Yes, very fast. I am pressed for time. Why is it the less you have to do, the harder it is to find time to do it in? Ah well. Coppi/Bartali Stage 4: Another newbie “breaks the duck”, to borrow Eurosport’s strangely uncomfortable phrase. The stage was shortened due to “harsh” conditions of 8C and rain. Only in Italy, folks.

In Spain, Francisco Ventoso won again. Can’t tell if he’s that good, or the rest of the field (sprinting wise) is that weak. Meanwhile, Alberto Contador wrapped up the GC because he had orders to win. Ordering a rider to win - brilliant! Is that Johan Bruyneel a tactical genius or what?

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Sloppy copy editor that I am, I can sympathize with a typo or two. But a dead link on a freakin’ “Site of the Day” page - I mean, wow. Don’t worry, though; since it’s for a good cause, I sent my friends in Boulder an email informing them of the mistake. If I haven’t been permanently relegated to the spam filter, the error will probably be fixed by the time you read it. But, just in case, I’ve memorialized the gaffe for posterity at CiteBite.com.

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I think Tom Boonen likes his new bike. I mean, it could have been Mike Sinyard called him and was all like, “yo, Tom, bro - quit harshin’ on my rides”. But after Boonen’s emphatic victory celebration today at the Dwars door Vlaanderen, in which he pointed repeatedly at the top tube and grinned like an E-popping club rat on a velour couch, I think he really did like the bike. Cycling.TV’s commentators suggested he was indicating something wrong with his front wheel, but why would anyone celebrate that?

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Man, I forgot how busy things got in this here “regular season”; we’ve got some race in Spain, another in Italy, and a third in France, and I don’t care about any of them! (though Pavel Brutt breaking away, in the rain, to take second, then the GC lead, over the course of a split-stage, two days removed from a 260K solo in Milan-friggin’-Sanremo is pretty impressive).

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Well, looks like I’m 0-for-2 on the season. In my defense, as Chris points out, Oscar Freire was (in hindsight) an easy pick, and I’m not interested in cycling because it’s easy. If I wanted easy, I’d watch Olympic rifle - the event that doesn’t seem to realize it’s biathlon without the wind, cold, time pressure, elevated heart rate and - oh yeah - 5 to 50k of cross-country skiing.

But I digress. Even with the bunch sprint, MSR was not easy - a hot pace, long-lived breakaway (to the Cipressa!) and rough crashes seemed to keep the lid on attacks. Team CSC rode for O’Grady, elminating any number of breakaway threats, while even a few riders with no one to work for (Kim Kirchen, I’m looking at you) seemed content simply to pull the field back together.

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Time for the last round of MSR previews. Eurosport gives the most straightforward look, while Velonews calls the race “shy a few participants” while naming only one absenteee (Basso). Pez describes the chances of every bike racer ever, but neglects to pick a favorite. But enough of my incessant badmouthing. Americans like to blather about how it’s not the critic who counts, and so, with no further adieu, here is my Sanremo preview:

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Jeez, what is up with all the Vino’ press lately? The guy has an interview in L’Equipe and gets coverage like he’d cracked the Zodiac case or something. But sure, it’s newsworthy that TdF contenders have a sparse early season schedule [pause] NOT! It’s about as newsworthy as a story on a TdF contender fine-tuning his time-trial position in a wind tunnel…oh wait. <sarcasm>Well, it’s just good to know I can always count on my friends in Boulder for a worthwhile story.</sarcasm>

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Hmm, third week in March…I seem to recall there was some sort of big thing in cycling around this time…OMD! - that’s “OMG” en français - it’s the “just over three months to the Tour de France” mark! Better track down and interview a race favorite! Seriously, though, Reuters was probably better off running a TdF story than coming out with an MSR preview as doofy as ProCycling’s. Allow me to highlight an offending paragraph:

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Stick a fork in the ‘07 pre-season, kids - it’s done. Down-again/up-again Andreas Kloden held on to win Tirreno-Adriatico, perhaps reminding Team Astana’s enemies in The Cartel that the Kazakh squad’s talent more than outweighs Rene Haselbacher’s incessant crashes. Anyway, Het Volk, Paris-Nice and T-A are big, important events, but the season begins in earnest this week. I’m serious. Even the Belgians agree with me on this; Nokere Koerse, the first of the Flandrian classics, takes place Wednesday - though the main event is, and has been for the past 100 years, this Saturday in Milan.

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How all occasions do inform against me! First, snow appears from nowhere and puts the kibosh on the weekend’s racing. Then my internet goes out and robs me of the live action I might have otherwise seen. Oh, and ZeFrank goes off the air, I leave my bike at work, the T breaks down, I get stranded at the freezing cold Harvard Busway for 85 minutes, and pretty much everything else you can imagine going wrong this weekend, does.

Oh, to be young and European instead. Continuing the trend most rightly sounded out by Cyclocosm poster “fish-e”, it seems that a new generation of stars, most younger than I am, is coming to the fore (and I ain’t old). Today’s new face - Lampre’s Matteo Bono (nice U2 reference from Eurosport), who hung on from the break over the peloton-splintering climb Monte Della Laga. Moments later, Andreas Kloden, who’s generally only good once every four years or so, vaulted past compatriot and overnight leader Stefan Schumacher to take the GC driver’s seat.

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