bike geek

this is a photo of yours truly taken by my wife Betty who is a professional photographer and who has recently embarked on a project where she takes 50 portraits in 50 days with a 50mm lens.  at 11 of 50 i am the latest edition to her project.  we thought it would be fun for me to line my bikes up outside the garage aka man cave and for me to stand in front of them sporting my favourite bike geek t-shirt.  hey, i am a proven bike geek, there is no doubt!

you can betty's 50 in 50 with 50 project on her flickr site here.  and you can also find her at the following places:

bettybhandari.com
bettybhandari.blogspot.com
twitter.com/bettybhandari
facebook.com/bettybhandariphotography

voeckler

via richard baybutt

victoria pendleton

via victoria pendleton.co.uk

colnago c59 ottanta

February 9, 2012 – sees Ernesto Colnago celebrate his eightieth birthday and what better present could he give himself than a special limited edition bike that carries the first ever Colnago logo that was created in the fifties.

this special bike is called the c59 80 t t a n t a – which means eighty in italian. it’s a ‘made in italy’ bike that is inspired by the past and has a seventies style arabesque decoration, yet projected into the future because of the italian technology in its ‘made to measure’ carbon fibre frame, using the highly anticipated electronic campagnolo super record eps 11s groupset. the frame is this years c59 italia and is being used by team europcar thomas voeckler so it rides like dream.

this is a totaly bespoke factory order bike, you will be able to specify all major aspects so it fits like a glove. only 80 examples of this very special limited edition bike will ever be made. we are now taking pre-orders with expected deliveries in may, so please do not miss out as it must be the most beautiful colnago yet.

for more information, please contact: info@dutchandwolf.co.uk or telephone: 0161 927 2750.

at a cost of  £11,499.95 i may have to wait until my numbers come up on the lottery to purchase this dream machine and even if i could afford to buy one of these bikes i doubt i would be able to bring myself to ride it, i mean what if it got scratched or worse still what if i crashed it?  it is difficult to see past it being more than a museum piece albeit a very beautiful one.

dutchandwolf.co.uk

der kaiser

via kristof ramon

jan ullrich’s statement from his personal website about his suspension:

Scherzingen (Switzerland) – The Court of Arbitration has now blocked me for two years. This award brings disciplinary proceedings to an end, which has lasted almost three years. This sport legal tug of war was unsatisfactory for all concerned for myself as for the public. It is incomprehensible to me why we all had to wait so long for this judgment.I take out the award and will not challenge him. Not because I agree with all points in the court’s opinion, but because I want to finish the issue definitively. Personal consequences, I’ve pulled back in 2007 with the retirement from professional cycling. I confirm that I had contact with Fuentes. I know that that was a big mistake that I regret very much. For this behavior, I would like to sincerely apologize to everyone – I’m very sorry. Looking back, I would act in certain situations during my career differently. I wanted to get out again for the 2006 tour everything. After my tour victory in 1997 and five second places in the public, sponsors and also my own pressure was immense. Everyone wanted a second tour victory, especially after the retirement of Lance Armstrong shortly before the 2006 tour, it then makes a big impact: Suspension, headlines, ostracism, house searches, criminal complaints. I felt abandoned, fallen like a sieve. The whole world wanted to put me against the wall and then I went instinctively to cover, have retired for now. As I said, I will not complain that not everything was good reason. I was even then, shortly after my suspension, the mistake I made, to admit publicly, but my hands were tied. On the advice of my lawyers, and as is usual in such cases, I have been silent on the allegations. Ultimately, this issue has me for years so polluted that I was sick and I eventually broke down. I am glad that finally a decision was made. For me it is the capital of my active career in cycling finalized and it is very personal for me and my family for years to come the end of a difficult time. Today’s award is for me and my future plans to change anything. I never thought in any capacity to return to active professional cycling. This statement is from my side all is said on this subject and I would not like to make any further statements, statements or interviews in public. I hope you understand. I hereby draw a line. I owe much to the sport of cycling and will continue to further express my joy and passion for the sport to others. In the future I will therefore also in various functions and departments in everyman cycling to be active. I look back on my cycling career and accomplishments with pride and look forward to my new career.

Jan Ullrich

specialized shiv concept road bike

i came across this specialized shiv concept road bike on neil browne's website yesterday and have to say i am blown away by the design, talk about a head turner. imagine arriving at your local crit race on this bad boy. actually that will probably never happen since a) this is a concept bike and b) as neil states in his article the uci have certain limitations on the aerodynamic design of frames.

the bike is the creation of specialized creative director robert egger who used the existing geometry from the shiv tt bike to create this one off road machine. part of egger's motivations stem from wanting to produce a cheater bike to get an edge over his colleagues for their highly competitive lunch time rides.

i do not want to regurgitate everything said on neil browne's website here so instead please visit his website where you can find two articles about the specialized concept bike including a short interview with the bikes creator robert egger.

neilbrowne.com

gerben karstens

i was recently asked if i would feature a profile about the retired dutch professional cyclist gerben karstens who in the sixties and seventies had major success as one of the top sprinters of his day. the request came from frank beuken, a freelance journalist from kleve germany, next to the border with the netherlands.  the request was well timed since the name gerben karstens had recently appeared on my radar after reading a book by geoffrey nicholson all about the 1976 tour de france called the great bike race which karstens not only finished but acheived some of his greatest victories.

frank beuken's reason for wanting karstens racing career to be highlighted is because, in his opinion, dutch people generally have a mentality to forget their old heroes and karstens name should not be one of them, in fact he should continue to be remembered along side the more obvious dutch masters such as zoetemelk, jansen, wagtmans, breukink and van poppel.  looking back at karstens palmares i would have to agree with frank so with the help of google translate and a proof reading job from frank i have taken the opportunity to re-write, as well as adding a few extra words of my own, karstens biography from his official website.

gerben karstens, the son of a solicitor from leiden, netherlands was one of the Netherlands most successful professional riders in the sixties and seventies. karstens professional career spanned sixteen years including eleven starts in the tour de france. of those starts he accumulated six stage victories and it was only in 1978 that he did not finish in paris.

karstens was born on 14 january 1942 in voorburg, netherlands. as an amateur in 1964 he won a gold medal at the olympics in the 100 km team time trial along side team mates jan pieterse, evert dolman and bart zoet. at the same olympics karstens finished twenty seventh in the individual road race. following his olympic success he moved to the pros where he quickly developed into gutsy sprinter. he won the 1965 paris-tours classic with a record average of 45.029 km per hour and without the use of derailleurs. he chose not to use them in the race, something the race organisers decided to permit on that day. karstens also made a memorable tour de france debut in 1965 when on the penultimate day of the race he broke away with twenty kilometres to go and soloed to victory to take his first tour stage.

the following year 1966 karstens showed himself as a tour rider to be feared, particularly in the mass sprints where he nearly always played a significant role. in fact he built on his previous year’s success by taking three stage victories, two of which he won on the same day, the first was a victory in the team time trial. later that day he hit again in the stage from tournai to Dunkirk when he escaped with belgian jos boons. when it came to the final sprint the belgian had no chance against karstens sprint kick. (same day dual stages where a common feature of the tour format in the sixties and seventies. although the riders were not keen, it helped generate more money for the organisers). the third victory came when the dutchman won the ninth stage in a mass sprint into Bayonne.

in the 1967 tour karstens regularly featured in the battle for stage victories even getting within five seconds of taking the yellow jersey after the first stage. his tour passed well although he did not clinch any stage victories. that said his thirtieth place in the final standings emphasised karstens qualities as not only somebody who could sprint but also climb as well as time trial to a very high level. karstens came back to prominance in 1971 after several lean years in the french peugeot-bp-michelin with dutch team Goudsmit-Hoff team where it was back to business as usual. in the tour he won stage 1 part b from freiburg to breisgau as well as wearing the green points jersey for a few days.

karstens was called to take part in the 1974 tour at the last minute by the leadership of the bic team because luis ocana could not make it. after a strong prologue where he placed well as third quickest rider he suffered a ten minute penalty plus was placed last by the organisers for reporting late for dope control. one day later the jury took the penalty time back and thanks to a five seconds bonus that karstens won during intermediate sprints, he took over the yellow jersey from eddy merckx. in part ‘a’ of the sixth stage karstens lost the maillot jaune to patrick sercu but in the team time trial later in the day he regained the jewel back. the joy was again short lived because in the seventh stage karstens had the misfortune to flat and again lost the yellow jersey.

1976 was perhaps karstens best tour. not only did his ti-raleigh team win the team time trial in leuven but he then showed good form on the dreaded pyrenean cols.
he even passed the top of the col d'aspin as first rider, a feat that had not yet been achieved by any dutchman at the time. karstens maintained his great shape and in bordeaux won the eighteenth stage. then again on the champs elysées in the final stage of the Tour and in what is arguably the biggest stage for a sprinter, he was too quick for the competition and he achieved his second stage victory.

karstens was also highly successful in other big races. in the vuelta a españa he was prolific taking fourteen stage victories (good for sixth place on the all time list of most vuelta stages won by 2010) and he bagged a stage victory in the 1973 giro d’italia too. however, karstens success was some what soured when twice he had two classics victories resended after testing positive for banned substances first in the 1969 tour of lombardy and then again in the 1974 paris-tours. in his professional career karstens had a total of 91 victories including the dutch championship in 1966.

to this day gerben karstens is still active on the bike and can be regularly seen participating in various cyclosportives.

www.gerbenkarstens.com 

2012 cyclocross world championships elite women

and now i have found the women's race in full too.