Cycling’s a strange discipline. In what other sport would it be perfectly normal to describe a string of second-places in high profile events as “a problem“. In cycling, while three athletes get to ascend the podium, there’s the winner, and then there’s everybody else.

It’s almost better for everyone if the win is a “no one else in the photo” affair. The victor gets a moment to formulate a fun salute and show off the sponsors, while the rider behind him takes the battle for second, rather than losing the sprint for first.

The relationship between Tom Boonen and the E3 Prijs has got to be one of the most complex in cycling. The second-tier classic was one of the Belgian’s first major wins in his wunderkind days, and he had a literal lock on the event for four straight years.

But the past two editions have not been kind. Last year’s race ended with an uncharacteristic loss in a three-up sprint, and in this year’s race, Boonen was victimized by the combination of a brilliantly timed attack and a poorly negotiated bit of traffic furniture.

While I’ve made occasional reference to the concept of “pro”-ness on this blog, that fact is that it’s never been something of special concern to me.

I have neither the income to assemble my own housing-level pro build, nor the free time to aggregate links directing my readers to the same. But recent events have got me wondering if being too pro can be detrimental, if not to one’s riding, then certainly to one’s image.

Man, I go off the grid for a second and the whole world goes bananas. I don’t even know where to begin.

First, Versus (Comcast, really) and DirecTV get into yet another idiotic conflict over carriage rates. Versus temporarily disappears from DirecTV, words are exchanged, and predictably, the modern-day frog war is resolved.

Strangely, Velonews, the leading cycling publication in the only country that this nonsense affects, has nothing to report about it beyond the same press release that everyone else got. Apparently, VS is how most Americans get their cycling—and you guys have nothing to say about it?

So this (also available in white/red and black/yellow) is probably going to take some explanation.

The best place to start would be with a history lesson: in 1972, Steve Prefontaine had energized American audiences with his sensational distance running, leading to a proliferation of fan shirts that simply read “Go Pre”.

A few contrarians decided it would be clever to create a rival shirt, one that said “Stop Pre!” in a red stop sign for the 5000m Olympic Trials, and even persuaded one of Prefontaine’s rivals, Gerry Lindgren, to don the tee during warmups.

So for those of you who aren’t following me on Twitter, I’m currently in western North Carolina, getting in some riding and destroying my car on the very mountain roads that allegedly make this place so nice to ride in.

Unfortunately, the infrastructure I need to produce things on this blog have been hard to come by in these parts. Even staying on top of news stories, like Jens Voight’s return to awesome or Maxime Iglinksy’s win at Striade Bianche (I told you he could ride) has been a struggle, but considering my current setup, I’m lucky for even occasional blurps of news.

Armstrong in the pack / Angus Kingston, cc-by

Kind of a strange little hiatus, here. Two biggish races and then a little gap before the ProTour gets rolling at Paris-Nice. True, Lance is racing again, but I don’t find the early season warm-up all that compelling—certainly not when I can spend my time sussing out the various mind games at work.

The 2010 season’s opening weekend has come and gone, and its traditionally tough races did not disappoint.

Juan-Antonio Flecha finally got his first classic win at Het Nieuwsblad—though a glance over his shoulder just before his winning salute might have been a coy reference to that race he should have won.

The next day, KBK delivered wonderfully miserable conditions, through which three relative unknowns held off a high-powered chase before Bobbie Traksel of increasingly prominent wild-card squad Vacansoleil took an exhausted sprint for the win.