I don’t want to be a jerk. Both Garmin-Slipstream’s vocal anti-doping stance and Wiggins’ readiness to reveal the intimate details of his oxygen transport system are laudable. But guys, you have to do better than this: First of all, I have no idea when any of these tests occurred. The specified dates on the x-axis…
Month: July 2009
Why The Radio Shack Sponsorship is Brilliant
When Bonnie Ford leaked news of Lance Armstrong’s new sponsor, many an eyebrow was raised. Radio Shack? It would be like Manchester United getting sponsored by Poundstrecher, noted one British commentator; it just doesn’t make sense. After all, a surprisingly large number of pixels has been scattered on the notion that cycling is the new…
"I am hard to recognize but it’s me; it’s Jens"
Jens Voigt! Alive and more or less well. There sure isn’t a whole lot that can dampen this guy’s enthusiasm. Well, other than asking rigged questions about doping, I guess.
Revisiting That Whole Astana Thing
On paper, Astana had one of the best Tours in recent memory. First and third is hard to fault, especially when considering that the squad dominated the critical moments of the race, and met every challenge of a resurgent SaxoBank squad. So I should be recanting everything I said about the team back in June…right?…
Riding the Leadout Train
Barry Hoban, who’s spent the past two years losing his legacy as England’s Greatest Sprinter to Mark Cavendish, was never a fan of Mario Cipollini. Aside from the Italian’s inevitable Grand Tour abandons and grandiose showmanship between stages, I think Hoban also took issue with the fact that Cipollini did so little work coming into…
The Only Thing Lamer Than Condator's Salute
Dude, you’re wearing a hat that has a stylized image of your own salute on it, at the race in which you used that same salute? Don’t be that guy. Seriously—can you imagine Virenque wearing a baseball cap with a single finger, extended skyward? I’ll tolerate the excessive polka dots; if the race gives you…
Oh, I've Got An Otra Pregunta for you, Buddy…
I’ve know you don’t wanna answer those pesky questions about drugs, Alberto, but in all seriousness—are you high right now? You’d have to be stoned out of your skinny Spanish gourd to simply stonewall some very reasonable questions a day after word broke that DiLuca turned up positive for CERA twice during his Giro campaign…
And So We Enter Endgame
I wouldn’t call it a white flag of surrender, but I feel like today, the road brought something of a resigned armistice between the top two GC squads. Astana sacrificed the potential of a 1-2-3, or even 1-2 podium to all but guarantee a Contador win, and in exchange, SaxoBank got the marketing gold of…
ESPN's Schaap: Base, Not Age, Is Armstrong's Problem
Because I don’t want to be entirely useless today (see previous post) here’s an audio excerpt from a recent ESPN feature in which Jeremy Schaap claims another year is just what armstrong needs. [mp3 version] “…Convetional wisdom among the people who cover the Tour de France and the people who follow Lance Armstrong is that…
Breaking Down the Voigt Crash
It’s sad to see an otherwise exciting stage have an incident like this, especially when it’s a rider like Jens Voigt, who could drastically affect the overall GC outcome (and is just plain awesome—speedy recovery, Jens!). Still, crashes are a part of the sport, and picking apart how they occur can help you learn their…