A new cycling year

so let's get you updated on the news of the off season. The Schleck boys have a name for the Luxembourgian team, Leopard-Trek. The team's introduction was very scarfy, which I believe is a major export of that country. But I think the sleeves of their kits should have pading to make them look tougher. And the newest member of Leopard-Trek is Jakob Fuglsang. He will help fill the gaping hole of cuteness the peloton will be suffering with the retirement of my Chechu.
Garmin has come out with their new kit after taking on Cervelo...it doesn't have enough argyle and it looks like a lot of other kits. You would think a guy with sideburns like this, would come up with something more original.
Others have spent more time and effort going over all the kits....good on them.
Johnass Bruyneel won't be around a few races this spring all because he can't keep his mouth shut. And that's a surprise because...?
-Star

Yesterday was a really good sports day...

...for me at least. It would have been great except that the Royals lost in extra innings, stinkin' Orioles.
It all started in Italy, thanks to Tyler Farrar taking his second stage in the Giro. Garmin so dominated that his leadout Julian "Kiwi Guy" Dean ended up getting 3rd. And looks who's pretty in pink. And look who's just pretty.
Today, on the other hand, was fruit basket upset. Long story short: a huge break got a bunch of time and was never caught. The contenders that had lost a bunch of time earlier (Wiggins and Sastre) are now back in it with Vino, Cadel and Ivan. Seriously? These guys are professionals?
Second, the Tour of California had a pivotal stage that was won by Dave Zabriskie in a break ahead of Levi Leipheimer (3 time winner on TOC) and Mick Rogers (a cutie pie). Oh the joy on Dave's face. And oh, the joy on my face to see Chechu again. Steven Cozza is musta-tastic again!!
Today's stage was won by Chicchi over Cav, that's unusual.
I would have posted all this last night, except I was watching the Huskers take the bats to Creighton (sorry Jock, they're even too obscure for you).

Cycling Update...

Well the cycling season is starting its last hurrah. The third and final Grand Tour, Vuelta a Espana is starting in Holland on Saturday. Yep, the Tour of Spain's first 4 stages are in the land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and blisters from hell. The Hollandite riders are very excited to be riding a Grand Tour in their home country, every other rider is dreading the long transfer after 4 stages.
A few notables in this most Spanish of Grand Tours:
-Keep an eye (and don't blink) on America's fastest man on a bike Tyler Farrar, he's been on a tare in the last few weeks winning Vattenfall Cyclassics and winning 3 stages and wearing the leaders jersey in the Eneco Tour.
-I will say that the Vuelta will be very easy to watch considering Ivan Basso, Mr. Adorable (Gerald Ciolik), Karsten Kroon, and my little Chechu are all racing.
-Alexander Vinokourov is back on a bike and racing. I got some mixed feelings about that.
-The Schleck are racing, so my judgement gun is out. They're really skinny, so I have to be precise with my aim.
-Pieter Weening's racing for Rabobank.....need I say more.
And the Tour of Missouri is coming up as well....more on that later. -Star

GIro Update (stage 18) by star

Yippeeee, it's a zeppelin!
Garmin - Slipstream remembered it's riding this race to win, not just get to visit all of Italy from the back of a bike.
Good job Danny Pate for getting 3rd and being cute!
Iowa's pride and joy: Jason McCartney was all over the front of breakaway trying to make something happen, but ended up 7th.
Other then that Chechu was cute too. He was in a video with Lance before the stage.
No change in the GC.

Check this out: Great blog by Christian Vande Velde.
This is old, but check out his dog and what he thinks of NE. I don't know VdV, now it's not just the mole I need to get over.

Giro Update (stage 16) by star

Update to the update:
OK, now I've actually watched the stage, so:
Carlos Sastre (I didn't know cowboys were cycling fans) is a monster and pulled out a can of 'look at me ride really fast uphill like I did last July".
Menchov might be the real deal, he kept on Deluca's wheel the whole way up, then took a second on the line. And kudos to Rabobank for replacing the orange with pink on the shorts to match the jersey.
Popo, poor Popo, I think he was trying to coast the last 2 k of the climb after getting caught by Carlos. I have that same feeling the second I walk though the door at work sometimes.

OMG, Denis smiled. It's a good thing they have cameras over there in Italy or I wouldn't believe it!
Poor Levi, I think he just pissed any chance of winning the Giro. Maybe he can get on the podium with an attack on one of the remaining stages and a phenomenal TT.
Here's the video of Levi, Lance and Jens. It's pretty good, but I don't understand about 25% of what Jens is saying and I watched it twice. But I did understand him back when he called me crazy! Pot calling kettle black!
The video from earlier with DZ mentioned him singing, sometimes I'm glad pictures don't have audio.
Chechu was solid today, he's now sitting 47th, 1:15:51 back.

Giro Update (stage 15) by star

Ivan Basso tried to make up some time to the leaders. But all was for not.
Come on Denis, I know this is your job, but seriously, crack a smile. Maybe if the winner's jersey was dark brown and he was given a bottle of vodka instead of champagne he'd smile. Or he's probably disappointed on how the pink clashes with the blue and orange of the kit. He's just going to have to suck it up.
Tyler Farrar is not going to win a stage at this years Giro. Because he's gone home and taken David Millar and Cameron Meyer with him. That leaves the only riders left for Garmin are Danny Pate (the pride and joy of Co Springs (& cute)), Dave Z (he's crazy), Julian Dean (he's a kiwi), Bradley Wiggins (thank you for getting a hair cut), and Tommy Danielson (he's a pocket rider). They better do something this last week.
Here's a good video with Dave Z, Lance and Levi. Just slightly awkward, but then again DZ is involved.
Chechu is not doing well. He ended up finishing with the sprinters 22 min back. He's now 57th, 1:03:11 back. He must be sick. Or he misses me.

Happy Birthday to Frankie!!!

Giro Update (stage 13) by star

Mark Cavendish won again today. That's his third individual win in 13 stages, plus he was part of the ITT win in stage 1. To bad he's done for the race. The finish was 15 K from his home in Italy, so he's probably going to bike home and stay there until the Tour de France. Ok, maybe not, but that's what I'd do.

Denis Menchov is still in pink. He must be Russian, even when he's leading a Grand Tour he can't smile. Maybe because he knows that there are pretty much a week of mountain stages left, and he doesn't have much of a team to help him.

Chechu moved up a spot, but I don't know why. I think Universal Sports should have a 'Chechu Cam'. He's 43rd, 32:14 back.

Giro Update (stage 12) by star

Danilo de Luca was dressed like a pink nightmare. Ok, so he didn't have footie pajamas or floppy ears, but he was rather pink.

Levi (he looks so small) did very well, just not good enough to win the stage or be in the top 2 of the GC. But we've got 4 mountain top finishes in the last week. That's right, I didn't stutter, 4 mountain top finishes. This race is far from done.

Ivan Basso was on a bike today. He makes my eyes smile.

Janez 'The Fencepost' Brajkovic got 4th on the stage. (5'10", 127 lb) I think he's gained some weight!

Dave Z didn't really do anything today. But I thought this was a cool pic. At the Tour of CA he had the red, white and blue argyle skin suit, now his helmet is red, white & blue. Maybe by the Tour de France, he'll get the matching booties!!

Oh ya, Rabobank's Denis Menchov won the stage and the maglia rosa. I couldn't find any good pictures of him....but at least he's is better looking then 'The Chicken'.

Oh Chechu, my Chechu is sitting 44th at 32:14 back. And he had a bad day yesterday, that's why he lost so much time.

Giro Update (stage 9 & rest day) by star

There wasn't a race for stage 9, but there was. The riders neutralized the stage after the first circuit, but then sprinted for the win. No points or time cuts were made. A wise man once said "If you're not first, you're last", yesterday was a perfect example of that.

I'm not a cyclist and don't know how dangerous the stage was, but I'm glad the cyclist stood their ground. Race organizers keep trying to make races more and more difficult, but want the riders to race clean. I would think that any race is as hard as the riders make it. Ok stepping down from the soapbox.

Observations from week one:
-Columbia-Highroad & LPR like to win. A lot.
-Cycling is not for the faint of heart.
-I would be totally digging Columbia if George Hincapie was there. He's so cute.
-I got a lot of funny looks at work when I mentioned the Giro.
-Tommy Voeckler likes to be on TV.
-Chechu is the best looking cyclist in the peleton. Oh wait, I observed that long before this week.
-Nothing against Universal Sports, I'm happy there's coverage of cycling, but really, really, really I miss Phil & Paul. And Bobke!

Can't wait for stage 10 & 12!!!

Go Gilles!!

Giro Update (stage 6) by star

A little late on the update due to the fact that I just got back from Wicked with Boo and Fifi. As a review I give it a tall glass of cranberry juice with a double shot of Grey Goose!!

Today's stage was compared to that of a Classics race. So fittingly a breakaway won the stage. Nothing of real interest happened. The GC contenders finished all together. So moving on....

Astana is going to change kits before the end of the week. It's not because of a new sponsor....it's just a new look. I wonder how the riders that haven't been paid in weeks feel about that. Maybe they can sell the old kits to put food on the table.

Just to take a closer look at the top ten GC right now:
2 riders from an American Team (Columbia-Highroad) are in the top 3
2 Americans in the top 10, but they aren't on the American team

The last rider in the GC (at the Tour de France is it the Lanton Rouge, I'm not sure what they call it in the Giro) his name is Bart Dockx, a Belgium rider for Silence-Lotto. How many nasty nicknames was he called at a child? It's almost as bad a Pieter Weening, but not quite.

I found a website with some cool videos from the Giro, mostly riders interviews. I found out Chris Horner loves In N Out Burger. I guess he does have taste!!

The cutest rider in the peloton, Chechu, is 46th, 8;25 off the leader.

Giro Update (stage 5) by star

I have forgotten how much nicer it is to run to a mountain stage. It makes my suffering so much less when I see these riders going up a 11% incline after 3 hrs in the saddle. The carnage was up and down the mountain, everyone was digging down into their suitcase of courage. Boom boom and out go the lights! And the elastic has snapped! He's stamping the pedals in anger! Oh how I miss Phil and Paul.

But what's up with these crazy Italians, 2 mountain top finished and it's only stage 5.......do they know it's a 3 week race? This is the 100th anniversary of the race, I think they've done it before.

I'll tell you who looks good: Levi Leipheimer. It looked like he was out on a Sunday afternoon bike ride. I don't think he was even sweating or breathing hard.

Dear, Chris Horner
Zip your jersey up.
Thank you,
the audience of Giro

Avis is one of the sponsors of Barloworld.....why would a rental CAR company sponsor a cycling team? Curiouser and curiouser?

The best place rider for Garmin-Slipstream on the last two stages was Bradley Wiggins. This is the rider that is a time trial and track specialist....I don't understand. What happened to Tom Danielson, I thought he was part mountain goat?

Everyone's favorite super domestique, Chechu was awesome again today. He's up to 43rd, 7:46 back. He would have done even better if he would have stayed with the teams actual GC contender (Levi), not the most famous rider (not Levi, but it starts with an L) on the team.......I didn't know he (not Levi) needed 3 riders as body guards to ride up a mountain.....sigh

Giro Update (stage 4) - by star

Oh Jens Voigt, it would have been soooo awesome to see you take the stage after being in a break all day. It was very hard to watch Jens get caught with 3 K to go.

I need to check to see who's all in this race, it seems to be Columbia and LPR....they've taken all the stages and worn all the pink jerseys. Hhmmm.

Ivan Basso was on the front for parts of this stage, he makes my eyes happy.

Solar tried out his impression of Vino...it was pretty dead on. That had to be the longest last K of his life, and then to get passed up by Di Luca in the last 200 meters....pretty heartbreaking.

It was kind of funny to watch the pictures on the last climb the difference between the from of the leading peloton and then the autobus in the back. Just looking at the faces I would have rather been in the back, they looked like they were having fun, and Dave Z was there to tell stories!

My little mountain goat Chechu moved up a few spots, he's 55th, 4:40 back.

Giro Update (stage 3) by star

Well the maglia rosa has found it's second pair of shoulders to rest on. A crash (no one was hurt) with 10 K to go kept Mark Cavendish and most of the rest of the peloton out of contention of the finishing sprint. LPR's Ale-Jet ended up getting the sprint and the pink jersey over Garmin's Tyler Farrar. Update: Tyler broke his rear derailleur in the same crash that took out Cav. Layman's translation: he couldn't shift gears on his rear tire for almost 10 K. And after watching the stage, in the last 500 meters Tyler could have taken Ale-Jet for the win!!

I'm sure we will have a new leader tomorrow since they are heading straight for the mountains tomorrow.

On a sad note Christian Vande Velde went down in a different crash midway through the stage along with Dave Z. Dave got up and finished the stage, unfortunately Christian didn't. Poor VdV ended up in a ambulance with 2 broken ribs and a bruised and strained back.

My main man Chechu got caught up with Cav's group and is now sitting 55th, 1:56 back

Star, via Lil's non-blocked work computer