The Badger and the Cannibal

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What does Eddy Merckx and Tom Oliver have in common? They both climbed Mount Ventoux...We write so much about Tom's son Austin who just happens to be racing at the Nationals this weekend for Juniors, what about his dad?

Tom wore his Cullman Cycling kit with honor as he crossed the summit of Mount Ventoux. He was in France part of the Trek Tour de France Experience, from what I understand the riders ride the stages before the actual Tour de France professional race. What a great concept and I am sure experience.

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Sometimes we forget about who's behind the scenes working hard making things work for someone else (Austin's dad) my hats off to Tom Oliver....Job well done!

De Rosa Project

A few years ago when I first got into bicycle racing I began searching for the ultimate road racing frame set. My mentor Jacques told me that whenever in Europe I must go see the "House of De Rosa". Ugo De Rosa had hand built bicycles for Eddy Merckx and was considered the master and a true artist of hand built bicycles.

I was traveling on a cycling/camping trip in Europe soon after and I ventured to the House of De Rosa in outside Milan, Italy. What was interesting at the time, De Rosa was still working out of their original factory which was located at their farm outside Milan. As usual I was totally lost when I got to Milan and after a day of wrangling with Italian, English and French I found the proper road to their home and shop. The thing I will never forget was wandering through the country side and seeing pink roses beautifully painted on a mail box and post. That's when I knew I had reached my destination. The De Rosa family lived on a small farm north of Milan and their shop was actually in a converted barn behind the main house.

On another post I will get deeper in to DeRosa, but I was amazed how easy it was to just walk into their factory and home. Much of what Jacques educated me on started making sense about their passion of building bicycles. The whole family was involved in every aspect of the company. They lived, breathed, ate, drank, building the finest handbuilt bicycles. They were great hosts and welcomed me like I was the most important person to come visit them. Ugo's son Christano spoke good English and explained how they loved seeing cyclists and especially Americans, and rarely did they have visitors which amazed me.

Ugo did most of the talking with Christano translating. He educated me on the differences of their frames, never knocking a competitor but just stating why they did certain things. An example was the use of nickel versus brass on brazing. De Rosas are known for their smooth welds and perfect lines. Each bike is inspected by Ugo himself before it leaves the factory.

The whole experience was incredible and one of those things in life which cost nothing but you were educated and experienced something that you could not put a price tag on. Of course I left the factory with my wallet a little lighter. I was measured and had a custom De Rosa Professional built. With their building to such perfection they were of course six weeks behind on building frames, so my frame arrived in the USA two months after my visit.

Below are some before and after pictures of a De Rosa I am currently restoring. The bike originally was a green and white two tone which was common for the bikes, I decided to paint it Molteni orange like the Merckx frames. I am going to restore it with Campagnolo Super Record which would be the correct vintage for the age of the frame. We are fortunate to have a great painter here in town who did a fantastic job. I bought the decals and he did a great job of clear coating them after painting the frame.


The before shot showing the fading green and white, not bad considering the frame is 20 years old. The tubing is Columbus steel, but not SLX. Many of the bikes of that vintage were SL/SP combination which provided superior strength to weight ratio.

The after shot, sporting Molteni orange and vintage decals. The frame spaced 126mm which identifies the age and the fact it was built for probably 6 speed. Note the "Beefy T" fork a De Rosa design trademark.

I will try to post some pictures as the bike comes together. I am trying to keep it as vintage correct as possible.

Skyball (X3)

Memorial Day in the blistering humid heat, nine bikers set out for a triple assault on Skyball Mountain. There were several rides done locally but most of the local cycling scene decided to stay away from this ride.

The tempo from the go was a little fast thanks to Austin, who's in the middle of training block preparing for a stage race next weekend. James Hall and Chris Rossi fell right in with Austin so for the rest of us it was going to be a long day.

We rode down Highway 31, and turned on "Racehorse Johnson Parkway" one of the most beautiful roads to cycle on in Alabama. RJP heads toward Skyball Mountain and is the road used in the Tour de Cullman. The road unfortunately rolls up.

We turned off RJP and began the first climb up the mountain. The road just seems to go up into the sky and actually is one of the steeper grades on the mountain. We all survived that pretty well and of course Austin and James disappeared over the horizon.

Recovering from the first climb, the second part of the ascent which is about a mile straight up takes you over the mountain and down the back side into the town of Nectar. With one climb of Skyball done its time to do the second assault.

From Nectar we back tracked to Joy road and began the second ascent of Skyball using the now famous climb used in the Tour de Cullman. I think we all felt this climb and had some nice thigh busting action as we ascended over the twisting one lane road that gets harder as you get closer to the top. This version of the climb is the longest which is 4 miles.

Just when we were all about pop you somehow make it to the top for the completion of the second ascent. We then back tracked and reversed back down the mountain to begin the final climb, number 3. We reversed what we had just done and climbed back up the mountain on the back side.

This was the roughest part of the whole day and the climb went slowly. I was struggling but moving forward and for some nice motivation, could hear the rumble in the background of some violent weather on the way.We all made it to the top for the third time and regrouped for our ride back to Hanceville. I think for everyone it was a lot of fun but also some really brutal climbing and a great challenge.

The photo above shows Billy Faulk in the CCC kit, he was very generous and not only did the ride but provided support and refreshments on top of Skyball.

We reversed our ride out and returned on RJP and Highway 31. About the time we hit Garden City it started pouring down rain and lightning. The only thing close to enjoyable was the 40 mph tail wind we had as we hammered up 31. It got a little more fun with the bolts of lightning were hitting all around and you could see about 6 inches in front yourself.

Mr. Faulk showed his generosity again by providing us with some nice refreshments and a cookout at his house in town.


Some decals were made for the survivors of the epic ride. There will be a few more that attempt and survive the triple assault so we have a badge waiting for them.

Skyball Triple Assault: A Mans Ride

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Eddy wont be with us Monday but it will probably be a similar effort to chasing the King over 80K of mountain passes or bergs laden with pave.

We are riding from Wallace State (front parking lot) at 2:00. Hopefully we will have a few surprises and some refreshments on top when we finished. Going to be fun!

Eddy the phantom blogger could be there since no one knows who he is.

Club des Cingles du Mont-Skyball

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There have been many ascents of this fabled mountain as we now approach 15 Tours de Cullman. Never have we indulged in the personal suffering that precedes acceptance into the elite club of climbing Mt. Skyball three times in one day...until now. This Memorial Day we thought we’d better get some cyclists from the "team" into a rather exclusive club of climbers.

The Club for Crazies

Our new club will be modeled similar to the one of Mont Ventoux. There are many similarities between the two mountains such as the three approaches to the summit. Great races have been won and lost on the slopes of the Skyball just like Ventoux.

The Club des Cinglés du Mont-Ventoux, to use its French title, was started in 1988 by Christian Pic and has over 2,100 members: just over half are French, followed by Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and the US. Joining the club is simple: climb to the summit of Mont Ventoux three times in one day, once by each of its three access roads.

On paper the membership route looks tough. It’s not the 100 kilometres that’s the problem – it’s the fact that half of this is climbing. The classic route from Chamblees Mill is 21 kilometres at an average of 7.5%, from Nectar the same, and the third ascent is 26 kilometres at a merciful 4.7%. Skyball is 1,912 at its summit and the vertical distance for each route is 1,610, 1,570 and 1,220 respectively for a total of 4,400 of climbing over 68 kilometres. Cinglé in French means ‘crazy’ and has the synonym fou, ‘mad’. The Club des Cinglés du Mont-Skyball is literally a club for mad crazies.

2010? Next year we can take it to the next level of the club and do three plus a fourth ascent utilizing an unpaved logging road, and get a pin to wear on your jersey. Maybe we will do like Ventoux and some crazy can try to set a 24 hour record for attempts.

More details soon.

Cullman Cycling

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Since the last post I thought I better get back to cycling. For some reason when you post a picture of a female and mix in cycling I have to delete a bunch of comments posted by readers. Its all fun, sometimes you wonder what the Blog is about anyway.

I selected a few pictures from the past week or two.


This picture is called "Pain Locker"...for obvious reasons. It was taken at the Cullman Spring Classic with Austin and Country Al laying down the law. I wondered if CA would really work for Austin or if it came down to it he would drop the hammer on his own team mate.

You know we like to poke at SuperDave but I have to admit hes been riding better than I have ever seen him. I would like to say he was sucking some wheel etc., but it more accurate to say he was hammering with two very strong riders. Even though they were dropped from the lead group they blew away what was left of the peleton. The white jersey is James Hall of Team Smith Lock who had a team mate in the break and in the CSC kit ubermaster Chris Rossi.

One of our road marshalls was none other than Bill St. John. Pretty sweet ride! Bill hosts the CSC and as always, a very premier event.

The pictures below are from a training ride we did this past week. This goes back to how you meet the most interesting people through cycling. We had a couple of guests so where do you take them? Skyball Mountain. Hopefully these guys will be back for the Tour de Cullman this fall. They got a little primer this week.

Warren St. John was in from New York for a tour with his new book (somehow he escaped without me getting a signed copy). Chris Ullrich was in from California for the upcoming AMA SuperBike races at Barbers Motorsports Park. Both these guys ride very strong.

On the foothills of the famous climb. They didn't get to see it all but climbed to the top of Skyball Mountain.

Almost to the top enjoying the nice weather and calling for the team car. I think we lost a rider along the way.

European Update Please!

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Leading up to and during the Cullman Spring Classic this year one of the more mysterious and famous Cullman Cycling Blog readers was in Europe. I remember during the Classic commenting to a fellow rider about getting a text message from Paris. I was getting text messages wanting an update on how the race was shaping up and my current position.

Modern technology is amazing sometimes. I remember back in the early 80's following Paris-Roubaix or the Tour de France and there were no live feeds or anything resembling that. We would read results in USA Today or the NY Times two weeks after the race if we were lucky.

Now there is such a huge controversy from the old pros about "Race Radio", which there was never in the day. The best review I read recently was from an old pro and whether they should allow them in pro cycling. He said the use of them was 50% yes and 50%no. Strategy with them doesn't always seem fair but it seems overwhelmingly important to use them now because of safety.

"Give me an update....please!" Runonce trying to be patient at a Paris train station.

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Definitely a mistake to discuss cycling with an Italian. Seems to be a disagreement over a triple versus a compact crank set.