Vandenbroucke racing again

[fiamme red]

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/13946.0.html

[wasfast]

I think your title is optimistic. At this very moment, perhaps it should read "Frank has joined yet another team". I'm not holding my breath.

[AgilisMerlin]

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Heritage/Photos/Disc1/IMG0072.jpg

[rustychisel]

I think your title is optimistic. At this very moment, perhaps it should read "Frank has joined yet another team". I'm not holding my breath.

Thank you. Post of the week, at least.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . but I agree that it's difficult to be optimistic in light of past history.

But I guess at this point, just riding a whole season and finishing races would be a victory for his pride. Good luck to him! :beer:

BBD

[jerk]

frank has been doing ok. that being said with the possible exception of a pre tour of Cali form flux, and even then maybe not, there's not a person on this board, he couldn't ride off his wheel even at his lowest. as of this fall, at nico's retirement race/party, frank was in good spirits and looking forward to moving back home and racing in Belgium.

he's faced his demons-

jerk

[KJMUNC]

Why not go join the rest of Ball's circus at Rock Racing?

He'd be the cherry on top.

[RIHans]

Hope he has the past, in the past.

http://www.belgiumkneewarmers.com/2006/12/pro-with-capital-o.html

[AgilisMerlin]

we'll see

[wasfast]

I'm sure Frank could ride plenty of riders off his wheel. I'm not stating or implying anything along those lines. Unfortunately, form doesn't seem to have been the problem (all based on the media certainly, I don't know him at all personally) but keeping his head in the game seems to be.

I do hope he succeeds but based on the past statistics, the prognosis isn't in his favor. We'll have to wait and see.

[Fixed]

good for him he did his time now get on with it ..win cos you know how bro
cheers imho

[pdxmech13]

will he and his team be invited to any of the classics like he says ?

[SWorks4me]

good for him he did his time now get on with it ..win cos you know how bro
cheers imho


and looks so damn good doing it..atmo (not ghey)

[Chris]

Jerk may be the only person who wants Frank to succeed more than me. His is the classic case of natural talent and expectations afforded to a fragile mentality. I feel for the guy. Some people see it as being his own fault, but when you know his whole life story, and understand the debilitating aspects of mental illness that can accompany greatness in such a cruel way, you can start to understand a little. It is a real tragedy for all of us, because I think that there hasn't been any greater natural talent come across the cycling stage since Merckx himself, and we lost the opportunity to see it flourish. What Frank can do on a bike is one of the beautiful things about life and we missed a good chunk of it. Sorry to get sentimental on this one, but I truly believe that there hasn't been much of a bigger tragedy in cycling for sometime.

[Grant McLean]

I just hope he's not taking someone else's shot at a ride.
Sincerely wish him the best.

try, try, and try again... atmo.

-g

[jerk]

will he and his team be invited to any of the classics like he says ?

yup. there's some big guns on that team and it does have a 3 million euro budget or something. they may not get to ride flanders of roubaix but expect to see'em at a lot of races. 3 million euros is alot of money. especially when you consider saunier duval was working with less than 4 million euros last year with a much larger pro-tour sized programe with some high salaried "big names"....

this team is not small.

jerk

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . I will be rooting for him to finish and to win. Millions of people have similar problems, but he just happens to be in an occupation where any of their effects have such high visibility to the public because he is who he is.

I get the impression--and this is just a guess--that a couple of months of solid racing and a win or two would be the very best therapy he could get for what he has been dealing with.

BBD

[iml]

Jerk may be the only person who wants Frank to succeed more than me. His is the classic case of natural talent and expectations afforded to a fragile mentality. I feel for the guy. Some people see it as being his own fault, but when you know his whole life story, and understand the debilitating aspects of mental illness that can accompany greatness in such a cruel way, you can start to understand a little. It is a real tragedy for all of us, because I think that there hasn't been any greater natural talent come across the cycling stage since Merckx himself, and we lost the opportunity to see it flourish. What Frank can do on a bike is one of the beautiful things about life and we missed a good chunk of it. Sorry to get sentimental on this one, but I truly believe that there hasn't been much of a bigger tragedy in cycling for sometime.

Beautiful. I agree. Go VDB.

[flux]

If you can get this (http://www.stage6.com/user/MundialVerona/video/1919834/Mundial-Ciclismo-Verona-1999) to work on your computer, you are in for a real treat.

My 3 favorite riders are in the mix. Ulrich, VDB and McRae.

[zeroking17]

If you can get this (http://www.stage6.com/user/MundialVerona/video/1919834/Mundial-Ciclismo-Verona-1999) to work on your computer, you are in for a real treat.

My 3 favorite riders are in the mix. Ulrich, VDB and McRae.

Es magnifico.

[don'TreadOnMe]

Flux - that link is f'ing awesome.

[flux]

Flux - that link is f'ing awesome.

You can thank Swoop. If you click the "ciclismo" tag it will take you to a few other awesome vid's especially the Sienna strada in terra race thingy that Kolobnev wins.

[pdxmech13]

colnago c40's
tafi
and no helmets
bellisimo

[fiamme red]

If you can get this (http://www.stage6.com/user/MundialVerona/video/1919834/Mundial-Ciclismo-Verona-1999) to work on your computer, you are in for a real treat.

My 3 favorite riders are in the mix. Ulrich, VDB and McRae.Wow. Thanks for that link. :beer:

[fiamme red]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/apr08/apr28news2

Vandenbroucke not ready to give up

Frank Vandenbroucke may be down, but he is certainly not out. "I want to be a racer again, I am not yet ready to stop," he said in an interview on the Belgian TV show, De Zevende Dag.

The Belgian was released by Team Mitsubishi-Jartazi last week. He has ridden very little this season, and most recently had been named as a customer of gang drug dealers.

If the 33 year-old is unable to come back on his bike, he may have a new career as a fortune teller. In the TV show, which was filmed before Sunday's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he accurately predicted that Alejandro Valverde would win the race. According to sportwereld.be, he had also predicted the winners in the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Stijn Devolder), Paris-Roubaix (Tom Boonen) and the Amstel Gold Race (Damiano Cunego), missing only on Milano-Sanremo, where he picked Filippo Pozzato instead of Fabian Cancellara.

The Belgian was reported to be seen on the Redoute climb, where he watched the race and checked on his predictions.(SW)

[wasfast]

3 month stint on this years team. Truly sad. Unfortunately, I was right back in January. I'd rather have been wrong.