Man, is there a close layover between Ghent Wevelgem and the Ronde or what? I feel like it’s hardly enough time to walk after Flanders, let alone take on a few more bucketloads of Belgian cobblestones. It makes the relative lack of respect Wevelgem gets all the more inexplicable. But once Cipo’ wins a race, the purists’ respect goes out the window. Get over it you fogies – Cipollini’s a good rider. He’s trading elbows in final k at an age when Merckx’s biggest rivals were sausages and Stella.
Anyway, as Brian Smyth jokingly summarized one year “There’s nothing to Wevelgem, really – tough it out over the Kemmelburg twice and then win the sprint.” I love Wevelgem. Lots of different ways to finish this guy off: Small break (Cipo, 2002), Group gallop (Hushovd), Cancellara-style (Pozzatto), a friendly motopace (Mattan), in the back of the meat wagon (Farrar), and you might even get knocked over by a horse (Zabel). That’s what I dig this race: as many ways to close it out as there are riders in the peloton, and it’s (almost) never the same finish twice.
Now, quickly, I will recap all the stupid stuff I’m ignoring because I love talking about cobbled one-days:
1) Cyclingnews’ new look giving a face to its steady decay into the worst parts of Velonews.com and the old ProCycling page.
2) Running bike
3) Boonen whining that he was supposed to win Flanders. It’s like Elway being pissed that he had to hand off.
4) Five days from Roubaix, the eve of Wevelgem, and this is a top story? Really?
5) Worst bike lane ever
6) Cavendish? I like him, but dude. Boonen. Solo. Because he’s got something to prove.
7) Also…”sprinters’ classic”? Paris-Tours? MSR? Maybe sprinters’ cobbled classic…
What do you mean by cyclingnews.com’s “decay into the worst parts of Velonews.com and the old ProCycling page”?
https://https://cyclocosm.com/2007/07/what-a-lousy-day/
I predicted this a while back.
Note the big ProCycling ad between tech and races, the “Powered by BikeRadar” above “latest”, the link to the ProCycling blogs and forums, the space-sapping gray headers, the exodus of writers to other sites, etc.
It’s like you’ve taken the annoying ads from Velonews.com, the inanity that ProCycling used to have (a mantle currently born with aplomb by Bike Radar) and mashed them together.
Thanks for the link and the response. I really know almost nothing about cycling media politics, so this is news to me. All I know is that reader mail at cyclingnews.com feels slightly less like dictation by Bob Roll than the mail at velonews.com. (Not that I have anything against Bob Roll; but one is plenty.)