A handful of peloton phrases in one picture! (image courtesy of Leopard Trek)
I overheard a conversation between a couple of weekend cyclists a few months ago and one of them said, “I just gave it the full Cancellara and left them in my dust.” Of course, anyone who knows cycling knows that “giving it the full Cancellara” means that you ride with the heart of a lion, leaving everything on the road and, usually, at some point making a move of such audacity that it leaves the kitten-hearted mewing by the roadside as you roar away. An attitude for life, not just cycling, I say.
But that got me thinking about other cyclists’ names becoming a sort of code language for the road-racing obsessed among us. Although being outsprinted might make you want to say “I got Cavved” that makes it sound a bit barnyard – I prefer “I got Zabeled“. Double-teamed and boxed in by two brothers working as one? Well, surely you’ve just been Schlecked. Inexplicably falling off your bike on a clear and open road with nothing in your way? How embarrassing – you’ve just done a Menchov! And if you’re just invincible, well, you’re soooo PhilGil!
But perhaps the scariest thing is when you’re trying to keep up with someone whose greatest joy in life is to lay down the pain at the front of the peloton and you realise, “Oh my God, I’m riding into the Voigt …”
Do you have any cycling-related expressions you would care to share with us? [Or is it only Kitty who needs a visit from the men in white coats? – Ed]
“The weather was appalling and the road was rough. So I just gritted my teeth and cadelled to the top.”
Excellent! Never even thought of that one – cadelled. Like it!
Sheree reminded me yesterday that there’s such a thing as ‘doin’ a McEwen’ – in Robbie’s autobiography he talks about how he got over the mountains in the time limit by getting up to the front just before the peloton hits the bottom of the climb, Then, as he went up the mountain, he’d just slip back slowly. This meant that by the top of the climb, he was in the gruppetto whereas if he was already there at the bottom of the climb, he knew he’d have slipped waaaay back by the summit. He said that Cancellara himself talks about ‘doin’ a McEwen’!