Traditionally, ever since Independence Day broke $300,000,000 in domestic box office sales, the media has been used to try and hype things up before an event to increase popular interest. Not so at VeloNews, it seems. Look at these two “get fired-up” Lombardy stories that came out after the race. In fact, there seems to be a general flood of late–to–press (you may have noticed that yesterday’s post linked to VeloNews for a race report; it was a borrowed AFP story, but still, not something I generally do) or follow–up stories. (BTW, scroll down in that last link; looks like after the Sony Affair, Ag2r is a lock for the ’06 ProTour). Then, of course, there’s ProCycling. Still waiting for these guys to catch up with any race report. It’s like they take the weekends off, or something. Then there’s Daily Peloton, which I haven’t been able to get to load since Friday. I have no quarell with Eurosport’s report, however. Keep up the good work, kids. And while we’re being critical, we’d like to apologize for yesterday’s editorial. Such unbearably long sentences. We’d fire that guy, but he’s the only one who knows how to use the coffee machine.
Anyway, despite the overwhelming feeling of emptiness now that the ProTour is over (yeah, right…), we still have some results to you today. For example, the Chrono des Herbiers, in which World Hour Record Holder and most underrated rider in the universe right now, Ondrej Sosenka of Acqua & Sapone (yes, that team still exists), nipped 3-Time World Time Trial Champion Mick Rogers of Quick.Step (who notoriously clipped a pedal in the 2004 TdF prologue, in front of pretty much every photographer in the race) by a mere three seconds. Herbiers isn’t just a race, though, but a “party of Time Trialing.” No doubt Rogers will be out to drown the moon at the suarée tonight, both the make up for his narrow defeat and to soothe the hurt of knowing the next time he does this race, he’ll be wearing magenta. That color that certainly didn’t do former World Chrono Champ Santi Botero any good. And, at the Borgomanero Dual TT, one of those weird two-man TT races that always has wierd results, CSC’s Ivan Basso and Andrea Peron beat out Fassa B’s Alessandro Petacchi and his lead-out man Marco Velo. Like I said, weird results.
