell in just the right way and Fignon rode away from them all. It was an astounding victory, upsetting the understood order of the world. Rookie riders just don’t win a race such as this. At 22, he was the youngest winner in 50 years.

The Frenchman was a fluke.

With a new team in 1984, Laurent Fignon stamped his authority upon Le Tour. Quieting the naysayers with an overwhelming display. The masses all seem to recall Fignon’s 8 second loss to Lemond, but no one seems to remember his 10 minute victory and 5 stage wins in ‘84. It was a show of dominance, and retribution for a Giro d’ Italia stolen from him a month earlier.

Laurent’s career is overflowing with stories such as this, and one must think that when he was on form, the man was untouchable. That infamous year in 1989 Fignon lost the tour by 8”. But that’s a novel in itself…  The legality of aerobars. His cantankerous attitude towards the press. Each day of that race more real than any life I’ve lived.

What one must remember is that Fignon was just coming off a Giro victory, where Lemond had placed a distant 39th. It was the very last day at the end of two grand tours, and Laurent was 8” away from pulling off the double. Barely able to walk from a horrific saddle sore, Fignon rode the fastest time trial of his career and still lost 58” on the 25 kilometer stage. How could anyone fault him? How can you sit there and ruminate on the aerodynamic drag of his ponytail and whether it cost him a 3rd tour victory? Who are you to say anything at all?

And anyway it doesn’t matter. Results do not diminish the effort.

The Frenchman gave all of himself.

Gasping for breath at the finish. Collapsing in the proper way. Not for the television cameras, but because there was nothing left.

Laurent Fignon.

The Professor.

Surely one of the Vanguard.

On Bikes & Zombies

Silence is survival.  

When everything went down, cars clogged the highways. The herd instincts of humanity quickly became its greatest weakness. Those Bastards were attracted to the sound. The sound got louder when they arrived.

Cars are just too noisy. They breakdown. Cars need fuel, and now days only the worst of us have any of that.

We took our bikes instead. Used the surface streets to get to safety. The secret paths we rode to work each day are what saved us. That bit of sidewalk we used to avoid traffic. The tunnel under the highway that only "The Riders"  know of. Those are the things that kept us alive.

 And the bikes of course. The beautiful silence of a fixed hub.

I can only imagine that there is a flat brimmed 20 year old in Los Angeles using a polo mallet to dispatch the beasts. A messenger in New York that went from survivor to savior.

You use flat pedals, cause the clips are shit to run in. The click click of your footsteps less than ideal.  You find some type of matte black paint and spray your bike. These things are like fucking parakeets, attracted to any shiny thing. And brakes make too much noise... Learn to ride without them.

Bring extra tires and extra tubes. Learn to change flats quickly, and keep the following items with you at all times:

15mm Cone Wrench

Spare Chain

Chain Tool

Spokes

Spoke Tool

The supermarkets are dead zones, but the bike shops can keep you alive. It ain't fine dining, but if you can finish an Ironman on Maltodextrin and sodium you'll damn sure be able to outrun these things.

to be continued...

On Riding Alone

Grab your kit. Find your shoes. Where the fuck did I leave them? Aah… Under the couch. How do they always end up there?

Feed the cat.

Lock the door behind you.

Clip in, and finally let go of it all. There’s a road you've been wanting to explore. A few acres of Italy, shoved up into West Lake Hills. One you get past the traffic and those few sketchy sections you’ll be on it. Unexplored territory.

The regular crew is tied up, but that’s OK… Riding solo is a pleasure. There’s something uniquely gratifying to finding your own rhythm. Settling into a climbing pace that you can maintain for days and tapping away. No bullshit attacks. No sprint signs, or suffering for vanity’s sake.

Suffering should be reserved for something much greater than that.

Pedal home. Damn... I did a bit of time traveling there. But I guess that if your only concern is the present, there’s no use for time. It’s just another thing to leave behind.

Perhaps that’s why I’m always home late.

On the Giro

The Giro makes us want to ride. It makes us want to skip work and put our lives on hold. It makes us realize that the highways here are much too wide. Somehow soulless.  

The Tour of California time trial is playing in the background as I type this. Phil and Paul are talking about the rides at Six Flags.

There are no villas to point out.

No castles or crowd.

I suppose that we are all the Vanguard here in the US. Getting our information from pirated websites. Using proxy servers and watching broken feeds of races occurring on the other side of the world. There's a certain romance to it at times. Being the underdog. 

Go ride this weekend, knowing that you're on the front line.

Belgian spies, each and every one of us, gathering intel to help plan our attack. We'll turn the world to mud and gravel. Build giant velodromes in our football stadiums, and force Harley Davidson to make derney bikes. 

On Starting a Little Business

Starting a little business is hard.  Tax ID #'s and merchant bank accounts are things that I now know entirely too much about. I'd much rather be making the left onto Turnersville Road. Breaking free from this crowded town, and searching out the nearest Farm to Market.

But water bottles are ubiquitous. Every rider needs several, and it may be the one thing in cycling that is agreed upon. It seems that a new bottom bracket and hub standard comes out each week, but water bottles... Well, water bottles stay the same. You may or may not like our designs. At least no one is excluded from the start.

These are bottles for lifers. We'll keep creating them, and we'll get better at it.

Our first 5 bottles.

Not sure if you're one of us? Well, there's a simple test for that. If you agree to all three statements you're a member of the Vanguard.

If you don't... That's OK too. We'll do our best to change your mind.

1. The Giro > The Tour

2. The Classics > The Giro

3. Cross > Everything