Remember way back in May, when the Giro super-criterium in Milan was neutralized? Well, here’s Lance Armstrong’s take:

(from this long feature at NOS, via RoadID, RT’d by Versus producer @joelfelicio)

Check out Armstrong’s reactions: forcing Mart Smeets to come out and declare him the Captain of the Peloton, rather than saying it himself. Casting the other heads of state as bickering “little bosses”, and even painting race officials as ineffectually timid. One senses the implication that, without Armstrong, the pro peloton would still be squabbling on the cobblestones of Milan’s old city.

Is January too early to talk about the Tour de France? Of course not—at least, not when the Tour is the only cycling event your employer bothers to cover live, and especially not when that employer is the Network formerly known as “Only Lance” and you’re bashing the chief rival of a certain well-known Texan.

While anything Bob Roll writes must be taken with a MassDOT-sized serving of salt, Joe Parkin’s commentary tends to be quite insightful. So when he writes that “Contador has weaknesses in his armor that leave many of the great champions who preceded him absolutely dumbfounded”, I’m teetering on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear exactly what those weaknesses are. Sadly, the A Dog in a Hat author doesn’t deliver any details.

Back before the Internet, bike nerds must have had to crowd around well-thumbed copies of under-the-radar bike ‘zines at the LBS, squinting fitfully at blurry, black-and-white photos pirated out of Gazzetta dello Sport before coming up with clever things to say about how freakin’ ugly the new season’s kits were.

Can you imagine? Do you think fine details like the fake rivets and pockets on the notorious Carrera kits were even visible? Could they even tell that the Castorama kit was supposed to be a grocer’s Home Depot-style apron, and not hip waders or overalls? I shudder to even consider it.

No one disputes the importance of base training, and the truly serious make careful note of time, distance, and wattage in their pre-season rides. But when it comes to outdoor training—at least at my latitude—that doesn’t really capture the whole story.

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Jens Factor, as defined by this chart, is just that—an integer value you can factor into your training data to properly reflect the increased benefits of staring down winter weather. Jens Voigt, a veteran roleur known to take particular glee in miserable conditions, is its obvious namesake.

Is it the season already? Certainly feels that way with all the results coming out of Australia—though any result with Graeme Brown at the top makes me wonder just a bit. Nothing against Brownie, really—I just seem to know him better for his talking than his riding.

Speaking of talking, Robbie McEwen has been making noise recently, both about his comeback and about foreign infiltrators in the Australian national championships.

I’ll pass on commenting on the first item until McEwen ramps it up in Europe, but I think the complaint about foreign riders is an interesting one, especially to a US audience. Until ’06, the American race was open to foreigners, and—with the exception of Freddy Rodrguez—was dominated by domestic pros.

I’ve never been particularly happy with my racing ability. Don’t get me wrong—there are plenty of riders worse riders out there, and I love battling for the occasional Cat 3 podium—but it would be nice if my legs could keep up with my mouth. As Alan Atwood put it while announcing one of my better ‘cross results this season, “he talks pretty good between races”.

As a result, I seek other ways to be awesome; the photos set above captures just such an attempt. At Ice Weasels, there was a nominal fifteen-minute gap between the Cat 3 and Open Singlespeed fields; I was determined to race them both on the same bike.