A picture of Gino Sciardis from 1949 Tour de France. It offers a glimpse of the toughness of the men who raced bike in the pre-doping era. Them calves powering the bike are stronger than a piece of rock. Incredible!
Good old times when real men and raw talent reigned TdF – Image Source: Imgur via Reddit
Comparing the speedsters
A pit stop at the Autrodomo Nazionale of Monza (Italy), during the 2004 Italian Grand Prix, September 12, 2004. The team’s pit crew is refuelling the car and changing tires.
So, how long does it take you/your mechanic at the tire shop to change the tires? Can you get it done in 2.31 secs? I hear you laughing but that’s exactly what it took for a Formula1 team to change all its tires. BBC offers a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes in preparation towards achieving such stellar times. For the record, McLaren is the team that recorded the world’s fastest Formula 1 pit stop during the German Grand Prix in July this year, with a stationary time of 2.31 seconds, while they changed Jenson Button‘s tyres. That’s as much as it takes for me to turn my head at times.
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Earlier today, a Redditor (iamstandingbehindyou) first posted this picture shown below of MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner. The way this rider was captured made a lot of folks wonder if it is photoshopped or a real one. Looking at the banking angle, one would assume that either the rider & the bike are already in the process of biting the dust or have to conclude that it is no way a real one.
Image Courtesy: Sharonov.Tumblr.com via Reddit
Later in the day, another Redditor (unfknreal) posted the Red Bull Moments video below which confirmed that it is NOT a silly photoshop but a very real and legendary live performance caught on camera. Sheer poetry in motion caught on camera and the 1000fps slow motion reveals the beuaty of that split second action in all its glory! Just look at that sheer talent! I had goose bumps just watching it on video. I think this is what legends are made of – delivering such virtuoso performance as part of their everyday business. For a guy who has been riding bikes since he was 4 years old, it shows how much talent he has handling a screaming monster on the race track. Casey Stoner = LEGEND. Respect!
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My heart skipped a beat watching this video. Let’s leave it at that. The details from MotoJournal about this video: EXTREME, 258 KM/H ON ICE: Porsche GT3RS, Mitsubishi Evo 9 face to Yamaha R1 and WRF 450 in Lapland by minus 20 degrees on the replica (scale one) of the legendary track of Le Castellet. Who will win? Don’t miss “Ice Age 5” on the 27th of March! Now, I can’t wait till March 27 to catch the whole craziness.
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(Source: Open.NASA)
What an amazing and inspiring project by the Brits! The Bloodhound Supersonic Car project is currently underway in UK and its primary objective (as stated in the project website) is to inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science, engineering, technology and maths – by demonstrating how they can be harnessed to achieve the seemingly impossible by building a car that is 12.8 meters long, weighs 6.4 tons, and cruises on high grade aluminum wheels and reach 0–>1050mph in 40 secs on land. Whew!!! Below is an extract from Open.NASA blog. Wishing the project team all the very best in their mission to notch a new land speed record.
Image Courtesy: Bloodhound SSC
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From zero to 1,050 miles per hour, the team behind the Bloodhound SuperSonic Car is taking the everyone along for the ride on their engineering adventure to break the world land speed record in 2013. The project is a huge challenge that will produce untold technology spin-offs and aims to inspire the next generation of engineers around the world through openness and engagement.
Project Director Richard Noble and his team are building a car that will go zero to 1,050 miles per hour (mph) in 40 seconds. Named after Britain’s 1950s Bloodhound Missile Project, the Bloodhound Supersonic Car (SSC) car is 12.8 meters long, weighs 6.4 tons, and cruises on high grade aluminum wheels, which will experience radial stresses of up to 50,000 times the force of gravity at full speed.
The project is risky, dangerous, and unprecedented. Focused on building the safest car possible, Noble’s Bloodhound team intends to overthrow the current FIA World Land Speed Record by 30 percent. “It’s such a huge leap, of course we’re going to get into trouble,” said Noble. “We’re going to learn an awful lot as we develop it.”
(Source: Hell For Leather)
As a former devil who rode on two wheels, this video makes me gasp for air. The balance and control required to pull off the moves with this degree of difficulty by French stunt ace Jorian Ponomareff is simply breathtaking. This video has all the ingredients to make it go viral (it has already registered a 445K hits on YouTube – incredibly beautiful slow motion camera work, nice music and a lot of extreme motoring talent. Add to the mix a smattering of French (heard in the making of the stunt) and a beautiful blonde girl strutting her style with a pair of jean shorts – now you have everything to make this a compelling video! If you still find a few minutes, check out other stunt videos on Jorian’s Facebook page.
(Source: Reuters via Guardian)
You thought cycling in the city streets was brutal? Wait till you see what these elite athletes on controlled racing environments like Tour de France face. Here are a couple of pictures showing what the athletes face on the road. Apparently, the incident was triggered by an errant media vehicle covering, knocking one of the riders and leading to this massive crash (See video at the end of the article). These images give you an idea of how dangerous a ride (apart from the energy sapping, grueling effort to finish each stage) it is for these guys to win the crown of cycling world and what they endure on the course flying at 60kmph. Despite the injuries, the brave biker shown here tangled in the fence, Johnny Hoogerland, managed to finish the stage before taken to hospital for further treatment. Click here to view the rest of the image gallery covering the horrific crashes from the race.
Driver of a French TV vehicle caused this incident during stage 9. Not only did his wild overtaking manoeuvre skittle rider Johnny Hoogerland, but it left Spain's Juan Antonio Flecha on the deck with his bike in pieces
Tour de France rider Johnny Hoogerland tries to free himself from a barb wire fence after he got thrown off his bicycle by a media vehicle during Stage 9
(Source: YouTube Via Jalopnik)
Jalopnik reports that this funny accident happened this weekend during the fourth stop on the 2011 French Road Racing Cup Promosport, a formula series for amateur riders at Magny-Cours. The good thing is that both riders escaped serious injury from the fall and even better did not get run over by the other speeding bikes still flying on the track.
