You know what I haven’t done since I got back? Ripped on Velonews. Allow me to end that hiatus. Sunday’s Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, first billed on Cyclingnews, didn’t even rate it’s own article at “The Journal of Competitive Cycling”. Strangely enough, this puts my friends in Boulder ahead of ProCycling, which hasn’t even posted an article yet, and ProCycling is in turn a leg up on Road Cycling, which, for the time being at least, no longer exists. (Serves them right for being an over-trafficked, content-insufficient, AdSense vehicle…).
Of course, I haven’t posted anything on KBK yet, either (I was busy racing – I hate it when my fantasy world as a bike racer and my fantasy world as a cycling commentator collide), but from what I hear, it was a Quick-Step dominated affair – you know, the sort of thing I said wouldn’t happen anymore? Ah well, at least I had the good sense not to refer to Boonen’s win as a “confidence booster” – what, was yesterday’s 3rd place so devastating? Were four wins at the Tour of Qatar not enough? Or the billions of other races over the past five years? Boonen needs confidence like Jan Ullrich needed bratwurst.
Anyway, there was at least one voice of criticism against Quick.Step’s performance on Sunday, made all the more interesting by Boonen’s comment that he “believed in the chances of Sébastien Rosseler”, and Rosseler’s agreement that he “believed in the chances of the break”. But I’ve already spent too long discussing a race I didn’t see. Coverage of those events should run more like this:
Lampre’s Daniele Bennati took the final stage of the Vuelta de Communidad Valencia, his third victory at the event. Each win has come at the expense of Milram’s Alessandro Petacchi, making Ale-Jet a sprint king who maybe could use a confidence booster right about now. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, Tinkoff’s Pavel Brutt continued his early season success, defeating Gerolsteiner’s proven one-day rider Davide Rebellin at the GP Chiasso.
Good to see you back up in earnest. But if you’re going to diss media for ignoring current races in Belgium that pretty much every cycling fan has been dreaming of since the August shitstorm… you have to give VS the prize. They did an hour special yesterday, and maybe I was pretty groggy when I watched it last night, but I don’t recall the words “het” or “volk” crossing anyone’s lips, even once. WTF? I should care about the Tour of California long after it’s finished, and not worry about Het Volk? I’d have thought after a year we’d all be used to Cycling not consisting solely of Lance and Disco, but the mechanical bull crowd apparently expects more of the same.
Good catch. I can’t say I’ve had much reason to watch VS recently – I did catch some Tour of Cali, and was really disappointed that, in the “race situation” and “results” windows they listed riders’ nationalities, but not their teams.
Of course, VS/OLN has proven itself to be fairly worthless over the years, responding to increased viewership with reduced coverage, so I don’t even expect mediocrity from them anymore.
KBK was excellent. Watched it live on cycling.tv and you just kept wishing for the break to stay away. Actually did the double on the weekend. The new 800kbps feed is really good and the racing is so much more exciting than in the stage racing. Lots of attacking over the cobbles and bergs.