Author Archives: Guy WR

The dangerous summer

In 1959, Ernest Hemingway returned to Spain to cover the summer bullfighting season for Life magazine. The extend account of his trip was later published as the book The Dangerous Summer. For Hemingway, the 1950s were a period of nostalgia. After the acclaim for The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway was somewhat adrift with …

April 18, 2012 – 8:20 pm | By Guy WR | Posted in Meanings | Tagged | Comments (7)

Ultimate climbing guide, part 3: weight and training

In 1952, Alpe d’Huez was included for the first time in the Tour de France and it was also the Tour’s first mountain-top finish of its kind. Its inclusion was somewhat of a novelty, and it would seem that few predicted at the time that the climb would become one of the most famous in …

April 17, 2012 – 8:03 pm | By Guy WR | Posted in Climbing Skills, Local Climbs | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

On money and identity

Pro cycling has a somewhat unique challenge compared to other sports. Teams have limited means to raise finance themselves (no stadiums and gate receipts) and so are reliant completely on their sponsors. They are even named after their sponsors, which can often mean a name change for the team every year, or with even greater …

April 12, 2012 – 10:38 pm | By Guy WR | Posted in Meanings | Comments (1)

Ultimate climbing guide, part 2: aerodynamics

If there is one non-cycling book worth reading this year, it should probably be Thinking, Fast and Slow by the Nobel Prize-winning behavioural psychologist Daniel Kahneman. To paraphrase the product description from the publisher: “Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains: System One is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System Two …

April 9, 2012 – 11:52 am | By Guy WR | Posted in Climbing Skills | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

On hardness

At the top of the Ghisallo climb, in Bellagio on Lake Como in Italy, and outside the Madonna del Ghisallo chapel is a statue of two riders. The first is raising an arm in triumph, alongside the second rider who has fallen. Glory and suffering. Cycling epitomized, so much so that ‘glory and suffering’ is …

March 30, 2012 – 7:35 am | By Guy WR | Posted in Classic Stages | Tagged , | Comments (3)

Winning La Primavera

The spring classics start this weekend with Milano-Sanremo on Saturday, March 17th. Your author has already tipped Daniele Bennati as a surprise winner from a bunch of possible Italian contenders. To which one might add Peter Sagan, not quite an Italian but riding for an Italian team. We shall see. There have been numerous famous …

March 14, 2012 – 2:02 pm | By Guy WR | Posted in Classic Stages | Tagged | Comments (1)

Gearing for climbing: An afterthought

Paul Fournel’s book Need For The Bike has perhaps the worst cover ever to grace a book on cycling. This nearly pocket-sized tome has some absolutely fantastic writing from the “avant-garde writer” (who also makes regular contributions in Rouleur magazine). One can only lament that the University of Nebraska Press, who published the book in …

March 8, 2012 – 10:13 pm | By Guy WR | Posted in Climbing Skills | Comments (3)