...but here's a few links. Monk and all that jazz. David Walsh, still ranting. Serious racing in the heartland. Micro, macro let's all go get a kickstarter. Reading faces. Go ride (or surf), and happy new year!
From Dangerous Minds, ten companies to avoid during the holidays (or perhaps always). Same source, lighter note - the history of the boombox. We thought this was just good graf. Not the biggest fans of Mixed Martial Arts, but we believe in BJ Penn. WTF does Peggy Lipton have to do with financial scandal? Banknote protest in Iran. Use Citizen YouTube. Paperfolding, more than just origami. Support Wikipedia. World traverse by bike. Follow CX racing? Get results. Good personal cycling blog. Dog in a hatter's blog. Get yer Dont Hit Me jersey here. Like some Garmin hoopla? One of the DC boys posts up with an interesting companion to Pave's Wiggins/Sky writ. Some cyclocentric action from Copenhagen. Boardman's back. London bike highways and Burbank's 20 year plan. Finally an LA team we can get behind. Videos for the weekend...
The Gavia
A nice family portrait from CX Nats
Last year's CX Worlds
An Hour In Hell
Bend Elite Men's Highlights
It stands to reason that for the fans, cyclocross has become the number one form of racing to watch. In Bend this weekend, a watershed moment for domestic racing may have occurred. Oregon brings a freakin' drum corps to the festivities and they pound non stop every race. At least eight thousand people jammed the barriers for the Women's and Men's Elite races today, it musta been electric standing there. Through out the week there's been great stories. (Also more crashes than a NASCAR greatest hits reel) Paul Curley won his masters group, while Myrah and Webber made for a good war. Coryn Rivera won her freakin' 25th National title, at seventeen. Now it was down to the big dogs. Fast laps in the masters and juniors races caused organizers to extend the course for Sunday's main events. For the Elite Women, the show was for second place. Micro force Dombrowski almost tagged it, but probably put in too much juice gunning for Compton on the opening laps. With a record sixth straight national title, Katie is clearly a legend on par with Armstrong, Slater, Jordan et al. (Interesting to note that her track racing counterpart Sara Hammer was drilling it today too).
Speaking of legends, Ned Overend allegedly skipped the masters race to give all in the elites - USACycling lists him as a DNS tho; wonder what happened to him. Johnson, Treefarm and Page took the top slots in what sounds to have been a nitrous charged slugfest. We called a New Englander for the win, first and third rock Eastside roots. Lotsa racers showed great promise today, particularly the U23 and Jr categories which saw mature, powerful racing from the boys and girls. Cal-Giant Strawberry proved to be the little team that could, with their riders showing strongly in numerous categories, particularly Miller finishing second behind Compton for women's pro and James Coates, the monster, in 45-49 Masters. Very exciting and big ups to Cyclocross Magazine for providing excellent live text commentary all weekend.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the cyclosphere... Pave has a nice discussion of Wiggins' shift to Sky. Guess Lance won't be driving a Subaru any more. Good use for old license plates. Just what the fixiestyle scene needs, action figures. Go ride.
Cyclocross Nationals are this week in Bend, Oregon. Here's the course at a clip of around 8 min. per lap. The big dogs will cut that by a good margin.
Lotsa speculation about who's in the zone - how rad is it that there's now a handicap in US 'cross? Get more news here. Aside from the usual suspects, Wells is a dark horse threat, as is Adam Craig (kinda reminds us of Greg Long) and of course the euro-charged Jon Page. On the woman's side, Nash, might be strong enough but she ain't racin' so it seems to really be a race for second between Dombrowski and a smattering of others, with Compton the field favorite. With temps in Bend hovering around 10 below the New Englander's should have atmospheric advantage, which might count for more than home court. It should be an interesting weekend. From the couch, what's interesting is: London building the worlds fastest track? Outa Boston, Pedal Strike. Girl power bike doc. Andre Williams wrote a book! Get it!!
The BBC claims a first timer won the Eddie today. 26 yr old Greg Long must be having a hell of a rookie year. Yeah it's his first time in an Eddie, but cripes the man has pioneered the megawave mission and the Eddie hasn't run in 4 years. Ah well, the fact that it made the beeb is pretty good. The fact that there was an Eddie is massive.
Props for the win to Greg; mad respect for topping the 'new old men' in the finals - Sunny Garcia, Kelly, The Irons brothers... all World beaters. With Garcia holding the ticket to the Triple Crown, it's an interesting match to set the stage for the rest of the North Shore season.
Always something to consider here. Rilke is usually worth considering. Eat the schoolyard. Hope fades. Back to our regularly cycled programming: A really bad idea [hpt's view-coaster brakes = less control than brakeless fixies]. Melbourne World Cup. Controversy! BMX'ers diss fixie trix! Dose of Python. Ride with Sheldon!
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