Selective forgiveness. def. The act of forgiving one person for their behaviour, but not forgiving another person who did the same thing. For some time now I’ve been quite fascinated, and often perplexed, observing how differently social and mainstream media react to different doping fiascos, largely dependent upon where that athlete is from. Some suggest these … More Doping and the fine art of selective forgiveness
(The following is a true story, however names have been changed to avoid embarrassment – and possible divorce proceedings – for the main character). I’ve been riding with ‘Dave’ for the best part of five years now. He’s a lovely guy, a regular at my mid-week training sessions and coffee rides, and also a devoted … More The double life of a suburban crit racer
Carbon Addiction received a pretty disturbing email yesterday from regular follower Luigi about an Australian bike shop (name supplied) which apparently tried to pass off a resprayed demo frame to him as a new – and at $8,000+ very expensive – road bike recently. Rather ironically the cyclist they tried to take for a ride … More Taken for a ride…almost
STORY UPDATE: This whole selfie thing, actively encouraged by some TDF teams including Tinkoff-Saxo, is really starting to blow up now. Not surprisingly fans are getting in the act as well trying to emulate their heroes and as Geraint Thomas suggested to The Guardian overnight it’s making things more than a bit dangerous out there. … More Riders have only their selfies to blame
AN OPEN LETTER TO MR BRIAN COOKSON OBE, UCI PRESIDENT Dear Mr Cookson, As you know, the 101st edition of the greatest event in our sport starts today in Yorkshire. It signals three spectacular weeks of drama and nail-biting excitement which the entire world will be watching, except perhaps for 198 million Brazillians who will be … More Please Brian, save out sport
Nowadays motorists just try to run us off the road. But as regular Carbon Addict, Donald, recently brought to our attention it appears in the latter 19th Century the community resorted to a far more intellectually abusive way of keeping cyclists off the roads, specifically female ones. According to the oracle of all online wisdom, Wikipedia: “Bicycle … More In yer (bicycle) face
Pat McQuaid. You’re Irish FFS…not Suisse or Moroccan or Thai. Thai???? Please, just accept your time with your nose in the trough of world cycling is over and stop doing even more damage to the sport you’re supposed to be protecting. Your desperate and shamelessly self-serving behaviour over the last few months (years?) to gain … More Irish joke no longer funny
Not sure if this one is dumb or just plain strange…. Stage 19 of the recently-completed Giro was an uphill individual time trial. It was hard, and it was defining, as Vincenzo Nibali rode his rivals’ GC hopes gloriously into the bitumen. But what about an uphill team time trial? It has happened on the … More Dumbest ideas in cycling #4: Uphill team time trials
Apologies if you’re an FDJ or Argos-Shimano fan. But no matter how big your cog might be, white knicks are just plain wrong. Impractical in bad weather. Impossible to keep clean. And plain old funny looking. The Velominati say duds should be black. And I have to agree.
Once or twice a year, typically when it gets bored with running stories on P-platers, banks, diets and dodgy tradesmen, the media gets all arsy with road cyclists. And inevitably the conversation will yet again raise the issue of bike registration; surely one of the dumbest ideas in the history of dumb ideas. There are … More Dumbest ideas in cycling #2: Bicycle Rego
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