I'm pleased for Bjarne and for cycling in general: I don't particularly care for Mr Riis, but I do think that he has had more than his fair share of bad luck in the last two years, and I really don't think that pro cycling needed the shake-up of losing a pro-team and either being one team short for the rest of the year, or of hurriedly promoting a different team, with all the problems that would entail.
Far better to leave things as they are this year, and to sensibly say that as his licence expires at the end of this year anyway, he will have to start again as from 2013.
Hopefully by then he will have decided whether Conti is coming back: if he goes elsewhere, will his lieutenants go also: can Bjarne buy in enough riders to get some points: will Jakob go back to him: will his sponsor stay with him: these, and many other questions, will hopefully be answered.
In the meantime, other cycling news: Cav's girlfriend has had their baby, so congratulations to the proud parents, and welcome to Delilah.
*shudders at slightly bionic looking support item*
Andy has done his bit in the invisible Sarthe race (well, invisible to me at any rate - no tv coverage, can't find a feed either, boo) apparently it was the TT today, and apparently he came in "well behind the leaders" in 8mins 45". Hang on, Dave Zabriskie did in 8mins 39", and he's really, really good at TT!
So it doesn't sound like complete disaster... unfortunately, as I write, the full results aren't out yet. Nor are the photos. But I did find these photos earlier, and I'm happy to share them, in case you hadn't seen them:
Firstly: who said cyclists were weedy little lads who didn't need to shave [their chins, ha ha!] yet?
Here's a familiar profile, getting the job done:
And captions for this one might include "Which RadioShack rider did not use enough deodorant today?" (Only joking!)
WOOHOO SAXO!!!! :D
ReplyDeleteAlso, nice to see Jakob tweeting an update on his recovery. Tour of Romandy isn't too long before the Giro, so I guess he's trying to get in as much training as possible without racing and then just get those legs working again in one last stage race before the Giro.
I like when he's happyhappy ;D
Leelu
LOL, that last joke! :D
ReplyDeleteI also think it's a good thing that Saxo Bank gets to keep their ProTour license :) Things would get messy when they had to take a step back and some other team perhaps had to take a step forward in the middle of the season. Now we can just move on and focus on the most important thing: pedaling cyclists ;)
Bah humbug~! Lance is going to "ride"? with RSNT in Paris-Roubaix? What the heck is this?? Why can't he just move on?????????????????
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know - is he actually really riding? Can he do that? Why? I've heard it's a training ride for his Triathalon stuff? WTF?
Comments?
BE
I wish LA would just go away, BE, but apparently big egos need to be fed. I find the dark cloud of suspicion that follows him unsettling. As is all Fabian's talk about bad luck.
DeleteWell, "unsettling" isn't really the right word, but let's just say that Fabian's use of the phrase "bad luck" has been used enough that I'm noticing it. Radioshack had one thing after another go wrong during the 2011 TdF and JB talked about "bad luck" then and Fabian was talking and tweeting about the "bad luck" he's had in the classics. When you overidentify with something (positive or negative), that is usually what you attract from life. So while, punctures and crashes and injuries are usually completely out of your control and simply just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, you've somehow got to turn that in your mind to the postive. I think that riders as a whole (especially Fabian, Andy & Frank) do this really well but it did bring me back to JB's comments last year.
I'm really looking forward to the next part of this season! Happy Easter all!
Kat