Pippo Pozzato gets a new nickname after today’s stage: Cassandra. He predicted the action pretty much to the letter (Evans winning, Sastre, Basso losing time) but was unable to do anything about it himself—possibly, some have suggested, because the weather was too grim. At any rate, the nickname is certainly inline with scope of the stage, which drew Gavia comparisons pretty much from the word go.

So for those of you scoring at home, that’s two consecutive Grand Tour starts in the Netherlands, and two consecutive Grand Tours marked by huge crowds, active racing, and scenes of epic carnage in the early going.

If the pattern continues, this year’s TdF depart in Rotterdam might just be that rapturous moment in which casual cycling fans finally dissociate “flat” from “boring” in their appreciation of the sport—unless, of course, Lance Armstrong crashes or misses a split. Then they’ll howl about how it’s not fair.

I’ll admit to being something of a Wiggins Skeptic. Not in the sense that he might be doping or cheating or anything like that, but in the sense that brilliant Tour performances from flatlanders tend to be one-off deals.

There’s no doubt he’s got a couple more Top 10 TdF rides in him, but seeing how deep he dug for 4th last year, and how easily Contador and Schleck distanced themselves on the big climbs made rumors of his off-season transfer fee an eyebrow-raiser for me.

I never want to call Roubaix boring, but this year’s Hell of the North felt uncomfortably similar to a non-2003 Armstrong TdF win. That said, there’s plenty of action to run through, including but not limited to another fantastic Cancellara bike change, two dog incursions, a poorly-timed feed, and more arm flailing than one of those air-powered tube displays.

[right-click for iTunes-compatible download]

(Contains many photos to which I do not own the rights, and footage from Sport+.)

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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).

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…”