Catalunya 6 and 7

UPDATE: sharp-eyed viewers asked the question "What happened to Stage 5, then?"

*coughs in embarrassed fashion* er, well, I missed it out. Sorry.

*fanfare of trumpets* STAGE FIVE!!!!!

Our coverage started with just 33k to go - sad but true, we are only getting the last hour or so of the race. Such a shame, as the earlier stages of a race have a fascination all of their own, to see how the teams work earlier in the day, to see who is making the big effort, who is suffering from punctures or crashes early in the day, and so on. I can understand why they only show the last hour, and I can understand that to most casual viewers, the last few kms is where it all happens, but cycling is not all about the last sprint finish: it's about the build-up to it. If we wanted to watch just the last sprint finish, we'd all go to track events, where it's neatly packaged, with comfy seats and a roof, and only takes a few minutes to complete.

That's not to say that Track Is Bad - after all, most of our UK riders come from a track background, and by golly it does develop some time trial skills. But for me, road racing is the thing to watch, and I am happy to accept that there may be several hours of cycling that does not get the heart pumping. I like to watch how things develop, to see who is going well and who is not. It's where you get to know the riders, especially the ones "other than sprinters", and the domestiques who are never seen in the final 30kms because they have given their all, and are grimly coasting homewards in the grupetto. It's also where you get to see those odd moments of interest where riders smile at the camera bike, or pull faces at them: we get to see a bit of their characters at that point, while they still have spare energy to smile.

We are watching as they begin to ascend the final hill of the day, and our commentators are saying that Albasini is on his last legs. "He was on his hands and knees" they say. Ironic, considering he goes on to win the race... David Harmon has just said "Sorry - it's getting a bit dull, frankly!" He's complaining about the lack of attacks. BriSmithy responds by saying that it's due to the headwind, and I have no reason to doubt him.

We are now at 15k to go, halfway down the descent, and Sammy "Scary Face" Sanchez (I mean, have you ever seen his forehead? It creases up like a Klingon) zooms off on a steep section, as he is one of the better descenders in the peloton. Levi Leipheimer leads the chasing group after him: I have a little sympathy for Levi Leipheimer these days, for three reasons: 1) he's ex Shack, so he could have been in my team (not that I'm fully committed to the Shack yet, of course), 2) it's a great name, and 3) after the Movistar/triple crash episode in Paris-Nice.  He's very nearly an honorary Schlecklander. Anyway, there he is, leading the chasers: aaaaaaand they've caught Sanchez, well, that was exciting.

Is David Harmon happy now? He's a bit chirpier: now he's suggesting that there should be guerrilla points, randomly allocated at various points in the race - like moveable sprint points - "to make it interesting". He is clearly struggling with his commentating today, maybe there aren't any good tweets for him to talk about?

The finish was a repeat of the climbers-sprinting finish, with my pet Rigoberto Uran coming in second after Julien Simon of Saur-Sojasun, who whizzes across the line, completely fails to stop, barges through the crowd of officials, chaperones and press, and crashes head-first into the podium.  Lovely helicopter shot of him lying on his back, squashed up against the edge of the podium. It would have been extremely funny if the podium had been one of those raised platforms with plastic "skirts", in which case he would have slid out of sight right underneath it.

Consternation from his team-mates, who gather round and try to pull him back on his feet. Consternation from the Podium manager, "Not yet! Not yet! Pee first, then podium!"   He's not hurt, just winded, and after a while he gets to his feet, and the drama is over.

Albasini, meanwhile, has thrown off all Harmon's comments about being on his hands and knees, and came across the line in what would have been 3rd place, except that he sat up too soon, and the Liquigas rider with the unpronounceable name gets third.

What? Oh, his name is Sylvester Szmyd. Sizz-mid? Size-Myde? They are saying Schmidt - I guess that's close enough.

And finally, on the podium we get - National Costume!!  About time, too!

OK, back to the original post, here are my comments on the last two days of this race.

Stage 6 started badly: when we started watching our recording of the coverage, it wasn't cycling... not, not curling this time, but something equally boring other than pedalling - can't remember what it was, only that it did not involve Catalunya. We skipped forward - more of the the same. Skipped again -oh dear, don't say Eurosport have lost Stage 6? Aha! Wheels!

Turns out there was an accident on the road ahead of the race, a police motorcycle that was part of the convoy clearing the road hit a car (whoops) and it took them nearly an hour to clear up the mess. So the race started late, as did our coverage. Actually, it was worse than "started late", apparently the race was under way and had to be stopped, with a lot of people with clipboards and pencils making notes of who was where, so that when they re-started the race, it would be with the same time-gaps as before.

Can you imagine the horror of that job? Fancy standing in front of the peloton, all of whom are mentally revving their engines and dumping the clutch: you point to three riders and say "You, you and you, go!" and you turn a stern eye on the rest of the bunch and say "Waiiiiiiit for it! Not yet! No! No! Get back in line!"

You'd need a very big stick, I imagine!  I can remember a race from a couple of years ago, it was either an early season Classic or a stage of the Tour, where the race was held up at a train crossing, and the commissaires were trying to let them go in order (once the train had passed, obviously) and there were cyclists from the back of the bunch clambering off the road, into the ditch, into the field and round the outside, in their eagerness to get going. In the end the commissaire was simply swamped by the mass, and they had to just let them go. So unfair for whoever was leading the break at that point, and not exactly good publicity for the name of cycling.

Anyway, they were apparently re-started in good order, and we didn't hear anything about the problems of legs cooling down, or how you re-motivate yourself after such a long gap, or whether those with stomach problems (there were bound to be a few, it is cycling after all) were allowed to sneak off behind the hedge: or  maybe, if they were in a town, they could slip off for a coffee?  There you go, there'd be cyclists knocking on your door asking to use the loo, asking to refill their bottles, and maybe a ham sandwich? Oh, that would be nice, yes please. Tea and cakes? How kind of you, that would be lovely. A lift to the next checkpoint? Madam, who do you think I am? And kindly take your hand off my leg....

Right, back to business. Our commentators were still full of the Stage 3 controversy: they had decided that the stage should have been called off much, much earlier, possibly even before it began. They reminded us about the stage in the Tour of Britain that was called off due to 'orrible weather, and made some catty remarks about the locals not being prepared to admit that their area could suffer from bad weather. However,  what was done, was done, and another seven riders had dropped out, leaving just 124 in the race.

Nothing much happened until we reached the final circuit, where we encountered the interesting position that all 14 riders in the front group were 1' 32" off Albasini, therefore if anyone could get just one second over the others, they would suddenly be 2nd!

One of the RadioShack riders was in this first group - Bushetti, or something like that? David Harmon was struggling to pronounce his name. (I would have said Bush, myself - we are talking about Matti Busche, by the way) and Harmon eventually said "I don't know him at all."    Whispered comment of "me, neither" from my end of the sofa.

Finally, with just 2k to go, Sammy "Scary Forehead" Sanchez leaped off the bunch, pelted to the finish, sat up way, way too early but luckily still managed to get 2 seconds, enough to get him into second place in the GC.

Fired up with all this excitement, we went straight on to view Stage 7, with 50kms to go. "It's going to be a most exciting stage" burbled David Harmon. LLB pulled faces:  in the footage from Stage 6,  Harmon had spent a lot of time telling us that the final day was "just a parade". However, the profile looks as though it was nothing like a simple parade.  Discussions on this point are brought up short by the arrival on the sofa of a dish of small cheesy biscuits. Only one dish? Oh dear, there is going to be a fight.

26kms to go, nothing to report except for me spilling a little of my wine onto my lap. (it's all right, we were watching in the evening, not in the middle of the afternoon, we're not that decadent.) And yes, there might have been just a tiny element of "not holding the glass properly due to fighting over cheesy biscuits" going on in the background.

Chris "Face of Pain" Anker Sorensen has won the KoM jersey. Do we really care? Apparently, no we don't, as we continue to silently fight for the last of the cheesy biscuits. Tactics involve distracting the other person with a shocked "Who's that?!"  look to the far corner of the room, then stealing another tiny handful of biscuits while they are looking the other way. NB this only works the first couple of times.  And fails entirely if the opportunist says "Graeme Brown?" in a fake Leelu accent.

The race is very peculiar, there is a clear winner, but there are still 15 riders all on very nearly the same time, any of whom could get a podium finish. There is, as they say, all to play for. Except for Albasini ("Yay! Go, GreenEdge")  who is having a Sunday afternoon ride, smug in the knowledge that unless he is disgracefully careless, or stupendously unlucky, he is going to win this Tour.

Rohregger makes a huge push at 7kms to go and just zooms off. Hilariously, the commentators think it was Busche and have a repeat of the pronunciation problems of the last stage.  Next minute, he's caught and spat out the back, but he got sponsor time, so well done Thomas! Let's be grateful that the backroom boys are by now fully informed that it is not actually necessary to win a race: sometimes, sponsor time is enough.

Talking of Busche, ooof! He's into the arnco barrier and sitting on the road. Again, it's sponsor time, but possibly not the best way of obtaining it. There are glum faces on the sofa - yes, all the cheesy biscuits have gone. Our footage returns from Busche to the race, oh, we've missed the excitement, there has been a mad break for the line, and it's another climbers' sprint to the finish line.  Rigoberto Uran comes 4th in the stage, not bad, and 5th in the GC, not bad at all!

There are no big wins for the RadioSchack team, but considering they were down to just four members from an eight-man team, that's not too bad. At least those four managed to finish!

So there you have it, cheesy biscuits all gone (except for a couple of broken ones that went down between the sofa cushions during a particularly giggly competitive episode, and neither of us are prepared to put a hand down there to retrieve them), Tour of Catalunya over for another year, and we are none the wiser as to Andy's physical condition or early season status.

We didn't get coverage of the sparkily-named E3 something-or-other: nor of Gent-Wevelgem (drat) but we are going to be getting the Tour of Flanders from Sunday onwards, which features mostly the Gent-Wevelgem squad,  of whom Bennati came 6th, which is not bad.

Alas, no Schlecks will be taking part, but I'll be interested to see how Fabian does at Flanders.

Criterium International

Owing to a slight mishap with the recorder not knowing about British Summer Time, we came in at 37kms to go, with a three-man break up the road, containing a Leopard. "Who is that?" said LLB. I rolled my eyes: I still haven't quite committed to RadioShack as a team, so I don't actually know all their riders off by heart at 50 paces.....

"No idea," said I, cheerfully and unrepentantly - look, I'm studying for a botany qualification at the moment, I'm on a schedule, and I only have a limited number of memory  modules available. They are currently stuffed with botany information, and I can't spare any for learning cycling facts, particularly when, as mentioned, I'm not yet entirely committed to the team. (NB: send me a RadioShack musette and cap, RadioShack team, and I may yet be converted.)

"I don't recognise him," said LLB, "he must be a Shack rider. You wouldn't know them, would you?"
"Nope," I replied, "It's probably someone like George Bennett, I'd never heard of him before checking the start list."

Guess who it was? Yes, George Bennett.  Who, incidentally, is nowhere near as old as you would expect a Shack rider to be - remember those rather harsh criticisms of Shack as being a team full of "old" riders? - and he appears to be trying to take the Steffandenneffall prize for mad hair. Check the website! 

Andy swims into view as the camera bike rolls slowly backwards through the peloton. "Hi, Andy!" I chirp. LLB raises eyebrows. "It's Frankie, isn't it?" he says. Oops. Just trying to prove that I'm completely cured of Andyholic-ness, see, I can't even spot the difference any more. Er hem.

This is the third section of the Crit, by the way: Eurosport only managed to get us coverage of the second day,  although it's possible that we missed the catch-up of the first day. And our commentators today are Carlton Kirby - who gets a lot of flack on the forums, but I like him, actually - and Rob Hayles, who I like very much. He has a really laid-back style, and that rather flat Essex-boy accent, but what he says is always interesting and accurate. Him and Magnus Backstedt are, I think, my favourites.

Rob gets a big thumbs up from me by referring to Lay-o-pard Trek, ha ha, instead of RadioShack - glad to see that the professional commentators are still calling them by the wrong name! Interestingly, I am sure that it's because the kit is so close to the Leopard kit. If they'd gone with just red and black, I'm sure we wouldn't be making that mistake.

The three-man break is still away, but I'm beginning to think that George "Who?" Bennett isn't pulling his weight, as I haven't seen him go through and take a turn at the front yet.  Just as I say this to LLB,  whoops, he's dropped! Bad luck, Who, but it was a brave effort.

At 12k to go we start the hill: oh look, there's Luke Rowe in the White Young Rider's jersey, he seems to be making heavy weather of it. In case you're wondering who Luke Rowe is (And God cried out to Luke, saying "Luke! Luke!" but Luke never luke-d and fell down a hole.) (Pun on looked/luke-ed, you have to say it in a northern accent for it to work.)  (Alternatively: And God cried out to Luke, saying "Come forth! Come forth!" but Luke came fifth and won a teapot.)

Sorry, where was I? Luke Rowe: young rider with Sky, we saw him making his track debut at Revolution recently (a big track event in the UK, saw it on LLB's TV when there was no other cycling to watch and we were desperate to see anything on two wheels without an engine) and he was really promising, and kinda cute. In a "put him on a keyring and take him home" sort of way. Now I don't want you to think that I have a "thing" for wee lads, but he was so enthusiastic about his first proper outing for Sky: it was very sweet. So I was pleased to see him on the road, and very pleased that he was wearing the White Jersey. Go, Luke!

At 9km to go, Frankie is suffering: he's not quite pedalling squares, but he's being dropped by the bunch, and Rob Hayles comments that he shouldn't ride with his jersey open all the time, it acts like a parachute and slows him down. Are you listening, Frankie? Zip up!

Sadly, no Leopards -oh, I beg their pardon, RAdIOshACk riders - made the podium, but Monfort made 6th in the GC overall, which is pretty good, and Sky did better to get 3rd and 8th.  Mind you, the podium was no big deal as the podium girl took "dress casual" to the denim limit, as she was wearing jeans with faded knees, and high heels. My dear, so "essex".  Good thing they weren't white stilettos, eh? She was also a very unenthusiastic kisser - even Carlton Kirby made a comment about her "giving him the cheek" when handing over the flowers.  LLB and I speculated that perhaps they hadn't managed to get a proper podium girl, or maybe the stomach bug struck again, so they had to rope in some local girl at the last minute?

Andy Schleck et Jil (girlfriend)

Yeah, all right, I know, I know: I am always complaining about the search terms people use to find this blog - that's "new" people,  not the Faithful Schlecklanders -  and here I am, pandering to them in the worst way.

So, for the benefit of those of you who don't follow Twitter, here is what TinkerJil kindly put up recently:

There you go - ain't that the sweetest thing?

And who, amongst us, doesn't have something very, very similar, hidden away somewhere? Well, those of us who are over the age of 35 at any rate.

Ah yes, those heady days when cameras were expensive, and developing the photos cost money, took a fortnight, and was done in your local chemist's shop, with the attendant risk that everyone in the shop would see your  photos before you did, and that if there were any slightly risque or really, really bad shots amongst them, you would know that they had been handed round the entire staff at lunchbreak, all of whom would laugh at you when you came in to collect them.

The chemist's door opens with a loud Ding!  A young girl - late teens - walks calmly up to the counter with a slip of yellow paper in her hand.

"Can I help you?" asks the assistant.
"I've come to collect my photos," she says "they should be ready today, name of Smith"

(NB, names have been changed to protect the innocent - or in this case, guilty)

The assistant smiles at Miss Smith, his smile curving wider into a knowing grin. He walks slowly to the box of photo packets behind the counter, nudging his colleague as he does so. The colleague - an older man - looks  up in surprise. "Is that her?" he mouthes. The first man nods, smirking, and reaches slowly for the box of packets.

As he leafs through them in a leisuirely way, pretending to check the numbers against the yellow slip, the second assistant "psst!"s to the other members of staff, then points at Miss Smith, waiting heedlessly at the counter.

She suddenly realises that everyone in the shop is looking at her, and that they are all grinning, in a very knowing and strangely unpleasant way. Slightly worried, she takes her photos, pays, accepts the change, thanks the smirking assistant and walks quickly outside. There, she moves out of the doorway and opens the pack of photos.

"OH. MY. GOD!!!!" she says. Yes, this is back when Friends was on TV. Her face turns an unsightly tomato-red colour, as she sees the incriminating pictures of - well, best if we don't continue, really. You get the idea.

Where was I? Oh yes, we used to love the photo booth pictures because we could be a bit naughty in them, without having to spend the rest of the year taking a long bus journey to a chemist shop where we were unknown. Now that everyone has cameras on their phones, you'd think that they would have disappeared, wouldn't you?

So come on, send me a jpeg of your photo booth photos, I'll put up the ones that make me laugh. Oh, come on, you know you have them hidden away somewhere.

I'd also be interested to know exactly what is on the sheet of photos from the previous go: I wonder what they were doing? Were they mooning the camera, do we think? (Note for non-UK readers: "mooning" is exposing the bare buttocks in a somewhat insulting manner, often out of car or coach windows when there is no chance of being assaulted. And no, of course I have no personal experience of such a thing. No, no, no.)

Or was it the sheet where first he had his eyes half closed, then she had hair all over her face, then one of them slipped off the stool and looks horrified, then both of them moved and it came out all blurred. Yes, let's go for that option, shall we?

Catalunya - Stage 4

Eurosport are doing well so far this year, we are getting the stages in the right order with none missing - well, apart from stage 3, and we can't blame them for that.

So, we started stage 4 with massive discussions from David Harmon, the commentator, about the fiasco of stage 3, and his views - which were extensively aired - on what should have been done.

Apparently all the riders who DNFed (Did Not Finish) were offered the chance to start again, which is about the only decent  thing the organisers could possibly have done: but only 3 riders took up the offer, so yar boo sucks to that! Of those three, one was TJ "Bumfluff" Van Garderen: what it is with these honorary Schlecklanders? I pick a rider at random and make rude comments about him, and then they somehow come to prominence. Or is it just coincidence? Yes, you are probably right, it's just coincidence.

We are barely five minutes into the coverage and lo! the Andy-bashing starts: the second race on the trot that he has failed to finish, they say. Just like Basso, who hasn't actually finished a race this year. LLB looks smug, I sit there refusing to comment.

The race has now changed into a sort of Handicap race: instead of the "big" teams dominating, we are seeing that the smaller teams  now have a full squad and can perform tactical manoeuvres, whereas the big team are mostly down to three or four riders. Andalucia - nice kit, by the way - suddenly have a chance!

Talking of kit, what does anyone think about the Cofidis kit this year? Am I the only one to think that the one white arm with cross-strap makes it looks like a natty off-the-shoulder evening dress?

Right, we're back to the debate about stage 3 -our commentators don't seem too interested in what's happening on the screen. Brian Smith is standing firm that riders who Did Not Finish yesterday should be penalised, they should not be allowed to just restart along with everyone else, with their GC times unchanged.

I think he's right, actually, and I quite like his scheme for the penalties: for every 10km before the (eventual) end point, a rider is penalised one minute.  So if he dropped out 40km before the end, he gets 4 minutes added to his time.  Neat! But not of any use, as the race organisers just let them all start again. All three of them.

Oh dear, more Schleck-bashing: but at least they are saying exactly the same things about Basso. Mind you, I thought that Basso was not looking in particularly good form, we kept seeing him falling off the back of groups, whereas I don't think I actually saw Andy during the race at all: which is bad from an Admire-A-Schleck point of view (oops, no, no, don't drag me back to Andyhab, I meant admiring as in good form and likely to do well, not - oh dear.) but at least it means that he was staying out of trouble, and wasn't being dropped.

At this point LLB paused the recording, and to my surprise there was a tandem on screen:

hmmm, it looks as though Albasini (chorus of "Yay! Go, GreenEdge" from all the Southern Hemisphere Schlecklanders) is teaming up with Lotto to ensure that he gets safely through the stage.

Ah, more information from our puzzled commentators (who are not enjoying this race, we can tell - there are no graphics showing the kms to go, for a start!), apparently the BMC twitter feed is saying that Bumfluff did NOT start the race today.  We don't know if that means that only two of the DNFs re-started, or if it was someone else altogether, but apparently it wasn't "Teej" so he's gone home to sit in a sauna then thaw out gently at room temperature.  ("before being popped into the oven at gas mark 5 for two hours...")

As mentioned yesterday, these commentators must thank their lucky stars for Twitter!

LLB commented that one reason why so many of the 50-or-so DNFs  did not exercise their option to restart is that there might be problems if one of them did well in latter stages: I mean, can you imagine the reaction of someone who half-killed themselves finishing stage 3, to someone who skipped out half-way through, then came back the next day with no penalties, and beat them? There might be Things Said, or possibly it might be bicycle wheels at dawn.

To give you an idea of how unexciting this stage was, our Eurosport commentators became fixated by the fact that the person doing the graphics had made a mistake - one of the riders in the two-man breakaway was number 175,  Markcynski of Vaconsoleil, but the graphics operator had clearly mis-read the number as 75, so it read Kritskiy of Katusha. Again and again. David Harmon could NOT let it go! He made comments about ineptness of graphics operators, of the possibility of a swift clip round the year: he was glad to see the commissaire's car coming up behind the break in the hopes that they would tell the broadcasters that they had the number wrong: then he suggested "making a book" on when the graphic would be changed, and he bet the other commentator, Brian, £10 that it would be done in less than three more viewings.

This went on for, well, at least ten minutes and one advert break, until finally, finally, the graphic was updated, and he claimed his tenner. Although then several people apparently Tweeted that he'd missed a few sightings, and that there had actually been five more viewings so he wasn't entitled to the tenner.

Ho hum.

There was one moment of humour when the two-man break were seen approaching the finish line, and the commentators got all excited, thinking that this was the actual finish: no, it was 30kms to go, they were still doing loops, but the lack of kms-to-go graphics and the general boredom of the stage had distracted them completely.

30kms later, we were looking at a six-man break which were being pulled back agonisingly slowly: would they make it? Would they be caught? Would they be caught less than 4" from the line? It ended in a nail-biting finish, with a sprint finish between five climbers, which was novel, and a lot less heart-stopping than a sprint finish between sprinters. And Rigoberto Uran from Sky won it! Yay for Sky! Go, second team!

Here he is, receiving his stage win award.

Technically, Uran is actually Uran Uran (and he's from ColOMbia, Pahola!) which always leads to the temptation to call him Duran Duran. Must....Resist....

And look at his little face! The love-child of Frances de la Tour and a bassett hound, possibly.

Have to say, *with deep sarcasm*,  "loooove the award".  Honestly,  who makes these things? Local schools? Local primary schools? You can see on the underside of this one where they have painted the sides of the base, and it has dripped round to the underneath.  Clearly whoever makes them has never seen a cycling presentation, and does not know that they are also seen from underneath.

So, there we are for Catalunya so far: over the weekend I'll be hoping to finish watching this one, and with luck we'll get some footage for the Criterium International, where Frankie will be leading the team - and hopefully not swallowing bees, falling over arnco barriers or being snowed on - along with Jensi, Linus, George Bennett (who? don't know him yet) MM,  Nelson Oliveira (don't know him, either) Joost and the amusingly-named Ben King. Why amusing? It always sounds like one word - Benking. A bit like Bonking but presumably doing it sideways.

Catalunya - Stages 1-3

Catalunya!

Stage one: the commentators are burbling on about how this is a good race for seeing how the stage-racers' form is shaping up. We'll take their word for that.

As an aside - and look, I've barely started the post and already I'm digressing! - David Harmon commented that Sky were fielding a team of 6 riders instead of 8, as they didn't have enough riders to make up a full team. He pointed out that sometimes in the ProTeam calendar you get three events occurring at once, and taking into account sickness, injury etc, it's not always possible to make up a full squad for every race.  This does rather make me wonder how on earth the mystical "breakaway league" would be expected to work, if they are seriously wanting to stuff an extra 10 races into the calendar. Oh well, more of that some other time.

Eurosport started our footage at 18kms to go, with Albasini of GreenEdge ("Yay for GreenEdge!") making a very nice descent: he was zooming off with some style. At one point he rounded a bend to the right, with a sheer drop to the left, and as I looked at the arnco barrier I was picturing Frankie at the Tour of Switzerland, and was just thinking how glad I was that he wasn't in this race. Then LLB said "Hope Frankie's not in this race as that barrier looks very inviting!"  Ha, great minds think alike.

Brian Smith, the other commentator, said something like "RadioShack don't have a sprinter [technically this is correct] , they are here looking after the legs of Andy Schleck and Jakob Fuglsang."  Passing over his pronunciation of Jakob's name as Foogle-Slang, I did wonder what my loyal Schlecklanders would make of the concept of looking after Andy's legs. Or Jakob's legs. I wonder what gentle images passed through your minds on hearing those words...

Anyway, moving swiftly on: Albasini scooted on home, yay for GreenEdge and I can just imagine Leelu bouncing up and down with excitement *rushes over to Twitter to see if Leelu is around: oh, disappointed face, she went to bed 9hrs ago. Wake up, Leelu!*

But there seemed to me to be total confusion at the finish line - the mass of riders gently ground to a halt, and sat around chatting, swapping drinks bottles, waving to fans etc. I was sure that they hadn't actually crossed the finish line, which was a bit worrying. "And the final race times for everyone below 10th position: 45 minutes longer than the leaders."

Stage Two:  it starts and finishes in Girona (muted chorus of air guitar and "My Girona") (instead of "My Sharona", that is) which apparently is THE place for pro cyclists to live and train now. We are forced to listed to David Harmon listing all the places that used to be where pro-cyclist lived, going back years, and year, and years... eventually we join the race with 40kms to go, just about to start the first of the two climbs before the finish.

"Tomorrow will be decisive" they say, "although snow has been forecast." LLB is sniggering. Under torture, he reveals that he's already seen the results on the internet:  the stage apparently did not proceed without problems, which included fog, snow, hypothermia, and half the peloton dropping out before the finish. This is what comes of actively not reading the cycling news in order to keep the footage fresh. Memo to self: as it's not possible to watch it live (LLB kindly records it for me and we watch it together whenever we get time) then I might have to accept knowing what the outcome is.  Actually, that's not a problem - we still have some stages of the Tour last year that we haven't watched, and they are still interesting. No really, we didn't manage to keep up with all the coverage we managed to record, and we thought it would be useful to have some cycling footage to watch over the winter when there was nothing new available. It worked quite well, except that we found the Giro even more boring to watch knowing that Conti won it (sort of) than it was to watch it merely thinking that Conti was going to win it. 

TJ - no, not TinkerJil, TJ Van Garderen - leaps off the front, to a chorus of "Bumfluff!" from LLB and I. Incidentally, I have often wondered what the TJ stands for, assuming it was Tom Junior or something similar, but I've just seen an interview where it is spelled Teejay, as though it's an actual name. If anyone knows for sure, do please tell me. Otherwise, he will simply be Bumfluff.

Aha, at this point we happen to know that Valverde had a problem, but the commentators seem to be unaware of it. Much sniggering on the sofa. They tell us that Valverde is trying to get back to the peloton, but he only has Quintano, the Colombian with him. (Yes, Pahola, ColOMbia, I got it right that time!)

But wait, wasn't Quintano the rider from team Colombia who crashed into the wall during the Milan-SanRemo? LLB and I look at each other in confusion. Well, I've had time to do the research, and would you believe that it was Carlos Quintero of the Colombia-Coldeportes team who crashed - but thankfully he is now at home recovering from a broken collarbone and an injured head, and is quoted as saying that he saw pictures of his fall on YooToob and was shocked by them. Movistar have a rider called Niaro Quintana, who is Colombian. Good thing they're not on the same team, eh?!

Leaving aside the Colombia confusion, at last our commentators have been informed that Valverde had a tumble, and there is much laughing that Omega are now drilling for home. Payback!

Commentators must be so grateful for Twitter: they are "too professional" to make comments about individual riders and situations, but they can use Twitter comments as a "front" for saying anything they like.  "Ooh, we're getting a lot of comments on Twitter that Valverde deserves everything he's getting after his team accelerated during Milan-SanRemo" and so on. Or, even funnier, "John Smith [made-up name] asks on Twitter wasn't Valverde done for drugs? Well, yes, he served a 2-year ban....." etc. It's a way for them to drag up these points without being seen to be critical of the riders.

The end of the stage is immensely confusing for everyone, as our TV footage suddenly contains no graphics, so we - and the commentators, poor souls - have no idea who is leading, who is following, what the time gaps are, or how much further there is to go. We don't even get close-ups, just helicopter shots, so the commentators are left bravely making guesses as to who is in the picture.

At this point, with all the stress of having to commentate with no information, Brian Smith, bless him, refers to Leopard Trek coming to the front. Ha! Ha! Much laughing on the sofa. (It's the next village over from Much Sniggering on the Sofa. We have strange naming conventions in the UK.) They are reduced to just guessing who is in the lead, and appeal for any viewers with 55" tvs and HD to please tell them which banner we have just gone under - is it 4km to go? Or 3? Or 5? They are completely lost.

Suddenly we are watching a sprint finish, and it's Albasini again! Leelu, we imagine, can hardly contain herself at this point. Our Lad Bradley Wiggins did a cracking lead-out for Rigoberto Uran (face like a crumpled puppy, adorably ugly!) so Sky get someone in the top 10, yay!

Valverde drones in 2'09" later, har har har,  dragging a huge group with him. And he gets no sympathy at all.

Stage 3: well, we had already heard on the cycling news that there was a problem with snow, so we weren't expecting much in the way of footage, but LLB and I eagerly started the recording to see what we had.

Oh. It appears to be Ski Sunday. Errr, no, that's a finish line, it's snowing a blizzard and there is snow at least a foot deep everywhere. We hear the voice of David Harmon telling us that the stage has had to be cut short due to the truly terrible weather, and that there have been large numbers of abandons, unsurprisingly. He also comments that they have no idea how they are going to get the TV equipment down off the mountain top, which could make for an interesting Stage 4. Apparently the commisaires are discussing how to handle the problem: Harmon says that they, the commentators, don't know who won, who is leading the GC, or anything, so on Eurosport this afternoon we will instead be going live to the women's curling....

It's an odd thought that the 73 fans of women's curling would have been leaping about with joy at the prospect of getting two solid hours of curling to watch, instead of a 10-minute highlight. Unless of course they didn't know about it, and hadn't turned their TVs on two hours early.. gosh, just think how furious they would be when they found out that there had been over 2 hours of their favourite minority sport, and they had missed it! *laughs unsympathetically*  (honestly, there are times when I think I'm not a very nice person, sorry everyone.)  I was going to put in a picture of it to liven up this entry, but honestly, it's not very interesting. Even thought they try to make the ice less boring by putting pictures underneath it. The only good thing about curling is working out that competitors have one shoe that slides on the ice, and one shoe that grips: and then working out who is Left footed, as it were, and who is Right footed. Yes, it really is that dull.

So, apparently Stage 3 was a complete disaster, and instead of calling it off altogether, as soon as it was apparent that it was going to be dreadful, the organisers forced the teams to race through hellish weather, suffering falls and hypothermia, then when half the race had withdrawn, they magnanimously shortened the stage by 55kms or so: AND THEN just to add insult to injury, the next day they announced that the GC would not be affected by stage 3, and that anyone who Did Not Finish would be allowed to start stage 4 if they wanted to. Apparently "not many" took them up on this kind offer. Probably still in hot baths, worrying about frostbite.

I can't even begin to imagine how cross and upset those riders who finished must be: to have struggled through all that, and then to not make any time out of it - that's cruelty.

And from our point of view, Andy was one of those who withdrew,  but was not able to start on Stage 4, so he's out of it: as is poor Jakob, who broke his wrist and has been sent to Switzerland for an operation on it, but who is then going to have to get back on the rollers and apparently is going to be riding in a cast for a while - our brave boy! He's really bogged off, by the sound of it, as he was hoping to be a contender in the Giro. Jakob, we all have our fingers crossed for you. Not least because presumably, with a wrist-bone broken, you can't cross your own fingers for a while.

And yes, it was that darn scaphoid bone again, the same one that Jensi broke. I imagine that wrists and collarbones are going to be the most frequently-broken bones - it's natural to put an arm out to stop yourself hitting the ground, and apparently it's the concussive shock running back up the arm that breaks the collarbone. I guess Jakob could be saying to himself that he's lucky he "only" broke his wrist-bone, and not his collarbone.

*wraps large fluffy blankets around Jakob and Andy for comfort*

Hopefully I'll get to watch stages 4 onwards over the weekend. But I'm reminded that last year, Eurosport showed us stage 5 three times, and didn't show stage 6 at all, so we'll have to see what happens.

Eat Dirt, Valverde!

OK, I know it's childish to gloat, but honestly,  who wouldn't?

In Paris-Nice,  stage 7, Levi Leipheimer (sitting third in GC)  took a tumble on a gravelly corner when his rain jersey got tangled up with his front wheel. Oops - these things happen. He had to swap bikes,  and the new bike was not set up correctly for him, which didn't help him get back onto the peloton. Then he took another tumble - not his fault - and Movistar, hearing about this, put the hammer down and surged away, making it harder and harder for Levi to catch them. On the wrong bike, he was clearly struggling to keep up with his team, most of whom were with him, pulling him back to the peloton. But they were getting there.

Then there was another crash, into a parked motorcycle that was - to be fair - doing his job: he'd stopped on the apex of a corner to protect a Lampre rider who had just that moment fallen off right there. Unfortunately,  although most of the Omega QS riders got round the obstacle, one of them, Dries Devenyns, couldn't avoid running up the back of the motorcycle, (doing a painful-looking face-plant as he did so) closely followed by Levi. Aagh! Blood!

Movistar were still pulling like a train, and this third crash meant that most of the Omega team came in over 9 minutes down on the main peloton.

Now, this wasn't bad sportsmanship: Levi was not in the yellow jersey, he was not leading the GC, Movistar were not obliged to slow down for him - but it was a pretty mean thing to do, and there was a bit of hissing amongst the peloton.  And on the sofa, from LLB and I. Neither of us are particular fans of Levi or or Omega, but it was a bit mean.

Then in stage two of Catalunya, Velverde of Movistar crashed, and guess who went to the front and swept the peloton away? Yup, Omega.

Go, boys!

Andy's back!

Well, when I say "back", not exactly "back racing" but he is showing himself in public, and it's good to know that OGL has recovered from his untimely but unavoidable bout of gastroenteritis, and here he is at the end of Paris-Nice, supporting the rest of the team in the TT.

Is it me, or is it a bit odd to turn up in support, only just off your sick bed, but to put on full riding kit?

And Linus, what is he doing there, also in full kit?

Perhaps they feel left out of it if they don't dress the part?

Perhaps they'd otherwise have to spend the whole time giving interviews, signing autographs, and having to show their passes at every gate? (That is a joke, you kind of imagine that Andy Schleck's face is pretty well known by now.)

I had assumed that he'd actually gone home from the race: but maybe when you're that ill, you don't want to have to travel?

*rushes off to look it up on Google maps* - oh look, it's only about 4 hours by car. Hmmm, would I fancy a four-hour drive if I had a serious gastric upset: actually, no, I wouldn't. But would I fancy being a strange hotel? Well, given the choice I would rather be at home, but on balance, I would rather be in a hotel than in a car for four hours. Ah, I hear  you say, but what about the transfers? They don't stay in the same hotel, do they, they have to keep moving from stage to stage.

Perhaps they left him behind in the hotel at Stage 3, with a change of clothes, bus fare, and strict instructions not to clear out the mini-bar, perhaps.

So many questions, so few interviews... I can feel more Schpleculation approaching, oh noes!

Paris-Nice

Well, shock horror for me, I am waiting in for someone to come and collect some stuff, thought I'd fill the time with a quick Blog post, and was just looking for a pic of OGL storming around the TT course, only to be greeted on the RadioShack site with the news that he's withdrawn from the race with gastric problems.

*shoulders slump dejectedly*  We've waited so long to see him race again....

Oh well, never mind, what are my thoughts on the race so far? Well, LLB and I have only watched Stage 1, the not-quite-a-prologue individual TT. By the way, did you know that to be called a Prologue, it has to be 8km or less? This one was 9.5km, apparently, which is why it has been called Stage 1. There, don't say I never tell you anything.

Right, the Time Trial.  Lots and lots of TV coverage on Eurosport for us, so Yay! for Eurosport. Much better coverage than in the Tour of Quatar, where they showed the riders bracing up to leave the ramp - leaving the ramp - and then on to the next one waiting on the ramp. We didn't see any of the racing at all, and not all of the finishes! Bizarre....

Anyway, we saw lots of riders coming off the ramp, we critiqued their style (as you do) until finally, Andy! Andy! I nearly didn't recognise him in the silly TT button-mushroom hat. Is his face filling out a little bit? Or is it where those wisdom teeth were removed? No, that would make his face narrower, not wider, wouldn't it?

(Pause for Figgy to make allegations about there not really being any wisdom tooth removal during that untimely but imperative dental operation. There, feel better? Good, then we will continue.)

Andy did a storming take-off from the ramp, he showed real determination. Luckily he couldn't hear the somewhat sarcastic commentary from David Harmon, who referred to him as "Andy Schleck, the famous non-time-triallist". Well, actually, MISTER Harmon *sneer in voice* he had a nice position, he was looking good, he was taking the corners well, his lines were good, so there.

Eleven minutes later: oh dear. One minute down on an 11-minute TT is not very good. Nor is coming 103rd (at the time) out of 180 or so riders.  Oh well, it's early in the season - and at least he got a huge amount of screen time! Luckily the other riders on the road were not particularly interesting, if they will forgive me for saying so, so it was Andy, Andy, Andy nearly all the way. Sadly, a lot of it was helicopter shots, but at least that way we could see that he has indeed improved his road lines, and was showing a much smoother course.

Frankie had his turn a little later, and guess what! He came in within 7 seconds of Andy's time, putting him (at that time) 102nd.

Now, this pleases me hugely: it proves that neither of them have been on drugs over the winter, neither of them have been subject to any torture or "special fitness" regimes from Mr Bruyneel: if either or both of them had shown a greatly improved performance, don't you think that Things would have been Said? No, the season is still young, I am happy with their performances.

In the meantime, Bradley Wiggins of Sky (my second team) did a storming performance to come second, just barely missing the top slot - but he went round in the rain! Nice one, Wiggo. We are allowed to call  him that - you might have heard me praising Sky's decision to put the rider name on the side of the jersey, oriented so that we can read it when they are riding. Here's a quick montage so that you know that I am not kidding:

...and if you look again,you can see that Wiggins' suit says WIGGO, with the O being in Union Jack colours of red, white and blue.  So that proves that we are allowed to call him Wiggo. Just thought you'd like to know that.

At the end of the TT, we had Irizar in 8th position, so at least one Radioshack rider in the top 10, that's a good start.

Had to laugh at the podium experience: not quite as slick as some other, larger races... Gustav Larsson won, (beating Bradley by just one second: have to rub that in a little!) so he went up on the podium to collect his stage winner's award of a tasteful transparent plastic medallion. Lovely. The solitary podium girl managed to give him the flowers, and the obligatory kisses. Kiss! Kiss! Turn away - oh, you wanted a third kiss? Ok, Kiss! No, not awkward at all, really. No-one noticed.

She then held her hand out behind her back and was handed the yellow stuffed lion thing. (Momentary pause - we're not in TdF yet, are we? Oh, same jersey sponsor. That's all right, then.) She started to bring the stuffed toy out to give to him. But wait! He's not wearing the yellow jersey yet! Oh no, panic! She hides the lion behind her bag, waving it frantically at her colleague, while maintaining a fixed lovely smile, until it was taken from her hand and whisked away until Larsson re-appeared to collect the yellow jersey.

I love moments like that. They just make me laugh and laugh. Not to mention the podium outfit of, er, cream coloured slacks: and an anorak. Nice. (NB use of the word "slacks" is deliberate and malicious: it implies that the leg-wear in question is frumpily out of date, possibly from the late 50s or early 60s, and is probably made of crimplene

So, that was the first day, then. Today, Stage 4, we hear that Andy has had to retire due to an unseemly but imperative stomach disorder, which is such a shame. Never mind, I will continue to cheer for the rest of the boys, and for Sky, and for one or two particular "pets" I  may have among the other riders. Like Barbie Barbie - the confusingly named Australian, Heinrich Hausler; Egor Anton, my favourite Carrot (Euskaltel); and of course, Bum-fluff himself, TJ Van Garderen.

Schlecklander Flags

Well, I have really enjoyed having my Schlecklander Flags proudly flying, and I've been really, really impressed by the staggering variety of countries.

I cut it down to just showing the top 50, as the box was getting unmanageably big with some of the smaller countries only having one or two Schlecklanders - but I'm hoping that they enjoyed seeing their national flags up there on display.

It's interesting that the biggest membership by far is the USA - I had assumed that it would be the UK, as I am English, but no, we're second in terms of viewers, with Australia close behind: then Canada, France and the Netherlands, with Lux sitting there in 7th place, which is pretty impressive considering that it is smaller than Norfolk...

Side issue: I wasn't quite sure how big Lux is in comparison to various English counties, so I did a quick google search using the term "Luxembourg is the size of" to see what I got.  Here is the result:

Looks as though this time last year, an iceberg the size of Lux started drifting north: and by January of this year it had reached Australia!

OK, the two events could be unconnected. But I hope that Figgy is listening, if only to prove that she is not the only one being haunted by Lux and all things Luxish.

So where was I? Oh yes, impressed that Lux made it 7th in the charts - well done, you guys!

However, I've decided it's time to retire the flag collection, as I foolishly looked at someone else's blog the other day, and their flag counter was running into the 100,000s for several countries. Suddenly, Schleckland felt a bit small... so I've decided not to "compete" in any of these popularity poll things, and to just steam on regardless. (That's a metaphor, by the way: the Schleckland Ship has masts and sails, and is not a steamboat.)

One of the things I hated most about Facebook (apart from the general inanity of "I am eating a sandwich") is the competition to have more "friends" than anyone else. It's sooo "playground". I hate it. That's why my "Followers" on the blog are invisible, I don't want to feel that I am competing with any other cycling blog: I am very happy to have my merry bunch of regulars who scoot in most days to see what's going on in Schleckland, and I'm always thrilled at Tour de France time to welcome the extra 3,000 a day who come in, look around, read all the back entries - yes, I've tracked people coming in from "outside" as it were, during TdF, who then go back and read every single entry! Mad crazy fools, can you imagine a) how long it takes to read the whole thing - (one poor lost soul spent 18  hours in three sessions, phew, total immersion in Schleckland, were they scarred for life afterwards?) and b) were they scarred for life afterwards?  *pink cheeks - I didn't think that sentence through before I wrote it, did I?*

After that terrible experience with Scary Italian Stalker, I consciously try not to read anyone else's blog - well, apart from my Schleckland-Niece Miss Fede of course - as I find that if I do, it just makes me realise that other people are a lot more serious about their blogging and their cycling than I am, and it makes me worry that I should try to be a bit more in-depth about it all. And hey, why should I?  You guys all seem to like my style, or lack of: it keeps me out of mischief, so I'll just carry on as I am. (Although if a cycling mag were prepared to pay me for an occasional column, I would be very, very interested.....) (ok, sooo not going to happen, but a gal can dream?)

Somewhere in Schleckland, a phone rings.

"Uh??!!??" Cougar girl - slim, early twenties, waist-length copper-coloured hair swishing luxuriously in loose bouncy curls - leaps to her feet in confusion. "I don't have a phone - what's going on?"

She looks around, and spots a ringing phone.

Coug: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hi, Coug, it's Wonderful World of Cycling magazine here, we've been following your blog for some time now, and we wondered if you would consider writing an occasional feature for us."
Coug: "Really? Well, how kind of you to phone. What sort of readership do you have? I mean, my thoughts on cycling are not exactly technical, you must be aware of that. I couldn't do reviews of the latest SRAM XX 2x10 Grip Shift, for example. I don't even have a bike!"
Caller: *laughs* "That's ok, Coug, we don't want you to do reviews. We have people to do that. No, we want to increase our female readership, and we like your style. We feel that a column by you would really help to increase our female demographic."

Coug: "Err, column, did you say? As in, regular column?"
Caller: "Oh. Did I say that? No, no commitment, just the occasional feature."
Coug, sensing something shifty: "How often would you want these occasional features, then?"
Caller: "Oh, well, you know, when it suits you - how about monthly, to start with?"
Coug, suspiciously, tossing back her tumbled curls over one shoulder in slow motion: "Would that not be a regular column, then? I'm not sure I can commit to a regular column: you've seen my blog, sometimes I don't write anything at all for days at a time, it's not something I do regularly, I just do it when something sparks my interest."
Caller: "We'd pay you £1,000 per article, and of course you'd get to meet any of the pro-cyclists that you wrote about......."

There is the sound of high-speed typing, and then the Ping! of an email being sent.

Coug, slightly breathless: "There you go, just emailed my first contribution. I look forward to your payment and the plane tickets."

Where was I? Sorry, got a bit distracted there. Oh yes, the Schlecklander Flags. Anyway - they've served their purpose, we have Schleck fans in just about every country that there is, which is fantastic, but I don't want to compete with other blogs - or, to be honest, I don't want to be known as the Smallest Cycling Blog Out There, so I'm deleting it.  Here for posterity is the final flag counter:

D'aaw, pretty! Pity I can't work out how to show the flags in order, but without the numbers.

I have had a quick skim through the  Flag Counters website, and I can't find a way to do it - but if anyone out there knows how, do let me know!

Oh, and in case anyone didn't realise, nothing about the description of Coug in the dialogue above is true.

Except that I don't have a phone - well, not a land-line phone, I only have a mobile phone. I'm a bit strange like that. But then, you had already noticed, hadn't you?

Improvement to Tour de France

Yes, despite only having five minutes' experience of pro-cycling, I have decided that I can organise things better than the ASO can, so I've come up with some suggestions to make the Tour de France more visually interesting for viewers, safer for the riders, and generally better all round.

Are we sitting comfortably?

OK, first concern: points. Already covered: see UCI Points: time for a rethink of last month. In brief, all points are shared out amongst the team: the person who wins them gets the bulk of the points, but everyone on the team gets a share.  It will be up to the UCI to sort out the actual numbers of points, and it might mean an increase in the number of points awarded, but I'm sure some bright young thing with a calculator can do what's necessary. It will also require some rules on how you deal with riders crashing out or retiring - do they still get their share, or do they go back in the team's "pot": again, it will require a bit of thought, but it's not beyond comprehension.

Second concern: safety. A lot of the safety problems seem to be down to the sheer size of the peloton. So I suggest that a team should be 9 riders, but only 7 of them ride each day. GC contenders have to ride on all days, but domestiques can be swapped in and out depending on the stage, the parcours, injuries, etc.

Jerseys should remain as they are, with the addition of a Stage Winner jersey, for the person who won the previous day's stage. Clearly it won't be awarded on the first day, but I think it's a bit sad that someone can win a stage but not get any sort of jersey or recognition. Regarding the colour, well, red would be nice, or maybe something multicoloured but not rainbow bands, as that would clearly be confusing. Elzrocks suggested a red lightning bolt, that would do the trick - very DC comics!

The race should always start with a time-trial prologue, and the polka-dot jersey should not be awarded until such time as there have been hills to climb! I think it's really silly and counter-productive to hand out polka dots to whoever was in the first break of the day... when the so-called "mountain" was barely discernible. I'd rather not have KoM points until they were appropriate, thank you.

How about ways to gain bonus seconds for those who know they are going to struggle with mountain finishes? Ever watched Nordic skiing events? They have a penalty loop, so if they fail to shoot enough targets during the "rifle" section, they have to do one or more loops.  For our guys, they could set up a loop and time how long it should take to go round it: then if a rider does it in less than the (fairly lax) "par" time, they get a bonus of say 2 mins per minute under par, plus the "par" time. So if they are allowed 5 mins to go round, and they do it in four, then they get 5 mins + 2 mins off their time for that stage. Of course, this puts them 4 mins behind the peloton, so they would not be able to do a loop as well as contest the stage: but it would also help reduce congestion by thinning things out.  I haven't really thought that one through properly, but it's an interesting idea: it would help sprinters in the mountain stages, if they could make up a couple of minutes or more they might not have problems with the cut-off times.

Another "interesting" (ie plain silly) idea to make it more interesting for non-cycling-fan-viewers would be to have competition sections along the route: I thought one for discarded bidons into a net would be a good start: one per team member as they fly through the zone, with a time bonus of 10 secs for each rider, per bidon.

How about a Pit Stop Bonus?  Involving a rear wheel change: only one rider per team to take part, to avoid congestion. A time starts as they go through the first gate, stop, wheel out, new wheel in, push start and back up to speed before getting to the second gate, when the time stops. Bonus seconds for every second below a "par" time. Possibly this one could be combined with the Team Time Trial prologue: maybe it could be set for three-quarters of the way through the TT, so the weakest member could elect to do the Pit Stop and thus possibly gain some seconds for the team. This would be a chance for the mechanics to have a star moment, which would be nice for them.

At this point I started to wonder how the soigneurs could become more involved, which led to thoughts of bonus seconds for the quickest wipe-down and change of shorts... no, maybe better not.  Scary visual place, as they say.

Well, there you so, that's some food for thought, isn't it?

The Musette lives on.

Hey gang, remember how thrilled I was to have finally got my hands on a Leopard Trek musette last year?

Well, undeterred by the fact that my team are no longer known as Leopard Trek, I decided to do a little bit of crafty alteration to make the musette more useful in normal life:

There we go! The long handle has been cunningly converted into two short ones, and I've inserted a panel in the side to make it a bit more 3-dimensional and easier to fill with groceries. It fits easily into the smallest pocket, weighs nothing, yet can easily hold a quite reasonable amount of shopping.

I'm already driving LLB mad by producing it every time we go to the supermarket together. One day someone will point and say "Hey! Where did you get that from?" or "Hey! UnndySchleck!" or "Blimey - don't say that YOU are that Cougar Girl?" or something equally embarrassing.

The Blue Screen of Death

...but I'm still here, Schlecklanders!

I've been having computer problems: picked up a problem somewhere over the last couple of weeks (probably from one of the Addictive Games that I'm not allowed to play anymore - boo!)  which lead me to the Blue Screen of Death, with increasing frequency.

I'm sure that most of you have encountered the Blue Screen of Death: what's that? You haven't? Where have you been? Or, do you buy a new computer every two years, then? Well, for anyone lucky enough to not know about them, they look a bit like this:

Blue, clearly, and full with incomprehensible jargon telling you why - in secret code - your computer has crashed. If it happens more than once in a while, you have a problem with your computer.

Mine appeared one day - ooer, I thought, Blue Screen of Death, that's a first for this computer. It said something about drivers being the problem, and that whatever I had recently downloaded was causing the computer to crash.

"Odd," I thought, "I haven't downloaded anything at all?"

 Then a couple of days later it appeared again -  I read it carefully, made notes of the ludicrously complicated error codes, looked them up on Google, looked them up again as nothing made any sense at all, then tried to do exactly what was recommended.

Then a day or so later, it was appearing within ten or fifteen minutes of me switching the pc on. Having done everything that had been recommended - scanned computer, updated everything possible, checked my Event Viewer to see if there were any nasty red ones - I couldn't do anything except that old standby: turn it off, let it sit for a minute or two, then reboot.

Clearly, there was a problem!

And then - scary sound effect of Hammer House of Horror organ chords - I got the Black Screen of Death! That one doesn't have any instructions or suggestions on it - the screen just goes black and that's it.

Ooer. What now? I turned it all off, waited, turned it on again and got the plain black screen but - oh noes! - with the Beeps of Doom from the PC. That was it folks: blank black screen, and Beeps of Doom emanating from ankle-level. I tried getting into BIOS, I tried a Safe Start, but it kept crashing with the Black Screen of Death, and if I tried to turn it on in less than 10 minutes, the Beeps of Doom.

So, long story made short, I have been computer-less for a while, until LLB came round and fixed it for me. Well, I say "fixed it", actually we don't know what was wrong with it: he did a full diagnostic, which incidentally revealed that my spindle is partially inoperative (picture LLB and I rolling our eyes at each other - the CD/DVD reader works perfectly, so we don't actually believe that that is a problem) and he did push all the memory cards fully in... I have no idea how anything inside the PC could work its way loose, but there you go... and it all seems to work ok. LLB says that he hasn't actually fixed anything - but it works, so he's getting the credit for it! We then did a System Restore to about 6 weeks ago, and all seems to be well so far.

So, how have you all been?

Andy's been very quiet - no activity in any of my cupboards or wardrobes, so I guess they are all training and racing quite happily. SaxoBank are still waiting for the axe to fall: Mad Bad Dave Zabriskie looked as though he was going to be the superstar of the Tour of SomeShitSmallRace, but sadly he fell ill and came in last yesterday - ahh, it's nice to be able to catch up on these things again, even if I have never heard of the race and actually have no idea where in the world it occurs.

This weekend we have Strada Bianche on the Saturday, and on Sunday we start Paris-Nice, yay! with a good strong team as well, so fingers crossed for some TV coverage in the UK. Both Andy and Frankie will be racing there, and Jensi will be keeping them in line. Should be good! Pity we can't have Fabu and Jakob there as well, but Fabian is doing Strada Bianche, and Jakob will be trying to keep the youngsters in line (ha! ha!) in the catchily-named Three Days of West Flanders.

Right, that's explanation and apology done: now let's get some more interesting blog entries composed! Perhaps I should do a couple now, while everything is working, and set them up in advance?  If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should write about, do feel free to contact me via email at cougar-girl@hotmail.co.uk, or by adding a comment below!