Cyclocosm

Paolo Savodelli can come and drink on my yacht anytime. The guy is about as cool and savvy as they come. If he had a little more raw power, he’d be unstoppable in the non-cobbled, hilly classics. (Amstel, Lombardi, Fleche, Liege etc). He did totally muff a corner on that final descent, though, letting and…

Screw the Tour! How many times can you watch Lance Armstrong make T-Mobile look silly while a group of riders up the road contests the stage and minor GC placings? 7 is too many. Meanwhile, in the heart of Russia, Ondrej Sosenka, a 29-year old Czech, who doesn’t even ride for a ProTour team, demolished…

So I suppose you’re waiting for me to weigh in on how Hincapie’s win shows DC is the weakest team Lance has ever had. Well, I won’t do that today. Until Vino and Basso ripped their legs off on the penultimate climb (after which only Ullrich, Basso and Lance were left), Discovery rode a solid…

Words fail me. Today’s stage was such an overwhelming display of novicetry that my lexicon is seriously at a loss to express it. Let’s run in chronological order. 1) Discovery getting dropped faster than sexual harassment charges on The O’Reilly Factor. I guess that’s not really novicetry, just futher evidence that Disco’s Tour squad just…

Honestly, if Chris Horner and Sylvain Chavanel had spent half as much time pedaling as they did looking over their shoulders, one of them would have had a stage win today. Alas, they were both greedy, and Robbie McEwen triumphed via the Mother of All Leadouts from Fred Rodriguez. Or at least that’s how Paul…

David Moncoutie slips out of the breakaway, giving France is first stage win of the 2005 tour, giving France a French victory from a French team on Bastille Day, giving France another cold mug of denial to help kill the pain of having not won their own tour in 20 years. In case you were…

Alex Vino took his second TdF win on his second difficult stage with a downhill finish. Keep that in mind for future picks. It was depressing to see Botero trying to match gears with Vinokourov in the finale, when everyone and their mom knew that if Vino didn’t cramp too badly (he was shaking his…

To the uneducated eye, today might have looked like the Disco boys tapping out the old Postal Two-Step (step 1: go really fast, drop everyone else; step 2: Lance attacks.) But careful analysts will note that Lance was forced to ride on his own in a small group for over 10k on the final climb…

The final list of everyone’s tour game picks is listed here. Many riders some of you were counting on have already quit the race. I should also mention that a certain Jens Voigt wore the maillot jaune in 2001, so everyone who said that no one other than Armstrong and Ullirch could possibly score in…

It’s been a big tour for Rabobank. Back to back stage wins, a couple of guys in the Dots, and one who looks like he might stay there; not too shabby, considering the squad has had nothing to show for itself in the grand boucle since Michael Boogerd’s awe-inspiring victory at Les Deux Alps in…