“April is the cruellest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. The quote arises unbidden as I watch the weather change from sunny to snowy to sunny again, and finally to a chilly shvitz of fog — all in less than a week.
Appropriately, April also brings the cruelest race, Paris-Roubaix. And while I no longer help cover such sport for vampire capitalists, I plan to get up way too early on Sunday and lend a paw to my friend and colleague Charles Pelkey over at Live Update Guy.
Charles will be on deck at dark-thirty, as usual, but I won’t plug in until the race is well under way. In the meantime, give us your picks for the V in comments. Tom Boonen is obviously a fave, but with filthy weather in the forecast and no Fabian Cancellara it could be anyone’s race. T.S. Eliot was right.
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Thats what the noth coast of ca. looks like most of the time,keeps those rewoods growing.
I checked to see if my car has fog lights, and sure enough…woohoo! I hate to miss a rare opportunity. Thor in Roubaix.
For the first time in, well, ever, I correctly picked two of the top three for Flanders, so I claim the mantle of “expert” for this pick. Boom Boom Boonen for the win, Thor “The Thunder God” Hushovd and Fillippo “Follow that wheel, dude” Pozzato for the podium.
It seems Specialized & Cervelo have dominated Roubaix in recent years, so I’m thinking Boonen is looking good, until he has a flat / crashes with less than 50K to go. Then it will be a battle between Chavanel & Vansummeren, with the Belgian taking it by 10 seconds.
I want Thor to win. Bad weather really stinks at P-R.
Is that Lance guy gonna be there? He’s not? Oh well then, I don’t care who wins…
You guys sure he’s not gonna be there…?
Got to go with Boom Boom. He said he didn’t have the legs at Flanders and still brought plenty of hurt. And what’s with Pozzato? Ballan said in an interview that he and Pozzato had made a deal and Pozzato STILL sat on Boonen’s wheel? What the hell…
I’m calling Larry the winner because he’s gonna be there live drinking Belgian beer and getting fat on frites (if he’s not, he’s blowing it but still winning).
On another note….Patrick, I finally got around to your green chile recipe tonight. It tacked on a good half-hour to an hour to my posole, but damn was it worth it! The posole turned out tame in the spicy dept.- which still dumbfounds me. The green chile finished in time for the last few slurps of posole…..AWESOME, with just the right bit of heat. This is only going to get better over the next few days.
MANY thanks again for sharing that one with me/us.
I gotta go with Boonen. The man is on fire. As much as I would like to take Johan Vansummeren for the two-peat…. I just can’t.