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Podium Cafe

https://www.podiumcafe.com/ | 8 entries published

You can check out, but you can never leave

Latest Entries

Update on the FSA DS

Hi all, as of right now I have no further information about our site, and I am assuming we will be unable to offer the game for 2025. But! If you stop by our Reddit page there is discussion of potential alternatives. I apologize for this mess, I thought we had an understanding about keeping the game going, but I guess not. BTW the game has nothing to do with SBNation, who have been extremely gracious and supportive throughout, including leaving the lights on in the Cafe for now. I really enj...

10 months ago | 0 reads

FSA DS Opening Coming ASAP!

Photo by DIRK WAEM/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images [Update Feb 5] It’s about to happen, I promise! And as suggested in the comment thread, with the site changes taking extra time, we are planning to start the competition with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, returning to our original format before the UAE Tour elbowed its way in. All due respect, World Tour points are a thing, but the real start of the season for many of us is when they roll out of Gent on March 1. I have never been a fan of Feb...

11 months ago | 0 reads

New Black Cyclones, by Marlon Lee Moncrieffe

Biniam Girmay | Alex Broadway / Getty Images Title: New Black Cyclones – Racism, Representation and Revolutions of Power in Cycling Author: Marlon Lee Moncrieffe Publisher: Bloomsbury Year: 2024 Pages: 212 Order: Bloomsbury What it is: Marlon Moncrieffe’s follow-up to Desire Discrimination Determination in which he again addresses the issue of racism in cycling and raises some challenging questions about the ways in which we might rid cycling of its colour bar Strengths : Moncrieffe ackno...

12 months ago | 0 reads

Fin

and some last 2025 FSA DS instructions This is it. I do not know when SBNation plans to turn the site off (read-only mode), but I assume it is by January 1. First things first, as I’ve signaled before, the FSA Directeur Sportif is cued up for another go-round. Not sure about 2026, but 2025 is on. I can’t deprive myself of the chance to price Tadej Pogačar after his megamonster year. Or deprive all of you of the dilemma that price will pose. I could never look Ursula in the eye again if I mis...

12 months ago | 0 reads

Cobbles Are Forever

Photo by Tim de Waele/Corbis via Getty Images A look back at the whole Flanders thing and what it meant to the Café This final* post is appropriately dedicated to, uh, for shorthand let’s call it Belgium and the Classics. Shorthand because it naturally includes France and the Netherlands to a significant degree, not to mention riders from around the globe. To the extent that concerns the thing I wrote about the most, that would be the cobbled classics, though it’s hard not to loop in the ...

12 months ago | 0 reads

Only At the Cafe...

A handful of things that made it unique around here I have no idea how to structure this post so I’m just gonna get into it. Things got kind of strange at times, probably a function of American fans in our Editors’ circle. When your favorite sport delivers the best it has before lunch, you have all sorts of time to indulge the ideas knocking around your head. Keep in mind that the online cycling content alternatives consisted of CyclingNews and VeloNews, not known for weird humor (stupid edito...

12 months ago | 0 reads

Cafe Within-the-Cafe: The Bookshelf, Revisited

A Cafe Bookshelf I don’t know exactly why, but ... I just like words. In some ways this site’s roots were only tangentially about cycling and really was just a continuation of my literature studies. Yes, I was a lit major, and not a very accomplished one. Like, at all. The study of literature requires a dedication and focus beyond what regular people OMG A SQUIRREL!!! Where was I? Oh yeah, literature. There are a lot of ways in which the Podium Cafe came along at the right time — post-L...

about 1 year ago | 0 reads

Beyond Virtuality... The Meet-Ups!

The Internet Can’t Contain the PdC Community! Maybe everybody thinks they were born at exactly the right time, but personally I can make a pretty good case. I can say I remember the 60s (maybe a couple days?), I saw Apocalypse Now! in theaters, and a bunch of other stuff, but all of that is debatable. What is not is that people my age have the healthiest understanding of modern technology, especially the internet. We can remember clearly what life was like before it. [Funny story, I used to pl...

about 1 year ago | 0 reads