Category: Bicycle racing

Paddy whacked

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
There was a hint of fall color in the trees as I cycled across the creek toward Palmer Park.
There was a hint of fall color in the trees as I cycled across the creek toward Palmer Park.

I rarely applaud the thumping of a Mick by a Limey, but I was happy to make an exception in the case of Brian Cookson vs. Pat McQuaid.

Fat Paddy pulled every dirty trick he could find from his size-5 cap during his frantic campaign to retain the UCI presidency. But when Cookson finally said, “All right, we’ve had enough of this,” and moved that the UCI Congress proceed to a vote, that august body handed said hat back to the blubbering bog-trotter and showed him the door.

Now, I rarely pay close attention to the racing side of our sport unless some silly person is cutting me a check. So I have no idea whether Cookson will be able or even willing to make all the changes that even a casual look-around deems necessary.

But at this point it seems to me that electing a blow-up plastic sex doll would be preferable to another term for Fat Paddy, unless that term were to be served in the H-Block.

Thus I celebrated the omadhaun‘s ouster with a short ride on a cyclo-cross bike with UCI-illegal tires. Póg mo thóin, Paddy, go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat! 

HTFU?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 42 Comments
uisce beatha
There stands the glass. …

Outrage repeated ad infinitum is like an overlong intervals session. At some point you come up off the saddle and then sit right back down.

I’m not even in the saddle for the news about Stuart O’Grady and the rest of them from 1998. I’m back at the house, with the bike on its hook, and looking longingly at that unopened bottle of Bushmills in the kitchen. My performance-enhancer of choice for longer than I care to remember, even if I could.

So, instead of me struggling to gin up an anemic burstlet of apoplexy, how ’bout we take a trip down memory lane to August 2007, when “Friday’s Foaming Rant” still bestrode the narrow cycling world like a Colossus?

Paris, city of slights

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Smiling into the cameras and dedicating his victory to his late mother, Zoom-Zoom Froome collected his final yellow jersey — and then the gendarmes leapt upon him, pinioning his arms and forcing him into a brisk perp-walk toward a jet-black Citroen 2CV, which whisked him away to a windowless concrete bunker where. …

Naw. Nothing like that happened. The Big Three duked it out at the line and Mad Manx found himself staring up the heavily muscled arses of a couple really fast Krauts. Not for the last time, either.

Meanwhile, Zoom-Zoom pissed away nearly a minute coasting home on the Champs-Élysées but still won the 100th Tour de France by 4:20 (ahem) over Nairo “That Creep Can Roll” Quintana, who must buy his kit in the Junior Girls section. Joaquim “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” Rodriguez finished third overall, 5:04 down, and was already talking about bringing some fresh pain at the Vuelta.

I don’t know how the big finish looked on TV, but it looked pretty feeble on an iMac, I can tell you that. Pro journos in attendance who shall remain anonymous were deploying phrases like “complete and total clusterfuck,” “totally overrun with VIPs and cellphones,” and “they turned the Arc de Triomphe into a video game that no one could understand.”

And the game has only just begun. Zoom-Zoom is all of 28 years old. Says St. Eddy: “I don’t see who can beat him in the coming years, unless Quintana significantly improves his time trialing.”

 

Slouching toward Paris

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Steelman Eurocross
The other day I rode my old Steelman Eurocross for the first time in a long while. It was a nice change from watching other folks ride.

Well, the Tour is sort of ambling toward the barn, and I guess I’ve officially lost interest.

Zoom-Zoom has more than five minutes on everyone now, and boy, wouldn’t this be an interesting race if he were not in it, with second through fifth separated by 47 seconds?

Not even a double helping of L’Alpe d’Huez and a bit of the bonk, exacerbated by a smallish fine and even smaller time penalty, could rattle Zoom-Zoom and his merry men.

Nor could today’s tough-on-paper stage, made tougher by a heavy rain that may have dampened the blue touchpaper back in the GC group as Rui Costa timed his attack perfectly and won his second stage. Saxo-Tinkoff is said to be focused on team GC now, since Super Spaniard apparently left his cape and tights in his other phone booth. This is right up there with kissing one’s sister.

Tomorrow brings a 125km hump from Annecy to Semnoz, the final summit finish of this Tour, and Sunday serves up the traditional Who Gives a Shit? parade stage, a festival of jackoffery that this time around will conclude in the evening, a brainstorm cursed roundly by the photographers who must shoot the race in the Parisian twilight and then try to file, eat, drink and sleep in a timely fashion.

Ah, well. Come Monday we will have our own bikes and (God willing) the time and legs to ride them. My ass is taking on the shape of this office chair, and it is an unfortunate combination, as neither has ever been a thing of beauty.

Charles Pelkey and I will be calling the final weekend of the 100th Tour over at Live Update Guy. Pop round and get your minimum daily requirement of snark while it’s hot.

¡Ay, Chihuahua!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Ohhhhhhhhh-kay.

I thought Super Spaniard had this one in the bag. He was flat railing those downhill corners. Bobsledders, skydivers and fighter pilots were getting motion sickness just watching him.

And then Zoom-Zoom ambles on in after an ill-timed bike swap in the rain and croaks him by nine seconds.

You could read Super Spaniard’s face like a marked deck: “Hijo de la gran puta.” He shook his head ruefully and smiled with the lower half of his face, the way one does upon being cheated at five-card stud in a strange town while unarmed.

I don’t know what to think, myself. I’m deeply suspicious of this sort of dominance — call me irresponsible — and I don’t like it one bit that Zoom-Zoom is already trying to play the patrón without even having won the fucking race yet.

Bjarne Riis called him a pussy, but he sure doesn’t ride like one. In fact, I’m starting to think Zoom-Zoom can take Mr. 60% in a straight-up Huffy toss.