All right, all right, all right... Lance makes it four Tour wins for the Asian bike parts and fishing reel company. As a show of no hard feelings, I, Euro Freddie, have devoted this month’s column exclusively to a collection of poems, celebrating just this event, humbly written from the heart. Enjoy -Euro Freddie.
There once was a bike component manufacturer from Osaka,
Who’s sealed cartridge headsets claim to be built like a rock-ah;
But the more a cyclist would brake,
The more the bicycle would shake,
Sounding much like they were playing the maraca.
The Octalink bottom bracket has gained much renown,
Its light weight and minimal composition abound;
Of course when you realize,
It’s tucked in just below your thighs,
An out-of-the-saddle sprint seems rather unsound!
Most will say the SPD pedal design is unbeatable,
And its SPD-R replacement- even more cleatable;
Until sharp eyes noticed in several books,
That Lance Armstrong rides old Sh(censored)o/Looks,
Now the industry finds the outdated repeatable.
Yes the Dura-Ace wheel sets are a smash,
Their paired J-bend spokes move you down the road in a flash;
However if a brake block should wander,
And migrate south a bit yonder,
The block/spoke interface will result in a most spectacular crash.
And finally, the bicycle chain is hard to fault,
But Sh(censored)o claims Campy’s narrow C-10 not built like a vault;
Yet in the 2001 Giro’s equivalent of Alpe d’Huez,
On a spectacular breakaway Julio Perez,
Snapped a Sh(censored)o chain that left him standing on the asphalt.