It's Yer 2018 New Year's Resolutions for the Peloton!

All right, you miscreants. You know what you did. And now, in this season of self-reflection, redemption, and renewal, it's time to ponder our previous misdeeds, and set out a plan for a sparklin' New Year. So here's what you're resolving--and I mean it, pal!

1. Chris Froome: I resolve to be gracious when I'm forced to hand over my Vuelta a Espana to Vincenzo Nibali. Hah, like that's ever gonna happen--suckers!

2. Vincenzo Nibali: I resolve to be gracious when Froome is forced to hand over his Vuelta a Espana to me. And then when I'm forced to hand mine over to Ilnur Zakarin after I'm busted for previously undiscovered footage of me taking a tow from my team car from the start line in Nimes to the final meter in Madrid. Hah, like that's ever gonna happen--suckers!

3. Richie Porte: I resolve to never, ever, trust any ungrateful, backstabbing piece of !@#$ ex-colleague to do the right thing by me ever, ever again. Of course, that still won't make me win the Tour. Dammit!

4. Alberto Contador: Who, me? I'm going off to play with my dog. Enjoy this year's !@#$-show, you chumps!

5. Tom Dumoulin: I vow to come up with a plausible reason why a 6-foot-10, 800-pound time trialist has suddenly become one of the best climbers in all of Grand Tour history. And not to eat "Bob's Giant Box o' Explosive Fiber" for breakfast the day before a big race. Ever again!

6. Mikel Landa: I will domestique nicely for Nairo Quintana. I will domestique nicely for Nairo Quintana. I will domestique nicely for Nairo Quin--WATCH OUT, MOTHER!@#$ER, I'M COMING FOR YOU YOU LITTLE !@!$! Aw, busted already...

7. Alejandro Valverde: I will domestique nicely for Nairo Quin--oh, screw that, you know I'm just gonna steamroll over him *and* that upstart little twerp Landa both from day one of the season!

8. Nairo Quintana: I will be humble and appreciative in recognition of Mikel and Alejandro's unquestioning and faithful service during the Tour de France. Oh, no, was that a water bottle I just accidentally rolled back down to the bottom of Alpe d'Huez? FETCH, B*TCH!

9. Gianni Moscon: I resolve to not call that !@#$%ing !@##$$ a !@#$ing !@#$%%. !@#$%ing !@#$%$. What?

10. Peter Sagan: I resolve to bash that Tour-wrecking little bastid Cavendish into the barriers so hard he'll end up with a Specialized banner sticking out of his !@# *and* his ear for 30 yards on either end. DQ me for *this*, you sniveling eejits!

11. Mark Cavendish: I vow to stay the hell outta Peter Sagan's way. But only really because I can't actually keep up with 'im.

12. Nacer Bouhanni: Right, like *I* was the problem in 2017?!

13. Women's Cycling Union: We vow to finally get a women's Tour de France, true Monuments, full and contemporaneous TV coverage on a real-not-pirate channel, and a minimum wage from the cheap misogynistic pigs who run this sport. After our lousy 3 a.m. shift at Wal-Mart is over so we can pay for gas to the start line. Paper or plastic, ma'am?

14. UCI: we vow to *really* crack down on motor doping. Hey, Team Sky, you guys use motors? No? Great, champagne's on us!

15. Roadside Fans: we promise not to shove a camera into Marcel Kittel's face in a frenetic sprint, run buck-naked into the line of a struggling (yeah, like that'll ever happen) Chris Froome, or call the start of a fox hunt with 280 slavering beagles and a cavalry's worth of amped-up horses right into the middle of a careering peloton. But boy, do we still reserve the right to throw a bottle of steaming "beer" onto any rider we don't like!

16. FDJ: come on, man. We gotta resolve to win *something* in 2018, right?

Well, riders, teams, and fans, you all know what you gotta do. Now do it--or you'll be right back here in the doghouse next January 31st!

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2017 Racejunkie Awards!

Yeah, let those hoity-toity celebs toast each other at their televised Oscar soirees with golden trophies hand-stitched couture gowns goody bags dripping with diamonds and snowballs of blow while they try to dodge the grotesque attentions of some even richer guy who looks like Jabba the Hutt--we here in the world of cycling have our *own* awards, thank you, and damned if they're not better! Prizes, for anyone so desperate as to actually pick theirs up (no, really, I promise, just ask!): a dashing custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap; a passel of spiffy racejunkie stickers to deface your bike, your car, or your face; and whatever trophy-looking tchtochke I can dredge up at the local second-hand store. So jot down yer speeches, plaster on that fake smile for when the camera hits you when you lose, and let's get this soiree rollin'!

Delusional Tweet of the Year: okay, we've got *lots* of competition here, including from me, but pro Phil Gaimon's "I think it's the sign of a clean rider and a real sportsman to go [for the Giro-Tour double]. Good luck Froome" absolutely takes the cak--well, the Kool-Aid. Delusional, but also so sweet!

Suck Retirement of 2017: Look, I bawled like a baby over Tom Boonen. And I hereby state that I stand unequivocally by everything--*everything*--I've said about Alberto Contador in this execrable e-rag the last ten years. But in an era where--totally coincidentally as a style choice I'm sure--Froome rides with all the pizzazz and humanity of an electric clock, Alberto was always a one-man attack-o-rama. Knock him off his bike (eejits!), cram a month's worth of pollen up his nose during the worst of allergy season, whack him with a stomach virus, you could *always* count on Berto, the second he had a drop of gas in the tank, to liven up the race. Even better: when he finally lost his !@#$ and unloaded on crazed ex-team boss Oleg Tinkov. We'll miss you, ya wee thing!

Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Well, Maybe This One) Prize: speaking of whom, Alberto Contador's smashing farewell victory at the Vuelta on the legendary Angliru. Now pick up your prize Alberto--that is, if even you've got your legs back yet!

Heartbreak of 2017: Oh, Samu!

Cyclist Slap Fight o' the Year: now, normally Bouhanni's delivered a fine sucker-punch to a rival for, y'know, existing in the same planet, but this year, kudos to Astana's Andriy Grivko who settled a little argy-bargy in a sprint finish at the Dubai Tour with a vicious right hook to Quick Step speedster Marcel Kittel's eye socket, leaving Marcel, who merely viewed the jockeying towards the line as ordinary, with a long bloody cut on the eyebrow as a result. Quoth the apologetic Grivko, as he headed off into his ban, "!@$% you you !@%ing !@##$%"!

Total Useless Piece o' Crap o' the Year: UCI. Let's be real, those clowns couldn't find a motor if you lifted the hood of an F1 car and jammed 'em head-first into the carburetor. But if you're a Colombian popping 10-year-old CERA outta Riccardo Ricco's refrigerator or a Master's racer in !@#-end of Nowheresville who took a hippie-store fish-oil supplement, ya might as well slap on the ol' handcuffs now, punk. Clean sport all 'round, hooray!

Superdomestique o' the Year: Mikel Landa. I mean, not like the most *willing* superdomestique, but clearly the highest quality o' the lot. Cause enough anarchy at Movistar in 2018, Mikel, and hopefully we won't have to see you up for this category in 2018!

Love, Love, Love Award: Nairo Quintana's warmest welcome to new teammate Mikel Landa. IT'S MY TOUR YOU PIECE OF !@#$--it's great to have you on the squad, now lick my feet you worker-bee dirtbag!

Crash o' the Year (Game Changer): Okay, Alejandro Valverde wiping out horribly on an inexplicably slick and crappy Stage 1 Tour de France opener *really* sucked. But !@#dammit, can Alberto Contador get a freakin' break? The boy's like a human domino. His Tour *and* his Vuelta both over before they really began. We're so sorry Alberto--we knew you could've beat that spindly wretch and his team of androids without 'em!

Crash o' the Year (Fan !@#$wit Edition): So, he may not be exactly a household name. But Austrian racer Marco Haller had pretty good reason to go ballistic on the stupid fan who wrecked his--hell, and a half a dozen other countries'--World Championship hopes by carelessly hooking 'im with a fluttering jacket and piling a ton of guys to the tarmac. Now, I may not be able to understand German--but I'm pretty sure he wasn't saying "Danke!" there!

Crash o' the Year (Totally Freakin' Avoidable): All right, race organizers have been to know to occasionally, y'know, not block off a noticeable piece of road furniture here and there. But a !@#$in' *automobile*? Yep, that's the gift the Tour of Britain left for Orica's Michael Hepburn, as he took a sweeping left-hander into the unexpected vehicle's back windshield, leaving him, surprisingly, among the least bloody of the pile o' resulting human debris. What the hell, are you clowns trying for a new Slalom jersey category in road races this year? STOP LEAVING !@## IN THE ROAD!

Get Yer Motor Runnin'/Head Out on the Highway Statuette: So who's got the moto--uh, mojo--that just won't quit after a brutal day's mountain stage? Yep, it's this incredible ride from presumptively exhausted Froome superdomestique Wout Poels, jetting away from the competition on a 28% gradient with, notably, no discernable involvement from his actual legs. Damn, I wanna hire his mecha--uh, barista!

Like the NFL, But Cycling: You wanna ~!@# with Tony Martin during the World Road Race Championships time trial? Not when the Norwegian police catch you running behind 'im you don't! Spectacular tackle by the cops. New England Patriots, I know you're gonna win the Superbowl and all--but ya might win it faster hiring these guys to do your dirty work!

Complete !@#hole of 2017: Y'know, I'd really just like to give this to Chris Froome on principle, but to be fair to Froomey--shut up, I can so be either!--this one's an absolute lock by racist !@#$face Gianni Moscon, who attacked innocent Kevin Reza with a racial slur, slugged him, then "apologized" by bitching about the mean press coverage he deservedly incurred. Bonus Team !@#$wit Award: Team Sky, which promptly "punished" Moscon by giving him an internal "Young Rider" award. Now *that's* deterrence, you Keystone Kops!

Karma's a B*tch, B*tch Prize: Chris Froome. Remember how you basically told your team captain Brad Wiggins to !@#$ off while you pedaled away, and nearly tanked his Tour in search of your own glory? Yeah, well you don't get to complain about what the clearly superior Landa so openly wanted to do to you. Didn't like it so much from this side of the col, didja jerkface?

The (Lost) Age of Innocence Award: so Richie Porte generously helps now-non-teammate Chris Froome to Grand Tour victory, and expects Captain Praying Mantis to return the favor. So fair, so trusting--but I bet you ain't gonna do *that* again!

The Last Gasp of American Exceptionalism Prize: yeah, I know. Shut up. But thank goodness for amazing Ronde champion Coryn Rivera--and what a *year* for this incredible star!

Race Organizer Bone-throwing Inadequacy Award: the women's peloton has never been stronger. The crowds have never been bigger. Even both puny minutes of TV coverage you've been sticking on the !@#end of Nowhere Channel have managed to garner great ratings. So what do we, and more importantly, the deserving peloton, get in recognition? WOW, A ONE-DAY TOUR DE FRANCE! Well bleach my bloomers and snap my bra strap, WHAT AN HONOR! Wait, now I have to stick around afterwards and wrangle the boys' teams' dirty laundry? Thanks, ASO--even better!

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With(out) Me Award: Philippe Gilbert's daringly huge--and smashingly successful--53 kilometer breakaway to steal the retiring Tom Boonen's potentially 5th victory at Paris-Roubaix. Fire *me*, Quick Step? Take *that*, !@#holes!

Enjoy Your Retirement, Please! No, I Mean It! Statuette: He was a cyclist. Then he was a knight. Then he wrote a book so you'd pay attention to him. Then he complained to every microphone he could find about how no one would leave him alone. Then he wrote another book so you'd leave him alone some more. Then, he decided to become a *rower*. Brad Wiggins--enjoy your dotage in peace, please--for the rest of our sakes!

Jaysus Someone Shut Up That Whinging Crybaby Award: hey, Cav. We know it's tough having gone from winning every race you rode in while you berated fellow riders for their pathetic victories in only "!@#$ races" to being out-supermodeled by Peter Sagan, but jaysus, can you quit bitching about him not causing you crash at the Tour de France? He got kicked out for no reason and you *still* didn't win the green jersey, so what's yer prob for chrissakes?

Dark Horse Award: Smashing new road race champ Chantal Blaak. Oh, c'mon, like you saw her in World Champion Stripes when all she was supposed to do was wait for her exhausted team leader--hell, even *she* didn't see herself there til she got there!

And Finally, Yer Punk-!@# Move o' the Year: hoo-boy, have we got a bunch to pick from this year! Usually, this one goes straight to Alejandro Valverde for some egregious act of treacherous backstabbing, but for 2017 we got hot competition from (a) a racist jack!@#; (b) (the same) reckless-to-the-point-o'-terrifying-injury-causing jack!@#; and (3) a whinging crybaby over being called out for being a jack!@#. Congratulations, Moscon--you just keep on "winning"!

Well riders'n'fans, them's my 2017 awards show, so in honor or in shame, come up to claim yer prizes with your arms raised in triumph--and to those of you who know what you did, let's *hope* I don't have to give you another prize next year!

It's Yer 2017 Merry Festivus Gift List for the Peloton!

Y'know, as cycling fans, I feel we often take for granted the fine, upstanding members of the peloton upon whom our endless twitter rants, thoughtful blog posts, and many wasted hours of our lives that we'll never get back rely. So in this season of love and giving, let's take a few minutes to show our gratitude towards these hardworking denizens of the road, whatever they celebrate and in whatever Dante's circle of hell a few of 'em likely celebrate it in, by granting them their surely most heartfelt--or at least most sorely needed--desires:

1. Chris Froome: A year of good health. Seriously, ever since this poor boy went from perfectly healthy pack-fodder donkey to multiple Grand-Tour-winning thoroughbred, he's been absolutely plagued with incredibly catastrophic health problems--from bilharzia to asthma to severe menstrual cramps to Creepy Cyclist Overprominent Limb Vein Syndrome--which miraculously only seem to improve his performance, but anyway, the sad sickly thing just can't catch a break (though he catches damn near everything else). Get well soon, Froomey--!@#$, maybe then you'll win even *more* Grand Tours next season!

2. Alberto Contador: Froome's Tour. C'mon, like he didn't already deserve the damn thing anyway?

3. Mikel Landa: Let's face it, getting outta Team Craphole, he's already gotten a pretty sweet visit from Santa this season. But here's what he needs next--the Giro. That's right, the *Giro*. Yes, you can prove it on the road bushwhacking your own teammates at the Tour, but do you *see* how in a race where every watt counts and the other teams aren't blowing them that is going to be a hugely self-destructive waste of energy? Honor the fabulous Giro first, and get the Grand Tour win you need to send Nairo to the compost pile without a fight for it!

4. Alejandro Valverde: What do you even get a guy who at age 200 has, and still wins, damn near everything? More formaldehyde, or whatever Egyptian-mummy preservative-!@#$ he's huffing!

5. Gianni Moscon: Class. Not *a* class, but *some* class. Though he could use *a* class as well, to be sure--here's yer diploma, now either show us what you've learned and act like a civilized person, or shut yer yap!

6. Nairo Quintana: A suit of shining armor. Between Valverde coming at 'im with a Viking sword and Landa trying to hit 'im with an intercontinental missile, the poor little twerp's gonna need it!

7. Tom Dumoulin: A pink jersey? Naaaah. Give that boy a giant pink bottle o' Pepto-Bismol, and keep 'im stocked for chrissakes!

8. British Cycling: A ticket. To the 21st century. Don't be scared, you retrogrades--you're not gonna instantly shrivel your enormous gonads being in the same sport with the womenfolk!

9. UCI cycling: The world's biggest telescope. 'Cause clearly that iPad !@#$ ain't working, but if this thing can see billions of years back to the Big Bang to the very origins of our universe, it oughta at least help you see into a bicycle!

10. Daniel Teklehaimanot: He was in every break that, well, broke, he worked like a maniac, and was one of the most exciting young talents of the year to watch in action. And that !@#$wit Moscon gets a gig? Jaysus--get that young man a contract!

11. Andre Greipel: let's be honest, despite his total superiority over every other human being on the planet, our lovable lug hit a bit of a rough patch this year. So to our dear Gorilla, I say go screw Sagan and let's go for the big one for Andre: I wish you the green jersey big guy, and a pile o' sprint victories at the Tour to boot!

12. Mark Cavendish: a nice box of Kleenex. FFS, will you stop crying about that crash with Peter Sagan at the Tour you caused already?

13. Team Sky: a scaffold. Cause it's only a matter of time before that whooooooooole deck of cards comes tumbling down, honey!

14. Chantal Blaak: Captaincy! *You* can bring up the water bottles to *my* World Champion-striped !@#, you peons!

15. The New Euskadi Team: Your very first Vuelta a Espana mountain-top win. Now bring on the World Tour funding for our Nuevo Carrots!

16. Vincenzo Nibali: Okay, he's popped. You *know* that Vuelta's got yer name on it, honey. Sure, it's a hollow victory--but sure as hell beats a hollow loss, amirite?

17. And Last But Not Least, Both My Dear Readers: May Alberto return to the peloton, Mikel officially kick everyone's !@#, and your Saganator post cute videos of him baking cookies *every* *darn* *day* (oh, and riding, too). Now let's raise the Festivus pole, light the lights, trim the trees, get our groove on for the Solstice, and raise a glass to dreams coming true, the lot of you!

Racejunkie's 10 Things I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving (And a Few I'm !%#$in' Well Not)

Yes, it's almost Thanksgiving, that heartwarming time of year when we Americans celebrate the merciful saving of the Pilgrims from starvation by gorging ourselves into a revolting overprivileged stupor, dashing to watch a football game we hate to avoid doing a monstrous pile of grimy dishes, and trying not to whang our politically-offensive-yet-inescapably-loud relatives upside the head with a 25-pound frozen turkey before we even have a chance to stuff the thing. Oh right, and sit before our resplendent table, clasp our hands over our gleaming heirloom silverware, and ruminate humbly over the many things we have to be grateful for this year. So if you're a cycling fan, what's that? This!

1. #FreeMikel Landa! Oh wait--we did! Word to Movistar: Don't. !@#$. Him. Over!

2. Basque cycling rises again. Yes, they're just getting started, and no, they're not our lovely Carrots. But the rest o' you peloton can just working on those climbing drills now--you're gonna need 'em!

3. Chantal Blaak. Look, everyone knew she was good. Hell, great. But World Freakin' Champion? You *go*, you Amazon!

4. Svein Tuft. If he can take out a charging wolf with a hockey stick, he sure ain't taking any !@#$ from Bouhanni or Moscon next year!

5. Alberto Contador. Not that he's gone, but that he was here. Sure, I've slagged 'im (rightly, natch) over the last ten years--but seriously, has *anyone* else been *half* as fun to watch? Liar!

6. Team Sky. Just kidding! They're horrid.

6. Alexander Vinokourov. The gift that keeps on giving. Until you !@#$ with 'im. Then, watch out!

7. UKAD. Because Sky can sleep peacefully at night knowing that if they drop trou and jam giant needles labeled "THESE ARE PEDs" into their collective !@#es right on UKAD's doorstep, they *still* won't bust those freaks. Now that's trust, my friends!

8. The beautiful Giro. No matter what fraudulent mutant stick figure is threatening to ride it next year.

9. Andre Greipel. Shut up--he was just resting!

10. The Vuelta. No matter what fraudulent mutant stick figure is threatening to ride it next year!


And a few I'm !@#$in' well not:


1. Oh, Samu!

2. La Course. Le Tour to women's peloton: Le!@#$You!

3. Le Tour. Let's face it, it sucked. Next time you're gonna pull *that* boring crap, just hand over the final maillot jaune the first day and save us three weeks of misery already!

Well, fellow celebrants, them's mine. Happy Thanksgiving to all--now pass me the bourb--uh, apple cider--dammit!

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2017 Vuelta a Espana racejunkie Awards!

Yes, cycling fans, you yelled through the Giro, you swore through the Tour, you cried through the Vuelta--so what's left, beyond a drunken post-letdown blur til the season's last hurrah at the Worlds? That's right, it's Yer Incredibly Prestigious racejunkie Awards! Prizes--and I swear on my sainted ONCE cap, so you know this !@#$ is true--eternal notoriety (for good or ill), a passel of handsome racejunkie stickers, some kinda trophyish tchotchke engraved, if at all, with what's already on it when I find it at the thrift store, and--honest--a high-quality custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap. So honorees--and dishonorees--let's get this party started right!

Punk-!@# Move o' the Vuelta: bad enough that Chris Froome's obviously using a mo--motivational coach to keep his spirits high, but now this greedy hypocrite has to contest the sprint jersey on the final day--when he's constantly complaining that etiquette-ignoring unsportsmanlike GC contenders are daring to attack him on, y'know, *GC* when he inevitably has to switch wheels, take an extended graphic bathroom break, or hit the spa for a hot-stone massage, Dead Sea mud mask and organic moisturizing mani-pedi at the base of the every climb. Wah, wah, the written rules allow it--you *suck*, Froome!

Deja Vu All Over Again Award: !@#$, I didn't realize Lance, Christian, Dave, Floyd, & the rest of the boys were still riding! Oh wait, that's *not* US Postal with 8 robot guys hammering at the front of every mountain-high til every other chump in the race has cracked like a rotten walnut? Sky, PostalDiscovery--I imagine they'll go down in history the same way, anyhow!

This Team Will Self-Destruct in Five Seconds/Argy-Barguil Prize: have stage dreams of yer own backed by yer obvious form, but fail to adequately support yer team leader? If you're Team Sky at the Tour, you...well, boy, do you give Landa a stern talking-to back at the bus! If you're Team Sunweb at the Vuelta, and you're dealing with pampered princess/recent Tour King of the Mountains Warren Barguil, we're sending your disobedient !@# home! And to the next clown, give Wilco yer damn wheel when he needs it, or else!

Absolutely !@#$in' Useless Award: Before UCI makes it official, I'd like to congratulate them *and* the pro peloton on another 100% totally-honestly doping-free Grand Tour. Now come get yer cap before I whack you impotent protectionist !@#$shit artists upside the head with it!

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again Award: let's face it: current Grand Tour tactics suck. No-one attacks, everyone treats the race leader as if he's their own team captain they can't ride against, and guys are aiming for second or third on the podium like first place has been eliminated entirely. But Alberto Contador--love 'im or hate 'im, think he's clean or a career-long cheat--you can't deny he goes all-in in *every* *freakin'* *race* he's ever ridden, to particularly spectacular effect on his second career victory on the Angliru. Gracias gracias gracias, fuoriclasse Alberto--we're gonna miss you, little guy!

Totally Normal (If You're Duct-Taped to a Rocket Being Launched Into Actual Space) Prize: okay, maybe he's just spinning a granny gear--who wouldn't? On the sharpest possible gradient on the sharpest possible climb on the sharpest possible day. But y'know kid, legit or no, it looks a *whole* lot better if you even *appear* to be breathing while you're doing it. Loyal Sky defender Wout Poels, this prize is all for you--but somehow I doubt you'll be claiming it!

Grinta Award: yes, Alberto fought his way through a !@#$ (no pun intended) day of stomach troubles, and still managed to attack every other day despite a team that, even with its bestest efforts, was completely outmatched by the androids at Sky. But y'know, this one's for the few--very few!--brave boys at Team Dimension Data, who were decimated nearly right off the bat by disgusting illness and injury and *still* schlepped on with only 3 boys standing, all the way to Madrid. Lachlan Morton, ex-Carrot Igor Anton, and Janse van Rensburg--step on up, if you remotely have the legs left to do it!

Crash o' the Race (Aw, Crap!): it was his first-ever solo stage in his first-ever Grand Tour. And with some crap luck, emerging talent UAE Team Emirates' Anass Ait El Abdia hit the deck, crashing out on stage two. The look on his face was particularly heartbreaking--but you earned your way to your first Grand Tour, there'll surely be more in your future!

Crash o' the Race (No !@#damn Impact At All): let's be honest--you could have Nacer Bouhanni riding next to Froome punching him in the face *all day* *every day*, and Chris Froome still couldn't crash long enough or hard enough to matter. I crashed and got a boo-boo? Big deal. I'm *still* gonna finish three minutes ahead of your !@#!

Passive-Aggressive Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist o' the Race: it's the biggest baddest climbing day yet, and Astana's incredibly detail-oriented professional mechanics "accidentally" left a rather crucial chainring off faded team captain Fabio Aru's bicycle. "!@#$ you" from Vino--or innocent mistake? Fabio--at least in the heat of disappointment, and before Vino beats it outta him--thinks the former. I'm sure it didn't *feel* innocent on that 28% gradient, anyhow!

Still Not a Grand Tour Award: oh, my darling Vuelta. So close--but 20 stages *not* too far. Thanks for the day race, but can we *please* give the women's peloton a little more road time?

Cult of Personality Prize: The howling, sobbing, shrieking mob of Alberto Contador fans, every single minute of every single day, before, up to, including, and far beyond his exhausted retreat into the team bus every evening. And who could blame them--well, us? Jaysus, I've seen Justin Bieber concerts with less bloodshed!

Field Art o' the Vuelta: now, we're all familiar with the standard aerial shots of hay-bale "WELCOME" signs, corn-field bicycle cutouts, and tractors slowly chasing each other with giant hood-mounted syringes--but what *really* stood out this year in both looks and ingenuity was the farmer who got his/her sheep into a humongous moving-bicycle display by spreading feed on the ground in the appropriate shape and releasing the herd to stampede for their dinners in perfect formation. A nice meal *and* a nice bike race--what's not to like?

Pointless Distraction Prize: HOLY CRAP WE'RE ABOUT TO FOLD THE TEAM FOR LACK OF A SPONSOR GIG! CROWDFUND US OR IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT YOU WORTHLESS FANS! Oh, wait--it's cool. We got it. Jonathan Vaughters, scare the !@#$ outta every single Uran Uran fan on Earth, whydontcha?--especially since it ultimately worked!

And Finally, Yer Dumb-!@# Move o' the 2017 Vuelta: for three freakin' weeks, you haul your saddle-sore !@# 200 miles across some of the most brutal terrain in Spain. And the very night before your chill slo-mo ceremonial parade into Madrid as a finisher of one of the greatest races in cycling's pantheon, whaddya do? Well, no-one's quite saying, but clearly something so beyond the bounds of normal pro-cyclist stupid--and that's saying a lot--that your own team pulls you outta the race the final morning. Drugs? Alcohol? A sex scandal beyond the usual Dekkerian-hooker hijinks? Only Odd Christian Eikhorn can tell--and he ain't, but kid, you can pick up yer prize anyway!

Well, that's our beloved Vuelta, done and dusted--in 2018, may the best robo--man win!

It's Yer 2017 Vuelta a Espana in Preview, Part Dos: The GC Contenders! #LV2017

First, of we still love so !@#$ the !@#$ off ex-Euskaltel rider Samuel Sanchez, to whom I was going to give a podium spot as well as a stage win (shut up! could so either! even without that peptide !@#$!), let me just say: Aiiigggggghhhhhhhhhhh! Second, give me that !@#damn whiskey bottle before I snatch it outta your !@#damn hand!

Okay, with that out of the way, time to get down to business (or pleasure): it's high time for the fabulous Vuelta, baby, so let's talk yer General Classification Contenders! Sure, there's only like 4--but this is the unpredictable and vicious Vuelta, and anything could still happen. My picks (and they're always wrong, so pro tip to place yer bets accordingly, especially if you'll share the proceeds):

Alberto Contador: It is unbe!@#damnlievable to me that, in the Sky/USPostal-reboot era, you would pony up for a rider like Alberto Contador and not spend the rest of your entire generous budget building an impenetrable and entirely single-minded mountains behemoth around him for the Grand Tours. But Trek, ya didn't. In his favor: it's his last race (waaaaaaah!), it's his home race (yay!), the course is perfect for a guy who lives to attack, and right now, his health is g--forget it, *I'm* not gonna be the freakin' eejit that jinxes 'im!

Chris Froome: It's just like the Tour de France, Chris, but without Mikel Landa being embarrassingly stronger than you and telling you to screw off! To his credit, the only rider in the entire peloton who could turn the most exciting mountain stages in all of cycling into a seven-hour death march of watching static on a TV screen. Now, that takes talent! Still and all, he's got humble--and incredibly talented--superdomestique Mikel Nieve (for the rest of this year, anyway!), as well as the usual raft of robot suspects, who seem to differ from the rest of their kind in their phenomenally lifelike ability to sweat, ingest food and water, and get tir--nope, they sure don't ever do that! A highly likely, if deeply vomitous, candidate for victory. But if you're gonna do that, can you at least show the *slightest* bit of panache and initiative and at least nominally try for a stage win? Nope, didn't think so, drone-boy!

Nairo Quintana: Just kidding! But Movistar's actually got a bangin' young lineup that can really do some damage, including Carlos Betancur. Oh come on! so long as he doesn't 'damage' the buffet too much he'll be fine. Maybe see you next year Nairo--if Landa doesn't crush you first!

Fabio Aru: Yes, he had a disappointing Tour. But he's bagged this hallowed race before, and now, he's had time to reflect, recharge, and most of all, get the crap beaten outta him by charming killer team boss Vinokourov. He's also got the incredibly versatile (and former Liberty Seguros Contador teammate!) Luis Leon Sanchez, and while LL Cool Sanchez never shies away from his own stage win, he's a good--and hardworking--guy to have at your side. Forza Fabio--just not quite enough to pass Alberto!

Vincenzo Nibali: He was 'only' third in the Giro this year, though he showed some serious signs of life late on. And when he's in health and on form, he's a formidable force. But our dear little Izagirre is out after his !@#$ crash at the !@#$ Tour, so he's gonna have to rely on other teams for both wheels and tactics. I'm rooting for you, Squalo--but yer even more hamstrung than Alberto, for heck's sake!

The Dark Horses: yeah, yeah, Yateses, but with Esteban Chaves to either support or contend with, there's a significant chance we love Orica will have to divvy up potential stage wins, or eat their own in pursuit of GC. And even Bardet isn't copping to anything more than some stage-hunting. But there's also Majka, and Tejay (oh BMC! I'm sure this is all your fault!), Kruijswijk, and Kelderman. Me, I look forward to their stage wins. Good luck guys--by the time the second week sinks in, you're sure as hell all gonna need it!

Well, there's yer quicky Vuelta a Espana GC In Preview--let's hope that stupid 40k flat tt doesn't kill the race, because in the Vuelta, that's what the mountains are for!

My Fantasy Alberto Contador Press Conference

Good morning. On the eve of my final race, the beautiful Vuelta a Espana--and now that I've formally announced my retirement--it's time for me to vent about 10 years of pent-up ra--uh, to thank my team bosses, teammates, and fans for their incredible support.

Lance Armstrong: You inspired me with your perserverance and calm during your cancer battle, through my own life-threatening--and nearly life- and career-ending--illness. You were my hero. Then, you were a *total* d*ick. Just as I come into my own after years of precocious, but nearly permanently interrupted, promise, you smack me flat at the 2009 Tour de France on what should have been one of the most joyous wins of my career with your narcissistic selfishness, cavernous ego, and boundless pettiness. First, you ditch me in a cross-wind. Then, you smack me to the press for (1) not domestiquing my own domestique and (2) well, *climbing*. I beat you. Own it. I don't care what excuse you want to make about age or anything else. Instead of blowing me off on the podium like a crappy toddler who's just had his lollipop snatched, either shake my hand like a civilized human or go home and wipe your snivelling nose on one of the 7 yellow jerseys you never tire of saying you won fair and square. Hell, you're not allowed to compete anymore anyway, what else have you got to do?

Oleg Tinkov: Get a life. I don't care who you think I should be banging, how often you think I should be banging, or what purported effect you think my banging's had on my job performance. In fact, it's downright pervy that you're focused so much on my sex life. I also don't care that I "only" won you a lousy Giro d'Italia, because as I recall, you had your entire luxury dacha spray-painted pink, whored yourself for every possible photo opportunity like a freakin' Kardashian, and fawned over me like Thomas on Froome for six months afterwards. I don't care how much you thought I sucked, who you should've bought instead of me, how much you think I should be paid, when I should've retired, why you thought it was productive to constantly slag your own GC leader, or what possible good it did for performance and morale to encourage my own domestiques to screw me over. And frankly, I took this !@#$ for *years* before I finally snapped and objected to your idiot low-rent behavior in the mildest possible terms, so now that I'm *not* bound by professional propriety any more, I no longer feel compelled not to tell you clearly to completely !@#$ off. As long as I live, and despite your epically inept leadership, I'll always be the winner of 3 Giri, 3 Tours, 3 Vueltas--as of this morning--and about 50 other races, forever. Besides a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in "Vulgar Bitching", what !@#$in' trophies do *you* have?

Bjarne Riis: on a related note, if I didn't understand why you and Tinkov hated each others' guts, I sure do now. And thanks for all your guidance--and resulting GT wins--over the years!

Chris Froome: you've won 4 Tours de France. Chapeau! As for our respective riding styles, well, nothing says "panache" like turning over the pedals at the exact same cadence every second for 3 consecutive weeks while glomming onto your power meter like it's the last piece of flotsam in a shipwreck. Good luck beating *that* boring yet incredibly effective !@#$ the next 5 years, suckers!

The Fans: All this swooning is making me blush. Sagan likes all that showy !@#$--maybe you could switch it over to him now?

My Domestiques: You know who you are. And not the ones who !@#$ed me over at Tinkoff, either! You were there with me at every moment, til you cracked like a rotten walnut from the effort. Now back to the !@#$wits who deserve a talking-to!

The Guy Who Ran Beside Me Dressed Like a Syringe That Time: I'm really sorry that I punched you. Without breaking your face. I know I got popped and all, but seriously, you're running alongside of *me* in that thing instead of my friend Alejandro Valverde? Unbegoddamnlievable! While we're at it, can the rest of you !@#$in' cut it with the steak jokes? It's been like 5 years already! Can't you clowns go after one of those morons who claimed they sucked up their entire lifetime doping intake over one sloppy makeout session with their girlfriend?

All right, time to prepare for the Vuelta. After that, I'm heading off into the sunset to play with my dog. And to anyone looking to !@#$ with me now--just remember that my cycling gloves are officially *off!*

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2017 Tour de France Racejunkie Awards!

So, missing the Tour de France yet? Yeah, me neither, which is evidenced by the fact that, for the first time in 11 years of this crap blog, I haven't even been able to be bothered to write about it more'n twice since it began. But still and all, it did occur, it *is* the biggest, gaudiest show on the racing calendar, and, for reasons that defy explanation, some guys are *still* willing to ride the thing in the--and it pains me like appendicitis to call it this--Chris Froome era. And, miraculously, a few things *did* manage to happen to keep it from being like dutifully reading a 10,000 page stack of blank paper. Whaddya get if you've won--or lost--one of cycling's most coveted, if completely unknown and totally disregarded, awards? Well, if you're so desperate as to ask for it, you get--I swear to God--a custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap; some kind of cheap-but-shiny trophy-like tchtotchke (possibly personalized, but depending on what I find at the junk store, almost certainly with someone else's name on it); a passel o' glam racejunkie stickers to emblazon your bike, your car, or your garbage can; and, best of all, eternal internet notoriety! So, without further ado, let's get on to this year's Hall of Fame (or Shame):

1. Road to Nowhere Award: well done, ASO--you've managed to design the single dullest Tour de France course in over a century. Endless flat stages? Check. A coupla one-day races with hills in 'em--without the interest or tension of the cobbles, or hell, anything else? Check. Brutal mountain stages without y'know, *mountain top finishes* that could actually mean anything? Bingo. Even worse, you preceded three weeks' worth of sleeping pills with the most disastrous prologue in years, apparently believing that wiping out anyone of any interest with any ambition by sticking 'em on a squirrely time trial bike on a squirrely course in a monsoon was a good way to ensure that *no-one* was around to light up the race in the two high-top finishes that *might've* coughed up some drama. Okay, maybe two stages out of 21 didn't suck. Well done, !@#$wits--next time, can we make the *women's* race three weeks long, and you can just let the guys chill at home and save their energy?

2. Pointless Self-Destructive Bender Award--no, it's not Oleg Tinkov--he sold his team when he got bored of mugging for the cameras with Peter "just a world champion" Sagan! But in a related shoot-yerself-in-the-foot move, this one's to ASO too, for taking one of the few riders absolutely guaranteed to put on a spectacular, crowd-pleasing, media-friendly party-on-wheels for the whole time, and kicking Peter Sagan completely out of the Tour for the astonishingly weak rationale that Mark Cavendish tried to squeeze himself into an aperture more suited for a preternaturally flexible weasel than a human cyclist hooked himself under Sagan's armpit and brought his own self down into a painful pile against the barriers. Are you !@#$ing *nuts*? Not only was it not even a relegation-worthy offense, much less a kick-out one, it wasn't even an *offense*, you eejits. Even worse, now he's gone and shaved his head, which the twitverse is convinced is a direct reaction to ASO's stupidity. Next time, watch the replay, suck up your petulant pride, and do the right thing, you crybabies!

3. Punk-!@# Move of the Race (Team): Congratulations, Team Sky, you've managed to beat out both Nacer Bouhanni's unjustified smack to Quick Step's Jack Bauer for *no* reason, *and* your own team leader's gratuitous bash of Fabio Aru into the crowd for the *!@#$* reason of daring to pursue his own GC ambitions: in a race where the rest of you looked like wheeled grandfather clocks as you clicked dully along, you decided to completely kill any joy or intrigue in the Tour by chasing down your (bushwhacking, disloyal, so what?) teammate Mikel Landa every time he showed *any* signs of independent life. God, I can't wait til he's out of that clone craphole!

4. Punk-!@# Move(s) o' the Race (Individual): The way he has a mechanical exactly at the steepest part of the climb, so the GC'll be too shamed to attack him. Or the way he needs a pee break right at the bottom of every mountain, to destroy everybody's momentum. Or the way he lifts his arm up to "call for the team car" and slow the group down for no reason--unless, best as we can discern, it's just to smell his own armpit. !@#$ you Froome, not only are you a total whinging two-bit cheap-trick punk, you're gonna get all my awards this year, you flyweight glory hog!

5. Punk-!@# Move o'the Race (Fan): look, France. We all think Froome's a doping little !@#$, as well as an abomination against the cycling gods for his hideous position on the bike. But he ain't the only reason you haven't won your own Grand Tour in a generation. Booing the maillot jaune. Understandable? Hell yeah! Class? Well, not so much!

6. The Fast and the Furio--No, Just !@#$in' Boring Prize: Never has a rider made one of the world's most difficult, dramatic, and spectacular sporting events seem *so* like a flavorless three-week-long bowl o' bottomless gruel. Way to go, Froomey, you achieved the impossible! Now come collect your--no, take your eyes off your--hey, you've already won the--!@#$, no-one can get his eyes off that damn power meter for *anything*!

7. Crash-o-the-Race (Jaysus H. CHRIST, not *again*! Edition): Can Alberto Contador's luck *be* any more !@#$ the last few years? Before Trek can even fail to stand up to Sky's hideous mountain onslaught, and the commentators 6iscount our wee hero on account of his being the approximate age of a new-discovered dinosaur fossil (but still a good milennium younger than Valverde), Alberto's chance at a farewell Tour get wrecked once again by a series of idiotic yet painful crashes, including one at the wheel of an exhausted Nairo Quintana, who to be fair was so knackered by his lousy Giro that he may not have actually been conscious he was riding a bike race at all. Just, *please*--can this guy stay upright at least at the Giro next year so we'll know if he could win fair and square?

8. Crash-o-the-Race (Magical Mystery Tour Edition): *Would* BMC's Richie Porte--having only recently learned that best-bro/not-a-teammate Chris Froome might work *against* him sometimes--have tossed his friendship to the wind and gone all-in against Froome for Tour de France GC--and possibly even seriously challenged him for actual victory, or would he have yielded to temptation and superdomestiqued his own rival to the win in Paris, *again*? Welp, we'll never know, because poor Richie crashed out. Richie, when you've recovered from your wins, do pick up your prize--and *promise* you'll really ride against him next year!

9. Crash-o-the-Race (Didn't Make a !@#damn Bit of Difference Edition): y'know, I'm very sorry for Geraint Thomas, and I truly wish him a swift, smooth, and complete recovery. But really, when you've got !@#$in' 10 other next-generation Terminators decimating every other team in their path, did Froome even *need* him there, except perhaps for constant ego-stroking? Nope. Anyhow, get well soon Geraint!

10. Domestique o' the Tour: Michal Kwiatkowski, hands damn down. Sky, time to give that guy a ginormous raise--move it, or lose it to another squad!

11. The Power of Love (And Threats) Award: Oh, Rogue Mikel. You openly resented it, and you even attacked a few (okay, a buncha) times to show that you could, but *something*--pride, etiquette, bodily threats from Brailsford-- drove you to eventually fall in line behind your team captain (a hell of a lot more gracefully than that asshat did for Wiggins, by the way). But you sure don't have to put up with that crap next year!

12. Good, Good, Good, Good Vibrations Prize: Aw, who *didn't* join in podium finisher Rigoberto Uran's obvious delight at standing on the second step in Paris? Better luck next year--or whenever someone gets popped and you get awarded the whole shebang retroactively!

13. Total Freakin' Ripoff o' the Race: y'know, I wanted Andre Greipel to win *every* *single* *stage*--and if you've got any other explanation to suggest other'n "he was just intentionally resting," you can leave my happy island of plausible deniability and shut yer piehole--and Bling put on a super show, but man, Marcel Kittel *deserved* that green jersey, and even I was gutted for him when he climbed into the back of the team car in bruised defeat. Oh, all right, probably Sagan would've had it--but thanks to ASO, we'll never know, will we?

14. Nail-Nipper Moment o' the Race Award: 10 seconds to the line. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Is he gonna--no he's not abou--holy crap he's done it! Romain Bardet pipping Mikel Landa by one lousy second to hold his podium on the penultimate day. Finally, some drama--even if the result sucked!

15. You Spin Me Right Round Baby/Right Round Like a Motor Baby Prize: okay, let's hit this face on: despite my liberal-arts education, I get "inertia." What I don't get is some grasping half-dead guy gacking his way up a hill and weaving like a punch-drunk boxer while his brand-new wheel suddenly starts whizzing up the Alps at 8 million RPM. Or have I missed some valid marginal gains here? You know who you are--either get yer prize, or get lost, you weasel!

16. The Dog Ate My Homework Statuette: we know, Nairo--you couldn't win the Tour this year, but you had a darn good excuse for not doing it. Maybe if Valverde gets back to nip at your heels one last time, you'll be the pup that wins the race next year!

And Finally, Yer Class Act o' the Tour: As a three-time Tour de France champ--and nine-time Grand Tour legend--he could've, in all honesty, just packed up and gone home without anyone blaming him. But what does he do when his GC is shot and his body's too bashed for even a stage win? *That's* right, he !@#damn gets on his bike every morning, attacks his heart out til his legs explode, and honors the Tour de France *every* *single* *pedalstroke* *into* *Paris.* This doesn't change a whit of every word I've written since your jailbait days-but Alberto Contador, you are the winner in guts if not in glory!

Well folks, them's my awards--next year, let's hope Landa gets the big one, and we've got more interesting !@#$ to write about!

It's Yer 2017 Tour de France Rest-Day Week-One-in-Review!

Well, with the dullest course in living memory on the books, the Tour de France's been surprisingly (if daaaaaaarn intermittently) sprightly the last few days, so as Team "You Suck!" Sky dodges the traditional rest-day press conference like a bunny fleeing a wolf-pack, what've we learned so far, fellow tifosi? This stuff!

1. Shut it Froome. I don't even know what you just said. In fact, I don't even know if you've actually been interviewed. Just shut it!

2. Now, reasonable people can differ reasonably--even on the brutish playing field of a pot of tea and crumpets in the parlor--as to the etiquette of a rider attacking the race leader when he's got a mechanical or, if you're one of Froome's GC rivals apparently, ever, under any circumstances, at all. But if Sagan deserved to get his !@# kicked outta the Tour for the sin of Cav riding up under his handlebars from behind and crashing himself out, Froome absolutely sure as hell deserves to get his !@# kicked out of the Tour for intentionally plowing Aru into the spectators with his spiky insect exoskeleton. A punk move I get--deliberate revenge is bull!@#$. Is it me, or are ASO's tender feelings too hurt from the Sagan backlash to play fair enough to punish an !@#wipe who *really* deserves it?

3. Mark Cavendish may have a long and glorious history of being a petty, whinging wanker, and I get the deep and actually rational sense of injustice of the swooning Saganator fan-base over what happened, but anyone who aims their ire--and for !@#$'s sake, even death wishes!--at Cav's wife and kids is a total despicable scumlord. Perspective, you vicious freaks!

4. Trek-Segafredo--you're lovely for buying up Contador with a nice contract, and I do believe you mean so well by him--as evidenced by, if nothing else, the fact that his own teammates aren't openly trying their damnedest to throw their own team captain to the wolves in their own self-interest. But totally aside from Contador's own legs and creeping age, to beat those soldered-together nuclear-powered robots at Sky you *have* to have an *entire* team 100% climbing-ready to escort him in the mountains. What, you need more money--I've got the $50 bucks I couldn't give away to crowdfund Euskaltel burning a hole in my pocket, anyone else in?

5. It was nice to see the remaining GC contenders stepping up to superdomestique Chris Froome for his 2017 maillot jaune today. At least you know Contador, however and whyever hampered, will try to attack when he's got the legs no matter what. Really, WTF was *that*?

6. ASO, any bike race is always dangerous, but this Tour is *carnage*. Valverde. Porte. Thomas. About a dozen other guys so far. Can you *please* try to minimize the inch-wide descents, unpadded corners, and curlicue finishing "straights" for next year, for safety's sake? Honestly, we *don't* need or want the 'spectacle' of people getting hurt and wins-by-attrition! What is this, !@#$in' "Rollerball"?

7. Oh, FDJ. Such fine and deserving talent, but *four* riders outside the time cut today! Maybe you could call Dave Brailsford and talk, y'know, nutrition or something?

8. Speaking of whom, !@#$ you Sky for screwing Mikel Landa for the Vuelta! He looks like a sullen toddler stuck in his "time-out" corner out there. Can you *please* let the guy off the leash and give him a cookie or something?

9. Andre Greipel will so either. He's just, y'know, conserving energy and nicely giving fellow countryman Kittel a few stages to shine. Is too! PS Class for setting things to rights with Sagan after the incidente!

10. Two Grand Tour career starts, two Grand Tour career stages--the Vuelta first, of course. Who *doesn't* like to say "Calmejane"?

11. White shorts. Just--no.

12. Yes, Robbie, the mechanics of on-the-fly nature breaks are fascinating. Can we *please* stop discussing them now?

12. Where the !@#$ is our TV coverage of the Giro Rosa?! *Tell* me what sponsor !@#$ you want me to buy to make this possible!

13. Oh Nairo. Even without Valverde around to bushwhack you, you should've known this was an exercise in total futility before you started. Be honest--is this why you rode the noble Giro, to give yourself an out here?

14. I've said it before, and I'll say it again (which is why it's lucky no-one reads this rag anyway): high mountain stages with downhill finishes are a *total* *!@#$in'* waste. We *know* who can descend--even if they run into trouble. What I want to know is, outside of Froome and his mo--uh, "mojo"--who the hell on a stage can climb to victory?

Well, them's my sum-up. Landa, plot your escape, Nairo, plot--well, *something*, for chrissakes, and Alberto, whatever's gone sour, we trust you'll be back to smack down your rivals and remind them who *earned* 9 Grand Tours another day!

It's Yer Tour de France in Preview, Part Deux: the GC Contenders!

Okay, I've been avoiding this, due largely to the unfortunate fact that I recoil like a salt-sprinkled slug whenever I think about the Flailing Monstrosity Who Shall Not Be Named Yet. But now that you know the route, ya can't watch the Tour de France without knowing *who* to watch. So who're the mobile miscreants on the course, and what're their chances? Here:

Chris Froome (Sky): Ugh. Not only should he be DQ'd just for having the most hideous form on a bicycle *ever*, at last count his windmilling Elbows of Death have already taken out approximately 16 teammates' eyes on training rides alone--and your mother *warned* you about not playing like that! Worse, he rides like a !@#$ing metronome, and holds the unique distinction of Rider Most Likely To Be Even More Deadly Dull Than Watching Paint Dry. Anyway, he's had squat for results this year, but who *doesn't* think he'll miraculously show up ready to rumble by Day One come July? Not to mention his perfectly matched synchronized-swim-team-on-wheels. Possible saving grace: Mikel Landa, looking to score a lucrative new contract and chafing at Sky screwing him out of leadership at the Vuelta, goes rogue and does *exactly* to Froome what Froomedawg did to Wiggins. Karma, beeyotch!

Richie Porte (BMC): Having apparently learned only at the Dauphine that Froome's gonna reward him for 1000 kms of domestique labor while Porte was already riding for BMC, by, y'know, racing for his own squad, innocent babe Porte has clearly gotten the message: he's gonna ride for his own damn GC, at least until Froome's brow appears upsettingly dewy with labor on the Col d'Izoard and a contrite Richie goes all-in for the ungrateful bastard *again*. Strength: decent team, but they ain't no Sky. Weakness: self-abnegation, and WTF BMC, no Samu' to help?

Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo): Shut up! Go to hell! Can so either! Sure, he's getting a wee bit long in the tooth, but !@#$, Valverde's got chamoises older'n Alberto and *he's* still a viable (if unbelievable) GC candidate. Plus, with 9 Grand Tour victories under his belt, and an instinctive propensity to attack, you still can't count the old boy out. Weakness: good luck with Degenstache (reasonably) wanting to ride for himself on select stages, squandering precious energy Alberto needs every calorie of against juggernaut Sky. That, and is he !@#$in' covered with magnets that the entire !@#damn peloton is drawn to run into him? I know I thought (correctly) that he was a twerp for years--but *please*, not that horrid other guy!

Nairo Quintana (Movistar): look, he's already got his excuse ready for blowing the Tour this year: even though he frankly looked like he was half-!@#ing it, he's still tired out from trying to win the Giro. Seriously, why bother with either one--does he even really *want* to win this year's Tour? 'Cause if he doesn't, I bet your 'loyal domestique' Alejandro Valverde does!

Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb): what the !@#$ are you *talking* about, he's a time trial specialist, not a !@#$ing cli--oh, he's not riding this. Oopsies! Bummer, too, Tom, because this flat boring-!@# power course could've been yours!

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar): yes, he manages one spectacular !@#$-up day almost every Grand Tour he rides. Yet, like a fine wine--well, more like a rotting bleu cheese--he gets better'n'better each year since his humbling lesson in fair play from Operacion Puerto. But don't worry Nairo--like lion on wildebeest, you're perfectly safe in the pack 'til you show any sign of weakness!

Romain Bardet(AG2R): it's so sweet that the French keep thinking they'll win their own Grand Tour again! Well, with any luck, this genuinely fine rider will at least podium, igniting an utter hometown press-corps feeding-frenzy over cycling's next great French savior til he (and any other local boy) makes a wrong move the next year and immediately incurs the soul-crushing wrath of a vengeful nation, psyching him out forever more. Relax, Romain--your countryman Nacer Bouhanni'll slug somebody and divert their attention for a day or two! Strength: he's young, talented, and hungry to live up to the hype. Weakness: no disrespect to AG2R's fine team this year, but he's still gonna need friends out there. And try to leave yerself plenty o' buffer room for the time trials!

Fabio Aru (Astana): He was unable to ride his much-wanted 100th Giro d'Italia, and he just showed his improving form by tearfully taking the Italian national road champs in memory of the late Michele. He's got passion, and he's got fresh legs--but he hasn't had a GT where he hasn't cracked yet. Good luck Aru--it can't hurt to wish for some, after all!

Well, them's yer GC, and just remember, if you're a betting person looking to make a pile of money on this year's Tour, I am always, *always* freakin' wrong. Next up: the Climbers, the Sprinters, and the Stage Hunters, and then it's on to the Grand Boucle!

It's Yer Super-Quick Pre-Tour Guide to Peloton-Speak, Part Deux! #TdF

Well, you've got the first round of pre-Tour de France smack-talk down pat, so what's that leave us with? *That's* right, a whole *new* week's worth of bloviating, bluster, and total bull!@#$ from the GC contenders for July, and more! Ergo, Yer Super-Quick Pre-Tour Guide to Peloton-Speak, Part Deux!

Chris Froome: "I'm looking forward to the showdown on the Alpe d'Huez" = "Pay no attention to that button I'm clicking on my handlebars"

Esteban Chaves: "I'm so happy to be here!" = "DIE, MOTHER!@#$ERS, DIE!"

Richie Porte: "Some teams really didn't want me to win" = "I Rode For Froome All Last Year And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt"

Alberto Contador: "The sensations are good" = "Now if only my own team doesn't !@#$ me like last year"

Mikel Landa: "The team is sending me to the Tour de France so I won't be going to the Vuelta this year" = "I'll ride for a freakin' development squad to get out of this craphole"

Nacer Bouhanni: "I'm feeling good" = "I haven't broken my hand on anyone's jaw yet"

Alejandro Valverde: "I think my form is improving well for next month" = "They'll never !@#$in' pop me again, so maybe I'll try for the green jersey this year"

Peter Sagan: "I work really hard to do well every race" = "Did you *see* me in the mountains last year? You're *all* my b*tches now!"

All the Riders: "I appreciate all the work the organizers put in to make the race safe for everyone" = "No !@#tty old barriers that stick out at the feet, don't !@#$in' plow in to us with a moto, put a !@#damn flag on the road furniture, it's not rocket science you !@#$wits!"

UCI: "As a result of the team's two doping positives immediately prior to the Giro, Bardiani is being severely punished with a six-week suspension for the whole squad" = "Take all the dope you want! Here, have a shopping bag! Wait'll you see the !@#$ we've got for the U23 kids! Hey, for 20 euro a pop we can get you a vial of clean urine you can snug up against your nuts to fool the testers with..."

And, now that we're all enlightened--listen to what these guys are *really* saying, and pay attention every danged day til the Tour!

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

Look, most of these folks--dear as they are to all of us--are either too inept, too narcissistic, or too darned clueless to help themselves for 2017. And while the philosophers say the unexamined life is not worth living, I say--if we can examine it for them--it darn well is. So listen up beloved cyclists, while we make Yer 2016 New Year's resolutions for the peloton!

1. Brad Wiggins: oh, !@#$ off. Really, who cares? We're all sick and tired of hearing about you anyway!

2. Oleg Tinkov: WELL I ALREADY !@#DAMN SAVED CYCLING, SO NOW I'M GONNA GO AND FIX...UH, FOOTBALL! NO, CURLING! NO, TABLE TENNIS...!@#DAMMIT MINION BRING ME ANOTHER BOTTLE OF VODKA!

3. Peter Sagan: seriously, do I have to resolve anything? We all know I'm winning everything I want in 2017 anyhow!

4. Tom Boonen: I will win my 5th and final Paris-Roubaix. So suck it, Fabian!

5. Race Moto Drivers: we're gonna remember to put our contact lenses in this year. And take a coupla driving lessons. And try not to confuse the cyclists with freakin' bowling pins. And...

6. Chris Froome: I swear, when the narcs come knocking, I will be exactly as loyal to my former captain Brad Wiggins as I was during the 2012 Tour de France. Sucker!

7. Roman Kreuziger: well, I'm on a new team now...wait, who's the team captain I'm supposed to screw again?

8. Alberto Contador: Up. I will stay *up*, no matter what train-wreck idiot tries to take me down. Right, and I'm coming for you at the Tour, Chris you joyless android!

9. Greg Van Avermaet: I resolve that the next jack!@# that calls me an "almost-man" is gonna get it right in the kisser. I AM THE OLYMPIC CHAMPION FER CHRISSAKES!

10. Nacer Bouhanni: I will not pick stupid fights with random drunks break my hand punching 'em out and ruin my entire team's Grand Tour season. I will hold back, and punch out Mark Cavendish during a sprint finish instead.

11. Alejandro Valverde: I will meticulously follow the orders of my DS and unequivocally support my captain Nairo Quintana as his loyal-est domestique. From the top spot of the podium, that is! Oh, I'm sorry, was that my earpiece that I accidentally tossed back to be crunched under the front wheel of the team car?

12. Marianne Vos: You won't *make* me a three-week Tour de France? I'll damn well *ride* the three-week Tour de France--what, you gonna stop me?

13. Fabio Aru: I will...no, I probably *will* have one spectacularly crappy race-wrecking day at my Grand Tour target again. Yeah, you've got competition now, Valverde!

14. Dave Brailsford: uh, Dave? Dave? Pick up the phone! Where are you, man? Anybody seen him? Wait, what's this about a plane ticket to the unmapped Amazon jungle?

Well folks, them's mine, if I missed any, have at--and riders, listen up, we're trying to *save* you here!

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2016 Racejunkie Awards!

Put away those ballgowns and tuxes, bag the stilettos, skip the hours of hair 'n' makeup, and break out the spandex, bike helmets, and clipless-pedeal cleat covers--this ain't no fussy film-star red carpet, fans 'n' riders, it's the incredibly prestigious (and morally dubious) 2016 Racejunkie Awards! Prizes--your obscure place in internet cycling-fan history, eternal shame (or glory), and, for those confused or desperate enough to get their actual physical prizes, something--I swear--approximating a golden trophy, and a stylin' custom-embroidered--I swear--racejunkie cycling cap! So turn off those stupid Oscars, and get ready to scream at your TV--it's on to the 2016 Incredibly Prestigious racejunkie Awards!

Like That Killer Rabbit in That Monty Python Movie Award: oh, just *look* at the cute little fuzzy chipmunk-cheeked smiley wee th--AIGGHHH! AIGGGHHH! IT'S RIPPED MY THROAT OUT! IT'S JABBED OUT MY EYEBALLS! WHERE DID MY LEFT ARM JUST GO? Esteban Chaves, this one's for you. Fool you once, shame on him. Fool you twice--well, don't say I didn't warn you, you eejit!

I *Cannot* *!@#$ing* *Believe* It *Again* Slam-Your-Head-Into-a-Concrete-Pole-in-Frustration Prize: is there some new, sick-!@#$ game I haven't heard about this year, like "Betcha an Espresso I Can Knock Alberto Contador Off His Bike and Lose Him a Grand Tour" or some twisted crap? *How* is it possible that such a tranquillo bike handler with such a good sense of tactics can be so inevitably placed within a millimeter's proximity of the dimwittedest most uncoordinated nimrods on the pro cycling planet? You have my truest sympathy if you fall and hurt yourself, Anonymous Inattentive Peloton Jerkface--but you're maybe a little *less* sympathetic when you take prize-winner (who I'm sure would rather have a big TdF trophy instead) Alberto Contador down with you!

Punk-!@# Move of the Year: yeah, you heard me--while Alejandro Valverde typically grabs this one by a landslide, Chris Froome's flailing-ditzbag faux-panic babyfaced-naif Usain-Bolt overall-victory-nailing foot-sprint up Mont Ventoux in the please-don't-patronize-us-you-!@#hole 'confusing' wake of an ill-timed mechanical and even more unfortunate team-car delay--which totally coincidentally resulted in him *gaining* crucial time and space he would *never* have gotten otherwise over his exhausted bike-pedal-welded podium rivals--takes the Tour de France, *and* the cake. Like you'd normally even *notice* you were having a mechanical if it weren't happening to the power meter you've got glued to your eyeballs, you tick-tocking power-drone? Now climb those !@#damn stairs to the stage to pick up your stupid !@#ty trophy, before I lose my temper and smack you upside the helmet with it!

Implausible Deniability Award: It's "marginal gains." No, it's "functional dehydration." No, it's *bull!@#$*, you shameless asshats. They're amped up like a playground full of just-napped toddlers force-fed a lifetime diet of Red Bull and sugar cane, and that's *after* they've crossed the finish line after 6 hours of riding uphill. !@#$ you, Sky, in ten years you clowns'll bite it in a scandal of Operacion Puerto--hell, Lance Armstrong--ian proportions. Til then, we wait and sneer. Oh, except all your ex-Euskaltel riders are innocent victims of your inestimable toolishness. !@#$ you, Sky!

Bad-!@# of the Year: like the nearly indestructible Stuey O'Grady before her, Annemiek Van Vlueten can get hit by a train, run over by a bus, corralled by sheepdogs, stampeded by lion-spooked hippopotami, and kicked out of a plane at 30,000 feet without a parachute--oh, and endure a truly horrific crash at the Olympic road race--only to bounce right back up and start killing it at races while barely skipping a beat, which beats promptly got the hell outta her way the second they realized she was coming up behind them anyway. Bow, bow before the iron will--and body!--of Annemiek!

What, Are You *Trying* to Kill Them You Dipwad? Award: now, I may not be an esteemed road engineer, nor highly respected and often-utilized bike race planner, but one thing I *do* know in my pathetic liberal-arts doofusness is that, well, YOU DON'T FREAKIN' LEAVE A METAL POLE IN THE EXACT MIDDLE OF A RACECOURSE when the poor unsuspecting peloton is unerringly going to smash right into it at 60 kilometers an hour. Thank you, 2017 UCI races, you can pay me later for my sage advice--but you can !@#damn remove those stupid bone-snapping obstacles *now*!

Best Post-Cycling-Career Career Move: he was reviled for testing poz after his miracle run at the Tour de France, then duped some very nice people into donating into his "Floyd Fairness Fund", then reviled even worse for breaking omerta' and ratting out his former buds, and *now*, after years of public scorn, has earned back the love of the cycling--hell, entire--world by coming back with his blazing entry into the legal weed business. Floyd Landis, come on up--no, seriously, put down those damn nachos and come on up to claim your prize!

Worst Post-Cycling-Career Career Move: oh, 2002 Vuelta star Aitor Gonzalez, how it *pains* me to do this. And generally, I'm in no position to give career advice. But if you're gonna hit the netherworld up for a job after your cycling career is over, robbing a cell-phone store (allegedly!) in Alicante like a common schnook is *not* the way to go. For heck's sake, man, you're a *pro cyclist*--you've at *least* got the connections the know-how and the ready-made market to be a dope courier!

Total !@#$ Team Dissolution Prize: IAM Cycling. Short, but so *very* sweet while it lasted. Oh, how we'll miss you!

Retirements of the Year (Aw, We'll Miss 'Em): Fabian, you're a legend. Mara, *just* when I was about to put you into the racejunkie Merry Festivus Gift List for the Peloton with yet another Giro Rosa, I realize you'd already announced your plan to hang up (for pro racing purposes, anyway) your wheels. Dag nabit, come up and get your trophies, while I'm still inclined to hand 'em over!

Retirement of the Year (It's About Time Already): oh, thank !@#$ Bradley Wiggins has decided it's time to rest on his impressive (if now slightly tained) laurels and--*what*?! This !@#$ing !@#$er is still leaving the door open for unretiring again?! Jaysus H. Christ, pack it in already, pal--or are you waiting to milk a few *more* euros out of yet *another* autobio over your latest track feats with Cav?

Retirement of the Year (!@#$ You Teams For Not Hiring Him Yet!): look, unless and until he makes an official statement--and if common sense, justice, and pre-November 2016 American values prevail--dear ex-Carrot, breakaway artist, and climber supremo Amets Txurruka is still in the game. And we all remember the nailbiter of a film-noir suspense-fest when we also love Samuel Sanchez *finally* announced his renewed deal with BMC a year or two back--after the baby season had already started. But *!@#dammit*, you ignoramus short-sighted amoral freaks, *where* the hell is Amets' new contract ffs?!

Golden Memorial !@#-Kissing Award: Hey, I--um, you--just won that race! Here, let me heft up that trophy! Move your !@# over so we both fit on the podium! Look, I'm photo-bombing you while you're trying to pose for the ceremonial post-victory handshake with a true legend of the sport! Ooh, I've tattooed my whole body in World Champion stripes so I can match your jersey and piggy-back right on you the next race you have! Oleg Tinkov, you self-serving, publicity-whoring, Contador-screwing victory-slut, this one-fingered salute of a trophy is for you--and no, Peter Sagan can't be in the picture this time!

Domestique of 2016: It's over for your team captain, and at the best Grand Tour of the year. Oh, *boy*, is it over. And you, comfortably ensconced in the breakaway and with no-one needing to bother to chase *any* of you down for GC, have a serious chance at perhaps a last-ever Giro d'Italia stage victory--and you're Italian. So what do you do? *That's* right, you disloyal punks (I'm talking to you, Tinkoff riders!), if you're Michele freakin' Scarponi, you pull over to the side of the road and chill (literally, in a snowbank) for a good half-hour, downing water bottles energy snacks and barely dodging frostbite to boot, til your captain finally schleps up to you and you bash the crap outta the rest of the contenders til they're mere whimpering jelly beneath your wheel, and you *win* that guy the Giro. Michele, I concede I've had my issues--but damn, did you earn your keep!

And Finally, Yer Corollary Comeback Ride of 2016: look, you can say a lot of things about Vincenzo Nibali, and I'm frankly too much of a lady to say them here. But in the absence of any mechanical-or-PED-assistance scandal to the contrary, you gotta admit, his Stage 20 bounce-back to take the overall win at the Giro d'Italia after his excruciating humiliation on Stage 16 was genuinely a marvel to see. But I'm still rooting for Mikel Landa to take it in 2017 Vincenzo!

Ok folks, claim yer prizes, crack some Champagne--and for most of you, just *pray* you don't end up on this ignominious list next year!

It's Yer 2016 Racejunkie Merry Festivus Gift List for the Peloton!

Yes, no matter what we celebrate this time of year--or with what delightful, appalling debauchery we celebrate it--we've all got one thing in common: we love our dear peloton and its saintly (or dastardly) denizens. And what better way to show how much we love them than to give them the wonderful gifts they so rightly deserve? Ergo, cyclists and cycling fans, here's Yer Annual Racejunkie Merry Festivus Gift List for the Peloton!

Alberto Contador: what else? The 2017 Tour de France, baby! You can come back and re-win the beautiful Vuelta the *next* year instead!

Chris Froome: a warm, hearty, sincere congratulations from Alberto Contador on yer second place in the Tour de France. It feels almost as good as 1st place, amirite?

Tom Boonen: what else? A record 5th Paris-Roubaix, baby! Crappy, season-hosing crashes, bad luck, and sudden nerves, begone--YOU ARE TORNADO TOM, !@#DAMMIT, YOU HAVE GOT THIS IN THE BAG!

Mikel Landa: okay, I *know* I am supposed to root for an Italian, like Vincenzo Nibali or Astana starlet Fabio Aru, to win the 100th Giro d'Italia. But I guess I better get ready for my eternal trip to hell, because you, Mikel, are not only a noble ex-Euskaltel-Euskadi rider, but also doomed to play second fiddle to that snotty little !@#wipe Froome for the rest of your career if you stay with your current !@#$ty squad. Win the Giro, Mikel, and you can name yer price--and yer team--for 2018!

Pierre Rolland: yeah, that's right, he just called out the sainted Tour de France for being boring! And he's *French*! A gold-plated--no, solid-gold--superfast, supersexy blinged-out super-powered Lamborghini for that boy!

Nacer Bouhanni: some common sense. And some boxing gloves, to protect your delicate cyclist hands in case you randomly decide to ruin your whole team's Grand Tour again in some stupid beef with an obnoxious hotel guest. Seriously, you're an actual pugilist--you don't already *own* these things?

Annemiek Van Vlueten: well, you're already clearly a bounce-backing bad-@!# after your terrifying spine-fracturing crash at the Olympics and incredibly speedy recovery--and not only race *return*, but immediate *win*--at Lotto Belgium Tour, so I suppose there's not much I can get you that you won't perfectly be able to get for yourself--but damn, I'm wishing you the World Championship anyway!

Mark Cavendish: you actually had a pretty decent year, but still and all, you're not *quite* back to your usual whinging, smack-talking, sprint-obliterating self. I gift you your mojo--because *you* oughta be able to win without head-butting, Cav!

Women's Cycling: !@#$ this one-day 'La Course' dabbling--a real, three-week race-o'-destiny, just like the boys get. And some !@#damn decent paychecks while we're at it!

UCI: a fence. A giant, 50-foot-high, concrete, steel-reinforced, glass-shards-and-barbed-wire-covered fence that goes all around Europe. Now keep that tyrant asshat Oleg Tinkov away from our sport!

Team Sky: a year's gift subscription to Federal Express. Seriously, numbnuts, a *team courier*? Why not just hire a !@#$ing marching band with a majorette in spangles and a big !@#$ing banner screaming "I'm carrying a big bag of dope here!" for cripes' sakes?!

Dave Brailsford: speaking of which, a linear, credible excuse for Brad Wiggins' "mystery package," which, after months of sordid speculation (mine included), you grudgingly claimed to be a pile of, yes, ordinary, harmless *decongestant*, which is apparently (1) easily available over the counter without hauling it a thousand miles through Europe and (2) actually violently contraindicated for the bull!@#$ asthma diagnosis you *did* scam a TUE for Brad for. Brilliant!

Brad Wiggins: a peaceful, happy, *permanent* retirement. RETIREMENT already, you hear me? FFS!

Roman Kreuziger: You screwed--and dissed!--your own team leader Alberto Contador, and relentlessly butt-kissed your repulsive wingnut publicity-ho team boss Oleg Tinkov. Wishing you *karma*, jack!@#!

Amets Txurruka: Santa, I have literally been tweet-storming you Christmas carol lyrics for this talented boy--and most importantly, ex-Carrot--every single day for the last month. CAN WE PLEASE GET AMETS A CONTRACT ALREADY?

The lot of you: may your favorite rider ever win, your favorite Classic ever cobble, your Belgian beer be ever cold, beautiful Giro never end, your Tour de France--aw, who the hell cares--and your fabulous Vuelta go ever upwards. Now break out the nog--or glogg--and let's toast a Very Merry Whatever You Celebrate to fans and riders, one and all!

It's Yer 2016 Pro Cycling Year in Review!

Yes, it's December, that special time when we reflect on the events of the year almost past with a mix of joy, gratitude, revulsion, horror, and profound self-recrimination. And in our beloved sport of cycling, with its soaring (and plummeting) extremes of the divine and the disgusting, such reflection takes on particular significance as we consider that HOLY CRAP THERE'S STILL TWO MORE WEEKS FOR SOME GROTESQUE SCANDAL TO ERUPT! So in case you missed it--or have merely already blocked it out--here's yer 2016 racejunkie 2016 Pro Cycling Year in Review!

January: Team kits come out! AG2R relegated to Conti level for having "the butt-ugliest team kit the peloton has ever produced"; Tinkoff in hi-viz yellow so Oleg can find, leap into presence of Peter Sagan at all times; Pozzato personally designs dashing Southeast-Wilier kit, decides to ride naked all season anyway because "hell, I'm even prettier than it is!"

February: The road season begins! Ion Izaguirre accused of motor-doping because no-one has the guts to call out Cancellara; numbnut Katusha twerp endangers license, dear Purito's season by being 968th straight team stagiare to test positive for dope; Van Avermonster pips the Saganator at the line at Omloop as teams decide to quit race, have tea party at local hotel instead. Workin' hard for the money, boys!

March: Yay, it's Classics season! Matteo Tosatto, Eros Capecchi accuse Arnaud Demare of stealing Milano-Sanremo victory by team-car tow, pissed their own attempts didn't work; Nibali incensed as "extreme weather protocol" bags Tirreno-Adriatico stage, threatens to lose Tour de France, *again*; UCI solves bike doping controversy once and for all by busting, banning 'cross novice Femke Van den Driessche because no-one has the guts to call out Cancellara. Thank god this cesspool's all cleaned up!

April: It's Tommeke's Bid for a 5th Roubaix! Matthew Hayman wins Hell of the North in stunning upset, Bernard Hinault congratulates by shaking hand, asking "who the !@#$ are you?"; Fran Ventoso makes unsuccessful case for disc brakes in peloton when disc flies off mid-race, slices off top of legendary Mont Ventoux; Philippe Gilbert smashes too-close motorist in face with giant spiked medieval mace--uh, maces too-close motorist. Don't !@#$ with the Phil-Gil!

May: Il Grande Giro, baby! Pissed-off organizers nearly cancel entire show when realize only 3 Belgian neopros registered, everyone else is riding the stupid Tour; FDJ's Alexandre Geniez viciously assaults AG2R's Hubert Dupont at the line by wagging finger, pulling jersey collar, Dupont hospitalized for 3 weeks; remorseful Vincenzo Nibali gives overall race win to Esteban Chaves, who actually lost Giro on penultimate stage, "because he just looked so *cute* when he was crying." Awwwwwwwwww!

June: Pre-Tour de France prep time! Movistar, Astana, to unidentified "black sites" for top secret do--uh, top-shelf "nutritional counseling"; Sky hires master robotics expert, entire tenured faculty of MIT to "help us with some wiring in the team car that's on the fritz"; Contador to Oleg Tinkov's house for three weeks of wholly unwarranted verbal abuse and morale-crushing death-spiral. Thank you Oleg, that's *gotta* help!

July: It's the Sprint Heard Round the World! Bouhanni accidentally punches Bernard Hinault in face in hotel altercation instead of hapless drunken guest, requires 2,643 stitches when Hinault punches back; Contador crashes 18 times in first 2 stages, persists for two weeks despite looking like one of those creepy skinless plasticized cadavers frozen in weird poses in museum exhibitions; Oleg Tinkov extends support, sympathy by hiring small aircraft to skywrite "ALBERTO CONTADOR IS A TOTAL !@#$ING LOSER" above peloton during Stage 13; Froome realizes his riding style is !@#$iest, most inefficient on planet, ditches bike to run up Ventoux and seal overall win in Paris. God, *when* will this !@#$show be *over*?

August: Woot woot, it's the beautiful Vuelta at last! Contador's Tour redemption bid already wrecked on Stage 1 when Oleg hires actual turtles from local pet store as Alberto's Vuelta domestiques; Valverde "helps" Quintana by setting hotel-room alarm to blare Nairo awake every single night at 5-minute intervals; race organizers take out poor Steven Kruijswijk by unexpectedly parking 5000-ton decommissioned Soviet army tank in middle of race course. Shoulda put an orange cone in front of that one!

September: The Vuelta continues! Froome announces switch of focus from climbs to sprints from now on, Kittel, Cav, Greipel give up, quit cycling "effective immediately"; Contador taken out by some random dimwit, entire season ruined, *again*; "Fancy Bear" TUE scandal shows that Froome's bodily fluids entirely replaced by pure liquid amphetamines. 'Marginal gains' my !@#!

October: It's the Worlds, Baby! Extreme heat in Doha mummifies entire peloton into those invisible "sea monkey" things you can order out of back of comic books and reconstitute with water; 100th Giro d'Italia route announced, Froome declares interest in ra--ha ha, just kidding, of course I'm riding the Tour!; Team Sky "mystery package" determined to be "just a !@#$in' bunch of vials and !@#$, nothing to worry about!"

November: Transfer season! Contador formally announces expected transfer to "Please God, Anywhere Else"; Kreuzinger to "Hey, I Can !@#$ Over My Team Leader at *Any* Squad"; Marianne Vos to "We'll Pay You Anything! *Anything*! Here, Take This Ferrari! No, This Lamborghini! No..."

December: UCI announces no doping pozes at any Grand Tour ever, Armstrong smashes picture frames, grabs his 7 yellow jerseys off the wall of his man cave, runs up and down in front of Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis yelling "THEY'RE STILL ALL MINE, BITCHES!"; 2017 team kits revealed, goths raid cycling shops worldwide to snatch entire supply of all-black cycling garb; where the hell is Amets Txurruka's contract, dammit?

Well folks, that was the year that was--and hopefully, that *never* will be again. Next up: Yer 2016 Merry Festivus Gift List for the Peloton!

It's Yer 2016 Racejunkie 10 Cycling Things I'm Thankful For This Year (And a Few I Ain't)

Yes, Thanksgiving in America is upon us, that heartwarming time of year when long-lost relatives from far and wide gather to spout their offensive political views, try to refrain from stabbing each other with forks, reach harmony over universal condemnation of the gravy, soothe still-wounded spirits in a slap-fight over the last piece of chocolate-cream pie, then retire to watch the football game where some lazy oaf falls asleep and completely hogs the sofa before everyone else shifts uncomfortably for three hours on ottomans and folding chairs, only to sob on the way out the door how the family oughta get together more often--uh, to enjoy a perfect Norman Rockwell holiday where the turkey is moist, the mashed potatoes are slathered with butter, and not a spot ever falls on Grandma's crisply ruffled apron. And for we cycling fans, what better opportunity to ruminate on our beloved sport and consider the Ten Cycling Things I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving (And a Few I Ain't)? Ergo:

1. Alberto Contador is free. Whatever happens at the Tour, this boy's finally got his wings back at a team that'll really appreciate him!

2. The 100th Giro d'Italia. Truly, have more beautiful words *ever* been uttered? A toast to il grande Giro!

3. The Vuelta a Espana. Look, forget that gaudy showdown in July. Here's where the real GT hardmen have at it!

4. Nacer Bouhanni. Who *else* has single-handedly decided the prestigious Tour de France green jersey by TKO of a rowdy hotel guest the night before the Grand Depart? That is *class*, baby!

5. Didja see Tom Boonen is coming back to try for his 5th fabulous Paris-Roubaix? Didja didja didja? Allez Tommekeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

6. 2016 UCI Road Race Champ Denmark's Amelie Dideriksen. C'mon, did you even *remotely* see that coming? You did not either!

7. Esteban Chaves. Like you don't either, you cynics, I see you melting--*and* he can kick your !@#!

8. Alexander Vinokourov. Oh, go to hell, with that revolting oligarch outta the game next year we gotta have *some* guilty-pleasure arch-villain to root for!

9. UCI Doping Controls. Just kidding! Unless you're a Masters rider, or a kid racing yer tricycle around the schoolyard still hopped up on leftover Halloween candy, in which case you're guaranteed to (1) get popped and (2) earn a lifetime ban, they're useless. Dope on, kids--throw in a few hookers, and in 10 years you can have a lucrative new autobio on the bestseller list, too!

10. My dear Tweeps. So much raging bias and unsubstantiated gossip, *so* little time for me to spend on stupid "work." At least that's what I hope my boss don't find out!

And a Few I'm Not:

1. Team Sky. Official Motto: Screwing Ex-Euskaltel Riders Since 2010. Just go *away* already!

2. Speaking of whom, Brad Wiggins. Just *retire* already ffs, while your legacy's still halfway intact!

3. Where the hell is we love ex-Carrot Amets' Txurruka's new World Tour contract? Team camps are starting, give the boy a day to pack his gear whydontcha?

Well, them's mine, and if I missed anything, have at. In the meantime, enjoy yer dinner, and back away from that last slice of pie, pal!

It's Yer Smack-Talk, Scandal, 'n' Road-Race Roundup!

Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye: look, there's no doubt Oleg Tinkov's brought a lotta, well, liveliness and publicity to the staid ol' sport o' pro cycling. But in the last coupla years, bravado and showmanship has deteriorated into vengeful malevolence and, let's face it, just bat!@#$ *crazy*. So it's with great delight that, after two years of Oleg publicly slagging dispirited Grand Tour superstar Alberto Contador as a lazy, talentless, over-the-hill never-was, I report that Alberto finally broke his diplomatic silence and came down like a bolt o' lightning on Oleg's sorry pissy head for his last race for House Tinkoff in Abu Dhabi: yes, the new Trek-Segafredo signing posed with his jersey zipper witheringly undone and the logo ergo squashed to the side for his official team photo. From Contador, that's like pinning Oleg down and scrawling "I'M A GIANT !@#HOLE" on his forehead with permanent marker and tattooing "KICK MY !@#" on his back in humongous Pippo-sized ornate script. Take *that*, you crass oligarch !@#$er!

Millenium: okay, it's actually "just" the 100th edition of the beautiful Giro d'Italia, but I'm sure *hoping* it'll last at least another 900 years, and the organizers of what looks to be quite a mountainous, smashing centenary edition can--after prematurely kidnapping Froome, Contador, Dumoulin, Nibali, Aru, Purito and Chaves and smuggling them to an undisclosed location in the race organizers' basement--breathe a sigh of relief that they won't *quite* be monstrously treated as a second-class race to the crappy Tour this year of years: yes, wee Nairo Quintana claims *he's* now interested in the Giro-Tour double that even Alberto failed to accomplish, which either means (1) he's aiming for the Giro-Tour double or (2) he doesn't think he can win the Tour de France against Sky's stoked-up android Discovery army, and wants at least to be able to claim--without an asshat team boss like Oleg disparaging the measly accomplishment--that he bagged a truly history-making Giro. Whatever the hell gets you there, Nairo--but am I the *only* one in a spitting rage because the Giro deserves so much better?

To Catch a Thief: meantime, in a grim glimpse o' the future for even stellar pro cyclists, 2002 Vuelta a Espana champ Aitor Gonzalez was arrested for robbing a cell-phone store, making, well, probably dozens of cycling fans to shake their heads in sorrow at what becomes of a former sporting hero after the pedals are unclipped the podium babes step off and the cameras go home. Helpful career advice: you'll make a *lot* more money, and suffer a boatload less consequences, if you forget the mask-on-your-face-and-finger-pointed-in-yer-pocket-like-a-fake-weapon trick and become a monumentally stupid no-questions-asked mystery-package courier for a giant untouchable World Tour team. Thank you Aitor, no charge, always glad to help a roadie in need!

Moto-!@#$er!: and, what would UCI's vaunted campaign to run over--uh, protect--as many cyclists as possible be without one last bit o' carnage to screw a great athlete's off-season? Yep, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio busted her hip just in time to jack her winter training when some careening twit didn't notice a 5-foot-tall-plus woman in bright spandex riding a, y'know, entirely unexpected *bicycle* in a *bike race* the eejit was *working in.* Get well soon Ashleigh--and get a !@#damn drivers' license that's worth something, you incompetent !@#clown!

When Pigs Fly: finally, it's nice to see that British trackie Jess Varnish, who got completely unjustifiably slammed as a disgruntled !@#$ cyclist after accurately raising that British Cycling technical director/total doping apologist Shane Sutton is a low-rent misogynist pig, was finally vindicated this week after an internal review confirmed that, yes, Shane is a few grunts short of being qualified to wallow in a barnyard manure pile. What was that you told her to do Shane? Oh right, now that you're too old to ride, head off into retirement and start having babies--or maybe for their theoretical sake, better not, jerk!

Hot Times at the Worlds! Punk-!#$ Parting Shots! Tour-Induced Hallucinations! #ilovecycling

Death Valley Blues: yep, in what already promised to be a 270k snoreworthy World Championship bore-fest (with the possible exception of (1) stupidity regarding (2) crosswinds), another entirely unforeseeable crisis has reared its ugly flaming head: the desert is, apparently, *jot*, and UCI may have to shorten the course to a mere 106k so delicate riders don't start dropping dead mid-race from heat exhaustion. In other news, when riders' noses start to shrivel and fall off from frostbite during late-winter jaunts in Antarctica, it *may* be time to pull out the ol' armwarmers. Handy rule: when a freakin' scorpion can't handle the heat without wearing protective little booties on whatever creepy appendages pass for their feet, neither can, say, giant German fastmen. Glad that 8th-grade section in your science class on "weather" really stuck in yer heads, dimwits!

Pink, It Was Loathe at First Sight: in other news, vengeful oligarch/Russian Trump Tinkoff team boss Oleg Tinkov ends his gold-plated stewardship by both (1) trash talking !@#$ rider/9-time Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador as not only a weenie the entire team hated but also for not winning him the Tour de France, thereby depriving Oleg of the crucial opportunity to dye his entire body maillot-jaune gold and mug for the cameras like a meth-fueled evil clown, and (2) threaten to come back to sport that he despises someday, *if* Sagan'll still let him cling onto his coattails like a desperate bloodthirsty disease-bearing tick. Can't wait, Oleg--but I'm sure Alberto Contador can!

'Scuse Me/While I Kick the Sky: over on Planet Crap Transfers, just as we were all *so* enjoying wee we love Chaves re-signing for a jillion-year contract with Orica, Diego Rosa--helpfully throttled by Astana in its pointless bid to back Fabio Aru for Lombardia, then ruthlessly publicly shredded by wankmaster team manager for blowing his own certain win--has been sucked into a presumably loaded but inevitably self-destructive contract with Team Sky, ruining yet another fine rider with a great future ahead of him, at least til they've drained him into a sorry shadow of his great-potential self and left him littered like a spit-slobbered gel packet on the side of the road after they've used him up for the perpetually annoying and ergonomically horrifying Chris Froome. Just cash the checks and hold on, Diego--I'm *sure* a far worthier team is coming for you!

Feed Your Head (Especially If You've Got an Upper Respiratory Problem): finally, the endless bogus-TUE revelations of the last two weeks--which have taken riders who, by their alleged medical records, were knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door and instantly healed 'em right onto the top of every Tour de France podium the last half-decade--have come to their inevitable, cycling-rattling conclusion, this time by way of Tour king Christian Prudhomme: yep, "no-one" is coming from "nowhere" anymore like they used to, so cycling's troubled past is clearly behind us and we can all look up at the final show in Paris with the starry-eyed innocence of tots too young to spot the fake beard on the department-store "Santa Claus." That's right, Christian, Froome *did* come from somewhere: the !@#-end of a stagnant career path to Firedsville, before he unaccountably morphed into a mantis-thin record-smashing "Conan the Barbarian"-era Arnold Schwarzenegger. Whew, I'm *glad* I can believe in cycling again, aren't you?

It's Yer What the Hell There's Still Racing and Stuff After the Vuelta? Update!

Yes, as we slowly wake up from our post-Vuelta stupor, and the world's best athletes continue to recover from their garbage-bag TUE hangovers, the world of cycling charges ahead, so what're you missing? Buckets!

Sprint Train Sounding Louder/Everyone Jump Upon the Sprint Train: this week, the Classics boys, so long dormant, come out to play again, this time at the beloved Eneco Tour, where Can'tTellTheTwoLottosApart's Dylan Groenewegen snagged the first sprint stage in a chaotic--read "universally choked"--lead-out, and Nacer Bouhanni, who came in second ahead of new Eurochamp stars-man Peter Sagan, celebrated his podium spot by gratuitously punching two random members of the public and the guy who hands the winner the hot-off-the-presses leader's jersey. We're proud of you too, Nacer--you're behaving less Cavishly every day!

To Gasp, Perchance to GC: and, in "seriously,-we're-not-doping news", the controversy continues over the commie-conspiracy "Fancy Bear" athlete Therapeutic Use Exemption leak, which revealed an astonishing 74 separate TUEs for Chris Froome alone at this year's Tour de France, including totally coincidentally performance-enhancing meds for such common pro-cyclist maladies as asthma, high cholesterol, influenza, the common cold, arthritis, gout, heartworm, rabies, saddlesores, toenail fungus, and a particularly nasty case of dandruff. Geez, you really *can't* win a Grand Tour nowadays unless you're damn near dead! Over on Planet Bull!@#$, immortal Tour de France champ/unendingly self-promoting autobiographer Brad Wiggins justified getting over the Great Britain peloton's "total taboo" against using needles in order to receive a deep-tissue drug injection by saying, "I was on so much other !@#$, they coulda jabbed me with that thing they used to eviscerate Mel Gibson in "Braveheart" and I wouldn't'a felt it." Thanks for the clarification, Brad!

Move It or Lose It: finally, the smokin' hot end-of-season transfer market speeds on, as Alberto Contador explained his long-anticipated shift to Trek (bringing along like the only 2 teammates who didn't stab 'im in the back this season) by opining that, while the collapse of his team surely played some role in his wing-spreading, "there's only so many times even a diplomatic guy like me can say he's "grateful" to be Oleg Tinkov's b!@#$." In other team news, new-but-bangin' squad Dimension Data was briefly in danger of losing its coveted World Tour license for lack of points, at least until Mark Cavendish met privately with UCI prez Brian Cookson for tea, reportedly smashing a crumpet into dust with his bare fist and telling Cookson over the clotted cream that "this'll be your !@#$ing face, you !@#$ing !@#%!", after which Cookson announced "an accounting error" at an afternoon press conference and granted DiData its license back after all. Welcome back Dimension Data--and smooth save there Mark!

Well, until Tom Boonen takes an Eneco stage (shut up! will too! go to hell!), that oughta hold us, at least til some other dimwit breaks with the proud history of team d--nutritional guidance by getting popped for some sketchy "internet supplement" and ruins the fun for the rest of the riders. Allez Toooooooooooooooooooooom!