Author: Cris Bloomfield

Yesterdays stage of the Vuelta was won by Fassa Bortolo’s Alessandro Petacchi, which means the Italian has now clocked up twelve Grand Tours stage victories this year. ‘After the stage, Miguel Martín Perdiguero (Domina Vacanze) echoed the thoughts of many when he said about Petacchi, “Every sprint he has, every sprint he wins. There’s no doubt he is unbeatable this year”‘, read more here.

MBA has a report on the recent World Champs – did you know Filip’s win in the Mens XC is the first title secured on a full susser? There’s more pictures and info on the new Specialized S-Works road bikes, the Tarmac and the Roubaix over at cyclingnews.

Issue 11 of Singletrack is at the printers and should be with subscribers by the beginning of next week. In preparation I’ve given the Information Bureau a bit of a face lift and I reckon it looks better for it.

We’re not worthy.

I think I’ve finally found someone with a greater vision than the Designers Republic and that person is Eric Jordan. His web design company, 2advanced studios is pretty much in a league of its own. If you’ve got a reasonable spec computer with the latest versions of flash and quicktime and are hooked up to broadband then link up to it, version 3 of his site is up here.

Want to look at something cool, then look up either the Oakley or Ford GT40 sites under the portfolio section. Not impressed? Then take a look at the 25 milligrams quicktime movie in the exploratory section. What do other people think?

I can totally appreciate the amount work that must have gone into designing and implementing 2advanced. What do I feel when navigating their site? Inspiration. What’s the best aspect of their site? In my opinion, it’s their explicit use of modularity or classes with timely function calls to create seamless rollover effects. Quite frankly, I have not seen anything else like this! Have you explored their portfolio? 2advanced is the bomb!

Oh and by the way, if you thought that was pretty good, then he’s already moved on, the current version (mark 4) is up here. Again more great stuff if you dig around for it. Now there’s a fair bit of arguing going on about the originality of the work, but as it has been said “talent borrows, genius steals”, so have a look at gmunk and see if you think it’s competition or not.

Anyways, if you like this kinda thing take a look at pixelranger’s work here.

I’d been over to the epic rides site once before, but here’s a link to it. They’ve organised a nice looking event on my birthday. I’d love to do it, it’s just that there’s a few thousand miles separating us. Anyway I’m sure I’ll get some riding done, just maybe not in Arizona.

There’s an interview with photographer Matt Scholl over at Pink Bike and his work can be found here.

Last night a documentary on free running aired on the Tv. Now I’m not a great fan of the Tv, at the moment there’s only about one thing worth watching and that’s the Shield, but this looked pretty good.

What the group of French guys who started the sport do is impressive and indicates their level of skill, ability and talent, but the footage filmed for the documentary used arty camera angles and was a bit of a let down. It didn’t show them doing their thing. For more about free running and some amazing videos check out le parkour.

Anyone want to buy a singlespeed? Anyone? No didn’t think so, so there’s a new addition to the collection, might prove to be a bit more popular. Soon see I suppose.

What’s this all about? I don’t know why he left the US, if things were going so well but Malcolm Elliot is on his way back over there to mix it up.

Now imagine a job where you get paid to ride your bike, show people your favourite trails, help them out when their bike gets trashed and get to do all of this in a warm, sunny part of the world, where you’re near mediterranean seas. Sound alright? Well read this then.

Cheeky adverts and one of the best bike shops websites out there, that’d be wrench science then, doing the biz in Berkeley, California. There’s a lesson to be learnt there.

Oh and there’s a few guys riding around Spain at the moment. Find out what they’re up to here.

I need to produce some flash animations for my research at the moment so it seemed like a good idea to test some out on the site. There’s a new front end entrance page as a result. Click here to take a look.

There is a new Mountain Bike World Champion and that’s Specialized’s Filip Meirhaeghe, who rode his Epic FSR to the finish nearly a full minute quicker than Ryder Hesjedal. Damn good effort and hats off to Specialized for spotting his talent and supporting him for this long. Here’s the full cyclingnews report:

After chasing Ryder Hesjedal (Canada) for most of the day, it was three time bronze medallist and two time silver medallist, Filip Meirhaeghe (Belgium) who took the win today and finally realise his dream of becoming World Champion. Meirhaeghe was very happy with his win. “It’s a dream come true,” he said. “Last year I was so close, only 19 seconds behind Roland (Green), and on the start line today I thought it was going to happen again, so I am really happy now.

On the course that has been described over and over as ultra technical, the men completed 8 laps for a total of 49.3km. Ryder Hesjedal (Canada) put the hammer down early to set the pace for the race, with Roland Green (Canada) and Ralph Naef (Switzerland) hot on his wheels. As the race progressed, Green fell off the pace and the Begians started to make up the 50″ they had lost on Hesjedal as did the two Swiss riders, Naef and Christoph Sauser, who rounded off the top 5 on the course.

For most of the race the front five riders remained the same and it was with almost two laps to go that Meirhaeghe bridged the gap to Hesjedal and the pair rode together for what was to be a very exciting finish. Meirhaeghe’s pace proved too strong for Hesjedal in the last lap and he gradually edged away to eventually finish 46” in front. A very muddy and exhausted looking Hesjedal rolled across the line the take second place in his first attempt in the senior ranks and Paulissen took third place to make it Gold and Bronze for Belgium.

Naef came in to take fourth place, however his teammate Sauser wasn’t so fortunate, flatting in the seventh lap and having to settle for 14th place in the end. Designer of the course, Thomas Frichknecht seemed to be suffering early in the race, perhaps feeling the effect of the marathon last weekend, however came back to take a respectable 11th place and defending champion Roland Green also showed the effect of having been out of racing for most of this season, coming in 19th.

Merihaeghe admitted later, to being nervous that Hesjedal had such a strong lead early in the race. “I didn’t actually realize that Ryder was up there at first because I could only see four riders in front of me and I he wasn’t one of them. All of a sudden I saw him and he had 55 seconds on me so I became a bit worried because a minute lead on this course is a lot. Later though I started to catch up and it was only then that I started to believe in my chances.” In fact even after he had caught Hesjedal, Meirhaeghe didn’t relax. “In the second last lap I took too many risks because I was getting tired and nervous, and I started to make mistakes, so in the last lap I took it a little easier because I wouldn’t have been able to cope if I lost due to a flat tyre.”

Of his choice to use a duel suspension bike, Meirhaeghe had no doubts. “I’m sure it was the right decision, in fact I only came here with this bike, I didn’t even bring a hard tail with me. I have been riding the Epic all year now and we have been working on the weight and I am absolutely sure that the weight is not a disadvantage. I think it was easier to recover from the up hills with the dual suspension.”

Hesjedal was happy with his race despite being so close to the win. “This is my third silver medal, but this is by far the most significant because it’s the elite category and it’s only my first attempt. I felt good all day today but when I heard over the radio that Meirhaeghe was catching me I decided to back off a bit and let him catch me. I wanted to let him catch me and then attack to take his spirits a bit, but he stayed right with me and then I knew that he would be very strong for the finish.”

The men’s cross country race wrapped up the 2003 World Championships in Lugano where a crowd of 25,000 people turned up to view the action on the last day. Many riders will now head to the final World Cup in Kaprun, Austria which will be held next weekend. Some will be there to redeem themselves from bad luck this weekend, especially riders such as Christoph Sauser whose puncture cost him a high placing today.

Britain’s Nick Craig finished only 1 minute and 18 seconds behind Roland Green and picked up 24th Place. Frischi, who won the Marathon category earlier in the week, still managed to come in at 11th.

Day two of the Vuelta. The word is “apart from Igor González de Galdeano (ONCE-Eroski), the candidates for overall victory are looking like Roberto Heras (US Postal) and Oscar Sevilla (Kelme)”. Well that settles that. Any other takers?

In the same event Cipo is out retiring today. More here. Obviously he isn’t a great fan of Spanish cuisine.

Game on! Brant over at on-one now has some fun and games up on his site. It’s pure genius and you’ll no doubt be saying ya’bast’d everytime you hit a solid object. Click here for some inbred action.

The Vuelta kicked off today and the ONCE squad put in a performance that should make the chances of the team riders getting a major new sponsor a bit easier after pipping US Postal by ten seconds. David Millar’s Cofidis team managed a respectable 7th, but could more have been expected of Cipo’s Domina Vancanze team?

Meanwhile over in Switzerland, Steve Peat didn’t make it onto the podium. Guess he’s a few more years to crack that one.

There’s been a fair bit on Shimano’s recent legal action against SRAM, but as this report shows there’s a bit more to it.

Oh and finally there is word of a $6000 limited edition (only 500 are to be made) Lance Armstrong Trek Madone for the coming year…

Monster Eurobike photogallery over at cyclingnews, check it out. There’s more from the show here. Synchros and Voodoo showed that the mighty come back is still possible in the bike world, but unlike onZa they haven’t completely changed their target market.

In/out, in/out (shake it all about). Is Cipo a bit of a shark when it comes to media publicity? Can’t say I blame him for wanting to opt out of the Vuelta to increase his chances of a better show at the Worlds, but then you can’t blame the Spaniards for kicking his outfit out of the race.

The Swiss continue to dominate and now have a new generation of rising stars. Liam Kileen, came close, but as you could say was first loser, just missing out on a podium placing after getting a puncture. The Eclipse tubeless system is the way ahead and if it’s good enough to take Frischi to the top step of the podium, it’s good enough to get taken seriously. I’ve been puncture free since installing it…

Back in the shop today and it was a busy day. Parcels, parcels, parcels and new spangly bikes. It’s good to be back. The 2004 Specialized Enduro range looks stunning. So good in fact that I think I want one! A bit of bike rationalization might have to occur before I can commit to one and that’s not a simply operation.

So the start of a new season in the bike world means new colours and the recreation of old favourites.

Somethings have disappeared completely, others have been back to the drawing board and some are new kids on the block. The latter has just produced a scary flashback. Staunch old favourites continue to do the business and it’s looking like it’s going to be another good year.

I need to get out and ride my bike more.

Tour de France hardman, Tyler Hamilton has left CSC and switched to Swiss based team Phonak. There’s a full story on it over at Cyclingnews. The fact that his season has been ended by a cracked femur, means that it’s been an eventful year for Tyler. One thing for sure he’ll be one to watch (yet again) in next years Tour.

Lots of new stuff on preview at the Eurobike show. The new Specialized S-Works road bike, the Tarmac, looks awesome more news on that as and when. For now there are photos here, here, here and here.

Talk about stupid, this really takes the prize for dumbass. This story about an armada of floating rubber ducks circumnavigating the earth is just odd and the fact that students are distracted by the lures of the internet isn’t that surprising at all. I might have linked this already.

I’m back from the mediterranean warmth of the Channel Islands and am now adjusting to the autumnal chill that seems to have descended on Manchester. There’s more on my travels on this page. Oh and it’s spawned a few new wallpapers, click here to take a peek.

I’m still catching up on what’s been going on since I left. I should be used to the vast amounts of the e-mail that seem to land in my inbox while I’m away and reading this doesn’t make me to cheery. Anyways, here are a couple of new things worth looking at.

First up , the below picture is the real thing. It’s a video capture from Dave Watson’s Tour de France peloton leap and can be seen in part in the video link (right click and save target as) available here. It’s from the forthcoming New World Disorder IV video, ride the lightning, that should be available by the end of the year.

Watson guns it over the Peloton

Meanwhile it’s probably not come as too much of a surprise to see that Welsh star Nicole Cooke has claimed the world cup title, the full report can be found here and there’s more over at cyclingnews.

I’m a big fan of Thomas Frischknecht. The guy is an old school mtb’er who is still showing his talent. It’s good to see that he’s added a new set of rainbow stripes to his record of achievements. You could say that man has a good reason to smile.

This weeks recommended arty link: Jason Brooks (you might recognise some of his work

New Specialized bikes have finally be previewed, find our more here. Look very interesting and if anything like previous years, they will look even better in the flesh.

I’m on the boat tomorrow. Back in a couple of weeks. Over and out. Cherie!

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