Yesterday, Outside editor John Bradley tweeted the message I’ve inserted below. It’s a nice thought, and there’s some good logic behind it—Google’s a smart, agile company, with business all over the world. It’s also been running YouTube at a loss for years, so the company isn’t gun-shy about seeing little-to-no direct monetary return on high-profile…
Author: cosmo
Props To Cadel Evans
I realize, looking back through my blog, that Cadel Evans, for a variety of reasons, ends up portrayed in a not-entirely-awesome light. And that’s a little unfair. Many of Cadel’s more readily-caricatured traits—crankiness, occasionally short temper, especially with those organizing/supporting races—are shortcomings a ton of other racers (not to mention cycling bloggers) share. Cadel finds…
Don't Snort at Media Standards
What is this show “Holland Sport”, on which cyclists say things to the world? It does not seem like it sets a reasonable standard for investigative reporting. (you should probably read the comments before proceeding) First it was Thomas Dekker, talking about how EPO didn’t help and how he only took it once. Now it’s…
Reason #487 Why I Don't Run Ads
The image below links to a full HD (1920×1080 pixel) screen shot of the Tour of Flanders map on MapMyRide.com. The new line of iMacs and their massive displays not withstanding, that is friggin’ huge for a browser window. Do you see Tour of Flanders? Not only is the site painful to navigate (give up…
Fashion Police: The Sleeveless Jersey
A sleeveless jersey made an appearance in @CadelOfficial’s twitpic on the ’09 Vuelta rest day: There’s so much that caught me off-balance in this photo. Guess I should start off by saying that this is the most team support I’ve seen Evans get at Grand Tour since he started riding for Lotto. Secondly, it’s not…
Playing the Lotto
I’ve been as thrilled as anyone by Philippe Gilbert’s late-season run. I think the Belgian has a great, positive style of racing that combines both tactics and straight-up guts. And like many others, I’m also thrilled to see Silence-Lotto score a couple of wins, after putting in a ton of effort and making a variety…
Making Something Useful from the TdF Presentation
I’ve never been much for Grand Tour prognostications immediately upon the release of a given event’s parcours. Aside from the fact that an infinite number of doping convictions, crashes, team developments, and vacillations in form could occur during the next 10 months, the fact is that things tend not to unfold as predicted. Is the…
The Peloton Replugged
I’ve got a lot of respect for Michael Barry. He’s one of the smartest, most introspective, eloquent riders in the peloton. He also happens to disagree with me completely on the issue of race radios in the modern peloton. Barry recently wrote an extensive, heartfelt argument against race radios in his Velonews diary. While I…
Frank Vandenbroucke – A Life In Words
Cyclingnews—at the time of his ascendency the only regularly updated online cycling resource—has a nice collection of photos cataloguing Frank Vandenbroucke’s career. Lacking a photo archive to pull from, I Wordled together this grayscale text cloud from a variety of obits—in depth, brisk, mainstream, and cycling-specific—in an effort to capture a rider whose story was…
How The Race Was Won – Paris-Tours 2009
Can radios be ruining cycling if the *real* Sprinters’ Classic goes to a rouleur for the second straight year? QuickStep shoulders the chasing load, while in the break, a Skil-Shimano rider sees too much soft-pedaling and makes the leap for freedom. But it’s all together with 8k to go as a very unlikely group threatens…