So many people get into the bicycle industry because of a love for the sport or the art or the machinery. Very few of those ever survive. As with any business, it's the business-savvy folks and not the [insert whatever you like here, be it bikes or anything else] lovers that do well.

So it's always refreshing to find someone that succeeds because they got lucky or in spite of their lack of business acumen or because they happen to be a business person AND love their craft. Or maybe they are just a really hard worker.

Not sure which category Dario Pegoretti falls into but you he's been around a long time and is obviously still making it work.

ASIDE – I guess when you are this old school you don't need to wear eye protection. Or use fancy shmancy frame jigs; you just eyeball shit and it fits. Plus you get to drink wine on the job. Nice.

28.6 from camilla candida donzella on Vimeo.

And The Onion described it better than I ever could:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/lance-armstrong-wants-to-tell-nation-something-but,17973/

Jesus, isn't this exactly what happened when he was first diagnosed with cancer and Frankie and Betsy Andreu were in the room? Whatever.

I predict Lance will never admit to anything. Sadly it's worked for so many other professional athletes.

I love the Internet. Especially when you stumble on a gem without much effort. Like this one:

http://www.70sbig.com/

From the FAQ here is my favorite quote.
Question: How much do I need to eat?
Answer: More. There is an old business adage, “don’t dress for a job you have; dress for the job you want.” Apply this to your eating. If you want to be 215, you need to eat for 215, not for your 165 pound sprint-Tri doing self. You won’t get 70’s Big by pushing bird seed around your plate at your local hippy bistro. Start with 125-150% of what you’re eating now and see how that goes for a couple weeks.

Back in college I went the gym pretty regularly. A good friend and I would do all the standard muscle head stuff like bench press, arms and heavy leg days. Oh yeah, and sit-ups with weights(?!). I also started racing bicycles but did not realize until MUCH later just how incompatible these two activities were. I was not muscle head by any stretch but I was about 10 pounds heavier than I am now. And of course I did get into some of the muscle head 'culture' because not confirming is, well, hard.

So today when I followed a couple of links and stumbled on 70s Big all the memories came flooding back. Stuff like:

• Reading Muscle and Fitness magazine.
• Thinking that being hairless was a pretty common condition if you were a guy.
• Worrying about how much protein I got in my diet.
• Watching guys grunt (scream?) when they lifted weights. Thank god I was never in that camp.
• Massive, leather lifting belts. Yep, I had one.
• Chalking up. 'Cuz how can you possibly lift heavy weights if your hands are sweaty? I never bought any chalk but I did use some a couple of times.
• Terms like 'blasting', 'super setting', 'pump', 'flush', 'burn', 'ripped' and 'max'. But don't get me started... there are millions more where that came from.
• Silly lifting-specific accessories like cotton straps, gloves with straps that wrap around your wrists, crazy looking shoes and of course the tank top/side splitter shirt. Hey, if you're going to be a slave to the iron, why hide the gun show?
• All the over-the-top supplements and weight gain products you can buy. Crap like Weight Gain 5000 and Super Heavyweight Gainer 1200. And of course everything contained some sort of 'super duper anabolic formula' and all the get-you-ripped drinks had about five different stimulants. Nice.

I look back on all that now and laugh. Lots. Nothing wrong with working out mind you but to buy all this muscle stuff hook, line and sinker is more than a little scary. Plus, it makes me smile when people say cycling is a niche activity; what about the gym rat? Go to any other country in the world and cycling is 100 percent normal and the muscle head is the freak.