Quotes from Tim Krabbe

Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.

Every once in a while someone along the road lets us know how far behind we are. A man shouts: 'Faster!' He probably thinks bicycle racing is about going fast.

En Bram was zijn zoon. Juist omdat hij het niet was - van je eigen zoon zou je verplicht zijn te houden, waardoor je altijd moest twijfelen of je het wel echt deed; van Bram hield hij omdat het Bram was.

Do I clap along with them? No. By applauding I would be saying: Hell, Reilhan, it wasn't that important, it was just good fun. I would be saying: You only beat a part of me, and the rest, what does it care, it applauds you. But Reilhan has beaten all of me. He who applauds his victor denies that, and belittles him. Being a good loser is a despicable evasion, an insult to the sporting spirit. All good losers should be barred from practicing a sport.

Suffering is an art.

Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

Dan was hij niet boos, zoals je huis niet boos is als je met vakantie bent geweest.

The first climb won't be for another thirty kilometers, at Les Vignes. I'm longing for it, just like when I'm doing it I'll long for it to be over.

Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

Vind je het goed als ik jou gebruik om mijn leven aan diggelen te gooien?

On a bike your consciousness is small. The harder you work, the smaller it gets. Every thought that arises is immediately and utterly true, every unexpected event is something you'd known all along but had only forgotten for a moment. A pounding riff from a song, a bit of long division that starts over and over, a magnified anger at someone, is enough to fill your thoughts.

Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure.

The facts miss the heart of the matter; to give us a clear picture, the facts need a vehicle, the anecdote

Road racing imitates life, the way it would be without the corruptive influence of civilization. When you see an enemy lying on the ground, what's your first reaction? To help him to his feet. In road racing, you kick him to death.

Bij het ontdekken van die verschillen zeiden ze 'ah,ja,' met een toon van vergeving - er konden nu eenmaal niet alleen maar overeenkomsten zijn.

My muscles were able to fit themselves to my bike, they actually liked it: muscles are tractable and learn tricks fast. But racing downhill is a matter of nerves, and from the very start my nerves have thought: to hell with you and your bicycle racing.

Shifting is a kind of painkiller, and therefore the same as giving up. After all, if I wanted to kill my pain, why not choose the most effective method? Road-racing is all about generating pain.

Henri Pélissier once said: 'Always attack as late as you can, but before the others do.

El ciclismo es un deporte de paciencia. "El ciclismo es rebañar el plato de tu rival antes de empezar con el tuyo".

Any excuse to throw a rider out of a race is OK by me, but not that kind of inborn lack of athletic skill. That's not what racing is about.