Chasing wheels

Here's that video clip I promised you. Yes, I know the audio's out of synch due to dropped frames and I'm pretty embarrassed that I couldn't remember where Shanaze is from but I don't want to hurl my laptop out the window in the course of tinkering further. Enjoy.

Jamie Staff and Shanaze Reade on BMX from Alex Murray on Vimeo.

Meanwhile the World Road Race Championships are under way which totally escaped my notice. For some reason I had then down under the other day starting with a T, Thursday.

I'm going to take a punt on the Men's Road Race winner and say Oscar Friere sneaking it while everyone is watching Paolo Bettini and Alejandro Valverde. That or another lesser-known rider taking advantage of the big nations marking each other and carrying them to the line.

I can't quite figure out the Great Britain plan. David Millar should obviously ride for the Time Trial title in the absence of Fabian Cancellara, but with Levi Leipheimer hot after the Vuelta and the team riding for him in the Road Race he might be more focused on that.

Posted by Alex on 23 September 2008, 20:09 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

To be honest I'm a bit down about her crashing out of the Olympic final. Everyone thought it would be a formality, even Chris Hoy who doesn't get much wrong when it comes to bike racing. I even got up/got woken up in the middle of the night to watch it which doesn't happen often.

It must be tough when everyone's told you that a gold medal is yours before it even happens and then you discover that the pressure you've put on yourself and the will to win just aren't combining. In the final run of the semi-final we saw what Shanaze could do, posting the fastest time and bagging the pick of the start gate, but otherwise she looked like her fierce pride and nerves were just getting in the way. Can you imagine the pressure from all angles to win the first gold in your sport ever awarded?

Tom Fordyce's piece on the BBC Olympics blog covers it much better than I can do (what with him being there and all that):

Read "Shanaze's golden gamble ends in blood and bruises" on the BBC Olympics blog

What I love about her is that she said balls to silver and went for gold, no second best would do. That's a fantastic attitude to have in bike racing. It's the same mentaity that says "to win you must first be willing to lose". To take a knock and keep on getting up and progressing is what life, as much as bike racing, is all about.

It's what made Merckx, Anquetil and Hinault the defining riders of their eras and what drives on Nicole Cooke. It's why I would have never made it and why most of don't ever make it further than our local races: the will to win just isn't strong enough or desperate enough.

Which is why I rolled in out of the points again on the last Tuesday night race at Hillingdon of the year. Still no points :(

Posted by Alex on 23 August 2008, 18:08 Digg this | Add to del.icio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)