The Handmade Cyclist

NEW ARTWORK FROM WWW.THEHANDMADECYCLIST.COM 

CONVICTS OF THE ROAD (PRISONERS OF LE TOUR)

If you could look inside the mind of a Paris-Roubaix competitor, what would you see?

A rider obsessed, perhaps, with their whole mind focussed on the ordeal ahead. Simultaneously dreaming of glory whilst all too aware of the trials they are set to face, and all the while hoping for the luck that even the greatest rider needs to conquer the greatest one-day classic of them all.

This art print draws inspiration from the Victorian psuedo-science on Phrenology, mapping the function of the different parts of the brain. The rider dreams of the iconic elements of Roubaix - the concrete showers of the velodrome, the cobbled trophy, the dread of rain and fear of punctures - while drawing on symbols for luck: the four-leaved clover, the upside-down 13 and the luckiest dossard of them all, number 51.

They don't sell unique prints, ceramics and tees for the design-savvy cyclist in Tesco, so there's no need to get up at 5am to elbow a granny.

2015: Wiggins 

Once the UCI relaxed their draconian rules and allowed riders to use modern bikes and technology to once again attack The Hour record. Wiggins, one of the greatest riders of his generation, was widely anticipated to be the rider to set a new, unbeatable limit.

1996: Boardman 

Following an astonishing three year period in which The Hour Record was broken seven times by four different riders, the Chris Boardman - Graeme Obree rivalry reached its zenith. Boardman shattered the record using the latest innovative ‘superman’ riding position created by Obree and riding a Lotus carbon-fibre superbike, setting a mark of over 56 kilometres that stands to this day as the ultimate hour.

The UCI was scandalised and banned both the new position and the new record, vowing that never again would technology dominate the record to such an extent. New rules were created, and all future attempts would be limited to the type of equipment used by Merckx in 1972. Not to be outdone, Boardman returned to break the ‘Athlete’s Hour’ in 2000, in one of the most astonishing rides of the modern era.

1994: Obree 

In the early ’90’s The Hour was swapped between two Britons - Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman. Echoing the middle-distance battles of Coe and Ovett on the running track, Obree and Boardman were easy to caricature. Both innovators, Obree was the maverick thinker who built his own bikes, Boardman the scientist backed by a crack laboratory team.

In 1993 Obree shocked the cycling world by smashing the hour record on a home-made bike, using a revolutionary tucked riding position. Boardman swiftly broke the record, on a ‘standard’ low-profile bike. But then, in 1994, Obree returned, setting a new record. The UCI, cycling’s governing body, swiftly intervened, and Obree’s new position was banned, and his record relegated to a footnote in history.

Not to be beaten, Obree designed a new, stretched out ‘superman’ position - but it was Boardman who would use this latest innovation to set the greatest Hour Record of them all.

1984: Moser 

The leading time-trial athlete of his generation, set a new record taking the limit past 50 kilometres for the first time. But his ride was (and still remains) controversial. He embraced new technology and medical techniques riding with a low profile bike, bullhorn bars, a skinsuit, aerodynamic helmet, disk wheel and assistance from two Italian doctors - Conconi and Ferrari, who used (then) legal blood transfusions to prepare Moser.

Merckx was incensed, feeling that technology, not rider, had broken his 1972 record. But the die was cast, and a new era of innovation had begun.