2012 cyclocross world championships elite men

below is sunday's cyclocross world championships elite men's race in full from koksijde belgium, courtesy of belgium's sports tv station sporza.  i would also like to post the elite women's race too but have not yet been able to find it.  for some reason neither men's nor women's races would play for me via cyclingdirt which is odd since their delivery of video is usually excellent.

roger de vlaeminck

published in 1978 by kennedy brothers publishing ltd roger de vlaeminck by raphael luchon is a magazine format book i purchased on ebay a few days back.  the images below are a sample of photographs taken from the book.

an ode to the bicycle

The importance of the bike in the history of the world. Inspiring talk from Rob Penn.

via do lectures

stevens prestige

over the last couple of years i have done a lot of talking with friends about how i am going to start racing cyclo cross, well now i finally have the machine to achieve this ambition.

after much deliberation on what cx bike to buy i settled on the stevens prestige. my original criteria was to buy a cx bike with disk brakes and that had an aluminium frame rather than carbon since i am sure i will end up staking it and with this in mind feel metal will be better suited for me over plastic. i managed to tick the box frame wise but could not find a bike that i liked with disk brakes for my budget which was £1500 so i settled for the traditional cantilever brake set up still favoured by most.

other bikes i considered long and hard were the cube cross race pro, kona jake the snake and cinelli zydeco all of which hit the target budget wise.  i am sure they are all fantastic bikes too but i am confident i made the right choice in the end.  stevens has a proven track record in cyclo cross and the aluminium frame with carbon forks is said to be both stiff, responsive and at a shade under 9 kilos reasonably light.

i purchased the bike from hargroves cycles in southampton and have to give a big thanks to jeff the manager for his excellent and friendly service as well as for knocking me off a few quid so i could upgrade the wheels from the stock fulcrum 7 cx to a pair of mavic ksyrium elite.  along with the fact hargroves had discounted the prestige anyway in their sales (they still have some at time of writing this) meant i managed to get the bike with the wheel upgrade for my max budget.

i also gave jeff my set up spec from a bike fit i had done at mosquito bikes in london two years ago (the diagram below is my set up).  there is little doubt i am equally as inflexible now as i was two years back so am pretty sure this fit is still applicable to me.  i think jeff built up the bike himself to my specifications and apart from the stem being 10mm too short (stock stem) everything else is exactly as required.

for a list of equipment featured on this bike check out the stevens website here.

bike thrones

for your royal arse...

my favourite is the king of the cobbles design with the lion of flanders emblem. what is yours?

www.bikethrones.com

tour de france 95

the players

indurain

virenque

zabel

amazing images from the 1995 tour de france by the ever prolific numerius.

deep custom

deep custom is a short documentary about minneapolis-based custom bicycle frame builder, erik noren and his company, peacock groove cycles.  it is kinda like orange county choppers but for bicycles.

Deep Custom from Royal Antler on Vimeo.

flemish winter hat by galstudio

image: betty bhandari

 i was recently the lucky winner (i never win anything usually!) of this flemish winter hat from a bikes, books & beer competition. produced by vancouver based richard and carol of galstudio this hand crafted 100% wool cycling cap features an integrated belgian style fold down ear flap and the cap is also designed to fit snuggly under a bicycle helmet.

the weather here in the uk is fairly mild at the moment but as soon as the temperature drops this hat will become a welcome addition to my cold weather cycling attire.  thanks guys it is a perfect fit!

namur cyclocross world cup highlights

happy new year!  keeping with the muddy theme, i was so impressed with the video highlights of the women's world cup race in heasden-zolder that i went backwards and took a look at some more work from petitesreines.  i first saw her movies on cyclingdirt.  it is no surprise they have started to publish her videos since she has a great eye for movie making.  from what i have seen so far her work is well filmed, well edited and the inspired music selections make for some of the best bicycle related movies around.  she also does a perfect job of representing the women's world cup cyclocross scene which gets unfairly overshadowed by the men's races a lot of the time.

below is petitesreines video highlights from the women's cyclocross world cup race in namur, belgium from 18 december 2011.  back to front, i know, from the last video of hers i posted but who cares, i am going to watch it again.  i will be keeping a look out for all her upcoming work from now on.  believe the hype!

4ème Manche de CDM cyclo-cross from Petitesreines on Vimeo.