Sucker-Punches! !$%holes! Team-Buying Hijinks! Yep, That's Our Dear Late-Season Road Cycling

Cyclist On a Hot Tin Roof: well, it's sure hot in more ways'n one over at the steaming Abu Dhabi Tour, where some curbside argy-bargy between Federico Zurlo and Paul Voss in pursuit of an intermediate sprint led to the offended Voss allegedly punching Zurlo smack in the ribs and his subsequent expulsion from the race by outraged officials. Now, dope all you want, but ungentlemanly fisticuffs, *that* we cannot tolerate! I say, let 'em face off in a post-stage wheel-spoke duel, fair and square, the last man standing gets to ride next day--hey, who *says* sprint stages are boring?

Water World: in other Abu Dhabi news, you gotta give it to Vincenzo Nibali being a cheerful water-bottle-carrier for his sprint-lovin' teammates today (as did Sagan, who still came in second). Well, get used to it Nibs--I hope you don't mind Vinokourov making you do it when he's backing whippersnapper Aru 100% at the Tour!

No Porte in a Storm: so, just as BMC tries to figure out how it's gonna integrate the Grand Tour ambitions of new signing/ex-Froome lieutenant Richie Porte with those of existing GT stalwart/tenacious brave guy Tejay Van Garderen, Porte's helpfully solved *that* mystery--he's "not coming from Team Sky to BMC just to ride the Giro." Screw you Porte you disrespectful asshat, you don't deserve the perfect Giro anyway in a rat-hole bed-bugged pup tent much less a luxury motorhome, go for the Tour so Sky *and* and* Tejay can kick your !@# into 2017 instead!

All I Want for Christmas Is a World Tour Team: meantime, Bjarne Riis and Fernando "Almost Saved Euskaltel" Alonso are now both linked to a reported bid to buy Oleg Tinkov outta his interest in Team Tinkoff-Saxo, which, now that he's left Alberto with virtually no domestique support for the Tour de France, seems like an awful lot of dough to pay only to find one of yer big stars utterly hosed off the podium later in the year. You do get new World Champ the Saganator though--and he's so cuuuuuuuuute in those stripes!

Practical Magic: finally, big points to new USA Cycling prez Derek-Bouchard-Hall, sayin' *nobody* with a doping past gets to coach USA riders from here on out. Uh, you *do* realize this basically leaves you with the food-truck vendors from the local weekend crit to choose from, right? Not that that should enter into your calculations or nothin'--but luckily, most of the likely candidates already made out with quiiiite sweet gigs after their Postal days anyway!