Category: Racing

Why we watch

The tour has been over for a week now, not that I really noticed.  And that should have been a capital ‘T’ in “tour”, right?  Mea culpa.  And a yawn. Don’t get me wrong –I have nothing against the tour.  I even think the route was fine (they rode their butts off around France, what more…

Flandrian

Flandrian. While its real definition is a lot more complex than I’d ever imagined, it’s a word that is bandied about frequently here in relation to weather matters far less serious. If it’s bucketing down, a stiff breeze blowing or the air has that frosty bite to it, we are inclined to state “It’s a…

Next Year

The scorching sprint-dust and verbal detritus emanating from the Manx Mouth hasn’t even settled on the Champs Elysees, and already talk has turned to next year’s Tour. Not surprising, as most of the armchair (and ‘expert’) assessment of this year’s race has been less than complimentary, to say the least.  So already we look ahead, hoping…

A Day to Remember

Today was perhaps one of the best days of bike racing of the season – brought on by my trusty favorite pair, the Schleck Brothers.  As promised by the organizers, the last week of the race is shaping up to be a nail-biter, despite two incredibly boring weeks of racing. On paper at least, today…

Spartacus

About 30km into the stage today, Fabian Cancellera (aka: Swiss Bear, Spartacus, Big Baby, Freak…) pulled up beside me, sat up and reached inside the front of his jersey while shouting in his loud cheery way, ‘Millar! I have a present for you!’ –David Millar, Stage 12 It turns out David Millar had lost his…

Damned if you do…

It must be really getting to Cadel. The constant calls from the media and the fans (myself included) to “have a go”. Attack. Stop sucking wheels. And lo and behold, when he does, he gets pummelled from all quarters regardless. Which isn’t totally unjustified. I mean, had he taken a shot of ‘Landis-juice’ and thought…

Assembly-Line Racing

I haven’t seen a Tour de France stage as uninteresting as today’s stage to Arcalis since, well, since 2005.  What was special about 2005?  The Bruyneel/Armstrong team.  Different teammates and different color jerseys, but what we got was the same uninteresting racing we endured for the 7 years between 1999 and 2005. One of the…

Guilt by association

Let’s get this straight; Yes, I’m an Aussie, not a Yank. Alas, it doesn’t automatically mean I’m a huge fanboy for Cadel. And if I was American, I wouldn’t be carrying the torch for Lance, either. Patriotism has never been big on my agenda. I love my birthplace, for sure, even though I have chosen…

Media Whore?

As the early kilometres of Stage 5 rolled by, with the usual early break forming, the protagonists being assessed for their chances of actually making the move stick, one name stood out from the rest; Thomas Voeckler. “He’s just a media-whore” was the expert opinion of a colleague. I begged to differ. Ever since his…

Jan Ullrich

I’m going to come out and say it: Jan Ullrich is my favorite rider, ever.  He had it all: class, strength, talent. On top of all that, he was also tall and he was big.  He was  Frank’s Perfect  Storm of cycling. I am not a fan of doping in sports, especially in cycling.  At…

Manx Depression

Am I the first to make this pun?  Probably, because I suffer from a condition called “Awesome”.  I could validate that assertion by doing a search on The Google, but that sounds overly complicated and likely to yield results that I’m not interested in seeing. Mark Cavendish – or “Cav”, as those for whom uttering…