It's Yer Smack-Talk, Scandal, 'n' Road-Race Roundup!

Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye: look, there's no doubt Oleg Tinkov's brought a lotta, well, liveliness and publicity to the staid ol' sport o' pro cycling. But in the last coupla years, bravado and showmanship has deteriorated into vengeful malevolence and, let's face it, just bat!@#$ *crazy*. So it's with great delight that, after two years of Oleg publicly slagging dispirited Grand Tour superstar Alberto Contador as a lazy, talentless, over-the-hill never-was, I report that Alberto finally broke his diplomatic silence and came down like a bolt o' lightning on Oleg's sorry pissy head for his last race for House Tinkoff in Abu Dhabi: yes, the new Trek-Segafredo signing posed with his jersey zipper witheringly undone and the logo ergo squashed to the side for his official team photo. From Contador, that's like pinning Oleg down and scrawling "I'M A GIANT !@#HOLE" on his forehead with permanent marker and tattooing "KICK MY !@#" on his back in humongous Pippo-sized ornate script. Take *that*, you crass oligarch !@#$er!

Millenium: okay, it's actually "just" the 100th edition of the beautiful Giro d'Italia, but I'm sure *hoping* it'll last at least another 900 years, and the organizers of what looks to be quite a mountainous, smashing centenary edition can--after prematurely kidnapping Froome, Contador, Dumoulin, Nibali, Aru, Purito and Chaves and smuggling them to an undisclosed location in the race organizers' basement--breathe a sigh of relief that they won't *quite* be monstrously treated as a second-class race to the crappy Tour this year of years: yes, wee Nairo Quintana claims *he's* now interested in the Giro-Tour double that even Alberto failed to accomplish, which either means (1) he's aiming for the Giro-Tour double or (2) he doesn't think he can win the Tour de France against Sky's stoked-up android Discovery army, and wants at least to be able to claim--without an asshat team boss like Oleg disparaging the measly accomplishment--that he bagged a truly history-making Giro. Whatever the hell gets you there, Nairo--but am I the *only* one in a spitting rage because the Giro deserves so much better?

To Catch a Thief: meantime, in a grim glimpse o' the future for even stellar pro cyclists, 2002 Vuelta a Espana champ Aitor Gonzalez was arrested for robbing a cell-phone store, making, well, probably dozens of cycling fans to shake their heads in sorrow at what becomes of a former sporting hero after the pedals are unclipped the podium babes step off and the cameras go home. Helpful career advice: you'll make a *lot* more money, and suffer a boatload less consequences, if you forget the mask-on-your-face-and-finger-pointed-in-yer-pocket-like-a-fake-weapon trick and become a monumentally stupid no-questions-asked mystery-package courier for a giant untouchable World Tour team. Thank you Aitor, no charge, always glad to help a roadie in need!

Moto-!@#$er!: and, what would UCI's vaunted campaign to run over--uh, protect--as many cyclists as possible be without one last bit o' carnage to screw a great athlete's off-season? Yep, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio busted her hip just in time to jack her winter training when some careening twit didn't notice a 5-foot-tall-plus woman in bright spandex riding a, y'know, entirely unexpected *bicycle* in a *bike race* the eejit was *working in.* Get well soon Ashleigh--and get a !@#damn drivers' license that's worth something, you incompetent !@#clown!

When Pigs Fly: finally, it's nice to see that British trackie Jess Varnish, who got completely unjustifiably slammed as a disgruntled !@#$ cyclist after accurately raising that British Cycling technical director/total doping apologist Shane Sutton is a low-rent misogynist pig, was finally vindicated this week after an internal review confirmed that, yes, Shane is a few grunts short of being qualified to wallow in a barnyard manure pile. What was that you told her to do Shane? Oh right, now that you're too old to ride, head off into retirement and start having babies--or maybe for their theoretical sake, better not, jerk!

The Sun Is a Mass/ Of Incandescent Gas/ A Gigantic Nuclear Fur-nace! #UCIDoha2016

And You're Riding In It, Sucker: yes, in the presence of truly record-breaking crowds--in the sense that "zero" is a "record", albeit a !@#$ty one--the planet's greatest cyclists have officially convened in the sweltering deserts of Doha to barf, pant, collapse, careen, and faint their way to World Championship glory, and, if there's one thing we know as the men's and women's elite road race is upon us, it's that the UCI's venal, profit-groveling, rider-endangering, cycling-screwing moronity clearly knows no bounds whatsoever beyond a fat, marinating pile of sun-scorched sweat-drenched euros, leading desperate riders to institute measures like "extreme sauna protocol" to accustom themselves to the heat, which apparently involves being locked in a small cedar closet with a steaming pile of hot rocks until you personally physically shrivel into (1) a desiccated, permanently preserved wraith-corpse, or (2), even worse, Chris Froome or 2007 Tour de France-era Michael Rasmussen. Glad no-one's actually *croaked* from the heat yet, you reckless !@#$ing sickos! Jaysus, why not !@#$ing hold the road race championships on a molten !@#$ing lava flow the next time Vesuvius blows and bacon-crisps an entire !@#$ing country, whydontcha?

Corollary Mystery o' Science: whether, as the winner ascends the podium to collect his or prize, s/he will--because as we all learned in school, if our inferior US educations were even correct, heat rises--spontaneously combust into a sad, skinny little pile of ash as the gold medal, with nowhere left to hang, collapses onto it ignominiously and instantly superheats into a gas, disappearing into the netherworld. Isn't science *fun*, kids?

The Postman Always Rings Twice--uh, NEVER EVER LOOKS IN THE !@##$IN' PACKAGE, ALRIGHT?: meantime, as British Cycling begins to cannibalize itself faster'n a Westward-bound pack o' manifest-destiny-seeking wagon-rollin' desperadoes, the latest guy to jump ship is the hapless Team Sky "mystery package" courier who, it seems, "didn't know" what was in the pile of sleazy, rules-evading dru--uh, do--uh, stuff he was delivering, despite the words "FRAGILE--PEDs" stamped all over the box in 200-point type, a frantic call from an unidentified staff person demanding to know its whereabouts, and, upon its arrival, an estimated 56 cyclists running up to the courier, bull!@#$ TUEs in hand, jersey sleeves rolled up, and their upper arms already freshly prepped with alcohol wipes. Yeah, it was a box of cutting-edge, specially aerodynamic band-aids, you doofus--*dang*, ignorance is bliss!

NEWS FLASH!: finally, I bring to you this exclusive breaking news from Doha: we're just now receiving reports that, due to extreme heat-induced dehydration, Tom Dumoulin has literally shrunk into Esteban Chaves. So much for that "breakthrough 2017 *Dutch* Grand Tour win", I guess!

Hot Times at the Worlds! Punk-!#$ Parting Shots! Tour-Induced Hallucinations! #ilovecycling

Death Valley Blues: yep, in what already promised to be a 270k snoreworthy World Championship bore-fest (with the possible exception of (1) stupidity regarding (2) crosswinds), another entirely unforeseeable crisis has reared its ugly flaming head: the desert is, apparently, *jot*, and UCI may have to shorten the course to a mere 106k so delicate riders don't start dropping dead mid-race from heat exhaustion. In other news, when riders' noses start to shrivel and fall off from frostbite during late-winter jaunts in Antarctica, it *may* be time to pull out the ol' armwarmers. Handy rule: when a freakin' scorpion can't handle the heat without wearing protective little booties on whatever creepy appendages pass for their feet, neither can, say, giant German fastmen. Glad that 8th-grade section in your science class on "weather" really stuck in yer heads, dimwits!

Pink, It Was Loathe at First Sight: in other news, vengeful oligarch/Russian Trump Tinkoff team boss Oleg Tinkov ends his gold-plated stewardship by both (1) trash talking !@#$ rider/9-time Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador as not only a weenie the entire team hated but also for not winning him the Tour de France, thereby depriving Oleg of the crucial opportunity to dye his entire body maillot-jaune gold and mug for the cameras like a meth-fueled evil clown, and (2) threaten to come back to sport that he despises someday, *if* Sagan'll still let him cling onto his coattails like a desperate bloodthirsty disease-bearing tick. Can't wait, Oleg--but I'm sure Alberto Contador can!

'Scuse Me/While I Kick the Sky: over on Planet Crap Transfers, just as we were all *so* enjoying wee we love Chaves re-signing for a jillion-year contract with Orica, Diego Rosa--helpfully throttled by Astana in its pointless bid to back Fabio Aru for Lombardia, then ruthlessly publicly shredded by wankmaster team manager for blowing his own certain win--has been sucked into a presumably loaded but inevitably self-destructive contract with Team Sky, ruining yet another fine rider with a great future ahead of him, at least til they've drained him into a sorry shadow of his great-potential self and left him littered like a spit-slobbered gel packet on the side of the road after they've used him up for the perpetually annoying and ergonomically horrifying Chris Froome. Just cash the checks and hold on, Diego--I'm *sure* a far worthier team is coming for you!

Feed Your Head (Especially If You've Got an Upper Respiratory Problem): finally, the endless bogus-TUE revelations of the last two weeks--which have taken riders who, by their alleged medical records, were knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door and instantly healed 'em right onto the top of every Tour de France podium the last half-decade--have come to their inevitable, cycling-rattling conclusion, this time by way of Tour king Christian Prudhomme: yep, "no-one" is coming from "nowhere" anymore like they used to, so cycling's troubled past is clearly behind us and we can all look up at the final show in Paris with the starry-eyed innocence of tots too young to spot the fake beard on the department-store "Santa Claus." That's right, Christian, Froome *did* come from somewhere: the !@#-end of a stagnant career path to Firedsville, before he unaccountably morphed into a mantis-thin record-smashing "Conan the Barbarian"-era Arnold Schwarzenegger. Whew, I'm *glad* I can believe in cycling again, aren't you?