Rio Whaaaaat? It's Yer Vuelta a Espana in Preview, Part Tres: the 'Nother Guys, and Roundup Stuff! #LV2016

We've got the course down. We've got the GC. What *don't* we have? Damn right, everybody *else* who's going hell-bent for leather for sunburnt glory, and all the last minute news, unfounded gossip, and prurient speculation you need (well, probably don't need) to know! Ergo:

The Missing: Who's *not* here? Tragically, not Froome, but even more tragically, these guys: Sky's Mikel Landa with a "hip injury", which can only mean one of two things: (1) he's got a hip injury, or (2) those !@#$ers at Sky have corrupted 'im. It better be option (1), Brailsford you goon! Also out: defending 2015 campeon Fabio Aru, and last year's bizarro-world revelation Tom Dumoulin, who, frankly, has no business in Vuelta terrain anyway, except maybe lounging in a folding chair by the roadside with a crisp glass of rose' and a nice luncheon with the other fans cheering the *riders* on. Worst of all, Purito--WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The Sprinters: all right, you hard-core Vuelta freaks, quit laughin'! Yes, despite the wholesale bail-out of those sprinters with better sense, there *are* a few at this race, at least until Cavondonga sends them whimpering home like a kid who just got a bagful o' broccoli and Brussels sprouts for trick-or-treat on Halloween. Tyler Farrar (Dimension Data), who, late word has it, has even more epic hair this year than Marcel Kittel. (bite me! we still love him!). Reigning Spanish road race champ JJ Rojas (Movistar). Master o' Suavity Benna-Jet (Tinkoff). Uh...other guys! Oh, poor dears, at least they've thrown a *few* stages in there for you...just pretend all those mountains are--nope, I got nuthin', it's all an uphill death march and you're gonna be feelin' it!

The Stage Hunters: look, unless Froome's teammates chew their shoes off the pedals to free themselves from the trap they're in, they ain't getting let out for a stage win unless and until Froome *says* they can. And frankly, he won't. Sorry boys--it's "Vive la Revolucion" and you overthrow your captain, or you're hosed! Guys who actually have a chance: for the breaks and roleurs, Philippe Gilbert (BMC). LL Cool Sanchez (Astana). Michal Kwiatkowski, Peter Kennaugh--oops, they're Sky, they're doomed! Tejay Van Garderen (BMC), who's usually pegged for GC but is begging off in favor of Samuel Sanchez and hoping for a breakaway stage win instead (can you imagine, say, Cav and his huge ego doing that for someone else)? Andrew Talansky, and yes, I know you all want him for the overall. And did I mention I just plain like Rein Taaramae whether you seriously think he's gonna bag a win or not? For the truly climbiest, besides the GC contenders we covered already: Darwin Atapuma (BMC). Damn, they've got a bangin' squad this year! Pierre Rolland (Cannondale). We love ex-Euskaltel's Igor Anton (Dimension Data). Markel Irizar from Trek, an ex-Carrot--natch!(and we still love you Haimar Zubeldia!) Everyone at Caja Rural. And of course, the canny s.o.b. Michele Scarponi (Astana) who, having buried himself (and parked his bony !@# on the side of the road for 15 hours to help his leader) for his team at the last Grand Tour, and with no other road captain at the Vuelta to speak of, will surely have more than a few rocket-fueled cracks at the summit. Last but not least: by this year's results, whatever 6-foot-8 hulking Dutch weightlifter they stick in at the last minute to absolutely obliterate 2017 Paris-Roubaix champ Nairo Quintana. How do you say "Red Jersey" in Dutch again?

The Forecast: yeah, it's boring and I'm a ween. But it *matters*, first off because the poor Belgians're gonna spontaneously combust once they hit the unfiltered sun and heat of the Basque mountains, and second, 'cause it can determine the race. Sadly, the forecast for tomorrow's team time trial is lovely, meaning it's too late to back out of it now, suckers!

Roundup Stuff!: finally, as the cycling portion of the Rio Olympics winds down, let's take a moment to celebrate Peter Sagan's if not win, at least highly entertaining continuous-wheelie ride in the mountain bike competition, as well as his shiny new medals in the kierin, team pursuit, omnium, BMX, and the men's and women's road race even though he wasn't actually riding 'em. Nice work there Saganator! Meantime, Mark Cavendish profusely apologized for "not whacking into that bloody wanker hard en--uh, that accident!" And, for those of you just itchin' for early news of the Worlds, please be advised that giant and deceptively friendly German Andre Greipel has already informed his nation that's he not !@#damn going there to share team captaincy, which, I presume, is German for "wash my shorts and carry my chamois cream, Kittel you wuss!" Ah, our beloved cycling--now, get out your Basque flags, don't you dare ever root for Alejandro Valverde, and Alberto, it's time to stick it to that !@#hat Oleg Tinkov and take on the top podium spot in the Vuelta!

Forget That Wanker Cav, It's Yer Vuelta a Espana in Preview, Part Dos: The GC Contenders!

Okay, cycling fans, we've got the course of the fabulous Vuelta down: now who're the poor masochistic bastids twisted enough to take on the thing for the overall? These guys!

Alberto Contador (Tinkoff): you know the drill: the last few years, he's either crashed outta or been too tired to take on the Tour. But, on form, and however you think he has and hasn't done it, and after the natural indiscretions and tactical mishaps of youth, there's been no greater climber who can also take GC in the modern peloton, and the Vuelta is his kind of merciless stomping ground. How his? That's right, punks, he's bagged this Grand Tour alone three times, and if he takes it this year, he'll equal we-still-love Roberto Heras (shut up!)'s four-peat. Wildcard factor: let's face it, Oleg Tinkov's attention's been elsewhere, like getting a resort-perfect tan basking in the radioactive glow that is Peter Sagan, and he may not even remember at this point that there *is* a Vuelta. Ray o' hope: it's !@#$ing Alberto Contador for chrissakes!

Nairo Quintana (Movistar): for some reason, despite Movistar having the second most formidable GC lineup all year (behind the freaks at Sky, of course), our wee little pile o' pure mountain-goatness has had a lackluster season to date. But the mean steeps of the Spanish mountains are perfect for him, and he oughtn't be *too* set back from the get-go after the Stage 1 ITT. Go Nairo, for a high podium spot anyway--who doesn't love a redemption story?

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar): Sure, he's theoretically tired from riding--and damn near winning--the Giro, the Tour, half the Classics, the Olympics, and virtually every other road race this year in the UCI calendar--except that he never actually *gets* tired, because he's Alejandro Valverde, he just posed butt-naked and oiled-up for a magazine cover, and, uh, he clearly takes "nutritional science" to a whooooooooooole 'nother level. And of course, he's not going to the Vuelta for himself--he's going for Nairo, if you define "going for" as "hovering over his desiccated desert-drained carcass like a starving vulture waiting for the perfect moment of weakness." *Such* a generous helpmate, Alejandro--and good luck keeping an eye on your own teammate Nairo, much less your actual other competitors!

Ugh, Chris Froome (Sky): fresh off his trouncing Tour de France victory, and still in ghastly irritating delight over his bronze medal in Rio, Froome's ready to do what virtually anyone else would only be capable of doing in his situation: absolutely sucking, except he's got a cybernetic Borg-squadron of half-human half-derailleur tig-welded Franken-wraiths to bring him up to the last 100 meters of every single climb on every single day before they even break a sweat enough to need to dab their delicate brows with a hanky. Me: I hope Mikel Landa--who had a rather indifferent Tour de France, but certainly had enough of being under the domestique yoke at his last team gig before inexplicably bailing for even less green pastures at Sky--finds the legs to match his talent *and* his ambitions and, as Froome did to Wiggins before him, *completely* calls bull!@#$ and bushwhacks--I mean, genuinely accidentally loses his earpiece when he directly tosses it under a race moto's wheel and thus unfortunately can't hear any orders regarding--Froome. Tough to bite the hand that feeds you--but *damn*, Mikel, not *that* tough if a red jersey can be yours on the final podium, amirite?

Esteban Chaves (Orica): he's humble. He floats up mountains like a dream. And, while he's clearly a threat, he's not *such* a proven dead-on threat that the Big Three won't consider pacifying 'im with a little friendly leeway, for a little while at least. Looking for at least a coupla stage wins outta you, kid, and a wholehearted fight for a podium!

Tejay Van Garderen (BMC): Oh, Tejay. Bursts o' brilliance, but totally unpredictable, careening from breathtaking greatness to miserable bonkfest within--sometimes multiple times within--a single stage. No matter the odds, we're rooting for you man!

Samuel Sanchez (BMC): Shut up! Go to hell! BMC sez he's co-team leader and he deserves it! How many !@#damn gold-medal statues of you are there in the village square of *your* hometowns, you miserable haters--and you can start taking bets now on what vicious mountain stage will be his!

Tom Dumoulin (Giant): just kidding! Seriously, when the !@#$ did these humongous hulking Paul Bunyan Classics goons suddenly become viable Grand Tour contenders, particularly once the mountains kick in? It's happening *everywhere*--and I call, well, hijinks, *that's* right *I* said it, *hijinks*!

And Last But Not Least, Purito Rodrigue--WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! COME BACK, DEAR PURITO, COME BACK! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Well, there's my Vuelta GC roundup, and if there's anything race predictions show, it's that they b--that anything is possible. Next up: The 'Nother Riders. Til then, venga Alberto, and Samu, bring us home one last stage win before you retire!

The Hell With the Olympics, It's Yer Vuelta a Espana in Preview, Part Uno: the Course!

Okay, I've been lax, but besides the fact that both my dear readers have certainly got better stuff to do, I've also got an epic excuse: I was flattened for weeks by a completely ignominious yet totally incapacitating injury taking out the gar--uh, being chased off a high and excessively rocky nearby mountain pass by a distinctly irritated and giant-clawed Fiat-sized brown bear. Anyhoo, damn straight, cycling fans, new and old: it's time to block out the attention-whoring freak show that is the Tour de France, and go on the smashing, ever-underrated Vuelta a Espana! And sprinters, while there's a few bones thrown here for you, this ain't no place for Champs-Elysees glory-hunters: the Vuelta is a steep, leg-crunching climber's playground, and the rest of you, merely pack fodder. So what can we expect over the next three weeks? This!

The Sprint Stages: right, I'm forced to mention them in the interest of not being a total dismissive tool, so let's get it over with: Stage 2 tucks in a wee Cat-3 lump ahead of one of the few days o' mercy for the flat-land freaks; the 173k Stage 5 mocks you with another Cat 3 and a circuit finale; and holy crap, our Stage 12 intro to the the glorious Basque country at last, home of Euskaltel-Euskadi and, allegedly, a slight chance for fast men despite a Cat 1, Cat 3, then 2 Cat 2s on the way to Bilbao. Are you ready to get your orange on--I am! Stage 16: yeah, like any of you are still here anyway--but if you are, this Bud's for you! Ditto with Stage 18, and the lively last-day circuit of Stage 21. But spare a little TV time for the GC winner, if you please! So sprinters: the upshot is, I dare ya!

The Time Trials: Don't worry twee dear Nairo, there's only two: a flat 30k opening-day team trial to get someone into the gold (sorry, red!) jersey and terrify the GC time-losers on the day, and, on Stage 19 an individual bumpy 37k for the two time trial specialists (or reasonably competent roleurs) stupid enough to take on this race. Fabian, you sure you don't wanna have one last go after your spankin'-new gold medal from Rio?

The Breakaway Stages: sadistically categorized as "medium mountains," these are nonetheless a cavalcade o' cramping, not likely decisive enough for the GC to flip out but decisive enough to screw the complacent. Stage 3 warm up the legs with a Cat 3, a Cat 2, then a modest-sounding but biting 13.8 % hike up the finishing Cat 3 Mirador. Stage 4: another lumper, with 3 modest peaks at under 5% gradient, but a high-altitude, 11k final climb. And welcome to Stage 6, with some nippy little climbs and descents, and, an extra bonus, a "narrow" road at the end for some argy-bargy if the gruppo is fairly tight! Stage 7: 3 Cat 3s and a flat chance at the finish if the sprinters can schlep over the hills. Yeah, 'cause they're great at that! Stage 9: welcome to Oviedo, home of the incredible Samuel Sanchez, as the race pushes through a Cat 2-Cat 3-Cat 3-Cat 3-Cat 2 triple-decker sandwich--GC, sounds workable, but relax at your peril! Stage 13: welcome to the longest day of the Vuelta, 213k of you-better-not-!@#damn-forget-to-eat ahead of the next day's indescribable agony. Stage 15: you get what counts for mellow in the Vuelta--a 118k countdown from Cat 3, to Cat 2, to the Cat 1 finale of Los Sarrios. If you blew your GC on yesterday's queen stage, you might as well have a go!

The Mountains: *here's* what makes this race so agonizing, so excruciating, and so marvelously beautiful, particularly to those of us with access to primo air-conditioning: gradients so steep you might as well be riding upside down, terrain so summer-burnt and spare it's like a moonscape, and, of course, heat so brutal even the most flame-retardant sun-lover will be begging for a miserable Belgian early-March sleetfest or pelting Giro snowstorm. We first hit the serious mountains on the confounding Stage 8, which is mostly false-flat the entire way until at about 170k you smack right into the Cat 1 Alto de la Camperona endgame, with a max slope of 25%. What sicko dreams up this !@#$? Stage 10: yep, party's over, slackers: it's the legendary hors-category climb of the Lagos de Cavodonga, after you've already relaxed with a Cat-1 leg-squincher up Alto del Mirador del Fito. Enjoy tomorrow's rest day--you're certainly gonna need it! Stage 11: another 168k lumper, 'til the poor bastards hit the fearsome Cat-1 Pena Cabarga, with a slightly unwelcoming 18% pitch, a coupla short 6% sections, and a final-k punch of 11%. Ow, *dammit*! This gives you a few days to chill, until the Queen Stage 14: almost 200k of "holy crap!" with the gently-rolling Cat 1s the narrow Col Inharpu, the beloved (or behated) Col de Soudet, then the Col du Maria Blanque, and last but not least, everyone's HC fave--or, likely for someone on GC, mortal enemy--the notorious Col d'Aubisque. Medic--and masseuse! Stage 17: fresh off another nap day, it's the exciting new climb of the Mas de la Costa, generally a lax 13% for the weaklings but gearing up to 22% of sheer pain-o-rama. God, is this thing *over* yet--me, at least *I* hope not! Stage 20: if the race ain't already won or lost, honey, this is *it*--a fierce descent for the unafraid and completely coordinated: 4 Cat 2s and a GC bucket-list Hors Category Alto de Aitana, mostly under 10% but a looooooong--and draining--21k. Please, please someone drop Alejandro Valverde fer Chrissakes!

Okay, that's yer brief Vuelta a Espana Course in Preview: next up, the Players, and yes, I'm still hoping Purito comes to his senses!

It's Yer 2016 Tour de France Racejunkie Awards (Because I Can't Deal With the Tour After Today) #TDF2016

All right cycling fans, the circus has ended, the clowns've gone home, and it's time for our incredibly prestigious 2016 Tour de France Racejunkie Awards (Because I Can't !@#$ing Deal With the Tour After Today)! Prizes for the winners, should any be so desperate as to claim them: a fine custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap, whatever cheap tacky statuette I can find in a local thrift shop, a lifetime's worth of shameful notoriety on the Internets, and, most important of all, a warm and heartfelt congrats for a job well (or incredibly horridly) done. On to the show!

Dumb-!@# Move of the Race (Pre-Race): People are *drunk*? And disturbing my precious *beauty sleep*? By speaking outside in a *common hallway*? At a hotel with a *bar* in it? On their *holiday,* the outrageous disrespectful bastards? Well god forbid I should grab a pair of 30-cent earplugs, peons, because you have dared to disturb the primo snooze-time of a *prince*! Yep, complete numbnut/not-so-hot-apparently pugilist Nacer Bouhanni, the entire reason for his team's otherwise hopeless existence at the Tour, sagely determining it was a smarter use of Cofidis's time and money--and a better cycling career move to boot--to beat the hell out of drunken tourist number one, break his own freakin' hand in the process, and injure himself outta the Tour de France, instead of using, oh, such unheard-of methods as "asking them nicely to be quiet" or "calling the hotel management and telling them to make them be quiet". Nice work, eejit--on the bright side, at least we didn't have to listen to you bitching at the finish line why it was someone else's fault you lost all the sprints for three weeks!

Crap (Well, Technically P!@#) Tactic o' 2016: so race leader Chris Froome, briefly losing the services of two of his android Sky domestiques for a grand total of 30 completely inconsequential seconds over a three-week race while only 6 others remained with him that whole time to shield him from the wind, wipe his nose, bring him his blankie and scratch his butt for him that might, just *theoretically*, have allowed the other GC non-contenders to get *one or two meters* ahead til they'd've been humiliatingly reeled back by the robot train anyway, *totally coincidentally* finds his delicate bladder is ABOUT TO BLOW THAT VERY SECOND, necessitating an immediate--and ruthlessly Fabian "Miss Manners" Cancellara-enforced--COMPLETE STOPPAGE OF THE PELOTON while our Froomey takes a relaxed and leisurely nature break that, shockingly, allows his boys to disentangle themselves, shake out their legs, get back on their bikes again, and return seamlessly to his service. What a petty little wanker move, Froome!

Run Run Rudolph, Santa's Got to Make It to Town Award: okay, maybe it's not entirely unreasonable to expect that (1) eejit fans are gonna crowd the riders on Mont Ventoux (2) the race moto in front of you is likely to do something both (a) unexpected and (b) sorta stupid (3) you're gonna be rather startled when (a) the guy ahead of you jaw-plants into the stopped-on-a-dime race moto and (b) your own bike folds up like a wet taco. But in the grand scheme of rider reactions to unpredictable events, Chris Froome still managed to pull off the Freakout Heard Round the World of this, or any, millenium. The bewildered grab for a neutral service bike, the pissed-off road toss when the pedals proved incompatible? Of course. The "sprinting up the road in your cleats like Usain Bolt being pursued by a hive of coked-up of killer bees without a bike against the rules and gaining (and being retroactively gifted!) a ton of ill-gotten time" part? Not so much. Froome, I know the whole situation wasn't cool--but either hold it together, or stay the hell away from the unfairly time-screwed Bauke Mollema for the next few years!

Domestique o' the Race: sure, Froomey had a pack of enormous Classics riders perfectly normally powering up the entire Alps like they were pedaling up the street for a Starbucks, but damn, if Tejay Van Garderen wasn't getting any help or sympathy from our winner this year, we sure can tell who was! Brailsford, get Richie Porte the Sky uniform he so fully deserves--and BMC, kick his !@# to the curb!

Kardashian Family Camera Wh*re Prize: so, Peter Sagan, how does it feel to win the gr--!@#$ OFF, VERMIN, I'M TAKIN' A PHOTO WITH MY BOY HERE! YOU, GET OVER HERE, GIMME THAT SELFIE STICK! HEY, PETEY, COME A LITTLE CLOSER! RIGHT, RIGHT, ARM AROUND MY SHOULDER..BIG SMILE NOW...Oleg Tinkov, you have every right to be happy and proud of your ginormously expensive toy-trinket's smashing performance this year. But we *know* you run Team Tinkoff already--can't you just get one of those life-size cardboard cut-outs to take pictures with, and leave the poor guy alone now?

Crash o' the Tour (Spectacular But Harmless Edition): there you are, just chillin' in the individual time trial, no pressure for results, just a few more pedal strokes to the line--'til one tricky corner sends you right into the spectators like you're about to pull up to have a beer with him. Oliver Naesen, glad you're okay, and you get *major* points for style!

Crash o' the Tour (Race-Wrecking Edition): need we even name the sad recipient of this unwanted prize? The nearly-invincible Alberto Contador, finally defeated by not one but two ignominiously avoidable and excruciatingly painful crashes as what was left of his poor wee ripped-up bod he crawled into the team car on Stage 9, flushing his sole season's goal, and any hope this Tour de France had of being remotely interesting for all but a few handfuls of seconds, down the toilette. Aw, rats--speedy recovery for the Vuelta Alberto, and don't you let that goon Tinkov suggest it's not as worthy!

Crash o' the Tour (Total Random !@#$show Edition): ever wonder what it'd be like to lam a $15,000 bike with your body on it into a 2,000-kilogram kids'-party bouncy house at 50 kilometers an hour? Well, a bloodied-n-stitched-up Adam Yates can sure tell you--and what he can tell you is, it *sucks*. Of all the avoidable !@#damn stupid things--next year, dear race organizers, can you at least put up some "WATCH OUT YOU DIPWAD YOU'RE ABOUT TO RIP THE PLUG OUT OF THIS GIANT TWO STORY OBVIOUSLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU FLAMME ROUGE INFLATABLE MONSTROSITY" caution tape?

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream Award: Was he off in the Land of Nod? On a Magic Carpet Ride? Don't Dreaming It's Over? Either way, Nairo Quintana seemed to absolutely snooze through this race (welcome to the club, pal!). Hey, forget the lousy cap and trophy--get this kid a nice pillow and soft cozy blanket, stat!

All Quiet on the Western Front Award: the first 6 Tour stages--6!--and not a single rider had to drop outta the race due to illness, bull!@#$ "I'm about to get popped for doping" illness, crash, or other injury. Okay, that right there is suspicious!

The Return of the King Prize: look, I am only awarding *anything* to the sprinters because Andre Greipel restored my smithereened faith in humanity by taking the final win on the Champs-Elysees today. But after a coupla lousy low-key seasons uncharacteristically in the shadows of guys like Kittel and, well, almost everybody else with a half-!@#ed touch of speed in their legs, I have to concede, it was very pleasing to see Mark Cavendish with his form (and confidence) back in buckets. But it was still nicer that Andre won!

Totally Unrelated to the Tour de France Stuff I Like Award: Didja see Tommeke's back in 2017 with Quick Step for one more crack at Paris-Roubaix, and also with a celebratory win that very same day he inked the deal? Woot woot woot!

Anticlimactic Retirement o' the Race: *really*, Fabian Cancellara--and believe me, it takes a lot to criticize a legend like you? Your very last Grande Boucle ever, you're just not feeling it, and you bail out for a shot at a medal in Rio? WHAT THE HELL? You better bring home gold for your fanboys and girls--after all those years of devotion, they deserve it!

Fan !@#$Head Neon Banana-Hammock Prize: okay, in *any* year, unfortunately, this is a pretty packed field of contenders. But from freaks dressed like humongous lobsters to !@#holes destroying riders' lines on crucial climbs to nimrods burning flares on the course to fans shoving giant flags into cyclists' derailleurs, this year really seemed to take the cake--until, of course, some invisible though history-making moronothon dead-blocked a moto, took Porte Mollema and Froome out, and earned themselves the prestigious tile of Biggest Sporting Tool of All Human History. Whoever you are--if you ever even sobered up enough to *know* who you are--be proud for this one brief shining moment before your ancestors, peers, and all your descendants disown you and deny your very existence for as long as this Earth shall spin!

I Really Don't Believe In Violence Award: to be fair, sometimes a struggling pack-fodder rider mightn't so much *mind* a gentle nudge on the saddle as he gacks up a mountain he's no business ever climbing in the first place. But unless you think a GC contender honestly *wants* to risk the maillot jaune, the greatest achievement of any riders' career except the Giro or Vuelta, and his stone-carved place in the tablets o'time for the amazing honor of your touch, your spittle, or even just your incoherent ear-bloodying screaming, BACK THE !@#$ OFF--really, is it *so* hard for even the tenderest and gentlest among us to understand, say, Chris Froome's surprisingly effective Stage 8 spectator slug? I ain't your biggest fan, Froomey, but credit's due where credit's due!

Corollary Okay Maybe Vigilantism Ain't So Bad Award: given that even France's finest gendarmes proved unable to corral the approximate population of China smooshed into meter-wide strips of grass on the edge of terrifying life-threatening precipices, it was perhaps not entirely unsporting for self-appointed sheriffs of the Wild Wild Alps to take the initiative to protect their heroes by grabbing 'em by the scruffs and swinging 'em off the road with admirable speed and ferocity. You threaten someone's favorite rider with your venal antics, you takes your chances, pal!

Last But Not Least, the Annual Raise the Red Lanterne Prize: armchair peloton denizens, noble weekend warriors, and hard core pros alike: one final round of applause, please, for this year's 174th, last-place finisher, Bora-Argon's Sam Bennett, a hard-earned 5 hours, 17 minutes, and 14 seconds behind overall winner Chris Froome. While he certainly didn't sound happy being asked about it, he, like anyone who can survive 3 weeks of cycling misery, exhaustion, intermittent fulfillment, and damned hard work, honestly deserves any pedestal we can find to put him on--congrats to our 2016 Tour de France Lanterne Rouge!

Well, fellow tifosi, I know you're all relieved it's over, but if you still care enough to point out whatever I certainly missed, have at--now let's get ready for the fabulous Vuelta a Espana!

It's Your Holy Crap What Just Happened at the Tour de France !#$-show in Review! #TDF2016

Okay, cycling fans--you've seen the footage, you've heard the screams, but a whoooole lot was going on in that stage even *plus* that, so where do we start with a review of the bloody carnage? Here!

The Break: Yes, it all started as a perfectly ordinary day at the Tour de France, with the climb up the legendary Mont Ventoux axed by 6 kilometers after both Quintana brothers were blown off the top of the mountain by 150 kilometer winds and into the valley below on the prior day's recon, a pile of French guys desperately trying to prove their country's cycling relevance on Bastille Day, and giant German monolith sprinter Andre Greipel--approximately both the size and weight of the legendary Louvre museum and all its contents--poised to take one of the most epic climbs in all cycling over a pack of flyweight Munchkin mountain goats. So aside from the usual contingent of early crashes, such as Simon Gerrans breaking his collarbone and *still* finishing the uphill stage, something akin to to having Muhammad Ali at his peak punch your face in 50 consecutive times without a moment's break, everything's going along normally and swimmingly, until:

The Great Pee Controversy of 2016: trust me, on any other day, this'd send hard-core cycling fan into a scorched-earth nuclear-option Twitter war of rage and emoji-stoked weeping: so like three Sky boys--essential domestiques to race leader Chris Froome--go down in a pile, potentially screwing Froome out of much-needed backup which could endanger his overall race lead. Totally coicidentally, at that *exact* moment, Froome's bladder *completely* blows apart, and he pulls the "courtesy-slowdown-for-the-maillot-jaune's-call-o'-nature" card, immediately causing the peloton's Chief Etiquette Enforcer (oh right, and noted bike rider) Fabian Cancellara to slow down the group to wait for him, sending trigger-temper Alejandro Valverde--who knows something about being a !@#damn weasel, thank you, and clearly calls bull!@#$--into an impotent rage and allowing Froome to get his domestiques disentangled and back in line to help him, thus averting an utterly fair and justified loss of time. What the hell Froome you punk, you're riding just fine without this sneaky crap! Which gets us to:

The Climb of Mont Ventoux: where, as a pack of enormous Easter-Island-figure-sized Belgian Classics riders naturally are the first to ascend the feared mountain over the wee climbers gasping behind, the joyful crowd, hugely intoxicated by adrenaline, an Oktoberfest's worth of beer and god knows what else, and the peculiar pleasures of acting like total !@#holes half-dressed in man-thongs, fright wigs, and prurient Furry costumes for the TV cameras, runs, as always, dangerously on top of the riders while also helpfully setting off smoke flares two inches from the nostrils of both boys in the peloton who actually *need* asthma inhalers for medical reasons. Meantime, as Chris Froome, his superdomestique--uh, Tejay Van Garderen's teammate--Richie Porte, and nice guy Bauke Mollema attack and successfully drop the already-embattled GC contender Nairo Quintana--the "unprecedented security" at this year's Tour, apparently consisting of an impressive two gendarmes, is outnumbered by a ratio of 20,000 idiots: to 1 as the race motos try to ram their way through the throng, at which point one unusually stupid fan gets waaaay too in the way, causing the race moto ahead to stop dead on a dime, Richie Porte to smash his jaw right on the moto camera, and Froome and Mollema to go down like dominoes right on top of him, with Froome's bike especially folding like a hot crepe, leading to:

The Olympic Track and Field Competition: Froome, with no replacement bike or team car in sight, completely going off his head in panic and sprinting up Mont Ventoux in his bike cleats but sans bike, while frantically grunting to his bosses into his race mic and being shruggingly waved off by passing neutral Mavic wheel-carrying motos, until:

The Merry-Go-Round: in which Froome finally gets a neutral replacement bike that fits like crap, won't let him clip in his shoes properly, and might as well have been some roadside fan two-year-olds freakin' Big Wheel for all its usefulness, which the exasperated race leader promptly abandons by the roadside, standing around losing time until the Sky team car finally shows up with a new bike, at which point:

The Comeback: Nairo Quintana, previously climbing like, well, a giant Belgian Classics specialist except for a coupla brief and fruitless attacks, cheerfully passes Froome along with every other GC contender who's previously been dropped, crossing the line after:

Someone Just Won This Race: poor old Thomas De Gendt, taking one of the most celebrated climbs in all cycling which would normally be the absolute highlight and triumph of any rider's career, crosses the finish line in victory to virtually no notice by the fans, TV commentators, or race organizers at all, after which coverage immediately cuts away to:

The Important Stuff: namely, TV clips from 20,000 different angles showing how utterly !@#$ed the race is, breathless interviews with dazed GC contenders, the race commentator's swooning shouting dissection of what just happened, and the race organizers' desperate rocket-fast attempts to figure out what's the fairest way to calculate the GC when it's just been totally upended by some flag-waving fan !@#$head, which includes, somewhere, De Gendt getting a nice jersey presentation, ASO provisionally awarding the leader's jersey to Queen Elizabeth in the confusion, and Chris Froome getting totally crappily and unfairly hissed by the crowd when he's done tweeting that he's just been handed the maillot jaune and finally deigns to go up to the stage and put it on despite Nairo Quintana crossing the line some 36 years ahead of him, while fellow crash-caught riders, like Bauke Mollema who for chrissakes hit the deck at the *exact same time and place* for the *exact same freakin' reason*, immediately take to Twitter to denounce how *they've* just been massively screwed on time while Chris Froome gets gifted a now-virtually-unassailable race lead ahead of tomorrow's key, and inevitably Quintana-crushing, time trial, and former race leader/inexplicable new GC rider Tom Dumoulin cheekily asking if they can get their 21 minutes they schlepped home in removed from *their* time. Yep, just another day at the office--damn, maybe poor Contador was better off inadvertently getting the hell outta Dodge and avoiding this nightmare, who *knows* what would've happened to him out there!

Well, that's just another day at the office at the ol' Tour de France--enjoy the recap footage, and if today's stage is any indication, anything goes for tomorrow!

My Fantasy Oleg Tinkov Tour de France Press Conference #tdf2016

Good morning. I'm here to update you on how totally cool my boy Peter Sagan thinks I am and you're not. [Aide whispers in ear] Oh, right, and how Bjarne Riis' over the hill protege Alberto Contador is doing who even I couldn't save a has-been like him from himself when he got badly hurt in a fall the other day or something which doesn't even matter in this race anyway.

First, I'd like to point out that not only has my bro Peter Sagan won a sprint, the maillot jaune, and the green jersey so early in the Tour, but he was a useless winless piece of !@#$ with no prospects until I personally discovered and worked with him. [Aide whispers in ear again] Okay, he maybe won a coupla minor races before I found him, but only because of my impeccable eye for talent no-one else in cycling ever even noticed before then, as well as my enormous bank account. I only got whatsisface, that skinny one, as a tagalog anyway, sort of like when the wife buys 75 dollars worth of luxury beauty products and they throw in some cheapo "cosmetics bag" for free that falls apart as soon as you use it.

Second, I'd like to address how massively close my man Peter Sagan and I are. I mean, *he* wears a Tinkoff jacket at team events, *I* wear a Tinkoff jacket at team events. *He* rides in the team bus, *I* ri--well, *I* bought the tin piece of crap team bus that broke down on us yesterday. *He's* the reigning world champion, *I* graciously deign to join him on training rides. Like, twinsies here, amirite? [Aide whispers in ear] Oh, yeah, and you know I told that slacker Contador that if he's gonna embarrass me so bad he might as well just go put on a Cofidis uniform!

Finally, I want to stress how grateful my bestie Peter Sagan is for me basically single-handedly making him the best rider ever. Not only is he naming his first child "Oleg" after me, even if it's a girl, he's also named his dog, his parakeet, his favorite bicycle, and, by special government permit, the street in front of his house after me. And *boy*, if you could only see that tattoo of me he did in 24 karat gold ink on his--[Sagan briefly passes by outside in hallway] HEY! IT'S ME! YOUR BUD OLEG! I *MADE* YOU! SOMEBODY GET A CAMERA OVER HERE! HEY, WHERE ARE YOU GO--[voice fades as he sprints into hallway]

[Oleg comes back into room] Well, that concludes my press conference about my guy Peter Sag--[aide whispers in ear]--uh, the status of our GC contende--[Contador knocks politely on door, peeks into press conference] WHAT THE !@#$? WHO *IS* THAT GUY? GET HIM OUTTA HERE! [bodyguards tackle Alberto, drag him away]

It's Yer Holy Crap Forget the Tour It's Yer Giro Rosa 2016 in Preview! @GiroRosaCycling

Still reeling from post-Giro d'Italia bummedoutness? Nauseous at the thought of one more !@#$ing story about Chris "Pterodactyl" Froome and how barfing his guts out for two years with bilharzia miraculously turned him from middling pack fodder to Tour de France-winning superstar? Crushed at the thought of wee Nairo, or even worse, wee Contador, not taking the stop spot on the Grand Boucle podium? Well, you don't have to, honey, because the legendary Fight for Pink is on again starting like right now tomorrow--it's the grande Giro Rosa 2016! What you need to know:

The Course: We start off with a super-fast, super-flat 2k prologo to stretch the legs, get 'em under you, and zip some fortunate campionessa into the leader's jersey. Then, it's 9 smashing "tappe" to come! Stage 1: a coupla big bumps along the 104k course, and a flat finish--sprinters, get ready! Stage 2: a buncha smaller bumps, a few k more to knock out the legs and an uphill dash to the line. Third: flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Okay, now that we love Wiggle rocket goddess Giorgia Bronzini has had some time to shine, can we get to the mountains already? Stage 4: Nope, not yet! A lovely loop of the Lago d'Iseo, some nippy little lumps, and a flat (and looks like just slightly downhill) finale. Stage 5: Woot woot woot, we're hitting the mountains, baby--it's the fabled--and feared!--cima coppi of the Mortirolo, a blistering descent, a run uphill to the line--a short and thoroughly painful 77k! Tappa 6: Mountains again! Passo del Ginestro, Colle di Nava, Passo Caprauna--can I get a !@#$in' bidon and a gel, I'm dyin' here for Chrissakes!--*and* one last vertical blast to Madonna della Guardia. Ouch! Stage 7: the individual time trialists come out to play with a 21.9 flat start, twice-hilly center, and flat finisher. Vai! Stage 8: aw, damn, we're almost done--really, so soon? Another chance to grab some mountain-jersey points without having to kill yerself, and the sprinters can be pretty happy, to boot. Last but not least, we finish the race--and crown the winner--with Stage 9's hill-flat-hill-flat-hill--*how* far is it to the finish line already?--104.8 finale in Verbania. May the best woman win--and as we cover next, the competition is gonna be *tough*!

The Contenders: first, who's *not* here: killer Amazon Marianne Vos, already crushing competition just back from her long season of illness and injury but holding out for gold in Rio, and all-terrain threat Pauline Ferrand-Prevot. Here: yeah, just go home now. Defending 2015 Champ Anna van der Breggen. Former Giro Rosa winners Mara Abbott and Claudia Lichtenberg. Reigning and former World Champs Lizzie Armitstead and Tatiana Guderzo. Italian powerhouses new-crowned national champ Elena Cecchini, Barbara Guarischi, Elisa Longo Borghini, and of course sprint whiz Giorgia Bronzini. Me, I think Mara Abbott's got a crown to reclaim, so no offense to van der Breggen, but you unleash that 10-day can of whup-!@# Mara!

The Prizes: holy !@#$, is this for real? They're earning like 1% of the guys get, for way more'n 1% of the work. I love you Giro Rosa--but sponsors, women's cycling is on fire this year, so for heck's sake it's time to pony up!

Where to Watch: yeah, it's a women's race, so you're largely !@#$ed. But apparently there's live streaming on RAISport2, and clearly, the solution to this stupidity is for each and every one of us to plan a 10-stage--uh, 10-day--trip to Italy for 2017. In the meantime, you can follow all the twitter news that's fit to twit at GiroRosaCycling, and catch up on the day's hot gossip at the official girorosa.it website. Forza ragazze!

Well, that's our short-'n-snappy Giro Rosa 2016 in Preview. More to come, and no doubt, more and more pain with each passing day--but you sure do get to celebrate at the end!

It's Yer Holy Crap It's Almost the Tour Intro to Cycling Part Cinq: The 9 Species of Cycling Fans! #tdf2016

Welcome back, new cycling fans and old! You've got the Who, When, Where, and What Cool Cycling Terms you need to know. Now, whether you're watching the race by the actual roadside, or just wondering who *are* those nutwhacks you're seeing on TV, you oughta know who's watching the Grand Boucle, the Big Show, the--well, you get the picture. Why? Because the Tour de France isn't just a *race*, it's an *experience*, especially for (and because of) its rabid fans. So who are these people? Witness, The 9 Species of Cycling Fans:

1) The Wannabe: He's ridden the entire 267 kilometers of the queen stage just this morning before the race organizers closed the route for the riders--twice. His Strava KOMs rival Alberto Contador's, on one of El Pistolero's *good* days. And, despite heavy approbation from those who might dismiss him as a ridiculous, thwarted, moneybags weekend-warrior poseur, has he got the $10,000 superlight carbon-fiber ride and full polka-dot mountains leader kit (including socks and custom frame paint job) to prove it. Generally harmless, but he will *gut* you if you try to beat 'im to that bidon the race leader just tossed. How else can you pretend you're Astana's team leader without the right equipment?

2) The Polly Pureheart: Paints your name on the road--a dozen times in a single kilometer. Patiently waits for autographs for hours outside the team bus, and scores one (totally reasonably) from your mechanic, too. Politely begs a selfie with you at the hotel, while you're not too busy waiting for the elevator, of course. Has visited cycling museums in Belgium, Italy, France, and Spain, and is currently raising funds for one--or a giant marble statue of Jacques Anquetil--in her own hometown. One of the last bastions of unsullied love and innocence in a jaded sport, and no, they really *can't* believe their heroes'd ever do such a horrid thing--so don't dope and break his trusting heart, you soulless selfish goon!

3) The Helpmate: Need a bottle of water to toss over your broiling climbing carcass in the 90 degree heat? Got it. Help getting your bike in order after a crash? He's there to pick it up and set it straight. Want a mani-pedi to soothe your spirit while you wait for the team car? Nail file and cuticle oil right here! A close relative to the Polly Pureheart, he's always got your back, and will even give you a push on it to help you along--whether you want it or not!

4) The Camera Whore: the most annoying of all Fan Species, this jack!@# running screaming next to you dressed in a cowboy hat with giant steerhorns on it and a Captain America man-thong, a terrifying clown wig and a tutu, or a completely incongruous and unnecessary bunny suit, has no interest other than creating a disgusting Youtube spectacle of himself, and pissing you off completely, for all eternity. God, you're INTERFERING WITH THE RACE LEADER'S LINE, you unbearable braying jerkface--back off, or it's fair game if Bernard Hinault pops up and smashes you into the tarmac!

5) The Punisher: Whether roadside-shaming you with an enormous insulting banner, blaring "DOPER!" in your ear to the mellifluous accompaniment of a vuvuzela as you pass, or merely sprinting beside you dressed like a humongous syringe wielding a mock-up of a hospital blood bag, whatever your performance-enhancing indiscretions or however many decades in the past they were, this fan is gonna make you PAY--as publicly as possible. Notorious Subspecies: the Pig. Not only hates their unsuspecting target, but actually throws urine on it. Hey, that's what your fellow riders' ill-aimed "nature breaks on the fly" are for! Spiteful Cousin: the Bitter Betty. Specially wired to suck the joy right outta you like steroid-stuffed mosquito on tender mortal flesh, no matter who wins, or how beautifully, she'll claim he's a dirty, doping scumbag. Worse, she's probably right. Oh well, enjoy the race anyway--if you can!

6) The Wanderer: Gee, that kitten video is important. My, this text is interesting! No, my toddler *won't* get bored sitting on an empty mountainside for 6 hours and start careening around like a flailing Froome on amphetamines. Sure, my unleashed dog *could* use a nice walk right into Sylvain Chavanel's wheel! Do you even *know* you're at the Tour de France, you utter and inexplicable twit?

7) The Bon Vivant: the Pippo Pozzato of the fan world, they've perfectly perched their pop-up camper on the edge of a cliff that'd terrify an overly arrogant mountain goat, and they're ready to enjoy the next 24 hours (or longer) waiting for the race to come by. Bread, cheese, and fine cured meats? Check! Just slightly overripe cherries from the bush out back of the house? Of course! Wine whose color jauntily recalls the perfect yellow of the maillot jaune, or the robust red of the Katusha kit? We emptied out the wine cellar, it's all right here! Cashmere blanket to fend off the chill, an umbrella hat to fend off the scorching sun, camp chairs that rival a down-filled chaise for comfort? We've got you covered! Notable Subspecies: the Party Animal. They like to live well too--by getting completely hammered. Rider bonus: they may offer you a beer in a plastic cup as you ride by. You're already at the !@#-end of the peloton--might as well enjoy the rest of the ride!

8) The Nationalist: Hey! It's my flag, my giant flag, can you see my giant flag, I'm gonna whip my ginormous flag into your face and blind you right when you need your eyeballs to win the stage with! Yep, she's gonna show her national pride to the peloton and to millions of viewers at home, even tho there's *one* guy from Obscureistan in the entire peloton--and he's not even in this race!

9) The Eejit: Finally, exceptionally well-meaning but potentially catastrophically injurious, this is the amateur iPhone photographer, hysterical enthusiast with a swinging inflatable promotional tchotcke, or desperately precarious leaner sticking out over the barrier, right on a high-speed corner, or over the curb 200 meters from the line in a sprint--and if you're lucky, like, say, Thor Hushovd, you'll only end up with a minor crash and a moderately bloody arm-slash to show for it. I *know*, honey, I love it too, I do--just, maybe from a bit more distance next time!

Well, cycling fans, you got all the Background Stuff You Need to Know--next up, we cover the 2016 race itself, so get yer team kit, grab your flag, and start gettin' ready to holler!

It's Yer Official Tour de France Intro to Cycling Lingo Part Quatre: 'Nother Stuff! #tdf2016

Welcome, new or not-so-new cycling fans! With Parts Un through Trois done, you now know what it is, who the hell is out there, and enougth slinky French cycling terms so that you could pass for Lance Armstrong, without being a doping vengeful !@#wipe whose selfishness, methodical codependent exploitation of junior domestiques, and mendacity almost destroyed the sport. But what *other* cycling words and tactics do you need to know, so you can enjoy the race *and* gain instant street cred with insular long-term cycling freaks? These!

Neutral Start or Neutral Zone: if you all start riding full-gas the second the race begins, you'll be so freaked you'll all go down in a 180-person crash, and the race'll be over before it even begins. So, they start you out niiiiiiiiice and slow til you get your sea legs under you. And you don't even wanna *hear* from some 5-million-euro prima donna's agent if you screw this up and their entire season's major goal is crushed. Just drop your phone and go hide instead!

Neutralizing the Stage: normally, frankly, the race organizers don't give a crap if you're riding up or down a treacherous mountain road in an epic rainstorm, a hypothermia-inducing blizzard, or on two inches of sleet-welded ice, because it makes for sexy, if dangerous, television. But if they think you might win the race, or losing but they think your prospects would improve if guys who ride better than you in bad weather get cut off at the knees, they might pick an arbitrary ending point and neutralize some portion of the stage, in which case, guy at front right then wins the day. Boy, has much hilarity ensued when half the guys aren't told the race was neutralized, and the ones who *did* stop when told to do so sit up, slow down, and lose the race!

Relegation: you acted like an !@#hole, generally in a sprint, by cutting someone else off by swerving in front of them, or, if you're really pugilistic, actively elbowing them in the guts or face. You won the stage--but not for long. You've been relegated, and the guy who came in second gets the win. Hope you liked wearing that winner's jersey on the podium while the race organizers make the call--at least until the new winner tries to strangle you with it!

Barrier: yep, the metal things covered with advertising banners meant to protect the riders from stupid fans in the last few hundred meters of the sprint. Don't worry--you can still scare the crap out of the cyclists and screw up their finale by sticking a flag or promotional thingy over the edge of it! Design Tip: the ones with the metal legs that stick out into the race course *really suck*, unless the sadistic perv who made 'em is *trying* to take innocent riders down. Jaysus, can you guys *fix* that already?

Road Furniture: You're going 60 kilometers an hour in a bike race, and the socialist nanny-state engineers concerned with paltry nothings like pedestrian or auto safety who built the street have put islands, posts, or other stupid crap right in the center of the race course, making you leap like a pole-vaulter to avoid smashing into it. Even more impressive when some bureaucrat nimwit forgets to stick a freakin' flag on it until it's entirely too late to avoid. Common sense here, people--just set the route carefully in the first place!

Attack: I want to win this stage! I want to test out my rivals' legs to see how much energy they've got left! I need a new contract for next season and want to impress other teams with my work ethic! You go for it, and you hit the gas--just not too early, or you'll've wasted all that energy for nothin'!

Mechanical: short-hand for "mechanical problem." Flat tire, chain snap, chain gets sucked into your wheel, tho' once, if I recall correctly, George Hincapie's handlebars sheared right off, nearly impaling him like some medieval pit-trap. Etiquette Tip: you do *not* attack the GC leader at a crucial time while he has a no-fault mechanical where the entire three-week race can be won or lost by seconds, unless you are a Schleck brother, in which case, you do it to the race leader first and spend the next two years bitching that the race leader did it right back to you thus hugely unjustly costing you the race. Be consistent, or shut the hell up!

Sticky Bottle: In the guise of needing a water bottle from your team car, you cling on to the one your DS hands you from the window like a lemur to be pulled along by the car and save your legs some pain. Variant: riding right behind a series of team cars to save energy on your way back up to the peloton after a mechanical problem, crash or poorly-timed *nature break. You're cheating, and yes, everybody *does* do it. Master class: Vincenzo Nibali, who actually got kicked out of the Vuelta for pulling this !@#$, which he damn well deserved for brazen stupidity alone:

Wheelsucker: a derogatory term for a lazy opportunistic weasel who, instead of doing their fair share of the work by riding in front of their small group and taking turns taking the brunt of the wind and setting the pace, sits on someone's wheel in their slipstream*, then attacks within meters of the line when the other fellow is now completely exhausted and takes the win, and the glory. Congratulations, !@#$face!

Pack Fodder: another sorta derogatory (but also rather prideful) term, this time for someone who's good enough to get a job, but not good enough for a DS to allow any other teammates to work for. And yes--he can *still* stomp your sorry rump like that grotesque screeching alien nuclear monster from "Cloverfield" that wasted the entire island of Manhattan, so show some respect!

Feed Zone: as noted in our discussion of "soigneur", you are fed while you ride, so you don't have to waste time and stop. Don't crash don't crash don't crash!

Newspaper: an old-school way for your fans to show true love, they will hand you actual sheets of newspapers at the top of a climb to act as a wind barrier so you don't freeze to death ribcage-first on a fast descent. Just ignore the headline making fun of you for blowing the GC yesterday!

Going Backwards: you're not of course, but relative to the speed of the peloton that is going faster than you are, you're slower so you're dropping back with each pedalstroke. Either you've done your job for your captain for the day and are completely burned out, or you've forgotten to eat or drink like a twit and you've utterly bonked. Fear not--some punk-!@# superdomestique (hi, Alejandro Valverde!) will attack his own team leader on a crucial climb, and the moto cameras'll ignore you from then on!

*Slipstream: if you ride right behind someone else, with their body and bike in front of you getting hit by the air first, you get the aerodynamic benefit of their effort without doing a damn thing yourself. Except riding for six hours, and having everyone hate your guts for all eternity.

**Nature Break: just what it sounds like. With some skill, you can do it while riding at speed, which is precisely when the race coverage will gnarl out the rest of us by focusing on you basically peeing on the poor bastard right behind you. Etiquette Tip: the race leader gets to call a nature break for the entire peloton, and you *never*, *ever* attack him then. Cry Me a River, Guys Tip: you know how the women do it, rather'n drop trou and entirely disrobe in front of a road full of strangers? According to the She-Cret Pro, THEY !@#$ING HOLD IT FOR THE ENTIRE RACE while they're also hydrating like maniacs. So if you're a guy at the Tour and *are* attacked, quit yer whinin', you pampered spoiled crybaby!

All righty-rooty, I think that covers it--now, you can dissect the race over a pile o' beer like a true professional fanatic. If I missed something, don't hesitate to ask--there are no stupid questions, at least none *I* haven't had to ask already! Coming up: yer Last Intro to Cycling post: the fans!

It's Yer Holy Crap It's 15 Days to the Tour de France Intro to Cycling Lingo Part Trois: French Stuff! #tdf2016

Right on dear Tour de France (or general cycling) newbies: we've got you situated. We've got you acquainted with all the assorted freaks (except the tifosi--and yes, I'll get to that too!) on the race course. And now, just when you want to ask yourself, "what *does* all that crap on the TV screen mean?", it's time for Cycling Lingo to Amaze and Delight Your Friends: French Stuff Edition!*

*and don't give me crap about accents, I can't figure out how to do them properly on here, stuff it Mr. Nitpick, and keep yer eyes on the prize already!

Tete de la Course: get yer minds outta the gutter and cool your jets, you pervs--it's who's leading the stage at the moment. Don't worry about the pressure of leadership, someone'll attack soon, and all your day's agonizing hard work'll be lost!

Poursuivants: they're chasing the tetes. They either tried to bridge across to the leaders and/or breakaway, and couldn't, or were already in the breakaway or lead group, and couldn't keep up and fell back. Sucks either way, I gotta say!

Arriere: your derriere is in arriere--yep, you've cracked, and you're in the autobus!

Bidon: it's fancy foreign words for water bottle. Not only can you drink from it, you can use it to catch an easy ride by clinging to it for 10k while your DS hands it over from the team car, if you don't mind getting your lazy cheating !@# tossed out the race when you go too far. Covered in spit and thrown to the actual roadside, if you are lucky enough to be there, the bidons are a prized souvenir for fans. Extra points if you get into a fistfight over it for the cameras!

Musette: Also a beloved souvenir, if you're a fan of half-eaten ham sandwiches and gel packets that spooge like alien goo, it's a lunch bag with a long handle your swanny hands you while you're racing and you sling it over your shoulder, snarf your snacks, then toss it aside. If you are an idiot, or are just pissed off at someone, it is an excellent item to toss into a rival's wheel, tangling it horribly. *Sooooo* sorry, chum!--uh, remember that part where I told you about "hiding in the team bus" after the stage?

Maillot jaune: the reason for your entire existence--the coveted leader's yellow jersey of the Tour de France. Wear it once, it makes your career. Wear it on the final podium in Paris, and it makes you a god--at least until you get busted by our next vocabulary word!

Dopage Controllee: what Alejandro Valverde really, *really* needs to watch out for. Welcome to post-race doping control--and don't try shoving a dope-neutralizing "masking agent" down yer bib shorts before you hand over the liquid goods, some loser's already tried and gotten busted for that!

Allez Allez!: roughly, an encouraging "come on! come on!" shouted by the fans along the road. Particularly sporting to cheer on the autobus, and particularly startling to shreik right in a stage contender's ear: so back off, we'll deal with race etiquette later!

Gendarme: Acting like an !@#hat pressing too close to the racers shouting at the top of your lungs waving some completely irrelevant country's flag dressed up as some hideous clown/viking/panda/banana hybrid? The local gendarmes, there to keep order, will glare at you *very* severely!

Chateau: there's nothin' goin' on. Time for the commentators to give you a history lesson on that decadent French house the helicopter camera's castle-porning on, replete with tales of what wine, cheese, and four-star entrees they had there the last time the peloton swung by this way. But don't be jealous--in the immortal words of Mel Brooks (well, his stand-in), "Bonjour, scum!"

Flamme Rouge: last but not least--especially for the poor shmoes who've had to ride six hours without stopping like Oleg Tinkov's been chasing after them with a bullwhip--it's the red upside-down triangular banner hanging from a giant inflatable promotional doo-dad that indicates there's just 1 kilometer to go. Don't look away--a *lot* of action can happen in the last 1000 meters. Sprinters: time to get organized. Breakaway: time to pray the DSes in the team cars have miscalculated how fast the peloton needs to go to catch you and you won't be caught within a few excruciating meters of the line. Climbers: if you've got *anything* left in the writhing knots of cramping ligament that make up yer legs, now's the time to stalk (and soon's, but not yet's, the time to pass) yer prey!

Okay, I think we've nailed the French stuff you need to know. Next up: More Arcane Cycling Terms You Need to Sound Like a Total Pretentious D--uh, like a totally knowledgeable fan. Oh, and if you win, you get to spray the poor podium babes with a shook-up magnum of "Champagne"!

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It's Yer Holy Crap It's 18 Days to the Tour de France Intro to Cycling Lingo Part 2: Who the !$%! Are These Guys? #tdf2016

Yes, dear cycling noobs 'n' not so noobs, you now know what it is and where it happens! So who the hell *are* all those people out there, and what are they doin' there? We'll leave the individuals to watch for later, but here's Yer Official Racejunkie Cycling Vocab Part Deux!

Race Organizer: This is the big company that organizes the whole entire race. If your favorite rider wins, they get no credit for helping. But if your favorite rider chokes, don't worry: it's all the organizers' fault for designing such a !@#$ty course that was hand-tailored for one of his !@#$ty cheating rivals. Brilliant!

Directeur Sportif (or DS): He used to be a rider. Then he got old, like 34. Now he's a directeur sportif, and tells the riders what to do--yep, the wholly thankless job of race tactics and management. Saving grace: if you're *really* lucky, you have an unstable unpredictable delusional oligarch to report to. 'Til he fires you 'cause his champagne glass had a spot on it, anyway!

Peloton: It's the big giant lump of riders behind the race leaders and ahead of whatever poor b#stards are keeling over behind. You--in particular, your team leader--want to be as far up front in the group as possible in case some dimwit in the middle spaces out, brushes someone else's wheel, and takes half the racers down with him in a bloody, broken wreck. Unless of course that happens up near the front, where you are!

General Classification (or GC) Contender: Your top rider for the multi-stage races. If it's a one-day race, you can just call him 'captain.' He, of course, can call you whatever he wants. Bring me a fresh "Sprite," you worm!

Virtual Leader: if the race stopped *right* *now*, this guy'd be the leader of the race. Too bad you still got 84k to go, sap!

Sprinter: He bites at any climb higher'n two meters, but get him on a flat straight road near a finish line, and he's 200 meters of pure burnin' rocket fuel. And if you lose, you can always blame your:

Lead-Out Train: They mass at the front of the race at 1 k to go, flame themselves out like meteors setting the pace, then give you a wheel to chill behind 'til you're ready to unleash the pain. No lead-out? Just wheel-suck on someone else's--everyone's happy except that schmuck whose team just lost!

Domestique: A worker bee for the team leader, whether it's for the overall win in a stage race or just a one-day pile-on o' pain. You ride in front of 'im to protect 'im from the wind and let him ride in your slipstream (thus conserving energy), surround 'im so if there's a crash, you all go down first and get hurt worse, bring 'im snacks and water bottles, set a high pace to tire out his struggling rivals, give 'im your wheel or entire bike if he falls behind due to a crash or mechanical, and pace him back up to the peloton after a crash or hunger knock. All that, *and* you get to earn the UCI minimum rider wage! Don't worry--if you're a "superdomestique," you might even get a thank you in the post-race interviews, and etiquette dictates the lot of you share in the winner's prize money!

Climber: They're small. They're wily. And when everyone else is gacking in weaving, sluggish agony at the foot of the first climb of the day, these bantamweights are are whizzing up to the top of Mount Ventoux for the stage win. Oh Euskaltel!

Puncheur: If you don't pull your weight in a breakaway (see Part 1), and still try to be a weasel and win after other guys've done all the work for hours out in the miserable blasting wind, your fellow breakaway companions will "puncheur" the crap out of you after the stage. Ow, okay, I'll pull next time!

Classics Rider: not so relevant for the Tour, but for one-day spring races primarily in Belgium involving stabbing sleet, pounding rain, skating-rink cobblestones, and more mud and grit and frozen slop than you ever you'd eat, these are the hard men of the peloton. Now get out of my way before I crush you against my head like an empty beer can, mere mortal!

Autobus: You're a pure climber on a flat stage. Or, you're a sprinter on a mountain one. Or perhaps you put just a liiiiittle too much fiber in your muesli this morning, and your body, specifically your stomach, is in disgusting rebellion. Congrats, you're the back of the race--just hope you make the time cut today, and don't be afraid to take a brief--brief!--tow from your team car!

Lanterne Rouge: It's the very last-place rider at the very end of the entire 3 weeks of the entire Tour de France. And yes, that means he's *still* one of the most-!@# athletes on the planet. Bow, bow before your king, you peasant!

Podium Babe: Like Christmas ornaments, but sparklier. You pop 'em next to the stage/GC/jersey winner on the podium in a short skirt for a photo op and a big lipsticky smack on the cheek. Oh, *that*'s where you'd gone--welcome back, 1950, we *really* missed you!

Team Bus: You run and hide in it if you lose. If you're *really* having an embarrassing day, your DS'll throw you back out of it. Have fun walking back to the hotel in your bike shoes, hoser!

Team Car: It contains your DS, a mechanic, somebody who can patch you up if you crash, and an empty seat if you bonk so badly you need to abandon the race in a camera-friendly mire of rage and humiliation. It follows you around in case you need advice, a water bottle, a bandage, a tweak to your saddle, and a sympathetic ear. If you're a total wanker, you'll hold on to it for half a k up a climb and use it to slingshot yourself past the pathetic losers yacking up the climb on their own. Just don't pull that !@#$ in front of the cameras, you eejit!

Team Chef: yes, you *are* eating 50 pounds of plain white rice for breakfast. And you're gonna shut up and *like* it!

Soigneur: S/he hands you bags of food in the feed zone while you're on the fly. They wrangle your luggage, do your laundry, keep you organized, throw a towel around you when you're sweating (and smellin') like a pig at the end of the stage, and generally are absolutely indispensable making it possible for you to do *your* job. All hail the Swanny--trust me, you're not worthy, you're not worthy!

Mechanic: It's to the rider's credit if he wins, and entirely your fault if he snaps a chain, flats a tire, bangs a derailleur against a barrier, and loses the race. Also, you work approximately 56 hours per day. Don't worry, there's a coffee machine in the team bus!

Neutral Support Car: your team car is on the !@#-end of nowhere, so these folks'll give you a spare wheel when you hit a tack some !@#hat tossed on the road. Next year, pick a team that won't be ordered to sit a half an hour back in the queue!

Race Moto: They carry cameras, commentators, various officials, and an old-fashioned blackboard to tell you that your breakaway group is about to be caught. And if you're *totally* collapsing physically and mentally, wave to the TV cameras--or maybe some other gesture, instead!

And Last But Not Least, Most Important of All: Masseuse: self-evidently, this is your recovery savior after an exhausting, painful stage. But if you need pictures to explain the play-by-play, just Google "Filippo Pozzato" --though I wouldn't advise downloading the images at work!

Well folks, you've officially learned more'n you ever wanted to know about the players in the game, and if I missed anyone, let us know. Next up, Obscure Cycling Jargon So You Can Sound Way Way Cooler Than You Are!

It's Yer Holy Crap It's 20 Days to the Tour de France Intro to Cycling Vocabulary Guide! #tdf2016

New to pro cycling fandom, and want to know what the hell everyone's talking about? Enjoy sexy French mountain views with intermittent crazy-!@# bursts o' speed? Got some friendly nationalistic fervor ahead of Rio, and curious as to what's the deal with the road race? Or perhaps you just gotta know why your partner's suddenly switched over from man- or woman-crushing on Ryan Gosling and can't stop yapping about some shaggy "Peter Sagan" guy. Whatever your motive, we here at racejunkie have got the means--it's Yer Official Holy Crap It's 20 Days to the Tour de France Intro to Cycling Jargon, Part 1: The Race Course!

Tour de France: It's a three week bike race all over France by a 200-pack of pain-suckin' tacky-spandex masochists for the shameful entertainment of thousands of voyeuristic roadside, and millions of television, fans. It's roughly divided up into:

Sprints: Six hours of flat-tarmac "oh god *nothing* is happening," followed by about 5 k of "here they go, the teams are getting organized!", 1 k of "yeah, it's really on *now* baby," 200 meters of "holy !@#$ didja *see* that!," and approximately 16 hours of "that's bull!@@#!/you cut off my line!/I got pushed into the barriers!/what !@#$head caused that stupid crash?!" Ancillary vocab: the "lead-out" is the bunch of teammates who shepherd and protect you til it's time for you to sprint. The "crosswind" is when you're not paying attention, can't stay close enough to the guy ahead of you, fall waaaaaaaaay behind everyone else, and have to do the slumping crawl of shame across the finish line where all the other sprinters will laugh at you. Burn!

Time Trials: Individually or by team, it's when you each head out from a start gate separately at about 2 minute intervals in a race against the clock to see who goes fastest on the course without anyone else to blame but yourself, your teammates, your masseuse, your soigneur*, your team boss, your mechanic, or an obscure you ailment you don't have but it's not like a disease can defend itself from slander so what do you care. You wear a specially aero helmet, skinsuit, and bike, and, if you're really great at this discipline, probably aren't much good at anything else. And why the hell are there eighteen 90% turns on a course for a bike that can't turn for !@#$?

Rollers or Breakaway Stages: you can't really sprint, you can sorta climb, the contenders for the overall race win need a chill day off to recoup some energy, and your team's gonna throw your worthless !@# on the street next season if you don't give your sponsor's logo some primo air time by making the TV cameras focus on either (1) your chest or (2) your butt. Congratulations, one out of the four of you just got some major Tour de France glory while the rest get to spend your lives in endless self-recrimination for blowing it!

Mountain Stages: Yes, just like it sounds. The person who will win the overall big giant prize at the end of the three weeks will probably win or lose it here. If you've got some time to spare, and it's not gonna even really be a close race, you might let one of your teeny-weeny mountain-goat super-climber teammates go ahead and take the win. Selfless move, *and* you still get all the headlines as the race's ultimate champ! Ancillary vocabulary: "Queen Stage." Yeah, a doper just won that. But that's not true if you like the guy!

Climb: what you have to do on a mountain stage. If you generally prefer to sprint, you are praying to god you make it up the freakin' thing before the race organizers decide you're too much a worthless slowpoke wuss and make you leave the race entirely. Dang, couldn't they have at least done that *before* you schlepped your humongous carcass up Mt. Everest?

Switchbacks: it's basic physics, kid: climb straight up a 12,000 foot mountain in a direct line, and you'll croak. Climb up in slightly-less-steep increments by going back and forth, back and forth with bends in the road, and you'll croak a thousand times. Sounds much better, right? Yeah, until you realize you've got 86 left to go, sucker!

Descent: it's still switchbacks, but even more entertaining because you are doing them downhill at 75 miles an hour where some doofus engineer had a moral objection to the concept of "guardrails." Don't look down--no, I'm serious, or you'll end up in the !@#damn ravine!

Cobblestones: Not such a big factor in the Tour de France, but it's where they take a nice smooth tar surface your little skinny wheels can happily, safely spin on, and replace them with uneven wunks of unforgiving lumpy granite death you are sure to (1) get a flat tire on or (2) flat-out crash and break something, like a piece of your bike, or your body. And they're even *more* fun when it rains and you're riding on uneven lumpy granite *slippery* death!

Scenery: it's truly breath-taking, and it's what you *don't* see because, in the words of some famous rider I can't recall, all you're looking at for 3 weeks if you're riding is the wheel of the guy right in front of you. But trust me, it's fabulous--like you care, when you're spelunking in the ol' "pain cave"**!

*yeah, we'll get to that. Honest!

** yeah, we'll cover that too. Just gimme a chance to get my breath, whydontcha?

Well dear newbies--and I say that with love, because even the most unbearably trivia-obsessed anal-retentive smarty-pants among us was once one too--we've got you situated. Next up (I think): Who the !@#$ Are These Guys?

It's Yer 2016 Giro d'Italia Racejunkie Awards! #Giro

Feeling unaccountably wistful whenever you see something pink? Suddenly unable to enjoy your morning !@#dammit-I'm-not-drinking-this-in-Italy espresso? Already drained and disoriented from going back to your normal sleep patterns or, even worse, having to pay attention again at 'work'? Yes, tifosi, you've just been nutwhacked with Post-Giro Letdown Syndrome--but fear not, we here at racejunkie have got the cure! Prizes for the winners, if they've got the time, obsessive interest in Googling themselves, and total lack of anything interesting to do but read this crap: eternal glory (or cringing shame), and a free stylin' embroidered racejunkie cap! Ergo, campioni, it's Yer 2016 Giro d'Italia Racejunkie Awards!

1. Punk-!@# Move of the Race: ok, bear with me here, because I *am* gonna give even this guy a little credit later on. But Michele Scarponi, punching the air in triumph *right* next to sweet, despondent Esteban Chaves' head as they crossed the line after Chaves' crushing loss of the maglia rosa on the decisive penultimate stage. For *shame*, Michele--what next, yer gonna teach yer freakin' parrot to squawk "neener neener" whenever the poor kid walks by?

2. Astanashing Publicity-Ho Turnaround of 2016: good luck, whatsyerface! You *suck*, Nibali! Huh, nice you managed to salvage some dignity there. HOLY @#$% YOU'RE GONNA WIN THIS THING I ALWAYS SAID YOU HAD IT IN YOU CAN I BRING YOU A LIMONATA/COOL YOU WITH A PALM LEAF/WASH YOUR STINKING FEET/ARU YOU LITTLE !@#$ GET OVER HERE AND START PAINTING HIS BIKE PINK! Alexander Vinokourov, I hate myself for loving you!

3. Sissy Slap-Fight of the Giro: oh sure, there were a few snarls of annoyance, emphatic elbow-flicks, clearly rude gestures, and exasperated slammings of the handlebars--but for sheer pointless, if heartfelt, drama, you can't beat FDJ's Alexandre Geniez physical and verbal assault on AG2R's Hubert Dupont at the line over what appeared to be the most trivial of offenses. Fingers were wagged, OMG a collar was pulled--damn, I'd hate to see the bloody warfare by Geniez over a *real* insult!

4. You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine Award: Gee, my legs felt good today! Boy, did I crack this afternoon or what! Did you know it's my parents' first trip to Europe? My, that crash sure smarted! Hey, I *just* lost the maglia rosa! Also Class Act of 2016 and Bestest Smile in the Peloton--Esteban Chaves, this one's for you!

5. Holy Crap It's All Over Oh !@#$ Moment o' the Race: a moment's inattention, a frightening flyer of bike and man, a fractured rib and crushed dreams after endless impregnable days in pink--Steven Kruijkwijk's terrifying somersaulting smash into a 7-foot wall of ice ended his Giro dreams in an instant. Cycling, how cruel thou art!

6. Corollary Tough Guy of 2016 Award: yep, Kruijswijk. His certain victory gone, the boy plugged on, honoring his team, the race, and himself, bringing a still-amazing-when-you-think-about-it 4th-freakin'-place to Torino. Incredible work by an incredible young talent--however the hell you pronounce yer name, I'll never underestimate you again!

7. Superduperdomestique Prize: yes, he's a doping skankwad with a history of weaselality. But holy !@#$, would Nibali have been steamrolled without him. Sitting back for half an hour on the side of the road, forgoing his own inevitable Giro stage triumph, chillin' with a beer, getting a haircut and hopping on the computer to manage his retirement portfolio while he was waiting to help his team leader with nary a complaint to be heard--*that* is sheer worker-bee perfection. Michele Scarponi, I gotta give credit where credit is due!

8. Crash o' the Race, Decisive: yeah, yeah, same one. Kruijswijk, come get yer prize!

9. Crash o' the Race, Oh No Oh No Oh No: A resurgent Ilnur Zakarin's devastating--and temporarily totally incapacitating--zoom into a stony creekbed. The kind of thing that makes you wonder, ought they be filming this if his family is watching? Incredibly fortunately, just a coupla super-painful, season-screwing fractures, and a cheery post-hospital selfie. Geez, we're glad you're okay! Corollary Touching TV Interview Award: you'd barely know that coolest-name-in-the-peloton Rein Taraamae had won a stage at the Giro d'Italia at all, the way he was so clearly focused on his teammate's well-being. Stand up guy, stand up champion!

10. Crash o' the Race, Just !@#$ing Stupid: he's *so* close to the line, in a brave--and possibly even successful--ripping attack in the final meters of a three-week-long behemoth of pain, suffering, and ignominy. And what should appear like some hideous race-!@#$ing nightmare? That's right, some nimrod's shod foot *right* into the race course, and Sonny Colbrelli goes flying like the Wright Brothers on steroids. Forget those useless ad-covered'barriers'--what we need is some straight-on barbed wire to contain these eejits!

11. Tifosi !@#hat Award: with a mercifully distinct lack of free-ranging livestock, family pets, or oblivious toddlers this Giro, we still managed to shame ourselves mightily. On the last climb of the entire race alone, I counted a Pony, a Pig, and a Banana Guy, each one causing a GC CONTENDER DESPERATELY SEEKING TO GAIN RACE-DECIDING SECONDS !@#DAMMIT TO ACTUALLY HAVE TO SWERVE OFF HIS LINE! Jaysus, what're you gonna try next, sucking the freakin' oxygen right outta their starving gasping lungs by setting off smoke flares on the racecourse? Oh, wait...

12. What the Ungrateful !@#$ Award: look, I know you're sprinters. And I know that, once you hit the Dolomites--or hell, even see them looming 10 stages away in the distances--the terrain is just not for you. But dag nabit, the race organizers went OUT OF THEIR WAY to cater to you boys this Giro, and what do you in return for their kindness? *That's* right, use the beautiful Giro as a lowly training !@#$! for your *real* season's objective, the Tour de France, where no doubt you'll stick it out straight through the Alps to the final line in Paris. *And* you wore the holy maglia rosa to boot. Marcel Kittel--*not* *cool*!

13. God I Love Italy Award: now and forever, "PANTANI" spray-painted on every roadside snowbank, inch of tarmac, and homemade banner. Say what you will about the subject, but that is devotion, my friends!

14. I Call Bull!@#$ Award (Time Trial and Mountain Stage Edition): Foliforov, man. Are you *kidding* me?!

15. I Call Bull!@#$ Award (Sprint Edition): Giacomo Nizzolo's moment o' glory, interview o' glee, and subsequent spirit-crushing defeat on the final day in Torino. If Robbie "Head-Butt" McEwen sez it's okay, it *must've* been okay!

16. Darned Decent of 'Im Prize: look, I *know* you all think Vino shoved a rocket up his--uh, in his pocket on the rest day, but it *was* right for Nibs to go over and give props to Esteban Chaves' darling family--at least before Vino horned in for the huggy-kissy "I *made* you and you *owe* me!" photo op!

17. Cry Me a River Excuse o' the Race: not to minimize the very real effects of the dearth of a very handy item like, y'know, oxygen, but jaysus, Valverde, the "altitude"? Isn't that where you gallivant off to 'train' every year? Get thee to the Tour then if you can't handle the Giro!

18. TMI Statuette: Of all the reasons to bail outta a Grand Tour--the air-sapping bronchitis, the explosive diarrhea, the imminent biological passport bust--this is for Tom Dumoulin, brought down by the humblest of enemies, the gnarly saddlesore. Heal fast, Tom--and even better, heal discreetly!

19. Gratuitous T&A Prize: no, no, not Pippo Pozzato (for once). Don't know what the white, pink, blue and red jerseys are for? Yeah, well, you still don't know now either--but boy, don't they look hot on those models every morning!

20. Most Likely to Have His !@# Kicked By His Team Boss Award: No, he wasn't a particular favorite for a podium sport. And let's face it, our lovably erratic Moneybags has really got his eye--and horsewhip--set on July. But Oleg Tinkov surely expected *something* outta this race, and Rafal Majka, unfortunately, didn't give it. Like a college kid being stalked by a mask-wearing psycho perv in an isolated cabin in a third-rate horror flick--Rafal, GEEEEEET OUUUUUUT!

21. Questionably Enjoyable Race Tactic o' the Giro: Cannondale's Rigoberto Duran Duran, giving up the ghost after a rather middling campaign by throwing all he had left in the service--darn near successfully--of fellow countryman and opposing squad denizen Orica-Greenedge's Esteban Chaves. Why the hell not--beats all that "Vincenzo and Alejandro" yapping!

22. Overhype o' the Race Prize: Yes, I *know* it's dear Mikel Landa. Shove off! Bite me! Saving Grace Consolation Award: dear Mikel Nieve, a stage win *and* the blue jersey. Mikeeeeeeeel--both of you, you smashing ex-Carrots!

23. Last But Not Least, the Miracle On Ice Award of Giro d'Italia 2016: It was the Clif Bar! A nice spa facial on the rest day! No, the acupuncture! Whatever, Nibali--you recovered, enjoy the maglia rosa, *and* ignore the petty haters whinging about "integrity" and "blood bags" while you can!

Well, that's the best of a shockingly exciting thrilla of the Giro d'Italia 2016--same time next year, if you're not all disgustingly aiming for the circus-freak Tour de France instead!

It's Yer Giro d'Italia Eve-o'-the-Rest-Day Re-Think and Recriminations Roundup! #Giro

Well, between the first truly excruciating mountain day and GC-smacking uphill time trial, it's been a lively coupla days at the Giro d'Italia, and what do our boys have to think about while they rest, sleep, ride, and fend off screaming phone calls from enraged DSes and humiliated money-bags sponsors? This!

1. Blazing uphill TT winner Gazprom's Alexander Foliforov. When Alejandro freakin' Valverde wonders about your performance, you *know* there's something !@#$ed up going on. Damn, the Russians have upped their sporting performance since they stopped doping after the last Olympics!

2. Vincenzo Nibali. Lo Squalo can be a legendarily award-winning whiner, but big points to him for collecting himself enough after his despondent post-ride press-avoidance and general misery to send out a friendly, "oh, well, what the hell, tomorrow is another day" kind of tweet this evening. Hey, if Alexander Vinokourov's about to knock on your hotel room door to kick your worthless !@#damn !@# from here to Kazakhst--uh, offer warm words of comfort and support--before you even get to see if you can crack Kruijswijk on GC, you might as well go out with class!

3. Kruijswijk. Speaking of whom, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt this guy's integrity, but leaving aside the shocking Foliforov and teammie Sergey Firsanov, seriously, what the !@#$ is someone built like him even doing in the maglia rosa in the second week of the Giro after a freakishly precocious uphill mountain time trial? It's another Dumoulin dilemma. What next, Andre Greipel's gonna spit Alberto Contador out like a loogie on the Alpe d'Huez at the Tour?

4. The Tifosi. Now, I *get* the enthusiasm. The screaming, the yelling, the flag-waving, the joyous adrenalin rush of having sporting history pass by literally within in an inch of the end of your nose. Heck, I've been there, and I dearly hope to be there sometime soon again (helloooo, Alberto's 2017 Giro d'Italia swan song!). But Giro fans, if nothing else, exceedingly respect the race and its participants, and frankly, as an American, I am *outraged* to have our country's slightly-unrealistic-but-deeply-sincere exceptionalism well and fairly smacked down by incredibly overbearing--and GC-ruinously harmful--Italian fans. In addition, they're lucky even the stoic Nibali didn't reach down grab a spoke and skewer those clown-wigged blockheads like a kebab. Hey, have you eejits been watching the Amgen EPO Tour of California? *We're* supposed to be the obnoxious ones!

5. Chaves. Y'know, I absolutely love Orica-Greenedge, but Alejandro Valverde showed up here with a *really* stacked deck o' teammates, and what climber-supreme Esteban Chaves and his fine squad have been able to accomplish is truly amazing. And, he's being really nice and not at all snotty about it. Forzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa wee Esteban, I can't wait to see you've got left in the tank for the rest of the week!

6. Alejandro Valverde. After yesterday's inevitable annual Green Bullet Grand Tour meltdown, to his credit, Alejandro managed to *somewhat* redeem himself today, and there's still a good amount of road left to go. More, he's got the similarly ageless superdomestique/depending-on-your-viewpoint-prior-Giro-champ Michele Scarponi, who turned in a smashing ride today. Revenge, thy name is stage win!

7. Brad Wiggins. Nope, I don't say *that* noodge of a name too often, particularly in connection with a compliment! But what he *can* do, is give the Shark some bike throwing lessons. Students, compare:



Panache, *and* dead-on accuracy!

8. An Astana-Movistar Alliance. Yes, absolutely--both Nibali and Valverde have an excellent, sensible interest in ganging up on Steven Kruijswijk in the remaining fight-to-the-death in the Dolomites. But c'mon, neither Astana nor Movistar can halfway keep the peace and collaborate within their *own* squads the last coupla years, much less make nice and join forces to actually accomplish something together--though if Vino wants it, Vino will get it, or *else*, Movistar!

9. The Remaining Stages. Chill out, Sleeping Beauties: tho' stage 17 is a short sharp day o' relative pain, you *do* get a puncheur-friendly gasp o' high-altitude air on Stage 18, before a leisurely spin to the Cima Coppi up the Col d'Agnello on Stage 19 and the penultimate day finalizes the podium atop the Cols du Var, la Bonette, and Lombardia. Here, yer last chance to dislodge the reigning maglia rosa before you get to collapse for a few weeks at the line in Torino--plan your efforts well, prepare either your pile-o'desperate-excuses or unctuous sponsor-credit speeches accordingly, and always expect that wily Valverde to try something!

Okay, we'll see how the team managers spin things overnight. I'm thinking lots of thumbs-up bed-time selfies, gourmet-mag pics of optimally nutritionally-balances meals, and at least one gratuitous butt-nekkid massage pic from Pozzato. Vai vai vai vai!

It's Yer Giro d'Italia Week Due (Almost) In Review! #Giro

Yes, cycling fan(s), Week 2 of the smashing Giro d'Italia is upon us, and before we hit the high passes and find out how much Valverde is *really* gonna piss us off with some 'extraterrestri' performance, what've we learned--or just plain gotten to watch, if the Chianti (the wine, not the stomping grounds) has taken precedence--this week? This!


1. Mikel Landa. This is all your fault Sky you incompetent !@#hats! Oh, Mikel, screw Froome, fake some bull!@#$ ailment for July and head straight for captaincy at the Vuelta a Espana instead...

2. Sprinters. At the rate they're bailing--including Andre Greipel, who I would be ticked at except he's just such a lovable big lug and, not coincidentally, also about 5 feet and 800 kilos bigger than me--!@#$in' Esteban Chaves'll take the red jersey *and* the final day's sprint into Torino. Jaysus, if you couldn't take the first two weeks of this--which let's face it was pretty damn kind to you--none o' you clowns'll last til Stage 2 of the Vuelta!

3. Pippo Pozzato. Sure, he's got no results. When the hell was the last time he did, and anyway, who cares? He's so preeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-tty!

4. Sprinters II. Y'know, no offense to the perfectly decent new generation, but I *really* miss the Italians having a sprinter like Alessandro Petacchi. Even without the stud-pup soft-porn calendar photographs!

5. Alejandro Valverde. Creepin' us all out since 2002. And the way he's aging, he's gonna creep us out til at least 2025, to boot!

6. Mikel Landa II. See, haters, he's clean. Yeah, shut up! When Froome got bilharzia and barfed *his* guts out, he won the freakin' Tour de France!

7. Vincenzo Nibali. Such a fine line between 'whining' and 'winning'!

8. Peter Sagan. Oh wait, he's at the Amgen EPO Tour of California. Screw that !@#$!

10. Maarten Tjallingi. Nope, still haven't seen anyone as happy as he was with his hometown blue jersey. Awwww!

12. Samuel Sanchez. No, he's not at the Giro (goddammit), but he might be next year--didja see he signed on for one more year with BMC? Samuuuuuuuuuuu!

13. Damiano Cunego. Hey, I still think he was a backstabbing upstart little wanker to the great Gilberto Simoni, but I do admire him for his riding so far this Giro. Seems almost a little mean to chase him down in the break, don'tcha think?

14. The Podium: !@#$! Landa's not on it. Okay, Chaves. No, Kruyswijk. No...

15. Last But Absolutely Not Least: The Dolomites. If anything's gonna crack Valverde outside of a dop--uh, wholly innocent medical reason to leave the race--it's gonna be them. Alpe d'Huez? Passo Giau *this*, beeyotches!

Okay, the fastmen've bailed, the stealth climbers are desperately hoping the GC contenders are too busy making their lieutenants mark the competition to take any of 'em as a threat--so bring on the mountain goats, baby, it's GO TIME!

Slap-Fights! Etiquette Breaches! Maglia Rosa Blame-Fests!: It's Yer Giro d'Italia Week One in Review! #Giro

Well yeee-haaaaaaaw, we're one week into the fight for the maglia rosa at the most beautiful of all races, the smashing Giro d'Italia--and what've we learned (or wished we could unlearn) so far, cycling fans? This!

1. *Don't* !@#$ with a guy who has *no* chance whatsoever on GC: Whaddya get when you match an FDJ rider hell-bent on a top-ten finish with an AG2R boy with whom he's tangled in a crash? *That's* right, jersey collars get tugged so fiercely a courageous race-moto driver has to dive in to the stop the carnage! And, if you're the offending Alexandre Geniez, you get a hefty 200 euro fine to boot. Hubert Dupont--hope you recovered okay from the violent imbroglio, that must've been one nasty back-o-the-neck rug-burn!

2. You can the wine outta the boy, but you can't take the boy outta the whine: Our presumptive champ in Torino, duped by his moron team car into a fruitless GC-smacking attack-o-doom on Thursday's first mountaintop finish. And, being Nibali, he didn't hesitate to immediately blast the blame onto his bosses. The only one in disagreement, after a cowed Guiseppe Martinelli took the hit for the Shark's foolishness? Undisputed tactical genius/still-missed Paolo Bettini repeat World Champion, essentially telling Vino's second-choice to man up and take control of the tactics (and obey his legs) like a true campione. Well don't expect your team car to let you use 'em like a slingshot anymore like you did last Vuelta, Nibali--they're just as likely to slingshot you right off the mountainside after that bull!@#$ whingeing master-class!

3. He is the very model of a modern major general: Sure, he's not in it for GC--mainly for just recovering from his stomach bug at the moment, with his typical stoic respect for the race--but when Fabian-friggin'-Cancellara speaks, punk, you listen. Yes, enraged etiquette enforcer Spartacus, bringing down the chase-down pain when an upstart peloton, in particular Lampre-Merida attacks race leader Tom Dumoulin while he's taking a nature break. When nature calls the maglia rosa, you *and* yer cheap tactics get put on hold, you classless pig!

4. Time doesn't fly when you're--aw, when you're dear ex-Carrot/Sky captain Mikel Landa on a time trial course: Not only was the poor guy--who worked so diligently on his form in the wind-tunnel over the winter, no less--already kneecapped by the end of the 9k Stage One race against the clock, but worse, he also bonked on the first intermediate mountain stage, losing even more time to that sneaky little ferret Valverde before the truly high peaks even come into view. Bite me, go to hell haters--'e's just restin'!

5. Whole Lotto love: Sure, studly QuickStep blond sprinter/reigning peloton supermodel Marcel Kittel's already smacked down his fast-men competitors in two stages, but which team's already nabbed three in the first week, with two going to fellow German/lovable big lug Andre Greipel, the only man on two wheels who can beat 'im so far? *Darn* tootin', it's Lotto-Soudal--um, shouldn't the Italians be getting a little nervous by now?

6. If you're happy and you know it, spray Prosecco: y'know, I don't think I've seen a happier, prouder rider on any podium anywhere in my *life* than the Netherlands' Maarten Tjallingii, taking his first-ever King of the Mountains jersey on Stage 3. And look at about 56 seconds in--his wee daughter's barely old enough to be on training wheels, and this potential future cycling star's already got the podium stance down!

7. Hard road ahead (or below): finally, only five short years after Wouter Weylandt's tragic death at the Giro, the peloton continues to take its crashes, stitches, and broken bones with philosophical grace. Most phlegmatic so far: AG2R's Arnaud Peraud, who, after a thunderous Stage 3 whack on his face and chest that temporarily knocked him out but luckily caused no more serious injury, reasoned, "I am conscious and it is good news." Stay safe out there dear riders, and soccer players--sorry, footballers--remember *that* clip next time you go down clutching your shin after a minor tap shrieking like you've just been chomped on by a zombie!

Okay, it's on to Week 2 of the fabulous Giro d'Italia. No, Tom Dumoulin is *not* a final GC contender, I *cannot* accept such heresy--and Sky, whatever you're doing to !@#$ over poor Landa so badly, FIX IT!

It's Yer Giro d'Italia in Preview, Part Final: the Climbers! the Sprinters! The Lowdown! #Giro

The Lowdown!: yep, we are just one twee day away from starting the most beautiful race on the planet, and how's it shaping up? Well, crap, literally, if you're poor Fabian Cancellara--in his final Giro, and on the eve of his near-inevitable farewell stint in the maglia rosa, our poor Spartacus has been stricken with stomach flu, and will be lacking just that last least bit of energy on for the opening time trial. But don't give up yet, fanboys'n'girls: a sick Fabs can do more damage in nine kilometers than most time trialists can do in twenty, so there's still hope. So try some flat ginger ale or a cup of chamomile tea to soothe the turmoil, and good luck domani Fabian!

The Climbers!: Look, it's the Giro, so if you're a climber, you're probably also a GC contender, but what're you gonna do if you have a sudden Valverdean urge to backstab yer team captain, or an injury or ill-timed flat knocks him off the podium hunt? *That's* right, you're done being someone else's headwind b!tch, and you get to go off and up on your own. Betancur, Nieve, Scarponi, Atapuma--not to undercut your bosses, but you might want to leave just a *little* bit in the tank, just in case!

The Sprinters!: yeah, it's the Giro, but they *have* crammed a good seven flat days in there, and to its credit, it's attracted a truly bangin' sprint field. A resurgent Kittel's good for at least a coupla stages (and, unlike most of these guys, has vowed to stick it out to the end in Torino, mountains be damned), Elia Viviani's got extra motivation on his home stomping grounds, Caleb Ewan's got a fine shot--but for sheer wanting it, my dough's on Andre "the Gorilla" Greipel, slowly healing from a !@#$ start to his season and rarin' to stay upright and get revenge. Vai vai vai you big lug--is there anything more lovely than a primal Greipel scream at the line?

The 'Nother Guys!: y'know, even though there's buckets of puncheurs this race who can bag a win, without the scrappy and intermittently violent Philippe Gilbert in the field, I just didn't have the heart to yap on 'em. And I feel like I have the same fruitlessly optimistic rainblow-unicorn desire every GT for dashing studpup-about-town Pippo Pozzato to shake off his years-long ennui and take a stage. But give him a lackadaisical field and a flash of inspiration--heck, even a half-!@#edly committed breakaway--and our dear bon vivant is still, I *swear*, a candidate for a win. He's already gotten sorta close a coupla times this season--keep it up, and I promise, you'll earn yourself a smashing pink-and-gold Giro tat front-and-center somewhere if you've still got space!

All right gents, time to post that final pre-race selfie, down your last meal-o-marginal-gains, and saddle up. In bocca al lupo, and may the best man--well, okay, I'm flat out rooting for Landa--win! And to get you in that special mood, here's the Official 2016 Appeldorn Giro d'Italia Theme Song



Forzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!