The Elite Men’s World Championship Road Race in the words of the people who watched it live:

(click image for full size)

Source text from Cyclingnews’ live report, the final thread of Podium Cafe’s live discussion, and the first 50 results of a Twitter search for “Mendrisio” on 9/27/09. Cloud generated by Wordle with manual filtering by the author.

Tried to make it arc en ciel colors, but it just didn’t look as good as Team Embrocation (actually, it’s a default palette called “Blue Chill”). Probably could stand to slap together a real text scraper sometime to save time filtering out forum usernames, sigs and the like.

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“I’m sure I’ve been beaten by cheats before, I know I have, and I’m sure I’ll be beaten by cheats in the future.”
-Cadel Evans

As true as that quote may be to the the realities of cycling and the workmanlike attitude of its author, it is now—at long last and at least until Cadel Evans starts another bike race—false.

You can make a knock on the Aussie for occasionally head-butting photographers or getting difficult during poor neutral service changes. But in a race dominated recently by national superteams stacked with one-day specialists, to see a luckless Grand Tour rider—the first multi-day specialist champ since Abraham Olano in 1995—from savvy-but-outgunned Australia stick the audacious solo move in the closing kilometers was quite satisfying.

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Now we have confrimation that it’s not just me being a wise-ass: Cyclingnews’ Peter Hymas made an extensive investigation into the United States’ lackluster Men’s Elite Road Race performances. While his explanations (long seasons, pressure to be fit for California, opportunities for young/domestic riders) and mine (low intestinal fortitude, Interbike, lack of focus) differ, I think it’s safe to say we both agree that the US needs more top tier pros “willing to respect the race and start for [their] country” like Tyler Farrar.

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Might give a little insight into why David Millar elected to skip out on the TT World Championships this year, despite taking a TT win the Vuelta just a few days ago. This, combined with the homefield advantage, has got to make Cancellara the favorite for this weekend as well.

(blurry pic of salute here)

Speaking of, Team USA’s Tom Zirbel put in a great ride for 4th—not bad for a guy who’s never been to Europe. Don’t forget you can still win a free T-shirt by picking the place of the top US Men’s Elite finisher on Sunday! Contest entry period closes Saturday at 6pm EDT (That’s US East Coast time).

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As many of you know, I’m not at Interbike this week. Thus, I didn’t get to see CrossVegas last night, and am forced to piece the racecourse together from Velonews’ race report. Keep in mind, all these passages are from the same article:

“…under the lights at a soccer complex on the outskirts of the city…”

So flat, fast, non-technical?

“Nash crashed in a tight left-hander on the second lap…”

So flat, fast, but with technical sections?

“…Compton made the slow-riding, sometimes lumpy grass surface look positively fast…”

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Also, is it just me, or do all Jon Vaughters’ shirts look the same?

(via Matthew Koschara’s Facebook feed)

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Domestic riders don’t come much better than Mike Creed. He’s been a pro for ten years, ridden for the biggest teams, scored some of the best wins, and man—does he ever know how to deliver an interview.

At Podium Insight this past Friday he unleashed an epic, covering topics as broad-ranging as the ever-unfolding disaster that is Rock Racing, the fickle and patronizing nature of cycling fans (especially on the Internet), and the future of public relations in sports. An excerpt:

Creed: I’m early break kryptonite.

Podium Insight: Everybody should just sit up, Creed’s here…

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Help restore America’s greatness: pick the place of the best American finisher at Worlds and win a t-shirt.

And yes, DNF is an option.

Before Jock Boyer was (allegedly) the first American to compete in the Tour de France, he was 5th at a little race called the World Championships. He also featured prominently in the 1982 edition that marked Greg Lemond’s arrival at the sport’s highest level.

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In terms of covering hard news in the cycling world, “real” media outlets are the undisputed kings. They have reporters on the ground at major races, are fluent in all sorts of languages, have an armada of contacts, receive invites to events, and get bucketloads of free crap in the mail from manufacturers.

Don’t get me wrong: bloggers and smaller sites can do fantastic things in terms of commentary, discussion, and generally awesome content, but for the most part, they, like everyone else interested in competitive cycling, are dependent on places like Velonews and Cycle Sport to churn out news.

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It hasn’t been the greatest evening/morning for me. Last night, I spent about 4 hours standing upright on very slow, very crowded trains, got home late, found that @UniversalSports is unfamiliar with the concept of fair use, and on top of all that, had to get up early and find a new spot for Third Tuesday.

Fortunately I found this video on Velogogo to put all that awful in perspective:

The soundtrack, and the money shot of Bob Roll Leonard Nitz removing his hairnet helmet around 1:20, really take it to another level for me.

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