Sunday, July 11, 2010

Your Tour de France Lessons from the Alps

yes, kids, it's time to review what we learned today, and what some of the cyclists themselves still won't no matter how hard Barredo beans 'em upside the skull with a wheel:

1. Lance will forever--*forever*--blame, and be able to blame and allowed by every single person on earth for reasons that continue to utterly baffle me to blame, crashes, hold-ups, and plain ol' bad luck--not *anything* having to do with the rider himself, *ever*--for losing the Tour de France. Oh, and did I mention he's old? HE'S OLD! And he was just riding it for old times' sake in the first place. Did I mention he was just riding it for old times' sake in the first place? Sorry, Andy, Alberto, or Cadel--you'll never, ever, in all the future of humanity, be counted as the real, deserving winner of this year's Tour!

2. He's still gonna find a way to punish Levi and Klodi for it anyway. "Help them win a stage" my !@#--you're still gonna help Lance do it instead, if you know what's good for you!

3. I gotta admit, Astana is actually a lot stronger on the road than they seemed on paper. Alberto, take *good* care of Daniel Navarro from now on, you hear?

4. No matter how often Vinokourov swears to support Contador for the overall, and even how often he has the intermittent twinge of responsibility to be a truly humble and useful water-bottle !@#$%*, he's still just too !@#$in' crazy, and just too resentful, to be relied upon not to take a Contador-destructive, Vino-favoring flyer off the front. Can we get some kind of wingnut-gauge stuck to this guy's bike shorts or something so Contador can tell which one of 'im he's getting in any given five-minute period?

5. Contador, while still likely to win, is actually vulnerable. And class-act Armstrong is going to relish every single squirming second of it.

6. Apparently, baby Schleck is gonna be okay without Frank, especially so long as he's got Contador's wheel to suck on in the high mountains. Studying perpetual lone-wolf Cadel's old footage in the evenings, are we?

7. While I'm still rooting for Schleckino to win the overall, since we love dear little Carlos won't be able to do more'n a stage win (shut up--will too!), I was still looking for Samuel Sanchez to beat 'im on the stage after he led Andy up the last wunk of tarmac. Almost, Samu--just a tiny bit more reserves in the tank in the Pyrenees, and the stage will be Euskaltel's at last!

8. Not to diss an otherwise lovely publication, but man, the Boston Globe really blew it on this one. Amateurs, the lot of them! Am I the only one with a pretty clear idea of who's missing?

9. Levi, Klodi--how can you stand it?! Revolt, I tell you, revolt--vive la revolucion, why are you still scavenging crumbs for this !@#$ when you so clearly both deserve to eat cake?!

10. I really do feel quite bad Lance got caught up in stupid crap, since I wanted Alberto to unimpeachably take him out on his own merits, but since I also apparently have no soul whatsoever, here goes: Feel better, Lance, truly!

Well, them's my take. And hey, did you all see that Thor Hushovd's in green? Woo-hoo Thor!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am still a huge Contador fan and really hope he will win this TDF.

Great post, as usual. Thanks

randie said...

Navarro was crazy strong yesterday. I think Baby Schleck may be advantaged by his big bro being out of the race, sort of. Do you remember last year when he preferred to attack with Frank and it cost him some prime opportunities to take some time? Obviously he will miss the support but hopefully he can make the best of it. It was a pity about Cadel's crash yesterday - he said he took most of the force on his arm but his shorts over his hip looked pretty shredded. Hopefully this doesn't affect him too badly.

randie said...

Anoymous, yes Lance is a champion, but he is also an arsehole. And don't diss Alberto, even your precious Armstrong *pretends to* respect him now.

Anonymous said...

Awesome, always enjoy your posts!

Tom said...

Correction: Lance is a FORMER champion (though present and future arsehole). Right now he's a washed up has-been who's ego has disengaged his brain from reality.