Saturday, January 01, 2011

It's Yer 2011 New Year's Resolutions for the Peloton!

All right, cycling fans, since my own personal capacity for virtue is severely limited, and of course what's far more important is our beloved pro cyclists' ever-sterling, ever-gracious demeanor both on, off, and cheating on the way to the bike, it seems to me it's up to us highly-qualified guardians of sporting morality to call for a brief list o' New Years Resolutions for the Peloton:

1. Lance Armstrong: I will retire. Really, *really*, REALLY retire. Because frankly, the rest of us are ready to beg McEwen to personally head-butt our skulls off our shoulders and bouncing into a ditch at 35,000 k an hour if you don't. Now let Levi Leipheimer ride, dammit!

2. Christian Vande Velde: I resolve to stay fully upright on my bike for at least one full Grand Tour plus the attendant and necessary pre-race training rides. Because the karma gods owe me one--who *doesn't* want me to win, or hell even make it off the team bus to the sign-in, in one piece?

3. Mark Cavendish: I am studly. I am even pretty. And I am undoubtedly the greatest sprinter of my era. But I am also a raging, obnoxious, ungrateful, tantruming whine-weenie with a total disregard for the sensitive feelings, respectable talents, and personal physical safety of others. And while that is while racejunkie loves you, Mark, and I hope you keep me at least intermittently entertained thereby, you also resolve to shut the hell up about how evilly oppressed you are by the Man by being paid barely a penny to go down into the deep, dark, airless coalmines of Appallach--um, yeah, RIDE A BIKE. Look, honey, most of us *do* work for the Man--shut yer yap about it already, alright?

4. Alberto Contador: okay, to be fair, Ivan Basso successfully milked that batted-eyelash-and-charming-smile thing from an idiotic excuse his own momma wouldn't buy on sale to a spectacular second Giro and, if he can pull it off against the drug-stoked rest of you freaks, possibly to his once-preordinained Tour. But you--if you even get to ride this season 'cause Bessie over-huffed the good stuff--you, boy wonder, resolve to cut that stupid arrogant "pistolero" crap whose smug untainted time has certainly passed. Ya basta!

5. Jeannie Longo: I'll pull over to the side of the road midway through the French nationals to enjoy a leisurely lunch with a nice white Burgundy, loosen up afterwards with a long massage, stop by Chanel for a three-hour fitting for a new blouse and perhaps peruse the new handbag collection for awhile, so that my young competitors don't feel *so* bad when I *still* nick them at the line by a good 5000 meters, *again.* So genteel!

6. Tyler Farrar: I resolve to win the green jersey and at least three flat sprints at the Tour de France. Not because I work hard, or want it, or even deserve it, but just to watch Cav cry like a squirming red-faced colicky baby in Paris. Sweet!

7. Floyd Landis: look, with all due sympathy, there's no redeeming yourself at this point to either your wounded former fans or the Lance freaks who moronically blame you for his own actions. I hereby resolve to cooperate quietly with the narcs to get back at every equally-culpable sonofabitch who so unfairly didn't go down in flames with me, I mean, redeem this beautiful sport from its own cesspoolian excess, and to otherwise put a plug in it and relax into pleasant obscurity. Please!

8. Philippe Gilbert: I resolve to take every single damn Classic this year except we love Thor Hushovd's. Cancellara my !@#!

9. Cadel Evans: I resolve to take the Tour this year even though I'll lose 80% of my domestique firepower before that selfish publicity whore Armstrong even remembers he's not actually racing. And as usual, I'll do it with class, so I won't even say, Schleck, your sorry butt is *mine*!

10. Last But Not Least, the Whole Disgusting Lot of You: My grandma snorts dope, I think it's a great idea to order unregulated crap off the internet from untraceable third-world crap-sellers, my DS told the team chef to buy steaks from the diner next to the AstraZeneca plant, I had no idea the drug I took for my bull!@#$ Therapeutic Use Exemption could help me if I mainlined it by the cooler-full at the start line--yes, you clowns, dumb as we are, we've heard it. Now come up with something original--and no, Pat "Dick" McQuaid promised he'd only test the peloton for EPO this season doesn't count!

Now, I figure we've got at least til the end of the Tour of Qatar before the first--well, probably the last--of these resolutions hits the skids, but tifosi, we can always hope. And if I missed any I oughtn't have, I imagine you'll fill me in on my failures. But hey, if you can't trust the very participants in this noble, glorious, morally superior sport to ride clean, fair, and all-round magnanimously, who in the world *can* you believe in? Happy New Year to all in our dear peloton--now don't !@#$ this up!

1 comment:

superfred said...

Nice Post! Might add: Bjarne Riis...

"I am in control. I am in control of the situation. Everything is fine. My team is getting along well at camp and we are not, how do you speak? Painting balls at each-other. I have devoted my career (or at least the second one) do doing things 'professionally,' yes? Now with a smile, you can see me smiling? I must go and shove eagles down my riders' bibshorts."