I apologize for another late post. Fortunately, there’s not too much on the News-o-Meter to cover today. THE FIRST RULE OF TOUR OF FLANDERS CLUB IS: You not talk about Tour of Flanders Club. THE SECOND RULE OF TOUR OF FLANDERS CLUB IS: You do not talk about Tour of Flanders Club. THIRD RULE: No…
Brabantse Pijl Recap, Freire, Landis Out; Petacchi, Boonen In.
Well, if you watched Brabantse Pijl on Sunday morning, you were treated to a pretty good show. Oscar Freire bridged up to one late selection, then instigated a four-man move with a teammate, helped to draw back a 2-man attack with 5k to go, and then won the sprint. But this wasn’t enough for Nick…
Dekker Leads CI, Boonen Wins E3, Everyone Loves IGF-1
Would you look at the article on Eurosport about today’s first stage of Criterium International? Talk about poor. Igor Astarloa is a “sprinter”? When his two biggest wins, the ’03 Fleche Wallonne and ’03 World Road Title, came at the top of, or immediately after, extremely steep hills? And his “ill-fated stints” with Cofidis and…
Raids, Slow News, Flanders is Waiting
Yeah, so doping raids today in Belgium, yadda, yadda. Cops found some dope, some riders have been suspended, etc. I’m gonna wait until the smoke clears. These Belgian doping things always go on forever and involve quarter-million Euro fines and symbolic post-career suspensions. Anyway, ProCycling is now back on line but is kinda low on…
Vlaanderen Plot Thickens; Cunego, Vino' Take Leads.
Remember yesterday’s post, when I was critical of the race management at Dwars door Vlaanderen? Well, get this: the dude driving the Shimano neutral support car and blocking the chase this Saturday was the same freakin’ guy who pulled a similar stunt at last year’s Gent-Wevelgem! What the fµ¢& is he still doing driving neutral…
Strange Happenings in Vlaanderen, Other Racing, Injuries.
Remember last year’s Gent-Wevelgem, when a neutral service vehicle inexplicably led Belgian Nico Mattan up to foreigner Juan Antonio Flecha in the final K? Well, at today’s Dwars door Vlaanderen relative unknown Frederik Veuchelen, another Belgian from a Belgian team and sole survivor of an earlier four-man break, held on to take the win ahead…
Rage Against the UCI Machine – Rant
It’s been a bad week for the UCI: the Swiss courts went over their heads to let Danilo Hondo off the hook, former convicted doper Filip Meirhaeghe won a race, and Roberto Heras, who is currently appealing his own drug suspension, successfully blocked the revised Vuelta awards presentation. Now, this series of events would make…
UCI Bans Bouyer, Americans Ride Well, Racing Heads North
*Sigh* – I knew I should have posted yesterday morning. But then I got all caught up in doing stuff and now it’s today. So I missed talking about some new Australian beating a few notables (Eeckhout, Cooke) to win some French race, where, on the start line, folks were upset that the UCI won’t…
UCI, USCF Hate Tyler Hamilton, Charity – Rant
For the rest of today’s post, I’d like to go over an interesting little story that’s been brewing stateside this past week. It seems that one Tyler Hamilton was out racing this past weekend at a local, unsanctioned criterium in Boulder, Colorado. Yeah, he’s supposed to be suspended, but the UCI has no power over…
Pippo Pozzatto Poaches San Remo
People all whining about how we “need” to change the Milan-San Remo course – please. What could you possibly ask for from a bike race that today’s event did no give you? A strong early move staying out 200k+, right up to the foot of the Cipressa, attacks flying every which way, two late moves…