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…
"Rest" Day, Eh?
Scattered thoughts following a very busy rest day: Proponents of the notion that the Tour was at long last “clean” pointed to Contador’s relatively pedestrian ascent of Arcalis. They will take less heart in the young Spaniard’s record-setting performance at Verbier. John Wilcockson, with the prerequisite credulity of a man whose latest book is titled…
Le Tour de Soap Opera
Simple stage, big break goes, no one wants to burn any matches before the mountains. 199km later there’s more gossip and bickering than a middle school girls’ room between classes. It’s almost enough to make someone wish for a drug scandal. Add to that the tragic death of a spectator, and most people watching have…
Oscar Freire Gets Shot All The Time
Oscar Freire, along with Julian Dean, got shot with an air rifle during today’s stage. In this interview (mostly in English) the three-time world champ clarifies that, while nothing new for him, this sort of thing is “not nice”. via @nttawwt, who suspects Alsatian Separatists.
An Open Letter to the ASO
(I tried contacting the directly ASO via their YouTube channel, but they refuse to accept messages from anyone they aren’t friends with. I sent this to them via email links on their homepage, but I do not expect a reply.) Dear Sir or Madam, I was very disappointed to read this morning that you filed…