Shall we dance?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Another ho-hum stage in Le Tour. At one point on the final climb, Super Spaniard and Schleckalecka were practically track-standing, doing an Alphonse-and-Gaston number. I thought that at any moment they might actually leap off their bikes and dance the tango. It must be fun for the Astana boys to tow Contador all over France to watch him play footsie with Schleck in the mountains and wait for that final time trial, when he won’t need any help to kick that skinny Luxembourger’s ass.

Big props to Carlos Sastre for trying to relive 2003. Also to Christophe Riblon for continuing the fine French performance in their national tour by winning the stage. Likewise to Denis Menchov and Sammy Sanchez for ripping their legs off in a battle for what seems certain to be the third step on the podium, just below the dancing masters.

But the Mad Dog propeller beanie is most definitely not lifted to either Contador or Schleck. Not yet. One of these guys has to show some panache or I’m buying a set of golf clubs.

Uncorking the Vino’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Updating the DogSite from the back deck — and yes, that is a fan working away back there. I told you it was hot. ...
Updating the DogSite from the back deck — and yes, that is a fan working away back there. I told you it was hot. ...

Watching all these dudes riding their bikes across France kinda makes me want to get out there, too. But by the time I’m through with my labors for VeloNews.com, it’s hotter than the hubs of Hell and I tend to lose interest in anything other than cold beverages.

I used to work the site with a laptop at a table on the back deck, which at least got me outdoors in the cool of the morning, but the “advance” of technology has made this impossible. Now I need two 22-inch monitors so I can follow the stage via video and have quick and easy access to e-mail, instant messaging and about a jillion browser windows.

To tell the truth, I could use a third monitor, like my colleague Charles Pelkey, but I haven’t got enough desk for it. So sometimes I power up the MacBook and leave it sitting atop the drawing board next to the desk.

All this, mind you, so I can follow and chronicle a stage that pretty much sucked ass. About the last 10km of today’s 196km stage were interesting, thanks to Alexander Vinokourov. Whatever else you can say about him — and you can say plenty — the dude loves to bring the pain.

Now that he has a stage win under his belt, Vino’ has vowed once again to work for Super Spaniard. And the defending champ will need all the help he can get. The next four stages are some bad mamma-jammas, and his main tow truck Dani Navarro hit the deck today, as did Jesus Hernandez, who seems to be having an even worse Tour than Radio Shackstrong.

Renshaw gives lousy head

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

The Big Hook came for HTC’s Mark Renshaw today. He head-butted Garmin’s Julian Dean — not once, not twice, but thrice as Dean tried to bring Tyler Farrar to the line in stage 11 — and then once Mark Cavendish had safely launched off his wheel, Renshaw took a quick peek over his shoulder, saw Farrar coming and tried to ride him into the barriers.

“Right, off you go,” said race officials. “Good,” says I. That was a mean, dangerous and totally unnecessary bit of aggro’ bullshit in a Tour that has already seen way too many dudes on the deck with broken bones.

Dean had it exactly right afterward, saying: “What we do is very dangerous and we don’t need behavior like that to make it even more dangerous.”

The Mobius turd

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Scott McIsn’t is full of shit. Sharron Angle is full of shit. Jon Kyl is full of shit. John Boehner is full of shit. Sue Myrick is full of shit. I think I’m starting to see a pattern here. … and it looks like a pachyderm’s footprint.

While we’re speaking about shit, Texus Maximus appears to have stepped in some. It’s tough to keep knocking ’em out of the park when the press has finally benched the fat teenager slow-pitching the softballs and brought up the major leaguer with the rocket-propelled arm. Am I an owner? A rider? Christ, ask me something about cancer, can’t you?

Hell, I can’t remember what I was doing 15 minutes ago, much less in 2004, and nobody from The New York Times is asking me about it, something that tends to peg the Fear needle at redline. I immediately channel the late Richard Pryor berating a fanboy snapping pix of him during a standup. “What you taking my picture for? Who you gonna show it to?” he demanded.

Call me cynical, but I expect that RadioShack’s PR flacks will be the ones dodging the beanballs going forward. “Ms. Macur? Hello, I’m Fullo Schidt, Mr. Armstrong’s intern for Media Ax-Grinding and Agendas … how may I be of assistance?”