All pictures on this page except for the bottom two were taken by myself. Like the others on this website, I regard them as my property except where noted and would prefer them not to be published elsewhere without a note as to where you got them from. Please don't forget to email me if you include them in your page. You may, of course, include a link to this page in your website.
Two
pictures from the 1990 Tour de France which I took at the start of the
last stage, in Bretigny-sur-Orge. They show Greg LeMond on his way
to his third Tour victory. Greg's 1990 victory was much less exciting than
the year before, when he won by just 8 seconds (the closest margin ever).
It was the last year before Miguel Indurain's increadible streak of five
straight victories.
If you look closely at the first picture you can see the Scott Drop-In bars which Greg made famous that year. Of course, I fell for them and put them on my Vitus 979 which I built up in 1992, but they have gone to my used parts bin many years ago! The idea of having an additional narrow hand position to improve aerodynamics is good, but IMHO the position they offer is too close to the seat and the angle wrong to be comfortable. Scott Rakes (a second set of drops to be clamped to the bars next to the stem) or the well known Cinelli Spinaci or 3t Tiramisu (or other brands' similar versions) are much better (but not allowed anymore). Nowadays, the Drop-In is only popular as for use with stokids on the back of a tandem. See here for an example.
Two
pictures from the 1997 Tour de France. This was the last year the TdF passed
through the Vosges Mountains just across the Rhine river from Freiburg,
so of course we rode over to cheer on Jan Ullrich on his way to
victory. The first picture was taken during the stage finishing in Colmar,
an uneventful flat stage.
One
day later, on the stage throgh the Vosges. Riding in front of Jan
is his team mate Udo Bölts, one of the most amazing riders
ever to enter the stage of pro cycling. Udo rides strong in every race
he enters, never taking a day off. The second picture was taken on the
day of the famous "Quäl dich, du Sau!" comment: The day turned out
to be very hard for Jan, with Team Festina continually attacking, and Udo
had to use rather harsh language to motivate Jan to continue riding.
These
pictures were taken at the 1996 Tour de Gruene. This is a two-man team
time trial held in Gruene, TX, (a small town south of Austin) every fall.
Lance
decided to participate to show his supporters that he was still alive.
Looking at the pictures it seems even more incredible that he would ever
win another bike race, let alone the Tour de France! In his own words (stolen
from here):
Q: "When you first got back on the bike at the "Tour de Gruene", was that a mixed bag of emotions or physically challenging?"
Lance: "Physically it was hard to ride...I couldn't do very much...it was awesome, emotionally it was overwhelming!"
As Eddy Merckx was in Austin for the weekend to see how Lance was doing, he just came along. They had the guys at Freewheeling, Austin's Eddy Merckx dealer, put together a bike for him, and off they went. Hey, picture this: I got to race against the greatest cyclist of all times! See here for a short note on the event and check out Mike Gladu's photo archive for professional pics. Go here for more amateur pics.
I
did not take this picture myself. It is from page 8 of the August 1999
issue of the German road bike magazine "tour".
I publish it here because of the great interest in both Lance and tandem
cycling in general among the expected visitors of my pages.
You can see Miguel Indurain on a Bike Friday Family Tandem, and Lance Armstrong on a 1998(?) Cannondale RT 3000 tandem. The picture was probably taken at the 1999 Ride for the Roses, an annual fundraiser the Lance Armstrong Foundation organizes to raise money for cancer research.
Jan
Ullrich stoking for Erik Zabel. The pic was taken at Team
Telekom's 2002 pre-season presentation in early December 2001, an annual
get-together topped off with an MTB race of the team against journalists.
Erik and Jan are riding a Soil 'Hard Line' FS MTB tandem. Soil is a brand name used by the traditional German bike manufacturer Schauff, a large family-owned company. Schauff holds a license to build entry-level bikes under the 'Team Telekom' brand name, so as one of the team's partners they were invited to the presentation and brought a tandem along just for fun. Jan Schauff is on the German tandem listserv, and he hopes that the pic will increase interest in tandems. I did not take this picture myself.
I rode the Soil Hard Line at the Lago di Garda MTB festival in Riva, Italy, last May. You can read my subjective test report here.
Taken
in 1997. The person on the right is the pro, not me! This is Julie Young
of Team Saturn, who used a stage race in Arkansas I participated in for
training. Talk about one strong woman - she easily stayed with us and contributed
a lot to making the winning brakeaway sucessful.
Note the shifter setup the real pros ride ;-): Rear STI with front downtube shifter. Laurant Jalabert made this setup popular. For a while there were rumors that Shimano now expressedly forbids the use of only one STI-lever for riders sponsored by them, but during the 2000 TdF Lance Armstrong could be seen riding this setup on his lighter bike for mountain stages (as well as an early 1980s front brake on his TT bike!). Jalabert changed to a Campagnolo-equipped team the very year Shimano supposedly added that clause to the sponsoring contracts! Marco Pantani also likes to ride with an empty left Ergopower "shifter", using a downtube shifter instead. See "Campagnolo Only - The web's premiere source for unofficial Campagnolo news and information" for the complete details about his 1998 TdF-winning bike.