Month: March 2006

So for those of you who’ve been under a rock for the past week, there’ve been some protests in France over a new job law, designed to decrease youth unemployment by making young workers easier to fire. Young folks are upset about this, I guess (not to further any stereotypes about the French being lazy,…

Discovery Channel seems like a normal team, most of the time. Even back in the Lance days, they’d go about their business in a nice, ordinary fashion, getting into breaks, taking pulls, occasionally winning, mostly not, and just, you know, fitting in with the other guys. But every so often, like at the Tour, or…

So I guess maybe yesterday’s sprint just wasn’t hard enough for Bernhard Eisel, as he managed to beat 30 other guys in today’s finish (and by good margin, too). But since yesterday, today, and the remaining Day of Pain, are just an appetizer for the Ronde this weekend, the real impact of today’s stage was…

I apologize for another late post. Fortunately, there’s not too much on the News-o-Meter to cover today. THE FIRST RULE OF TOUR OF FLANDERS CLUB IS: You not talk about Tour of Flanders Club. THE SECOND RULE OF TOUR OF FLANDERS CLUB IS: You do not talk about Tour of Flanders Club. THIRD RULE: No…

Well, if you watched Brabantse Pijl on Sunday morning, you were treated to a pretty good show. Oscar Freire bridged up to one late selection, then instigated a four-man move with a teammate, helped to draw back a 2-man attack with 5k to go, and then won the sprint. But this wasn’t enough for Nick…

Would you look at the article on Eurosport about today’s first stage of Criterium International? Talk about poor. Igor Astarloa is a “sprinter”? When his two biggest wins, the ’03 Fleche Wallonne and ’03 World Road Title, came at the top of, or immediately after, extremely steep hills? And his “ill-fated stints” with Cofidis and…

Yeah, so doping raids today in Belgium, yadda, yadda. Cops found some dope, some riders have been suspended, etc. I’m gonna wait until the smoke clears. These Belgian doping things always go on forever and involve quarter-million Euro fines and symbolic post-career suspensions. Anyway, ProCycling is now back on line but is kinda low on…

Remember yesterday’s post, when I was critical of the race management at Dwars door Vlaanderen? Well, get this: the dude driving the Shimano neutral support car and blocking the chase this Saturday was the same freakin’ guy who pulled a similar stunt at last year’s Gent-Wevelgem! What the fµ¢& is he still doing driving neutral…

Remember last year’s Gent-Wevelgem, when a neutral service vehicle inexplicably led Belgian Nico Mattan up to foreigner Juan Antonio Flecha in the final K? Well, at today’s Dwars door Vlaanderen relative unknown Frederik Veuchelen, another Belgian from a Belgian team and sole survivor of an earlier four-man break, held on to take the win ahead…