Het Begint!

by Whit

I’ll never forget the day. Spring 1995. Driving south on route 309 having just left the local Performance Bicycle, the only place near me that sold Velonews. This was still the time when Velonews read more like a newspaper than a magazine. Big sheets of newsprint; ink marks on your fingers. Pearl Jam blaring from my Sony Discman, I looked over to quickly scan the cover. “Ballerini Wins Het Volk.” The headline might have been something different; it probably made mention of “the North” or used a pun to indicate the weather or the terrain. But the gist was the...Continue Reading

The Project – Introduction

by Whit

James from Ride Lugged introduced me to a project he and some like-minded friends started a few years ago. The goal: to record and catalog the “rideable” (use this term flexibly) dirt roads in PA and MD. They started with roads in and around State College, PA and Frederick, MD, but they hope to expand the project in an area near you. You can find their results at Dirtdata.org. I’m sure James would appreciate any additions you might care to make. He’s color-coded his maps according to surface type.After tooling around on James’ site, I started thinking: what if the same...Continue Reading

Inspiration…

by Whit

This site is something I’ve been subconsciously planning for quite some time. Sites like Belgium Knee Warmers, Embrocation, the Rapha Continental, and Ride Lugged have helped put me back in touch with everything I came to love about the sport of cycling. In particular, they have rekindled my fondness for the traditional, the old school, the provincial. And I can think of no better expression of these ideals than the cobblestone.Known by many different names in many different places, the cobblestone represents all that we cyclists hold dear: simplicity, endurance, suffering, and tradition. It is the quintessential symbol of victory in...Continue Reading