Historically, ‘The Hell of the North’ was not referring to the sheer pain and torment the cyclists of the Paris-Roubaix must endure to complete the 275km race. It was a newspaper caption describing the landscape when the race was resumed after WW1—charred forests, open sewers—a completely decimated and blackened horizon.

Run your fingers through the topsoil in that region of Northern France and you are likely to find shrapnel and splintered bones. The race has been shaped by history, and as I discovered so too was Johan Museeuw’s brush with fate in the Forest of Arenberg.

The only way to define Museeuw’s true ‘North’ was to meet him in the ancient forest. From there the trajectory of the back story was formed, and thus began the filming process.
- Nick Livesey

The guys from LimitedHype.com recently got into the Trek USA facility and let loose with their camera, capturing some of what goes on in the development of TREK bikes.

Unfortunately there’s no article to go with them but there are a load of photos up on LimitedHype’s Flickr page.

If you like design, colour, carbon, road bikes or are a Lance Armstrong fanboy (or fanGirl) then its worth a look.

Check the feature HERE

I’m not sure if this is old news or not but James Bowthorpe has just completed a mammoth circumnavigation of the globe, on a bike! Mental? Yes, but for a good cause; James’ trip raised 1.8 million pounds for Parkinsons research.
The Stats: 18,000 miles, 150 days, and going from 120 to 150 miles a day unsupported, oh yeah and he beat the previous record by four weeks!

James posing somewhere in the South Island

Checkout James’ website http://www.globecycle.org/,
Blog: http://www.globecycle.org/blog/ (some great stories of his travels in here)
and Geotagged photos (including some from NZ): http://whereintheworldisjames.com/

The big story so far has been Mark Cavendish; when it comes down to a sprint no-one seems to be able to get near him.  What makes this even more confusing is that despite the fact he’s been dominating in the last couple of stages he’s waaaay down at #142 in general classification because he had an average day on the first stage.

Being able to perform brain surgery could come in handy when working out how the results work. No simple gold,  silver and bronze system here. There’s sprint aces, hill climbers, and most aggressive rider jerseys, plus the race itself is a bit like a chess game with riders being moved to certain spots around the peloton. How anyone can watch this stuff on TV in the early hours of the morning and understand what’s going on is a mystery to me.

Standings here.

Here’s some pictures of Cav’s bike: ugly or cool? Your thoughts readers.

Or these very cool visual diary entries from the road.