Geraint Thomas – a standard on how personal cyclist websites should be built

Teun Mulder – one of our fave track cyclists has his rather sporadically updated website

Shane Perkins – this Australian track cyclists also boasts of some minimal but good and relevant content

Zach Bell – this hot Canadian track cyclist’s blog may skimp on updates but it gives you a glimpse into the personal world of the track cyclist

Cameron Meyer – this site for the amazing Australian cyclist delivers the goods

Chris Hoy –  a slick personal website, as minimalist as a world class cyclist can be

Francois Pervis – this French cyclist has a dedicated fan base maintaining the site

Robert Foerstemann – without a doubt perhaps the most popular cyclist on this blog based on this hits, the website has a wealth of information though perhaps you might have to learn some German

Maximillian Levy – Yet another personal website for a German track cyclist, this one was one of the first to launch and has updated information on current races

There are other notable websites, but given the limited scope of this blog, this is the most accessible and relevant list of personal websites we can find for the readers of this blog. And of course for the fetish side of things, here’s a new blog that might interest you- The Tight Spot. Quite an odd name but fitting for the content it delivers. (Warning: adult content in the link)

These photos of the 6 Days Berlin 2011 by sports photographer Kerstin Winterkamp is nothing short of amazing. We can’t stress enough how stunning these photos are. Well composed, shot and edited. Of course, these photos has gone under some serious post processing but you can’t deny the high quality and stunning composition of these photos. We have never seen the 6 Days in such a gritty fashion. Moreover one of our favorite shots are those of the surroundings, and the inanimate things usually taken for granted by photographers. It makes for quite a compelling story. Generally though, these photos follow the lives of Leif Lampater and Christian Grasmann, so take a peek at what goes in and out of the 6 Days Berlin. Unfortunately though, there are no photos of the Hooters style ladies surrounding the velodrome.

Off the camera this is how it looked like. Photo taken by Javelin for bf-one.

Now that we’re back to the States, we’re putting our focus on American teams. We’re sure a lot of you know the real state of professional track cycling in this country. At its current state it’s well organized, and promising but our cyclists can’t dominate this sport at their level when the French, British, Germans are very well ahead. We have a lot of catching up to do. The London Olympics 2012 is almost near and it’s our wish that our national track cycling team will be able to perform superbly in this event and all the events leading up to it. So what’s the missing ingredient? We can’t really say, it’s multifactorial really. We already have world class Olympic champion and medalist Jamie Staff training our team as well as sufficient financial support. We also have a decent sized fanbase and supporters for our track cyclists, so what we probably lack is the enthusiasm and coordination of all fans, athletes, and media outlets with regards to the sport of track cycling. Perhaps one day, and we hope it will be one of these days in 2011, we can all see everyone working together to produce a world class track cycling team who will topple the Brits, Germans and French off the podium.

So in relation to that rant above, we have here a track cycling team we’re all very excited to see. Team OUCH. Don’t let the name fool you, what we have here are world class athletes who, with the right support and training can give the other teams a run for their money. The support here is quite good, and their performance in the nationals is nothing short of stunning. Moreover, the athletes are on their way to becoming the best cyclists in this nation. The team is led by Sarah Hammer, and is composed of Jimmy Watkins, Austin Carroll, Daniel Harm, Cody O’Reilly, and Brent Kay. So as you can see in the photo above, they are big guys in the sport and even Austin Carroll is quite a beast himself. We hope this size gives them a distinct advantage aside from looking badass and intimidating. (Although as you might have noticed, Malaysia’s pint sized cyclist Azizulhasni Awang proved to be quite the opposite of what we just implied). So okay, the launch of a new track team will only spell excitement for the first few weeks and months after its launch. But our point is, the fact that there is some movement in the professional track cycling world in this nation means something. We’re going for gold.

You probably have read the article from Cyclingnews showcasing some cover shoots of Procycling Magazine by photographer Jesse Wild. You can read the article HERE. Of course, the best part is the photographs he shares of some pro cyclists including one of our favorites, Tyler Farrar (photo above). Now that the 2011 pro cycling season has officially started, it’s about time to revisit these cover shoots of 2010. Obviously, Mark Cavendish is one of the favorite and most reported cyclists out there stemming from his exploits and his electrifying personality. Personally, we kinda like the guy for his balls. He has the ability to add spice to the sport even though his ways are quite questionable. Word wars end up with Cav receiving the short end of the stick from the press and he even has a couple of brushes with the press. Still, you can’t deny his presence brings a fresh personality to the sport. Though we wish every cyclist out there would have the amazing personality and charisma of Tyler Farrar, Tyler is one of a kind and that makes him unique and well loved by the press despite underperforming and some say, overhyped performance. Read the article in the link above and if you’re interested go ahead and subscribe to the mag. Here are more photos from the article.

So last December 16-18,2010 while we were all merry making somewhere along the coast of Washington, the world’s best riders met at this little, cozy place called Cali located in Colombia. The event: The UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics. If you were up to date with all the track cycling news, then you’ve already read about it, seen some footage and feel the news is so last year which.. it actually is. Unfortunately though, for the casual track cycling fan it’s hard to get some decent footage and coverage of this event. Until now, it seems in our humble opinion this event remains underreported. Despite the high profile riders joining, it’s very hard to find some exciting videos of the event. Worse, by the time the news is reported on TV, it’s already late and everyone knows the results. Some countries are lucky to receive live coverage but even the live coverage is somewhat poorly received. We decided to wait out until we can find a couple of decent footage and so by some mere chance, our very reliable friend of ours, Danny, was kind enough to show us grabbed videos of the events as well as some vertigo inducing shaky cam amateur footage from the velodrome itself. But anyway, at least we got a good look at the event. Now there really is nothing much to say about it except that somehow, the US cycling team makes a very strong showing here. Still not enough to beat the other countries but surprisingly good. Despite some crashes, the events went smoothly. You can check out the results HERE.

As usual, the same teams made it to the podium which includes our current bet for best performing team for 2011, the French team. The British also performed well proving that they are still a very formidable team. The team from Colombia performed really well showing that they too deserve to host this kind of event. Now, here are some photos of the event courtesy of Nuestro ciclismo, and copa mundo pista cali. All in all, this is very late news and you could probably read in depth analysis about the individual events elsewhere. Then again, all we can say is that, yep, the US cycling team is getting the hang of it. And hopefully in the future, they’ll make it to the podium of every event.

We’ll be talking about the Cali world cup as well as the other events we missed in December in the next blog posts. Also, we’re currently watching some beautiful road cycling action from the Tour Down Under.

Team Sky started it all. A predominantly black themed kit. It looked cool, classy and best of all, the riders looked good in it. That also made the team quite visible in the peloton. Then the rest followed. Since the 2011 professional road cycling season has kicked off with the Tour Down Under, all the teams are now sporting their new 2011 kit. As we were watching the videos on TV, we can’t help but seem to notice that while the black kits really are stunning, it’s quite hard to differentiate one team from the other especially in a crowded peloton. But other than that, we love these black kits.

So here we have Team Leopard-Trek’s 2011 kit. This new team made headlines when it featured cycling stars Cancellara and the Schleck brothers. Moreover, the unveiling of the kit revealed yet another black themed kit but was good in its own right. The minimalist approach is very appealing. The kit overall has very limited use of colors and even the colors seem muted. The sponsors are brilliantly placed in a neat corner above the light blue bar in the jersey and they are wonderfully arranged despite the asymmetrical shapes of the logos. The shorts part are good too with the Leopard branding visible and the overall crotch area looking very clean. Some people hate this kit because it looks boring, bland and unoriginal. But we love this kit. It even trumps Team Sky’s!! Here are more photos of the team and the kit.

Dianne Manson is one of our favorite photographers from the NZPA. You see, photography as a hobby is fairly easy and fun. Photography as a career is hard and unfortunately unforgiving but quite rewarding. We’ve learned a lot from sports photographers covering track events and while their claim to fame is the superb and splendid shots of fast moving objects such as cyclists, motorcycles in the MotoGP, cars in an F1 race, a lot of them are also known for producing superb portrait and so called ‘candid’ shots of the athletes. Moving objects are spectacularly hard to shoot and photographers go through lots of bad shots and rigorous editing before submitting to their employers. Simpler photos such as podium shots, and off the track scenes are easier to shoot but are less dramatic hence usually fail to go in print.

These set of photographs by Dianne Manson shows elite track cyclists from New Zealand during the Cycling Carnival in Invercargill, off the track. You may find familiar faces including Jesse Sergent, Sam Bewley, Sam Webster, Marc Ryan Myron Simpson, etc. It shows the life of a track cyclist inside the velodrome but off the track. Very few exciting things happen in between races of most track cycling events with the very notable exception of the 6 Days which features booze, boobs, music, and food. So you can just see cyclists chatting with each other, their team mates, photographers, and fans. Others would get a good massage, sleep, exercise in the rollers, analyze their videos, tinker with their bikes, etc. It all is a simple life before mounting in their bikes and heading into battle. Dianne Manson has beautifully captured that in this photo album.