Well, normally, the World Championships marks the end of the season, leaving hordes of cycling fans as hungover as Tom Boonen in a Madrid hotel room wondering where the fork he left his rainbow jersey (speaking of ole’ Blackout Boonen, apparently, he “forks” on the first date). But, thanks to the ProTour, there’s more racing to be had. The Championships of Zurich, one-day, a flat-but-hilly, long, could-go-any-which-way affair, are this weekend, and provide current ProTour leader a chance to clinch the title (not that he hasn’t already; it would take three consecutive wins by Alexandre Vinokourov, plus an outbreak of bubonic plauge confined entirely to Danilo diLuca to keep the Liquigas man from claiming the title). Last year’s event, run in late August, saw Juan Antonio Flecha inexplicably win a 20-man group sprint, much to the dissapointment of everyone, since it left him unable to execute his trademarked victory salute.

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Ok, I admit it. I’ve gotten far too caught up in all this other crap like rider transfers, secret police, Robbie McEwen being out of it, etc. Time to get back to basics. How basic? How about the Tour du Senegal, a West African 10-day stage race. Like other events in the region, such as the ASO’s Tour du Faso, the race is something of a time warp back to the time when riders finished in groups of twos and threes, and flatting could mean a long wait on the side of the road for the next car to pass. Sadly, Senegal is a bit remote, so results and information are incomplete and hard to come by. Much less remote, at least to the world of cycling, is Belgium, where Nico Eeckhout won the Omloop van de Vlaamse Scheldeboorden for the second time, his first win coming an astounding 12 years ago. With Davitamon-Lotto Teammate Aart Vierhouten, Eeckhout continues to ride to give hope for those who believe double vowels belong at the front of names, not at the end, as certain Eastern Europeans seem to think.

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Aitor Gonzalez, winner of this year’s Tour de Suisse and perennial favorite for the ProTour’s non-existant “Least Consistent Rider” award, has allegedly tested positive for an unknown substance at this year’s Vuelta a Espana. Though reported only by l’Equipe, and unconfirmed as of yet through official channels, if true, this would be the third major dope catch at the Vuelta in the past two years (after Santi Perez and Tyler Hamilton). It kinda makes you wonder what the Vuelta is doing that the other Grand Tours aren’t. I’m also kinda curious as to why I always first hear about doping offenses from l’Equipe.

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EICMA is somewhat overlooked outside of Italy. After all, it’s name is a confusing and mysterious Euro acronym, where all the letters are out-of-order to us simple English-speakers. And, despite what the silver space-man riding a bike might suggest, the show isn’t particularly long on technical innovation. EICMA is where you go to revel in the beauty of the old school, or the old and outmoded made beautiful. Oh, sure, occasionlly a manufacturer will drop a new product, but by and large, EICMA is all about celebrating the triumph of style over substance. So it doesn’t get much coverage. Plus, its name doesn’t end in “-bike,” so many American journalists might get confused by that.

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Enough of this globetrotting, baggage-losing, bum-rushing, air-horn-blowing madness! Time to get back to pre-chewing the gristly bits of cycling news so you don’t have to spend 15 minutes afterwards trying to floss them out. First item of business: Tom Boonen, World Champ on a bum stomach (perhaps not dissimilar to the twsited stomach that afflicted Santa’s Little Helper on Episode 8F17 of “The Simpsons”.) Gastroenterology aside, pretty much everyone was impressed with Boonen’s performance on Sunday. Everyone, that is, except Robbie McEwen, whose post-race commentary makes me wonder exactly which Worlds race he was watching over the last two laps. Maybe he was just too far back to see all the Belgians up front?

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Whew. What a freakin’ week. Time to go back to the states and get a job or something.

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(Just to convey to you the proper Spanish flavor of the event, here’s the Official Vuelta a Espana Big Rig, parked in front of Santiago Bernabau Stadium, home of Real Madrid.)

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And what else is new? It’s the third time for the Aussie, who didn’t actually win in 2003, but was awarded the victory after David Millar admitted to doping before the event in early 2004. Bobby Julich was nowhere to be found, and an aging and busted-up Eki also found himself adrift at the wrong end of the results sheet.

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First day of Worlds. Men’s U23 TT, Women’s Elite TT. Winner on the Men’s side was Mikhail Ignatiev, only the cutest thing ever (I’m told…) to come out of Eastern Europe since Misha (or maybe t.A.T.u., tho neither Misha nor Ignatiev needed to pretend to be gay to be cute.) Second and third are unimportant because, like all riders both younger and better than me, they’ll be burned out and hocking beer to tourists on la Rambla by age 30. Oh, yeah, American Tyler Ferrar was 10th. Go USA. On the womens’ side, lanky Swiss Miss’ (or Mrs., or Mz.; really, I have no idea) defended her title with panache, putting 30s+ over 21k on the entire field, save second-place finisher Joane Somarriba Arrola. American Kristin Armstrong took 3rd, ahead of bird-flipping Judith Arndt.

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So after months of everyone being all like “ch! Hell yeah, it’s a sprinter’s course,” there seem to be now some differing opinions on the topic. Most loud on the topic has been Mario Aerts who thinks it’ll be impossible for a sprint train to get things going, especially if it rains. Stijn Devolder thinks things won’t even get to a sprint, while Belgian coach Jose (Belgian?) De Cauwer thinks to two climbs are tough, but not tough enough to kill off the sprinters. Of course, these guys are all from Belgium, which has been nothing but a flat ramp for Germany and France to invade each other through the centuries, so we’ll see how their predictions play out. Abraham Olano, a “ten kilos heavier” former World Champ from Spain, a decidedly hillier country, had no problems big-ringing the climb and yapping the whole way. Madrid resident Giovanni Lombardi also seems to think a group sprint is inevitable.

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