I’m so sick of it. What was it, two hours of sitting a Paris auditorium, watcing a video, a slide show, and listening to a few speakers? And Velonews is picking it apart like a raven on a moose carcass. Yeah, there’s more stories; so many I’ve lost count. There’s this, which I guess means the UCI will longer recognize the Tour de France per se, just refer to it as the “French Grand Tour Entity.” I bet the guys over at ASO are laughing their tails off, saying “Whoa, who brought the hard guy?” in real sarcastic French to each other every time someone mentions this UCI/TdF feud. Like anyone will care about the ProTour if the Tour de France isn’t in it. I’d appreciate the UCI attempts to play hardball and “stick it to The Man,” except that a) the UCI has no leverage at all in this situation and b) the UCI is the man.
And it’s not like VN are the only ones to blame, here, either. They’re just the easiest. For example, John Wilcockson referring to the 1987 and 1989 Tours de France as being exciting because they were “post-Hinault.” John, man, what about your boy Greg? A few weeks ago, he was “fuoriclasse”, and now he’s table scraps from the Hinault era? And then there’s Fignon, who put it to The Badger like no other back in 1984. You want to call his epic duel with Lemond a side-effect of Hinault’s retirement three years earlier? And the ’97 Tour? That was exciting for you? Watching Ullrich put nine minutes on the field had you on the edge of your seat? And ’98? Do I even need to mention why cycling doesn’t need another ’98 Tour?
Woooo. Ok. Time to calm down, take my medicine, move on to other news. Like Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong squashing the beef. Yeah. They’re friends again. I could give you a whole cluster links, but why, when one will cover all the bases? And let’s look at some nice, soothing tech stories. And maybe a link to one more random cluster of news story to better fill out this undersized little paragraph.