Tag: Ol’ Whatsisface

Mont Saywhat?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
What are YOU on?
Hey, this guy looks familiar. …

I needed a rest day after Mont Ventoux, having thrown my back out while picking my jaw up off the floor.

The smart money was saying that Zoom-Zoom Froome would not win the stage, but would take time on his rivals for The Big Shirt. Uh huh. Not even Nairo Quintana was buying that one, and he was riding alongside the yellow jersey. For a while, anyway.

Now Zoom-Zoom has more than four minutes on everyone with a week left to race and even the dumb money is going, “Mmm hmm.” For his part, Zoom-Zoom says there is no comparison to be made between him and Ol’ Whatsisface. You remember. That guy.

“I’m not cheating. End of story,” says Zoom-Zoom.

Well, actually, no, it’s not the end of the story, Zoom-Zoom old scout. These tales take a while to spin, if recent history is any guide, and this big yellow book is liable to remain open for a spell. Sorry ’bout that.

See, the last few tenants left the maillot jaune in an awful state and we’re still trying to get the damage deposit back.

Showing the colors

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Turkish working on his tan
The Turk’ suns himself in the living room.

You know what’s even better than not watching Ol’ Whatsisface gnaw through his lower lip while pretending to be sorry for what he did instead of for getting caught at it?

Riding your own damn’ bike for the first time in two weeks on a sunny, 55-degree afternoon, that’s what.

My pipes felt a tad rusty after the flu, and I wished for a big hit of albuterol, but that would’ve been doping. So I made do with a cough drop and a hefty dose of moral superiority.

Before getting back in the saddle I mounted fenders to the Kona Rove, which is next up in the Adventure Cyclist review queue.

Ever fit fenders to a disc-brake-equipped bike? Me neither. What it takes — for the front wheel, anyway — is a pretty abrupt bend in the left-side fender stay, a long-ass bolt and a spacer of some sort. I used about an inch of the plastic housing from a cheap pen liberated from a motel, which saved me a trip to the hardware store.

After two weeks on the disabled list I resembled a cyclist about as much as Ol’ Whatsisface resembles a penitent, but like him I didn’t care. It was enough to be out there.

Confession is good for the … what, exactly?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

A casual check of the Innertubes this morning confirms that I chose correctly in deciding to skip Ol’ Whatsisface’s latest made-for-TV reinvention.

Eddy Merckx is “extremely disappointed.” Tour de France honcho Christian Prudhomme called it a “calculated public-relations exercise,” while WADA chief John Fahey dismissed the performance as delivering “nothing new.”

Greg LeMond said he didn’t see “the need for redemption, the remorse of someone who is truly sorry.” ESPN’s Bonnie Ford called his resort to “big-picture pop culture”  a “delusional move, not to mention an utterly backward one, describing Ol’ Whatsisface as “a toppled despot, a statue pulled off his pedestal, [whose] legs are still moving reflexively in the rubble.”

And Betsy Andreu was pissed, saying Ol’ Whatsisface owes more to her and “to the sport that he destroyed.”

There’s more of that sort of thing to be had, if you’re game. I’m not. The whole thing is, as John Steinbeck wrote of other parties thrown by professional hostesses, “as spontaneous as peristalsis and as interesting as its end product.”

For The Cyclist Who Shall Not Be Named it’s just another step along a well-worn path. First Soaprah, then Betty Ford, then “Dancing With the Stars.” Or maybe a reality show like the one Pete Rose has ginned up for himself.

Whatever. Stage two is tonight, of course, but Ol’ Whatsisface is already way off the back. He’s proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that it’s not about the bike. It’s not about the sport. It’s all about him.