Only At the Cafe… – Podium Cafe

I am completely at a loss on how to structure this post, so I’ll just dive right in. Things took a surreal turn at times, perhaps influenced by the American fans in our Editors’ circle. With the best of your favorite sport happening before noon, there was ample time to explore the ideas swirling in your head. Keep in mind, the only online cycling content alternatives back then were CyclingNews and VeloNews, not exactly known for their quirky humor (blame those editorial standards!). Many of our ideas seemed to have been borrowed over the years, or maybe they weren’t so original after all, making the resemblances inevitable. I don’t even have to mention the FSA Directeur Sportif, our fantasy cycling game that Clydesdale and I concocted and SuperTed Supercharged into the popular staple it is today. Anyway, the things we used to do can now be found elsewhere.

But some things, nobody else was doing but us.

The Grisly Death of Girbecco

The 2009 Giro d’Italia was a memorable event, as the organizers threw a 100th birthday celebration full of special events. The mascot Girbecco was introduced, and for some reason, we became strangely obsessed with him. We started a fantasy cycling game called FSA Directeur Sportif, which became a popular staple. However, some of the unique things we did were only done by us.