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…
The Archives
Danilo Di Luca is the next in a long line of my favorite riders who have tested positive for banned substances. While some are more surprising than others, I have to say that at this point, I am a little surprised that the riders are still trying to get away with using drugs they know…
This Tour seems to have been dominated more by gossip than by racing, contributed to in no small part by a rotten route. The press seems to have whipped up more interest in who is leading Astana or Saxo-Bank than in the race itself. But some riders seem to love nothing more than complaining to…
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…
As an objective, rational, and calculating cycling fan, I’ve never been able to get excited about any rider on the now-defunct Gerolsteiner team. This is mostly because they committed the unforgivable crime of employing teamwide, systematic ugly kit selection. Those guys looked so unbelievably ugly in those nasty, turquoise unitards that several of my television…
Cycling enthusiasts used to mash a giant gear for one, simple reason: it looked super cool. Do you want to ride like Lucho Herrera who is always falling off his bike or Eddy Merckx who is always winning races? Even as recently as the 90’s it was a common sight to see the pros riding…
In response to criticism that the Tour de France is too predictable and uninteresting, the organizers of the Tour have taken a novel approach to designing this year’s route: make the route suck so much that the biggest source of discussion and suspense about the race is who is the real leader of Astana and…
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…
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…
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…
Well, here we are, on the eve of the first mountain stage. Tomorrow’s stage 7 will climb to Arcalis where we will begin to have a much clearer picture of what the Tour will bring over the next two weeks. Status Check. Armstrong is best positioned to take the Yellow Jersey, but his ace-climber teammate…
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…
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…
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…
I wanted to take a moment to talk about my favorite Tour Favorites. And, the best way of doing that is to go over which of the Favorites annoy me or don’t look cool enough or have never raced on Cervelos. So, onto Frank’s inaugural “How Dost Though Annoy Me” list. Alberto Contador. Primadonna. I…
Jens Voigt can always be relied on for entertaining comments to the press. One of my favorite quotes of his was during an interview discussing the role that a rider’s mind plays during a race: When you go hard, your body says, ‘STOP!’ and your mind says, ‘BODY, SHUT UP!’ And, sometimes it works! And then…
Dutch news outlets are reporting that Erik Breukink has been informed of additional positive cases and is going to be coming “clean” tomorrow. There is much speculation that it could involve Denny Menchov. Never been a big fan of his but his Giro was very impressive. Yuck.
It was announced this morning that Thomas Dekker tested positive for EPO on Christmas Eve, 2007. He was reportedly caught by studying blood values using the new Biological Passport; after reviewing his data, WADA requested his old samples be retested. “The UCI’s request is based on two elements of evidence collected within the biological passport…
I love every kind of bike, from the tricked-out fixies all over Seattle (hello – hilly-ass town! Unless your fixie is a 39-27, you are not making a sensible choice!), to the awesome Dutch Bikes, to the phenomenal racers around town, I love them all. I am, however, a bitch when it comes to bike…
Seattle is a much hillier town than most people realize. Hills of 15% grades and 2-4 km in length are a dime-a-dozen, and there are several, such as the Lighthouse and Dravus, that are considerably more. Lighthouse is around 22% while Dravus’ grades make me test my track-stand abilities (I have none). Our normal route,…