The Thing About Heroes...

The thing about Heroes is that you spend so much time riding with them that you start to notice their habits. These little things set them apart. Now I am not talking about riding things like how much they sit on my wheel but things like when they use a public bathroom. Are they the kind of Hero who leaves their bike out for you to watch it or are they the kind of Hero who loves his bike so much that they take it in the bathroom. I hope it is a matter of seperation anxiety and not a matter of trust.
Another one I noticed is the forgetful Hero. He is the one that forgets his town slippers for the Apres-Ride ritual of stopping into a local cafe and eating the local town's famous hamburger. Sure we are heroes or more importantly cyclists but drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves does not help endear our riding fraternity to the local Harley Davidson crew.
This one is my favorite. The nature lover Hero. We all celebrate the nature we ride in but some heroes have a habit of taking communing with nature to the next level. I think we can all remember the hero that talked turtle for 30 minutes. Or was it just because he had been dropped from the chase group.
This hero habit almost borders on the nastiest of fixie habits. You know who you are. Yes we would love to check out your sweet vintage hero-ride but something is preventing us from fully appreciating it.

At the end of the day, however, it is these little things that makes each hero unique.

Miroir Sprint

10 Juillet 1952

The Ride before the Storm

Tomorrow three Heroes are going to Starved Rock to preview the ride. The winter is not here and the waterfalls are still flowing but tomorrow's August temperatures will be brisk. Arm Warmers in August? We will just have to wait and see......................................................................

It's beginning to look a lot like winter

My new Rapha Winter Cap.

Gumbo on the Breaks and Heroes with Different Fathers

The other day there was a pack of 8 Heroes on the dirt. There was a light rain and some of the Heroes riding Shimano looked at their brakes and saw something that looked more like a venereal disease than just simple mud. I am sure the first thing you thought was Heroes ride Shimano. Some do... Some do...

Now the Campy Heroes looked down and saw this. Yeah your right. Just looks like mud on the brakes. Now the Campy Heroes love their Shimano Hero brothers-just like the step-brother heroes they are.

Vive Le Tour

Watching the Tour in a Small Town

Nevada City

Finally posting my photos from Nevada City.

It took me a while because I was waiting for the Internet

to be invented. In the mean time, I have forgotten the results and the year: late seventies or early eighties. Does anyone recognized the guy in the blue and yellow jersey?

Young Heroes at the Tour

I think this picture embodies an infinite number of feelings while waiting for the peloton to show up on the Ventoux. I will put the four most obvious out there for consideration.

1. I wish Jens Voigt had not Crashed.
2. This Rock is Hurting My Ass.
3. I wish I was Back in Marseille with my Girlfriend
3. Doo Doo, Dah Dah, Doo Doo, when I grow up I am going to marry a podium girl. Doo Doo, Dah Dah, Doo Doo.

Punks at the Tour

Gegen Nazis. Tenspeed Hero agrees.

Fausto Coppi!

When the Heroes were in France we stayed in the town of St Gervais. We bought a few vintage cycling magazines from a book dealer. This is from the Miroir-Sprint-Le Miroir du Tour. This illustration of Coppi devouring all the races in the season pretty much sums the feeling of riding against one of the greatest. Just in case you couldn't remember what happened in 1952, the year this was published. Coppi won the Tour that year plus stages 7, 10, 11, 18, 21 and collected the Mountains classification. Look closely again...Stage 21 as well!

His birthday is coming up September 15. Make sure you get a few miles in that day.

Ride Alert-Early Warning

Sunday Morning Breakfast at Hero Headquarters. 7:00 AM

Rapha Ride in Boise

This is pretty much where I grew up. check out the Rapha Ride with Jon's friend Jason.

Decompressing on Mount Ventoux

We were sitting at our favorite cafe in Chicago the other day drinking coffee with a couple of the younger Heroes and they wanted to know what we did during the Tour when the Peloton was a 150K and 4 hours away. Jon Hero sipped his coffee and whispered "Decompressed, watched birds and ate cured meats."Of course these young heroes are exactly that, young. It was like someone handed them the keys to Jens Voigt's Porsche. They thought decompressing was for lawyers or for stock brokers that did not get their retention bonus. Not Heroes doing what they love the most.
The youngest hero, 16 and named Ken summoned up the courage to ask Jon Hero what he was decompressing from. Jon Hero took another sip of his coffee and then for a second pretended not to hear the question, and then slowly answered "From the ride, dude...from the ride." I could see the young heroes almost gasp and choke on their Paninis. It was clear that Jon just handed them a gas card and gave them Jens' keys to his chalet as well.

From the Ride.....From the ride...

The Tenspeed Hero Project Bike

The white Eddy Merckx is coming together. Today I received the used Hyperon Ultra Wheelset. They look to be in excellent condition. As a bonus they came with tubes and Continental Grand Prix 4-Seasons with some life in them. I added the lightweight Skewers and am just waiting for Isaiah to drop off the yellow swiss stop pads.

Last week I dropped off the bike at Upgrade Cycleworks to get the Chris King headset and chain installed. Their mechanics are the most service oriented in the city. Between them and Get a Grip Cycles I do not think you can find better help on most problems. I finished the preliminary build myself. Notice the NOS 3TTT Stem and Handlebars.
Original Super Record from the 80's is like the Beatles' White Album for Heroes and when they announced that Super Record 11 was going to be released last year, I knew that I was going to have to get this new deraileur. It is really beautiful to behold. In this build the only two components from Super Record 11 are the Integrated Shift Levers and the Rear Derailleur. I added a mix of other components to save some dough as the cost/weight did not really make sense.Next up is working the cables with Todd and adding the bar tape. If there was some extra money for some lightweight brakes we could probably get this bike down to 17lbs. Right now there are four Heroes that have a steel ride. Jon's Bluetini with Record 10, Todd's Black Guerciotti with Record 10 and Jen's Merckx with Veloce. Pretty soon we are going to have a steel hero round-up as I hear Isaiah and Patrick are set to work on winter projects. Somebody said they got a guy doing some custom work.

Great Deal on Rapha Winter Cap

Rapha Winter Cap on Ebay right Now. 29.95. Free Shipping.

Link

What Every Hero Likes to See When He Gets Home

Todd Hero came home and found this.

Hard Rain and the Rules of the Road

Three Heroes awoke early this morning. Each made breakfast. Each packed a musette full tubes, snacks, gels, and a few dollars just in case of emergency. These heroes were heading out in calm skies but they all knew they might be riding into the hard rain of late summer. Decisions had to made. They chose the rain they could count on instead of the rain they did not know.Three Hero Bikes in the parking lot of the Apple Canyon State Park. The rain had started and it was coming from the west so the heroes rode towards it. 14 miles into the wind. 14 miles into the rain. It was cold but it was also warm. The rain pelted the face and it stung but it also refreshed. We thought about the heroes at home. Watching TV, Talking about Their Training, Cleaning their Houses. Picking up their girlfriends from the airport. Good for them. They need a day off.
The hills in this region do things. They go up and then they go down. 130 years ago farmers cut roads according to the rhythm of the land. There is no order but they generally follow the flow of water. They meander where the glaciers made their last stand.
Two heroes drove and drove and drove. One Hero behind. Unsual but it does happen. Maybe something was said in the car, maybe nobody was listening to the directions, maybe there were no directions. One hero alone. Two heroes looking-looking-looking.
Hard miles looking for a friend. Hard beautiful miles in the search. Questions for some local folk. No sightings of course. What are the rules. Who speaks them. Thinking about their friends french bike splintered in a thousand pieces, in a hospital, or worse kidnapped by a lonely bachelor who just wants a captured Hero to read him Rouleur stories at bedtime. So many scenarios to contemplate until we find him alone by the car. So an hour later three heroes united. Ruffled feathers, assumed responsibility, they still needed a beer to make things better. Thanks Baumgartners for Chili, Sausage, and Beer. Those wet and weary heroes deserved it. 5 hours in the rain. More beer please.

Too Good To Be True

Disturbing news on the Hero home-front. We should have known better. Dastardly long pulls, no more whining about missing his girlfriend, extra intervals-"because they're kinda fun." Or this one should have been a red flag, "Lets do a third loop." We Hero's have a lot of friends in the world. No one is saying EPO, No one is saying Micro-dosing, No one bothered to look for any Gel patches. At least not yet. But a friend to the Tenspeed crew sent this picture of Patrick Hero's trunk. I guess someone is looking outside the suitcase of morals and digging into his fridge-pack of liquid go-juice.  Ouch...... Heroes remember, Forewarned is forearmed!

Road VS Fixie

Thanks Isaiah.

A Ride with George Hincapie

Patrick Hero and I just watched A Ride with George Hincapie. This may be the first review of a movie on Tenspeed Hero so were not sure if we should give two thumbs up or go to a star system. If it were Thumbs up I'd say that we give it thumbs up and put it in your library. But if we were to give it stars that would reveal a few critiques that we had with the film.

First things First. We love George Hincapie. We love watching him race the classics and we always miss him when he has does not ride because of injury. Our favorite parts of the film were the scenes where he is being interviewed on a ride in the beautiful countryside in North Carolina. There is a minimal quality to exposing the subject that is genius and they could have done the whole film that way and maybe ended up with an art house classic. They truly reveal humble character that struggles inwardly and yet is also ambitious. Our least favorite parts are cute video inserts during the film. The worst is a video someone holding some a slice bacon in a kodak moment just because George expressed his favorite smell. There are a couple others and a few silly texts that flash on the screen but to dwell on them is not our point. Essentially they dumb down a pretty good film.

The essence of the film concentrates on his identity of the best American classics rider that is often competing with the legacy as Lance's chief lieutenant for seven tours. There are some pretty revealing moments of Georges nature when he is thinking of how to answer a particular question. There is also a beautiful scene of George at the end of the film washing his bike in his driveway after a ride. What is notable is the setting of an successful American racer in an upscale subdivision. His BMW and Audi are the most obvious signs of the material gains he has earned. It is a melancholic scene that points to his incredible success as a Professional athlete yet without the victories in the races he and his fans love the most. The redemption comes in his persistance and the many answers George gives in the film about what he is most thankful or proud and the constant refrain without missing a beat is family.

We Heroes root for him during every spring campaign. So here's to George for 2010 and to the film. We liked it, just get rid of the bacon and that scene of the pizza box. Were not going to even mention the extreme wide angles during the interviews.

The Heroes will be in Roubaix in 2010. Lets hope we bring him some luck. Go George.

Marianne Vos

At Hero HQ today we were scouring the net for crying cyclists. After looking around we decided to start post with one of our current favorite PROS. Her name is Marianne Vos. Her final sprints are all around incredible. They often result in finish-line moments where she looks like she is incredible pain and ready to fall off her bike. BTW the fellow on her left is her Dad.
It is really sad that Velo News and Cycling News do not cover womens cycling in a proper way. There is coverage but all but the biggest races suffer from short reporting and often a lack of good photographs. I would include a few world cups in that list as well. When you have a phenom like Marianne racing it is a real shame that the sponsers, the media, the race promoters seem to be just doing the minimum to cover one of the great racers of any era. Putting flowers on cycling gear and calling your bike line Ruby is not enough. She deserves a few more cover stories on a yearly basis. Of course the womens calendar deserves a little more respect than it gets.
She also has a sly sense of humor as witnessed in a excellent story that Pro Cycling did a couple years ago. Do some internet searching and watch a few videos of this three time world champion in three different disciplines. We will be pulling for her at this years World Championship and for the Overall World Cup Competition. Also she lives in Babyloniënbroek which is close to Babylon. Not sure what the Dutch means....? Maybe one our fans in Amsterdam can help us out.

New Colnago Single Speed

I was cruising the new Colnago 2010 line up. This single speed caught my eye. There are alot of changes. Gone is the C50 and the Extreme Power has been put to bed. I suppose somebody in Cambiago checked out flickr and saw a market. I like the paint.

Euro-Montage

Video of the Ventoux, Flanders, and riding along the Muese. And Yes Jon did ride the cobbles with no hands while he filmed.

Iron and Wine

"Faded From The Winter"

Daddy's ghost behind you
Sleeping dog beside you
You're a poem of mystery
You're the prayer inside me

Spoken words like moonlight
You're the voice that I like

Needlework and seedlings
In the way you're walking
To me from the timbers
Faded from the winter

Eddy Merckx Team SC and Domo Farm Frites

This morning I woke up to a dream about BenG Hero riding his Domo Farm Frites Team SC on the Prairie Path in the Autumn. I think he is short some Campy-10 shifters and maybe a rear deraileur. It is going to be great to see him on that bike. I sold him the frame in the spring but he had bigger issues with his Lauren Jalabert KG381 to contend with. Longtime readers of Tenspeed Hero will remember his build. What was it?...a month ago. Anyway lets hope he gets it finished so we can see him on the path. I thought I would post of a few pictures of this great bike before they all get lost on the internet. It used to be easy to google search this frame and team but time moves on.

This is a great shot of Wilfreid Peeters riding his Team SC in the 2001 Paris-Roubaix. His epic escape out of the Forest of Arenberg is one of the most beautiful examples of tactical riding I have ever seen. At Hero-Land we would often grimace at watching George Hincapie get throttled by team tactics but now we concentrate on Wilfred's amazing run. Call it acceptance or resignation to watching the various Hincapie scenarios for so many years.

Johan Museeuw's Ride for the 2001 season. This bike had generous clearance. running 25mm Tires is no problem as the front fork and the rear triangle could probably handle some 28s. Another interesting thing about the frame is it has a 1cm longer top tube than the seat tube. So Ben's is 56cm C-C seat tube and a 57cm C-C top tube. This allows you to come back a Centimeter on the stem if you wish to make the bike a little less twitchey which is nice on rough surfaces such as cobbles or the dirt-limestone we ride on the path.

It is funny to think about the Team SC as a climbing bike if you think back to TDF in 2001 or 2002 I believe Richard Virenque had some great days on the Mountains. There were also some great shots of RV Crying which are also memorable.

Servais Knaven's Victory at the 2001 Paris-Roubaix was probably its greatest victory because of the harsh conditions it had to perform on.

When you look at some of the Riders on the 2001-2001 Team it looks like a who's who of classic racing. Even the young Nick Nuyens and Johan Van Summeren were on the team as Stagiaires.

Cretskens, Wilfried
Hoste, Leif
Merckx, Axel
Museeuw, Johann
Vandenbroucke, Frank
Knaven, Servais
Van Bon, Leon
Kashechkin, Andrej
Koerts, Jans
Wilfried Peeters

Stagiaires:
Nuyens, Nick
Van Summeren, Johan

The Team SC later turned into the Premium. At Hero-Land there is a debate as to whether the Kodak Team bike is hideous or stunning. It is kind of interesting to see the colors that get exported to other countries.

Gitabike seemed to often get the worst paint schemes or rather just a little dull.

This color scheme looks to have been imported to Australia. The light blue is a great touch on the later Premium. When BenG Hero gets it going we will make a little dedication video. Check out the video below to see coverage of that famous 2001 race. Its about Geroge but the Team SC plays a big part.