Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) SRAM, SRAM, SRAM, sram…I don’t really dislike you guys—it’s just bad timing. No, I’m not complaining about the ham-handed marketing of having a launch event and then embargoing it for three days in this interconnected, live-tweeted milieu, or that you’re offering hydraulic road brakes—despite being not…
Rants Archive
The Rants category was added in the early days of Cyclocosm to differentiate opinion pieces from the daily news recaps.
Rantcast #5: I Fight Fauxthority
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) So today I’m going to take aim at—god, I don’t even know what to call it. Authority? Nah, sounds too punk rock. Old fogeydom? Well, there’s nothing wrong with being an old fogey, per se—many of them are quite entertaining. North Korean press release syndrome?…
Rantcast #4: Garmin—The Little Device That Doesn't
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) Yo, check out this new gadget I got, it’s called a Blackberry. It’s great for taking care of stuff on the go, like a mobile computer, except that I can’t look at photos or videos or fling cartoon birds at abstractly rendered pigs or really…
Rantcast #3: Improving the "Credibility" of the MPCC
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) What is the definition of credibility? In cycling, the term has largely become what you are not. I am not glibly big-ringing myself to the top of Hautacam. I am not suing the living daylights out of every journalist and assistant who dares suggest that I…
Rantcast #2: Why Americans Can't Watch Cycling "On TV"
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) A couple of weeks ago, Neal Rogers remarked he found it frustrating that despite the advanced technological achievements of these here United States, he still can’t watch bike racing “on TV”. As you might guess by the tonality that offset it, I have a quarrel to…
Rantcast #1: On Dave Brailsford and "Innuendo"
Transcript Hey there Internets—as I mentioned on Monday, I’m a little cranky this week and so I figured, what with my ample amounts of free time and top shelf home production facility, I might as well turn some of that angst into entertaining multimedia web content. So I guess I want my first rant to…
Feeding the Trollstrong Foundation
The jokes, dear reader, have already been made. I’m sure you think you’ve got some clever new gibe to add, some original snark to spin-off that will raise the bar that little bit higher—and in some cases, I might even believe you. But in humor, as in all things, there is a point of diminishing…
The Amgen Tour of Confused Californian Branding
The Tour of California has an image problem. Mercifully, it’s nothing to with jersey zips—it’s more that the race’s marketing material is absolutely incomprehensible. Let’s overlook the fact that “Eight Days of Epic” uses the most cored marketing term in recent memory (it’s been a joke on Archer for crying out loud)—the Tour of California…
Cyclocross: Cycling's George W. Bush
Ah, Cyclocross—scruffy, fun-loving younger brother of road cycling. None of the endless training and expense, all of the fun, dirt, and beer handups, right? Surely this is the most populist of all sports, is it not? No, actually—not even close. Not since a third-generation Yalie picked up a Texas accent and ran for President as…
Poor Communication On Either Side Of The Atlantic
Communication is highly underrated. Take my recent dust-up with The Atlantic over a deleted comment on their not-initially-so-accurate history of blood doping. With no direct contact emails for authors and editors, a reluctance to respond to @replies or Tumblr inquiries, and a Memory Hole-esque contact form as the only institutional recourse, that magazine makes it…