I was off yesterday so I hope you’ll forgive the 24-hour delay.
This past week at Cyclist, we compiled a gallery of the National Hill Climb Championships. Taking place at The Old Shoe in Wales, it was unsurprisingly dominated by Everesting World Record Holder Illi Gardner and featured a roadside panda. Plus there’s a tech gallery too.
On the subject of pandas, I interviewed Dan Martin on his new book Chased by Pandas, learning from his worst seasons and being told he’s ‘difficult to work with’.
Emma powerfully took on the Col du Granon as Will reviewed the Forme Calver Pro too.
Now let’s get into another Extremely Online Round-up!
Throwback Taco
My life has two stages. Watching the Tour de France and then reminiscing about the Tour de France until the next edition of the race rolls around.
I love Alpe d’Huez, its famed history intertwined with the legacy of so many riders. Everyone who makes its way up the punishing slopes has their own story to tell and, uniquely, can feature being given some sort of alcoholic beveragino by fans on the roadside.
Just like Intermaché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux’s Taco van der Hoorn during Stage 12, won by Tom Pidcock.
Play to your audience
Some background: Whenever Liverpool decide to win a football match, I tweet a meme containing Adam Lallana. The dog in this image became a meme through the text ‘god I bloody love the Reds, woof.’
After tweeting ‘GOD I LOVE CYCLING’ during the montage for the Tour de France Hommes and Tour de France Femmes route presentations, the Human Powered Health admin quickly hopped on Photoshop to deliver some niche content.
It’s the addition of the bike wheel that gets me.
They later contributed to a Halloween meme of Photoshopping potential outfit ideas onto a costume bag.
This one focusses on Mieke Kröger, a fan favourite on Twitter whose name generates multiple responses of just ‘Mieke Kröger’ from other users.
Mieke Kröger.
Bring back Vine?
Before the video app TikTok that now has a chokehold on so many of the younger generation, there was Vine.
The premise of Vine was simple. Users could upload six second videos (perfect for attention spans) and many exploded into shaping meme culture today.
A personal favourite that I still reference? ‘Road work ahead? Uh yeah, I sure hope it does.’
Anyway, Elon Musk’s tweet about bringing back Vine after acquiring Twitter for $44billion prompted hundreds of responses and quote tweets, like the one above from killow_ who used the opportunity to reference Jay Vine.
[chef’s kiss]
Special shoutout: If you can see it, you can achieve it
The importance of representation summed up in one photograph taken by Adam Hoff.
I think we should have more riding in colourful tutus.
See you next week!