Sissy Li'l Slap-fights! Team Hijinks! Oh, Right, and a Few Folks Ride Their Bikes, Too #cycling

Cav Gets Huffy (the Mood, Not the Bike): well, I guess Cav's decided to call bull!@#$ on accusations he's "gone soft", because this week, as Marcel Kittel stormed to two stage victories and the overall at the Tour of Dubai after a miserable 2015, and Cav started to look all last-March Peter Sagan with all the "almosts", the Manx Missile finally lost patience and (gently, for sure) head-butted a fellow sprinter unsportingly getting in his face in the final dash to the line. And, over at the Herald SunTour, some rather unpleasant words were exchanged between Sky's Peter Kennaugh--just losing the overall GC on the final day to deeply irritating teammate Chris "Pterodactyl" Froome--and whiny domestique Pat Shaw from Avanti over Sky and Kennaugh in particular allegedly riding like total wankers on the final day, among them maudlin pet names like "selfish"--whoa, I'm way too much of a delicate lady to repeat *that*! Hey, if you can't beat the guy on the bike, you can at least use up all those words you learned in the schoolyard in third grade--*that'll* teach the snotty bastard!

Quick-Slap: Over at the Tour of Qatar, the organizers have decided not to invite back INeverRememberWhoTheNewFirstSponsorIs-QuickStep for 2016, not because the other teams have been bitching for years that their own guys can't take out QuickStep in any of the sprints and it makes them look bad, but because the squad's preening prima donnas not only insist on delaying the podium ceremonies by demanding to change out of their cycling shoes and sit for a minute after wrenching their guts out in the life-threatening heat, but they were also (inexcusably, to be fair) rude to the woman sent to tell them nicely to get the lead out (the element out of their !@#, not the sprint term), *and* they were seemingly causing all kinds of unseemly ruckus in the hotel, presumably by lighting stink-bombs in the stairwells doing cannonballs off the hotel pool diving board and splashing the well-bred guests and pulling the fire alarms to elude the 3 am doping controls. Oh, lighten up organizers and let 'em back--and let's get this party *started*!

Seeing Red (Though Maybe Not for Long): meanwhile, some punk little assclown over at Katusha has now put we love dear Purito Rodriguez' early season in doubt, as this nobody kid Vorganov gets popped for some weird drug that's apparently banned in most of Europe anyway but is (or has been til quite recently), it seems, available from our fine friends at Amazon, potentially opening Katusha up to a 45-day ban for the whole squad as it's their second offense in recent months. Holy crap, PEDs *and* Free Two-Day-Shipping with an Amazon Prime membership? Doping scumbags, sign me up! Honey, did we *not* just cover "If you're gonna dope, at least don't dope and suck" in our *last* post? And Vino, you and the rest of Astana management get back to admiring your gold-plated bicycle, and get that !@#$ing smirk off your face!

Motorin'...What's Your Price for Flight?: finally, when you start calling out dear ex-Euskaltel Ion Izaguirre for motor doping for having his wheel seemingly continue rotating for some time after a crash, all I can say is, go to hell for slandering a former Carrot, after nearly 10 years of blogging I'm damn well running out of defenses for riders I like, and even if he is which he isn't, what, you want him ending up in the !@#damn emergency room with some fridge-spoiled Riccardo Ricco' death-drug-cocktail, if anyone *has* to be enough of a thieving weasel to cheat I'd frankly rather them raiding the local hardware store for some wires and a cheap-!@# soldering gun where the worst damage they could do to themselves is a minor electrical shock versus damn near croaking from liver failure so yap yap it's lazy and against the Official Martyr Sufferfest Code let's stop acting like a pile of pills and a syringe is some kind of relative freakin' moral high ground if they're gonna be a disgusting disgrace to the entire sport anyway because at least if it's repugnant it's not gonna actually get them killed. Didn't *anyone* watch that Time for Timer thing between Saturday morning cartoons on how the human body is a just a big machine anyway? Man, now I've taken a universally-reviled position *and* dated myself back to the Pleistocene Era....anyhoo, here's our boy showing off one of his special new wheels, so enjoy!

Which the Hell One is Cav? It's a 2015 New-Team-Kit-O-Rama!

None More Black: look, there are certain eternal truths in this world: that Jens is a god, that Vino is a darling dangerous nutjob, and that AG2R's outfits're gonna always, always--despite the fact that brown is a lovely color--be butt-ugly. But sponsors 'n' team kits do change, and with black apparently being the new black this year, how the hell can you tell 'em apart so you know you're rooting for Cav not Kittel? Here!

Quick Step: Black, but with some lovely trademark blue to stand out. Lookin' sharp there, Manx Missile!

Giant-Alpecin: now I'm pretty sure "Alpecin" is some kinda gnarly dandruff shampoo, but surprisingly, they don't have snowflakes on their jerseys. What they do have: yep, black. The allegedly distinguishing feature: a coupla white stripes with a little red. Mark Cavendish, you better hope you don't see these guys in front of you!

Trek: uh-huh, black black black black black. All-business pinstripes on the bottom, and a let's-party white'n'red on the top. They may be down a Schleck, but they're back to business, and ready to get wild on the podium!

Lotto: if ya can't see Greipel because he's the size of Mount Everest, you still oughta be able to pick 'im out in the thundering herd stomp at line: the guy's gonna be a six-foot bumblebee. Black, yet so much more glaring!

Cannondale-Garmin: jaysus, still more black! Still, Vaughters being a rakish, argyle kinda guy, and Cannondale still harkening to the Liquigas of its past, they've still snuck that in with subtle lines of neon green. Tres chic!

Astana: god love Vinokourov, he's got 20 guys testing poz for dope a day and he *still* can't resist the urge to have his boys blindingly obvious targets for the narcs. Blue as Vino's eyes, with a little gold for his hair to boot. Good luck out there guys--just hope no-one's lookin' too closely!

Tinkoff-Saxo: sure, they went all camo stealth-mode for their training camps, but now Oleg wants the rest of the GC contenders to see the pain a-comin'. And Sagan, how dreamy!

Katusha: Purito IS SO A PODIUM CONTENDER! And you are SO GONNA NOTICE HIM PASSING YOU VALVERDE YOU S.O.B.! Red as the Vuelta jersey Rodriguez'll be taking on the final day. Go Puritooooooooooooooooo!

Movistar: alone among the garish braggadocio of the Grand Tour tough guys, wee Nairo Quintana and his demonic frenemy Alejandro Valverde are tick-tick-ticking up on you in subtle navy with a hint of green. See who snagged the center "power" spot in the photo?

BMC: screw you, you still haven't given we love Samuel Sanchez a contract--wallow in anonymity, or change your nasty ways!

Well, them's the biggies. Alberto, you know we'll be seeing you on top in Paris!

Some Friendly Suggestions for Our Pals At UCI

Well folks, there's been a lot of controversy in the cycling world the last few months, and sad to say, poor ol' UCI, faithful arbiter of clean sport and benevolent blesser o' squads 'n' races, has cruelly borne the brunt of an awful wunk o' critique. So, in the spirit of love, forgiveness, and charity that characterizes the season, I kindly offer my 7 Friendly Suggestions For UCI This Year:

1. Don't even bother going after Armstrong now. Really. You just look like !@#es.

2. Awarding ProTour licenses so late in the year, after the squads have already blown their entire budgets, is bull!@#$. Just look what you've done to Purito! Of course, *he'll* get an invite to any race he wants. The smaller but still treasured personal ambitions of the poor domestiques who otherwise toil selflessly for him all year--screwed!

3. Okay, you didn't give Katusha a license because ex-Lance lieutenant/loyal apologist Eki fails the morals clause. So you give one to Bjarne Riis instead? For god's sake, man!

4. You wanna talk "4 pillars" of butt-covering snake oil with cycling's "stakeholders?" Include the whistleblowers and journalists you !@#$ed--and no killing the messenger this time!

5. Women's cycling. Lemme get this straight--the women already barely get paid enough to keep themselves in chamois creme and Tampax, much less the high-end designer dope the boys are using, and now you wanna make it so expensive for races to test 'em the only alternative is to cancel them entirely? Wah, wah, exceptions, wah--why not spend the dough *yourself* on someone you might actually bust, you cheapskate enabling freaks? Oh, wait....

6. Ask not what Greg LeMond's done for cycling the last 25 years. Ask what you've done to destroy it. Then, we can maybe get somewhere!

7. Resign. It's too late for rehab, Pat. You've disgraced the organization, the sport, and above all, the people who care about cleaning it up. Just...resign.

Well, them's my suggestions--but I'm sure Pat "Dick"'ll take (well, need, anyway) all the help he can get!