Kentucky! I know—it sounds like an April Fool’s story but three months too early and infinitely less believable. But it’s true—and likely a whole lot more pleasant for the racers than the Czech Republic is right now.

Or maybe not. Despite apparent Euro sentiment that the course is too challenging to even pre-ride, Jon Page is ten (10) exclamation points worth of excited about it—and in a character-limited Twitter post no less. Might also be worth noting that Jon Page finished well in the World Cup finale, although the thought of an American potentially winning the world Elite CX would almost certainly push the UCI toward plowing and sanding the course—despite their own ban on artificial sand.

With the UCI ProTour now extending from January through October, it’s getting a little hard to keep track of the where and when surrounding various professional events.

Well, struggle no more: Cyclocosm.com proudly presents our Periodic Table of Professional Cycling—and thanks to Operation Monetize, you can buy it (and any of our other graphics) as a poster. It’s inspired some t-shirts as well.





[clickthrough for big sizes]

Races are ordered from top-to-bottom in rough order of importance, with vertical series representing geographic location of events. Stage races tend toward the left side of the table, one-days toward the right, and colors correspond with UCI ranking of individual events.

Not going poorly for cycling, of course. I mean poorly for me.

I’ve made one pick this far this season—that Greipel wouldn’t be able to hold his GC lead at the TDU—and the Gorilla made me look foolish. If this is how good he’s going in January, he’s either peaking way too early, or on track for a groundbreaking 2010.

The TDU—all three recaps I saw of it, anyway—seemed like a great early-season event. Footon managed to get some press—looking down on Valverde and the rainbow jersey makes a good podium shot—and as an added bonus, Manuel Cardoso’s Portugese National Champ kit doesn’t look half as ugly their normal uniform.

So it’s mid January. I had been, throughout my previous half-decade of running this blog, under the impression that this time of year was the “off season”. But apparently this opinion is not shared by a cabal of very old, very white men in Aigle, Switzerland.

Yes, while all reasonable cyclists are just digging out the trainer/building base Jens Factor-style, a few select sprinters—actually, just Andre Gripel so far—are profiting immensely from the UCI ProTour’s attempt to outflank the owners of the biggest bike races on Earth.

Robbie McEwen (@mcewenrobbie) opened the 2010 season with a devestating win over Chris Horner (@hornerakg):

Podium Cafe has been getting some great interviews this off-season. Last week, they published a long conversation with Dutch phenom Martijn Maaskant, and today George Hincapie stepped up to the mic.

While the whole interview is a fun read, what really struck me was this bit about Hincapie’s early departure from the ’09 Roubaix:

Last year for instance, when I flatted, I just went to move up in a corner, and I just took a little bit of a risk and got off the crown of the cobbles and went to the side of the road, and sure enough I flatted right there.

Second day of the week, second week of the year. Today, we are all about seconds.

A second ProTour sponsor has announced it’s leaving the sport before year’s end. Bjarne Riis isn’t giving it too much of a second thought, and Joe Lindsey seconds his lack of concern.

Team Radio Shack: bumped up to world’s second ugliest kit. Joe Parkin takes a second look at the 2010 kits thus far and helps explain how such things might happen.

Competitive Cyclist suggests second-guessing designers is, in general, a poor idea. I’d like to take a second to ask his web designer if he holds to that.

Cycling isn’t a sport that lends itself to idle boasting. The most flamboyant and outspoken rider in recent memory was Mario Cipollini, who managed to put together a small collection of Giro stages—among other prizes—to back up his chatter.

So it seems highly out of place when a guy like Jose Rujano says “I’m the third best climber in the world”. Even when Rujano was a notable—half a decade ago—I still don’t think he was the third best climber in the world. The tactical complexity of the ’05 Giro makes a definitive statement difficult, but had the Smurfish Venezuelan showed his cards sooner, and had Ivan Basso not been laid low by the runs, I think the heads of state would have kept Rujano on a far shorter leash.

While I could do without the music, and the grainy VHS-to-flash video quality, this Team 7-Eleven classic is definitely worth watch. It’s not often a 10-day stage race comes down to an intermediate sprint…



(via velogogo)

You’ve got to wonder at the behind-the-scenes machinations preceding this final stage. It strains credulity that Panasonic, after 10 days of racing, and shattering the field up the final climb the day before, could have controlled the entire peloton with their legs alone, before putting an all-rounder like Winnen in prime position to win the sprint.

I realize that 2007 was indeed a very open Tour, but I think Cyclingnews may have been enjoying a joke at our expense when they wrote up this preview:

In fairness, Moreau had indeed been putting down some of his best post-Festina riding in 2007, winning the Dauphine and even hanging with the leaders as they made some uncharacteristically soft attacks in the early TdF climbs.

But Moreau has a long history of needing excuses. When the GC race got tight, the Frenchmen found himself caught out by a field-splitting move from a Vino’-led Astana squad, and it was all downhill from there.