My Fantasy Volta a Catalunya--uh, Milano-San Remo Press Conference

Volta a Catalunya Race Organizer: Good morning. I am proud to welcome you to today's press conference for the Volta a Catalunya, where for the first time this season, our honored guests and premiere Tour de France contenders Alberto Contador, Nairo Quintana, and Chris Froo--hey!

Matteo Tossato (seizing microphone): well, *we're* here today to call out that punk b!@#$ Arnaud Demare for cheating his way to a win at Milano-San Remo, which an Italian should've won anyway, by getting a giant tow from his team car. I saw him do it with my own eyes--just ask my team doctor, he was hanging out of *our* car taking 15 minutes to adjust a Band-Aid on a boo-boo on my finger!

Eros Capecchi: !@#damn straight Matteo, I saw it too--I was holding ont--uh, getting a bottle from *my* team car the whole way up the Cipressa!

Nacer Bouhanni (butting in): As you can tell from my Catalunya win today, *I* would've *totally* wo--(mic goes dead) MERDE! (slams mic on table, smashing it into a million pieces, stomps off) Where the hell is that audio-visual guy, I'll rip your !@#$ing head off you mother!@#$er!

Michael "Bling" Matthews: Oh, screw you you big cry-baby, I almost took it and I bled 5 liters of blood right on my freakin' handlebars!

Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan: Wait a minute, if that amateur clown Gaviria hadn't gone down right in front of us for no reason, (Peter) the race would've been (Fabian) Peter would *so* have come in second!

Matteo: Hold on, you guys are completely missing the point here...

Capecchi: Yeah, if you didn't do it Demare, post your damn data, cheater! (Tossato whispers in ear) Well then, post some damn data we can complain about!

Chris Froome: C'mon, mates, can we just (Cancellara huffs, puffs, and blows Froome through wall of press conference)

Arnaud Demare (prancing about with trophy): I got the trophy, I got the trophy! Nyeah, nyeah! Suck that Eros and Matteo you sore losers!

Alberto Contador: That's it, I'm outta here! (walks off)

Race Organizer: Well, thank you all for joining us. Come back tomorrow, and we'll try it again!

Extreme Weather Twit-Fight! Tinkoff Cries Foul! Post-Doping Career Planning 101! #cycling

Tell Us How You Really Feel (On Second Thought, Don't): Look, Vincenzo Nibali may be widely considered to be clean--which alone puts him in such rarified company as...!@#$!, give me a minute here!--but anyway, he's also acquired a bit of a rep as a weaselly drafter and a *major* whiner, so, if there's something incredibly annoying or aggravating to be done, you know our hero's gonna be there. His latest prob? The "Extreme Weather Protocol" at Tirreno-Adriatico that led to a premature stage cancellation is bull!@#$, and, if anything like this *ever* happens again, he's going to bail out of the beautiful, perfect, and beyond petty-!@# reproach home race of the Giro d'Italia. BECAUSE REAL RIDERS RIDE TIL THEIR LIMBS ACTUALLY CLINICALLY FREEZE AND FALL OFF IN A LIFE-THREATENING GANGRENOUS ZOMBIE-FLICK SPECIAL-EFFECT HORROR SHOW! and totally coincidentally, I WON'T WIN IF YOU NEUTRALIZE EVEN A TENTH OF A MOUNTAIN STAGE JUST SO MY FELLOW-CYCLIST WUSSY-MEN DON'T CROAK FROM HYPOTHERMIA! Anyhoo, as you might've guessed, the pro-peloton twit-sphere immediately descended into reasoned and sportsmanlike debate, with Matt Brammeier chiming in with a thoughtful "Better you stay home and skip the whole season you narrow minded, selfish moron", Tony Martin leaping in to his defense, and Nibs' agent-to-the-Italian-stars Alex Carera extending the ol' olive branch to Brammeier by noting that he was finally "having his day of glory, not for a victory on the bike, but for a tweet." Ouch!

Two Princes: meantime, after Peter Sagan was again left panting behind the day's victor Greg Van Avermonster at Tirreno, terrifyingly erratic team boss Oleg Tinkov, apparently all recovered from his $4,000/bottle champagne-bender twit-war with Jonathan Vaughters, sent a hearts-filled tweet today to his two superstars/recent second-place finishers Sagz and Alberto. Yeah, I'm sure *that* mood'll hold boys--right til he covers 'em in raw meat and tosses 'em into the exotic-cat enclosure at his luxury dacha if they don't actually *win* a major Classic and the Tour this year! Meantime, Tinkoff's Sean Yates was quick to blame Sky for Alberto's (damn noble--seriously, the guy *never* gives up) 4-second loss, claiming the race motos egregiously paced the boys back to the peloton after eventual winner Geraint Thomas was dropped on the Cote de Peille. Y'know, there's no shame whatsoever in Contador's valiant effort--but Peter, maybe a little less obsessing over the leg-coif and a little more worrying about the finish line! Oh, calm down, tifosi, here's a little gratuitous world championship porn:

Get Your Motor Runnin'/Head Out on the 'Cross Course: finally, today cycling bids a fond farewell to novice bike-doper Femke Van den Driessche, who's already dropped her UCI appeal of her motor bust and called it a day on her riding career in the face of a nasty ban for a surely innocent mistake at a cross race. I get it--bike doping is BAD, very very BAD. It not only goes against the rules, but cuts right to the heart of the perverted wallowing physical sufferfest mentality that infests the guts of every hard-core cyclist. But Van den Driessche effectively getting a lifetime ban for motor doping when any number of star- and super-star riders have been able to (1) chow an all-you-can-eat buffet's worth of PEDs every morning (2) get popped repeatedly (3) be forced kicking and screaming to admit that "I was doing my girlfriend" is a completely separate issue from "and I also took all that crap" and (4) *still* return to the highest and most lucrative levels of the sport, seems like total disproportionate bull!@#$. Damn, Femke, if you'd only been caught cheating three times in the last 12 months you'd'a' probably scored yourself a whole World Tour license! Mmmmm, pass those "nutritional supplements" boss--I'm hungry!

It's Yer Handy Pictorial Guide to Avoiding Rider-Spectator Collisions During Bike Races!

Look, justifiably exciting as it is to attend a bike race and have your hero zip by close enough to touch (which would get you tackled and beaten by goons at, say, an NFL game), we here at racejunkie have tried *repeatedly* to educate eejit spectators on how *not* to down a speeding (or hell, even crawling) cyclist. Still, some folks can't get it through it their thick heads, so now, we're gonna try it with *fewer* words and *lots* of easy-to-understand pictures, just like those books your teacher read to you back in nursery school. So, How Not to Collide With a Cyclist:

This is a "bike racer."

S/he races on a "course."

In some places, there are "barriers" on the course.

Do not stick objects, like cell phones , promotional tchotchkes , or selfie sticks into the course or over the barrier.

These can hit the rider, who can fall and bleed. That is bad.

If there are cobblestones , or a rider gets squeezed off the course, s/he may occasionally ride in the gutter . Don't stand there.

Dogs don't understand bike races.

They may wander into the course, because they are *dogs*. Hold onto them.

Toddlers don't understand bike races either. So like dogs, they may wander. Hold onto them too.

This is a handlebar.

If you wave a plastic bag into it, it stops. Like, hard.

Don't do this either. Plus, because you just hurt we love Iban Mayo, I will hate you forever.

And get the !@#$ off the race course!

Mud 'N' Guts! The Badger Retires (Again)! Tinkoff Training Secrets Revealed! #cycling

Race to the..What the !@#$ Is This?: yes, Paris-Nice is off, and while it may be the race *to* the sun, it sure as hell ain't the race *in* the sun, as mud, rain, snow, and freezing treacherous glop besets the peloton for a messy--and mercifully finished--Stage 1. Not liking the cold: big Belgian bad-!@# Tom Boonen, waxing philosophical and still, despite an injury-delayed return to top form, gunning for Roubaix. Just take good care of him the next few weeks, Quick Step--Lefevere, if this boy so much as gets the sniffles and it affects his race when it counts, it's *your* damn fault!

Babe in the Woods (Well, Off the Podium, Anyway): and, legendary cyclist and Tour de France podium babe extraordinaire Bernard Hinault--whose frequently violent defense of the sanctity of the podium ceremony gives a whole new meaning to the word "puncheur"--is stepping down from his duties of congratulating the day's champion and keeping the celebrations clear of social activists, publicity-ho rabblerousers, and general miscreants, typically, in recent years, by landing on 'em like a ton o' bricks. Here, he takes down a spindly tax protester just last year: We'll miss you Bernard--but I bet your victims won't!

Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All Abou--RIDE, YOU GUTLESS WEENIES, RIDE!: meantime, after Oleg "Dynasty" Tinkov got into an extended twit-fight with Jonathan "Hipster" Vaughters over whether gaudy Trumpesque gilded champagne-swilling extravagance is superior to smugly downscale faux-rusticity--thereby engaging in precisely the sort of substantive discussions about cycling the lack of which is purportedly driving Tinkov out of the sport at the end of the season anyway--Oleg immediately got right back to the business of, y'know, rallying his troops to start winning *bike races* by, as shown in this clip, encouraging his Team Tinkoff boys from behind as they trained this afternoon. Damn, Oleg, you're no braggart after all--you really *are* a better athlete than they are!

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby: finally, while I frankly can't typically tell the difference between an omnium a cadmium or a millenium, I do gather that (1) Mark Cavendish did something to help his teammate and himself yesterday that was wholly within his rights to do and (2) Elia Viviani, who apparently didn't like how this affected *him*, threw a colossal snit over it. Jaysus, you sprinters are annoying enough constantly crying about each other after every !@#damn *road* race--can we at least agree to let the track rest in obscurity as a pure, quiet space in this broader clash of unbearable egos?

Guts! Glory! Cobbles! Numbnuts on Motos Hitting Cyclists!: the Classics Take Off

Like a Rock: look, it's very nice watching the fast-men and -women stretch their legs in the desert--in the "stupefying boring all day every day 'til the last two kilometers" sense--but let's face it, cycling season *really* begins when the tires hit the cobbles, and we're already off to a stellar--and unfortunately intermittently disastrous--start, as Greg Van Avermonster pips World Champ Peter "Who Cares? I'm Adorable!" Sagan at Omloop as the other teams that should've been going for it just bitched and moaned at each other behind, and, even better, Belgian (natch) Jasper Stuyven shows the kind of thrill-a-minute chutzpah that's been completely lost in the recent joyless, highly-clinical, by the numbers, dirt-dull rash (and it *is* a rash) of Chris Froomes frankly indelicately making out with their power-meters, by making an insane solo go-for-it a full 30k from the line to surprise damn near everybody except apparently himself in this past weekend's Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. Woot woot woot--can we get some *more* of you boys to take your eyes off the computers and remember why you must've started riding in the first place from now on?

Sunday, Bloody Sunday: meantime, it's also been a !@#damn crashfest out there already, with Christina Watches' Arnold Fiek taking a terrifying 4-story plunge over a guardrail at the GP Lugano into the freezing Lake Lugano, miraculously escaping--and swimming to safety--with only a few bruises and unfortunately a hairline fracture that'll take a several weeks to heal up, and, of course, yet *another* oblivious stupid support vehicle--this time, a medical support moto fer chrissakes--plowing into a rider, this time the luckless Stig Broeckx, whose BRIGHT RED KIT AGAINST A BLACK TARMAC ROAD SURFACE apparently rendered him completely invisible to A TOTAL SPACE-CADET RECKLESSLY INATTENTIVE MOTORIZED DANGEROUS ASSHAT. Team Lotto-Soudal, of course, has protested vigorously on behalf of poor multi-fractured Stig--whose Classics season is perforce completely tanked--demanding "concrete measures" be taken for rider safety, when, for my money, what "concrete" these riders really need nowadays is a !@#damn four-sided mobile CONCRETE BUNKER around each and every one of 'em just so some moron doesn't run directly over them like they understandably weren't EXPECTING A RIDER TO BE IN A GIANT EASILY VISIBLE PELOTON IN A RACE DAY YOU TOTALLY KNEW ABOUT INCLUDING THE RACE ROUTE BECAUSE YOU WERE !@#ING HIRED TO GO ALONG RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT WITH THE REASONABLE EXPECTATION YOU OUGHTN'T TO DECIMATE ANYBODY. Jaysus--anyway, speedy recovery guys!

Round and Round: finally, even trackside has seen a pile of thrilling action, with American Evelyn Stevens just smoking the women's world hour record by over a kilometer even as she was weaving like hell with the strain towards the end, and Brad Wiggins--well, whining about some stupid !#$ I can't bear to hear another word of, *again." Go Evelyn--come to think of it, maybe stop for a minute, you've freakin' earned it!

It's St. David Millar's Top-Secret Anti-Doping-Mentor Class Syllabus!

He was busted for doping. He cried like hell. And now, he's mentoring baby cyclists on their path to clean competition. Yes, cycling fans, we've got it here--a copy of unctuous anti-doping crusader St. David Millar's new class syllabus!

ANTI-DOPING 101

I. Doping Is Really, Really Bad And You Shouldn't Ever Do It
a. It's Bad Because It Makes You Wi--Aw, !@#$!
b. Identifying Friendly Journos and Press Outlets To Leak This Lesson To So You Can Show You Really, Really Wouldn't Dope

II. Intro to (Anti) Doping
a. Cutting-Edge Substances and Techniques You Should Never, Ever Use
b. Evading the Narcs: Tips 'n' Tricks
b. Finding the Right Doctor For You (When Your Regular Team Doc Just Isn't Enough)
c. Geography Lesson: Foreign Medical Clinics Innocuously Located Near Your Team Camp's Training Site
d. "Training Plans" Your Phony Doc Can Give UCI To Prove He Was Just Giving You "Training Advice"

IV. What To Do When You've Been Popped
a. Denial or Omerta'?: A Philosophical Discussion
b. Tearful Confessions: In Police Custody, and Out of It
i. I Feel So Bad (That I've Been Busted)
ii. Thank God You've Caught Me At Last (Instead of That Other !@#$er Who Totally Deserves It Worse)
iii. I Only Did It Once (Because You Confiscated the Rest of My Stash)
c. Method Acting: Crying to Convince
d. Choosing Your Target: Making Sure You Wail in Remorse Anytime You're Near a Camera (and How to Find Them)
e. Who to Call When Your DS and Team Doc Throw You Under the Bus Like a Dirty Snot-Rag

V. Image Rehabilitation
a. Moral Righteousness: Piling On Everyone Else Who Did Exactly What You Did (Without Looking Like a Total !@#hole)
b. Remembering to Suck When Your Ban Is Over Now That You're Supposedly Clean
c. I'm Going to Be an Anti-Doping Ambassador (Because !@#$ If I'm Gonna Be the Only Sap Forced to Play Fair)
d. Selling Your Sob Story: Memoir Tips 'n' Pricing
e. Show Me the Money: Getting a Lucrative Job Despite Your Filthy, Doping Past
f. Show Me More Money: Advanced Lesson in Starting Your Own Clothing Line/Conti Team/Training Biz/Coffee House


Extra Credit Projects and Reading:
I. Bitching About Mechanical Doping: How to Distract UCI From the Real Problem
II. Case Study: Roberto Heras: Challenging the Validity of Your B Sample And Winning Tons of Dough
III. Case Study: Alexander Vinokourov: Benefits of Threatening to Take Everyone Else Down With You
IV. To Be, Or Not to Be (A Repugnant Spineless Scumbag Wuss): Pointing The Finger At Your Grandma, And Other Family Conundrums

Sissy Li'l Slap-fights! Team Hijinks! Oh, Right, and a Few Folks Ride Their Bikes, Too #cycling

Cav Gets Huffy (the Mood, Not the Bike): well, I guess Cav's decided to call bull!@#$ on accusations he's "gone soft", because this week, as Marcel Kittel stormed to two stage victories and the overall at the Tour of Dubai after a miserable 2015, and Cav started to look all last-March Peter Sagan with all the "almosts", the Manx Missile finally lost patience and (gently, for sure) head-butted a fellow sprinter unsportingly getting in his face in the final dash to the line. And, over at the Herald SunTour, some rather unpleasant words were exchanged between Sky's Peter Kennaugh--just losing the overall GC on the final day to deeply irritating teammate Chris "Pterodactyl" Froome--and whiny domestique Pat Shaw from Avanti over Sky and Kennaugh in particular allegedly riding like total wankers on the final day, among them maudlin pet names like "selfish"--whoa, I'm way too much of a delicate lady to repeat *that*! Hey, if you can't beat the guy on the bike, you can at least use up all those words you learned in the schoolyard in third grade--*that'll* teach the snotty bastard!

Quick-Slap: Over at the Tour of Qatar, the organizers have decided not to invite back INeverRememberWhoTheNewFirstSponsorIs-QuickStep for 2016, not because the other teams have been bitching for years that their own guys can't take out QuickStep in any of the sprints and it makes them look bad, but because the squad's preening prima donnas not only insist on delaying the podium ceremonies by demanding to change out of their cycling shoes and sit for a minute after wrenching their guts out in the life-threatening heat, but they were also (inexcusably, to be fair) rude to the woman sent to tell them nicely to get the lead out (the element out of their !@#, not the sprint term), *and* they were seemingly causing all kinds of unseemly ruckus in the hotel, presumably by lighting stink-bombs in the stairwells doing cannonballs off the hotel pool diving board and splashing the well-bred guests and pulling the fire alarms to elude the 3 am doping controls. Oh, lighten up organizers and let 'em back--and let's get this party *started*!

Seeing Red (Though Maybe Not for Long): meanwhile, some punk little assclown over at Katusha has now put we love dear Purito Rodriguez' early season in doubt, as this nobody kid Vorganov gets popped for some weird drug that's apparently banned in most of Europe anyway but is (or has been til quite recently), it seems, available from our fine friends at Amazon, potentially opening Katusha up to a 45-day ban for the whole squad as it's their second offense in recent months. Holy crap, PEDs *and* Free Two-Day-Shipping with an Amazon Prime membership? Doping scumbags, sign me up! Honey, did we *not* just cover "If you're gonna dope, at least don't dope and suck" in our *last* post? And Vino, you and the rest of Astana management get back to admiring your gold-plated bicycle, and get that !@#$ing smirk off your face!

Motorin'...What's Your Price for Flight?: finally, when you start calling out dear ex-Euskaltel Ion Izaguirre for motor doping for having his wheel seemingly continue rotating for some time after a crash, all I can say is, go to hell for slandering a former Carrot, after nearly 10 years of blogging I'm damn well running out of defenses for riders I like, and even if he is which he isn't, what, you want him ending up in the !@#damn emergency room with some fridge-spoiled Riccardo Ricco' death-drug-cocktail, if anyone *has* to be enough of a thieving weasel to cheat I'd frankly rather them raiding the local hardware store for some wires and a cheap-!@# soldering gun where the worst damage they could do to themselves is a minor electrical shock versus damn near croaking from liver failure so yap yap it's lazy and against the Official Martyr Sufferfest Code let's stop acting like a pile of pills and a syringe is some kind of relative freakin' moral high ground if they're gonna be a disgusting disgrace to the entire sport anyway because at least if it's repugnant it's not gonna actually get them killed. Didn't *anyone* watch that Time for Timer thing between Saturday morning cartoons on how the human body is a just a big machine anyway? Man, now I've taken a universally-reviled position *and* dated myself back to the Pleistocene Era....anyhoo, here's our boy showing off one of his special new wheels, so enjoy!

It's Yer Brand-Spankin'-New Top Ten Tips for Dopers!

Sure, we here at racejunkie have generously offered our beloved riders free advice on this before, but each crop o' alleged losers seems to screw it up in exciting new ways all over again every year! So here, Yer Handy-Dandy Top Ten Tips for Dopers (and Wannabees):

1. If you're gonna dope, at least don't dope and *suck*. Have you *no* pride?

2. Valverde, man. Bow and learn, you incompetent nits!

3. Valverde, man. Wouldn't this motor thing just be *easier*?

4. Don't unleash a blood feud on someone who rats you out. Armstrong'd be a lot better off--or at least look like way less of an !@#hole--if he hadn't.

5. Motor in your bike frame: pathetic. *Real* cyclists use drugs. Two wires bad, four syringes good!

6. Y'ever see those inbred toothless morons on reality cop shows who get busted with a pile o' meth in their pants and go, "duuuuuuuh, it belongs to my friend"? Yeah, that's how it looks when *you* do it, too.

7. Shut up, Froome. Almost everybody already thinks you're doping anyway. Your righteous indignation ain't helping.

8. Omerta: bad in principle, great in practice. Ask (we still love) Roberto Heras--he'll give you 724,000 euros worth o' reasons why!

9. For the uninitiated, your pedals are supposed to stop moving at some point once you're off the bike. Flip the switch, !@#$head!

10. Yes, we *know* your team/DS/sponsor/mechanic is a lying sack of crap. But they're still gonna throw you under the bus, and win. Enjoy the next 50 years as an embarrassing footnote in the history books, sucker!

Really, you clowns--we're trying to *help* you here. At some point, we're gonna have to start charging for it!

It's Yer 2016 Peloton Team-Kit-O-Rama Part 3: Ow, My Eyes! Edition

We've got the discreet pinstripes of Trek-Segafredo, and the black-and-sky of, well, Sky down pat--so who's left to spot anew on the 2016 roads so you can root for your fave or snarl at yer sworn enemy? That's right, the retina-searing visages of these guys!

AG2R: they're not bright, but man, they suuuuuuuure are ugly. Someone, *please*, remake this brand!

Lampre: by ditching the Rainbow-Brite turquoise for the less glowing deep blue, they've maybe lost a *little* of their Barbie sparkle-princess mojo, but that hot pink? Ya just can't go wrong, even without Pippo Pozzato to make it even prettier this year. The flash of neon green adds a lively touch. Shine on, boys!

Cannondale: if you can catch it before your eyeballs go numb, there's a stylin' tone-on-tone blast o' the argyle on this perennial trendsetter's team kit. Good luck blending unnoticed into a breakaway though!

Lotto-Jumbo: Bum-bum-bumblebee, Bum-ble-bee Tuna, I Love...aw, hell, no-one else is old enough to remember that jingle!

Tinkoff: Whether they're dressin' up like a herd o' zebras trying to confuse the hell outta a pack of attacking lionesses, or just trying to show UCI en masse that they're not riding quite as disconcertingly as that mono-pack of Team Sky freaks ahead of 'em, you can count on Oleg Tinkov's boys to put on a show. Let's hope they do for the Tour, too, or it'll just be that much easier for Oleg to spot 'em while they're running away!

And, a Coupla Bonus Continental Kits:

Southeast: look, Pippo Pozzato could wear a kitchen-slopped dish-rag--which come to think of it is more than he usually wears in his Instagram pics--and still look good. But this one he's designed--and he already seems buckets more excited to ride than he has in years. Forza Pippooooo!

Direct Energie: wondering how to find Thomas "the Tongue" Voeckler this year when his mouth is shut and you don't see the familiar forest green of Europcar? Yep, in these rather dashing duds from new squad Direct Energie!

All righty folks, that wraps up our 2016 Team-Kit-o-Rama--now no excuses for accidentally screaming for a Kittel over a Greipel, and let the road games begin!

It's Yer 2016 Peloton Team-Kit-O-Rama: Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue! Edition

Whoa moly, the road season is nigh upon us, and we *still* don't know how the hell to tell who the hell we're rooting for with the ever-confusing roll-out of the New Year's team kits! Can you *imagine* if they pulled this !@#$ with NFL teams, there'd be riots in the streets and beer-and-nachos-fueled total freakin' anarchy, I tells ya! Anyway, since at most all the squads have to fear from cycling fans is, like, some *serious* pouting and Twitter snark, with no threat of immediate bloodshed it at least behooves us to know we're swearing at over a dainty espresso at our local bike cafe':

He Wore Blue...Spandex:

Movistar: In the Navy...with a touch of neon green! In case you're *still* confused, it's the taller one bushwhacking the shorter one. Alejandro and Nairo, lookin' sharp!


Astana: Hey, Vino *was* gonna actually make Nibali and everyone else wear a team jersey with a picture of Fabio Aru on it all season, but even that crazy bastard Vinokourov'll only dope-smack an actual former Tour de France winner so hard--at least 'til Fabio takes it!

Orica-Greenedge: White? Blue? Who cares how you call it, we love 'em anyway! And a *touch* of green for suavite'. Allez boys!


The Gentleman In Red:

BMC: What'll Samuel Sanchez and...uh, a buncha other guys be wearing as Tejay and Porte slug it out for Grand Tour supremacy? Red is for "blood feud", baby!

Katusha: remember all that stupid !@#$ this past Christmas over Starbucks' heathen red-ombre coffee cups without any Christly symbols of coffee addiction? Yeah, like that--Puritoooooooooooo!

Lotto-Soudal: red, white, and bitchin'!


Snow White and the Seven Garish Added Colors:

FDJ: sure, you won't actually see 'em up *front* all that often, but, with no real changes from last year's garb, they'll sure look pretty nice when you do!

IAM: I am blue, I am white...I am apparently inspired by "neo-classicism", whatever that means. Anyway, good luck in 2016!

Dimension Data: Aside from seeing 'im slice someone's line off like a hot knife through butta, how're you gonna tell it's Cavendish? MTN-Qhubeka, we hardly new ye!

All right, we're comin' down to the last of 'em. Good thing, too, since the Tour Down Under and San Luis are already underway, and we wouldn't want you to miss a trick!

It's Yer Handy 2016 Peloton Team Kit-o-Rama Part One: None More Black Edition!

Yes, after the long, cold, miserable off-season--at least for the tifosi--it's finally that time of year when all the teams assemble in an orgy of training, press conferences, and (with the exception of a few eejit DSes still sticking with the delusional concept of "willing co-captains") brotherhood, and, even better, confuse the whole lot of us for the first two months of the year by screwing with their team kits. So how're you gonna tell a Cavendish from a Kittel from a Contador? Here, it's Yer Handy 2016 Team Kit-o-Rama: None More Black Edition!

Sky: The black is for bad-!@#. The blue is for "sky"--get it? Bonus--a blue stripe down the back with the magical ability to prevent the pasty Froome from immolating into an actual fireball on Mont Ventoux. Now that's protecting your investment, gentlemen!

Trek: It's all business for these pinstripe assassins, complete with exceedingly practical coffee sponsor! Helpful hint: you can tell 'em apart from everyone else by the nice starched white shirt peeking out. And Fabs looks so suave!

Giant-Alpecin: Watch out for this outfit, tiny climbers--'cause this guy, breakout mountain goat Tom Dumoulin, is gonna kick your !@# next season. Best you know who to look for--or aim for, after he blows by you while you're cryin' on a col!

Etixx-Quick Step: It's blue, it's black--aw, who cares how it fits in, Marcel Kittel *still* has better hair than you!

All right, there's yer men in black--on to the rest of the rainbow (and yeeeesssss, I'm getting to Peter Sagan, people)!

It's Yer 2016 Cycling Year in Preview (Yeah, You Read Right)!

Well, cycling fans, 2015's mercifully done, and it's time to look ahead to the Year in Cycling 2016. So what're you gonna miss if you don't pay attention? This!

January: Team camps wind down! Tinkoff debuts new flashing-strobe-light team kit, wins Tour de France in July by blinding, disorienting teams Sky and Movistar; Sky to undisclosed location for training because "no-one'll be able to see what we're doi--uh, we found some totally new mountains to ride on!"; women's enormous new World Tour budgets allow Vos, Armitstead to quit exhausting Wal-Mart night-shift jobs for exhausting McDonald's night-shift jobs instead. Progress!

February: The road season really kicks off! No winners at Tour of Qatar as sprinters melt into tarmac, sucked under 500 feet of sand; carnage at Kuurne as actual furniture replaces road furniture in race course, riders wipe out on new bedroom set in middle of road; Omloop Het Niewsblad courts controversy with naked photo of Sagan's butt crouched over bicycle, Pippo Pozzato sues demanding it be replaced with picture of him instead. Already on the road to glory, I see!

March: It's hard-man season, baby! Mark Cavendish takes Strade Bianche after personally chewing entire gravel course to head mechanic's specifications; Luca Paolini repeats win at Gent-Wevelgem by--what the !@#$, !@#damn Alejandro Valverde's still in the freakin' sport and you're going after LUCA?!; Jens Voigt wins Criterium International when peloton collectively quits after mistaking Jens' walk to press box for walk to sign-in.

April: Oh, yeah, it's the big shows of the cobblestones! Boonen, Cancellara crash again, this time break pave', pave' begs for mercy; Valverde becomes first centenarian to sweep Ardennes Classics, says "I guess all that !@#$ I was taking in 2006 is still--uh, I get up bright and early, every morning, and have my muesli!"; Pippo Pozzato blows career-reviving Flanders triumph by stretching out on cobbles to work on his tan, again. Dammit Pippo, preen on your own time!

May: It's the Giro d'Italia, baby! Mikel Landa accidentally attacks self without Fabio Aru around to bushwhack, beats self to Milan by 14 days 22 hours 8 minutes; Nibs mistaken for own soigneur by Vinokourov, buried under pile of dirty team kits, soigneur rides/wins podium spot; Amgen EPO Tour of California--oh, who gives a !@#$, how *dare* they run this stupid thing against the beautiful Giro anyway!

June: Pre-Tour tuneups! Marcel Kittel continues season-long sprint-loss streak due to 34 kilos extra weight in hair gel; Andre Greipel wakes dead in Hades with primal scream of victory, doors of underworld opened, living dead take over earth; Tinkov sweeps Contador off to last-minute "training camp" at undisclosed Siberian "black site". Now *that's* motivation, I say!

July: What else--Le Tour! Sagan pops wheelie with Contador on board before Stage 1 sign-in, launches him to Paris for maillot jaune/overall triumph; Vinokourov allows Nibali to ride Tour so long as carries Fabio Aru on shoulders the whole way; Valverde attacks Quintana for 3 consecutive weeks, still loses when Quintana hides his bike shoes on penultimate day, Alejandro forced to finish race on flat kid's pedals and cheap flip-flops; Porte shares BMC team leadership with Van Garderen by dissolving latter's bicycle/spares in giant vat of acid hauled behind team bus, claims he was "just trying to help by lubing the chain"; Froome DQd on final day when race organizers realize he's actually too skinny to be visible to the human eye, determine no-one's even seen the guy for three weeks.

August: Post-Tour recriminations, Olympics, and Vuelta time! Richie Porte demoted from staying in hotel rooms to staying in cat-carrier squished under boss Ochowicz's feet in team car; record-breaking 67 Astana riders, staff popped for doping in single day, UCI punishes by stripping FDJ of its World Tour license and giving it to Vinokourov "in case he needs an extra, plus FDJ sucks anyway"; Tom Dumoulin takes gold medal after climbing Mount Everest on 86-lb. wrought-iron single speed, attributes freak climbing win to "superlight new bike technology."

September: It's the fabulous Vuelta a Espana finale! Race organizers rue last year's neutralized sandy-stage debacle, run 350-km prologue directly through Mediterranean sea instead; Purito takes final podium takes final podium when ASO "forgets" to put on individual time trial, ASO celebrates with 200,000 euros mysteriously simultaneously deposited into offshore bank accounts; Purito doubles, bags "combativity" prize for whanging Valverde upside head with new disc breaks for that nasty crap Alejandro pulled on him last year.

October: It's the end of the road (races), honey! Nibali repeats Lombardia victory after Vinokourov too tired from long season to remember to order Aru to slash his tires; Worlds races moved to overnight hours to avoid incapacitating Qatar heat, entire sport of professional cycling gets irretrievably lost in desert when mechanics forget to pack lights for everyone; Nairo Quintana announces 2017 signing "with anyone who'll get me away from that backstabbing b!@#ard Valverde!"

November: New-contract count-down! Landa, Intxausti pack Sky with remaining peloton ex-Carrots, convert team to reconstituted Euskaltel, Chris Froome announced as baggage-wrangler for 2016; Sagan starts own one-man World Tour team, because it's not like he even needs anyone else; Oleg Tinkov bails on pledge to exit cycling, purchases entire peloton, announces that all 2017 races will be ridden on Big Wheels for his personal amusement. Now *there's* an epic climb on Alpe d'Huez!

December: Team camps begin again! Contador sticks with cycling another year, reasons "there's no way that flailing stork Froome can beat me on a Big Wheel"; FDJ builds core strength by stacking selves into pyramid formation so Bernard Hinault can stand on their shoulders with bullhorn, yell how much French cyclists all blow compared to the Saganator; Van Garderen mistakenly sends Porte plane ticket to Antarctica, Porte misses 2017 season waiting for ice to melt enough to get home. Oopsie!

Alrighty then, there's your 100 percent accurate, completely and utterly inevitable preview for next season--and when it happens, don't say I didn't warn ya!