mean and cruel

treat me like a fool.

when the peloton eats up a breakaway of hard fighting young riders digging for gold, it kills me a little.

its mean and its cruel. its brutal. i love it.

velo melankolia

this is where it all began.

the classics.

cycling-at-large.

liègè. liègè. liègè.

sun in my eyes

'i had the sun in my eyes' he explained

being asked why he didnt get into the breakaway made him feel like back in school in suburban bilbao.

'toot toot toooot'

from the background, i could hear the sound of a man playing trumpet with his lips. it sounded like some sort of jazz to me.

good to see you!

'hey jakob, good to see you!' he yelled when he arrived in murcia.

i could hear the autofocus on my canon going back and forth, as if it was searching for someone or something to aim at.

on my left, the attaché de presse made sure that nobody did what they were not explicitly told to do.

hillside audience I

hillside audience II

even in spain they come. silently rollin' in, in their campers. they love tom boonen. i love them. the belgians.


two good looking men, partially protected from the burning sun. 36 degrees celsius. spain on a monday.


'hey, the riders are a commin'!'


road side bar. cuba libre. cold beers and 3 men.

my partner in crime

ladies'n'gentlemen. lemme introduce to yall! monsieur okbo. also called monsieur okbobo. tjahbombom.

why you are always around?

damiano asked me with a smile on his pretty face.

'this is what i do' i told him

he shook my hand.

'but' i followed 'why are you always around, mr. pretty locks?'

'i dont know man' he said, now with sort of an empty look in his eyes.

immediately he drove away to his team-bus.

hi speed la vuelta

after etapa 10 of la vuelta 09 i met up with jakob fuglsang at the saxo bus.

'hombre, that was a close one' i said to him.

'you cant imagine how hard it is jakob' he said, and drove away to the hotel on his bike. he didnt even bother to go on the bus.

its so easy

certainly a drink or two makes me think. it even makes me reflect actually. this is what all the photographers are travelling 3.500 km. to get. and its so easy to capture - im telling you the truth here - that i dont even bother. today in la vuelta i got captured behind a line and was not allowed to move from there. my mistake. then i thought that maybe i should get the most from the situation. this is what it left me with.

its not fair

and its really not ok

go baby go

vuelta a espana

saying goodbye this morning wasn't the hardest part of the day. the heat was unbearable. and so was the smell of dead animals and burning rubber.

lil devil

wondering.

whos shoulder is this lil devil's sittin' at this year?

annecy tt noir

save the last lance for me

this will be the last in my series of lance stretching out legs in annecy.

even looking this serious and focused, he was still able to smile.

maybe he knew something that i did not. i tend not to think so.

darklance

'strike a pose' i told him

'strike that pose, man' i repeated. he did 3 or 4 i remember. he looked very unhappy, when i told him that i had to go. there where other riders waiting.

schleckcentration

tt annecy, le tour 2009

finding friends

'iss funny' he told me in broken english. 'even you can find a new friend insis circus' he continued with a light voice. 'nobody would even sink about it! really! finding a friend while going up the ventoux' he insisted like he was questioning his own words.

col du petit saint-bernard, le tour 2009

some of us drive up in cars. some ride bikes. to the summit.

a bunch of bikes at the top of a mountain.

spectators waiting for the riders at the summit.

quite a few spend 2 nights in their camper, before the riders pass their eyes in a split second.

am kraftwerk

i share a sincere interest with these 4 guys from düsseldorf, deutschland.

riders of the peloton

happy hincapie!

cirque

ill give you the greatest show on earth! le tour de france - a moving city. a media giant moving across continental europe. 'allez le tour!' they scream out of the car windows, when we hazardously rumble down from the mountains in a police protected media convoy.

waiting in paris

astana fan waiting for a few chosen favorite riders. champs elysee, paris.

jens before the crash

enjoying the struggle of petit saint-bernard in a friendly setup. andy, fränk and jens. with lance on their wheels. seconds later jens was down.

dance lance

before the tt in annecy - lance stretching out his legs of fire!

skil shimano at a top

at a glance

tour of denmark - final stage

contador in annecy

'when i beat them, they will know!' he whispered slowly to himself again and again.

on the move

before they started their trip against the clock - contre le montre - they cracked a few jokes. lance, fränk and andy. realising that i underestimated their sense of humour, i shook their hands and told them to concentrate on the race instead. one by one they left on bikes.

euskatel tt

fränk machina