it's always nice to have the opportunity to say 'i told you so' and it appears that i have just such an opportunity. today's copy of the comic (cycling weekly) has a 'race bike of the year' multi test where the lucky ba, sorry hard working journalists were able to take eight of the world's finest machines to bourg d'oisan in france to test said machines over the mountains used in the tour.
and guess which bike they chose? yes, the colnago c40hp, and i have one and i said it was brilliant, so i told you so! there, that feels better. more to come after i've been out for a pedal on my race bike of the year (smug git).
i have just bought myself an iban mayo supporters t-shirt (less of those kind of remarks from the back, please) from prendas ciclismo. it's great because, like all those appalling football shirts worn by youth and adult alike, it has the name 'mayo' plastered across the back, just above the euskadi national flag. the fact that the t-shirt is bright orange only adds to the effect, along with a photo of iban on the front.
i'm not really a great one for being a supporter of any particular rider, (though i do have a landbouwkrediet colnago top which could be seriously enhanced if i could get hold of one with popovych across the back) but i admired the fact that the orange clad euskatel supporters during the tour shouted long an loud for anyone on a bike, whether for the euskatel team or otherwise. considering the aggro shown by the admitted minority of football supporters towards anyone who has the indecency to support a team other than theirs, the sportsmanship shown by the euskadi supporters was a joy to see. it does, however, seem a bit at odds with the actions of eta (basque separatists) but i don't really want to get into politics.
anyway, only a week or so after purchasing said very bright orange garment (people keep asking me to turn it off), articles started appearing on cyclingnews.com about mayo's possible shift to another team. the current money is on him staying at euskatel if they up the money a bit, but the other team in the frame is reported to be saeco. so my t-shirt could be redundant before i have finished annoying all within visual distance.
the problem here is the vagaries of cycle racing as opposed to those of football. i'm sure that there are many manchester united fans binning their beckham tops and debating to buy one of those sported by his new team and simply dividing their loyalty. the great advantage of the football bit is that in ten years time, there will still be a manchester united or a glasgow rangers, or a partick thistle, whereas we are about to lose ibanesto, once, jean delatour and, horror of horrors, kelme. you see these are the names of the sponsors, not actually of the teams. so if once had been called madrid academicals and been sponsored by once, the problem for fans would be diminished. madrid academicals could have an appropriately designed cycling kit with the sponsor's name emblazoned across the front, sides, whatever but when the sponsor decides that his 'profile' has been raised significantly by his association with madrid academicals, and moves on to the local karting team, the once logo would be replaced with something else. but supporters would still have their team to support.
in formula one, mclaren used to be sponsored by marlboro and are now sponsored by west, but they still are listed in the constructors' championship as mclaren. and if things go the way they should, and all tobacco sponsorship is ended, no matter who has their name plastered on the side of david coulthard's car, the team would still be known as mclaren.
so thewashingmachinepost proposes that the whole of division one, two and however more divisions there are in professional cycling is re-jigged to having their moniker's changed as above. landbouwkrediet/sacla colnago could simply become the colnago team, sponsored by landbouwkrediet and sacla. bianchi have already started the trend, so let's get it sorted before i buy any more t-shirts that become quickly redundant.
this whole website got its name because scotland's graeme obree built his championship winning 'old faithful' using bits from a defunct washing machine. however, despite having had his troubles in ensuing years, graeme is now poised to make his comeback this september at the masters' track championships by riding the 3000m pursuit as well as a book about his career. considering the number of requests i have received over the years regarding graeme's training techniques (as if i'd know), i can only hope the book includes at least some of this information. and i hope he wins everything in sight.
on a slightly different note, my regular reader will have noted the addition of a 'colnago c40' rollover to the left. this contains a reprint of a recent article featured in cycle sport magazine, which they were very kind to let me present here (because i'm a colnago geek) i have also found an excellent review of the colnago c40hp here
i have been asked to add the following link to the post by wheelygoodcause. they're a cycling club dedicated to arranging epic rides for charity and do not charge charities for the pleasure. They ride because they want to. here's the link.
www.wheelygoodcause.com
Remember, you can still read the review of 'the dancing chain' the utterly excellent book on the history of the derailleur bicycle by clicking here
any of the books reviewed on the washing machine post can probably be purchased from amazon.co.uk or amazon.com
as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.
this column almost never appears in the dead tree version of the ileach but appears, regular as clockwork on this website every two weeks. (ok so i lied) sometimes there are bits added in between times, but it all adds to the excitement.
on a completely unrelated topic, ie nothing to do with bicycles, every aspect of the washing machine post was created on apple macintosh powerbook g4, and imac computers, using adobe golive 6 and adobe photoshop 7. needless to say it is also best viewed on an apple macintosh computer.
