Sometimes it’s not good to be the king. Fabian Cancellara found himself in the hot seat again at Paris-Roubaix, with Thor Hushovd stuck to him like a decal and two more Garmins up the road, so rather than tow the world champion up he shut the C-train choo-choo down. Then he still found the legs in the finale to lose all the hangers-on and take second behind a most surprising victor, Johan Van Summeren.
Hushovd did the smart thing, the team thing, but it sure didn’t look good on TV — the rainbow jersey marking moves instead of making them. This is one of the many reasons why Americans have trouble understanding the sport. “Why don’t he ride?” they ask, before changing the channel to something involving sticks and balls.
Meanwhile, chapeau to the big Belgie for a fine win. Word is he rolled it in on a softening tire, just 19 seconds ahead of a charging Cancellara, and then proposed to his sweetie. Quite a rock for an engagement present, no?
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Sweet!! And to think that one of my hombres (who fancies himself a cycling prognosticator) was pointing to an American to break his retched curse at the cobbled classic.
When will these noobs learn? You can be a great bike racer, but to win the Hell of the North you have to be a) on a great team willing to work for YOU; b) a really good bike handler; c) it never hurts to be Belgian and d) never have ridden for TCWSNBN (Boonen excepted because of the previous three reasons).
Yup, James — being as hard as a coffin nail is good, but not good enough. Cancellara had six teammates — six! — drop out of the race, including m’man Stuey O’Grady. Garmin had two swingin’ dicks in the break and Hushovd in the chase. Makes a world of difference when it comes to nut-cuttin’ time.
I didn’t see what punched Stuey out of the race. He told AFP he was ready to rock if Cancellara couldn’t seal the deal, but hey — that’s why they hold the race, no? To find out who wins.
O’Grady (Patrick, not Stuey), according to some web site called “VeloNews.com” or something like that (ever heard of it?), Stuey O’Grady didn’t so much as drop out of the race as finish too late. He missed the time cut. But yea, Leopard Trek didn’t exactly come through for Spartacus, now did they.
Hey, if it had been me out there the could make the time cut next Tuesday and I’d still miss it.
The one thing that has me a bit confused was that once Cancellara sat up and refused to tow Thor to the line, one of the other Garmins took over at the front of the Cancellara group and kept the lead group at a minute or so. Why? If Cancellara wants to sit up and you’ve got two Garmins in the break, well then just toodle on to Roubaix with him. Instead Garmin kept Spatacus within striking distance, and then he finished second. Any ideas?
Imagine the roasting JV would have received if Hushovd had towed Cancellara up to the other Garmins, only to somehow blow it and lose to Spartacus in Roubaix. Mighty Thor did what he had to do, even letting Fabian sit in behind his other teammate for awhile. Meanwhile a guy (smartly) sent up the road to draw the efforts of the other teams in a chase ends up winning, while the “bigs” either crashed out, had bad luck or spent most of the day trying not to lose rather than to win. My complaint was more how the guys in the break kept fooling around rather than putting in a real effort into staying away — it really made it look like they were radio-controlled racers, including when Vansummeren finally made the winning move. I hope he tells us in the interviews how it was HE that made that decision rather than someone barking at him in an earpiece. Will this now put JV’s “superteam” ahead of the “superteam Murdoch” and “superteam Schleck” in the “superteam” bragging rights department?
Oh, man … JV is gonna get roasted no matter how the ball drops. Some people just seem to hate his sideburned ass, for reasons that elude me. I haven’t chatted with him since he got to be a big shot but he always seemed a right guy when he was still racing.
180 racers, 20 or so teams … there are just always going to be more losers than winners. Which is why any strategy that results in a 0.0001% increase in win probability has to be followed. Except when, the only plan … is to have no plan!
Gotta love P-R, because there is no formula for winning. There’s the ’96 Museeuw method of being the captain of a kick ass team. There’s the Boonen technique of getting to the ‘drome with some dudes who can’t take you in sprint. Then there’s the Spartacus method of just riding away from everyone and never having a mechanical (and staying in front any nearby trains).