Paul Sherwen, 1956-2018

Look, I'm just a fan--I never knew the man. But the dulcet tones of Phil & Paul were the soundtrack of my intro to, and most of my watching of, pro cycling. How it could possibly be interesting to watch a bike race for six hours. The attacks, the dangers, the hard-working ennui of sitting in the bunch waiting for the final 2 kilometers of a sprint. How team tactics, no matter how weak or strong the legs, could win, or kill, a race. How a 200 meter long increase in the gradient of a climb could be enough to completely blow one's engine and destroy one's stage-win dreams. How GC could be decided by a moment's inattention, an ill-timed drink break, a minor mechanical. The historical significance of a 12th-century chateau, precisely what bottle of wine he and Phil enjoyed with what entrees the last time the Tour de France chanced this way. And yes, the brief, exhilarating naivete of believing that sporting miracles do happen, that a 7-man train ticking impermeably up a fourth straight Alpine climb could be just impossibly strict training and perfect symmetry of spirit, that one man could shine that brightly, without guile, cheating, and the ruthlessness to use personal tragedy and the sympathy it rightly engendered as a cudgel to all challengers on the road, but particularly off. That, once exposed, such things were an anomaly, a scrubbable stain on a beautiful sport, its essential purity untouched by the fleeting minutiae of individual vanity and sordid scandal. In the US, for years he and Phil together were cycling's only TV ambassadors, both riding and shepherding the Armstrong era's ridiculous ratings to Stateside coverage of other races, the perfect Giro, the maddening Vuelta, the brawling combat of Paris-Roubaix. And who better to recall and recite the precise career trajectory and sing the slender palmares of every unsung workhorse who ever snuck out of a breakaway, benefitted from the dismissal or just other ambitions of greater riders, or cracked within meters of the line after the daring dash of a lifetime? If a name got misidentified here and there, if an entire generation of commentators, journalists, and even fans was left to grapple with its own complicity, these were far outweighed by the obvious love for the sport that he so thoroughly engendered in others. Condolences to all who knew, loved, and worked with him. No other commentators have ever replaced him, and I can't imagine any ever will. Thank you, Paul Sherwen. You'll be missed.

Oleg Tinkov Takes On Nibali (In Case Alberto Contador Can't): This Tour Just Keeps Getting Weirder #letour

First, Chris Froome crashes out *not* on the cobbles, so whoever wins is already gonna be in a lifetime rage being perma-dogged by the question, "What if?" Meantime, half the peloton's having knee surgery, Cancellara's outraged at the pave he adored before Boom kicked his !@# on 'em, Andre Griepel's been sprinting like a freakin' climber til this afternoon, Sagan can't time an effort with Big Ben bangin' out the tempo, still-recovering Purito's snailing along at the back of the gruppo like he's looking for a lost contact lens, Eddy Merckx is mocking the entire peloton as a pack of blanky-snuggling wuss-weenies for not having to ride 50 k of cobblestones in a Tour like he did, and not only was Contador's thorough recon of Stage 5 clearly useless after he dropped 2 minutes 40 he'll have to climb like it's 2010 or hope Nibs forgets to eat for a week to have any hope of getting it back, having already been screwed out of primo help by Kreuziger's bio-passport snafu he's now lost poor other-key-mountaineer Jesus Hernandez to quite a serious concussion on today's crash-fouled stage (get well soon and stay safe, Jesus)! What the hell is going *on* out there? Well, crazy-!@# Contador boss Oleg Tinkov's got an answer: he's tweet-warned the remaining GC contenders that *he's* already conquered Saturday's mountain stage, even if *Contador's* gonna !@#$ it up. Jaysus, I'd be more afraid as a Tinkoff rider that my own boss'd toss me off one of those peaks to be picked apart by vultures than of Nibs beating me a up a climb, but either way, that's all just freakin' scary!


A Gentle Plea: and what the !@#$'s with all the Phil and Paul twitter-hate?! They're gods, I tell you, gods! They can announce my !@#damn breakfast for all I care, they can start mistaking the riders for show dogs, they can repeat Jens' age 'til it feels like the ear-worm chorus of every crappy overplayed pop song on the planet, they can jump in on the jersey presentations and pretend they're podium babes, just leave them be !@#dammit!

La Vie En Rosa: finally, I'd be reporting buckets more on the beautiful Giro that's underway if it weren't such a one-handed slaughterhouse by the best cyclist in all human history out there, though of course we love speed demon Giorgia Bronzini did grab a sprint and Emma Pooley thundered to the win in the first mountain stage. But we're hitting the key stages now, so Mara Abbott, these heights are your playground--forza ragazza, and Marianne, throw *someone* else a bone out there!

A Groveling Apology (And A Bonus Offer!) to #PhilLiggett and #PaulSherwen

I'm *Scum* (Oh, Screw, I Mean on This Specifically): yes, I've done a grievous injustice to lords o' commentary Phil Liggett & Paul Sherwen: according to their interview in Bicycle Times, Phil gets "annoyed" when they get criticized for talking nonstop about Lance !@#$ing Armstrong, because in fact, it's the doofus US TV producers who *make* them do it. In my defense, I've only slagged 'em here for it 40 or 50 times total while lauding their godly superiority to all other creatures except maybe the boys at Euskaltel an estimated 3,650,000 times per single actual post, but still, I can't bear having done them wrong for a minute, so not only do I most humbly beg your forgiveness for being a complete twit, if you guys stop on by Rancho Racejunkie, I'll take you on a sojourn--on the fine racejunkie steed of your choice--down the path to one our truly superlative ice-cream emporia. Heck, I'll even pony up if you're one of those inexplicable "sorbet"-eating freaks. Sure, you'll drop me thirty yards out the driveway, but I'll catch up in a week or two. And I highly recommend the Vienna Finger Cookie, but if you're of a mind for a pint instead, I'll even make sure ahead of time they have the Guinness ice cream on hand. So Phil & Paul, mea maxima culpa, ditch those boring $10,000 Cervelos or whatever astonishing !#@$ you've been comped, and step right up to my smashing 1973 copper Ross Apollo 3-speed stick shift, or whatever else you can find amidst the chaos!

Yer Doping Excuse o' the Week: no, I didn't get around to this about five days ago--and really, can you blame me for not keeping up with the sheer quantity of postaldiscoveryastanaradioskank riders that've been dropping like flies every day?-- but while it's awful hard to beat Riccardo "Hey, *Anyone* Can Mistakenly Tell Their Doctor in a Total Delirium That They've Removed Their Own Blood, Pumped It Full of Illegal Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Stored It Improperly In the Fridge Next to the Yogurt for Three Weeks, Then Re-Injected It Back Into Myself In the Breakfast Nook" Ricco', former Lance minion Max Van Heeswijk's doing us all proud, claiming that when he admitted to a Dutch reporter he'd taken EPO on Lance's watch, he was really just referring to some "pre-race vitamins" he'd taken. (Unfortuntely, there's no record either way, as Van Heeswijk allegedly took the recording. D'oh!) Y'know, I hear you, Max. Truly. It is *so* hard to distinguish my Dora the Explorer Chewable Vitamin C Supplements from my SpongeBob Squarepants Gummi EPOs, especially when Lance is screaming right in my frickin' ear to get my lazy !@# to the start line before he rips my legs off. So remember next time--the *vitamins* have Dora and Diego on the label!

Oh, Cough It *Up*, Honey!: meantime, speculation continues as to where sprint king Mark Cavendish is gonna end up in 2012, even though he already knows, but it's clearly gonna be one of two places: (1) winning every race he's in, or (2) staring at Tyler Farrar's spandex butt in every sprint next season if he didn't get to take his crucial lead-outs Renshaw and Eisel with 'im. Wiggo, I see, has decided to welcome him with open arms if he goes to Sky, unless that is he fails to help him get and keep the yellow jersey in the Tour next year, in which case I imagine it'll be open fists in the team bus instead. See, they're best buds already--so long as Cav understands his place!


Your 2012 Rider o' the Year Is...: finally, I know I should be posting about Philippe Gilbert winning every post-Tour crit that Samu didn't whack him in (woo-hoo Sanchez!), and being all about to pulverize the peloton like stale breadcrumbs in this week's Eneco Tour, but since Euskaltel of course has come up with a stellar first-ever win for young talent Mikel Landa, I'm going to suggest y'all just su--um, sure enjoy the videotape:
Lookin' good for the Vuelta, boys--the rest o' you saps might's well just unpack yer bags at home right now!