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

 Okay, cycling.  You know what you did.  And you oughta be ashamed of yourselves! But even if you're not, what better way to start off the New Year by making a buncha impossible-to-live-up-to resolutions whose failure to complete will cause you relentless guilt and self-loathing the entire next season?  So if you don't know what's good for you, *we* sure do, so riders and assorted other cycling folks, listen up!

1. Julian Alaphilippe: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I outsmarted the lot of you at the World Championships for the second year in a row while you all !@#$ed around fighting for the podium behind rather'n work together to actually reel me in so you could go for the top spot.  So I'm good!

2. Mikel Landa.  I know what I have to do, and I am gonna do it.  That's right, I'm gonna wrap myself up in 50 miles of bubble wrap every time I leave the house, and I am gonna *stay* upright in one piece!

3. Bahrain Merida: in a related resolution, we are going to freakin' cattle prod anyone who gets within 100 meters of Mikel, and any piece of road furniture that dares to exist in his presence we are gonna blast outta the way with a !@#damn cannon.  We'll try to warn the rest of you first though!

4. Toms Skujins: I am going to start an all-potato food truck to follow me around for sustenance--and also serve my fans--all season.  Frites, baked, smashed, mashed, roasted, au gratin, skins, hashed, gnocchi, and latkes.  Someone else can take care of the beer truck!

5. Giro Donne.  I am gonna air *every* stage, *live*, for its *full length*, this year and every year thereafter, including to the US.  We'll take up the issue of adding another 11 stages next year!   

6. Elisa Longo Borghini.  Given the above, isn't it obvious?

7. Euskaltel.  We've conquered the breakaways, we've earned our spots back in the Grand Tours which we never should've had to do anyway, and in 2022, as befits the best climbers on earth, we're bringing home and sealing the deal with the impossibly high mountain finishes we're known for.  Giro, Tour and Vuelta--watch out!

8. Mark Cavendish: I'm going to win the green jersey at the Tour de France, just to stick it to Pat Lefevere.  And no, you don't get a podium pic with me after the way you b*tched about me all year!

9. Any and All World Tour Teams.  What the !@#$ is this travesty? We're gonna #HireSimonClarkeDammit! Hell, even Ineos--that's how desperate the fans are to have him back another season!

10. Remco Evenepoel: I'll shut my yap complaining about my teammates.  I can just take the Worlds without slagging 'em anyway!

11. Anna Kiesenhofer: all right, so you're all gonna be on the lookout for me now.  I'm going to hide discreetly amongst the Belgians, then take half the races I enter next season anyway!

12. Alexander Vinokourov: I don't need to resolve *anything* after my intra-squad coup last year.  Bow, peons!

13. Movistar: we'll ride *for* our GC guy this year, and *not* do everything we can to shepherd some other schmuck's team to victory.  And while we're at it--we get that that trident !@#$ *never works!

14. Last but Not Least, the Fans: We will restrain our signs, leash our dogs, retract our selfie sticks, extinguish our flares, refrain from throwing disgusting bodily emissions on the riders, and for FFS, cover up that hideous TMI neon banana-hammock when we're charging alongside the leader on Mont Ventoux so we don't burn the GC's, or the home viewers', retinas out.  We're serious--that last part of the resolution is non-negotiable!

Well, I guess the rest of you get off the hook easy this year.  But don't think you're out of the running for 2023! 

It's Yer racejunkie's Cycling Things I'm Grateful for This Thanksgiving (And a Few I'm Damn Well Not)!

 Yes, it's nigh Thanksgiving in the US, that beloved celebration of family, food, and disastrous colonialism when we all gather together to have luxurious meals and--oh, right, if we're not complete superspreading tools, we're all stuck in our own homes, pretending that a 20-minute Zoom call that keeps getting interrupted by your partner shouting for you to come look at the turkey like *you just did thirty seconds ago*, and a glum, half-!@#ed dinner alone in our sweatpants in front of a football game with no fans in the stadium and a stationary, truncated Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to start off the holiday season isn't completely !@#$ed.  Anyway, we're here, we've survived (I hope) so far a terrible year, and it's time to reflect on what we *do* have to be grateful for this bizarre Thanksgiving.  And surprisingly, there's fair near buckets!

1. On a serious note, no-one in the peloton died of COVID.  A bad handful of cyclists got sick, and we dearly hope they get 100% better with no lasting effects, but--whew.  And for those Grand Tour police escorts, team staff, hotel workers, and anyone else connected with the sport who got it--we wish you the same.

2. Holy crap we actually had three Grand Tours this year!

3. EF's crazy-!@# acid-trip Tour de France jerseys and terrified-duck-head time trial helmets.  Wasn't it nice to have *that* as cycling's biggest scandal for a while?

4. Julian Alaphilippe's premature celebration at the line at Liege-Waffle-Liege.  C'mon, that was funny!

5. Speaking of which, we've got World Champions! Alaphilippe, Ganna, van der Breggen, Dygert. May you fly the stripes in health and happiness next year!

6. Peeps into cyclist's home set-ups during those weird months of virtual racing.  Lovely terrace with incredible mountain views that make you question your own pathetic life choices? Check. Living room in front of the TV? Check. Grim cement basement gulag? Got it. Kids wandering in and out to pester Mommy or Daddy while they were full-gas towards the line and to show off for the cameras? Yup.  A fanboy/girl/person's dream!

7. On a related note, Mikel Landa taking a freakin' axe to his stationary trainer, a perfect metaphor for 2020.  And be honest, who *hasn't* wanted to do that?  Get this boy back to his home Basque *roads*, stat!

8. Fabio Jakobsen is back on his bike after his horrific crash at the Tour of Poland.  And forget scapegoating Groenewegen: race organizers, there is still *plenty* of time to fix this barrier bull!@#$ ahead of next year!

9. Tweeps. In a total !@#$show of a season, the couchpeloton helped keep us all sort of togetherish.  Grateful indeed!

10. I miss Kittel racing and all, but geez, doesn't he seem happier now?

And a Few I'm Damn Well Not: 

1. Okay, the Classics were !@#$ed. Come back, Paris-Roubaix!

2. Gianni Moscon.  How does *this* clown have a contract next year and *so* *many* incredible--and more importantly, not unforgivably assholian--cyclists do not?

3. CCC.  I'll miss 'em.  Oh well, at least my heart won't leap with misplaced joy every race 'til I realize they're not Euskaltel!

4. Evenepoel cheerfully touting losing 5 kg of nonexistent 'baby fat' after Lefevere bullied him for his weight earlier in the year.  Can we please lay off the pressure on these riders to develop full-blown eating disorders?

5. Last, but never, ever least: WHAT THE !@#$ NO EUSKALTEL IN ANY OF THE GRAND TOURS HALF THE SPRINTS WERE LEFT OUT THIS WAS PERFECT MOUNTAIN HELL TERRAIN FOR THEM YOU CLASSLESS INGRATE FREAKS!

Welp, on to nail-biting late-contract negotiations, brief respites, inevitable Masters doping busts, and body-crushing pre-season team camps.  Thanks to both my loyal readers, and thank !@#$ this year is almost done!