Cycotherapy News Roundup: Headlines in cycling news, adventure, sumo and memes on Sepp
All in one odd Friday newsletter
Hello everyone.
Welcome to Friday. It’s been a full week here at Cycotherapy HQ. Lots of local news to report, events to cover, sources to track down, calls to make, stories to write. It feels like I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath. And next week is shaping up to be even busier.
In all the hectic bustle, I haven’t had a chance to ride a bike. That changes here in a few minutes, when I’ll catch up with a buddy to ride for a solid few hours. Looking forward to it.
I hope your weeks are going well, and that you’re able to get some saddle time. In the meantime, read some of the internet’s best headlines for news in cycling and adventure and sumo (wait, what?!) and moped policy. :)
Happy riding and reading.
headlines
Testing bikepacking rigs for science
Mahalo My Dude put together an entertaining experiment with this one. Which rigs — a trail bike, gravel bike or downhill bike — performs the best during a bikepacking trip? The results aren’t super surprising. But still pretty entertaining.
Speaking of bikepacking …
Australian rider Lachlan Morton finished the 2,670-mile Tour Divide Route in 12 days, 12 hours and 21 minutes — on a Canondale Scalpel. He would have broken the record had he traveled without a camera crew. (The record is with Mike Hall’s 2016 time of 13 days, 22 hours and 51 minutes.) His gear choices just reinforces the idea that you can use any bike for any trip.
Nathan van Hooydonck in a car accident
Jumbo Visma’s Nathan van Hooydonck got in a car accident earlier this week. Initial reports indicated he was in critical condition, yet the cycling team could not verify this. In a statement, the team said the 27 year-old cyclist was undergoing further medical examinations in an unspecified hospital “where he is receiving good medical care.”
A response to the moped crisis
A couple weeks ago I highlighted some coverage on the moped crisis happening in NYC. This week, there is some follow-up coverage of Open Plans’ policy statement as a response, along with tips and recommendations. Journalism is cool.
Sepp-sessed
Here’s a roundup of some of the best memes on the internet poking fun at the Sepp Kuss Vuelta controversy thing. It’s ridiculous. But so is the hysteria over whether Kuss’ teammates should have taken the lead away from him and if they should “let him win.”
feature of the week
Jackson Wald takes us into the sport of sumo in this piece for GQ Sports by hanging out with James Grammer, the leader of a sumo club in New York City.
To a novice viewer, sumo seems like a very simple sport. Two competitors enter a ring and push each other hard. One falls over, the other celebrates their victory, and then two new people come into the ring and do the same thing all over again. The whole thing takes about ten seconds. On the level of technique and strategy, of course, it’s more complicated than that: each sumo wrestler is different—from their size to their game plan—and merely trying to brute-force your opponent out of the ring will often lead to a swift defeat. Instead, sumo wrestlers, like those in the Beya, look for any micro-edge or advantage (from utilizing leg-holds to finding ways to heighten their spatial awareness) that might lead them to victory.
But in its home country of Japan, at least, sumo is also so steeped with ritual, history, honor, and glory that it becomes impossible to separate physical action from societal significance. In the centuries since the rumored first bout, in 23 B.C., sumo became a cultural phenomenon, regularly performed at festival celebrations, Shinto shrines, and eventually as entertainment at the Emperor’s courts. It was only during the Edo period in Japan that the modern form of the game took shape, and the wrestlers grew into large men with even larger celebrities.
book excerpt of the week
Two days after Quoyle’s spill, Billy Pretty grinning into the newsroom in the afternoon, an old leather flying helmet on his head, the straps swinging, wearing his wool jacket in grey and black squares, face the color of fog.
“They got your drowned man, Quoyle, Search and Rescue got him out of the cave. But he was a bit of a disappointment.” Taking a scrap of paper from his pocket, unfolding it. “And it’s a page-one story which I’ve worked out in my head on the way over here. Should have been your story, proper thing, but I’ve wrote it up already. That was a survival suit he was floating in. Carried up to the ovens by the currents. There was a fellow from No Name Cove washed up in there years ago.”
“What do you mean, he was a disappointment?”
“They couldn’t tell who he was. At first. Bit of a problem.”
“Well, don’t plague us, Billy Pretty. What?” Tert Card roaring away.
“No head.”
“The suitcase?” said Quoyle stupidly. “The head in the suitcase? Mr. Melville?”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Melville of the suitcase. They think. The Mounties and the Coast Guard is howling like wolves at the moon right this minute. Burning up the telephone wires to the States, bulletins and alarms. But probably come to nothing. They said it looks like the body was put in the suit after the head was cut off.
“How do they know?” Tert Card.
“Because the body was inserted in five pieces. Divided up like a pie, he was.”
Billy Pretty at his computer pounding out the sentences.
MISSING BODY OF MAN FOUND
GRUESOME DISCOVERY IN OVENS
E. Annie Proulx — The Shipping News
quote of the week
“End of the day, the debate about whether Roglič or Vingegaard should win the Vuelta GC rather than Kuss comes down to whether one thinks that, in sport, winning is the only thing that matters versus how one views concepts like sportsmanship, reward, and loyalty.” —Neal Rogers
The Shipping News! One of my all time favorites. It held up strongly when I re-read it last year.