Are we not men?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
This nifty repair to the Fountain Creek trail south of Academy Boulevard saves us a bit of cyclo-cross.
This nifty repair to the Fountain Creek trail south of Academy Boulevard saves us a bit of cyclo-cross.

Well, that was interesting, eh? ‘Berto Contador croaks Fabian Cancellara and everybody else on a longish, mostly flat time trial. It sent Spartacus straight to the pub to slam a cold one and wonder aloud whether the gendarmes’ motorcycles might have given AC a bit of a tow.

I had wondered about that myself, frankly. But when you’re watching the race on a 13.3-inch MacBook on a cup and a half of coffee after a second sleepless night you miss a lot of subtleties. It was tough for me to tell just how close the coppers were to Contador, but hey — every little bit helps, que no?

Super Spaniard apparently skipped the tongue-loosening, post-stage cerveza because he turned into an Easter Island statue when a journo’ asked whether he might have done some training on The Island of Doctor Moreau in preparation for this Tour. “Otra pregunta,” he replied a couple or three times, clearly meaning, “A la chingada con tu y tus amigos en las prensa.”

Radio Shackstrong admitted to suffering, rather than sucking, on the stage. He finished 16th, 90 seconds behind Contador, and 28 seconds behind national ITT champ Dave Zabriskie (DzNuts-PantsShit), and hopes to defend his third place overall during the Ventoux stage on Saturday.

If Texus Maximus had beaten DzNuts I’d recommend him for a Tandy leather stars-and-stripes jersey with matching moccasins and assless chaps, but that will have to wait for ’10.

Meanwhile, I got out for my own short ride today, down to Fountain and back on whatever the hell they’re calling that trail these days. Chapeau to the county for detouring around that old washout, which required a little cyclo-crossing. The newer washout by Highway 85 still does, but that will be a job of work to repair. I suggest borrowing a transporter from the USS Enterprise.

Race of truthiness

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

I missed delivering the daily dose of snark yesterday due to a combination of deadlines, writer’s block and insomnia; sorry ’bout that. So I’ll just say that the Astana boys really screwed the pooch, and if I were Alberto Contador I would give my time-trial bike a good going-over for sidewall cuts, severed cables and wired lumps of Semtex before climbing into the start house this morning.

Today we heard that big George Hincapie may have cracked a collarbone in a crash yesterday but is racing anyway (chapeau); Texus Maximus may be riding for Radio Shack next year (please fire the surly bitch at Bibleburg’s 8th Street location); and Cuddles Evans is still displaying signs of a serious short-circuit under the helmet, pissing away more time in the early going of the ITT. And now it appears to be raining, which could turn the GC war into the Battle of Jutland. More as it develops.

• Note to Phil and Paul: Shut the fuck up about Lance Lance Lance Lance Lance Lance, please. Jesus.

• Alberto Indurain: Contador slays all in the time trial.

• Killer dope, man: And oh, yeah, Danilo Di Luca tripped the Dope-O-Meter® for EPO CERA during the Giro d’Italia. He’s innocent, naturally.

Boom-Schlecka-lecka-lecka

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Busy, busy, busy. It was amusing watching Saxo Bank try to croak the Astana boys today, especially when the apparently shelled Texus Maximus went rocketing up the hill as if he just couldn’t wait for another dope test.

But seeing poor Jens Voigt hit the deck at speed took a lot of the fun out of the workday. An “inherently dangerous sport,” as the USA Cycling release puts it, and sometimes a guy doesn’t just leap up, remount and ride on with his bloody ass hanging out of his shredded shorts. Here’s hoping the big German heals well and quickly.

All the cube farmers following the stage on VeloNews.com slowed the site to a crawl, so loading stories and photos afterward has been like trying to push volleyballs through a garden hose using a pipe cleaner.

Still, it beats getting a brain scan in the Grenoble hospital while nurses buff the gravel out of your face with a wire brush.

An angel sits upon the seventh step

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Frank McCourt has gone west.
Frank McCourt has gone west.

Frank McCourt, author of “Angela’s Ashes,” dies at 78 of metastatic melanoma. Ah, but what a book he left us with. As The New York Times recalls:

“When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all,” the book’s second paragraph begins in a famous passage. “It was, of course, a miserable childhood: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

“People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years.”

The book had an inauspicious beginning. He took a stab at it while studying at New York University, but didn’t hit his stride until after he retired from teaching. Again, from the NYT:

“After 20 pages of standard omniscient author, I wrote something that I thought was just a note to myself, about sitting on a seesaw in a playground, and I found my voice, the voice of a child,” he told The Providence Journal in 1997. “That was it. It carried me through to the end of the book.”

McCourt, who certainly had every reason to lack a sense of humor, said it was exactly that which keeps the Irish going.

“I think there’s something about the Irish experience — that we had to have a sense of humor or die,” Mr. McCourt once told an interviewer. “That’s what kept us going — a sense of absurdity, rather than humor.”

Sure works for me. May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you’re dead, Francis McCourt. Tell Harold Joseph O’Grady of County Clare to buy yous a pint on Patrick Declan O’Grady so.

Ride it like you stole it

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
In keeping with our new Tour tradition, we're drinking a Spanish red this evening in honor of El Pistolero.
In keeping with our new Tour tradition, we're drinking a Spanish red this evening in honor of El Pistolero.

‘Berto Contador laid a patch about 6km long en route to Verbiers today, leaving everyone — including Texas Maximus — choking on the burning rubber.

The old fella looked like he’d thrown a rod by the time he finally crossed the finish line, more than a minute and a half later, and no wonder. Chasing that skinny Spaniard uphill, a guy must feel like Wile E. Coyote galloping after the Roadrunner. Meep meep — ka-pweeeeeng! Cue the eyeballs hitting the asphalt, ka-plunk.

Saxo Bank had a hand in Big Tex’s undoing, and they claim to have more of the same waiting for Super Spaniard, but they’ll have to catch him first. One dude unlikely to stand in their way is Cuddles Evans, who apparently had the legs of Olive Oyl on stage 15.

He was still better than Tex, though, which must leave Old No. 7 yearning for a cold Shiner Bock and a hot blonde. Tex was huffin’ and puffin’ at the back of the bus, getting a good strong whiff of Andreas Klöden’s farts — that is, until Klöden dropped him too.