"Andy Schleck Girlfriend 2011"

There, all right, I have said it! Now please use some other search terms!

Apologies for being the last to mention this topic, but I've been locked out of Blogger for a day and half now, which is quite frustrating.

Yes, shock horror, Andy has gone public with his girlfriend, Jil: d'aaaaw, sweet as a sweet thing. Here they are with Frankie, Martine and Leea (soon be time for a little brother or sister, do we think?) and I am a bit confused that Andy and Martine appear to be holding hands behind Jil's back. I'm sure there's a good explanation.

And here they are again, below, posing by the team bus. She's a little in his shadow (better get used to that, lady!) but she clearly thinks he's lovely, and he is clearly as proud as a dog with two tails to be seen with a girlfriend at long last.

Long may it last! We think they've been going out for at least a few weeks, and I did wonder if she was the girly who got the triple kiss (with arm round the middle in a very familiar manner) in the Andy Goes West video. You remember, the one who was too tall to be the little girly with the fabulous placard.

And yes, Jakob has shaved his head:  stop squeeing, you lot, it will grow back....

Jakob himself said on Twitter that it would grow back, so have faith.  (*wonders quietly to self if he and LouLou were having a shaving session and she got a bit carried away...*) I think Jakob is still pretty, even without the hair... although I do hope that he grows it back quickly.


Finally, an interesting shot of Andy's nostrils:

Of Rumours and Transfers....

It's not even that time of year yet, but already the rumours are flying.

1st August is the official date for announcing changes to line-ups etc, but already some journos are talking as though deals have been done.

Cavendish is a good example: his contract with HTC Highroad ends at the end of this year, and the cycling press is full of rumours that he's going to a UK outfit.

Cav in Farnese? Naaa, I can't see it.

What? Farnese are not a UK Team? Oh yes they are! They are UK based. (It must be for tax reasons, as they certainly don't live or train here, but I assure you, they are UK based. Well, perhaps UK registered would be better.)

Oh, do you think they meant Sky? (*laughs*) Well, that does sound a bit more likely.

Sky are firmly saying "We're saying nuffing until 1st August which is when we are allowed to talk about it."

But the press are still printing articles: there's one in the Daily Mail (not necessarily a newspaper to be taken seriously) headlining with "Mark Cavendish in shock move to join Bradley Wiggins at Team Sky." Well, it's not actually confirmed yet, guys. Besides, Cav and Wiggo didn't get along that well when Wiggins was also in HTC, and I am certain that Cav would insist on having a team built around him in the same way that HTC currently do: after all, you don't hire the fastest sprinter currently available, then not build a team around him. That would be silly.

Astana are looking for a merger, it seems: they have expressed an interest in Liquigas (apparently they have some spare gas in Kazakhstan and are trying to do a deal) but are more keen in merging with SaxoBank Sunguard. This would bring Contador back to them: but it would make their UCI initials ASS.

Tour de Suisse Finals: and the Mollema Incident

OK, at last we have finished the TdS footage, and it was very interesting to watch Stage 8, the last road stage, with the hindsight of having read about the Mollema Incident.

Mr Mollema is currently crying about the Leopard boys steaming away from him when he unfortunately punctured, just 15kms from the end. However, his own DS Franz Maassen, said "Bauke's already small chances of victory are now completely gone." Well, that doesn't exactly make it sound as though they really thought he could make it to the podium, does it?

Then in Velonation, we get "Mollema Pledges Revenge!" Well, we can't really argue with that, as OGL did say last year that he would take his revenge, so revenge is perfectly acceptable. "We won't forget this when it comes to the Tour de France," Mollema vowed, comparing his puncture with the major crash in the TdF last year when "the Leopard guys [then riding for Saxo Bank] neutralised the race when some of their guys had crashed".  "Some of their guys" yes, including a large number of other riders, too. Not exactly a comparable incident, actually.


But leaving that aside, here is my take on the Stage.

Firstly, all was sweetness and light as they were pedalling along:  there was time to eat, drink and be merry.

Here is OGL having another troublesome toffee moment.

Frankie, Jensi, and another rider were all laughing at him, while Fabian was pedalling away very seriously just in front.

I often wonder what goes through their minds during flat, non-eventful sections, when they aren't actually talking to one another, but are apparently day-dreaming. I'm sure they are NOT day-dreaming, except possibly about making it onto the podium: I expect they are reviewing tactics, trying to remember the route, worrying about injuries, trying to ignore the nagging pain in their left shin, or trying to decide whether it's worth the bother of trying to get leg-warmers off over their shoes.

I saw that done, by the way, recently, and it was quite impressive. If you've ever tried to remove a pair of tights, ladies, you'll appreciate the complexities of the movement, and to do it on a bike... well! It seems the accepted practice is to get a team-mate to steady you, while you roll one leg down, unclip your foot, peel the legging off over the shoe, wobble crazily at the last moment when it gets stuck over the heel, then re-clip the foot, and repeat with the other side.  Not to be attempted while descending.

 Talking of removing clothing, I have noticed that many of the teams allow their riders to peel off unwanted items as they warm up, and fling them away into the crowd.

(Cries of "Ooh, mummy, look! A sweaty leg-warmer!" from a small child in the crowd. "Very nice dear," says the proud Mamma, trying not to wrinkle up her nose, "now go and see if you can find the other one...")

But Euskaltel never do that - they always stuff them up their jerseys, forming strange aero-dynamic humps. Hey, maybe they should try this for TTs? They could remove the need for the silly helmets by making a hump further back. Hmmm. OK, maybe not.

Presumably "some teams" have bigger budgets and can afford to throw their stuff out, and the rest of the teams with perhaps smaller budgets have to be a little more careful.

Talking of budgets, we spotted the Europcar Team Bus along the way (left).

We were quite impressed with the number of team buses that Europcar have, actually: they were popping up all over the place!

(Ok, ok, I know that these are not the posh team buses but are hire vans, I was trying to be funny..)

Now, all this time, we'd been looking out for the Mollema Incident, and were beginning to think that we'd missed it, when we heard Carlton Kirby , one of the two Eurosport commentators, say that they had just noticed that Mollema was not in the lead group, and they were speculating as to what had happened to him. He said that it "Never came across on Race Radio that he'd had a mechanical or anything." and there hadn't been any footage of him.

So, Leopard  Trek weren't told that he'd had a flat.

Don't forget that at this point, Garmin Cervelo were at the front, pulling hard.

Leopard Trek have Frankie in the GC, and they knew that the peloton had split, so it would make sense for them to pull along with Garmin simply in order to get Frankie a little more time against much of the rest of the field. We all know that TT is not Frankie's strongest point...

Shortly afterwards, the other commentator, Brian Smithy, clearly said "We don't know why Mollema didn't make it over the top with the first group" and these are the commentators, they get all the race radio, the car radios, etc. so they would be expected to know pretty much all that was going on. There was no footage of a puncture either: generally whenever anything happens, you get a quick "catch up" repeat, but we didn't ever see anything of it.

It is entirely possible that one of the L-T cars saw the puncture and radioed to the boys "Go! Go! Go!" without telling them why.

But it's pretty clear that the front group would not have known that Mollema had punctured.

The footage for Stage 9, the TT, started with Carlton Kirby saying "overnight we heard Mollema punctured at 15kms, lots of fingers pointed overnight at unsportsmanlike behaviour".

This, coupled with the somewhat odd Leopard-Trek report for the race, makes me think that it was indeed someone in a car who knew, and told the team to go, and didn't want to admit that he'd known about the puncture. But it is pretty mean of the L-T website to imply that Mollema just wasn't strong enough to make it over the top with the first group, and I can understand why the Rabobank fans were frothing at the mouth.

After all, an apology costs nothing: and (Contador) doesn't even have to be sincere to be accepted. It would not have hurt Leopard Trek to say on their website that their attack unfortunately coincided with Mollema's puncture, "about which they were not informed" or something similar, and some sort of apology to him.

On a personal level, I find that the sportsmanship of pro-cycling is one of the main attractions, and I would not like to see a cut-throat, win-at-all-costs mentality arising.

Right! Back to the TT. Frankie had nothing down his front this time. Carlton Kirby made a comment about the lack of chest humps: and a little later on, when a viewer Tweeted a question about it, he said that camelbacks had been "quickly banned".  I have to say, I've looked, and I can't find any mention of it in the UCI news or rules.

Instead, I have some comments about water bottles -  I know, I get distracted by the strangest things.

I remember learning last year about aero water bottles, and the fact that a TT bike without the water bottle in the carrier is less aerodynamic than with it in place.

The question arose during one of those short TTs, when it was asked why they carried bottles for such a short race. The answer was as above, with the comment that they didn't necessarily have any water in the bottles, so they weren't carrying any extra weight, but they needed the bottle to maintain aero flow.

So during this race, which was long enough for water to be required, I was particularly intrigued by the different bottle positions.

This is Rabobank, and this rider has gone for the "between the wrists" position.

It's actually quite a good one, as it's really easy to pick it up and swig from it, as I saw one of the guys doing.

It also fills in the gap between the wrists, when seen from the front, so that might possibly add to the aero effect, I'm not sure.

And when empty, it can easily be thrown out.

This one, however, (left)  is not quite so simple: how on earth do you reach round and get that without disturbing your aero position?

I spotted only one of these rear carriers, but at least two of the wrist-height ones, so I am guessing that riders are allowed to pick what suits them.

And what do our favourite team do? Well, I didn't look at all their bikes (sorry!) but  I did notice that Jakob had a funny grey wodgy thing instead of the usual bidon, can you see it?

The UCI rules state that integrated bottles are banned, those are the ones where they are moulded into the frame, and apparently Cervelo Test Team were caught out last year, having spent a lot of money designing the moulds for them.

Leopard have got round it by making a squashed, frame-filling thing which is not integral.

Ugly, isn't it? You would have thought that they would have made it in team colours: even if it were a prototype, they could have put some blue tape round it to make a stripe!

Final observation: why do the holders of the jerseys have to wear plain black shorts?

Most unflattering, and most annoying for the sponsors, wasting that big, top-money, most-sought-after across-the-bottom position.

Finally finally, (honest) there was some discussion about riders wearing skin suits for normal road races. The commentators said that it had been done in the past, and was a growing trend. Really? Can't say I'd noticed anyone riding a road race in a skin suit. How would you have a natural break? Brian Smith said that "if you could persuade a manufacturer to put three pockets on the back" it might catch on. And a flap in the front, perhaps! (No, don't go there.) (Barbara, this means you...) (Thank heavens we don't have Original Kara! And I never thought I'd say that...)

David Harmon and Carlton Kirby - are they reading this blog?

Way, way back in the Basque (*makes curvy hourglass gesture in the air*) race, I commented that David Harmon said of  David Millar "To ride a race like this, you have to be in tip-top condition." LLB said "If he starts talking about tufts, we'll know he reads your blog!"

Thought no more of it.

A few races later, there were a couple of "incidents" amongst the riders, leading to the commentator saying that certain riders had been sent to the naughty step overnight. Cries of "What! Is that near the Naughty Corner?"

Again, thought no more of it.

Then in the Dauphine, Carlton Kirby referred to Bradley Wiggins ("Yay! Go Sky!" Sorry, but they are my second team!) who was in yellow, as Our Glorious Leader.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Are they reading this blog??

(If so, Hi, guys! )

And to end on a good note - and to wipe out images of drooling Glorious Leaders - here's a flashback to the Tour of California.
Is Andy trying to grow a moustache again?

I suppose he could have wiped the drool away with the back of a glove, and if that glove had road-dirt on it, it might have made a dirty streak on his upper lip....

Good tuftage at the back, we notice.

Yay, Andy!

Doping just got a bit more expensive...

Brace yourselves, team: I've been reading the UCI rules again

Yes, this means that I have risked having my soul sucked out, just for your delight and education.

I'm so noble (*gazes heavenwards and sighs deeply in melodramatic manner*)


I wish I could find a visual representation of having your soul sucked out, so I wouldn't have to use the UCI's unlovely logo, but the internet has let me down on this one, presenting me with just this:

(*shakes self*)

Where was I? Oh yes, the UCI.

They've introduced a devious little clause into the Race Rules: it's cunningly hidden under what they call "article 364bis" which, and I quote, " from now on makes the teams responsible for the total costs generated by each doping affair"

Interesting... do they mean that all the teams have to pay a bit towards the costs - or do they mean that if a rider is investigated, then the team or teams involved have to pay???? This could make Bjarne Riis have second/third/fourth thoughts about Contador, couldn't it? At present the UCI bears all the costs of investigating, and I can barely imagine how much the Contador case must have cost so far, and is likely to cost them.

Bad new for Vinokorouv as well (*pokes big stick at Unrepentant Drug User*) as they have also introduced a whole new article (1.1.006.2 if you are interested) , the purpose of which is, and I quote, "aiming to prevent anyone found guilty of infringing the Anti-Doping Regulation during his cycling career from obtaining a licence authorising him to take on a role in cycling as a member of a team’s staff."  Ha, so there Vino, you won't be running Astana next year when you retire, then!

They do state that it won't be backdated, so the current management teams won't be affected: narrow escape for you, then, Bjarne, huh? Oh, no it isn't, he was never "done" for drugs, was he, he just admitted afterwards that he used them.

Interesting, huh?

Whoops, I forgot about the Drooling

...that belongs under the heading of Tour de Suisse.

Tour de Suisse Day 3: Andy, looking "Fresh as a daisy" as the commentator said, rode with ease and style today, but kept looking back over his shoulder. What is all that about?  Nim says that he's looking for her... I'm not convinced, but now every time I see him do it, I shout at the TV "She's not there! She's in Oz!"

And now for the drooling: LLB insisted that I take this photo:

He says that I should show unflattering pictures of OGL as well as nice ones, in the interest of fairness etc.

As it's  his television that I'm watching,  I don't have a lot of choice!

So here is Andy, drooling a bit.

All together now:  "Eeeeoooow!"

Sadly, this now means that anyone typing "Andy Schleck drooling" into google will probably come straight here... and there was me trying to get my search terms to be a little less, er, risque.

So, back to the race:  there was a bizarre moment when Laurens ten Dam of Rabobank received a push from a spectator: yes, ok, so far so hoopy, what a kind thing to do, but the spectator was wearing full Leopard Trek kit!! What!! Is that allowed?

No sooner had we recovered from that, than the final descent began, and good grief it was fast! What a fantastic descent, one of those that you think might crop up in a DVD at some point. The amazing thing is that the camera bike was following - barely - Cunego, and yet Sagan caught him up, so he must have been going even faster!

Day 4 and we came into the race quite close to the end: it was a great final, with Jensi (or, in French accent, Jean Vois as we now call him) making a superb break, then Stuey making another superb break: if only they'd sent Fabian out as well!

Day 5, well, I watched it, but I didn't make a single note, and therefore have nothing to say about the day.

Day 6 was the day that Soler crashed so badly, and we were very glad that we didn't have to see it, as his accident happened early on - about 14kms? - and our coverage started about 60kms or so from the end of the race. Andy was having a day off, he just tootled along, and Jensi gave him a pat on the back at one point. Frankie did well to come 6th, yay Frankie! and Jakob came in 9th, so that was a good day for the team.

Day 7 was terrible coverage, we came in just as OGL crested the hill, to hear the commentators raving about how he'd made this terrific break, and he'd lead all the way up the hill, and we didn't get to see any of it, boo! But at least he won King of the Mountains, and got a jersey, yay Andy! But then we didn't get to see any of the podium stuff, our coverage stopped about a minute after the race leader came home.

But I can't say "boo to Eurosport" because I am grateful for whatever coverage they can give us...

And that's all for now, as I haven't watched the final day yet!!!

Dauphine and Drooling.....

Finally! The Dauphine has been watched, phew, now only the rest of the Tour de Suisse to go, plus the backlog of Giro.

I'm afraid I can't get too excited about watching the Giro, but it might come in handy later, when there is no new cycling to watch.

So, the Dauphine: Stage 6. Yellow shoes? What is it with the yellow shoes?

Several of the riders were wearing bright yellow shoes: I've noticed this in almost all the races, generally there are a few riders - never more than one in a team, I think - wearing yellow shoes for no apparent reason.

It's not the sprinter, it's not the team leader, although both of those would make sense, as it's really easy to spot them back there in the peloton.

They don't seem to have anything at all to do with the TdF, and I don't remember seeing anyone in Team Leopard wearing them this year. They don't seem to have anything written on them, so it's not like a sponsor deal: anyone have any ideas? Do tell....

And today we had the famous "Cows on the Road" incident.

Look!

There's one poor guy in the ditch!

If you don't have much to do with cows, it's hard to explain how very BIG they are. And how opposite-of-cuddly they are. Quite a shock, to suddenly encounter two of the things trotting merrily into the peloton.

The other question raised by this raise was the meaning of the strange wording on the road: as well as the usual "We [heart] Andy" and "Shut up Legs" in chalk, I saw a pictogram of what looked like a dog's head, crossed through: the the word LOUP (which translates to wolf) and then the word NON.

This appeared at least three times going up the hill, in yellow: and so regular and well-painted that it didn't look like fan graffiti, it looked like official road markings.

Does that mean No Wolves Allowed (even on leads)? Or perhaps it could mean There Are No Wolves Here, You May Picnic?

Enlightenment, please!

Cougar Girl World Domination: Step 1

Yes, dearly beloved Schlecklanders, don't faint but I have FINALLY managed to get together:

1) Passport form
2) Documentation
3) Old passport (having found it, lost it, and found it again.)
4) Photos (*screams in horror, don't look, don't look*) (and before you say it, we're not allowed to have big cheesy grins in our passport photos here in the UK, we have to look grim and determined.)
5) Huge cheque to pay the fees.

They are all in one place: in fact, even better, they are all in one envelope, and that envelope was just taken to the Post Office by me, and upon payment of yet another fee, it has been sent off to the Passport people.

There you go!

Soon, oh so soon, you won't have to listen to me bleating about not having a valid passport. In fact, in due course I might even be Tweeting "Am sitting in airport, 8 blokes with funny shoes and very big bags have just walked past".

Wouldn't that be fun!

Tour de Suisse - Stage Two

"Stage Two?" I hear you ask, "what happened to Stage one?"

Well, on Sunday, LLB and I decided to be wild and reckless and watch the TdS (thinking it would be stage 1) as it happened, instead of catching up with some of our backlog of Giro and Crit Dauphine.

"And here we are with 37kms to go of Stage two of the Tour de Suisse" said an unfamiliar voice.  "Uh?" said LLB and I, in two-part harmony.

Our Eurosport coverage here in the UK is a bit spotty, bearing in mind that we have to programme up the recorder at the weekend, so if there are any changes or additions to the cycling coverage, we miss them. Apparently we completely missed Stage One.

OK, we'll watch Stage 2, then,  having no idea of the positions etc, and also no idea as to who was commentating. We gathered from what the chap said that Fabu had won the prologue (also the bright yellow jersey was a bit of a give-away) and that Linus had come 10th, but that was all we knew. Drat! I would have liked to have seen Fabu storming across the line, in his home country... and apparently OGL dropped his chain - whoops! - so he didn't get a terribly good start to the race.

However, we warmed to the commentator, as he pronounced Jean Vois' name correctly, and he was very informative, if a bit over-keen on saying "and everyfink" (that's "everything" pronounced in a faintly Essex Boy/Norf London accent).

One of his comments concerned Frankie and  his hoops:  you'll all remember this one, that back in February The Federation of the Sport of Cycling in Luxembourg (FSCL) made a fuss, they weren't happy with the bands of colour around the jersey, and wanted Leopard Trek to produce a jersey that was pretty much all done in national colours.

Frankie himself said “We can see the bands of the Luxembourg champion, but this jersey also has the advantage of respecting the design of our team".

And I am with you on this one, Frankie! I'm really not keen when a National jersey is so different from the normal team kit that you have trouble working out which team the rider belongs to.

Of course, the L-T jersey does rather lend itself to having hoops of the national colours around the middle, whereas some other teams don't.

My answer, if you want it (you didn't ask, but you're getting it anyway!) is that I actually like to see the actual flag, in it's entirety, slapped on the back of the rider concerned.

Of course, again, some teams have jerseys where the sponsor name positioning doesn't allow for a big flag to be plonked on the middle of the back....

And this leads right back to my suggestion that the UCI should have a small department, maybe just one person, who keeps a record of the kits, encourages teams to confirm to a few minor general outlines for kit layout, and who can gently encourage teams not to pick the same colours as everyone else...  I don't want for one minute to have any sort of repressive regime (we're back to those Russian cyclists again!) where the UCI dictates what the kit must look like, but it wouldn't be that hard to say to teams that when redesigning, they should allow either space for a national flag on the back, or should allow for hoops round the middle, whichever is preferred.

Talking of leaving space for things, ever wondered about how they get those jerseys ready so quickly?

You know, the race leader comes storming across the line, short pause while he pants for breath/throws up over the barriers/shoulder-barges irritating camera people out of the way - within a minute or two he's up on the podium being slid into a jersey, after the briefest of brief wipe-downs by the soigneurs.

But how do they know who is going to win? How do they get the yellow/green/polka dot etc jerseys ready?

The answer is that each team have to supply several sets of their logos - team name, sponsors, any really noticeable decoration etc - and as soon as the winner of each jersey is confirmed, they literally iron-on the stickers round the back of the podium, ready to present the jersey to the winner.

Apparently if the same person keeps winning the jersey and looks as though they will continue to do so, they make a more permanent version of it for them.

Otherwise, this is what can happen:

Geraint Thomas of Sky won the yellow jersey in Stage Four of the Bayern-Rundfahrt last month.

Here he is wearing it the next day, during Stage Five.

Oh look! There is a strange plain white panel on the front of his yellow jersey.

Hmmm (*pulls Sherlock Holmes expression*) I wonder what could possibly be missing there?

Is it possible that something has - in hushed tones - dropped off during the race?

And here he is on the podium at the end of Stage Five, having retained the jersey as overall race winner:

Oh look! The blank panel now has the Sky logo on it!!

In fact, if you look closely, I think you can see that the Sky logo is actually slightly too big for the panel, and is overlapping the text of the sponsor name underneath it.

There, don't let anyone tell you that reading blogs is a waste of your time, you are learning things every day!

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, back to the Tour de Suisse Day Two.

Frankie attacks! He stirs them all up! Oh, except for Andy, who is plodding along in a very contented way, but who is not exactly making a great effort.

The commentator  - at this point, we still have no idea who he is - raises some speculation that OGL is off form? Or is he saving himself for later in the stage? Or later in the race? I think that he just likes to go at his own pace, and that he's using this race as a final race-training session for the TdF, that's all. He's here to help Frankie, not to win it himself... at least, that's what I'm thinking.

They start the "final" descent, and oh noes! There's a bend in the road, a barrier, and a ravine on the far side of it, and Frankie is leading his group straight towards it - panic!  What's worse, Frankie is looking back over his shoulder - look, you two, will you just stop doing that?

Luckily Frankie makes it safely round the corner, and the rest of the descent is done in good form.

Jakob does his star turn, pulling Frankie's group up the final hill, but I find myself shouting at the TV "It's pronounced Fool-sang, not Fool-Shlang!"

LLB looks at me strangely.

Minutes later, LLB is trying to work out which Sky rider is in a particular group, and he's leaning sideways on the sofa to get the camera to move over.

I look at him strangely.  But secretly I'm laughing, as we fangirls already know that leaning does NOT make the camera move, even though it should!

Frankie coasts in to the finish for 3rd place, yay Frankie! And 5th overall, can't be bad.

I saw just a little bit of Stage 3 earlier today, thanks to Nim giving me a link to a live stream - but it wasn't very good quality and kept breaking up, so I'll wait to watch it properly at the weekend. But  I was pleased to see OGL at the front for a good chunk of time, and judging by the report on the LeopardTrek site, they're well pleased with his performance, and with Jakob, and with Frankie, in fact, with everyone!

Oh, and the commentator turned out to be Anthony McCrossan, who I haven't encountered before.

Cycling in Russia

A fascinating little diversion has just arrived, and it's a good thing it has, otherwise I would become obsessed with why I cannot add comments to my own blog..... (*shakes head in frustration at Blogger*)  (*inserts photo of OGL for calming effect of tuftage*)

(*ah, much better*)

While checking through all the settings and so on of the blog, to make sure that my complete inability to add comments is not my own fault, I was looking at the traffic sources of my readers, and was struck by a sudden peak at 10 o'clock last night, when 62 people suddenly read the Basque entry.

Huh?

That's an old one!

Checking back on where they came from, here is  the URL.

I add this so that you know that I'm not making it up - you can go and read it for yourself, if you read Russian, that is.

Intrigued, I paged down until I found the reason, there's a link to Eisen Andy via the photo of Johan Van Summeren allegedly about to squash a cat a few years ago.

(Sorry VirtKitty, to bring this up again... go and have a lie down for a while.)

By now I was thoroughly intrigued, and wanted to know what they were saying, and why this picture was suddenly relevant to this Russian forum. I could tell there was a link to cycling, as some of the avatars had a cycling theme to them.

After a while, I worked out how to get Google to translate the page for me.

Yes, it's about cycling in Russia - it appears to be a forum where people complain about how bad the roads are, and how inconsiderate the motorists are. Having been through the Google Word-Mangling algorithm, some of the translations were pretty shaky, but amusing, and the provided an interesting insight into life on two wheels in Russia.

From this I get the impression that a pedestrian had a blonde moment and walked out in front of him?  Notice, by the way, that he calls himself  Pork Eating Crusader, has a rather scary avatar, and signs off as "infidel strong" which could be a mistranslation of Strong Infidel...

... a day later, Olga replies as follows:

This seems to indicate that Russians are being allowed to have camera phones, and are joining the "name and shame" culture whereby you take photos of people being offensive and then either report them to the authorities, or name them on the internet, in the hopes that this will train them not to behave badly in future.

So, Olga was very upset by M762 whatever it was, and the "dude" concerned (I cannot imagine what word in Russian translates as "dude", unless they use the actual word "dude"?) was too scared to get out of his car to snatch the camera off her. Perhaps she's a 6'4" shot putter.

A few entries later, after some incomprehensible talk about routes of revenge involving lots of initials - presumably state departments, or 90-page forms to be filled in - our friend Mr Scary makes a suggestion that is well received:

12-gauge means shotgun, by the way. "Glock" would be one of those nasty hand-guns that baddies in Bond movies always seem to have. If anyone has a suggestion as to what a podramnoy holster would be, I'd be interested to hear it. Could be something  like "top tube" I suppose?

A new contributor enters the fray:  and we have to give him respect, he's apparently an expert. Not sure if that means expert cyclist, or expert forum contributor, but his avatar indicates that he is very brave about descending:

I think that "A-ha-ha neighing" should be adopted in place of LOL in all future tweets, don't you? He clearly doesn't like cars whizzing by very closely, although this does lead to a discussion that close passing by cars is actually a compliment to the cyclist, and as long as they stay on line and calm, it can make cycling in traffic fun and quick. 

A little later we had this exchange, and I can't quite make head nor tails out of it:

Mr Dimodd appears to have been cycling on the pavement in the rain, so slowly that he had plenty of time to talk to the pedestrians who were impeding him. Then Mr Kos learned that tram lines in the wet are not happy places for cyclists. Well, he is only a novice.

Now we get into surreal country:

Oh dear, poor Mannaz had a prang, and hurt his face. Unfamiliar streets are neater - but a specific garage is apparently a radish.

There's just no comment at all that I can make to that.

Interestingly,  he Ottormozilsya-ed as best he could, does that mean "takes evasive action", do we think? There's a sort of "otter" feel about the word, as though it meant slipping lithely away from danger, or something similar.

The forum goes on to speculate about whether the cable took his head off, but no, luckily it was not at head height.

Finally, from our point of view, we get Skuba, the six-fingered Expert:

There,  Skuba ottormozilsya-ed as well.  Although he memorised it, for some reason. Perhaps he was remembering ottormozilsya-ing in the past, and tried to repeat the manoeuvre?

Whatever it means, he did it, and then Johan put  up the picture of JVS and the cat.

Er, just a minute, Johan?  Is this a coincidence? Or could he be a big JVS fan?  This is the last post to date, I wonder what comments it will generate? And I wonder what on earth 62 Russian cyclists made of Eisen Andy?

Cuts to: an illegal gathering of cycling fans in deepest, darkest Kalingrad. Inside a small hut, they are gathered around a single candle. In the corner, a laptop glows fitfully, powered by a tandem being pedalled by two of the fans.

Dimodd: "Vot is diss rubbish?"
Skuba (cracking knuckles nervously): "How can zey laff und choke about such zerious matters?"
Strong infidel: "Guns! Kill zem all!"
Others "Schhhh!" (they put a blanket over Strong Infidel's head)
[note: I have just spelled shhh with a c... rolls eyes and wonders about a spell in Andyhab as a voluntary patient]
Olga (in conciliatory tone): "Vell, they are soft Vesterners, zey don't know vot it is like to live under a repressive regime."
Skuba (still cracking knuckles): "But, but, zey make jokes about the authorities! They criticize the (sharp intake of breath) UCI!"
Dimodd: "I am vondering if zis so-called 'cougar-girl' is a trap, to lure unwary comrades into making rash statements zo they can then be rounded up and incarcerated?"
Strong infidel: "Guns! Kill zem all!" (the blanket is hastily replaced)

There is a loud knocking at the door of the hut. Startled, they leap like rabbits for the secret trapdoor, while Skuba pulls the rope that swings the tandem up into the rafters where it hangs, invisible. He leaps for the trapdoor,  there is a whisk of lycra disappearing down the hole as he Ottormozilsya-ed, and the door opens to reveal a pair of disappointed traffic policemen.

Policeman #1 "блондинко на ярисе в 3х метрах от меня."
Policeman #2 "на главную дорогу не дает преимуществ?"
Policeman #1 "рассек?"
Policeman #2 "сам цел ногу только!"
(they laugh in a cruel and unsympathetic way.)

Contador advised not to enter Tour de France

 Yes, folks, it's true: news out today that David Howman, who is the boss of WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency as we all know) has advised Contador not to enter the TdF. This is due to the delay by CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport, are we all following these initials?) in hearing Conti's case - as we know, they've now put it back to beyond the Tour.

David Howman says “Legally, he has every right (to ride). It’s up to him. I wouldn’t advise him to do it but I can’t tell him not to.”

Well, that's an interesting stance.

ASO, on the other hand - they're the bunch that run the TdF - are not able to ban him from entering. Their man in charge, Christian Prudhomme, "expressed hope that the case would be resolved prior to the July 2 start of the 2011 Tour".  Of course, he can't come right out and say "get thee hence from our race and never darken our podiums again: well, not unless you can prove that you are totally clean."  But it's clear that he hoped to have the case sorted out one way or the other before the Tour started.

He, and ASO, are hovering a bit nervously around this point, as they got a lot of stick for banning the entire Astana team back in 2008 -  we all remember that, don't we? Contador was on Astana then, and he'd won it in 2007 but nonetheless he was not allowed to enter in 2008 as the Astana team had "multiple doping positives in the team during the 2007 Tour."  We assume that Contador was not one of those positives...  ASO have the right to ban riders, if they break what they call "ethical rules", ie if they are caught cheating: but apparently the rules are that as the rider concerned is co-operating with the anti-doping authorities, and as he has served his ban up until it was overturned, they can't really turn him away.

On the other, other hand (the gripping hand, if you read the same books that I do)(two housepoints to the first person who knows that expression),  we have Unipublic who run the Vuelta, who are delighted to welcome Contador with open arms. It doesn't actually say "whether found guilty or not" but that is the general sub-text feeling of their comments.

So,  fascinating stuff all round.

Where do we all stand?

On my part, I've given it a huge amount of thought over the last many months, and I've come to this conclusion: I actually believe Conti, I think it was an accidental contamination rather than deliberate cheating.

If you're not interested in my views about this, scroll down now!

If you're not sure yourself and want some more info, here's why:

1) the one-of-only-four-labs-that-can-find-it found a tiny, tiny, amount.

2) Conti was told "carry on, mate, don't worry about it, we'll sort it" by the UCI. This indicates that they realised that it was not a doping offence but a contamination issue, either of the beef or of the sample.

3) it only came out because it was leaked by that employee of the lab in Koln, (sorry, English keyboard, no umlauts) and once it was out, it quickly became a big issue - not least because it appeared to be being dealt with in a slightly underhand way.

4) the UCI and WADA have only appealed the ban being overturned because they have to be seen to be stronger than what you might call "political opinion." You know, Conti was backed up by the President of Spain, for heaven's sake, it takes a lot of strength to insist on a ban when there is some doubt about it all, and you have a President booming "Let him off!" at you.

5) Also, of course, we were all saying that the Spanish authorities, being Spanish, would kinda want to let him off, wouldn't they? The cycling press was full of "oh, he only got off because it was partisanship, it's not right for a country to judge it's own nationals, there should be an unbiased international enquiry group". [Which is quite right, in my opinion: countries should not be allowed to "try" their own people, it stands to reason that they will be lenient if they possibly can!]

I'm discounting the whole plasticiser issue, that was only ever mentioned once, by some anonymous lab technician in "a testing laboratory" not necessarily the same one: and it was never substantiated, and in fact only appeared once, all the other reports were cut-and-paste copies of that one report. We saw this for ourselves (back in Schleckland days) because they'd all spelt plasticiser the same, american, way.

So personally, I believe that Conti didn't cheat, and I want the CAS to uphold the overturning of him ban asap so that Andy can kick Conti's bony little butt all the way round France.

(Oh, I could add: 6) Andy said "I believe Conti is innocent" so that ought to count for something, too.)

Of course, I'll be really, REALLY bogged off if Conti wins! But if he does, well (*shrugs shoulders*) that will just show that he is the strongest rider in the world right now. I hope he isn't, I want Andy to win, but of course I'm a bit biased on that point.

Actually, it would be nice for Frankie to win, Andy second, Conti 4th (I don't mind who comes third, we could vote for a deserving person, maybe Igor Anton? Sadly, it would be a bit unrealistic to vote for Johan Van Summeren just because he's an honorary Schlecklander...). Then next year, Andy can win, and "someone else" can come 2nd and 3rd. (*big sigh*)

Right, that's enough of the serious (!) stuff, let's get onto something a bit more frivolous. I know! Captions!

Here's the Leopard Trek car, getting a bit lost and having to take a short-cut in order to catch up with Andy:

And now, with thanks to Figgy for suggesting it, another Puppy Picture: OGL really will  do anything that these photographers tell him, won't he?

"Go and pick some of those yellow daisy things, would you?"  "Try not to sneeze, sweetie." "OK, just hold one up in front of you - oh, bless you. Right, drop that bare stalk, pick up another one and this time don't hold it quite so high - yes, that's it" *click*

And we have to love this little girly, I've awarded her honorary Schlecklander status:

Finally, the ever-fascinating world of Search Terms: in the last 24 hours, we've had people getting here from searching for:

"Andy Schleck girlfriend 2011"  Ah, it's you again, hello! (*waves*) You don't give up, do you!

"Johan van Summeren"   14 of them!  We're happy to have JVS as an honorary Schlecklander, although I would still like to know what's behind all this rolling up of the sleeves...

"coug andy"   What!!  I had to try that one out for myself, and golly, there we are on the first page, yay!

"coug andy schleck"  WHAT!!!  Even better, we have 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th places on the first page, yay! Go, Team Schleckland!

"musette team leopard"  hmmmm, people have apparently heard about my campaign to get myself a LT musette this year.

And on a linked subject, hello to the Andy Schleck fan in Basildon! Please say "hello", you've been very diligent at reading the older posts and keeping up to date with the newer ones, so come along, make a comment and join us!

Tour of California rolls on....

And now for some light relief, LLB and I managed to watch Tour of California stage 5 and 6: the time trial wasn't particularly fascinating other than watching Mad Bad Dave Zabriskie (for whom I have a bit of a soft spot) thundering round the ITT course at about 500 mph.

Personally I didn't think that Andy was really pushing hard - did anyone else get that feeling? He didn't particularly look as though he was struggling, he just wasn't pushing on that much.

Mind you, phoning home while time trialling is maybe not the best way to win:

"Coug? Coug? Are you there? Why aren't you here?"  (Just kidding. I know he's probably phoning Nim to make pj arrangements, or possibly reminding Jakob to order the pizza.)

And yes,  I know that wasn't really part of ToC, it was the Mercedes presentation.

How about this one, below: what do we think he's saying here?

"Now look, this is supposed to be a serious cycle race and you're only a GUURRRRLL!"

PS look at that upper lip, he really is trying to grow a caterpillar, isn't he? (Cries of "Oh Noes!"  from all the lolcats in the audience)

This is the Leopard Trek Senior Division inspecting their road rash:

 Is it me, or has Our Glorious Leader - below - just about outgrown this bike?
 

And finally, Andy Schleck having trouble dealing with a toffee:

Glad to see the rear Tuftage making a welcome return!

Where was I? Oh yes, Tour of California.  The Mount Baldy stage was pretty exciting (Gnasher, I looked for you but didn't see you..) except for the bit towards the very end where OGL lost a bit of steam, allowing the commentators to make rude remarks about him not being in very good form etc etc. He's training guys, he's training!

One thing I noticed - Ryder Hesjedal (as opposed to Mechanic Hesjedal and Sponsor Hesjedal) from Garmin Cervelo appeared to wearing a Leopard Trek helmet. Anyone else notice that?  Sadly, I can't find any pics of it...

...but here's a "taken from the TV hence the terrible quality" pic of Johan Van Summeren ("Yay! We like him!") also known as Garmin Two, (see Loupe earlier)  from the final stage, and look!

Yes, he has his sleeves tucked up again!

What is it, JVS, with you and those blue sleeve bands?

Don't you like them?

Do you just want to be different? (No need, my dear, we can easily spot you in the peloton on account of you being about a foot lankier than everyone else....)

There must be someone out there who knows him, or has a friend who works for the team - can anyone find out?

Well, we've finally finished watching the ToC, it got a lot better towards the end, and I'm beginning to see that the US might have a winner on their hands. I know that they want to make the ToC into a big UCI Tour, I think I read somewhere that they'd like to get it big enough to be considered in the same sentence as the TdF and I can see that happening, some day. Exciting stuff.

Now we're onto the Crit Dauphine, we're going to be getting some spotty coverage of that over the next week, but not of all the stages, so hopefully next week I might have some semi-intelligent comments to make on that race.

In the meantime, I have to say how nice it is to have seen Ned Boulting and Matt Rendell in the flesh: they're the guys who do the  Real Peloton,  and they make a good presenting team,  Much better than Phil Liggett and whoever the other one was, who seemed a) not to be able to see the on-screen graphics, as they never seemed to know which rider we were looking at: b) unable to hear each other, as they would repeat what the other one had just said, but in slightly different phrases, and: c) to have been given a list of sponsor names and places of interest, and were compelled to mention one of them every 2.5 minutes. It was all quite strange to listen to!

Spain hits back

 Before I start, apologies to all and sundry, I've been bereft of  internet connection, emails and everything for two days now. I have no idea why - oh no, I broke NTL! (my service provider) This has made me seriously re-evaluate how much time I spend on the computer...... but it has also prevented me from seeing or replying to your brilliant comments, so apologies all round, you can all come out of the naughty corner now.

In fact, I'm so glad to be back and so relieved to find that you guys are all still here (and haven't abandoned me, saying "for goodness sake, drama queen, she's having a hissy fit again") that I'll give you all this photo for free:

OK it's quite an old one, but quite nice, don't we all think?

Anyway, this is the post I wrote two days ago, it's old news now, but you might enjoy it anyway.

SPAIN HITS BACK!

Remember how cross the Spanish beef producers were? Oh come on, you remember: Contador said "It Wuz Contaminated Spanish Beef Wot I Ate" when clenbuterol was found in his TdF samples.

Shortly afterwards, the Spanish beef producers' association asked for a public enquiry  into the matter, as it wasn't exactly good publicity for them. (Incidentally, as far as I can find out, they never got it, and the matter seems to have been dropped.)

But now, months later, the food producers of Spain have found a way to have their revenge..  Killer Cucumbers!

Don't laugh, this is serious stuff!

There's been an outbreak of a particularly nasty type of E. coli, mostly in Germany, and cucumbers from Spain are being blamed. It not only gives the victims the usual stomach problems, but it involves damage to the kidneys, and it's already killed 16 people in Germany "and other countries" as they say.

Let's hope that Contador isn't a big fan of cucumber sandwiches...

This BBC report details how countries around the world are being affected. Early reports in the UK said that deaths had occurred in "Germany, Sweden, and Luxembourg".

Figgy, are you listening? I nearly had palpitations, I can tell you! But an hour or so later, it had changed to "Germany, Sweden, and, er, some other places." No longer including Luxembourg, it seems. Phew, so that's all right then.

During the two days that I have been without internet (and bear in mind that I don't have TV so the computer is where I get my news) things might have changed.... but I don't have time to check! Have to go! Will post longer next time! Will answer comments next time!

My All Time Fave Andy Schleck Photo

That's it, I can retire now.

This is it: my favourite Andy Schleck photo. It can never be beaten.

It's wonderful. It says everything there is to say about this guy:

1) He's young
2) He's kinda cute
3) He's game for a laugh
4) He's ever so slightly geeky
Which adds up to:
5) (or technically, 10) He's adorable. Although in this photo, about 12 years old.

Figgy, thank you more than words can say for finding this photo and sharing it with the rest of us.