Steve Suvia, once a master framebuilder and co-worker at Waterford Precision Cycles in Wisconsin, was a generous man. He gave me his humor, his intellect, and companionship on the road, but above all, he gave me his prized Campagnolo t-shirt.

The faded cotton yellow shirt, which hangs stoically in my closet, is emblazoned with the geek-friendly Campagnolo script logo in black across the chest, with three gathered pockets on the back above the waist. I wore the shirt with pride after Suvia gave it to me in the mid 1990s, a token of his appreciation of our time shared in the saddle and at the jig in the factory. The shirt was made in America, not Italy, sometime in 1980, the same year as my cast bronze Campy belt buckle. Both were made well and designed to last, much like the Campy components adorning bikes raced by Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain, four men who won the Tour de France five times, and four of the five included in Rapha’s new ‘Cinq Decennies de Champions’ jersey series.

London’s Rapha Racing Ltd. has been invoking legendary efforts in the saddle since its inception in 2004, basing most of its imagery on the shoulders of the giants of the peloton from Anquetil’s era forward. North American general manager Slate Olson appreciates the history of our sport, and his keen eye for detail noticed a common denominator between the four legends I mentioned, plus Lance Armstrong: each champion won the yellow jersey as winner of the Tour de France at least five times (Armstrong demolished the record by adding two more than his peers), in years ending in 2: Anquetil (1962), Merckx (1972), Hinault (1982), Indurain (1992) and Armstrong (2002). As the self-described thought leader of design and purveyor of cycling culture, Rapha did was Rapha does best: create a limited edition bundle of cotton jerseys to give homage to the storied champions of France.

The five jerseys are standard Rapha fare: simple, subtle, a bit spendy but well executed. Each garment uses colors from the rider’s trade team to great effect, with the years of the riders Tour victories included on the right sleeve. The Anquetil top features the pale blue and red of Saint-Raphael, with Maitre Jacques written just below the upper rear collar; the Merckx top features the orange and black of Molteni-Arcore, with a C (for Cannibal) over EM with two crossed bones just below the upper rear collar; the Hinault top features the yellow and black of Renault-Elf, with a gray silhouette of a badger paw just below the upper rear collar; the Indurain top features the white and blue/yellow/red of Banesto, with “28 BPM” (the Spaniards resting heart rate) encircled with a heart just below the rear upper collar; and the Armstrong top features the blue, white and red of U.S. Postal, with the number 7 inside a star (of Texas) just below the upper rear collar.

The cut is slimming with a slight flair at the waist, with a single pocket on the rear right back side. The fabric is cotton, so this isn’t a technical garment; it’s designed more for pleasure riding or looking mighty-fine at social gatherings or while coffee shop and book store surfing. I’d recommend choosing a size smaller than you’d normally wear; the polar opposite of the Italian way of choosing one’s ideal size.

Availability: June 1, 2012. Sizes: XS-XXL. Pricing: $60 each, or 5 for the price 4 ($240 including a special musette). www.rapha.cc

When Benjo and Lisa Clark appeared in my life nearly 10 years ago, I was running an artsy bike shop in Dayton, Ohio with my wife and another employee. We catered to the burgeoning fixed-gear/art student crowd, and it was fun. A `zine appeared in my mailbox one day, a black-and-white DIY affair showing dreadlocked men and women riding super tall bikes in Minneapolis. I was intrigued, and called Benjo to find out more about his world.

A couple years later, I spent a weekend at their Minneapolis home. I was in town for the annual Frost Bike event, hosted by Quality Bicycle Products (owners of Surly, Salsa, etc. and a RATHER LARGE wholesale distributor of bike parts). It was a balmy 65-below zero with the wind chill, and mountain bike pioneer Tom Ritchey was making his first appearance. The Clarks were eager to meet TR and hear more about our recent visit to Rwanda.

Nearly six years after that meeting, we're scattered all around the country. I caught up with Benjo last year to get the low-down on what he's been doing.

Benjo, you’ve seen many parts of the world from your bike seat. Tell me about some of your adventures.
A couple adventures come to mind. The first trip was to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Our focus was to work on the streets with Project Touch. They work with drug addicted street children, prostitutes, and transvestites. I thought this would be a good place to bring my tall bike especially when we spent time with the homeless kids on the street. Their lives are filled with drugs, violence, and abuse and I found it very hard to take in.

In the midst of this modern city of Sao Paulo there are kids that have been forgotten and have to exist alone on the streets. We met a lot of kids over the course of our few weeks there and we spent a lot of time playing board games, coloring pictures, playing soccer among other activities to remind them of what it's like to be a kid having good clean fun.

One day I brought the bike out and a group of about ten kids gathered around with the plastic bags that are filled with shoe repair glue that they huff all day to stay high. We found a park nearby with some space to ride. All the kids took turns riding and there were a few times that I wondered if I would see the bike again but every time they returned with huge smiles on their faces.

All was well until the a couple police officers showed up with their guns drawn on us telling to put our hands up. Immediately the kids split out of fear and we were left there to sort this all out. Long story short is that they thought we were selling drugs to the kids and that's why they approached us with such seriousness so after we explained what we were doing they settled down. After all that commotion we left cause all the kids were gone anyway. Too bad.

Next stop was Santiago, Chile for ten days. One day I decided to ride around the city and get to know it a little. I always enjoy seeing a city from the tall bike perspective. There are a lot of things you can't see or smell when you’re in a car. At one point in the ride I decided to get off the bike and walk since I was in a crowded area and didn't want to crash into people.

As I walked along with the bike a lady came and got my attention. Her English was better than my Spanish and she wanted me to come meet her brother. I walked over to him to say hi. He was a blind man selling sunglasses and I thought that was kind of ironic. Anyway, she explained to him what the bike was like and he asked if he could feel the bike. I thought that would be okay and I watched him discover the tall bike without sight but by touch. It was very fascinating to watch him grasp the height of the bike and he just shook his head with amazement and then a few others came over to look it over and ask questions. This was very special to me. This was one of the reasons I put this bike together.

How many times did you visit Rwanda, and what impact did that have on you?
We visited Rwanda three or four times over the course of a couple of years. As we prepared to go to Rwanda there was a certain amount of fear involved after what had taken place there in 1994.

When we arrived I was struck with the beauty of the country and the passion of the Rwandese people. I expected a barbaric society but found it to be quite calm and easy going. Obviously, the people carry the psychological and physical scars but they are a people that have moved on and are passionate about rebuilding their country. They have a lot of hope for their future and I was able to catch that passion and began to believe it for them.

Going to Rwanda changed my perspective of Africa and life in general. No matter what kind of atrocities we face in life there is always a new day to rebuild and heal. Instead of becoming a bitter culture they have chosen to forgive and that puts my life in perspective especially when I run into my so-called 'hardships".

What are some of your fondest memories from those visits?
One of my fondest memories was when I entered into the Wooden Bike Classic 2 with my tall bike:

And my second fondest memory was the first Wooden Bike Classic when I raced down that dirt hill on an actual wooden bike.

Met Rwandan President Kagame too!

When and where did you become interested in bikes?
Gosh, I've been interested in bikes ever since I can remember. I think my interest started in Japan. My parents were missionaries to Japan in the late 1970s early `80s, and my mom would risk her life daily in Tokyo traffic taking me to school by bike. 

I sat in a basket that was attached to the handle bars and away we went. I can't remember a time that I wasn't riding a bike.

How did the Scallywags come about?
The Scallywags had a pretty organic beginning in Minneapolis. A group of us friends found ourselves congregating in a garage with a welder almost every day, even through the bitter cold Minnesota winters. We were pretty passionate about cutting up bikes and welding crazy contraptions. Ridin' `em and Wreckin' `em.

This went on for a while and more and more people were joining us and getting in on it so it was a pretty logical step for us to take. We went ahead and organized ourselves as an official tall bike club. At this point, there was only a couple tall bike clubs nationally one being the local Hard Times Bike Club. They welcomed us to the scene and we spent many days and nights atop those tall bikes together for five years straight.

You and Lisa open and ran a bike shop in Minneapolis. What did you take away from that experience?
We had a blast at the Scallywags Bike Shop. We were pretty fortunate to have a location that shared a parking lot with the organic grocery store next door. We always had work to do and we enjoyed our customers immensely. I also loved working with the mechanics every day, and the events we put on. We were really a team and I was so impressed with their dedication to the shop and their commitment to Rwanda.

However, if you know Minneapolis at all you know that you can trip out of one bike shop and land in three. It's great to have such a bike-friendly city but as a business owner the saturation factor got to be too much. It was hard to shut'r down and we were still selling bikes on our last day in operation and we also had new customers coming in that hadn't even heard of us.

So we started kicking around the idea of taking this party somewhere else and we ended up back in my home state of Alabama that happens to be one of the least bike friendly states. Actually Number 50. But hey now, we can only move up and we're here to help with that.

You’re living in Huntsville. What’s the bike culture like?
The Rocket City is ready to blast off. Every time I get out and get some saddle time I run into all sorts of cyclists. It's growing slowly but surely and there's a fair amount of diversity in town. We've got some sweet county roads for the road riders, a mountain in the middle of the city for the mountain bikers, a fixed gear bike polo crew, BMX is growing....so yeah, it's pretty diverse and is a small microcosm of Minneapolis in many ways.

Tell me about your Coffee Brake mug: when did you make the first one, and how many have you made since it became a production model?
It was actually an accident that prompted the idea. You know how the old saying goes, "Necessity is the mother of invention". I had one of those stainless mugs with the carabiner as a handle and on a very cold commute as I was riding into the shop, I dropped the mug and the handle just snapped off completely, splashing my coffee into the fresh snow. I snatched it up in disgust and brought it into the shop determined to fix it and make sure that never happened again. I think I was more upset about the coffee than the mug itself!

So I figured out a way to attach a `80s DiaCompe brake lever as the handle and continued to use it every day with no problems. Slowly but surely customers and friends started taking notice of the adaptation and asked me to make them one and that turned into a whole bunch.

Our first run was around 70 mugs and those went out of the door pretty quick so I realized that this thing had the potential of becoming a cycling novelty item. I got some good design advice from Tom and he connected me with some suppliers, and the next thing I knew we were building and assembling them in our basement shop and shipping them around the world.

In the first few months we hand-built and sold around a thousand of these things and that's a lot for us. The thing I love about it the most is that it has connected us with so many people that we wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise. We continue to expand our friend base and in turn they buy our stuff and that keeps us going.

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but, a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”

~ Louis Nizer

Last July, after watching the live coverage of the first stage of the 2011 Tour de France at the Rapha SF store with my buddy Tom Hardy, I sat down for a few hours with Anthony Mangieri, avid mountain biker and renowned pizza maker. What follows is an excerpt of my submitted draft for an article in BIKE Magazine.

On an unseasonably warm and sunny Sunday afternoon in March, several of the world’s best bicycle framebuilders gathered in a crowded pizzeria in the SoMa District of San Francisco. The event was billed as “Ruota Libera 2011”, the brainchild of New Jersey native Anthony Mangieri and Soulcraft’s Sean Walling. A veritable who’s who were in attendance: Steve Potts, Bruce Gordon, Paul Sadoff (Rock Lobster), Brent Steelman, Jeremy Sycip, Steve Rex and others, lining the walls with some of the best two-wheeled eye-candy under one roof. San Diego surf-jazz twins The Mattson 2 lit up the place with their unique sound, as patrons milled around the pizzeria with the esteemed bicycle craftsmen, all enjoying wood-fired Neapolitan pizza made by Mangieri.

Mangieri is a wiry guy with the whispering dialect of Alec Baldwin and the heavily tattooed veneer of a skateboarding, punk-rock bassist. He’s also the proprietor of Una Pizza Napoletana at 11th & Howard, kitty corner to California Chopper, and walking distance from the DNA Lounge, a popular music venue that’s hosted Metallica, Prince and Green Day. Prick Mangieri’s finger Monday, and he’ll bleed bicycle chain lube. Prick his finger Wednesday, and he’ll bleed buffalo mozarella cheese. For such a colorful character, his world is purely black and white, which suits him fine. As you can imagine, he has his share of fans and detractors.

The 39-year-old moved his pizzeria from the East Village of New York City to San Francisco in 2010, opening in mid September. An avid cyclist who owns nine custom bikes made in the Bay Area since 2003, Mangieri decided his passion for riding and the outdoors was greater than his quest for riches in the Big Apple, so he closed his doors, took a year off, got married, packed it all up, and headed west.

Baking’s in his blood
At 15, Mangieri began to bake. A trip to Naples began to shape his perspective on life, and his Italian roots began burrowing deep.

“The lifestyle over there is slower than America because most Italians, in my view, don’t have hobbies like we do,” he said with a grin and sideways glance at his Italian wife Ilaria on a recent Saturday morning. “They don’t really exercise: they work, and they hang out, drink coffee and talk. The men go to cafes and clubs to talk, drink, smoke and be part of that community. Even if you’re in a village, there’s a tight-knit sense of community. Everything is shared. Everyone’s involved in each other’s world. In some ways it’s beautiful, but as I’ve gotten older, I feel the pull to live in a cabin in the woods with a gun! Maybe it’s because I work with so many people every day.”

At the moment, he has the pizzeria to himself. Mangieri pauses for minute, looking around at the empty tables in the vaulted industrial space he rents.

“The challenge I have with running the pizzeria is dealing with the spectrum of people and their needs. I need to hit the reset button all the time. I do all the work, and that’s the way I prefer things. I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but everything I do is for my satisfaction only, not others.”

Naturally leavened
Though he didn’t realize it at the time, the influence of his family would lead him to the birthplace of the mountain bike, Mt. Tamalpais, via Naples and its famous delicacy: wood-fired pizza. After graduating high school in 1989, he worked for the union unloading trucks, detesting every minute. He worked for the post office, hating it, and decided his entrepreneurial leanings had taken over. He opened a bakery near the house he shared with his grandmother in New Jersey.

“After I got into food retail, I felt proud of my grandfather’s focus on details when he had his candy and gelato shop,” Mangieri said. “My grandma, whom I lived with for eight years, told me how much I reminded her of him. My father was handy, very talented, able to build anything. He wasn’t afraid of anything, even heights. He was an electrician, and I worked with him when I was a kid. I got shocked a few times. He had his own jobs on the side on his days off, and I loved going with him. All I thought about was where we were going to eat lunch, and which pizza place we’d visit.”

Stable of bikes
Mangieri’s first custom bike was a Soulcraft Plowboy 26-inch rigid steel singlespeed, built by Walling in 2003. He had a stock Gunnar before that. He commutes twice a week across the Golden Gate Bridge from his house in Sausalito on a pink Soulcraft singlespeed road bike with a matching pink-striped Fi’zi:k saddle. His stable includes an Independent Fabrication XS road bike; a Steve Potts titanium singlespeed 29er with a baby blue Type II steel fork, saved for spiritual Sunday rides after Mass; a Kish 26” titanium singlespeed with steel Igleheart fork; two Rock Lobsters (a 26-inch rigid and 29er rigid singlespeed). He bought a stock IF geared MTB that never fit right, so now Ilaria rides it.

“I had a PK Ripper BMX bike in grade school with camo pads,” he added. “I had an early Ross MTB with a shoulder strap under the top tube. I did a race from the top to bottom of New Jersey on it when I was 15, when everyone else was on road bikes. My mother, bless her soul, rode with me on a Sears three speed! Because I was into BMX racing, I’d use the toe straps to jump everything on that Ross.”

Like many East Coast kids, Mangieri wanted a Fat Chance, but had no money. He had IF’s early catalog, with a photo of a guy riding a flame-painted singlespeed, which spoke to his adventurous side. Living on the West Coast prompted him to buy another dream bike, this time from Steelman, based in Redwood City.

“Once I made a little money, I bought a stock IF from a local bike shop,” he said. “I quit riding about 10 years ago because where I lived in New Jersey didn’t have much of a MTB scene, and I grew tired of riding the same trails by myself. I lost interest because it felt like a job to ride. I was travelling a lot, to Guatemala, Thailand, plus hiking and running. Back then I didn’t have the money to get a travel bike. In 2000 or so I rented a bike on an island in Thailand, all on fire roads, which inspired me to get back on the bike.”

Coincidentally, San Francisco was Mangieri’s original choice to open his pizzeria in 1996. To him, the city by the Bay is the only cosmopolitan city, an international city with opera, music, a MTB scene, healthy tourism, access to Mt. Tam and China Camp.

He chose Brooklyn instead, leaving the convenient and comfortable confines of his New Jersey neighborhood. His rent was $5,000 a month, and he needed to hire people, manage people, and run things like a bigger business that he was prepared for. He commuted for the first two years from his place an hour away in New Jersey, and slept in a rest-stop on the way home. He wouldn’t get out of the pizzeria until 2am, and he’d be out of his mind with lack of peace. It made him a different person, he says, someone he’s still trying to find.

“I went from knowing 30 people in New Jersey to having lines wrapping around the block in NYC,” he explained, his hands shaping his narrative. “Without any effort, I was being interviewed every week, getting on TV, in newspapers, magazines…I felt motivated and empowered, but it slowly destroyed me. I thought it was a dream come true at first, but it ate away at me. Our NYC place was tiny, jammed. The challenges in NYC included having the outdoorsy lifestyle I wanted.”

His first trip to San Francisco wasn’t until 2001, and he went there to ride. He rented a car, and rode China Camp and the Marin Headlands by himself, just as he does today. It’s always been hard to sync his riding with everyone’s schedule, even on his days off. For Mangieri, making pizza is like riding his mountain bike: an eternal quest for the ultimate flow of everything coming together just right. When it happens, it’s like a miracle, but when it’s not quite right, he works hard to get back on track.

“I don’t hide the truth or simplicity of real Neapolitan pizza by heaping any crap on it.”

The numbers
Based on his work schedule of Wednesday through Saturday nights, Mangieri estimates he makes about 500 pizzas a week, about 2,000 in a month. His beehive-shaped Stefano Ferrara oven with “A.D. 2010” on the side, made in Naples, has small tiles and a mouth belching fire, sliding out 12-inch pizzas with ease.

At $20 a pop over 15 years, that’s nearly $7.2 million. His menu, like his taste in rigid singlespeed bikes, is limited: naturally leavened dough, round pizzas, no slices, in five choices: Marinara (San Marzano tomatoes, oregano, garlic, basil, sea salt, extra-virgin olive oil and no cheese; Margherita (San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella from Naples, extra-virgin olive oil, basil, sea salt); Bianca (buffalo mozzarella, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, basil, sea salt; no tomatoes, just white); Filetti (fresh cherry tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, basil, sea salt, fresh tomatoes, no sauce); and Ilaria, named after his wife (smoked mozzarella, fresh cherry tomatoes, arugula, extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt, fresh tomatoes, no sauce).

His business hours? Wednesday through Saturday, 5pm until the dough runs out, which is 10pm or so.

Working the oven by himself, where he bakes three pizzas at a time, has sharpened his skills but dulled his penchant for eating pizza, due to a wheat allergy. “I can tell a good pizza from a bad one the minute I take it out of the oven; the customer can’t always tell, but I can,” he added with a knowing grin.

With a limited menu and a trailblazing business model now mimicked all around the country, the outspoken Mangieri has developed thick skin from the criticism. Like Connecticut framebuilder Richard Sachs, Mangieri doesn’t necessarily make pizzas for others. His focus is on his craft.

“I do all the work, and I’m not interested in selling out. I’m not egotistical, but on the other hand I have a huge ego that drives me to prove the naysayers wrong,” he said, arms flailing as his eyes widen. “When you come to Una Pizza, you get a piece of me with every pie, like it or not. I’m doing this for myself. Critics and armchair quarterbacks can’t take that away from me.

“If I see someone totally committed to what they do and what they’re passionate about, I support their effort. I’m driven by the quality of every pizza coming out of my oven. If I feel I’ve had a bad night at the oven I’ll stay up at night to figure things out, how to get back on track. I understand my fame has attracted a bigger audience, so it’s normal to see more people have a love-hate relationship with me.”

According to Soulcraft’s Walling, Mangieri is the real deal.

“He showed up at our shop in Petaluma to order a Plowboy singlespeed in 2003,” Walling said. “I had no idea who he was. We asked him what he did for a living and he said he owned a pizzeria in New York City. I immediately had the stereotypical image of a bunch of jamokes in stained white aprons spinning dough. I later learned that was not the case and that we were dealing with a rock star.”

To see the complete article, buy the March 2012 issue of BIKE Magazine at your local bike shop or favorite book store.

AIGLE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Frenchman Robert Marchand entered the cycling record books in the one-hour event on Friday, three months after celebrating his 100th birthday.

Marchand rode 24.251 kilometres around an indoor track to establish the first-ever hour performance in the 100-years-plus category.

"I could have gone faster but I didn't want to," Marchand, who was given clearance by his cardiologist in France before making the attempt, told reporters at the International Cycling Union (UCI) track in Aigle where he spent a week preparing.

"I'm not playing at being a champion," he said. "I just wanted to do something for my 100th birthday."

The UCI had already said it would recognise the record, meaning that Marchand had to undergo a doping test after completing the event.

An amateur road racer, Marchand competed in the Bordeaux-Paris race at the age of 90 when he completed the 600 kilometres in 36 hours.

In the last few years, he has eased off, restricting himself to rides of less than 100 kilometres in a day.

Marchand said his biggest challenge was getting used to riding on a track, something he last did in 1937.

A link with more photos is here.   

Photo: Reuters. Reporting by Brian Homewood; editing by Clare Fallon

A pro cyclist’s life is based on precision, discipline, suffering, victory, defeat, luck, anguish, joy, pain, injury and monotony. Toronto native Michael Barry was born into a cycling family, with a bike shop-owning, bike racing and frame building father who nurtured and supported his son through modeling what real training of the body and maintenance of the machine looks like.

Barry has carved out a good living as a professional who, since 1999, has served alongside Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie, Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, Roberto Heras, Edvald Boasson-Hagen, among others, and competed with compatriot Steve Bauer at the 1996 Atlantic Olympic road race. Three years later he began his professional career when he joined Team Saturn. He signed with the U.S. Postal team in 2002, and helped two team leaders win the Vuelta a España (Heras, 2003) and Giro d’Italia (Paolo Savoldelli, 2005) while finishing in the top 10 at the 2003 World Road Championships and 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is married to 2004 Olympic time trial silver medalist and former junior world champion and speedskater Dede Demet.

His father, Mike Barry, was a bicycle racer in England before opening his bike shop (BicycleSport, in 1972, which became Bicycle Specialties in 1990) and framebuilding business (Mariposa) in Toronto. The shop closed in 2007, and the elder Barry is a rather content grandfather who still rides with his mates in Toronto and travels to watch his son race internationally.

The younger Barry’s attention to detail is evident in his writing, which has appeared in VeloNews, Bicycling, Rouleur, and the New York Times. His eloquence in describing the minutiae of a pro’s existence is wonderfully bound in his book Le Metier, published by Rouleur. His article, Shaving Your Legs for Cycling, prompted me to rejoin the Brotherhood of the Hairless Peloton back in June.

A devoted domestique, Barry will be reunited with current world road champion Cavendish, who signed to ride alongside Barry, his former roommate on HTC-Highroad, on Team Sky for 2012. I caught up with the lanky Canadian in Spain right before his 36th birthday in mid December.

Michael, a new season is beginning. How many more do you have in your legs? Although I'm a veteran I still love riding and racing as much as ever. I’m focused on riding and improving in 2012. We've got a great teams so it should be an exciting year. After that, we'll see...

How have you prepared for 2012? I've been in Girona since the end of the season. The weather has been ideal, so riding for hours has been easy and enjoyable. Basically, I've been training in a similar way to what I've done for the last several years: after a few weeks off the bike I've progressively increased my workload on the bike. Also, I've done a reasonable amount of trail running in the hills around Girona. In December we had a week-long team camp in Mallorca and then in January we'll have another two camps.

How tall are you, and what is your race weight now compared to your first year as a pro? I'm 189cm (6’2”) and 72kgs (158lbs). I get down to about 69kg when I'm in peak form so I haven't gained much this off season. I weigh more or less the same now as when I first turned pro.

You’ve raced for some of the most successful directors in the sport: Tom Schuler, Johan Bruyneel, Bob Stapleton and Dave Brailsford. Are you considering stepping into management when you hang up your wheels? Yes, I've been fortunate to race for some of the best managers. I'm not sure if I'll get into management but I'd like to stay in cycling in some capacity. It’s what I know and something I love.

Tell me about your most memorable race. It’s hard to single out one event. Every top level pro race I've ridden in Canada has been special as I don't get to ride in front of a Canadian crowd often. The three Olympic Road Races I've ridden were also memorable as the Olympics are unique on so many levels. The Tour and the Classics are all good memories as they're the most prominent races in the sport and were the races I dreamed of riding as a boy. 

Barry racing his first and only Tour de France, in 2010. Photo: Getty Images

Does having raced several Olympics mean just as much as racing the Tour de France? Competing in both were goals and accomplishments but are hard to compare. The Tour is the most important event in cycling and the Olympics is the most important in the sporting world. Although the experiences were completely different they're fond memories.

You grew up in a bike shop, the son of a racer, frame builder and shop owner. What memories are still crystal clear? Riding with my father and mother in the city...fiddling with my bike in the workshop at the back of my Dad's shop while the mechanics worked...the smell of grease, flux, rubber and solvent in the shop and frameshop...arriving home from rides on freezing days with fingers so cold I couldn't grasp a hot cup of tea...reading cycling magazines and books in our living room at home...riding the rollers in a below freezing garage and watching the ice on the windows melt as I began to sweat...racing through the local parks with my neighbourhood friends...riding to school with my parents. I've spent my life around bikes; the memories are endless.

Does your father still give any training or racing advice? No, but we ride together whenever we can. I really enjoy going out for rides with his group of friends when I'm back in Toronto. They seek out the quietest gravel roads and they're all good company.

Cavendish and Barry, 2009 Giro d'Italia. Photo: Graham Watson

You’re reuniting with former T-Mobile and Highroad teammate Mark Cavendish. He’s achieved superstar status, but at the core, what is he really like? Not only is he a good guy and friend but he is also one of the best team leaders. He brings the team together and motivates the riders like few other people I've raced with.

Who were your racing heroes as a youngster? Eddy Merckx, Laurent Fignon, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Bauer and local Toronto racer, Ed Smolinski, not necessarily in that order. There were many others as well and as I matured, of course, they changed.

How much have racing bicycles changed since you turned pro? And, what are some of the technological advances you can’t do without as a pro? Not much has changed since I first turned pro. Shimano’s electronic Di2 shifting is probably the most significant change. Since I was a boy the changes have been notable: clipless pedals and STI shifters have both made riding easier, more comfortable and, probably, safer. The clothing has improved significantly since I was a boy as well.

Many have told me how much they enjoy your homemade videos. You have good taste in music; who are your favourites, and where do you pick up on new music? Did you always have a knack for music? I can't sing or play a note but I love discovering new music and, of course, listening to it. As a boy, with my Sony Walkman tucked into my back pocket, I would ride over to the park after school and thrash around the perimeter of the cricket fields for an hour to train for cyclocross. The music thumping in my ears would inspire to push harder.

Often, I was alone out there on a cold autumn evening, under the setting sun. The memory is vivid. I don't have any favourite musicians; I listen to everything from Leif Ove Andsnes to Kid Cudi to Nina Simone. At the moment, my nephew, who is in college, has been suggesting different artists. I've been listening a lot to Geographer, Cut Copy, The Naked and Famous.

You’ve blossomed into a rather engaging writer -- which is a gift, really -- and you’ve been published in several widely-read magazines in addition to some books. Will this continue once you’ve retired from pro racing? Thank you! Writing will always be a part of my life like cycling will. It’s something I enjoy and want to improve over time. I don't know whether or not I’ll make a career out of it. But, for now, I have fun challenging myself in a different way.

Take time to read and enjoy Michael Barry's posts at www.michaelbarry.ca.