Mud, bergs, and cobbles / by Cindy Trossaert cc-by-nc

I don’t hide that fact that I think the spring classics are the best bike racing the season has to offer. Sure, in terms of complexity, drama and sheer scale they can’t match the sweeping scope of the Grand Tours, but then again, how many people do you find who hold up Moby Dick as a model of excellence in prose styling? While the Tour may mark the season’s traditional high point, the best racing you’ll see all year comes over the next few months.

Outside the all-or-nothing attacks of fresh legs on storied, unpredictable courses that (usually) encourage and reward aggression, the classics are also critical because they set the backstory over which the remainder of the season plays out. McEwen’s headbutt as Boonen sprinted to a win at the ’05 Tour (not to mention the ensuing ad) was built on the angst of Quick.Step’s dominant spring campaign.

“The are no races,” Jacques Anquetil once quipped, “only lotteries.” And nowhere is that more true than this Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix. Broken steerer tubes, rogue freight trains, cartwheeling Norwegians—in an increasingly calculated sport, it’s a welcome change to see chance play such a prominent role.

So with that in mind, I’ve created Paris-RouBingo, the bingo-style home game for Paris-Roubaix:

                  
(big size – buy poster – create/share your own)

The rules are simple: watch the race, and mark off the incidents/sightings as they occur; first person to get five-in-a-row is the winner. Of course, if everyone used the same board the competition would be pretty boring, so here’s a blank copy in an 8.5″x11″ size you can edit and print out.

It’s not that I consider myself above the phenomenon best described as “Internet Jackass Day“—I used to participate, back when I wasn’t very good at Photoshop, apparently—but I am up against the friggin’ wall in terms of free time.

I’m going to ignore the impact a two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off approach is having on my fitness and focus instead on the fact that for many year-round cycling fans, this is the most important week (or kinda two weeks, now) of the season.

Man, is there a close layover between Ghent Wevelgem and the Ronde or what? I feel like it’s hardly enough time to walk after Flanders, let alone take on a few more bucketloads of Belgian cobblestones. It makes the relative lack of respect Wevelgem gets all the more inexplicable. But once Cipo’ wins a race, the purists’ respect goes out the window. Get over it you fogies – Cipollini’s a good rider. He’s trading elbows in final k at an age when Merckx’s biggest rivals were sausages and Stella.

Anyway, as Brian Smyth jokingly summarized one year “There’s nothing to Wevelgem, really – tough it out over the Kemmelburg twice and then win the sprint.” I love Wevelgem. Lots of different ways to finish this guy off: Small break (Cipo, 2002), Group gallop (Hushovd), Cancellara-style (Pozzatto), a friendly motopace (Mattan), in the back of the meat wagon (Farrar), and you might even get knocked over by a horse (Zabel). That’s what I dig this race: as many ways to close it out as there are riders in the peloton, and it’s (almost) never the same finish twice.

Now, quickly, I will recap all the stupid stuff I’m ignoring because I love talking about cobbled one-days:
1) Cyclingnews’ new look giving a face to its steady decay into the worst parts of Velonews.com and the old ProCycling page.
2) Running bike
3) Boonen whining that he was supposed to win Flanders. It’s like Elway being pissed that he had to hand off.
4) Five days from Roubaix, the eve of Wevelgem, and this is a top story? Really?
5) Worst bike lane ever
6) Cavendish? I like him, but dude. Boonen. Solo. Because he’s got something to prove.
7) Also…”sprinters’ classic”? Paris-Tours? MSR? Maybe sprinters’ cobbled classic…

You know what’s ironic? That I was finally able to watch both Stage 7 and Stage 8 this weekend, but not to find the time I needed to post on either of them. There was a lot of that going around this weekend – not quite irony always, but something close. For example, Slate rejected my article pitch, saying they were all set for TdF Coverage; thus far, they’ve run only a single, recycled story, with a new preface that I felt compelled to correct for them.

Continuing the trend, the first active, high-profile rider to confess to doping was rewarded by being stripped of his ’96 Green Jersey, while Astana thanked an uncooperative dope suspect for his “honesty”. The two stage winners during the Tour’s first forays into the Alps were won by riders from Germany and Denmark – the two countries hit hardest by doping revelations in recent months. The day after taking the Yellow Jersey, T-Mobile sent two riders to the hospital and third to the sag wagon. And despite a hilly parcours, inchoate race situation, and the best French hopes in a decade, the only thing blown apart on Bastille Day were fireworks.

They say these are all the the signs of a cleaner Tour, and I’ll agree with that. Heck, if anything, Linus Gerdemann looks like he needs quite a bit more in the testosterone department (I promise – my first and last joke about Gerdemann’s astoundingly boyish countenance). Tactically, though, I could really stand to see things spiced up – as far as GC goes, Stage 7 might as well have been a flat stage with a successful break. Rasmussen certainly put one to the favorites the next day, but watching the group behind told the real tale of the race – Moreau trying to break free, Valverde interested in going but not working, and Contador, Kashechkin, and Schleck just marking for their alleged team “leaders” struggling in the group behind.

Don’t get me wrong – Stage 8 was epic in all the ways that make the Tour’s mountains such a spectacle (much to the chagrin of the riders listed here). But with so many of the big names and big teams waiting for the Pyrenees, it could be a long, boring race until then. Astana’s talking like Vino’ is looking to take back some time, but I think Moreau’s hit it on the head by noting that there’s no overpowering authority in this year’s race to look toward for pace, or to plan attacks against. Like Brad Wiggins, I’m skeptical that any of the big contenders will have the stones to shake things up before the first TT on Stage 13.

I’m sorry, folks, but the Tour of Pais Vasco really isn’t cutting it for me. Some dude named “Cobo”? When are all these big guns gonna throw down? Valverde? Sammy Sanchez? Where you at? Ok, yeah, you could say that Tricki Beltran is a pretty big name – a big name domestique. I see these results, and they might as well be Circuit de la Sarthe, but minus all the French guys.

Time for the last round of MSR previews. Eurosport gives the most straightforward look, while Velonews calls the race “shy a few participants” while naming only one absenteee (Basso). Pez describes the chances of every bike racer ever, but neglects to pick a favorite. But enough of my incessant badmouthing. Americans like to blather about how it’s not the critic who counts, and so, with no further adieu, here is my Sanremo preview: