Making Cycling’s Point to the Masses
The cycling Twittersphere exploded earlier this week with Tony Kornheiser’s (or as Bobke puts it CornHowser…Bobke rules) inexplicable comments directed to the two-wheeled nation of “run ’em over.” Social media exploded and rightly railed against Kornheiser, demanding his firing, public castration or worse. Calls for a boycott of ESPN and a naval blockade around their [...]
High-Ho, Valverde Must Go
Cycling continues to be plagued daily by doping , but in my estimation the worst affront to all of cycling has been the fact that Alejandro Valverde has been allowed to continue to race in spite of his CONI ban, which prevented him from racing on Italian soil. Valverde was able to continue to race [...]
Saturday Morning Coffee Ride – Is Contador’s Armor Bulletproof?
While I don’t quote him for much other than cannon fodder, Garmin boss Jonathan Vaughters summarized Alberto Contador’s place in the pro cycling world very succinctly two days ago after seeing Alberto climb away from everybody at Paris-Nice. “Contador is just better than everyone else. Period.” That brief comment on Vaughter’s Twitter feed likely summarized [...]
Elbow Pads at the Local Crit, the UCI 3:1 Rule and “Concern” for Rider Safety
Other than those involved in the sport, the typical American doesn’t come close to understanding the dangers of every discipline of cycling. They see us in our kits and funny little clippy-clop shoes and just wonder how tough can cyclists be. While I don’t want to encourage injuries in others, I’d like to see the [...]
Saturday Morning Coffee Ride – Neil Browne is a Big Deal, Bordry Grasping for Straws, New Superstar Bling-Your Own Team
BIG weekend in cycling…Paris-Nice, a little suspense in who will pull away with the win at Murcia – all signs that spring is about to finally be sprung. For the Cicilirati Saturday Morning Coffee Ride, I’ll avoid topics like predictions, race reports and the like and leave that for the legitimate journalists. Three things on [...]
Open Letter to Michael Ball – Part Deux
Damn, Mike…hate to see the UCI finally laid a final 2010 smackdown on you, saying any type of a professional license just isn’t going to happen this year. I think it’s rumor that Pat McQuaid put a call into the DMV trying to get your driver’s license revoked, but you may want to make a [...]
Ricco Speaks – Parody and Criticism Write Itself
Every time Riccardo Ricco manages to sneak off and speak to the media, he manages to speak words that write their own parody all by themselves. Knowing the Ceramica Flamina team is a smaller team, perhaps they don’t have a PR person. If they do, perhaps that PR person has an injured knee or is [...]
Cycling’s Loss will be another’s Gain-Zirbel Retires and Moves On.
I’m not one to suffer from writer’s block. If given a general topic, I can typically set my hands to keyboard and spit out 500 words in about 15-20 minutes, give it a quick proofread and send it on it’s way. However, after reading Tom Zirbel’s personal blog announcing his retirement from cycling, I find [...]
Cycling Non-News:British Dentistry, Pissing in the Wind, Illegal Weapons
As the cycling season migrates from “pre-season” to “season” with a big Belgian weekend, sometimes you need to take a quick look at what the cycling media has been forced to report on as “news” in the absence of in-season event reporting. Looking over the last week, here are the Ciclirati Top 3 No-News stories. [...]
My Sure-Fire Growth Plan for USA Cycling:Scandalous Infidelity
Posted by Jeff Ernst on March 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Across the board, the sport of cycling saw a resurgent interest last year. Between the ‘Lance Effect’ and other contributing factors, interest in competition went up in almost all disciplines. The number of licenses issued by USA Cycling went up over 5% to an all-time high last year, and closer to my home, the Minnesota [...]
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