fabian cancellara | Cycling in the South Bay

Let’s put some spice in the oatmeal!

July 6, 2016 § 23 Comments

Le Turdy France has become a big, steaming pot of tasteless oatmeal. Average Joe thinks it’s boring and stupid. Hobby bicycle people think it’s boring and stupid. Profamateur Cat 4 underwear models think it’s boring and stupid. And now, in a new twist, even the riders think it’s boring and stupid.

This is like David Lee Roth admitting that he can’t sing. Everyone knows it’s true, but why’d ya have to come out and SAY it?

Various reasons have been put forth to explain the mind-numbing boredom that sets in after just a few minutes of watching terribly underfed chickens, bones poking through their underwear, slam into motorcycles that have no business on the course. Here are the biggies that have oatmealized Le Tour:

Robots. No one enjoys watching robots.
Chris Froome. If you’re going to dope up a robot, make him handsome, like Eddy or Lance or Fabian.
Radios. If you don’t think radios remove all excitement and fun, look at the average 8-year-old from a rich helicopter-parent family that controls his every move.
Gore. Pro underwear racing is dangerous beyond belief. There aren’t enough sick people who enjoy bloodshed, closed head injuries, and Hoogerland meat-shredding in the general population (NASCAR excepted) to get pleasure out of this choreographed slaughterhouse.
Power data. Use a power meter for three weeks and tell me how much it has increased the joy and spontaneity in your cycling.
Freak show. We know they’re volcano doping because they’re riding faster now than they did in the EPO Era. Yawwwwwn.
Dentist chair syndrome. What is already miserable is worse because it’s so long. It takes three weeks to find out which doper climbs one mountain faster than his podium rivals by two minutes? Really?
France. We can’t stand another castle viewed from a chopper. We just can’t.
Yellow. Check your comic books, especially anything with the Two-Gun Kid. Yellow is the color for chickens and cowards. “Why, you yaller-bellied varmint, I’ma gonna fill you plumb full of lead.”
Names. Most Euro names are too hard to pronounce. No red-blooded American will watch a sport with names that don’t sound like “Ruth” or “Aaron.” “Gretzky” gets a pass because he was, you know, not bad.

So after reviewing these terrible problems, I’ve taken the old admonition to heart that “You shouldn’t raise problems if you don’t have solutions.” Here they are:

Humans. Make the Tour open to actual humans. Hairy legged, pot-bellied, flatulent couch potatoes welcome! It will be awesome to watch your Uncle Fred out on his bike for the first time since 1973 struggle up the ONLY STAGE IN THE TOUR, L’Alpe d’Huez.
Give Chris Froome his own race. He’ll be the only participant and he will win every year. We’ll call it the Tour de Froome. That way he can eat a few thousand cheeseburgers, stop volcano doping, and look human again.
Coach ride-behinds. Don’t ban radios, but make the schlumpy DS’s follow along on their bicycles instead of in a follow car. If they still have the lungs to shout instructions from 30 miles back while climbing L’Alpe, more power to them. If half of them keel over, no worries. Your average DS can be replaced with a 3rd-Grade dropout drug addict dope dealer.
Moto licensing. Require anyone who wants to follow or mix with Le Tour on a motorcycle to pass a certification test that involves wrestling hungry tigers. Survivors will be required to pass a crash dummy test where they are slammed into the back of a truck going downhill at 50. Successful applicants can safely follow the peloton from 100 miles back.
Strava. Require all riders who use power in the race to post up better numbers than Thorfinn-Sassquatch. Those who fail will have their power meters confiscated.
Bike motors. Since we’re letting Uncle Fred race Le Tour, which now only has one stage, everyone who’s not a doper or professional underwear model gets a bike motor. Who wouldn’t enjoy watching Nairo Quintana getting dropped by a fellow whose shorts stop halfway up the San Andreas Fault buttcrack?
Cut Le Tour. One stage. 35 miles. Winner takes all. In alternate years it will be held around Chris Lotts’s parking lot crit course in Compton.
Expand the meaning of “France.” The world has lots of cool places to see. In non-Compton years, stick Le Tour in guaranteed bike-friendly places like Palos Verdes Estates, San Bernardino, or Houston.
Black and red. Those are some winning colors. Black for “aggression,” red for “blood.”
Americanize. Remember how in your Spanish class in junior high Mrs. Simon gave everyone a Spanish name (mine was “Francisco,” and I loved it). Give all the riders American names. Peter Sagan is Pete Smith. Roman Kreuziger is Robbie Johnson. Fabian Cancellara is John Davis. Nairo Quintan is Bill Jones. Chris Froome is Suzy Small. You get the idea.

And yes, you’re welcome.

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Turdy France notes

July 7, 2015 § 12 Comments

As much as I try to ignore the annual pro-wrestling championships for skinny people, the Tour invariably impinges on my serenity. Here are the impingements so far:

Cav is a d-bag. Sitting up in the sprint because he couldn’t win, letting Cancellara get third, and thereby depriving TEIMMATE Tony Martin of yellow? There is apparently a very large “I” in Teim, or rather a very large “Cavendish” in “douchebag.”
Since the Tour no longer has 300-mile stages and it’s “short” enough for most riders to complete, and complete pretty tightly bunched, the challenging, cobbled, wind-swept, hardass opening stages are fantastic. Nice work, whoever continues to push for such stages.
Tony Martin no longer has to drag his dick to the microphone and answer the German journalists’ questions about why he didn’t win stage one, why he didn’t win stage two, why he didn’t win stage three, why he didn’t win stage four and why in the world is he NOT in yellow?
Enough with Astana and Boom’s doping. They all cheat, it’s pro wrestling for skinny people. Can we sweep all that under the rug for another few years until someone important dies? Thank you.
Froome hasn’t fallen off his bicycle yet. Amaze-balls.
In addition to boycotting the Tour, we’d appreciate it if Oleg Dickov would just boycott cycling and go back to making usurious payday loans to poor people. Oh, wait, he never stopped …
There are three Americans in the Tour: Van Garderen, Talansky, and Farrar. Way to build the grass roots, USA Cycling! Perhaps they could work with Alto Velo to sue some more small pro teams and encourage promising riders and sponsors to quit the sport?
Pro bike racing is more dangerous in terms of injuries per race than any motor sport. It’s no fun watching the yellow jersey swap shoulders because of crashes (Cancellara), or watching the whole event turned on its head because contenders crash out (Froome, Contador in 2014). It’s also no fun watching people get hurt.
Trying to reach a cyclist on the West Coast on July late mornings is like trying to get a SoCal handyman when there is a good swell.
It will be interesting to see how much, if any, Tour Fever has spread to Germany. It’s taken years for the cycling public to recover from Ullrich/Zabel Telekom.

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Terpstra stripped of 2014 Paris – Roubaix win

April 14, 2014 § 27 Comments

Less than 24 hours after soloing to victory out of an elite group of the world’s best cobblestone specialists, 2014 Paris – Roubaix winner Niki Terpstra (HOL, OmegaPharma – Quickstep) was stripped of his victory by race organizer ASO Sports. At a hastily convened press conference in Paris, ASO president Antoine de Saint-Exupéry issued the following press release, which is reproduced below:

ASO regrets to inform M. Niki Terpstra that he has received a disqualification in the 2014 edition of Paris – Roubaix 2014 because of his unpopularity, or to be more precise, because no one knows exactly who he is. By finishing ahead of MM. Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, M. Terpstra has taken away an important marketing and sales opportunity for global cycling and ASO, which has been poised for several months now to profit handsomely from the victory of either M. Cancellara or M. Boonen at Paris – Roubaix. M. Terpstra will be allowed to race the 2015 edition of the race, but only if he agrees to finish no higher than second. The official winner of the 2014 edition of the race is hereby designated as M. Fabian Cancellara, the third place finisher. This now places M. Cancellara in the ranks of the greatest riders ever, with four Roubaix victories to his name, and promises an incredible showdown in 2015 between him and M. Boonen to see which one will be the first ever rider to win this monument five times in his career.

Terpstra stunned

Terpstra was stunned to learn that he had already been stripped of his victory, and he immediately broke down. “It is true my first name is that of a girl and my last name sounds like a kind of turtle, and it is true that few people know who I am, and worse, that I am Dutch, but I won Paris – Roubaix honestly. How can they take it away just like that?”

Other riders were sympathetic, but understanding of the difficult position in which ASO was placed with Terpstra’s win. Second place finisher John Degengolb agreed that “It’s a shame to strip him of the win, but it’s even more of a shame for a great race like this to be won by a nobody with a girl’s name. Would the NBA tolerate a championship by the Rockets or the Bucks? Of course not. It’s bad business.”

Tom Boonen concurred. “Either I or Fabian should have won today, everyone said so, including me and Fabian, so it’s only fair that Niki got DQ’d. You have to remember that unlike the premier European soccer leagues, in cycling we don’t have refs who can make sure that the fix is in. Niki had the ride of his life, but with Fabian being declared the winner it really sets up a more dynamic spring classics season for 2015.”

CAS appeal possible

Although Terpstra has promised to appeal his disqualification to CAS, a long line of precedent suggests that a successful appeal is unlikely. According to attorney Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “ASO will be able to prove without question that no one has any idea who Terpstra is. He’s less than unknown. He’s a mote of irrelevance in a niche sport within a micro-fissure of anonymity.”

Others are less sure. According to one sports lawyer, Terpstra may have a chance on appeal. “While it’s true that famous races in general must be won by famous racers, there are exceptions such as Van Summeren’s win in 2011, Guesdon’s in 1997, and the forgettable Servais Knaven in 2001. If these non-entitites can have their names engraved at the velodrome in Roubaix, why not Terpstra as well?”

The answer appears to lie in the historic clash between Boonen and Cancellara, according to Rousseau. “If this were a normal year it would perhaps be acceptable to throw a bone to a nobody. But this year is far from normal. We must ensure that the results comport with the marketing opportunities.”

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Race preview: Paris-Roubaix 2014

April 10, 2014 § 7 Comments

This year Paris-Roubaix promises to be the one of the best editions in years. Here’s why:

With the less-than-on-form Tom Boonen failing to effectively challenge Fabian Cancellara at the Tour of Flanders, 2014 marks the first time in over a decade that there is less than a 98% chance that the race will be won by either Tommeke or Fabs. Riders, fans, and pundits alike are thrilled at the 3 – 4% chance of crowning a new winner.
Following the sunny, pleasant weather of the Ronde, Paris-Roubaix promises to be another beneficiary of the global warming that seems destined to kill off the human race while, instead of hanging the Koch Brothers and Exxon from the nearest yardarm, instead basks in the warmth of a fun bicycle race. Trademark applications have already been submitted to change the race’s nickname to the “Heck of the North.”
Rainy, chilly weather ruined half the pro peloton’s Belgian campaign with the sniffles and the ouchies after Milan – San Remo, so team managers are doubly pleased at the prospect of picnic weather for Paris – Roubaix, even as the ghosts of Roubaix Past roll in their graves.
As with MSR and the Ronde, Paris – Roubaix 2014 promises to be another epic “strategic” battle between alcoholic, drug-addled team directors screaming instructions into earpieces while their automatons robotically follow instructions until their legs fail or their bicycles break. A PSA on race radios and how they’ve improved race safety will be given by Johan van Summeren.
The finishing velodrome will not be renamed “Specialized.”
American fans have a new, popular, handsome, energetic disappointment to replace the old, battered, brokedown disappointment of George Hincapie, as Taylor Phinney promises to be one of USA’s greatest potential 2nd-place finishers since Big George.
A handful of up-and-coming French riders promise to bring Gaulish strength back to this legendary French race by threatening to crack the top fifty.
2014 Paris – Roubaix has introduced a brief comedy segment called the “Wiggins Hour,” where Mr. Drinkypants himself seeks to be the first TdF – PR winner since Bernard Hinault.
Sep Vanmarcke believes he’s ready to beat Cancellara in a sprint finish on the velodrome in Roubaix because, unicorns.

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Top pros analyze Tour of Flanders 2014

April 8, 2014 § 18 Comments

Cycling in the South Bay was privileged to interview several top professionals after Fabian Cancellara split the lead group and won out of a four-up breakaway.

CitSB: How did the race unfold?
Sep Vanmarcke: I was with Cancellara over the Kwaremont and Paterberg, but in the end he destroyed the field and made us look like children. Belgian children. Stupid Belgian children.

CitSB: Any conclusions about the race?
Greg van Avermaet: All in all it was a more tactical race than the last two years, since changing the finish from Meerbeke to Oudenarde. I am very pleased with second place but it was very difficult to beat Cancellara due to him crushing us all like a bunch of bugs on the windscreen of a jet.

CitSB: You must be disappointed with seventh place?
Tom Boonen: Yes, of course, I was just two percent or so off. I believe I had a chance to beat Cancellara, but that was only in the warm-up around the bus.

CitSB: How would you evaluate the race?
Peter Sagan: Evaluate it? I got my ass whipped. You know how they say it in Slovakian? “Your eleventh finger is in the meat grinder.”

CitSB: What was going through your head as you approached the line in a 4-up breakaway with Cancellara?
Stijn Vandenbergh: “I’m totally screwed.” Something like that.

CitSB: You must have felt good about your early breakaway, taking the pressure off Greg for most of the race?
Taylor Phinney: If you think it feels good to have Cancellara annihilate an entire field when you’re one of the riders in the field, you’re a complete fool.

CitSB: What is Team Sky planning to improve on its top Ronde placing of 65th?
David Brailsford: We’ll do some more marginal gains away from the testers next year, that’s for sure. And wait for Cancellara to retire.

CitSB: It’s been 2008 since Italy won a monument. Why do you guys suck so bad?
Filippo Pozzato: I would like to point out that Cancellara comes from the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland.

CitSB: How does a guy with no teammates beat an entire field of 200 riders, including 30 riders from Omega-Pharma-Quickdope riding on their home turf?
Patrick Lefevere: Heads will roll, trust me. We do not race for second place. In fact lately we haven’t even been racing for tenth. Firings and public humiliation will continue until morale improves.

END.