Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) Yes, the Rancast is back this week, with more-or-less proper intro music—more on that later. But I’m going to surprise most you today by NOT ranting about BeINSport’s Giro coverage—or at least few miserable dribbles of it (dribbels of the not-on-nosebleed-cable or dish package variety)…
Rants Archive
The Rants category was added in the early days of Cyclocosm to differentiate opinion pieces from the daily news recaps.
Rantcast #8: For Sponsors, Winning Isn't Necessarily Everything
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) Let’s talk for a moment about why anyone would sponsor a cycling team. It’s such a bizarre relationship—between 5 and 20 million Euros or the equivalent in dollars or bitcoins, and effectively get no tangible return. They don’t own the team, or the rider contracts,…
Rantcast #7: The Perils of Over-Specialization
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) Today’s rant is abbreviated and delayed somewhat by time and circumstance. If you haven’t been following me on twitter, or haven’t seen the previous post at Cyclocosm.com, then you don’t know that I spent yesterday riding from my home base in Hartford CT, to New…
Rantcast #6: The Death of "Trickle Down"
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) SRAM, SRAM, SRAM, sram…I don’t really dislike you guys—it’s just bad timing. No, I’m not complaining about the ham-handed marketing of having a launch event and then embargoing it for three days in this interconnected, live-tweeted milieu, or that you’re offering hydraulic road brakes—despite being not…
Rantcast #5: I Fight Fauxthority
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) So today I’m going to take aim at—god, I don’t even know what to call it. Authority? Nah, sounds too punk rock. Old fogeydom? Well, there’s nothing wrong with being an old fogey, per se—many of them are quite entertaining. North Korean press release syndrome?…
Rantcast #4: Garmin—The Little Device That Doesn't
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) Yo, check out this new gadget I got, it’s called a Blackberry. It’s great for taking care of stuff on the go, like a mobile computer, except that I can’t look at photos or videos or fling cartoon birds at abstractly rendered pigs or really…
Rantcast #3: Improving the "Credibility" of the MPCC
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) What is the definition of credibility? In cycling, the term has largely become what you are not. I am not glibly big-ringing myself to the top of Hautacam. I am not suing the living daylights out of every journalist and assistant who dares suggest that I…
Rantcast #2: Why Americans Can't Watch Cycling "On TV"
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) A couple of weeks ago, Neal Rogers remarked he found it frustrating that despite the advanced technological achievements of these here United States, he still can’t watch bike racing “on TV”. As you might guess by the tonality that offset it, I have a quarrel to…
Rantcast #1: On Dave Brailsford and "Innuendo"
Transcript Hey there Internets—as I mentioned on Monday, I’m a little cranky this week and so I figured, what with my ample amounts of free time and top shelf home production facility, I might as well turn some of that angst into entertaining multimedia web content. So I guess I want my first rant to…
Feeding the Trollstrong Foundation
The jokes, dear reader, have already been made. I’m sure you think you’ve got some clever new gibe to add, some original snark to spin-off that will raise the bar that little bit higher—and in some cases, I might even believe you. But in humor, as in all things, there is a point of diminishing…