This weekend, Eindhoven is filled with young men and women clad in baggy trousers with tatood butts on ghetto bikes delivering goodies all over town during the European Cycle Messengers Championships 2008. Of course I had to check that out.

My first engagement with bike couriers was the 1994 documentary Need 4 Speed. Today I found out that actually not a lot has changed since then. However, the Zorba the Greek characters (see Pt. 2) have changed from lycra tights to full side burns and beards. Or might that just be an European thing? And it’s a pity that nobody picks up the X-Men theme (see Pt. 5) anymore. Oh, also check out this great spoof or pastiche of Ladri di Biciclette.

See some more snapshots here.

Geklopt worden op de meet.

More p00lmania here at Och as it is time for the T00rp00l again. Join in on the OCHBLOG subleague at sportpOOls (JayJay will probably throw the password in the comments). Registration is open until 12.00hrs CET this Saturday July 5, 2008. A votre demandé, les coureurs et les connaiseurs. This year le Grand Départ de Bretagne, home to great cyclists such as le Biqet, le Boulanger de Saint-Méen, the Badger, and of course Marie.

Create a tagcloud by specifying what a brand is to you. (For example “14″, “hoeveel?!” or “kvlt”)
Also available: celebtags.

A Sunday morning ride turns out to be A Sunday in Hell (1976).

Les Protagonistes

Le Préparation

L’Enfer Du Nord

Fin

Goeiedag. Ik ben Stijn Devolder uit Bavikhove, deelgemeente van Harelbeke.

Anticipating the upcoming release of The Collective’s third moutainbike film, Seasons (april 2008), this Weekendmovie features their first self-titled film, The Collective (2004). The Collective is a group of mountain bikers, filmmakers and photographers that ride bikes, shoot films and take photographs (duh!). Most of you are familiar with their second film, Roam (2006), that has been shown here before. So you’ll probably like this one too.

To freek, who has been made from the same sportswood.

The Collective (trailer | film) - Roam (trailer | film) - Seasons (trailer | film)

Update: Seasons film added.

Elk zinne g’ndag!

The third edition of the Tour of California leaves Palo Alto this Sunday and what better way to commemorate that with Hollywoods most successful cycling flick (excluding ET): Breaking Away (1979). Especially when you consider the rumoured and supposed come-back of il Re Leone himself.

In Breaking Away, the focus is on cycling and a boy’s obsession with it. But within the story lies a moral tale. It tells of growing up and learning to see the bigger picture.

Yada yada yada, storyline and stuff. The cycling kid (Dave) manifests his cycling obsession by speaking Italian and listening to Italian opera at home meanwhile driving his father crazy, and acting at school as an Italian exchange student to impress some big-eyed brunette. Funny episode is that when the Italian professional cycling team Cinzano comes over to race and can’t get rid of Dave on his Masi, they decide to throw a pump in his front wheel. Now who thought that inviting Cipollini to the Tour of California was a good thing for American cycling?

Although the movie showcases some cyling Fanta, most of it is not really disturbing. However, chasing the Cinzano truck at 50mph on a 42 tooth inner ring is a bit too much Fanta imho. Anyhow, this is the movie that many American cyclists claim to be their grand motivator for hopping on a bike. Nothing wrong with that atmo. Another curiosity, the movie was shot entirely on location (in Bloomington). A feature that we have seen before here at Och. Enjoy!

Johnny Depp’s Bay | beer game | trailer

A red bike of course.

……voor 534 miljoen euro moet er daar toch wel iets te halen zijn ?
Qua lading en dekken en copyrights enzo?

En, 0L0@534miljoen euro!!!!!!! /kan nog wel even doorgaan!

Happy hunting!

Giuliano Galore: without hands, with accordion. Going down, going up, or on ice.

Ik richt hierbij een vlammend protest tegen deze voorbeeldenloze schending van de goede trouw en aantasting van wat tussen beschaafde edit0rs behoorlijk is. Ik en mijn potsen zullen ook thans onze plicht doen. Ik stelde mij voor, dat het mij gegeven zou zijn althans enige tijd op mijn post alhier te blijven en, mocht het ergste komen, met de gezamenlijke Het Is Koers-potsen zuidwaarts te trekken, zoals Koning Albert destijds gedaan heeft. Deze tijd is nu gekomen en ik heb het harde, maar noodzakelijke besluit genomen om de zetel der Het Is Koers-potsen te verplaatsen naar een veilige plek. Maar Ochblog zal haar gehele grondgebied eenmaal herwinnen… Doet allen, wat u mogelijk is in ’s Ochs welbegrepen belang.

Leve het Ochblog!.

Jacques’ first victory was the 19th Grand Prix des Nations, an individual time trial over 140km that Fausto Coppi described as the hardest race on earth before collapsing after finishing. It remains still a mystery how the, then 19 years old, phenomenon managed to turn those massive gears with such skinny legs. This phenomenon becomes a legend when you consider that he won the Grand Prix des Nations for a record nine times, and pulverized Coppi’s 14 year old hour record in 1956.

Besides being Monsieur Chrono, he was also the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times and the first to win all Grand Tours. Not too shabby. He got his other nickname, Maitre Jacques, when he ruled in the 1961 Tour. At the start, he promised to take the Maillot Jaune at the prologue and carry it all the way to the Champs Elysees. A promise that he kept, not in the least strengthened by his race number: number 14…

In his professional cycling career that lasted from 1951 to 1969 Anquetil successfully picked up the gauntlet against i campioni del ciclismo of that era: Fausto Il Campionissimo Coppi, Louison le Boulanger de Saint-Méen Bobet, Charly de Engel vun de Bierger Gaul, Raymond Pou-Pou Poulidor, and Federico El águila de Toledo Bahamontes to name just a few. Famous is the duel on the puy-de-Dôme where Poulidor (La Vache Qui Rit) and Anquetil (Chanel Homme) rode coude-à-coude battling for seconds.

The documentary Le Mystère Anquetil, aka the Man, the Mystery, the Legend Anquetil, not only shows that Anquetil was a great champion but also that he liked to live life like everyone else: he was a great drinker (champagne on the Galibier), he had an explosive liver (whatever that means), and a big heart (that only pounded 32 times per minute when in rest). Something not be missed, although my apologies for the English voice-over.

demonoid

History is made up of truths that end up becoming lies. Myths are made up of lies that end up becoming truths - Jean Cocteau.

In Tour des Légendes (2003), director Erik van Empel takes us back to La Grande Boucle of 1948, the last tour without the presence of television cameras, when he tries to find out about the story behind an old newspaper photo of cyclists covered in mud riding through a snowy alpine backdrop.

It is likely that a future generation, say, 50 years from now, will read an account of the race Briançon - Aix-les-Bains ridden today, 16 July 1948. How will that generation see the historically correct account of today’s race? They will call it exciting, dramatic and epic, but also a good story. A good story in the sense of something inconsistent with reality, but still a good story. Si non revero, bene trovato, as the Italians say.

Back then, you had to use all of your imagination to visualize the heroic battles that i campioni fought on the flanks of the then unpaved mountain passes of monstruous giants such as the Galibier, Croix-de-Fer and Izoard. Fortunately, reporters such as Henri Desgrange and Karel van Wijnendaele (de Homerus der Koersen) made that a bit easier with their vivid and colorful reports on the race.

Riders in the 35th Tour de France have seen it all. Glorious weather, sunshine, paradise, even the apocalypse, but the 13th stage was hell.

As if the weather and parcours did not made it difficult enough, Gino Bartali was on special mission. Because of civil unrest in Italy, Il Campionissimo was asked, practically ordered, to win a stage in Le Tour to motivate the Italian people towards happier feelings. Despite that Il Pious was twenty minutes behind leader Louison Bobet (le Boulanger de Saint-Méen), he managed to recover himself and crushed the competition by winning three consecutive etappes and carrying the maillot jaune back home to a quieted Italy.

Various interviews with the others that played a role in that inspirational victoire, in which Briek Schotte and Marcel Dupont steal my heart, sketch the hard conditions in which the riders were forced to risk their lives (something about donsveren). Finally, Van Empel treats us with a visually and musically astounding apotheosis of etappe Briançon - Aix-les-Bains, etappe 14…

Vino… Vino… Did the guardian angel that stood by you and carried you to fame ignore your pleas for help? Have you become like the others? Suddenly, in mid-race, you’ll feel strangely alone. Like a king at war who turns to give orders and discovers his army gone. That terrible moment will come, but when? You don’t know.

Later that year, Bartali, Bobet, and Schotte joined Coppi and Magni when playing guestroles in Totò Al Giro D’Italia while preparing for the Giro di Lombardia.

demonoid | review | Bartali by Paolo Conte