Congrats to Taylor Phinney for crushing the prologue at the 2012 Giro d’Italia. Dude sure picked his parents right. All I got was the bald-fat-guy gene.
Category: Bike stuff
Bikes, beers and bummers
Somebody has a new toy. And no, it’s not you.
Meet the Cyfac Vintage, a steel bike hand-built in France. It’s a wee bit short — a 54cm instead of the 56cm I usually ride — but it seems to roll along just fine nonetheless. It’s up for review in the July edition of Adventure Cyclist.
Speaking of which, cycling was something of an adventure around here today. The high reached at least 85 degrees, according to the weather wizards and confirmed by the Subaru thermometer, edging the record of 84 set in 2000. “Climate normal” is somewhere around 66, so this was something of a shock to the system, enough to make a guy buy a white Igloo helmet with a swamp cooler attached.
I couldn’t find one of those, so I bought two six-packs of beer instead: Odell’s 5 Barrel Pale Ale, which has become Herself’s favorite beer, and Victory’s Prima Pils, which is an excellent heat repellent when applied internally.
A man who sounds as though he could use a drink is Charles P. Pierce, who posits in a very grumpy blog post that Obama has left it too late to crank up the outrage machine. Writes Charles: “Personally, at this moment, I think he’s probably going to lose.”
If he’s right, then we should all start stockpiling strong drink while we still can. A nation that would elect Mitt Romney president is not one I can abide in sobriety.
Individual pursuit
Floyd Landis, the gift that keeps on giving. Now a federal grand jury has become interested in his fabled Floyd Fairness Fund, which can’t be good news for anyone save his lawyers.
Seems the head of the fraud division in San Diego, assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Halpern, is himself a bike racer, so he may have a little more staying power than that Novitzky fella, who plays hoops.
You can’t get blood out of a turnip, but you can sure fuck up the turnip in the process.
Nibbles gets gobbled
Vince Nibbles, as Andrew Hood calls Vincenzo Nibali, nearly won Liège-Bastogne-Liège today.
When Nibbles went away atop the Cote de la Roche aux Faucons, Philippe Gilbert suddenly looked like he’d just taken a big hit from a spoiled bidon and the chase was as well organized as the House Democratic caucus. When Nibbles had 46 seconds in hand all the smart folks pretty much figured that was that.
And then Maxim Iglinskiy chased him down like Nibbles owed him money, and that really was that — the Sicilian was racing for second with just over a klick to go, and Astana was en route to picking up its second big win in a week after Enrico Gasparotto won last Sunday’s Amstel Gold. Gasparatto made the podium here, too, finishing third. Good times.
Good times here today, too. We’re looking at a sunny 60-something with light winds, and having already arranged for dinner — leftovers from last night’s killer stew of green chile, pork, onions, garlic and spuds — I have plenty of time to ride. Only one chore remains, the completion of an overdue column for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. Some days these things practically write themselves; others, it’s like trying to drive ten-penny nails into mahogany using an old banana for a hammer.
Boom-Boom pounds ’em on the pavé
Chapeau to Tom Boonen for a manly win at Paris-Roubaix — he didn’t much care for the pace of the group he was with, so he shelled them and soloed 50km for the V.
Big props, too, to Sébastien Turgot, who picked Alessandro Ballan’s pocket for second place in the Roubaix velodrome. Conventional wisdom aside, sometimes it’s smart to look over your shoulder, guys. Sheesh.
Meanwhile, right about now Mike Wallace is interviewing God: “So, what’s with all the contradictions in your book? Care to set the record straight?” Why anyone ever answered the door when Mike showed up with a camera crew remains a mystery to me.
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