Yeah, I have to go race today, so I won’t be around to give you the exciting results of today’s Vuelta stage (but I think it’s gonna be Petacchi), or today’s installment of the Tour of Britan (I predict a group sprint as well, let’s say won Luke Roberts of CSC). Probably will be in and out for the next few days, in fact. But I’ll have some sweet race reports when I do finally return.
What I can give you is all the gossipy stupid news that commentators yap about while they wait for Fassa and Quick.Step to reel back the 4 minutes that the no-hopers put together over the first 80k of the stage. First off – Eurobike is here! The “premier industry show” etc etc is like Interbike but not in Vegas and therefore woefully uninteresting. In that vein, Cyclingnews’ first round of photos is monumentally dull. Fortuntely, the boys over at VeloNews (who mistook the word “cabrón” for the word “carbon” in this diary entry, until I – gringo of all gringos – told them about it) has picked up the slack.
New Rules on riders per nation go into effect at this year’s World Championships, and the Belgians and Italians are not happy about it. Uncontent to with their current domination of the World Title (39 of the 77 riders crowned World Road Champion have been from these two nations), it apparently really gets under Franco Ballerini’s skin that he won’t have nine riders to schlep Petacchi to the final 200m, just so some guy from Sierra Leone can live out his dream of competing with the best. Sorry Frank, but I just don’t sympathize.