Well, that’s it, then

~ Patrick O'Grady

Texus Maximus tries to make it all about him again, but alas, instead of riding the finale in some black Yankee-football-style kit ostensibly honoring the 28 million worldwide said to be living with cancer, The Boss and his bitches have to settle for wearing it while collecting the team prize, which nobody ever gave a runny shit about until, um, this year. Imagine my surprise.

Sorry, Pop, says the UCI, 23rd at 39:20 doesn’t carry a lot of weight around here these days. Pull on the usual gear or go home. Better luck at the Ironman. I hear they let fat fucks wear Speedos in Hawaii.

Long story short, Super Spaniard gets the V, Pretty Boy gets the virginal white, Albuterol Petacchi gets the green (let’s see how long he keeps it), and Anthony Charteau gets the spotty shirt. Maybe for next year he can borrow some heels from a podium chick so he doesn’t have to stand tippy-toe to stare at their tits.

14 thoughts on “Well, that’s it, then”

  1. And thanks to you, CP, and the VeloNews folks for the good coverage, Patrick. (and I won’t admit whether or not I check in from work…)

    Yeah, in what probably was the ugliest thing I ever saw on a bike, I once rode out to Kalanianaole Highway from the condo in Kahala and ran into a guy riding an early Kestrel while wearing a Speedo. And, he had more than a passing resemblance to this gasping dude: https://maddogmedia.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/over-itt-21.jpg

  2. What an extreme form of Narcissism that Lance has to try to make the last day all about him. I wonder how the other riders felt that he is still trying to steal the spotlight, even after his pathetic finish. Will be interesting to see what he does to try to stay in the spotlight now…Oh wait, I know how he’s going to stay in the spotlight, but this time he might not want the light to shine so bright. As far as Schleck. We were routing for him in the tour if for no other reason than he seemed to really want to win and thought he could when no one else thought he had a snowball’s chance. Got to love an underdog that has good confidence to the very end.

  3. khal: Seriously, what’s going on when the contents of a racebag are a baby blue banana hammock and a Sharpie?

    Patrick: I’m going to refer to L____ as The Narcissist from now on. When I read about “honoring the 28-million who are fighting cancer,” I got pissed. This isn’t about fighting cancer. This is about fighting a federal investigation. Stopped the race for 15 minutes. What a bag of shit. Hinault knocks people’s teeth out for less. Where was the Badger when we needed him?

    The Narcissist trial-ballooned the whole, “I’ve done a lot of good in the world,” bullshit last week. “I won’t participate in a witch hunt.” “I’m just a bike racer.” “I’m not a part of management.” Dude, shut the fuck up.

  4. Can we finally be DONE with BigTex and let the triathlon world have him now? I wondered what the heck was going on with the black garb in Pair-ee. This guy really needs to get over himself, perhaps reality will check-in once the feds get going hard on him? A boring Tour, the only guy we liked was Evans and he was out of it early like BigTex. If the rivalry between lil’ Andy and Il Pistolero is all we can look forward to next year the sport’s in the doldrums for sure. Reading the posts here about Le Beeg Bore was way more interesting than the so-called “race”. And enough with the 39 seconds baloney, Schleck got more than a few mulligans and still the better bike-racer (one who can descend, time-rrial and operate his bike as well as climb) won the damn race!

  5. Patrick- are you friends with Bobke? Would love to hear his true thoughts of LA, Flandis, Andreau, et al, just reminiscing on Bobke’s old diary he wrote for VN when he was MTB racing, loved the nomenclature: Gerhard Zadrobilek as Jerkhard SirDribbleDick! Don’t know if Versus viewers realize how funny that dude at the desk really is, thought the squabble between Phil & Paul regarding chaingate was pretty awesome.

  6. Lance’s milking of the cancer cow is getting most tiresome. Livestrong spams my inbox almost daily, begging for money and trying to guilt me into handing it over. It hasn’t worked. Do you think Lance would be doing this if hadn’t had cancer? Doubtful. I have a general dis-trust for most with their hands out, and Livestrong is no different. I give at the local level so I can see my contributions at work. Holding up the race was a really selfish, low class thing to do. Why not hire a sky writer to draw “28” in the sky for the entire route? Yes, where was the Badger when we needed his nasty temper to sort this shit out?

  9. Thanks Patrick for all your work at the VN site and for keeping up with the Dog-posts. You warned us that you might be scarce – but you came through: in the ‘Barrel’ and here – What a Champ!

  10. If the ’28’ jerseys had been cleared in advance and carried out simply in a straightforward manner that was dignified and honored the survivors I would be on board with the tribute. That’s not what happened. Not only were the jersey winners upstaged but the entire peleton.
    The usually cermemonial procession to the outskirts of Paris and Champs proper is an opportunity for all the participants and especially all the finishers of the Tour to celebrate or at least bask in their achievement until the racing begins again on the Champs. That should be a showcase for them – not delay and consternation – as they near the end of an important test, maybe a lifelong dream, or perhaps a simple reunion with supporters or loved ones.

  11. Thanks, folks, for the attaboys. The Tour is always a long three weeks in the VeloBarrel, and we hear most often from those readers who are dissatisfied with our performance, so it’s nice to hear an opposing viewpoint.

    The bike biz claims there’s still a big Lance Factor driving sales, but I have my doubts. I sniffed more disenchantment with him this year than in any of his previous Tours (’course, he was getting his ass kicked, and y’all know how Murkins loathe a loser).

    Triathlon can have him with my blessing, but I suspect that mags/sites like VeloNews/VeloNews.com will lose eyeballs as the fans of The Narcissist, rather than of cycling, go with him. This may not be such a terrible thing, but it will force all of us cycling journos to up our games a bit. We won’t be able to simply slap Texus Maximus on the cover, watch the mags fly off the newsstand, then go for a nice, long ride.

    Rustlust, Bobke and I are only casually acquainted. I met him at VN’s Christmas party many years ago in Boulder, and interviewed him for The New Mexican when we both lived in Santa Fe in the late Eighties. I always got a big kick out of his diaries. He once called a guy a “giant Swiss butt-cheese,” and I’m still laughing.

    Khal and Libby, the “28” jersey flap was vintage LA. Dude’s gonna do what he’s gonna do, and the rules are for mortals. I have a similar thirst for attention — “Hey, lookit me, I’m doin’ something weird and stupid!” — but watching him whip his guerrilla-marketing bullshit on the Tour was like watching David Hasselhoff brace a bouncer at some nifty club:

    “Say, don’t you know who I am?”

    “Yes, actually. You’re the old guy we don’t have to cater to anymore. Now piss off.”

  12. Patrick, why do I feel that the last two sentences in your comment DID actually take place? Maybe because the UCI is finally on their high horse about TCWSNBN (sorry, I can’t call him anything else).

  13. James,

    Remember your Jack London, “Call of the Wild” — Spitz used to be the lead dog, “friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one’s face the while he meditated some underhand trick,” until suddenly he wasn’t:

    “He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing in upon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonists in the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten.”

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