To atone for my link to the Tafi pic., here is Rudi at the Nurburgring in 1 966. His national jersey is wool, his mitts are string and leather and his bike is celeste! The shot is from the first cycling book I ever owned, "How to Succeed at Cycling" by Franz Wollenmuller (English translation by Bever ly Worthington).
http://www.freefotofile.com/
The other day I was lucky to catch an NPR piece played Downunder on our own National Radio. It discussed road cycling's newfound poularity as a world sport and the phenomenon that is Lance. In a replay of the discussion which was hitting this list at the time, they interviewed some "serious cyclists " who pointed to Mercx as their inspiration, not Lance. The journalist then asked the rhetorical question "Isn't all this talk of Mercx a little highb row? What is so wrong with a Sunday cyclist riding his Trek in his Team Dis covery gear, adopting Lance's steely glare of grim determination?" I admit to smiling and remebering my own youthful imagination. When unleashing what I fondly referred to as "my climb" I was always King Eddy, crushing the ho pes of flyweight climbers with my metronomic rythm. Which was all very well , except that I couldn't climb for nuts. Later, under the influence of Amer ican magazines, I became Greg, valiantly battling against the wily old Badg er for my first tour victory.
Now I'll fess up, I haven't completely abandoned the habit. Yesterday when riding home into a stiffening easterly breeze along the long, flat roads wh ich run west from my home town I felt the need to dig deep and ignore the a ching legs and the headwind in order to beat falling sun and growing chill of evening. And so I became a Flandrian hardman, battling accross the flat roads and strong winds of Northern France, trying to reach the Roubaix velo drome before the pursuing bunch chased me down. The ploy worked, My elbows dropped, my back flattened, my cadence rose and I got home in a time which made me happy. So I was pushing a 42x15 to their 53x12, don't burst my frag ile ego just yet!
Does anyone else out their ocassionally slip into fantyland when the chips are down and the need is great? Which Great Rider do you become when the cl imb is gitting a bit too steep or the wind a bit too strong?
Michael Toohey, Rangiora New Zealand (blue skies, leafless trees, middling temperatures).
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