Thursday, December 31, 2015

It's Yer 2016 Cycling Year in Preview (Yeah, You Read Right)!

Well, cycling fans, 2015's mercifully done, and it's time to look ahead to the Year in Cycling 2016. So what're you gonna miss if you don't pay attention? This!

January: Team camps wind down! Tinkoff debuts new flashing-strobe-light team kit, wins Tour de France in July by blinding, disorienting teams Sky and Movistar; Sky to undisclosed location for training because "no-one'll be able to see what we're doi--uh, we found some totally new mountains to ride on!"; women's enormous new World Tour budgets allow Vos, Armitstead to quit exhausting Wal-Mart night-shift jobs for exhausting McDonald's night-shift jobs instead. Progress!

February: The road season really kicks off! No winners at Tour of Qatar as sprinters melt into tarmac, sucked under 500 feet of sand; carnage at Kuurne as actual furniture replaces road furniture in race course, riders wipe out on new bedroom set in middle of road; Omloop Het Niewsblad courts controversy with naked photo of Sagan's butt crouched over bicycle, Pippo Pozzato sues demanding it be replaced with picture of him instead. Already on the road to glory, I see!

March: It's hard-man season, baby! Mark Cavendish takes Strade Bianche after personally chewing entire gravel course to head mechanic's specifications; Luca Paolini repeats win at Gent-Wevelgem by--what the !@#$, !@#damn Alejandro Valverde's still in the freakin' sport and you're going after LUCA?!; Jens Voigt wins Criterium International when peloton collectively quits after mistaking Jens' walk to press box for walk to sign-in.

April: Oh, yeah, it's the big shows of the cobblestones! Boonen, Cancellara crash again, this time break pave', pave' begs for mercy; Valverde becomes first centenarian to sweep Ardennes Classics, says "I guess all that !@#$ I was taking in 2006 is still--uh, I get up bright and early, every morning, and have my muesli!"; Pippo Pozzato blows career-reviving Flanders triumph by stretching out on cobbles to work on his tan, again. Dammit Pippo, preen on your own time!

May: It's the Giro d'Italia, baby! Mikel Landa accidentally attacks self without Fabio Aru around to bushwhack, beats self to Milan by 14 days 22 hours 8 minutes; Nibs mistaken for own soigneur by Vinokourov, buried under pile of dirty team kits, soigneur rides/wins podium spot; Amgen EPO Tour of California--oh, who gives a !@#$, how *dare* they run this stupid thing against the beautiful Giro anyway!

June: Pre-Tour tuneups! Marcel Kittel continues season-long sprint-loss streak due to 34 kilos extra weight in hair gel; Andre Greipel wakes dead in Hades with primal scream of victory, doors of underworld opened, living dead take over earth; Tinkov sweeps Contador off to last-minute "training camp" at undisclosed Siberian "black site". Now *that's* motivation, I say!

July: What else--Le Tour! Sagan pops wheelie with Contador on board before Stage 1 sign-in, launches him to Paris for maillot jaune/overall triumph; Vinokourov allows Nibali to ride Tour so long as carries Fabio Aru on shoulders the whole way; Valverde attacks Quintana for 3 consecutive weeks, still loses when Quintana hides his bike shoes on penultimate day, Alejandro forced to finish race on flat kid's pedals and cheap flip-flops; Porte shares BMC team leadership with Van Garderen by dissolving latter's bicycle/spares in giant vat of acid hauled behind team bus, claims he was "just trying to help by lubing the chain"; Froome DQd on final day when race organizers realize he's actually too skinny to be visible to the human eye, determine no-one's even seen the guy for three weeks.

August: Post-Tour recriminations, Olympics, and Vuelta time! Richie Porte demoted from staying in hotel rooms to staying in cat-carrier squished under boss Ochowicz's feet in team car; record-breaking 67 Astana riders, staff popped for doping in single day, UCI punishes by stripping FDJ of its World Tour license and giving it to Vinokourov "in case he needs an extra, plus FDJ sucks anyway"; Tom Dumoulin takes gold medal after climbing Mount Everest on 86-lb. wrought-iron single speed, attributes freak climbing win to "superlight new bike technology."

September: It's the fabulous Vuelta a Espana finale! Race organizers rue last year's neutralized sandy-stage debacle, run 350-km prologue directly through Mediterranean sea instead; Purito takes final podium takes final podium when ASO "forgets" to put on individual time trial, ASO celebrates with 200,000 euros mysteriously simultaneously deposited into offshore bank accounts; Purito doubles, bags "combativity" prize for whanging Valverde upside head with new disc breaks for that nasty crap Alejandro pulled on him last year.

October: It's the end of the road (races), honey! Nibali repeats Lombardia victory after Vinokourov too tired from long season to remember to order Aru to slash his tires; Worlds races moved to overnight hours to avoid incapacitating Qatar heat, entire sport of professional cycling gets irretrievably lost in desert when mechanics forget to pack lights for everyone; Nairo Quintana announces 2017 signing "with anyone who'll get me away from that backstabbing b!@#ard Valverde!"

November: New-contract count-down! Landa, Intxausti pack Sky with remaining peloton ex-Carrots, convert team to reconstituted Euskaltel, Chris Froome announced as baggage-wrangler for 2016; Sagan starts own one-man World Tour team, because it's not like he even needs anyone else; Oleg Tinkov bails on pledge to exit cycling, purchases entire peloton, announces that all 2017 races will be ridden on Big Wheels for his personal amusement. Now *there's* an epic climb on Alpe d'Huez!

December: Team camps begin again! Contador sticks with cycling another year, reasons "there's no way that flailing stork Froome can beat me on a Big Wheel"; FDJ builds core strength by stacking selves into pyramid formation so Bernard Hinault can stand on their shoulders with bullhorn, yell how much French cyclists all blow compared to the Saganator; Van Garderen mistakenly sends Porte plane ticket to Antarctica, Porte misses 2017 season waiting for ice to melt enough to get home. Oopsie!

Alrighty then, there's your 100 percent accurate, completely and utterly inevitable preview for next season--and when it happens, don't say I didn't warn ya!

1 comment:

Joe said...

Great read thhank you