Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The Vuelta and More

No, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth, although our little blog has indeed gone dark for the past week or so. In fact we have a slew of posts that are almost ready to go. In the mean time, here are a few things to check out:

In the mean time, check out this link from today's Vuelta. N-A-S-T-Y crash. Ick.

If you haven't read it yet, Joe Parkin's "Dog in a Hat" is a great read. I knew Joe a bit back in my time running mountain bike teams, and he's one of those guys that in retrospect I wish I had talked with more about his experiences on the road in Europe. Andy Bishop rode for me and I absolutely loved hearing about him learning Dutch, riding for PDM, what it was like as a pioneering pro, etc. Anyway, in addition to Joe's book he has a great blog. Loved this checklist.

Unlike some people's take on Serotta, the brand will forever remind me of the Coors Light team from the 90's and the first team I worked for, Morgul Bismark. The team was sponsored by a bike shop owned by Ron Kiefel and Davis Phinney, as well as Serotta, Mavic (in the days of Mavic Zap and the most difficult to install/maintain bottom bracket in history), Killer Loop, Pearlizumi and others. That team was stacked with some seriously talented riders and is worthy of many, many blog posts. I still have vivid memories of driving around the country in a van with Tyler Hamilton, Anton Villatoro, Patrick Eyk and others. We rode very sweet custom Serottas painted in flourescent yellow and purple. Pez has a review of a custom Serotta that for some reason brought me back. And I think this is the most blinged out, pimped out rig I've seen in a long time.