Philly Bike Expo

Taylor Kuyk-White (and Aryeh’s) post Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic stage 5 interview by dirtwire.tv. I’m already a bike racer! #startemyoung

A day for remembering those who left before their time and the ones they left behind.

Wow, what a week! Yesterday wrapped up 5 stages of the @tsepicmtb for @shrimpmofongojaberdasheryThis was Taylor’s first race in 75+ weeks. Two first place finishes, two third and third overall in the GC! Really amazing to witness her strength, determination and grit. And speaking of grit...the entire PBE Elite Women’s Road team will be dabbling in gravel next weekend. Watch for us at @rothrockgrit! So looking forward to a fantastic season of racing with this incredible team . yours truly (and if you haven’t checked out @bruce_buckley and @dirtwiretv for their photo and video coverage...you need to! #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021 #pbeelitewomen

Woah! Check out this awesome gift that PBE Squad member @mikocue received from his brother, @flowquacious! Custom painted cycling shoes to match his PBE kit. Swipe for the before pic. Maybe we can convince him to start taking orders! #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021 #pbesquad

Handmade bronze brazed mountain bike lugset by one of this year’s PBE x SRAM Inclusivity Scholarship recipients, Relstone Cycles. Lugged road bikes from the 80s & 90s have always been my favorites. I try to bring that same style to my mountain bike designs with modern geometries and components. Sometimes you just have to make your own lugs. #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021

Tonight!! 7PM. FREE! Your registration enters you for a PBE prize pack!

Stars of Flanders The Tour of Flanders, considered a form of religious experience to the Flemish-speaking northern Belgians, their high mass of cycling, is so ...important to the Deceuninck-Quickstep team that they hold a televised media event to announce their rider selection. The team’s World Champion, Julian Alaphilippe, has been asking to ride the race ever since they plucked him away from the French Army team, the one that gave him an out from his humble beginnings, choosing him above all for his cyclocross experience, but for the past six years he’s received a firm no from team boss Patrick Levevere; they had Belgians aplenty for the race and the Frenchman was needed for the hilly races, the ones more suited to his build and background. What a difference the Rainbow Jersey makes for a career. Alaphilippe’s sparkling outing at the Fléche Brabançonne, where he went head to head with Mathieu van der Poel on the steep and cobbled Flander’s type bergs (climbs) beating him for the win, was a confidence builder for both Alaphilippe and his team, and has put him into the status of an outsider for victory at today’s Ronde (van Vlaanderen or Flanders). We’ll all have to see what tactics they adopt, they’re all monsters of the pave on that team, but count on Dries Devenyns to be at the Frenchman’s side the entire day with Kaper Asgreen who was second at the Ronde two years ago and Zdenk Štybar, the Czech cross-man, providing tactical counterpoints for the home team. Alaphilippe has won the Strade Bianche, the Flèche Wallonne, Milano-Sanremo and the World Championships, just to mention his major one-day successes. The power-based Ronde could prove to be beyond what his light build can produce, but watching his attempt will make this race that much more enjoyable for us all. There aren’t many more flowers we can toss Wout van Aert’s way, the Belgian’s astounding performances these past two years have us all reaching for superlatives and he is accordingly the heavy favorite for today’s race. I do wonder about his ability to handle this stardom, however, and worry that he’s developing that dreaded malady, the one the Belgians term: dik nek (spelling perhaps off) or thick neck, what we call a swelled head. There was a moment in a post-Tour race where van Aert’s team was massing at the front and Aussie Michael Matthews, a Tour de France Green Jersey winner it needs to be pointed out, began to move into the line. Van Aert grabbed him by the jersey and threw him off to the side. He wouldn’t have done that to Alaphilippe, I can assure you, the Frenchman would have started a war on the spot and with big Tim Declercq in the house, it would have been over quickly. Van Aert’s petulant complaints about Mathieu van der Poel after the Dutchman’s marking of him at Gent-Wevelgem were unflattering to the Belgian, a situation that van der Poel handled with aplomb. Cycling is the most unfair sport in the world. The stronger you become, the more difficult it is to win as the peloton gathers, like jackals around a lion, combing forces to bring down a stronger prey. We saw this at the Tour when Alaphilippe couldn’t get anyone to work with him in the breakways: they didn’t because he was sure to beat them in the end, so better to neutralize him and let the race unfold in a more advantageous manner. Van Aert needs to realize that he’s the Godzilla of the peloton now, that no one wants to go head-to-head with him. He needs to race accordingly, complaining will get him nowhere. Wout van Aert has 38 career days of Grand Tour racing in his legs, Julian Alaphilippe over 100 and Mathieu van der Poel a grand total of zero. The Ronde van Vlaanderen is normally run in April, six months after the Vuelta and eight months after the Tour de France, putting everyone on a fairly equal basis. This special year, with the Tour only a bit more than a month behind us, the Tour riders still have that form in their legs, a form that we’ll really see once the Ronde begins to go over 200 kilometers which is when everything changes in a Classic. Van der Poel looked a bit light against Alaphilippe in the Fléche Brabançonne, a race of 200-kilometers and not 243 like today’s where the level of competition is much, much higher to boot. We’ll get a good idea of whether van der Poel’s choice of staying with his small Alpecin-Fenix team is the right one, a team that garners no invitations whatsoever to the Grand Tours nor to their build-up events such as the Dauphiné whether the accumulation of deep racing days by his competition will begin to leave him behind. Cycling fans watch the Giro, the Vuelta and Flanders: the world watches the Tour de France. 25-year of Mathieu van der Poel should be in it the Tour and he won’t be next year either which cheats both himself and cycling. The excitement of a three-week matchup between him and arch-rival van Aert would be riveting plus it would turn him into an even more powerful and versatile racer. Perhaps van der Poel likes life as it is, racing cross, mountain bikes and road races as he wishes. It certainly is an interesting and modern approach to the sport, the sort of versatility we should be developing here in the States. But he should consider the millions that Ineos is certainly putting on the table, consider becoming their Classic’s man, consider what racer he could become with a few Grand Tours in the legs. I believe he owes it to this sport that has given him and his family so much, and to his fans, a base that would expand exponentially with a start in the Tour.

We were upset this week to hear the sad news about Bob Jackson Cycles. As a bespoke builder for 85 years this is a tragic loss to the community. Shown a true c...lassic JRJ bike by Bob Jackson from 1952. This path / road frame utilized top end tubing and Nervex lugs. Here with a 52T front ring, classic round C-L cranks and sprint pedals. Courtesy: Classic Lightweights

A fall beauty built by Relstone Cycles. This 27.5 plus super boost build is Guy’s personal bike. 157 x 12 mm spacing with matching segmented fork with generator wire guides to run rigid in the winter with a SON hub and Beacon light. It has sliding dropouts for single speed too. Handmade in a very versatile way so as to test the wheel size out for different types of riding. #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021

The Confirmation 24-year old Mads Pedersen had the most unfortunate reign in the Rainbow jersey imaginable. He only raced three times after winning the World’s ...last year and couldn’t finish a one of them. The Dane’s 2020 debut was similarly dispiriting, trailing at the back at the season-opener in Oz, followed by poor showings in the opening Semi-Classics, unable to finish Paris-Nice. Then came the plague and the shutdown of the season. He started back up where he’d left off at July’s Vuelta a Burgos, where his highest placing was 54th (his other places were 103rd, 108th and 146th) before again abandoning. Then, a spark: he won a in Poland, besting Pascal Ackermann in a sprint finish. The World Champion now looked to be coming into form with his second place on Stage One of the Tour de France. He then faded from view. Pedersen looked heavy to me, perhaps one of the many riders who didn’t deal well with the Corona virus restrictions, which obviously handicapped him given the explosive nature of the climbing-heavy Tour. But then, about halfway through, he again came to life. Pedersen started providing crucial support for his team leader Richie Porte, sometimes going deep into the mountains by his side with a powerful and very Wout van Aert, big-man-who-climbs set of rides. I pegged him to win in Paris he finished second behind pure sprinter Sam Bennett, but he then pulled himself out of the World Championships, unwilling to even try and defend his title. Mads Pedersen was, in fact, too young to be the World Champion, too young to support the expectations and pressures of the Rainbow Jersey, and the loss of that heavy responsibility had to come as a form of relief for the young Dane. He bounces back, this one does, as his clear win at Gent-Wevelgem showed. Pedersen cleverly used the van Aert-van der Poel rivalry to his benefit, smoking Florian Sénéchal and Matteo Trentin in the sprint, showing the world that he is indeed a rider of the highest quality. Which should not be a surprise given his stellar, pre-professional career. Mads Pedersen was a top junior, second behind Mathieu van der Poel in the Junior World Road Championships, winner of the Peace Race ahead of MvdP, and winner of Paris-Roubaix Juniors. Interestingly, he won the U-23 Gent-Wevelgem along with a series of great rides and wins during his U-23 period. He didn’t lose any time either after turning pro for Trek-Segafredo in 2017, becoming Danish National Champion and winning two stage races in his first year. Now that the pressure is off, especially with a race of the quality of Gent-Wevelgem in the pocket, Mads Pedersen can finish off this truncated season with a sense of calm, knowing that he finished his first Tour de France as a markedly improved racer, one with much greater depth than before. He’ll be one to closely watch this Sunday at the Tour of Flanders, in form but absent any pressures, knowing that he’s the equal of anyone on the starting line. I need to address the issues surrounding Pedersen’s Trek-Segafredo teammate, the 19-year old American, and current Junior World Champion, Quinn Simmons. For those who don’t know, Simmons responded to a decidedly provocative tweet by a Dutch cycling journalist with an emoji. The gist of the Tweet was along the lines of: if you support Donald Trump, you can leave Europe (something like that). Simmons posted a hand waving goodbye, unfortunately, the emoji was dark. Now, before I get into this, best to let you know a couple of things about myself. In the early 1990’s I won an election, becoming the first-ever Democrat to win office in the then 118-year existence of my decidedly Republican Pennsylvania Borough. I now live in Harlem. While none of the above is a guarantee of anything, I do believe it shows a certain perspective on life. That said, I’m dismayed and disappointed at how Simmons has been treated by his team, by their benching of him. I’ll admit here that sometime in the past I sent an emoji that was dark-hued. I had no idea of what it meant. And, I do not believe for a moment that Simmon’s emoji was purposely racist in any way. What would it signify? It is his hand waving goodbye, not someone else’s. It makes no sense, there’s no way that I can figure and I’ve tried - that contorts that emoji, in the context of the message, into a racist statement. Lucy and I had friends over for drinks last week, an interracial couple, one a media figure and the other a civil rights lawyer. We discussed Simmon’s plight at length. The lawyer put it this way: In this age, every kid should get a mulligan (golf term for do-over) on social media postings. If a pattern emerges, that’s one thing, but to destroy someone for one post is simply not fair. Simmons has publicly apologized for the emoji and that should be enough. As fan of Tommy Smith and John Carlos (1968 Black Power salute, 1968 Olympics), I firmly believe that Simmons has the right to express a political preference and cannot be punished for it. What’s more, if cycling is to cradle rob in the same way as basketball and soccer, signing teenagers to professional contracts then thrusting them into adult worlds, they need to layer in sets of protections for the kids, to be aware and accepting of the fact that kids do dumb things. That’s how they learn their way through the world. I truly hope that we get to see the American Junior World Champion in action this year. If not, Patrick Lefevere, the boss of the Deceuninck-Quickstep team, is a man who knows how to nurture and, above all, protect talent. Simmon’s could do worse that to give him a call.

Continuing with our 2020 (now 2021!) exhibitor highlights. Have you seen the new @ortlieb_waterproof Fork-Pack?! Add 3.2 liters of storage space to your fork with a weight of only 275g! #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021

Mark Yanagisawa completed @unpavedpennsylvania for the 2nd year in a row 120 miles of glorious gravel, vibrant fall colors and magnificent vistas! Thanks to @dqpryor and @originalkuhndog for their dedication to the cycling community and putting on an incredible and safe event during a very challenging time

Today was good for the soul. Central PA cycling at its fall finest. #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021

Head Space Marc Hirschi is deep inside of Julian Alaphilippe’s head. The 22-year old Swiss and the new World Champion have been lobbying successes back and fort...h at one another like tennis players in a match, one that began on August 30th on Stage Two of the Tour de France. It was there on the run-in to the finish in Nice that Alaphilippe discovered the young man who will dog him for the rest of his career, outsprinting Hirschi for the win, but given a fright by the fast-closing Swiss who passed him just after the line. Match one and two to Julian Alaphilippe, who doubled the success by taking the Yellow Jersey and was looking able to repeat his extraordinary campaign of the 2019 Tour. It was seven days later that the enormous talents of Marc Hirschi were truly unveiled to the media and public, after his 90-kilometer solo raid in the Pyrenees Mountains, where he was caught in the last kilometer and just beaten by the strongest two men in the world, Primoz Rogli and Tadej Pogaar. Pogaar may have won the stage, but the wild acclaim that followed for Hirschi made him the hero on a day that proved disastrous for Alaphilippe, launguishing 18-minutes down, his dreams of Yellow now crushed. Match three for Hirschi. The duo continued their mano-a-mano three days later on Stage 12, the longest of the Tour, 218-kilometers from Chauvigny to Sarran, when the militarily precise tactics of Hirshi’s Sunweb team clicked in to launch the Swiss towards a solo victory, leaving a frustrated Alaphilippe to roll in behind the breakaway. The Sunweb’s, who study race situations in the same way that NFL teams use game films, combined again on Stage 14 into Lyon, using Hirschi as a decoy to draw Alaphilippe out, setting up the winning counter-attack for Dane Søren Kragh Anderson and Sunweb’s second win of the Tour. Matches four and five for Hirschi. It must have been tough for Alaphilippe to look up to the podium on the Champs Élyées and see March Hirschi being awarded the Most Combative racer award, by unanimous decision, after a Tour that most, despite his stage win and time in the Yellow Jersey, considered a disappointment. Match six to Hirschi. The Professional World Championships were the following Sunday, a race perfectly suited to Julian Alaphilippe’s talents, his moment to make up for the Tour. In a display of the enormous pride and to-the-death-fight that combine to make a star, the Frenchman exploded up the final climb as still only he seems able to do, leaving Hirschi, Wout van Aert and Rogli behind, racing in alone to win the Rainbow Jersey in spectacular fashion. A big match seven to Alaphilippe, but just the same, there was Hirschi, on the third step of the podium, right at his heels. Marc Hirshi drilled his way, permanently, into Alaphilippe’s head the following Wednesday with his win at the Flèche Wallonne. The resting World Champion could only watch as his bête noir won the treasured race that launched his career in 2018, a win he repeated last year. Talk about how to spoil a celebration, the win surely had to plunge Alaphilippe into a sense of worry, had to dent the absolute confidence a World Championship win gives to a racer. My goodness, Hirschi couldn’t even allow him a week of joy. It all came to a head on Sunday, four days later, at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, la Doyenne, first held in 1892, the oldest of the Monuments or great Classic one-day races, a treasure for any pro to capture. There they all were in the final breakaway, the three stars of the Tour, Primoz Rogli, Tadej Pogaar and Marc Hirschi, plus the World Champion. A race promotor’s dream scenario, a delicious sight for the fans. They hit the final kilometer, Alaphilippe was doing his normal sketchy side to side I’ll bet no one wants to sit behind him in the peloton and looking behind, saw big Matej Mohori coming up from behind (making three Slovenians in the final.). He cleverly let Mohori pass, used him as a target and launched his sprint. Sensing the ultra-fast Hirschi coming up on his left, something happened. Alaphilippe later claimed to have not known what he’d done, perhaps his uncontrollable energy got the best of him as we’ve seen in some of his riding, but I believe his inherent rage got the better of him, the rage triggered by this young upstart, rattling around in his head and about to deny him, the World Champion, his victory. Alaphilippe swerved hard left, moving seven feet in a split second, causing Hirshi to react so quickly that he unclipped his pedal, taking Pogaar out of contention in a double hit. Completing the catastrophe, Alaphilippe prematurely threw his hands in the air allowing Rogli to sneak under for the win. It didn’t really matter as the Frenchman was justifiably relegated to fifth in the race for his dangerous actions. I give this match to Hirschi as he was certain to win, certain to capture the Ardennes double first accomplished in 1951 by his countryman Ferdi Kübler and only ever replicated by four other men: Stan Ockers, Eddy Merckx, Moreno Argentin and Alejandro Valverde, all of whom it should be noted, were World Champions. My Swiss friends were apoplectic afterwards, my phone blew up such was their anger. With Pogaar and Hirschi now sensibly pulled off the circuit and safely ensconced in their respective mountain fortresses of Slovenia and Switzerland, protected from the second Covid wave, allowing their young bodies to rest and fall back into what we all hope is a normal training and racing rhythm for 2021, Alaphilippe could breathe a bit easier. He lined up this week for the Flèche Brabançonne, a mid-week semi-classic held south of Brussels. This is such a brilliant race to watch, worth alone the price of a Flobikes subscription (if in North America), for its non-stop attacking and northern European racing style. Alaphilippe provided us with another great match-up, this time with phenome Mathieu van der Poel. The two men brutalized the field in the final kilometers Alaphilippe had been on the attack the entire day and sight of van der Poel, who, with his shimmering allure, reminds me of the T-1000 from Terminator 2 - hammering up the cobbled climbs was simply fantastic. As was the final kilometer with the World Champion, van der Poel, and Frenchman Benoît Cosnefroy - who was brilliant in the Tour and second in the Flèche Wallonne holding off a chasing field by a handful of seconds. The two Frenchmen had some sort of understanding, forcing the Dutchman into leading out the run-up to the sprint. He made a rare mistake, getting his front wheel caught on the wrong side of the World Champion’s rear, having to back off and relaunch his sprint, his explosion up to speed another must-see moment from the race. Julian Alaphilippe clearly wants a photograph to hang on his wall of him in the Rainbow Jersey with his hands aloft in victory. Just as in Liége, he threw them up a hair too early and the T-1000 almost ate him. But he has his photo and another match point over Marc Hirschi, endurance counts. I’ve spoken before of a new Golden Age of cycling, and all of the above seems to be confirming the idea. Cycling, again like its cousin boxing, thrives on personalities and rivalries. The racing’s only part of it. No one is sure of what the lies in store for the rest of this season, Paris-Roubaix, like the Amstel Gold race has been cancelled, but we’ve all been given such magnificent racing over the past, not even two months, have been introduced to so many new, exciting stars, that we can be certain that the future is bright for cycling. There’s still racing to come, but personally, I’m satisfied with what we’ve already been given, and can hardly wait for 2021.

While we are partial to our Squad in PBE kits, we gotta admit these Philly Hill Killer jerseys (and their entire apparel line) is killer Go get ya some! #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021 #pbesquad

Get in the autumn spirit! New jerseys from @evelynhillcycling in women’s sizes XS-3X. On sale through the month of October! #phillybikeexpo #pbe2021