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Tours of Cali, Valencia; Interviews of Riis, Julich

Posted on 22 February 2006 by cosmo

So, what’d I miss by waiting until 2am to post? Interviews, with Bjarne Riis and one of his star pupils, Bobby Julich. Julich’s interview is much more interesting, as the Coloradan reveals his three remaining goals – National Title, maillot jaune and a TdF stage win. Julich was close to a vic in a couple TTs back in 1998, but that was when bikes like this were still cool. Where’s the friggin carbon? My bike’s got as much carbon as this (minus the wheels), and it cost $1300! And this guy’s been on the podium at Worlds. It’s almost as if having a carbon bike doesn’t make you a better rider after all. No, no, that’s just nonsense. Spending more money is obviously the most sure-fire way to improve performance, though my faith in that bit of marketing dogma was shaken twice today, with the revelation that the cheaper PowerTap hubs are initially more accurate than the more expensive SRM cranks. But the world of power meters has always been weird; were you really to need one, someone else would have bought it for you.

In results, all I missed was the opening stage of Valencia, where three riders were “not healthy enough” to start (I think this is a stupid rule, though this is much more suspicious than the recent Olympic cases, as Valencia is not at altitude). Anyway, Alexandr Kolobnev slipped away from the other “healthy” riders, while Petacchi seems to have lost a sprint(!) for 2nd, 27 ticks later. Here in the USA, Levi Leipheimer was psyched after retaining the lead in the Tour of California, but will be less psyched after today. Gorgeous George won a “sprint” from a group composed entirely of climbers, having been set up perfectly by his team. Landis, Leipheimer and some T-Mobile dude named Kohl left the field for dead over the top of the day’s big climb, but the flattish descent and strong riding behind ate up their gap. I know this because I watched the 1am-2am coverage, which was almost devoid of time gap announcements, and cut to commercial, inexcusably, right as Leipheimer made his move on the climb. I feel like, with the ESPN logo over on the left at VeloNews‘ home page, someone from that mag would be directing coverage on “The Deuce”; heck, maybe there is and VN is even worse than I thought.

thoughts on “Tours of Cali, Valencia; Interviews of Riis, Julich”

  1. Christopher says:
    22 February 2006 at 8:52 am

    I’m a tape and wait for the morning man on the Deuce coverage. I just made it to the first commercial break, and so far I have to say that as far as acting skills go, I’m sure Freddy Rodriguez is an outstanding coffee impresario.

    Reply
  2. Marcello says:
    22 February 2006 at 1:22 pm

    I missed the finishing sprint because I taped the program with my DVR. Can’t say I was bummed since I already saw the finish on the ToC website anyway.

    The reason I am posting a comment is to say that I will refer to ESPN2 not as “The Deuce” but as “The Douche” for their crappy coverage.

    Come to think of it, maybe they are showing the ToC coverage at 1am EST because the production quality is poor…

    Reply

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About the Author

a headshot of Cosmo Catalano

Best known for his How The Race Was Won® video series, Cosmo Catalano began blogging about pro cycling from a bike shop in 2005. Between then and now, he's designed cycling infographics, built cycling web apps, and supplied cycling content to print and broadcast media, all in the name of backing up his near-endless criticism with proof that it can be done better. He complains about cycling on Twitter at @Cyclocosm.

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