Chris Horner's Been !#$%^ed!: A Call For a Special New Cycling Team

All right, I call bull!@#$: that the winner of the 2013 freakin' Vuelta a Espana couldn't pull a WorldTour or Pro Continental gig was crap enough, but that his new squad doesn't even get a wild-card invitation to the Amgen EPO Tour of California is !@#$in' ridiculous. Who the hell and how hard could you possibly have to butt-kiss to get into that (admittedly very fine) race?! So as usual, we've gotta step in to fix the situation, and here it is: a call for a new WorldTour, all-events-invited cycling squad, Team Desiccated Old Guys! The criteria:

(1) You're 35 plus;

(2) you can still open a can of whup-!@# on half the peloton, hereby defined as, crash-out DNFs excepted, you are (a) a top-15 finisher, if designated team leader; (b) making the time cut, if a nut-busting top lieutenant or lead-out; or (c) in the top 75%, if you're a bidon-schlepping domestique monkey; and

(3) Jaysus, !@#$in' Davide Rebellin still gets to race, so why can't you?!

By my reckoning, this means: Horner's got a coupla more seasons; Jens has got another decade; Marianne Vos will be riding for 45 years after she's eligible to collect whatever the heck her country's version of Social Security; and that freak Valverde'll be in team kit 'til the actual geological end of time. Well, having solved this catastrophe, all we need now is a sponsor. Why not that crazy s.o.b. Tinkov, he'll be pulling ludicrous feats of physical exertion 'til well into the 23rd century?--now Horner, get back on your bike, back in the game, and enjoy the Tour of California!