Rants Archive

I’m not especially prone to misfortune. In the past, I may have attributed some long losing streaks to curses, and it seems to start raining pretty much every time I get off work, but these instances of bad luck aren’t anything outside the realm of probability. Back before last fall, I didn’t believe the Red…

Every time Lance Armstrong wins a tour, scads of sportswriters (generally American sportswriters) spew forth venomous diatribes about how Lance is not the greatest athlete of all time. The strange thing is, I don’t believe anyone out there really insists that he is the greatest athlete of all time. A few misguided souls think he…

1) American Cycling is on the rise (but not necessarily on the up-and-up – see #2). Three Americans in the top 10, two in yellow, three with stage wins, a few near misses from Chris Horner, Discovery Channel with three stage wins and it’s second grand tour win of the year. And just imagine if…

Ok, geniuses, time for a quiz: Which of the following will NOT make you a better climber: a) EPO b) Losing some weight, tubby c) A compact crankset d) Training If you answered C, congratulations; you are now officially smarter than the entire marketing staff at Excel Sports thinks you are. Compact cranksets do not…

Consensus seems to be that Lance Armstrong’s success has been good for American cycling. And yeah, Lance has gotten a lot of otherwise oblivious people onto bikes (usually flimsy little Treks), and has opened up a few more eyes to the fact that there is a world of professional cycling out there. But Americans, being…

Anyone who has so much as wiped their nose with an issue knows that Bicycling magazine is the pulpiest, blandest, most innane piece of tripe in the cycling world; the USA Today of two-wheeled rags. This much is not news. But, bored at work one day, I made the mistake of perusing a recent issue…