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it's the real thing

the real peloton dvd

from the man who brought you the marco pantani biography (see below) comes a bit of a revolution in the way we get our monthly fix of cycling stories. if, like me, you read the comic and the monthlies, insight into what it's like to be a pro rider in the modern day peloton comes via the printed word (unlike the post which comes courtesy of lots of little static pixels).

now comes matt rendell's 'the real peloton' which gives you the same monthly fix but on a dvd, for the particularly affordable sum of £9.95. this first issue presents remarkably informal conversations with giro winner, ivan basso and team csc supremo, bjarne riis. since it seems that basso only speaks italian, there are subtitles to aid those of us who don't and infrequent commentary from matt rendell (a feature used throughout the dvd) - riis converses in english.

the second piece, on the circuit de sarthe is a revelation. far from the heady world occupied by riis and basso et al, the guys in the selle italia team travel in the back of a transit camper van, one falling asleep while his two companions show us photos of new born daughter and girlfriend on their mobile phones. fun it may be, glamorous it certainly isn't. and poor sergiy honchar has to handle the disappointment of having lost a stage by mere hundredths of a second

continuing the csc theme, rendell and camera crew follow luke roberts on a fleeting visit to london to ride the herne hill good friday meet, mostly pitted against bradley wiggins (who won twice) and we finish off this first issue with samuel sanchez detailing his pre-race strategy for liege-bastogne-liege. (incidentally, interesting to note that roberts, who normally rides a shimano equipped cervelo bike, had a campag track chainset fitted to his herne hill cervelo)

you just cannot get this sort of thing anywhere else at any price. speaking to andy storey of prendas ciclismo (who are complicitous in this excellent release) i said i was kind of surprised that this hadn't been done before, particularly in this age of podcasts and internet cycling tv, but i am so glad that somebody with the wherewithal to make a success of the format has finally done so. matt rendell speaks several languages fluently and is well known by the riders in the peloton, so it works well. very well.

ok, there are a few minor glitches with video quality and subtitles covering up the display of riders names on the screen, but hey, it's only the first issue and overall it's great. subscriptions will be available soon, but until then, go direct to either prendas or the real peloton, do not pass the bikeshed and order yourself a copy now.

the dvd is dedicated 'to the men and women who race and inspire us, with thanks' amen to that.

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the second coming

the real peloton issue two

i have had a number of folks e-mailing, and even turning up at the office telling me how much they look forward to reading thewashingmachinepost, which is very gratifying and lets me know that there are actually real people reading this stuff. so it makes me feel a bit better about having sent andy at prendas a number of e-mails asking when issue two of the real peloton would be likely to fall through my letterbox. hopefully the pestering was as gratifying to him, as my receiving the second issue of real peloton.

i made a few criticisms of the first issue from a technical standpoint, and it's great to note that almost all of these points have been taken care of, apart from the odd lapse into mono voice- over, but now the captions have been kept well clear of the subtitles and i know who is being interviewed.

main contents this time are behind the scenes at the tour of romandie-stuff you quite literally couldn't grab unless you were matt rendell. imagine if you will, thewashingmachinepost at the tour of britain glasgow grand prix chancing upon recycling.co.uk's kristian house - and all i could think to say was 'congrats on the premier calendar wins'. hardly earth shattering stuff. but matt rendell finds chris horner in the yellow jersey at romandie and poses a well thought out question about caisse d'epargne's tactics. and receives a very coherent answer from horner. now you know why i only review real peloton.

so it's one thing to speak enough languages to interview riders, a whole other thing to have the questions to ask.

there's a particularly insightful piece on the fuentes affair in spain and how it affected ullrich, basso and riis (very telling interview with the latter by gary imlach), followed by (unconnected with the last piece) interviews with south american riders in the peloton regarding their early days in cycling in colombia.

but only into its second issue, no more expensive than the first, and we get a 'free' second dvd: an uncut version of lance armstrong's alpe d'huez press conference during this year's tour. personally, i thought i'd had quite enough of lance's publicity machine, but heck, this is brilliant and worth paying the money for this alone. we are being spoilt here people. don't fight it - get onto prendas or the real peloton and subscribe for as many as they'll let you. this is the future.

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as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

this column appears, as regular as clockwork on this website every two weeks. (ok so i lied) sometimes there are bits added in between times, but it all adds to the excitement.

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