Tag: Tour de France

Speed bump

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

I was never a sprinter, for a variety of reasons, the foremost of which we saw today in stage 1 of the Tour de France.

Thundering into a gap that didn’t exist, Mark Cavendish lost his chance to win one in front of the home folks and don the yellow jersey to boot. He tangled with Simon Gerrans, both men went down (as did others), and it was just a helluva mess, a really bad way to end what otherwise had been a fine start to the Tour.

To his credit, Cav’ took the rap, saying via press release: “It was my fault. I’ll personally apologize to Simon Gerrans as soon as I get the chance. In reality, I tried to find a gap that wasn’t really there.” Gerrans, for his part, was circumspect, declining to assign blame as he limped off with his kit in tatters. And Marcel Kittel was grinning from ear to ear, because he finished with the rubber side down and took the first stage win and yellow jersey.

Charles Pelkey and I called the race as per usual over at Live Update Guy, and it was big fun until suddenly it wasn’t. It seemed most of the regulars were on hand, and we engaged in the usual digressions — doggerel, cat photos, Monty Python, literature, cartoons, rock ‘n’ roll, beggary, history, pix from the Man On the Scene (MOTS), medium-heavy libel, you name it.

We’ll be doing it again tomorrow. Y’all come.

 

LUG nuttery

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

OK, so it’s not exactly a Monty Python reunion, but Charles Pelkey and I are getting the band back together to provide live updates of the Tour de France starting Saturday.

Yes, that’s right, Live Update Guy rides again! There will be snark, limericks, cheap shots, haiku, bad manners, references to obscure skits from The Firesign Theatre and the aforementioned Pythons, ad hominem attacks that fall just millimeters short of actual libel, cameo appearances by The Fat Guy singing his hit single “It’s Over,” heavily moderated comments from our heavily medicated audience, and occasional bits about the actual bike race.

Counselor Pelkey will get the ball rolling at stupid-thirty every morning, and I’ll pop around 7-ish to get things wrong, make fart noises and otherwise contribute to lowering his intellectual property values.

If they allow you computer access in your particular state-run institution of license-plate manufacture and/or Edison-medicine application, surf on by and say howdy. How bad could it be?

HTFU?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 42 Comments
uisce beatha
There stands the glass. …

Outrage repeated ad infinitum is like an overlong intervals session. At some point you come up off the saddle and then sit right back down.

I’m not even in the saddle for the news about Stuart O’Grady and the rest of them from 1998. I’m back at the house, with the bike on its hook, and looking longingly at that unopened bottle of Bushmills in the kitchen. My performance-enhancer of choice for longer than I care to remember, even if I could.

So, instead of me struggling to gin up an anemic burstlet of apoplexy, how ’bout we take a trip down memory lane to August 2007, when “Friday’s Foaming Rant” still bestrode the narrow cycling world like a Colossus?

Paris, city of slights

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Smiling into the cameras and dedicating his victory to his late mother, Zoom-Zoom Froome collected his final yellow jersey — and then the gendarmes leapt upon him, pinioning his arms and forcing him into a brisk perp-walk toward a jet-black Citroen 2CV, which whisked him away to a windowless concrete bunker where. …

Naw. Nothing like that happened. The Big Three duked it out at the line and Mad Manx found himself staring up the heavily muscled arses of a couple really fast Krauts. Not for the last time, either.

Meanwhile, Zoom-Zoom pissed away nearly a minute coasting home on the Champs-Élysées but still won the 100th Tour de France by 4:20 (ahem) over Nairo “That Creep Can Roll” Quintana, who must buy his kit in the Junior Girls section. Joaquim “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” Rodriguez finished third overall, 5:04 down, and was already talking about bringing some fresh pain at the Vuelta.

I don’t know how the big finish looked on TV, but it looked pretty feeble on an iMac, I can tell you that. Pro journos in attendance who shall remain anonymous were deploying phrases like “complete and total clusterfuck,” “totally overrun with VIPs and cellphones,” and “they turned the Arc de Triomphe into a video game that no one could understand.”

And the game has only just begun. Zoom-Zoom is all of 28 years old. Says St. Eddy: “I don’t see who can beat him in the coming years, unless Quintana significantly improves his time trialing.”