Can radios be ruining cycling if the *real* Sprinters’ Classic goes to a rouleur for the second straight year? QuickStep shoulders the chasing load, while in the break, a Skil-Shimano rider sees too much soft-pedaling and makes the leap for freedom. But it’s all together with 8k to go as a very unlikely group threatens to force the selection.

[right-click for iTunes compatible download]

Also available on YouTube.

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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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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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A tactical and strategic day, as a long breakaway searches for KOM points, while Liquigas attempts to thin the field. Teamwork plays a major role, saving some GC contenders from elimination, and taking a major chunk out of the hopes of others. Plus sloppy bike changes, muppet-waving spectators, a slippery bottle hand-off and more.

[right-click for iTunes compatible download]

Also available on YouTube.

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In case you hadn’t heard, Horner crashed out of the Vuelta today, 2.3km from the transfer to Spain.

(from screen capture of Velonews, highlights added by the author)

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Brad Wiggins is a forgetful guy. First off, he obviously misplaced his Garmin-Slipstream aero lid, and was forced to pair his Robin’s Egg and Creamsicle Argyle skinsuit with an obviously uncomplimentary Union Jack helmet.

His resulting detention by the fashion police doubtlessly cost him the stage (he was only :02 out), but the Brit seemed pleased enough with the performance—apparently he also forgot that he’s really, really good at racing for roughly four kilometers.

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A tight, crash-heavy parcours, riders dropping off the pace left and right, a symbolic surge to the line by a snubbed favorite, and frantic, split-second calculations after the last team’s finish.

Stage 4’s Team Time Trial has delivered on what is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting TdF first weeks in recent memory—and a certain Twitterer promises more fun to come.

I can’t say much that hasn’t already been said about today’s stage, so I’ll just highlight a few figures that caught my eye:

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From my twitter feed today. Literally within seconds of each other:

I didn’t see even a second of footage from after today’s stage got interesting, and from what I can tell, neither did anyone watching Versus. My frustration at this is countered only by my anticipation of the awesome spectacle as Astana continues to spin apart under the bulk of its own talent, like a shoddy carnival ride, unevenly loaded with fat kids.

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