Andy gets the Yellow Jersey!

Oh what a hoot! Having barely recovered from the Tour of Luxembourg TT prologue (I can still taste the squash I snorted out of my nose at one point), I managed to watch a video of this presentation, with thanks to Inge for the link to RTL.lu.  (Little Lydia had kindly tweeted me a link during the Tour of Lux, but I couldn't get it to work at the time.)

Luckily I wasn't drinking anything when I watched the presentation, otherwise I may have well have been snorting it all over my keyboard.

What - you mean you haven't watched it? My, what a treat you have in store. The link is here, but in case you can't be bothered to go and watch it, here are my thoughts.

Firstly you have to be quite patient - it's about 29 minutes long, but they don't drag Andy on until about ten minutes from the end. It's introduced by the usual RTL chap - errr, whoops, I don't actually know his name, but he does all the RTL.lu video presentations, and he seems a jolly nice chap. He introduced a string of three or four names, almost forgetting to pause for applause at each one. Well, there wasn't much in the way of applause. "Ha," I thought, "wait until Andy hits the stage, bet there will be a huge roar."

Instead we got the three guys - Christian Pridholme of the Tour was one, err, nope, can't remember the others, I think one of them was the manager of the Mondorf Casino, but I can tell you for certain that none of them was Mr Becca. Humph. Anyway, these guys (referred to for convenience as Shorty, Tubby and Lanky) strode up onto the stage in matching shiny grey suits, and we listened to a bit more waffle from Mr Smooth the presenter - who was also wearing a shiny grey suit. Nice.  Eventually, just as I was beginning to think about skipping forwarding again, we finally get the phrase "Unndy Schleck!!!" Alas, we didn't get a roar of applause, just the same thin smattering, as Our Glorious Leader climbed onto the stage, and guess what he was wearing? Yes, the exact same shiny grey suit! Nice.

Mr Smooth came out from behind his podium and shock! horror! he was wearing jeans and scruffy white trainers. Well, I mean to say. What a let-down. But on second thoughts, perhaps he is trying to keep his "cool" and "youthful" image to attract the youngsters to RTL.lu?  At least he broke up the monotony of shiny suits.

After a considerable amount of waffle, Mr Smooth stopped talking, and wandered slowly off, stage left, leaving Shorty with his arms crossed ("No! No! It looks all wrong!") Tubby with his arms dangling (marginally better, but not very elegant) and Lanky with his hands linked behind his back (best) and Andy with his hands joined in front of him ("No! You look as though you are protecting yourself for a penalty!") all of them standing around looking somewhat awkward. Ah, the first of many awkward moments.

Mr Smooth came back carrying a crumpled scrap of yellow fabric - oh, this is it, this IS the Maillot Jeune. What, no podium girl?

Then we began the entertainment for the night. In what was clearly a rehearsed move, Andy removed his shiny grey jacket, giving it to Tubby, who passed it slickly on to Lanky.

Shorty grabbed the Yellow Jersey, and starting shoving Andy into it.

He clearly does not have small children, as he failed to get the arms in properly. In fact, I think he was trying to get it on the wrong way round, so Andy had to gently get it out of his grip and try again.

With much laughter and inaudible chat between themselves, Andy and the Suits managed to get it the right way round, and here we have Andy - clearly laughing - pulling on the sleeves.

There's something not quite right about this: for a start, why are they pulling it over Andy's head when it has a zip up the front? You can see that the zip is nearly completely undone, which is not making it any easier for Andy to get the darned thing on.

But there is so much laughter on stage, and such a complete lack of panic or fumbling,  that I am convinced it was all set up in advance.

Phew, Andy is more or less inside the jersey, and Tubby attends to the sleeves, while Shorty does up the zip.

Andy, at this point, is probably thinking "I am perfectly capable of doing up the zip myself, you know" but is too polite to say so.

Lanky, feeling left out, has stolen Andy's jacked and is probably going through the pockets for loose change.

Aaand he's in it, folks.

Shorty is not happy with the back of it, and gently smooths it down.

Andy ignores him and starts rolling up his shirt sleeves, having just realised that long white shirt sleeves under what is in effect a tee-shirt looks really dorky.

That's probably why Tubby is laughing.

Mr Smooth is doing his best to get conversation flowing again, but we are all far too busy watching Andy fiddle with his sleeves to pay any attention, even supposing that we could understand Luxembourgisch, assuming that's what he was speaking.

More speeches are made, and Shorty notices that Andy is still gamely struggling with his sleeves, so he steps forward to lend a hand.

I wonder if a single person in the audience is actually listening to poor old Tubby, or are they all captivated by the sleeve-tucking activities?

And you have to say, if you knew that you were going to be shoved into a cycling jersey, why did you wear a long-sleeved shirt in the first place? Obviously you wouldn't want to have to take off your shirt, that would be tacky: and I can see the point that arriving in a normal tee-shirt and a suit would look quite odd: but he could have worn a short-sleeved shirt, I would have thought? It would have meant less fiddling.. or maybe he realised that there was going to be a lot of dead space to fill, and it's quite handy having some "business" to do with your hands, when you don't have any lines to speak.

Finally, Andy is tucked, the speeches are done, and another chap in yet another shiny grey suit arrives on stage.

Oh, maybe he's the one from the Mondorf casino?

For some reason, he keeps looking upwards. Andy looks upwards, too. Eventually, the camera pans upwards to see what they are all looking at.

Nothing. Just blackness. The camera pans back down again. They are still looking up - and now the presentation speech has stopped, and we are all standing or sitting here in silence, with various people glancing upwards from time to time. The camera pans upward again.

Aha! What's that? A tiny pink thing appears. As the background is completely black, we have no idea if the pink think is moving or not. Eventually - and I am not kidding, it takes an age - it gets to the level of the background scenery, so we can deduce that something is being lowered very, very slowly onto the stage.

Very slowly.

Veeerrrrrrrryyyyyy slloooooooooooooooowly.

Just as I reach for the skip button, I realise that it's a bottle of pink champagne. Or, a pink bottle of champagne, if you prefer.

Or is it? Is it real, or a cardboard cut-out? There is no sense of scale, so it's quite hard to work out what we are actually looking at.

But wait - it's pink! No, you fools! Pink is the Giro - the Tour is yellow! *groans and hides face in hands*

Oh, I know! It's a model of the champagne bottle that they normally give to winners on the podium, perhaps when it reaches the stage, TinkerJil will jump out waving pom poms?

No, nothing so exciting: it finally hits the podium, and turns out only to be pink on the back: the front has what looks like a really, really bad picture of a cyclist in a yellow jersey on it.

Andy is given a pen so that he can sign it, and the other guys do the same.

?

No, I have no idea why. Perhaps they are going to raffle it, or sell it on Ebay to raise funds to buy the Leopards back.

All the suits sign it, then they shuffle off back to the left where they were before this underwhelmingly unexciting event occurred.

They stand around, Andy looking somewhat lumpy with his shirt all crumpled up under the jersey.

A minute passed. Another minute passed, followed by another, different, minute. I waited a minute while a minute passed quickly past.

(Sorry, old Monty Python sketch nearly slipped in there.)

Music! Andy looks faintly worried - are they going to expect him to sing? Does Luxembourg have a National Anthem? (no, not the Singing Cat you daft lot, there must be something better than that!)  No, he doesn't sing, nor does anyone else, but the stage gets somewhat dark.  The audience start to get up and leave, so the guys on stage wander casually off, as though this had just been a dress rehearsal.

And by the way, Andy retrieved his jacket - somehow Lanky had managed to slip it onto the stage right podium without me seeing!

And that, folks, was that.   If I hadn't already seen the Tour of Lux prologue, I would have been shouting insults at the screen, for such a sensationally amateur presentation. But after watching the prologue... I guess I was somewhat better prepared for it.

So there you go, Andy now has his yellow jersey for 2010, he had the grace to look pleased about it on the day, regardless of how he felt inside, so well done Andy for being a good sport. And we look forward to seeing you win it for real: maybe not this year, but one year, soon.

Giro Time Trial

It's Sunday, it's the final day of the Giro, the Time Trial is over, and my, didn't things change?

I was so excited to see Rigoberto Uran on the podium, along with Basso and Hejerdahl: well deserved for all of them, I thought.

And Cav got the red jersey, well done Cav!

It's a shame those spectators got onto the course and spoiled John Gadret's ride (*laughs unsympathetically*) but it was nice to see so many people lining the route, despite the terrible weather.

OK, I admit it, I'm writing this on Saturday morning and I have no idea what is going to happen. But by the time you read this it will all be over, and you can have a good laugh at how wrong my predictions were!

Contador to go to Omega?

Interesting article in the cycling news - with thanks to Brisbane Gal for the link - saying that Omega are trying to get Conti to sign for them, once his ban ends on 5th August.

Side issue - bearing in mind how many times the UCI and WADA changed their minds about dates for Conti's trial, length of his ban etc etc, is anyone prepared to bet as to whether his ban ends on time? Or will there be a mysterious extension of the date?  No, I hope not.....

If Conti went to Omega, then it would open the way for the Leopards to go back to SaxoBlank: well, shall we say it would remove a couple of the (many) obstacles.  And that's a nice thought, to all those of us who remember the happy SexyBank days of a couple of years ago.

Apart from that, today is Saturday, it's another mountain stage, and the questions for today include:

1) will Kreutziger (pronounced Kroit-Zinger) be able to ride at all today, after his heroic effort yesterday?

2) will BMC have sacked their soigneur who gave him a bottle on the final climb? What? Didn't you see that? 22kms to go, camera bike on the lead group, shows the Astana rider making "drinking" motions with his hand, then a bottle appeared, which he grabbed, and as the camera panned on, it turned out to be from a BMC soigneur!  My view is very much "D'aaaw, that's why I like cycling, they are all so nice, and they help each other" but I can imagine a BMC boss getting a bit grumpy about helping the opposition.

3) will Rigoberto Uran continue to hold the Young Rider's jersey? Go, Rigo, go!

4) will Sandy Casar (pronounced Sann de'Kazarr) have recovered enough to ride again today?

5) will Frankie win the stage? Oh sorry, he's not in it any more, is he? Oops!

Ouch! Mr Bruyneel has fangs!

Whoo hooo! In a staggering display of bad manners and bad management, Mr Bruyneel has told a Luxembourg magazine, Tageblatt ("Daily Paper") that he is disappointed in Frankie for leaving the Giro as he did, and has insinuated that Frankie's shoulder injury was not bad enough to cause him to abandon the race.

"He might have had an injury to his shoulder, but yesterday he finished with the best, so his physical condition could not have been bad, when he rides with the top 10 places.”

This is, of course, a valid criticism, but doesn't take into account Frankie's own point of view, as reported on the RadioShack website, where he says:

“My right shoulder has been hurt and dislocated and since I was sitting wrong on the bike my entire left side is numb,”

I don't think anyone would expect a rider to continue in that sort of condition, and if Frankie managed to come in the top 10 despite that level of discomfort, then he is to be praised for struggling on, I would have thought.

I wonder if Frankie did not want to make a fuss about his shoulder over the weekend? Personally, if I were in that situation, and if I knew my boss didn't like me, I'd keep as quiet as possible and hope that it got better. But if I liked and trusted my boss, I'd discuss it with them, ask for their advice, discuss the options, maybe try a different treatment in the evenings, etc. So it's quite possible that Mr Bruyneel has brought this on himself.

There's even a lovely rumour, in that article, that Frankie chose that stage to quit, specifically because it was near to an airport so that he could fly home as quickly as possible!  And instead of dismissing this as ridiculous rubbish, Mr Bruyneel said that he asked Frankie about it! (Frankie denied it, in case you wondered.)

Mr Bruyneel goes on to say that "after his crash he was broken down in the head."  Way to go, Mr B, that's really the way to motivate your riders. OK, it might have lost (or gained) something in the translation, but what ever happened to positive spin? Apparently that is no longer required if you ride for RadioShack, as Mr Bruyneel, after saying that no-one is guaranteed a place in the Tour, not even those who finished on the podium last year - er, that would be Andy and Frankie, then - goes on to say, as Brisbane Gal commented on the last post:

"Currently none of the team is at the level that we expected. Only Fabian Cancellara was, before he crashed; all the others have under performed. Currently there isn’t a single rider set for the Tour de France."

“Nobody.”

*rolls eyes* Yes, definitely the way to motivate your team - slag them off in public!  I am so glad that I'm not going to be invited to the forthcoming intimidating-sounding meeting: “I have to say some things internally. I’m very dissatisfied." says Mr Bruyneel to the newspaper.

Nice of him to tell the world before he tells his own riders...

The only bright spot in the whole debacle is that at least we have now been told that Frankie will be riding the Tour of Luxembourg.

That'll be without Andy, then.

Aaaand Frankie is out of the Giro.

Oh, well, never mind Frankie, you did your best.

I haven't seen any footage of the alleged incident when Rasmussen shoved on a team-mate, thus losing his own momentum and causing Frankie to bump into him, fall off, and dislocate his shoulder, but I did check the tweets, and honestly Frankie, I don't think you did yourself any favours with those comments.

If you want sympathy (and who doesn't, once in a while?) it is always better to say "had a really bad day today, fell off and hurt myself" than to name names:  that just leads to hand-bag waving and bad feeling.

Still, you have your revenge on Mr Bruyneel for shoving you into the race at short notice, don't you? What with Eeeeebennati dropping out as well, we're down to just three Leopards in the team now, none of whom were part of the Saxo departures, so it will be interesting to see if anyone else abandons.

An extremely unworthy thought did cross my mind, bearing in mind that we haven't heard anything from Andy lately, and that we knew Frankie didn't want to do the Giro - I'm wondering if the boys have decided to forego extending their palmares this year, do the minimum, fail to finish races, and get their contracts broken?

I still don't know whether a contract can be binding if it is bought by another sponsor, so although I'm pretty sure they had a joint four-year contract with Mr Becca/Leopard, I have no idea if they are still bound by that contract now that they are at Shack. Is it possible that poor performance this year could lead to early termination of that contract?

Pozzato: now there's a real man.

"Who?" you say.

Filippo Pozzato, or "Pippo" as he's known: rides for Farnese Vini, the well-know British cycling team (no honestly, they're registered in the UK, I have no idea why and I can't imagine any benefit), goes in for weird hairstyles, lots of body art and is a bit of a big-mouth: I seem to remember he's been accused of wheel-sucking and bad tactics. He's been around a bit, having ridden for Quickstep, then Liquigas, then he rode for Katusha but didn't fit in with the Dark Lords, so he's dropped down to pro-continental this year. If you don't know what he looks like, just google him.

In yesterday's Giro, he caused a pretty big pile-up in the final sprint corner - oops. But he has immediately apologised to the riders most affected, ie Matt Goss and Cav, and to all the others as well.

"It was my fault, I admit that I'm the first to criticise those who risk too much,” he said. “I knew the bend was dangerous, but when the I saw that the road was narrowing I saw Goss in front of me and I was not able to stop."

There you go, Ferrari - that's all you have to do. Just put your hand up, take responsibility, and apologise like a man.

Yay, Pippo!

Meanwhile, Ventoso won the sprint: I'm not sure how I'd feel about that, if I were him. I mean, you won the stage, yay, and all that: but knowing that the two best sprinters in the world just fell off their bikes, everyone for ever more will always say "ah, but you only won it because Cav and Goss fell off". I'm not sure how much of a joy that sort of victory would be.

And yes, I can hear you all shouting that cycling is sometimes a little bit about the luck: as Shane Stokes said in the Velonation piece, "He’s not as fast as Cavendish or Goss, but proved that sprinting is unpredictable and that luck and good positioning are of high importance." Which is very true.

So what of today's stage? The weather is nice: sun, not too hot, no rain forecast but there is a warning in place for Tropical Storm Aletta, which could be slightly alarming. Let's hope it stays out to sea, eh? The stage is fairly short, fairly hilly, and with a narrow uphill finish. Not a sprint day, then, but maybe Frankie will have a good day. Let's hope there aren't any more protesters along the way!

Talking of which, other cycling news for today, of particular relevance to us in the UK: anti-Olympic protesters have announced that they are going to demonstrate against the commercialism of the games on July 28th. I have  no idea why they have picked that particular day, but it's damned bad timing for us, as there are only a small number of events taking place outside of the various stadiums (stadia? plural of stadium, anyone? Pfff, Latin is dead, long live English, I'll go with stadiums, thank you) one of which is the Men's Road Race.

Oh great.

Why are they protesting:

1) We taxpayers have had to fork out £11bn - that's eleven BILLION pounds - at a time when we are being told that services have to be cut in the name of austerity.
2) McD and Coke are sponsoring it, so no-one is allowed to bring their own food and drink into the stadiums (defiantly not the stadia, you notice) which is just outrageous on so many levels.
3) Tickets: yeah, usual problems with the bulk of them going to corporate sponsors
4) Some of the sponsors are themselves somewhat tarnished: chemical companies, etc
5) Apparently if you tried to buy tickets online, as the finance company VISA are one of the sponsors, they would only accept payment by VISA card.  If true, this is again outrageous!
6) London taxis aren't allowed - apparently - to drop people off close to the event. Only the approved sponsor transportation company will be allowed to do so. Huh? The whole point of London taxis is to move people around London....
7) They've put in special traffic lanes for competitors and corporate visitors -so the rest of us, including all the people who normally use these roads, added to all the tourists wishing to see the games - will be squeezed into less than the normal amount of road space. Can you imagine the chaos and traffic jams?
8) No host city has ever made money from the olympics.

Anyway, enough of the list, let's just say that there are a lot of grudges associated with the games, and there are plenty of genuine reasons to complain about it, but these protesters have picked the day of the one free-to-view event, and they are going to disrupt it.

Aaaaaargh!. *tears hair*

Well, I suppose we can only hope that apathy wins, on the day, and that no-one much turns up: or that it's as peaceful/pathetic as the one in yesterday's stage.

Andy Schleck appears in the Giro!

Well, only for a moment... it was during an interview with Frankie. After coming in third in Stage 7, suddenly the whole tone of the conversation regarding Frankie has changed, and the commentators are now saying how well he is doing, and what a jolly good fellow he is.

Humph.

Well, we all  knew this, but it's nice to have it acknowledged.

Frankie gave a fairly subdued interview, hunched over himself and wrapped up in several layers of warm clothing: he said that he was missing his brother, and that they were Skypeing every night, and talking by phone every morning, but it wasn't the same as having him there. We were shown some nice pics of Andy winning various things, and it was quite strange to be hearing "Andy Schleck, Andy Schleck" during coverage of the Giro! Frankie also said that together, he and his brother were "more" than they were apart, and David Harmon was mean enough to say after the interview that he thought Frankie was wrong on that point. Actually, 2nd and 3rd on podium, David.... that would be called a fantastic result by just about anyone, don't you think?

So, what happened in the Giro Stage 8 on Sunday? Well, it started with a minor miracle - the tennis finished early, and we got an extra 35mins of coverage. That is pretty much un-heard of, for the UK: generally the cycling has to give way to cricket, tennis, golf, motor racing, snooker, darts (no, really) bowls, you name it. But for once we got some extra pedalling, yay! Well done to whoever it was that did the "pik! pok!" super fast.

Lovely scenery, very green and lush, lovely trees, coast, little hills, ah, nice.

There's a four-man break about 6 minutes up the road, and David Harmon is explaining repeatedly that this break won't be allowed to get away any further - and he's a bit surprised they've been allowed to get this far - as it contains one guy who is a GC contender. Eventually the breakaway seem to realise this, and the unpronounceable Marczynski pushes strongly on, dropping two of his breakaway companions.  They sit up, even though they have a good long lead, and allow themselves to drop slowly back.

If I were them, I wouldn't just sit up and pedal more slowly to wait for the peloton to catch up: I'd nip into a pub and have a beer, maybe a pastie or two, like they used to in the old days. I'd give a few signatures, ruffle the hair of the local kiddies, make a short speech about how if they work hard and practise hard, they might one day be competing at the top level, etc etc: then hop back on my bike and get warmed up in time to catch on to the peloton as it arrives. Nice.

We get a lot of close-ups of Scarponi, and it's a bit odd to see that his jersey has Farnese as a sponsor name on one shoulder.  Why are Farnese a small sponsor for one team, yet they have their own entire team as well? Maybe it's a reflection of how much less it costs to put together a pro-continental team - they can afford half a team at pro-continental level (with Vini, that is) yet can only afford one shoulder at Pro level. Or maybe they already had a contract to be a small sponsor of Lampre, and have honoured their contract despite taking on the Farnese-Vini sponsorship. Who knows. Wait, a sponsor honouring a contract? Could that be? (*sniggers*)

At 50k to go,  we are treated to the sight of protesters at the road-side. There is a lot of arm-waving, and a heavy police presence. Our commentators remind us that this often happens in Italy, and it's nothing to do with cycling, they are just taking advantage of there being cameras etc around, to make a point about something or other.  Having stood at the road-side of a cycle race now (yes, I'm still proud of being a Proper Cycling Fan: definition being "one who has stood at roadside of stage race, crit, and time trial and has stood there right until the end even though it was raining".) and having a much better appreciation of the sheer power of a peloton thundering towards us, I can't help but feel that these protesters are going to leap off the road like little girlies when the time comes, in approximately 4 mins 31 seconds. Pity Barredo isn't here, we could send him up front with a spare wheel.

Four minutes later, the peloton sweep by with no problem at all, and it is noticeable that the protesters have indeed moved back significantly. It's funny how the tone of their shouts is quite different from the shouts of supporters along the route.. oh well, let's hope they achieved their aim and went home happy.

Ah, a close-up of Cav. Yes, good, he's looking bored, bored, bored again. This is a very good sign.  Likewise, we haven't seen much of Frankie all day - another good sign.

At 19k to go, things are starting to speed up, and one of the camera-bikes cuts in very close to Ferrari. Both LLB and I make "poke" motions at the screen, then look at each other and laugh.  As Gadret comes into shot, I make pinging, flicking motions with finger and thumb, as though to flick him off his bike. "Don't do that," says LLB warningly, "you know what happens: next thing we'll be hearing that Frankie has got a bug in his ear or something." Chastened, I sit back on the sofa and behave myself.

At 11k to go, we are the bottom of the final hill, and we see 174 Ben Hermans - he's at the back of the bunch, but at least he's with the bunch and not in a groupetto somewhere, so well done him.

At 7k to go they are dropping off the back like flies, but Frankie is looking steady, sitting 8th or 9th back, out of trouble and comfortable. He doesn't have any lieutenants with him, but that's ok. There's one a little way back, he appears to be riding in turns with two Sky riders. Hmm, now there's an interesting thought for next season, perhaps Frandy could go to Sky. (I believe I have voted in favour of this before, with no luck.) Just think what fun that would be - they'd have to come over to the UK for some of the time, surely?

Er hem, sorry, back to the race: at 3.7k to go, Frankie almost attacks! He's going faster than the guys in front, then he sneakily drafts behind the camera bike, so we a good close-up shot up his nose. He's looking very calm and collected, as opposed to Ryder How-do-you-spell-it-Hejerdahl, who appears to be melting. There's a bit of shoulder-barging, which is always fun to watch - go on Frankie, shove him back! Well done.

So, as we all know now, a midget from Colnago won the stage - what were those strange hand-signals all about? No, don't bother telling me, I'm not that interested - after a tremendously strong surge up the last few kms. He deserved to win, and he did it handsomely, with no-one even close to him.

The podium was hilarious - previously, Taylor Phinney and Ryder How-do-you-spell-it have had to bend their knees in order to accommodate the podium girls in the obligatory Double Kiss.

(By the way, anyone know why one of them uses non-sealed lipstick and seems determined to leave lip-marks on all the winners?)

Anyway, this time, the podium girlies had to crouch awkwardly in order to get themselves to the correct level. Very funny! They could almost have stepped off the podium and just leaned forward from the level of the platform... but I suppose there are courtesies to be observed.

Frankie came home in the front group, didn't lose any time, and has now risen up to 9th in the GC which is a great result - close enough to be well in contention, but spared all the interviews and press furore. Nice one, Frankie!

Today, all will change: rain is forecast, in fact it's currently raining at the start, with one hour or so to go  before they set off: and there is an advisory thunderstorm warning.

Lovely. Be careful out there, lads! 

Yay, go Frankie!

Well, the Giro is starting to get quite exciting, isn't it!

Frankie has been riding the perfect race: he said right at the beginning that it would take him about 7 days of racing to get his legs back into form, and he hoped to stay quiet and out of trouble for the first week.

He had done exactly that: he's been lurking "there or thereabouts" as they say,  towards the front of the peloton but not right up there in the wind: he's had a couple of guys with him most of the time, and he's done that lovely Cancellara trick of being invisible for virtually all the day, then popping up in the last few km.

If any of you regularly watch the Classics, you'll recognise this tactic of Fabian's - he was always nowhere to be seen for the first 4 hours of the day. It's called "staying out of trouble" and he's very good at it.

Looks as though he's been giving Frankie lessons, as that is exactly what Frankie has been doing. He's missed every single crash, he hasn't even had a mechanical, as far as I know, and then yesterday he popped up at the end, and came in a fantastic third place - ok, ok, first would have been nice, but if he had, then he would have interviews, pressure, etc etc. Far better to sneak in third - gaining four UCI points on the way - and get another good night's sleep. Suddenly he's sitting at 12th in the GC, which is a nice comfortable place to be - within striking distance, but not getting too much attention.

Meanwhile, other Giro news: poor Gianni Meercat has abandoned, with back and knee pain after crashing into the road furniture earlier, and Tyler "over-rated" Farrar of Garmin Quackacude also abandons, with hand injuries after a fall. But Svein Tuft has been doing well, with periodic appearances at the front of the peloton, so go, Svein!

And as  post-script, yes, there do indeed seem to be rumours - but nothing confirmed - that Mr Bruyneel was pounced on by the authorities the minute he arrived in California. No-one seems to know exactly why, although the obvious conclusion is that it is something to do with the long-running doping scandal of US Postal. Last year, Mr Bruyneel didn't go to the ToC, it seems, probably in order to avoid being questioned on this exact subject. So when he sneaked across the border this year, they leaped on him.

Mind you, it could just as easily be for unpaid car rental fines, or something equally un-sinister: a friend of mine, some years ago, left the USA after a holiday having forgotten to pay some really quite minor fine or other, and received letters telling him that if he ever returned to the States, he would be held at customs until the matter was sorted out...

Tour of Luxembourg

So, what's happening there?

Originally Frankie and Andy would both have been in it - for the obvious reason.  Then Mr Bruyneel put his foot down and said that Frankie would be riding it, Andy would not.

This was a bit mean, as Andy is due in Luxembourg on the 29th May - the day before the Tour of Lux starts - to be presented with the Yellow Jersey for last year's Tour.  It would have been nice, you would have thought, for him to be at home, have the presentation (slightly bitter-sweet, but still, it's a jersey) and then go on to race in his home country.

But no, Mr Bruyneel says that other things are more important.

Now Frankie has been diverted onto the Giro, so clearly he can't ride the Tour of Lux. ("Tour de Luxe?" ha! ha!)

The obvious thing to do would be to shove Andy back onto it.

Do we think that is what Mr Bruyneel will do? As of today, the RadioShack calendar is blank for the Tour of Lux....  Last year, of course, Andy chose not to ride it, as he was concentrating on the Tour de France, and felt it was not the best preparation. But I find it hard to believe that we won't have a single Schleck at the Tour of Lux.

What on earth would the tourist board say?

Transfer News: Early Predictions

There's been a bit of a stink in the cycling news this week (apart from the ongoing Ferrari + ditch = "serves him right"): Roberto Armadio, Team Manager, announced that Vincenzo Nibali would be leaving Liquigas at the end of the season.

He was quoted as saying that Liquigas "offered him a large contract, but has not received a response, and says that this means he will not return. Our offer was made (1.8 million Euros per year), we gave the boy time to properly evaluate our proposal, but we have not received any response. For us the matter is closed.”

Now this made me wonder if they had sent him the "large contract" through the post, or perhaps by courier, but that Nibali hadn't actually seen it. I mean, if you've been with a team for a while, you're doing well for them, they send you a contract - well, even if you want to get out, you'd still respond to it, wouldn't you? You wouldn't just ignore it.

In which case, imagine his horror on reading it in the cycling news that morning.

"Contract? What contract?" he calls out to his wife. (I have no idea if Mr Nibali has a Mrs Nibali, but for the sake of this post, we will assume that he has.)

"Amore Mio? Have you seen a large envelope for me, in the last few days?"  *frantic searching sounds*

Mrs Nibali responds : "No, kara - maybe it was mis-filed by the cleaner?"

"Maria! Mariiiiaaaaa! What have you done with the post?"

"Scusi Signor, post? What post?"

"Big envelope, Maria," *gestures with hands* "with team name on it?"

"Ah! Yes, Signor, on hall-stand with all the others!"

Nibali rushes off to the hall-stand, frantic scuffing sounds as though digging through huge pile of fan-mail...

The next day, we get a new report: Oh, no, says Liquigas's management, we have never even discussed a move.  Nibali's manager chips in to say that even if they were going to talk about it, they would not do so *pious look* until 1st August, the start of the transfer season.

How interesting. Presumably Mr Armadio is now either packing his bags, or grovelling to the boss about how didn't mean to blab to the news reporter, and he was very sorry, and please could he have another chance?

So for the rest of the season, Nibali's team will be looking sideways at him, and every time he talks to another rider in the peloton, other riders will sidle over to him, to try to overhear what's going on.

Which leads on to my early predictions for the end-of-season transfers.

And, predictably, I am mostly interested in OGL and his cohorts. We all know our brave Leopards are not happy about being the subject of a hostile takeover by Mr Bruyneel. And they have learned that sponsors are buggers (that is a technical term) who cannot be trusted, and that it's  not an easy job being the team manager and having to deal with them.

So, perhaps they will make a mass departure from Radioshack, and will go back to SaxoBank?

This is not as outrageous as it sounds: they have all had time to appreciate each other. Bjarne would be grovellingly grateful to get them back, and would have to acknowledge that they are all grown-ups now, who will not be dictated to. No more boot camps! I think he's learned that lesson....  And as for the riders, they would be grovellingly grateful to get back to some sensible team management and realistic expectations, and would have a deep and lasting understanding that sponsors are not easy to deal with, and that Bjarne is actually very, very good at dealing with them: I can't imagine another team manager who would keep a "wobbling" sponsor on board when his one-and-only, "we'll sponsor you if you get him" guy gets banned for a drug offence.

There does seem to be a trickle of suggestions that Jakob is seriously considering going back:and if he can, well, why not the rest of the Leopards?

Bjarne would regain UCI points and be able to continue at Pro-Team level with no problems: I am assuming, of course, that SaxoBank the sponsor don't throw another wobbler -but that is a bit unlikely, after all this time, I think. And I am sure that he would be/has been working hard in the background to line up another sponsor, just in case.

And what of Contador? Well, with no UCI points for two years, you could say that he's not a lot of use to a pro-team. Bjarne and Saxo have stuck by him amazingly, but can he really expect them to fund him for another 2 years with no points? Perhaps he'd be better moving to another team: this would also remove the awkwardness between him and the returning Leopard boys.

Mind you, I say that, but what awkwardness, really? Conti and Andy used to be very good friends. If they were working together, I can see them dominating the podium for any race they were both in. Of course, there might be problems with both of them wanting to do the Tour: I'd leave Bjarne to sort that one out.

Could Bjarne afford to keep Conti - rumoured at the time he joined SaxoBank to be one of the most expensive contracts - as well as to buy the Leopards back?  Logically, Conti's

And of course he's not a complete right-off as far as points go: although he can't earn any UCI points for finishing, he CAN earn what I call "kudos points" for the team: this is the other half of the UCI calculations as to who becomes a Pro-Team and who doesn't - they don't just work it out on the straightforward UCI points gained for wins, it's also based on the number of times a team has held the jersey, the number of times they have held on to it, the number of times they have regained it: combatative rider points, etc. He could still be an asset.

So far, Conti is suggesting that he'd be happy to go back to SaxoBank, but if he didn't - well, any Spanish team would no doubt snap him up like that *snaps fingers* and for that matter, even RadioShack might be interested, if the Leopards all jump ship. If they do, the Shack is going to be - again - full of sponsors but lacking in riders, so maybe he could go there: he's worked with Mr Bruyneel before, I am sure he can do it again.  *pulls dubious face*

Right, problem solved. Leopards; best paw forward, quick march!

No, it's not that simple, of course: but it's going to be very interesting to see what develops later in the year.

Giro Stage 3 ; "that" crash

I was relieved that our coverage didn't dwell on the Wouter Weylandt dedication - it went straight from a catch-up of Stage 2 to the start line of today's race, with the RadioShack team standing at the front of the race.  David Harmon, our commentator, barely had time to mention the act of remembrance before the race was under way.

I do hope that Wouter Weylandt will be remembered, but for now, it's time to move on. Particularly as, towards the end of the race, we were told that the Mayor of Horsens had actually had a heart attack and died during the early, "fun" family cycle ride along the course, which is absolutely awful for all concerned. Well, there are a couple of hundred of kids who will never go on a fun ride again...

During the moderately uneventful stage, questions were being asked on Twitter about the preparation of the jerseys: David Harmon confirmed that there is a van behind the podium, filled with shelves stacked with iron-on transfers for every team in the race. The minute the results are confirmed, they take a jersey of the right size and colour, pull out the team sponsor stickers, shove it under the heat press and voila! a fully logo-ed jumper.  I had been wondering about this, on and off, for months, so it's good to have confirmation. He also mentioned the overnight spraying of bikes and helmets. Now, what about the skin-suit issue? Or the natty spotty shorts? What about my speculations concerning the grey van with the generator and the sewing machine in it? No answers today, Schlecklanders: I did tweet the question to David Harmon, but he either ignored it or didn't see it.

And going back to the podium jerseys for a moment, that is why the zip is at the back, in case you hadn't realised: so that the sponsor/team logo can be clearly seen across the front. No, it's not for the convenience of the podium girlies after all.

At 44k to go, we decide it's time for cheesy biscuits. here they are, for all of you who have been asking:

This is LLB demonstrating the "total block".  You will remember that the game involves total silence, and never looking down at the bowl, which sits on the sofa between us. So I will reach out, and find a Hand in this position, and if I try to get between the fingers - as always, silently and without looking - LLB moves them around to prevent me getting any biscuits.

Today a new tactic appeared: LLB's hand appeared, upside down in the bowl, cupped, and when my questing fingers tapped on his palm, he said "oh dear, bowl's empty."

How beastly.

To make up for it, I was offered one of the biscuits:

Yes, it was a heart-shaped one. All together now - d'aaaw!

Once they were all gone, the new Wombat appeared to check that we hadn't missed any:

Right! Back to the cycling!

At 25k to go, I spotted three Shack jerseys up near the front, and I'm pretty sure Frankie was one of them - it was hard to tell, we had a lot of helicopter shots this time. Helicopter shots are excellent for watching team tactics, and the interplay of colours within the peloton, but not so good for picking out individuals.

The three jerseys increased to four, then up to 6, and then - big excitement - 7!! Good groupage, boys.

At 19k to go, with a strange feeling of deja vu, Lars Bak pinged off the front again, and stormed his way off to a massive lead of, ooh, 34 seconds or so. But it was enough to get him huge cheers from the Danish crowds, and we all know that SaxoBank could do with the sponsor time, as they are still a bit lacking in the UCI points department. Talking of which, UCI, would you kindly update your website? It hasn't been done since 29th April.

At 14k to go, we are in the final lap and Lars Bak has been caught by the peloton, but he looks happy, and he has certainly done his bit for the home crowd.

And as for the end? Well, I think we all know what happened: Ferrari of team Androni was sprinting for the line and veered off to the right, taking out Cav's front wheel. Cav went down very heavily, losing a lot of skin, and of course the domino effect then took out several other riders, and held up most of the rest of the peloton.

Worst hit was Taylor Phinney - who is not having a good time in pink - who looked for a while as though he'd broken his ankle, and was - we thought - taken off by ambulance. However, he was later described as having made it across the finish line, then taken to the podium by ambulance. Hmm, I think there may be some fudging there, as the rules say that to complete a stage and be allowed to continue the race, a rider and his bike must cross the finish line unaided.  But who cares, he deserves a little bit of leniency. He gets the same time as everyone else, which is why he keeps the pink, but apparently he is booked in as coming in last, according to the UCI rules.

Kudos to the Farnese rider who bunny-hopped over Cav as he lay in the road: and rather less praise to the Shack rider who apparently rode over the fallen Cav's legs!



I'm very impressed that both Phinney and Cav have been very grown-up about it: I was almost expecting fireworks from Cav, but as we saw, he picked himself up off the ground, picked up his bike and put it on his shoulder, and walked calmly up to the finish line. Lots of time to cool off, and he was pretty cool on Twitter later, too:

"Crashing at 75kph isn't nice. Nor is Ferrari's manoeuvre. Should be ashamed to take out pink, red & world champ jerseys." 

and a little later:

"Is the team of Roberto Ferrari or the UCI going to do the right thing? Other riders, including myself, have been sent home for much less." 

Well, no, they aren't: Ferrari was relegated to last place in the peloton - 192nd - and a teeny tiny fine, loss of points, and - well, that's about it, to be honest.  His team manager has sort-of apologised, saying “We very much regret what happened and apologise to Mark Cavendish on behalf of Roberto Ferrari and the whole team.  It was absolutely not a deliberate move; Roberto saw the wheel of Farrar and tried to follow him, not realising that Mark Cavendish was right behind him.”

However, Ferrari himself was completely defiant about it, saying: "I didn't know who was behind me. In a sprint, I look straight ahead. I don't preoccupy myself with what's going on behind me." 

What a rat.  

All he has to do is include the magic word "sorry" at some point, and all will be well, but if he maintains this position, well, I see an elbow in his future. And a ditch. Hopefully at a moment when both Cav and Phinney are back at their respective team cars.  Pity that Vladimir Karpets isn't in the race, he's brilliant at putting riders into ditches - remember what happened to Contador in the Tour last year? Conti tried to barge Karpets across the road at one point, and Karpets - who is a solid rider - didn't budge an inch: if I remember right, there was a little bit of elbow action and whump! Conti on his backside in a ditch. Conti later apologised, acknowledging that he had tried to muscle his way in to Karpets' road space.

Come on Ferrari, man and apologise, otherwise you are going to be elbowed from all sides for the rest of this race.

And Androni might possibly find themselves on the "unwanted" list for wildcard invitations.

So that was the exciting end to Stage 3: Giacomo came in 15th,  EEEBennati 25th,  Frankie 38th (thank heaven he didn't come in 108th again!) even Ben Hermans finished: he came in 128th, but with the same time as the peloton, so that's a result.

Overall, RadioShack are sitting in 4th place in the Team Standings, and there is plenty of time to go yet. Today - Tuesday - is the rest day, and tomorrow will be the TTT, then we are back to more flat stages, and the possibility of repercussions for nasty Mr Ferrari!

Giro Stage 2

Our coverage starts with 93km to go, and thank heavens, no Contu-mentary this time. We are greeted with the sight of a three man break 6 minutes away, having been 13 minutes away earlier on, apparently. Aha, the typical "early break" for TV time.  Sky are sitting firmly on the front of the peloton, making sure that if there is a split, they are in the front half. Good tactics! One single Shack rider is at the back of the peloton. Who is that? Phew, not Frankie, it's Ben Herman.

Today there is a KoM point, oh goody: ah - is this it then? The three leaders heave themselves out of the saddle for about 30 seconds and there they are at the top. Well, that was underwhelming. I really don't see the point of giving KoM points at what is clearly not any sort of mountain, particularly in the middle of a flat stage, as it is absolutely guaranteed to be taken by someone in a break, rather than any sort of genuine climber. It just seems silly. In this case, it's a good thing the organisers put up a banner and some crowd control, otherwise we would not have known where the top was!

Oh look, a gratuitous shot of young ladies in tight tee-shirts, with the camera held exactly at breast height. Ah yes, the strange Italian obsession with showing us young ladies in the crowd. And their breasts. I'd forgotten about that, nice to see that they are keeping these traditions alive.

One of the GreenEdge riders has gone back to the team car: he's pulling a gilet out of his back pocket to hand in.. Now he's rummaging up the front of his jersey, I do hope he's not about to take a natural break...  no, he's handing over another gilet which he had stuffed up his jersey. And another one! And another one! How very marsupial.  Hey, did anyone else notice that Orica, who have just taken on sponsorship with GreenEdge, have announced that a new kit is going to be unveiled at the Tour? Boo, I like the current one! UCI rules say that a team is allowed to change it's kit once a year, and I have always assumed that it was to allow for circumstances like then, when a sponsor changes - although I'm not at all sure about the business of changing a team's name part-way through the year.  The bad news is that Orica's house colours are blue and black, so there is every possibility that we may have yet another blue/black kit in the peloton later this year. If you have nothing to do after the Giro finishes, and you are having trouble getting off to sleep, go and have a look at the Orica website

It's a little hard to work out what they actually DO: management-speak blurb such as "Orica has a strong portfolio of manufacturing and distribution assets strategically located across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Latin America and Africa which enables it to provide valuable supply chain capabilities for its customers" doesn't really tell us what actually happens, does it?

And phrases like "Orica’s core strategy is to be the global leader in the provision of high service consumables to the mining and infrastructure markets, leveraged to long-term increases in production and development volumes." are enough to get me yawning any day.

Oh well, as long as they are prepared to put money into cycling, then we are happy - and they definitely have something to do with supplying explosives for mining, which could make their future team presentations go with a bang, ha ha!

Talking of kit, what on earth has happened to that well-known British team Farnese Vini? We had only just stopped laughing at the idea that someone hastily marked possibly logo positions on their kit design with a fluorescent pen, not realising that it would be made up in that colour. Now they have added fluoro shorts to the ensemble. Well, at least there is no chance of them being knocked off their bikes by cars when out training...

Ouch! Talking of being knocked off your bike, or at least, falling off your bike:  at 69k to go, Gianni Meersman hits the deck, and I'm somewhat saddened by this, as I very nearly picked him out on Thursday, when I did the pre-Giro run-through, to be an honorary Schlecklander.

He was due to join the Shack this year, from FdJ, but when the merger was announced, he decided that he'd have "more room" at Lotto Belisol, so that's where he went. 

Here he is - right - in case you've never seen him before: he has dimples to rival Jakob, and there's something about that slightly demented look, in combination with his surname, that makes me think of Meercats.

He's very definitely up and coming,  and it's such a shame that he lost it on a corner, hit a traffic island, and had to finish the race with a big rip in his shorts.

As the peloton sweep past him, I note that Ben Hermans is still right at the back of the peloton.

Oh, and before you ask, no cheesy biscuits on the sofa today: instead we are comfortably sharing a bag of dried pineapple bits: no, Figgy, not my home-made ones, we bought these ones. The home-made ones were all right, but it took four hours in the oven, which is a lot of gas to make a batch of slightly sub-standard pineapple pieces, compared to £1.40 for a bag of perfect ones.

Talking of Farnese, I'm amused to see one of their guys back at his car, struggling with something in his back pockets. He is wobbling around all over the road, and eventually a pair of hands comes out of the car's back window to hold him steady. What on earth is he trying to do? Is it a gel? No, it's his radio - the backpack has somehow come out of the band, and is dangling down by a wire. The disembodied hands catch the wire, reel in the pack, tuck it neatly into the pocket,  then lovingly pull the gilet down over the bulge. All that is missing is a final pat to send him on his way.

Sky are still riding on the front, and we are treated (or "subjected" if you don't like him) to a very long shot of Cav, very close up. He looks bored, bored, bored. This is good! Not stressed, not feeling the pressure, not tired or struggling, just bored, bored, bored.

At 44k I am pleased to see a bunch of 5 Shack jerseys together up the front of the bunch, and I have just commented on this when ack! there is a huge crash at the back, with a dozen guys down on the road. Good timing, lads. I am somewhat bemused to see one rider hopping around with only one shoe on: his soigneur runs up with a kit bag and produces another shoe, and an insole. I have no idea how you can lose a cycling shoe - in one of the cycling autobiographies I have read, the cyclist gives his girlfriend a pair of proper cycling shoes, and drops her off at the gym for a spin class, having carefully put the shoes on for her. Two hours later he hears the front door, then someone clattering noisily through the house: yes, it's the girlfriend, annoyed and embarrassed that she couldn't get the shoes off, as she couldn't figure out the clasps and fixings. This has given me the impression that when cycling shoes are on, they are firmly on! Well, the rider concerned gets his shoe, the crashed riders all get back on their bikes, and we continue.

At 40k the break is brought back, which is, tactically, a bit of a surprise. Why? Well, generally the bunch will leave a break hanging about 2mins out for as long as possible: any less than that, or if they bring them back, then there is a risk that someone else, someone with fresher legs, will ping off the front and whoever is "controlling" the peloton will have to work hard to get them back. Whereas the "old" break will be tired, and will be easy to overhaul when they want to. So it's very surprising that Sky have let the pace increase to the point where the little break are caught. And sure enough, someone pings off the front.

It's Lars Bak!

Yes! Lars Bak is at the Front! (Oh, that joke never gets old.) And look, he's wearing a non-vented helmet, just like half of the Sky team. David Harmon and Sean Kelly, our commentators, spend the next five minutes running over this debate again. LLB and I think that it's a simple answer: on cold days - and it's pretty cold today in Denmark, you can tell by the amount of leg warmers, arm warmers, thick gloves, neck scarves and hats worn under helmets - then an unvented helmet would be warmer than a vented one, so it stands to reason that someone has invented one. I don't actually know (not being a cyclist these days) why all the cycle helmets are so vented: I rather assume that when they were first designed, the idea was to have something as light as possible to persuade the kids to wear them: also, to be as far away, style-wise, from a horse-riding hat as possible. Hence the funky Alien-head shape, the vents, the colours etc.  (Frankly, if I were still riding horses these days, I'd chose to wear a cycle helmet rather than a nasty heavy horsey-riding hat.)

Meanwhile we are having problems with the camera bikes: moto1 at the front, with Lars Bak, sounds as though someone is eating crisps, or possibly eating the crisp-packet, with loud crackling sounds that nearly drown out the commentary. Moto3 at the back of the peloton - oh look, there's Ben Hermans at the back again - is having trouble with it's gearbox, and sounds like a kettle about to boil.

The pace is hotting up with 24k to go - the race ends with a lap of the town, and the last 8k or so is the TT route from yesterday - well, I suppose they had all the barriers in place, so it makes sense to use the same route? It should be interesting to see how a huge peloton gets round all those tight corners - at least they will know the route, but I'm not sure if that will actually help them, or make them reckless.

At 17k the peloton catches Bak, but he's had a good run of TV time, so well done, Lars (pat on back from Rabobank, and possibly the offer of a high-interest account) but at 8k to go, disaster for the pink jersey, Taylor Phinney is standing in the road with his chain off! Naturally, the words "chain" and "disaster" come to mind, and our commentators are pointing out that it's a long straight road, no need to be changing gear so how can he possibly have dropped a chain,  but before anyone can say "Andy Schleck", the replay shows us that he fell off first, and then his chain came off. What bad luck! He's re-chained and back on the bike in no time, but the peloton are winding up for the final run, so he's going to have to work to get back on. Luckily there is a good shove to get him going, a quick tow from the team car, a team mate dropping back to help him - we can hear him shouting "Go! Go!" to the team-mate - and he's storming back to the peloton.

By now it's 6k to go, with Svein Tuft on the front - go, Svein!

At 3k, Phinney is back with the bunch, but he's not going to be able to work his way through them to the front in time to do anything at the finish - but at least he'll now get the same time as everyone else, so he may well keep the pink. I can see one lone Shack jersey at the front end of the peloton, and I think it's EEEEBennati. I'm so busy trying to read his race number that I nearly miss the mighty smack on the final corner, when a Rabobank rider loses his back wheel on the corner, and slides down into the barriers, taking out one of the Dark Lords of Katusha, and then most of the rest of the peloton, who come piling round the corner into the back of the melee.

As you all know, it was a fine win for Cav - much waving of little Union Jacks on the sofa - with Matt Goss working really hard for second: it was Daniele, he gets 8th place, not bad. Even Graeme Brown (cries of "Graeme Brown? in rising inflection, as usual) was right up there, he was leading out Theo Bos, the one who slid, and when he saw the accident, he pulled up, waving Renshaw to go on without him. So the ghost of the HTC train lives on!

And here's an odd fact: yesterday, after the time trial, Frankie was in 108th place, and I refrained from making any jokes about him commemorating Wouter Weylandt, as I thought it might be considered to be bad taste.

Guess where Frankie came, today? Yup, he came 108th!

GIRO!! Time Trial, stage 1

Wave those pink knickers around, Jen! Wave that pink bra, Nim!

Yes, some of you are getting in the swing by wearing pink for the Giro - sadly I won't be participating as the only pink clothing I have is knickers, and I won't be making them available for public inspection!!

Mind you, as one of my Tweeps said, I could always put a red sock in with a load of whites, which would provide an entire pink wardrobe.

I think not.

So, the Giro!  LLB and I prepared ourselves for the afternoon.

Comfy sofa? Check.
Eurosport on Hard Drive, recording? Check.
Bowl of cheesy biscuits to fight over eat? Check.
Start list? Check.
Small Union Jack flags to wave? Check.
Heating on? Check. Yes, I know it's May, but in England it's cold, cold, cold...

And we were off! Oh, no we're not, hang on, what's this, an interview with Contador? But he's not even in it?! It seems that Eurosport, or possibly the Giro organisers,  have decided to have Contador giving his thoughts on the race, the participants etc. Either this is a considerate way of acknowledging his truly shameful treatment by the UCI, who told him he was ok to race then back-dated his punishment: or, it was another slap in the face for Scarponi, who was only presented with the pink jersey one day before the race started, with very much the feeling of "oh well, here, take it, you can wear it tomorrow but only for one day, ok?

To be fair, Contador was looking relaxed, fit, lean, tanned, and composed. The photography was excellent, they did lovely arty close-ups of his Bambi eyelashes, and worked hard to make him look attractive and healthy. Although you do think a make-up artist could have just tweezed out a few of those neanderthal eyebrow hairs.. and maybe just a touch of concealer on that bruise or whatever it was by his right eye, which was a bit distracting, along the lines of the "patches" that used to be worn in Georgian times.

To be unfair, he still has a whiney, monotonous voice.

Predictably, he spoke about the difficulty of getting back into form for la Vuelta, what it's felt like to be alone for the year, rather than training with a team: and he showed off his smart blue and white jersey - you realise that he can't be seen in Saxo kit while banned, of course - which is printed with phrases from the many letters of support he has received.

Right, moving on: we also had a brief interview with Frankie, who was - frankly - looking nervous! And who could blame him... also some brief interviews with other riders, some less well known: but basically it was just Contador going on and on about what he thought about all of them.

Even David Harmon, our commentator, seemed to be getting bored with it: he was translating the interview, and his translations were getting shorter and shorter.

Finally, it finished, and David and Sean Kelly, the other commentator, were burbling on about something or other when suddenly - what was that? Graeme Brown? (rising inflection) Yes! Graeme Brown IS in the Giro, yay! He's not on the start list, so we guess he must be a late replacement for a Rabobank rider that couldn't make the start: so I guess he, too, had a "Frankie" moment. We work out that he's taken the place of Jos Van Emden, but we don't know why.

LLB and I discuss tactics for the race, while we wait for the actual race footage to start: all the big climbs are at the end, and most teams have sent sprinter squads, so the first week is going to be one of tactics.

Either the climber squads will start breaks in order to tire out the sprinters: or the sprint squads will push on in order to drop the climbers off the back so that they lose time: or possibly the sprint squads will push on in order to tire out the other sprint squads.

Basically, there is going to a lot of break! split! push on! for the first 10 days - and LLB's official prediction is that Garmin and Astana are going to be the teams that do the majority of the pushing.

By now you will all know the results, but it was pretty darned exciting: Geraint Thomas of Sky ("G", as he's known) is leading by one second at the split point. David Harmon snarls excitedly "Go, G, you big hunk of Welshman, you!"  I wonder if he's forgotten that we can all hear him?

Boaro of SaxoBank takes the lead by 7 seconds, which is pretty exciting - there are 16 UCI points for the winner, so all the Saxo fans must be on their knees, begging for no-one to beat him so that they can get some  points. Bad luck Saxo, G overtakes him (much waving of Union Jack flags by LLB and I) by 6 seconds. Go, G!

Then Taylor Phinney shaves another 9 seconds off that! Wow!

By the way, does anyone know how they allocate the running order for prologues? I had assumed that they would send off riders from each team in rotation, in order to make it as easy as possible for the support vehicles, in that if you time it right, no one team will have more riders on the road than they have team cars. And logically, they would start with the number 9 of each team first, then the number 8s and so on, so that we get the "big names" or team leaders last, to keep the suspense up.

However, this does not appear to be the case, as the numbers are quite random. I wonder if the team are allocated their "slots" but are allowed to swap riders around within those slots? It would make sense to send out a domestique who is good at TT early on, so that they can report back on the course, on any danger spots, or anything that might have changed since the practise rides.

Gadret of AG2R goes off, and I "poke" him, just for old times' sake. LLB tells me off: "No! Don't do that! We all know what will happen... Frankie will fall off!"  Ooops - remember the Tour last year, I was suggesting that Conti might swallow a wasp and have to withdraw, and the very next day, Frankie swallowed a bee. Then I suggested that Conti might fall off and break a collarbone, and the very next day, Bradley Wiggins fell off and broke a collarbone... I'm sure there were three incidents, but I can't remember the third one off-hand.

Then off goes Frankie, looking nervous, and sure enough, ack! barely one minute in to his ride, he takes a massive wobble in the middle of a straight road, for no reason at all. LLB looks at me. I sink into the sofa and try not to look guilty. LLB takes advantage of my guilt to silently move the bowl of cheesy biscuits out of my reach.  From the corner of my eye I can see his shoulders shaking, so I  know he's up to something, and when I reach out for more cheesy biscuits and find the bowl gone, I spot his cunning plan. To make him feel better, I pat the sofa in a distracted, "where has the bowl gone?" manner for a while... before he relents and replaces it.

Frankie comes in 59 seconds down, which is not that bad, to be honest, but the commentators make a big deal of it, as you would expect. I didn't think he was giving it 100%:  neither did Sean Kelly, who comments that doing so would probably only have improved him time by maybe 5 seconds, and it would have been at the risk of falling, losing more time, maybe even an injury, and it probably just wasn't worth it. Frankie himself has said that he's expecting it to take 7-10 days for him to get his race legs back, which supports the theory that he should stay cool, and work up gently, hoping to make up time in the mountains.

Basso comes in, 39" down: "not bad, not bad," says David Harmon. Humph, Frankie was only 20" down on that time, and he gets all the abuse! It seems a little unfair.

So, how did it go for last year's winner? Scarponi, in a fetching pink play suit, struggled in 1'6" down, and was interviewed practically the second he fell over the line: "So, Mr Scarponi, how does it feel to have to give up the pink jersey just 12 minutes after it was given to you?". Mr Scarponi was seen getting straight into the team car and not participating in interviews any more, at that point.

And the final result: Taylor Phinney gets the pink jersey, plus the white young rider's jersey, plus the red points jersey. G, who came second, will be wearing the red jersey in stage 2, so that's a result for Sky. Oh, and Saxo came fourth in the end, so they get points! Yay! 2 of them! It could make all the difference...

So there you are, we are up and running, and I'll do my best to post my comments as often as I can.

Did I write this?

I'm having a strange deja vu moment: I've just read a report on Velonation about Frankie being shoved into the Giro at a few days' notice, and it's written in a very friendly, non-normal-velonation-Schleck-reporting style that, for a moment, made me wonder if I'd written it myself!

It starts off:

"Ever had a nightmare where you had a crucially important college exam, but forgot to study and were completely unprepared? If so, remember waking up in a cold sweat, then realising – with considerable relief – that it was all a bad dream?

Spare a thought, so, for Fränk Schleck, who finds himself still grappling with the thought that he is on the verge of something that he had no expectations of doing."

Then it settles down a bit, and goes on to explain what he's done (recent racing, then having a rest ready to build up again for the Tour) what he was doing ("in the playground with my daughter Leea when the phone rang...")  and what he now has to do - ie lose as little time as possible in the TT prologue,  play it cool for the first week while the legs wake up, then hope to be coming back into form in the third week when we hit the mountains.

OK it doesn't refer to him as Frankie, nor does it mention Andy Schleck at all, which kinda proves that it wasn't me: I would have found a way to work OGL into the conversation, somehow! So it's a relief to find that I am not sleep-typing, and submitting articles to Velonation.

Although that's an idea....

Frankie in the Giro, huh?

Well, there's a turn up for the books.

Earlier this year, Jakob was rather publicly expressing himself as being not too happy with being sold off to Radioshack: he felt there were too many captains now, and that he was unlikely to be able to ride for himself. He was, of course, completely correct in this: and Radioshack obviously took him aside and said the right things, as the next we heard was that he was going to be riding the Giro as their GC contender.

Happy Jakob!

Then, last month, Mr Bruyneel started throwing his weight around, and announced that he was going to split Andy and Frankie up, and send Frankie to the Giro.

Well, we can imagine what Jakob was thinking at that point.

Andy and Frankie were clearly not keen on that idea either, and it became the basis of a rather public battle for dominance, with Mr Bruyneel saying that Kim Anderson won't be at the Tour, and Andy calmly stating that Kim would indeed be there, etc etc.  For a while it seemed to quieten down: I did wonder if Mr Bruyneel told Andy that he could either have Kim at the Tour, or Frankie: and that Andy had chosen to have his brother.

But then, curses, Jakob was out of the Giro with his inflamed knee, and Frankie is suddenly thrown back in as road captain, despite having, as he said himself, "not ridden a bike for 5 days". Not exactly the best preparation for a 3-week tour. "The first week will be hard" said Frankie. No kidding!

It will be interesting to see if Kim Andersen turns up at the Tour now...

Talking of the Giro, what an odd race it's going to be this year.

Why? Well, the parcours is very different from last year: you might remember the fuss beforehand, with the "it's the hardest Giro we've ever run" , and of course the awful death of Wouter Weylandt part-way through, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Leopards. (And the incredible dullness of the remaining race, with Contador 5 minutes ahead of everyone else for about a month, yawn.)

This year it is described as being more "balanced" and more "humane", and appears to have a lot of flat stages,  and to be nowhere near as hard as last year.  Yet the field of riders is not exactly, er, how do I say this: well, shall we say that a lot of teams are sending their 'B' squads.

For instance, let's have a look at the start list: BMC, heralded as the SuperTeam to lead all other SuperTeams, are not sending any of their big names, they're sending Thor (always now remembered from Tour of Britain last year as being the one LLB and I nearly knocked off his bike after his TT, oops) Hushovd, Ballan - who was pretty good earlier in the year - and Taylor Phinney, the rest of them are people I've never heard of. No GC rider, no real leader, what's that about?

Astana are sending roman Kreuziger as their big hope, and of the other 8 riders, I've only heard of Tiralongo, and then, only because he has an amusing name. (adopts super-hero pose with one arm raised to the sky, flings cape back dramatically and cries "Tiralongo!" as Super-Coug leaps to the rescue...)

Garmin-Quack-a-cuda are sending Tyler Farrar, who I think is either massively over-rated, or is having a really bad couple of seasons: and as for the rest of the squad, I've never heard of five of them.

And so it goes. I usually go through the start-list for each race, noting down all of Sky and RaNT, plus a list of all of my "pet" honorary Schlecklanders who are racing, so that I can keep an eye out for them. I don't think I've ever checked a race list that contains so many names I've never heard of! And particularly for a big Tour, it's quite extraordinary.

We will all be glad to see that the organisers kept their word to retire the number 108, by the way: GreenEdge are holding numbers 100-107, plus 109, instead of starting at 101. And stage 3 is going to be dedicated to him, which is a nice gesture. I'm not sure whether to hope for a quiet, "procession" sort of day, or a day of real racing, with excitement and hot pursuits.

So who are my hopes for this year? Let's have a quick gallop through the teams and see what there is.

1-9 Lampre: well, Scarponi is wearing the number 1, after coming second last year, and he's already said, as Andy has said, that he doesn't care about being awarded the first place retrospectively, he wants to win in on the road. And I'm rooting for him! Go, Scarponi, you're already mostly in pink, so getting the pink jersey isn't too much of a stretch for your colour scheme.

11-19 AG2R - err, no-one. Well, I will be poking Gadret every time I see him, he's a mean, mean man who wouldn't give up his bike for his team leader last year. Such a contrast to Matti "Here, take my bike" Brueschal at the Tour, who practically flung his bike to Andy after that big crash.

21-29 Androni - nope, haven't heard of any of them. Not a one! Oh, possibly Roberto Ferrari, but only because his name amuses me: with a name like that, you think he ought to be very, very fast.

31-39 Astana:  nope, no-one of interest.

41-49 BMC nope.

51-59 Colnago - nope. I've heard of Brambilla, but again, only in the context of it being an amusing name.

61-69 Euskaltel - no sign of my favourite carrot,Anton: just Nieve as road captain and a whole pile of utterly unpronounceable names.

71-79 Farnese - ah, the British team! No really, they may appear to be based in Italy and full of Italians, but they're registered in the UK, I have no idea why. Nice and easy to spot in the peloton, of course, thanks to their fluorescent kit. But no pet riders amongst them.

81-89 FDJ - nope, no-one of interest.

91-99 Garmin Quackacuda, well, Ryder Hesjerdal always provokes a comment, mainly along the lines of "Rider Hesjerdal? As opposed to Mechanic Hesjerdal? Or DS Hesjerdal?"  Yes, yes, I know, but it makes us laugh every time. Other than him, no-one of note. No JVS.

100-109 (without 108) GreenEdge - aha, at last, a pet! Svein Tuft, of course: go, Svein! Cries of "Tuftage" from all around. And I'm looking forward to a good look at the new kit, with the new sponsor name, Orica, was it? It looks as though they haven't changed the kit much, which is a good thing.

111-119 The Dark Lords of Katusha: another list of unpronounceable names. Possibly I might recognise some of them if I heard them spoken out loud... the only one I recognise at all is Pavel Brutt, and only - again - for being a mildly amusing name, in that it's usually pronounced "brute" which makes me think of a big hulking, terrifying cyclist, shoving his way through the peloton like a bulldozer. *rushes to google to see what he looks like* Ah, ok, he's a typical lightly built cyclist, with a sweet, slightly worried expression.  Not so much of a brute, then.

121-129 Liquigas:  Ivan Basso, team leader, possible winner of the race, supported by eight blokes I've never heard of.

131-139 Lotto Belisol (am I still the only one who thinks that Belisol sounds like an ointment for sore bottoms?) lead by Bart de Clercq: who I think of as a cross between Bart Simpson, and someone from an Inspector Clouseau film. No pets there.

141-149 Movistar: ok, I haven't heard of a single one of their squad!

151-159 Omega Pharma: nope, no-one of interest, but at least I have heard of four out of nine of them.

161-169 Rabobank.  The big disappointment here has to be Graeme Brown (cries of "Graeme Brown?" in Leelu's voice, with rising inflection) who was, we thought, going to be racing for about the first time this year, but who doesn't appear in Rabobank's start list, boo! They are sending Mark Renshaw, ex HTC, as road captain and presumably top sprinter, with Theo Bos to support him, and seven blokes I've never heard of.

171-179 Radioshack: Ah, that's better, at least I know most of them!

Frankie is road captain and GC contender, despite being thrown into it at rather short notice. It will be interesting to see how he goes!

In support, he has Jan Bakelants (ex Omega) and Ben Hermans (Shack) as all-rounders, Danielle EEEE-bennati (well, that's how we pronounce it!) and Giacomo Nizzolo (both Leopards) as sprinters, Jesse Sergeant and Nelson Oliviera (both Shack) for the TT, and Oliver Zaugg and Thomas Rohregger (both Leopards) for the climbs. An interesting mix.

181-180 Sky, aha, "my" team, the real British team. I just can't take Farnese seriously as a British team. The only one of the team I don't know is Peter Kennaugh, but I'm sure that LLB will fill me in as the race progresses. Of the squad, I think Rigoberto Uran is my "pet", mostly because of his face: he's not pretty, but he is sort of adorable, in a wrinkled-puppy sort of way. And of course Flecha always gets special treatment for being the one who was actually knocked off his bike by the car during the Tour last year. Hoogerland got the t-shirt and the barbed-wire scars,  and he deserves all our cheers and support, but I did feel that Flecha got the raw end of the deal.

191-199 NetApp: nope, never heard of any of them.

201-209 SaxoBank: poor dear SaxoBank *pitying look* still at the bottom of the UCI league with only 32 points.  So who have they sent in search of points? Tosatto as team captain, with Anders Lund and the two Haedo brothers, and another five blokes I've never heard of. Good luck, lads.

211-219 Vacansoleil:  Thomas de Ghent looks the most likely of the squad - not that he's a Schlecklander, he's just the one name I actually recognise from their squad. Oh, apart from Roman Feillu of course, brother of Brice, the Leopard who Leaped, and who preferred second-league Saur Sojasun to a life in the Shack.

So there you have it: not a lot of big names, not a lot of Schleckland pets: let's  hope the race is interesting!

Cap'n Andy!

Just a thought - why does Luxembourg have a navy?  Or, to be more accurate, why does Luxembourg have an ensign, when it doesn't have a navy?

And why does Andy favour the ensign over the national flag?

What am I talking about?

OK, flags: in the UK we have what we have ALWAYS called the Union Jack (so don't listen to weirdos who try to tell you that it should be called the Union Flag, it has always been the Union Jack, and no-one will ever stop me calling it that.)

Here's the good old Union Jack, familiar to everyone the world over. Oh boy, I love being English!

It's a composite of three flags: we start with the St Andrew's cross of Scotland, which was blue with a white diagonal cross. On top of that goes the red diagonal St Patrick's cross of  Ireland, and on top of that goes the big red St George's cross of England.  Wales was already part of England at the time, so it doesn't get a "cross" of its own, and yes, the Welsh are probably "cross" about that.

It has a "right" way and a "wrong" way to be flown: the pic above shows the correct way, assuming the flag-pole is on the left. If in doubt (and if you actually care about this stuff), look at the white diagonal stripe where it meets the invisible flagpole on the left: it is fatter above the red diagonal, yes? Then that is correct.  Flying it upside down is a terrible sin in the UK, and will bring ridicule upon you.

Then we have our Navy flags: the most well-known being this little fella, the Red Ensign, which is flown by merchant ships, so it's seen quite a lot.

The other familiar one is the White Ensign, this chap on the left, and he is only flown by members of the Royal Navy *turns nose up snobbishly*, and as my father was in the Royal Navy, we were allowed to fly this one on his boat.

Yes, this could explain something about why I laughed so much at being called Captain Coug!

Anyway, are you all with me? Country flags are for general civil use, on land, and Ensign flags are for use on boats.

Now we turn to Luxembourg. We all know what we call the Lux flag, Andy's lovely light-blue-and-white stripey one, with the lion on it. As per my socks. But hang on, officially that's the Lux Ensign, not the Lux flag.

The Lux flag is this one, the less-than-exciting red white and blue stripes - although I have to say, on paper it sounds like a good colour combination, although the shade of blue is slightly odd: and of course the execution lets it down somewhat.

Also, it's a bit too close to too many other national flags.

No, this is the one that we associate with Andy: the Lux Ensign:

But why does he favour the Ensign, then? Was his daddy in the navy? Oh, hold on, Lux doesn't have a navy, on account of being what you might call land-locked. Although that is no excuse, Czechoslovakia (as it was) had a navy, and they only had a big lake.

What would the Lux Navy look like, I wonder? (right)

OK, I'm sniggering, but I put the phrase "Luxembourg navy" into google and looked at images, and this is what came up (below).

Honestly, no kidding, this collection is apparently the Luxembourg Navy. Well, in Paris it is. Presumably it's on a lake....

 

So there you have it, Andy favours the Lux Ensign - and who could blame him, it's a lot classier than the boring civil one - despite having no obvious connections to it. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows anything more on this topic.

And actually, I'd better promote Andy to Admiral, as I am already a Captain, and I think he'd probably be senior to me.

*pauses to think* Hang on, I bet I've been sailing more than he has. I was sailing before he was born, thinking about it... (started at a very, very early age). OK, we'll hold him at Captain for now, until we find out more about it.

And in the meantime, here's me, aboard the Schleckland Ship:

...and sharp-eyed viewers will spot that, as per the little figure above,  I now have very red hair! Although not, sadly, quite as red as it said on the box: although the sitting-around-with-hair-plastered-to-head stage was frighteningly bright orange, it dulled down over half an hour and, when dry, came out a very fetching but disappointingly subtle shade of dark red.Well, it's probably safer this way.