Oh, cycling is a cruel sport. One wonders what Chris Froome and Tejay van Garderen might have been able to do today had they not been restricted to dragging around their respective team leaders, Bradley Wiggins and Cadel Evans?
Poor old Evans looked like he was trying to choke down a double-decker shit sandwich on the final climb while TVG appeared as fresh as a daisy. And Froomey shelled the yellow jersey while towing him past a group of stragglers and had to back off the gas lest Wiggo’ call him a nasty name at the team dinner this evening.
“Wankers & Cunts.” Hmm. That would be a great name for a XXX theater, eh?
Meanwhile, chapeau to Pierre Rolland. He was on the floor at one point after trying (and failing) to tripod around a hairpin corner, and he got up and won the damn’ stage. A fine performance for the home folks.
Sean Kelly, one of the hard men of the peloton when I was first becoming interested in the sport way back in the day, implies in a chat with the working press that this modern lot is a shower of eejits — and I’m not inclined to argue with him after watching stage six of Le Show Beeg, in which pretty much everybody save the Eurosport commentators, ASO management and Paddy McQuaid found themselves on the tarmac, in the ditch or inside an ambulance.
Sean Kelly back in the day, as photographed by Cor Vos
“These kinds of crashes happen, but you have to ask, how did it happen?” Kelly told my man Andrew Hood over to VeloNews.com. “Nobody wants to brake anymore. Everyone is pushing to be in the top 30 riders. Everybody is taking so many risks, and they will have crashes because of that.”
From your lips to God’s ear, Sean a chara. Today’s appalling clusterfuck on a narrow section of road, which left dozens of riders on the floor and sent several out of the Tour altogether, looked as though someone from the Spandex Liberation Army had set off a roadside bomb as the peloton rode past. Andy tallies up the body count here.
Some crashes can be blamed on course designers. Others can be chalked up to ineptitude (yes, pro cyclists fuck up just like we do, only at higher speed). I don’t know whom to pin this one on, other than upon the collective mindset that everyone — sprinters, wanna-bes, winless guys fretting over next year’s contract, GC men and their minders, and anyone in a Euskaltel-Euskadi jersey — just has to be at the front, all at the same time.
There isn’t enough room. Forget about UCI regulations — it’s a violation of the laws of physics. You can’t squeeze a thousand pounds of Lycra through a garden hose. There’s gonna be an explosion. And we saw it today.
Editor’s note: Incidentally, in case you’re wondering where I am lately, I’m helping Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey with running commentary on the 2012 Tour over at Red Kite Prayer. Well, maybe “helping” isn’t quite the word we’re looking for here. “Hindering” may be more accurate. Whatever. I’m there, and you should be too. See you.
Live updates … getcher live updates here … live updates, get ’em while they’re hot. …
If any of you folks enjoy Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey’s play-by-play from the grand tours, especially the Tour de France, pop round to his website and let him know.
He’s on the bubble about calling this year’s Tour, as he has a bit of lawyerin’ to do in his button-down persona as Consigliere Pelkey, Lawyer of Laramie. So if you’re a LUG nut stuck in the cube farm for three weeks in July, desperate for news from Le Show Beeg, give Charles a shout-out.
And if he comes off that bubble to call the Tour for us, think about plinking a dime or two in his tip jar by way of a thank-you. It ain’t often you see a lawyer working for tips.
• Full disclosure: I chime in from time to time during Charles’ live updates. But don’t let that deter you.
There’s nothing like that first day after the Tour folds its big yellow tent and life gets back to normal.
I got out early for a two-hour ride northeast on Highway 24 and enjoyed a tailwind to Falcon. The headwind on the homebound leg wasn’t outlandish, and I considered stretching the outing to three hours before remembering that there was nothing to eat in Chez Dog, someone having been a little lackadaisical about grocery-shopping lately.
So I rolled home, made a list and headed north to Whole Paycheck, pissing away a car payment on bits of this and that to keep flesh on the bones. Last night’s “dinner” involved a tin of smoked oysters, cheddar, crackers and a salad, and that’s just not enough to keep a renowned cycling journalist at the top of his game.
Now it’s raining for a second consecutive day, which is excellent. It’s been hotter than the high-flange hubs of Hell around here lately, and this takes the edge off, as does a little effervescent Austrian rosé.
Alas, we may all be reduced to drinking feeble American lager out of red-white-and-blue cans if the “mine is bigger than yours” contest ends badly in DeeCee, as seems increasingly likely.
These overfed, undereducated pustules afflicting the body politic should be compelled at gunpoint to hold their slapfests in small-town bars and beaneries, in the company of the simple folks these rich fucks profess to care about. Maybe after a few vicious beatings administered by work-hardened knuckles they’d realize their cushy gigs are about people, not politics.
• Late update:Kevin Drum sure wasn’t impressed by either Obama or Punkinhead tonight. I listened to the first few minutes of Obama’s bit while cooking dinner and I wasn’t exactly hearing a clarion call to arms. As for Punkinhead, I unplugged his ass before he even had a chance to start lying. My patience has its limits.
Singing in the bathtub ... la dee dah dee doo. ...
Well, whaddaya know? At long last a Schleck finally sacked up and did something other than talk shit, complain or suck wheel.
Andy of Luxemberry finally got his narrow ass off that saddle for more than 10 pedal strokes and his eyeballs straight ahead and roared away to the stage win atop the Galibier, damn’ near getting the yellow jersey in the process. If Cadel Evans hadn’t towed Thomas Voeckler, Ivan Basso and Damiano Cunego to the top Tommy would be back in his plain green Europcar kit for Friday’s stage to L’Alpe d’Huez.
The Leopard-Trek boys definitely got it right today and everybody else got it wrong, especially Super Spaniard, who reverted to his alter ego of Clark Kentador on the final steeps and gave away bags of time. No bang-bang in Paris for him.
The stage put Andy in second overall, 15 seconds out of yellow, and brother Fränk in third at 1:08. Fränk didn’t do shit all day except sprint around Evans at the end, so he may be the guy to watch on the Alpe. I expect Andy and Cadel will be in the hurt locker.
But both Schlecks will need to show up wearing their racing legs tomorrow if they expect to have yellow in Paris, because they time trial like junior girls and Evans does not. I don’t have to work, but I’ll be glued to the ’puter anyway, watching the fur fly.
Speaking of fur, I saw a bear on today’s ride through the Air Force Academy. He was having a refreshing bath in the creek at trailside, just north of Woodmen. I would’ve missed him but a woman mountain biker headed south flagged me down to get a little backup lest she become bear chow while cycling past. We watched him for a while, snapping a few pix, and then he grew tired of the paparazzi and exploded out of the creek into the brush.
Mad Blog Media 