Man, I sure can pick ’em. My call for today’s Gent Wevelgem was Daniele Bennati; DNS. But hey, the guy who did win the race, Marcus Burghardt, has been on my list since Het Volk. It’s nice way to open your pro account – rocking the top-step in a one-day ProTour classic. And T-Mobile –…
Month: April 2007
Cobbles Only, Weveglem, What Do You Mean It's Legal?
I’m sorry, folks, but the Tour of Pais Vasco really isn’t cutting it for me. Some dude named “Cobo”? When are all these big guns gonna throw down? Valverde? Sammy Sanchez? Where you at? Ok, yeah, you could say that Tricki Beltran is a pretty big name – a big name domestique. I see these…
'07 Flanders Post-Mortem
So I managed to miss both Wells Ave and the first 250-some-odd kilometers of the Tour of Flanders this weekend. The culprit of my absence? Belgian flu. The Belgian-style white strain, to be precise. No matter – it was a good final 6k, right? Well, not so much if you’re name’s Leif Hoste, but I…
My Flanders Preview
Only hours left but it came to me in a cocaine-and-Cadbury-egg induced haze. The race will go off on muddy cobbles but under clear skies with Paoli Bettini in the early break. He’ll get clear and stay away until the Muur when the ghost of Gino Bartali will emerge from the nearby church and force…
Beanpot Criterium Report
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I am (or was, as I am writing his like a week later) monstrously out of shape. Not just like bad legs out of shape but all like round in the middle and gross out of shape. Any number of reasons for this, mostly because I ate out…
Too Much Flanders, DePanne Wrap, DNA
Why did I skip yesterday? Some might say it was to avoid getting fired at my real job. But other claim that’s not really a concern of mine, and insist instead that I was merely demonstrating that one doesn’t need 18 Tour of Flanders previews a day to have a truly excellent web page. Don’t…
The Passion of the Ullrich, Old Racers, Flanders Fever
Can you believe the German press? Ripping into Ullrich like a moldy piñata? Please. If they should be punching anyone in the nuts, it’s themselves. “Ohh, vee never thought Ullrich was cheating!” “Jah, he only won zee Tour de France a year before zee biggest drug bust in zee history of zee sport!” “He is…
Ullrich's DNA, DePanne, Last Bit of Fool
Yesterday, a reader named “ryan” posted a bunch of pro-Ullrich comments on this page. Today, word leaks that the big guy’s DNA actually was in those Operation Puerto baggies. Did ryan know something we didn’t? Anyway, Conspiracy theorists will be quick to point out that Ulle is an easy scapegoat, having already retired and being…
April Fool's Jokes
It’s good to see the riders and teams getting into the April Fool’s spirit. Even without the disturbingly real fake news stories, the cycling fan could have known the calendar by the weekend’s racing, as Criterium International, Brabantse Pijl and the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen were all won by the same riders – for the third…