I like Chris Horner. I nearly 100% agree with what he says about reading a race and I like the way that he races normally. I’ve raced and ridden with they guy for a really long time. He is a blue collar rider. I think he loves what he is doing.

That being said, the last couple interviews he’s done with Velonews leave me scratching my head. There are so many statements that don’t really make sense it makes me wonder if maybe they were interviewing him in a foreign language and then translating it back to English. That might explain some of the answers, maybe not.

From what I get out of the articles (training article, spain article), Chris doesn’t think that the Tour of Colorado is hard enough of a race and that he has pretty incredible form, after training for only “3 weeks”, after a 5 month lay off and surgery. I very much doubt the accuracy of that statement.

He goes on to imply that he feels that he can win the Tour of Spain after Utah and possibly will win the race overall. As far as I know, he’s never finished on the podium in a Grand tour.

Man, I don’t much like that talk. I’m not really sure how you get super race form in 3 weeks of training. He’s said that for sure he’ll be in the top 10 of the Tour of Utah, implying better. And that he’s not tired at all from the last two days of racing – 180km, and then 210 km. He must have been training really, really hard.

Like I said above, I like Chris. He’d probably be racing a full cross season if he could do it contractually. He’s always been pretty vocal about predicting his form and where he thinks he is compared to nearly all other riders. But when I hear words like this, it’s always worrisome.

I really hope he has had incredible numbers training and is just euphoric that he is back racing again. That would explain some of the Velonews quotes pretty well. And it would be great if he won Tour of Spain too. It just sounds screwy when he is calling his shots. But, that is how he has always done it.

Chris, Todd Wells and me at Jingle Cross a few years back.

Chris, being the nice guy, pushing Mari Holden up some of the climbs at the Mike Nosco Benefit Ride.

A good friend of mine is back in Topeka helping his family sort through some of the recently deceased brother’s stuff. Ed is from El Segundo California now, but was originally from Topeka. Ed Bauman is pretty much responsible for me racing bikes. He was interested in bicycle a few years before I got into it and worked at the new bike shop that sold European bikes when I was just a young teenager.

Ed was going through his mom’s attic and pulled some old bike stuff that he had stored there out. Most of it isn’t really that old, 1970’s. But he did have a late 1800 bicycle. It’s a Pope from the 1870’s or 80’s. It is really in pretty incredible shape considering.

Anyway, here are some photos of some of the stuff. I have a full basement full of stuff like this, but it is always fun to look at it.

The Pope has its original paint and the frame is pretty rust free.

The seat of the bike is pretty wild.

One of the wood rims is toast, but they are sewups and this is the original tire.

He also brought over his Colnago from the 70’s.

They don’t do this much anymore.

Or this.

Here’s a couple pair of Binda toe straps. They aren’t Binda Extras though.

This is an old Italian water bottle with a 2nd lid for spraying.

Here’s an old poster from the Tour de France.

And a Bike World magazine with Wayne and Dale Stetina on the cover.