Cycling Forums March 2011 Poster of the Month: Swampy1970
Congratilations to Swampy1970 who is the inaugural winner or our new poster of the month competition. Swampy1970 is pretty well known around the forums - 5,000+ posts and several famous arguments with other prominent members make for interesting reading. I doubt he'll have any trouble spending the $100 gift voucher with JensonUSA. Now for a quick Q 'n A with swampy1970 - Why did you choose the nickname swampy1970? I was born in 1970, so that takes part of the numbers. Swampy was a nickname I was given years ago due to my long haired heavy metal "swamp man" like appearance... and built upon when an environmentalist with the nickname of Swampy camped out up a tree at Manchester Airport for a few weeks in protest of a new runway. - What part of the world do you live? Northern California - sandwiched mid-way between San Francisco and Sacramento, not too far off the usual stage route for the once traditional Sacramento to Santa Rosa stage of the ToCa. - What do you do for a day job? Network Engineer / control system analyst. - Tell us about your bike The training mule is a Raleigh Prestige carbon/aluminium frame with mostly Dura Ace 7800. PowerCranks and a wireless PowerTap finish the kit off on that bike. The other bike is a Cannondale Hi-Mod, Dura Ace 7900 with Ksyrium SL Premiums. - If you were a pro rider, who would you like to ride like? There are plenty of riders over the years that I'd really liked watching - Robert Millar, Lance Armstrong, Luis Herrera, Laurent Fignon, Pantani, Cavendish, Jones, LeMond and old footage of guys like De Vlaeminck. All exceptional riders but Bernard Hinault is the man. I dig the fiery temperament, his direct "too the point" attitude and the fact that he had the legs to back it all up. The classics, the Tours, uphill, downhill, time trials and even the sprint finish on the Champs Elysees, if he wanted to win it then chances are he likely would. Even as an old chap who's often on the Tour podium the badgers wrath can still occaisonally be seen. - What is your favorite professional race? Giro d'Italia. I like the Tour de France but there's always too much fluff and distractions. The Giro is typically harder, especially in the mountains and this often leads to the top riders attacking a long way out rather than waiting for the last 3km to make a move. The weather often adds to the difficulty. - Will you be following the Tour of California? I will indeed. There's a good chance that I'll be on the climb to the finish of Stage 4, Sierra Rd. It's a hard climb and hopefully someone will go really hard from the bottom and detonate the race. Taking a trip out to one of the earlier stages up in Tahoe or Sacto is a possibility too. The local cable TV company will have all the stages on on-demand so I'll likely see every stage... at least once
- How many miles per week do you ride on average? I normally get about 200 miles in when all is said and done.
Congratilations to Swampy1970 who is the inaugural winner or our new poster of the month competition. Swampy1970 is pretty well known around the forums - 5,000+ posts and several famous arguments with other prominent members make for interesting reading. I doubt he'll have any trouble spending the $100 gift voucher with JensonUSA. Now for a quick Q 'n A with swampy1970 - Why did you choose the nickname swampy1970? I was born in 1970, so that takes part of the numbers. Swampy was a nickname I was given years ago due to my long haired heavy metal "swamp man" like appearance... and built upon when an environmentalist with the nickname of Swampy camped out up a tree at Manchester Airport for a few weeks in protest of a new runway. - What part of the world do you live? Northern California - sandwiched mid-way between San Francisco and Sacramento, not too far off the usual stage route for the once traditional Sacramento to Santa Rosa stage of the ToCa. - What do you do for a day job? Network Engineer / control system analyst. - Tell us about your bike The training mule is a Raleigh Prestige carbon/aluminium frame with mostly Dura Ace 7800. PowerCranks and a wireless PowerTap finish the kit off on that bike. The other bike is a Cannondale Hi-Mod, Dura Ace 7900 with Ksyrium SL Premiums. - If you were a pro rider, who would you like to ride like? There are plenty of riders over the years that I'd really liked watching - Robert Millar, Lance Armstrong, Luis Herrera, Laurent Fignon, Pantani, Cavendish, Jones, LeMond and old footage of guys like De Vlaeminck. All exceptional riders but Bernard Hinault is the man. I dig the fiery temperament, his direct "too the point" attitude and the fact that he had the legs to back it all up. The classics, the Tours, uphill, downhill, time trials and even the sprint finish on the Champs Elysees, if he wanted to win it then chances are he likely would. Even as an old chap who's often on the Tour podium the badgers wrath can still occaisonally be seen. - What is your favorite professional race? Giro d'Italia. I like the Tour de France but there's always too much fluff and distractions. The Giro is typically harder, especially in the mountains and this often leads to the top riders attacking a long way out rather than waiting for the last 3km to make a move. The weather often adds to the difficulty. - Will you be following the Tour of California? I will indeed. There's a good chance that I'll be on the climb to the finish of Stage 4, Sierra Rd. It's a hard climb and hopefully someone will go really hard from the bottom and detonate the race. Taking a trip out to one of the earlier stages up in Tahoe or Sacto is a possibility too. The local cable TV company will have all the stages on on-demand so I'll likely see every stage... at least once
- How many miles per week do you ride on average? I normally get about 200 miles in when all is said and done.
