Daa-daah! Fanfare of trumpets, it's the Tufty Collection!
Yes, lead by our fashionista, the lovely Leelu (chorus of "Graeme Brown?" from all around and much Cougarish giggling), it has been decreed that Tufts Are Back for this season, yay!
Photo: Gerry Schmit. Haircut: knife and fork
At the very start of the year, there was terrible news: Andy Schleck had a really brutal haircut for the Leopard-Trek presentation.
I mean, look at it!!
Where are all the floppy bits?
Where is the length on top, required to be pulled through the helmet by Jakob with a crochet hook?
Where are the cute sticky-out bits round the back?
No wonder he looked such a glum bunny for most of the time.
Andy, pet, go back to the old hairdresser, would you? This new one is a bit too drastic.
So, with fear and trembling, we wondered if we would ever see such wonderful Tufti-ness as we had in former days.
However, in an exclusive interview with our Schleckland reporter, Leelu confirmed the following:
"Ladies, the verdict is in and yes the tufty squirrel look is making a comeback to the peloton for 2011. The trend is taking off, but the fashion-conscious-cyclist should take note not to 'over-do' it."
Pausing only to chug a bottle of beer, shear a sheep and reverse her pick-up truck over a cardboard cut-out of Alberto Contador, the charming, elegant, leopard-ear-wearing Leelu continued "The tufty squirrel should be subtle and preferably worn with a smile."
Examples were given, to demonstrate the correct usage of Tufts, and - brace yourselves - there was even a demonstration of How To Over-Do Tuftage. Yes, shocking!
Firstly, we have the Side-Tuft.
As is clearly visible in this shot, the Tuft is pulled through the helmet and laid gently to one side.
Gentleman in the peleton can of course choose if they are going to dress their Tuft to the left or to the right.
(Eli, stop sniggering, I can hear you all the way down here.)
Product may be applied to hold the Tuft at the chosen angle: we recommend J. Fuglsang as stocking the widest range of product.
Next we have The Scruff: not every member of the peleton will be able to achieve this look, it is essential to combine random Tuftage, copious amounts of sweat, and some glorious back-lighting.
NB it may not always be possible to achieve this level of lighting when actually cycling, but bribing the camera-bike to shine a headlamp on you might help.
This is, of course, only to be attempted at UCI 1.1 or 2.1 races, where race radios are - at the time of writing - still allowed to be worn.
Here we have the UpDo, showing great root-lift and excellent styling.
A Danish henchman is almost essential for this style.
Please note the effect of extra Tuftiness emerging from the back of the helmet - yes! Those flowing locks are growing back at last! (Either that, or Andy's having extensions: well, you have to do something with all that stuff you fish out of the plug-hole.)
Aha! The Mohawk!
Only for the most serious TuftyMen, this effect is very difficult to pull off, and requires continuous adjustment to maintain the crest effect.
Again, product may be required.
This is also, as Leelu commented, a perfect example of a Tufty Squirrel worn with a smile.
Now a word of warning: How Not To Do The Tufty Squirrel.
Too much!
Too much!
And too grey!!!!!!
I'm not even mentioning the patch of what appears to be pink bare skin showing through the left-hand "nostril" hole, shudder.
Returning quickly to better things, back to Our Andy:
This contribution is from Kara, and as she comments, could possibly be considered borderline "overdoing it", but as it's accompanied by a smile, well, we'll allow it, just this once.
Actually that could well be a grimace of pain, rather than a smile...
... but it demonstrates a masterful use of the Tuft, with equal distribution and very neat placement.
Some riders are born Tufties: some learn how to acquire The Tuft: some, alas, can never attain true Tuftiness.
Here, Our Andy demonstrates Ultimate Tuftiness while casually blowing his nose, while poor Boring Bertie Contador labours behind, bereft of Tufts, with flat, boring (probably greasy) hair. Not that I'm biaised against him or anything, noooooo.
"Admiring my rear, ladies?"
"Nooo, not us, we're just admiring your Tuftiness, honest!"
Here, Unndy demonstrates Total Tuft, including back hair, Mohawk and Random Tuftage.
And my final thought on the subject for the moment: this is another reason to hate TimeTrial button mushroom helmets, which utterly ruin all attempts at Tuftiness.
Well done Anne, thank you for joining as a Schlecklander, that means we get another photo of Our Glorious Leader, yay!
Nice, huh?
I can't quite make my mind up if he is leaning back against a wall, or lying down on the floor.
I thought it would be safer to keep it this way up and not offer you the lying-on-the-floor option in case Certain People (you know who you are) got carried away.
Talking of photos, bit of a disappointment, I asked Graham Watson for permission to use some of his photos here, and he refused. Well, technically, his company refused.
Shame, he had a lovely one of Fabian after Oman, all sweaty and looking as though he was definitely thinking "Le'ss go home, le'ss go home!"
I hadn't realised, when I approached him, that he seems to be the official Team Schlux photographer, oops! Possibly he thinks he's too "big" to allow fangirls to use his photos? Perhaps he's never looked at Tumblr where everyone just clicks and copies? Oh well, we'll have to hope that nice Mr Christian Kemp gets some new photos this season.
Actually, I was just looking at the Team Schlux site, and in the gallery selection, if you go to Andalucia stage 2, photo number 5 (sorry, I would just put it here but the photographer wouldn't give permission) you can see tufts of hair sticking out through the helmet, which is sooo cute.
Jakob isn't there, so presumably he handed over the crochet hook to one of the neo-pros, along with a lesson in how to pull the hair through for maximum fangirl-appeal.
Now for a horrible thought, and it's not my idea but actually originated with LLB: there's a bit of a design flaw with the Team Schlux kit.
Typically, looking for a photo to illustrate this problem, I couldn't find any shots of the team from the rear en masse, it's a shot I've seen quite a few times in the TV coverage - what little there has been! - but not many stills of it.
However, from this photo of one rear, I think you can see what he means. They seem to have, er, put a bottom on their bottoms!
News from Saturday: Cycling News confirmed that it was Xavier Tondo who tipped off police late last year, about a doping operation.
He received an email offering him EPO and clenbuterol, among other stuff (funny, I only get emails offering me Viagra, a substance for which I have no use at all) and he sent the email straight on to the police.
Yay!
Good boy, Tondo!
I'm particularly pleased as he was one of my favourites in the first half of last year, before I was struck down with AndyNess: he and Sastre were having ding-dong battles in the earlier stages of the TdF. OK half the time I called him Tonto rather than Tondo, but he did well. And no, he's not pretty, but he was very valiant, and now we know that he's a clean rider as well. So yay! for Tondo!
Other news for today: it's supposed to be snowing in Lux today, according to our old friend Cathy Reay at News 352. (Aaah, remember all those lovely reports I used to bring you, of the Howald Tunnel? *sighs*) However, I've just checked the webcams, and there are practically no cars on the roads of Lux, let alone any snow.
I kid you not:
There you go.
Empty!
Empty!
I make that about a dozen cars, over 9 cameras. (sorry about it spilling off the edge of the page.)
In comparison - five minutes later, on the M4 outside London (ie not even a busy one!) I can count two dozen cars on the nearest carriageway alone.
Say, someone - Alice, are you still with us? Amanda, are you around today? - what's the speed limit in Lux, on the motorways?
Question: if a car is speeding on an empty motorway and there is no-one to see it, does it matter?
Finally for today, although I have failed to gain a new follower today (*cries of "oh woe! oh woe!" ) I thought I might share this pic with you: have a nice day, one and all.
So, not only did they spend the early part of January doing Lee O'Pard stuff, Frandy spent it getting hunting licences, too! (Kara, was this the photo you meant? If so, thanks for holding back on it!!)
Look Barbara, a shotgun!
Apparently they scored very high points in the tests, not that we would expect anything less from boys that have been out hunting with their father since they were tiny little Schlecklets.
For some reason, it appear to be easier to get a licence in France than in Lux, although the licences cover France, Lux, Belgium and the Netherlands, so they stepped across the border to Moselle and did their tests there.
Well, considering that in some of the southernmost houses in Mondorf, the owners could, if they were so inclined, spit into France.... you can see the logic behind taking the tests there.
We don't have anything like this in England: I have a shotgun licence, of course, (yes, I have guns just as big as Andy's one stop-laughing-you-lot-I-can-hear-you) and my storage arrangements have to be inspected and approved by the Police, but if I want to go hunting, all I have to do is get permission from the landowner concerned.
Mind you, over here, we don't have much worth hunting: we shoot Bunnies, we attempt to shoot squirrels, we trap magpies, but we don't have things like wild boar. Well, except for one small part of the country, where some idiots from one of those eco-groups broke down the fences of a wild boar farm and released the (expensive and pedigree) animals into the surrounding countryside. They never did get all of them back, so there is the possibility that one day, someone is going to get a nasty shock in the woods!
Deer is a bit of a specialist hunting thing here, you can't hunt them with a shotgun, it has to be a rifle, and that's a different gun licence altogether. Me, I'll stick to my faithful old 12-bores. Not least because in my part of the UK, we don't have nice edible deer, we have those horrible Muntjac things (on the left, below) with coats made of iron and very little meat. Apparently.
And don't say "aaaah!", just look at the sly way the Muntjac is standing, and the inelegant way it's bottom slopes down: it just looks guilty, doesn't it? Then compare this to the proud and upright stance of the Roe deer on the right. Not that I'm biased, you understand, but several of my gardens are plagued by Muntjac, they are greedy little buggers creatures and seem to take a delight in destroying my lovely plants, particularly the bluebells, for which they seem to have quite a taste. Harumph.
OK, enough about deer, now a quick diversion: a little while ago I found a very funny and interesting blog called The Beet Goes On, written by a very amusing lady called Amanda who writes about her experiences of living abroad. (She's American.)
On her blog, I found this vid, and I just have to include it - yes, I know, "not another funny cat thing" but it make me hoot out loud, and I'm sure you will too:
Great, huh?
So thanks to Amanda for the link that led to the site that featured that vid (next door to the house that Jack built), and I can thoroughly recommend her blog for anyone who has a, shall we say, passing interest in daily life in Lux, and what living there might entail, as she LIVES THERE! Yay! Go, Amanda! Stalk those Schlecks and tell us all about it!!!! And welcome to Schleckland, delighted to see that you are Following, thank you for joining us!
Er hem, where was I?
Oh yes, anyone watch track cycling? No, me neither. But on Sunday, having nothing better to do (I'd finished the current Sudoku book) I ended up watching the World Cup track cycling in Manchester while LLB was catching up with his computer, or possibly just checking out the results of Oman.
Now, I'll come right out and say that in my opinion, track cycling is not the most thrilling thing in the world, and is nowhere near as good to watch as road cycling. But, each to their own, and now at least I understand more about what constitutes a perfect Time Trialling position. Each race is very short, only a couple of minutes in duration, and it's mostly about sprinting. Being in a circular, banked, track, it's a little tiny bit like watching hampsters in a wheel..... the bikes are Fixies, ie no gears, no freewheeling, and they also have no brakes, which brings a level of entertainment to the ends of the races.
However, the excitingscary compelling don't look! too late part occurred late in the afternoon during the showing of the Men's Keirin Final. "Kierin?" I hear you say, "what's that?"
Well, it's a specific type of track race in which six riders in a mass start set off round the track, with a lead-out man on a little motor-powered bicycle called a Derny, who brings them up to a slowish speed, then peels off the track leaving them to pedal like crazy for the rest of the race. They play tactics about getting the best position, and about how long to leave it before going for the mad final sprint.
To someone who watches road races, it seems bizarre to see the leader of the string pedalling pretty fast, but looking back over his shoulder. Well, no dogs, no potholes, no camera bikes, no road furniture, no wind.....
OK, so here we are watching the Keirin final ("Keirin" = Japanese word for "race". Hmmm, how original.) and the little Derny bike leads them round the track, peels off, they pedal, the leader looks back, someone make a break, they all sprint, and then this happens: the whole race only takes a minute and a half, so just watch it:
I loved the way Sir Chris Hoy - the winner - sprints off, crosses the line, and continues round the track completely oblivious to the carnage behind him!
Hilariously - not shown on the footage above - the guy in orange (who in my opinion was the one who caused it, he certainly was the first one to fall) hobbled as fast as he could in cycling shoes on a slippery surface to the finish line, in an effort to get second or third place - he was almost there when an official stopped him and obviously said "you have to cross the line with your bike!" so he had to hobble back, pick up the wreckage of his bike, and hobble back carrying it, treading on other competitors lying groaning on the ground as he did so. He thought he's got third place for his efforts but he was later demoted, and serve him right, too.
Meanwhile, the competitor in white, Awang, got a splinter in his leg but managed to get back on his bike and was officially third across the line, but then collapsed: as The Telegraph reported:
"incredibly Awang remounted his bike and crossed the line to finish third and take the overall World Cup title before the full extent of his injury became apparent.
His screams of pain could be heard around the packed velodrome as medics rushed to attend and take him to hospital where he had to be sedated overnight before a specialist medical team could attempt the trickiest of procedures."
Big fuss for a splinter, are we thinking? Nope, here's the splinter - warning, if squeamish, don't look:
Yup, that's what I call a splinter.
Actually, that's what I call a stake! Ouch!
Poor man, they pulled it out the next day. YouToob has a vid of the operation, but it is clearly labelled "Do Not Watch If You Are Squeamish" so I haven't watched it.
If you really want to see it, Cycling News have the vid, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Tour of the Algarve? Blertie came fourth. With or without PEDs, who can tell. Who cares. Well, ok, we do care, because it impacts on Our Glorious Leader from the friendship "I shoulda stuck by him" or "I'm glad I backed off" (depending on outcome) point of view, as well as the "might have won TdF by default but it still goes on record as being my win" aspect. Also because we don't want any more high profile doping cases, and this one has done quite enough damage.
None of Team Schlux came anywhere interesting. Linus "Hair Man" Gerdermann dropped out early on, and Fabian "Orange Head" Wegmann was ill, but according to the Team Schlux site, DS Adriano Baffi was happy with what they did, and said it was good experience for the younger riders.
So now we are wishing that we had TV coverage of the Vuelta a Andalucia... so far, we seem to have lost Stefan "Mad Hair" Denifl: he's on the Team Schlux calendar roster, but there are 8 riders there, and the teams appear to be made of only 7 riders, so maybe he was the spare? Any info welcomed on that subject!
Oh, quick word going back to the World Tracks: there was an interview with the GB team, which included Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins from Sky, after they won the Team Pursuit, which is just like Team Time Trial only much, much slicker. Lovely quote from Bradley, saying he'd enjoyed the week at the track event, he said it was like a holiday after the road race in Qatar. "All week" he said "I haven't had to answer any questions about doping or Alberto Bloody Contador." OK, the "bloody" was mine, he didn't actually say it, but you could tell it was there....
SchleckShip Trekker
Finally, for today: the Schlux Surprised O "0!" logo pops up in the most extraordinary places: even in Star Wars.
Ever looked at the back of an Imperial Trooper?
OK, he would need to be lying down on his side for it to be properly visible, but still...
Asoprovac, the meat federation of Spain, have come out in support of the UCI - well, indirectly - by reacting with speed and anger to Contador's famous claims about contaminated meat.
In a press release out today - 17th Feb - "Asoprovac confirmed that it had viewed the defence dossier submitted to the federation by Contador's lawyers, and said that several of the points made were untrue."
Woo hoo! I sense a fight!
They further said that Contador's claims that cattle in Spain were being treated with clenbuterol were "absolutely false", and that if his claims about cattle not receiving any veterinary controls were true, it would be "a case of professional negligence" as well as a public health risk.
And now they've asked the public prosecutor to investigate, saying that - I love this - "Contador, whether or not he is guilty of doping, is definitely guilty of trying to clear his image [...] at the cost of a production sector on which, directly or indirectly, more than 150,000 families in Spain depend. And all of this without showing even one piece of proof that that the Clenbuterol found in his urine effectively came from eating bovine meat."
Oh dear, this case is not going to just lie down, is it?
Contador: "Hmm, I thought that blaming it on the steak would be a good idea, never thought about the thousands of meat producers getting really, really angry that I have accused them of using illegal substances on their stock and possibly poisoning all of us."
And, in an astonishing turn of events, Pat McQuaid has appeared on film sounding sensible and reasonable on the subject: check this vid on Cycling News today. Instead of knocking the Spanish racing federation (which is what I would be doing, have to admit) he comments that it is wrong for politicians to throw their weight behind these cases, when they don't know what they are talking about. He doesn't commit himself as to whether they are going to appeal or not, but it seems unlikely that they will let it drop.
Particularly if the meat federation are going to join in!
And, in related news, Chris "Face of Pain" Anker Sorensen from SaxoBlank has stated that he will continue to eat in restaurants and will continue to eat steak.
Well done!
Err, hang on, that's not a tiny suggestion that you don't believe in the contaminated steak story, is it?
And finally for today - as it's ridiculously late and I have to get up for work tomorrow - I just couldn't resist adding Leelu's fab photo of the potential podium outfit worn by Miss Australia.
Just in case any of you couldn't follow the link.
Glorious, isn't it?
Leelu, I forgot to ask you, which category is it? Day wear? Evening wear? Not swimwear, certainly, not with the boots...
Where, exactly, would "one" wear this outfit, if "one" had it?
Hey Fangirls (and guys), I meant to make rude comments about this before, but I forgot: Tour Down Under (who is that sniggering? Leelu? Susanne? So many Bad Girls to choose from... and that was before Kara came back!!) what were they wearing???
No, not the cyclists, the Podium girls.
French maid outfits?
Something from La Senza via Disney? (La Senza sell, er, tasteful lingerie in all colours from red, to black, including red and black. Lovely Lovely boyfriend bought me a pair of zebra-striped pyjamas from them once, and ever since then, they keep emailing him with pictures of girls in underwear. He's tried and tried to get them to stop, but he can't seem to get off their mailing list (*puzzled face*).)
I remember reading Podium Jen's thoughts on the horrendous Tour de France polka dot dress/lampshade outfit, so I know that the girls have no choice but to wear them. But honestly! Who dreams up these outfits?
The Tour of Qatar had much more subtle and tasteful outfits for their sole Podium Girl, but I do feel it's a bit of a shame they couldn't find a prettier girl.
Oh, yes, I know that different cultures have different ideas of beauty, but the beard?
Well done to Barbie Barbie, by the way, and in case you missed it, a dedicated and clever fan has made a whole series of The Adventures of Barbie Barbie , even featuring a How I Did It page which makes me realise the lengths that some people will go to in dedication to their hobbies. Perhaps I could spend just a little bit more time looking for new pictures of Andy researching for this blog...
...talking of which, another follower, yay! well done Kara, so I've decided to allow myself just one more photo of Our Glorious Leader, as you liked the last one so much:
Is it me, or did the sun just come out?
Oh, and as for Contador? Sick of the whole thing, nothing to say. Apart from wondering if Unndy is now saying "Phew! He didn't lie to me! I did the right thing in sticking by him!" or whether he is going to wait to see if the UCI are going to appeal, or not, before thinking "told you so" to all the critics.
The RFEC, the spanish cycling federation (sorry to any Spaniards reading this, but I don't think they deserve the capital "s" just at the moment) were reported yesterday as saying that Contador would have his one year ban lifted...... ok, at this point, the sensible ones amongst us would immediately say:
a) he hasn't been banned yet, in fact he's still not officially suspended.
b) the one-year bit hasn't been confirmed yet. Could be two years. Or six months...
c) this came from "Spanish daily El Pais". Daily? Would that be, say, the equivalent to The Sun?
(Note for non-UK readers: The Sun is a cheaply-printed daily newspaper, consisting of very very simple reporting, lots of nice big print, tacky pun-type headlines and a large number of bare tatas on page three, leading to the job description "Page Three Girl". Not exactly renowned for it's in-depth, accurate reporting. Rather like the unlovely Privat magazine, who generated the headline "Hat Andy Schleck ein Alkoholproblem?" after the Vuelta incident. Yes, fellows, two beers really does indicate a problem, doesn't it? "Not." Being cheaply printed, the newsprint comes off on your hands, so I suppose once you've dirtied your hands, you might as well get your mind dirty as well.....)
We know that the Spanish Prime Minister has come out in support of Bertie, saying that there's no legal reason to punish him. Oh well, if the PM says so...
Any bets on how long before the UCI appeal? Presumably they can't lodge an appeal until this "news" becomes official.... but when they do...
Hooray for photoshop....
That is a JOKE! A JOKE!! No-one really thinks that Pat McQuaid would shoot Blertie, not matter how much he might feel like doing it.....
So now we are waiting for an announcement that is due today, Tuesday, and the Spanish press seem to be quite convinced that Bertie will receive this news today, and start racing at the Algarve tomorrow. What, without a pre-race training schedule? That won't work, surely?
OK, we're all fed up with the saga, here's a slightly unusual picture of Our Glorious Leader to cheer us up:
And hey, if you move from side to side, the eyes just follow you round the room... Kara, stop doing that, I can see you.
Oh look, Hippi (who is still waiting to be sewn back onto his slipper and is therefore running around wildly) has sneaked into my blog and is giving Unndy a great big kiss!
Hippi, you little tinker, just wait until Auntie FeeDee catches you!
NB for non-UK residents, calling someone a "little tinker" is a way of saying that they are a bit mischievous, a little bit naughty, but so cute that they are going to be forgiven. A good example of a little tinker, apart from Hippi here, is Lovely Lovely Boyfriend who referred to Our Glorious Leader as "that Andy bloke that you keep going on about." He was only saying it to tease me.....
Sorry Marie, did you say something? "So much for Andyhab" was that? Noo, nooo, I can give it up any time I want to......
Photo: Stolen from Velonation article.
Presumaby supposed to be on SaxoBlank site.
"Oh no!" I hear you say "Not this old story again!"
Yes, this old story, it still rumbles on. And why are we still interested in it?
Well, there was the whole chaingate thing (cries of "boo! hiss!"), and he and Unndy used to be friendies, and if he's banned then Unndy gets the TdF title.....
...so all in all, yes, we are still very interested in this case.
This news report from Velonation two days ago contains a major howler (note for non-UK residents, a howler is a big, big mistake. As in "what a howler!" or " you've made a right howler there".)
They talk about the dreaded clenbuterol tests (by the way Barbara, Susanne and certain others, look at what a short, short neck that eagle has, practically no neck at all, ha ha ha ha ha) and remind us that on the rest day, the 21st July, it was the famous 50 picograms per mililitre.
It progressed thus:
21st July = 50 picograms
22nd July = 16 picograms
24th July = 7 picograms (what happened to the test on the 23rd I wonder?)
25th July = 17 picograms
Now anyone can see that there is a bit of a mistake with those figures: the amount should be going steadily downwards, not having a sudden upswing at the end.
The obvious conclusion is that Contador had another dose (micro, micro, dose!) late on the 24th, to raise his level for the test on the 25th. No-one seriously thinks that he did so: if 50 picograms is generally agreed to be way too small to improve performance, then 17 picos is really not going to do anything. Unless you believe the theory that Conti was giving himself transfusions of his own blood, taken from days when he was fully oxygenated and bursting with health, blah blah, woof, woof, etc etc.
The report actually says, and I quote:
Jesús Munoz Guerra, director of the Laboratory of Madrid, told Marca that “a rebound in concentration of Clenbuterol from 7 to 17 picograms is more likely an error in estimation of the concentration rather than a second microdose.”
What! Am I the only one screaming "if you are suggesting that there is an error in estimation in 25% of these results, then what possibly credence can we give to any of these results?" And: "Estimation? These results are only an ESTIMATION????"
I will be amazed if Conti's lawyers don't leap on that little statement.
It now appears that the RFEC (Spanish cycling federation) are going to announce their decision some time this week. Well, it's Thursday already, so brace yourselves, any minute now...
And, as an aside (yes, another one) what on earth are SaxoBlank playing at, having no photo of Conti in new kit on their site, when oh look, there clearly is a photo of him in the new kit? They could at least wait until he has definitely been banned, and then remove him altogether from the rider roster. Just removing his picture doesn't exactly show quite the support that Bjarne Riis claims to be giving him...
Qatar
Oh, yay, LLB taped the coverage from Eurosport this week - Hooray for Eurosport! - and we watched the first two days last night. We're saving the rest for the weekend. Best bits have to include:
1) Commentator David Harmon making the following statement "Team Leopard - oh, we're not going to bother will all that lee-o-pard trek stuff." Yay! Just call them Team Schlux, like we do....
2) The way the commentators didn't have a clue about which team was which between Garmin, Team Schlux and Sky...... and said so, repeatedly. So glad it's not just me being unable to tell who is who...
3) Garmin-Cervelo - take a look at the picture below, Day 1 at Qatar, and tell me what is wrong about it:
OK take a look at their jerseys.... at the arms... at the armbands.... blue, aren't they? Big letter E with an accent, then underneath that, a blue band. Except for one rider. Who appears to have tucked up his blue bands. Huh?
"I'll wear it on one leg, but not on my arms"?
"My arms are shorter than everyone else's, and I need to roll up my sleeves, but have been told not to obscure the sponsor logo"?
"Anything to look less like Team Schlux"? (In which case he'd need to tuck up the leg as well.)
Or is it like a school playground thing, where the cool kid starts a trend to tuck up his sleeves: will the rest of them be doing it by day 4?
Any suggestions welcomed. Oh, and if anyone knows which rider it is, I'd appreciate that information as well. (in those ridiculous sunglasses, they all look the same to me, except for the back one, who looks like Contador. Hmm, that must be wrong?) If it turns out to be Barbie Barbie I will shriek with joy!
Oh, and 4), Leelu, remember your lovely voice post, pronouncing the English names for us? I was teasing you about Graham Brown, and there's two things - firstly, no-one has corrected me but it's actually Graeme Brown, the "silly" spelling, as we say, so now I understand why you included it - people might have been confused.
I was very tempted to add a note to your post "telling" you that really, it's pronounced Gray-eee-mee but I thought that might be a bit mean.
And then, watching the first 2 days of Qatar, Graeme Brown (of Rabobank, as everyone knows, don't they?) was in the leading group and I kid you not, the commentators must have said his name about, ooh, fifty times? At least? And every time they did, LLB and I both chorussed his name in your accent! It was very funny! One day I'll be brave enough to make a voice post too, and then I'll say it, doing my impression of you saying it, and you'll see how funny it sounds. All together now:!
Radios:
OK, Miss Fede has covered this subject absolutely perfectly, and I agree pretty much word for word with Gnasher, when she says: "I didn't watch procycling before radios were introduced, so I have nothing to compare todays races against. As it is, I find it exciting! It seems that if a majority of pro riders are opposed to it, then their concern should carry a lot of weight in the decision making process."
I can so understand the riders getting so very cross at such a rule being brought in by people who don't actually push those pedals themselves, and so have no idea what they are talking about...
LLB and I discussed this at length, and his clever idea was to have radios, but to have just one channel, ie not individual frequencies for each team. There would be a neutral controller, who would issue safety warnings to the riders, and take any distress calls, but there wouldn't be the same tactical planning (unless a ds was prepared to tell all of the peloton what his chaps were about to do). It would be a bit like the [terrible! terrible!] Eurovision Song Contest, where the neutral controller would speak his messages in English, French, German, and a small variety of other languages. Or everyone would have to learn English, ha! ha!
It was quite funny watching Team Schlux powering up to the front of the peloton on Day 2 in Qatar, with no radios of course, you could hear Bennati hollering at the guy in front!
Finally for today (phew! what a lot we've had to catch up on!)
Team Schlux Kit.
Wiggle, purveyors of the fabulous Stripey Lux Schlecklander Socks, have just started offering a range of team kit. About the only possible useful item for me would, again, be the socks, but there's no photo of them yet. Any bets? Plain white, with a narrow band of black at the top, with a narrow band of faded turquoise underneath it?
Mmmm, nice.
Talking of socks, I can't quite believe what I am looking at here: J E James Cycles seem to be offering a sock that has the word "Wanker" embroidered on it.
It is part of the SockGuy range, the ones who provided our lovely striped Lux socks, and is clearly described as the Wanker Sock.
They promote it as follows:
"For ALL our friends in the UK we introduce the Wanker Sausage Company socks. Where's the beef? Established in 1889."
I assumed this was a non-UK company on whom someone was playing a joke - "Yeah, really, mate, "wanker" means "tasty" in English, tasty sausage company, go on, take a batch, special introductory price" - as the promotional phrase is written as though by a non-English speaker... for all you students of English slang, the expression is "What's your beef?" meaning "what is your problem or objection?" But it appears to be a genuine UK company. Weird...
Ideal gift for Contador, perhaps? In more than one way?
Remember I made that remark about finding it hard to picture the Sky team pounding up and down the M60?
Well, this is why! Today, police had to close the M60 when a lorry was blown over earlier today.
Blown over! A lorry! What do you think that could do to our Pro-cyclists!!!
And they think they're having it tough in Qatar...
Talking of which, Qatar - pronounced Katarr with no inflection, which is news to me as I've been pronouncing it Kwa'tARR for years.... -anyway, Qatar, Tour of, has started. Over here in the UK we have hardly any coverage at all, but good old Eurosport managed to squeeze in a bit on Sunday, despite the ski-ing over-running by 25 minutes.. gggrrrrrr....
So Lovely Lovely Boyfriend and I watched the end of the Time Trial/Prologue, which was very short but moderately exciting, as the course was set around the "City of Zombies". OK, really it was called the Cultural Village or something equally daft, but it was almost completely deserted, and surrounded by desert. Not exactly what our ProTeams are accustomed to... three blokes and a dog at the finish line, and what appeared to be someone with an iPod playing Lady Gaga.
The important aspects from our point of view included a) the entire route was cobbled, b) in different styles of cobbles, c) with masses of road furniture hanging out over the course: d) it was as twisty and turny as, well, a city centre, despite being some sort of ring road: and e) despite being some sort of ring road and therefore about a mile wide, they had restricted it with cones and barriers as though specifically to make it as dangerous as possible. Luckily each outing only lasted 3 minutes, somewhat weird for a TT but there you go.
And Cavendish managed to fall off.
And the race organisers, ASO, managed not to have any TV coverage of it.
Despite having a camera bike behind every rider, and despite Cav being second to last to go, and therefore - you would have thought - one of those who you'd want to have coverage of.
Here he is afterwards, well bandaged: apparently his front wheel collapsed and he bunnyhopped over the speedbump. Don't look at me like that, that's what the BBC said! Yes, there was a speedbump.
ASO also managed not to have any coverage whatsoever until the ski-ing finally, finally, finished. Not even a ticker! Not even anyone on that wretched Twitter!
Oh, and there was a building that appeared to have a monstrous beetroot on it's roof. All very strange.
This is what the cultural village was supposed to look like, but don't be fooled: in real life it was all bendy skyscrapers and brown, brown, brown.
Not one inch of green anywhere.
Very grim.
And apparently there weren't any spectators as there "wasn't any interest in cycling" in the area.
Thanks, Qatar, do you seriously expect us to come back?
Fabian, below is saying to Kim "Pffft, all zis sand, ees ruining my hair, and my tanline, eet vill be rideeeculous. Le'ss go home. Come on, le'ss go home."
Photo: Cycling News
You'll notice that the official vehicle - they all had white Mitsubishi pick-ups - does not say Leeopard Trek on the side... I wonder why?
Stage 1 has taken place today, but I won't be seeing any of it until Wednesday, and by then hopefully LLB will have taped the coverage so I can catch up on it. I can see that Cancellara is ok, above: but Brian, mate, what jersey is Fabu wearing now? Where's "the name on the collar" gone? You are going to have to redesign those jerseys......
...I mean, where are Team Schlux in this picture?
Photo: Graham Watson via Cycling News
Can YOU pick them out? Coz I sure as hell can't!
Sartorial complaints aside, we're doing ok so far, so fingers crossed for Team Schlux and for Team Sky - yes, I have two teams to support now, plus Igor Anton from Euskaltel as my Favourite Underdog.
Now, briefly, other items: I promised a picture of the Peak District for those Schlecklanders who have no idea where it is. Here's the panoramic view early one morning. Yup, that's it: the occasional huge tree (Ash), lots of fields, rolling hills, sheep, fields, sheep, dry-stone walls between fields, fields, oh, and did I mention the occasional sheep?
It's glorious... and at this time of year, practically deserted: most days, we met only three or four other walkers. This is our idea of a good holiday! Yesterday I heard that Cavendish had been up there training last week - drat, we missed him.
And if you lean way, way back from your screen, you can just see my ghostly reflection, taking the photo.
It was a super modernised barn, with underfloor heating ooooh, lovely.
Here's Itsy and Bitsy (or technically, Bitsy and Itsy as they are sitting the wrong way round) hanging on to the Jaffa cakes for me.
TipTop!
FeeDee, they're asking if Hippi and Hoppi are out of the washing machine, yet?
More local news, tonight the sky caught fire outside the back of my house:
Dramatic, huh?
Best news of today, though, is that we have another Schlecklander, so welcome to Nimani, all we know so far is that Nimani loves Andy. Well, who wouldn't, he's adorable. Oh, wait, are you "Nim" ? Leelu's Nim? If so, welcome with open arms and a big Schlecklander hug all round! If not, welcome anyway!
Cos that means I am allowed another photo of Unndy! (With thanks to Mr Kemp at photo.lu for permission.)
Stop groaning, this is important stuff. Yes, I can hear you saying "Who cares about the ins and outs of cycling, we want pictures of Unndy!" but I don't have enough followers yet, so you are going to have to discuss some more INTERESTING facets of pro-cycling first.
And it is interesting! It's fascinating! It could change the whole look of cycling...not necessarily a good thing, either. Read on....
In my last post I suggested the notion that Contador's ban might have implications for SaxoBlank if his UCI points were taken away from him. (by the way, who gets them? Are they shuffled down to the guys in second, third etc places, as the prize money is?) Now it looks as though the points won't be taken away, bizarrely. Miserable McQuaid told Cycling News: "The points were calculated in October and even if Contador was sanctioned and lost his Tour de France victory, the points would stay the same. I know some teams might be angry about this but I don't think we left ourselves open to a legal challenge." If I worked for Geox, matey, I'd be consulting my lawyers right about now....
Which leads to POINTS. To date, UCI points seem to have been considered of less importance than position - riders are described in terms of their podium positions. You know, second in this race, won two stage victories in that race, etc.
You will all remember that the UCI are specifying how many ProTeams must be invited to what level of race, to avoid situations where a race organiser can refuse to invite a Pro Team just out of spite: or "political necessity" if you wish to be tactful. I refer to RadioShack's shameful lack of invite to the Giro last year. Now the UCI say that all ProTeams must attend all races in their calendar, so hopefully that won't happen again - as long as the race organisers abide by the rules...but that's a separate issue.
This makes it all the more important to get that ProTeam status, and that is done by getting lots of UCI points. Or, to be accurate, having riders in your team who have lots of UCI points.
But there's a twist: as per my last post, I haven't been able to find out if the UCI count all the points of all the riders in a team, or just the top 15. Lovely Lovely Boyfriend and I spent a long time trying to work this out, as he was sure that he'd read somewhere that only the top 15 rider scores count.... but as I've mentioned, reading the UCI rules for any length of time is like having your soul sucked very, very slowly out of your body, and is therefore not to be recommended. Thanks to Susanne who found that news report mentioned above, we have also learned that "The UCI has refused to reveal the details of the points system" which explains why we couldn't find anything. Damn, I want my soul back!
And until the UCI choose to reveal their strategy, we won't know how they work it out... and there is also some speculation - well, between me and LLB at any rate - that the UCI will always keep their exact reasons secret, in order to allow them a bit of leeway if there are teams that appear to tick all the boxes, but that for some reason they wish to exclude. Or of course to allow in a team that doesn't quite make it otherwise....
However the UCI work it, points are going to be a large slice of the decision-making, so what does this mean to team tactics in 2011?
It means that teams are going to have to concentrate their points around certain riders. It's no good having 26 riders all with 40 points if only the top 15 count.
No more allowing a top domestique to "have a good day" - those points would be better if they were added to a top rider's score.
No more "allowing a non-GC-threat to have the stage win" to be nice: those points might come in handy later on.
No more "just scoot home somewhere in the group, we all get the same time" - if you are not going for GC, then the difference between third over the line and 8th over the line could be crucial.....
Even if the "top 15 scores only" turns out to be a red herring (FeeDee and other students of English slang: expression meaning "a false trail", sometimes deliberately introduced, sometimes accidentally. Now use this expression in an everyday sentence...) it will still be necessary to fight for points positions, rather than being satisfied with being at the rear of a group.
I think it'll be interesting this year to see if there are any noticeable changes in rider strategy in respect of this situation.
Personally, I'm not at all keen on it: the main reason I follow ProCycling is that it is such a darned NICE sport. I hate the violence, spite, thuggish behaviour and bad manners of most sports, and I have always relished the many "unwritten rules" of the peloton.
Last year's TdF Barredo incident, for example, where two riders were fighting, was (in my opinion) deeply disgraceful, and there should have been ejections from the Tour, not a feeble month-long ban.
OK they were fighting like complete pansies (FeeDee: "like girlies") but still, if I wanted to see fisticuffs I'd be a fan of football or something oafish like that.
So, I'd rather see a continuation of the "give a domestique a stage" philosophy, rather than seeing every man out for himself. It has always been a team sport, hasn't it? (*somewhat plaintively!*)
Well, ok, maybe that's more of a rumour than a press release....
Here's how it works. Are we all sitting comfortably? Stand by to learn even more about the workings of the UCI.
Remember back in Schleckland, I told you all about the lovely ranking system? You know, teams wanting to get a ProTeam licence get a rating, and the top 15 are IN along with three of the next five. Or, in the case of Geox, not. (grrr, grrr, for full details, see Miss Fede's Blog entry which nicely covers pretty much everything that I would have said on the subject.)
They have to fulfill various criteria, about finance, ethics etc, but the main ranking is done on the number of UCI points that each team have.
Points are obtained by winning stages and races that are part of the UCI calendar.
Now there are two separate ways of applying these points to their rankings - bear with me, I'll try to make it clear.
Firstly there is the Top Team ranking for the current year, secondly is the eligibility ranking for the following year.
Top Team ranking: at the end of 2010, the UCI issues a "Team" ranking: they take the top five highest rider scores for each team and add them up.
SaxoBlank (back in the days when they were SexyBank) were number one ranked Team in 2010 with 1005 points. Anyone like to guess how they obtained that score?
Unndy - 258
Frankie - 230
Fabian - 254
Jakob - 130
and Richie Porte 133
If, just out of interest, you add together Team Schlux members Unndy, Frankie, Fabian, Jakob and Jensi (62) you get 934. Which is pretty amazing, and explains why Team Schlux can be ranked as number one before ever putting shoe to pedal, he he he.
Eligibility ranking. The UCI look at the rosters submitted by the teams for 2011, and add up the scores of those riders to get the team's eligibility ranking.
Now, Lovely Lovely Boyfriend and I spent some considerable time last week debating this issue, and quite a bit of time trawling the UCI site, but we couldn't get any definitive statement as to how many riders' points contribute to the UCI eligibility - is it just the top 15 scores, or is it the entire team? This may be moot (for non-UK readers, a "moot point" is a point that turns out not to be particularly relevant or helpful. "Ve are Learnink all ze time" as they say) as it turns out that not everyone in a team will necessarily get points: I'll go into the reasons for that a bit further on.
As we all know, SaxoBlank had what you might call a bit of a reshuffle for 2011: they lost four of their top five points men, along with Jensi (62), Matti Breschel (16) and Alex Rasmussen (3). Their main gain was Contador (482).
I have gone through SaxoBlank's team roster for 2011 and have checked how many points each rider brings with him from 2010: these are the points that Bjarne put forward to the UCI to prove that he had a viable team.
482 - Contador
133 - Richie Porte
29 - JJ Haedo
21 - Gustav Larsson
16 - Chris Anker Sorenson
12 - Lucas Haedo
6 - Daniel Garcia
1 - Jaroslaw Marycz (Leelu, don't even ask me to pronounce that one...)
Total: 700 eligibility points. 681 Team ranking points.
Team Schlux have 1,070 eligibility points, 934 Team ranking points.
For comparison, Euskaltel (cries of "Carrots! Carrots! Danger! Get out of the way! Aargh!") score up as follows:
Sammy Sanchez - 301
Igor Anton - 132 ("Hooray!") (He was my Underdog favourite last season)
Benay Intxcausti - 82 (how the HELL do you pronounce that??)
Mikel Nieve - 72
Koldo Fernandez - 8
Aito Galson - 7
Romain Sicard - 4
Ruben Perez - 4
Pablo Urtasun - 4
Egoi Martinez - 1
Total: 615 eligibility points. 595 Team ranking points, and they were the 13th ranked Team.
Here's the point:
If Contador is banned from racing, then not only does he lose all that money (see last post) but his team lose his points: so SaxoBlank will have just 218 eligibility points, and 199 Team ranking points.
Hence the title: looking at these figures, if Contador is banned, then SaxoBlank lose his points and are no longer anywhere near the top of the rankings: in fact, on paper, they might even be so low that they don't qualify as being in the top 15.
Scary stuff, huh?
Of course, there's more to it than that: Saxo already have a licence, so on the one hand their loss of points shouldn't make a difference.
On the other hand the UCI Press Release of last November includes the phrase "first division teams with continuing licences which meet the required sporting, ... criteria" so you could say that if Saxo no longer have the points, they no longer meet the sporting criterion. Mind you, as Conti was "done" before the applications went in - I think 1st October was the deadline - then his points position should have been queried at that stage?
On the third hand ("the gripping hand") has a team ever lost it's status part-way through the season?
On the fourth hand (now we're getting kinky) does a doping rider lose all of his points for the whole year, or just for the race in which he was caught? I assume it's the former, otherwise what happens to riders caught doping while training? So for the purposes of this discussion, I think we have to assume that Contador will lose all his points for 2010. There is no doubt some reference to this situation in the UCI rules but frankly, after an hour or two of reading them I lose the will to live, so I am happy to be corrected on that point if anyone knows the answer, and can provide their source. The TdF has to account for at least half of Alberto's points, so even if Saxo only ("only!") lose his TdF points, it is going to make a big hole in their ranking situation.
Do we have an opinion, one way or the other? Personally I'd hate to see SaxoBlank be dismissed from the ProTeam listing, not least because they've had enough problems this year, but also because Bjarne Riis has, despite all the rude things we sometimes say about him, held a team together, held a sponsorship deal together, and has authorised a moderately pretty kit.
But then, you have to say, would this make room for Geox?
There is a whole lot more to write about how this business of points is going to change team tactics, but this post is already so long that I've decided to split it off into a new post.
Tuesday 1 February 2011
Andy: "Just pop this in the post for me, would you? "
Hermann: "Ere, wot it is - you're not writing to that Cougar Girl again, are you?"
Andy: "Shhhhh - I'll give you a fiver."
Hermann "OK, hand it over, nuff said."
Andy (thumbs up sign) "Yay! Coug is back, and making jokes about me again!"
Frank (thinking: Where did I leave my sunglasses?)
Photo: Roland Miny
Right, enough of that, hey look troops, this is the lovely new Team Schlux bus!
Do we think that the small writing by the door and the surprised 0! logo are the names of the team?
That could be embarrassing if any of them leave....get the penknife out....
On seeing this style of coach with the big hovering mirrors at the front, I always think of some sort of giant insect with feelers or antenna at the front....
...or is that just me?
All it needs is a nice bright red stripe, there we go, to match the new (er hem) kit:
See what a big improvement that makes? And so much easier to find in the crowd...
...talking of which, I was looking at the Team Sky bus the other day - no, not in person, on the internet - and it has an extending pole at the back with a red flashing light on top - so that the boys can find it more easily! What a lovely idea.
Well, I haven't seen the bus "in person" yet, but while on holiday last week, Lovely Lovely Boyfriend and I drove up to the Cat and Fiddle. "Really?" I hear you say in a bored tone of voice. "What's the Cat and Fiddle when it's at home?" It's a pub on the A537.
"And what is so exciting about the, er A whatever-it was?" you ask.
Well, it's been named as Britain’s most dangerous road, according to a survey carried out by the Road Safety Foundation.
Here's what they say:
The A537 between Macclesfield and Buxton, a popular haunt of thrill-seeking motorcyclists, has seen fatal collisions rise by 127 per cent in three years.
Between 2006 and 2008, there were 34 deaths on the stretch of road.
The Road Safety Foundation described the road as ‘A 50mph single carriageway, running through the Peak District National Park, the route has severe bends, steep falls from the carriageway and is edged by dry-stone walls or rock face for almost all of its length.’
And having been up it recently, I can assure you that it's moderately terrifying in a NCAP 5 car, on a dry (if slightly frosty) day.
And is there a cycling connection? Yes! Geraint Thomas, Sky Rider, was up there a couple of weeks ago! The road was closed due to the snow (it's one of the highest places in the area) and he and teammate Ian Stannard rode their bikes up there as a challenge.
Aaargh!
Presumably they slid back down again on their backsides......
