Short one today. At the weekend was the Ronde van Vlaanderen or the Tour of Flanders as it's known to most of the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Flanders). This is one of the five monuments of the cycling calendar and is brutal. A brutal brutal 265 km slog across the Belgium countryside, taking on the harsh early spring weather of the flatlands and of course the brutal cobbles. Instead of looking for beautiful roads, the races this time of year look for the ugliest hardest cobbled roads. Nutbars.
This year the race was won by Fabian Cancellara, also known as Spartacus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Cancellara https://twitter.com/f_cancellara). It was a spectacular race, a fine fine win, and an absolute classic demonstration of why he is one of the greatest riders of this generation.
However, he topped all this off, whilst other riders were still rolling in, or rolling around on the floor in agony from dead legs, or broken bikes and bones, he sat in the interview tent, calmly popped the cap off a bottle of beer and chugged it down. Legend.
And then, to top it all, he goes out and starts doing some tricks on his daughter's scooter. This guy is truly a legend.
I'm not going to give any details on the racing or how he did it as there are plenty of other people who do this far better than me (velocast.cc, http://drunkcyclist.com/). Particularly Cosmo Catalano's How The Race Was Won
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RUYfFG87Ew
And for a throw back, here's a picture of him starting to turn the gas up the hill past my old house on Strada delle Tolfe as he went to win the Strade Bianche in 2012.
Ride hard. JJ
