The Daily Musette: July 2012

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Transfer predictions

EisenAndy has moved to Wordpress for a while, to see if it is better than Blogger: and I took the opportunity to get the name Schleckland back, yay!
The address is schleckland.wordpress.com
But I'm keeping Eisen Andy going for now, as it has the best SEO!
Click here for an easy jump to the new blog, see what you think of it.

Well, tomorrow is the first of August and transfers can then be officially announced.

As usual, there have been masses of rumours for the past few weeks, and most of them have been strenuously denied - but of course, a lot of them will turn out to be true. It must be very hard to have to lie and say "no truth in the rumour" when you know it's going to be true, but you can't talk about it until after tomorrow...

So, here are my predictions as to who is going where.

Firstly, Astana are going to have a team of about 50 riders, if everyone who has been linked to them actually goes there. That could leave a few of the other teams a bit thin on the ground.

BMC are going to be particularly hard hit, as virtually all of their team are going to jump ship, leaving just Cadel Evans and Phillipe Gilbert to carry the Ladybird flag.

Stinkoff are going to beat even Astana, by having in excess of 70 riders: Jakob is going to be leading a special team, a sort of sub-division of Stinkoff, so that he can be Team Captain, with Bjarne getting back in the saddle to be a domestique.

Sky are going to be completely unchanged: everyone wants to join them, but no-one is going to leave, so there won't be any spare places on the team. After all, a team that can persuade Cav to join them, despite telling him up front that he won't have a dedicated lead-out team: that can then give Cav what he wants, ie stage wins plus the Champs Elysee win, AND get the Maillot Jaune, AND get another rider in second place on the podium: well, hell, you don't get teamwork like that without having happy riders ("Shack, are you listening?") and who wouldn't want to ride for a team that can do that?

Meanwhile, what about the Olympics? Well, GB didn't do particularly well, but frankly I think that was a good thing: after winning the Tour, and hogging two steps of the podium there, plus the Champs Elysee stage, well, it would have been greedy to have taken medals as well, don't you think?

Besides *glances over shoulder to make sure no-one is listening* there are no UCI points, and no jersey: Worlds and Nationals are more important really, aren't they?

The race itself was not wildly interesting: Box Hill can't exactly compete with Cols and Murs, and most of it was just flat, flat, flat.

There were reports in the cycling media that the riders were "shocked" at the sheer quantity of spectators along the Olympic route. Well, so were LLB and I - I'm still staggered that so many people turned out to see it - we had TV coverage (well, sort of) of most of the race, and there were hardly any places, in over 200km, where the spectators were not filling the barriers.

In fact, Andre Griepel commented that there was "nowhere to pee", there were so many spectators! Apparently there was one patch of grass, quite early on, and they all pulled over to use it. Truly amazing, for a country that isn't that "into" cycling. I suppose it's a sign of how much Sky Cycling has raised the profile of the sport in the UK, so yay for Sky!

The coverage of the Road Race was utterly dreadful over here: the camera-work wasn't bad - not as good as the Tour but then, what is? - but the commentary was truly terrible. The commentators didn't seem to know who any of the riders were, they couldn't identify riders who were in the break or chasing, there were no graphics AT ALL to tell us how much of the race was yet to go, and there were great long silences where they apparently didn't have anything to say. Unlike the crowds, who cheered all the way in a "wave of sound" that left the cyclists with ringing ears, so they said afterwards.

Of course, it was very distracting to see people not in their "proper" team kits..

But it turned out that the commentators were in a box at the finish line, being deafened by the tannoys, so they couldn't hear race radio: their viewing screens were so badly positioned with the sun on them that they couldn't see clearly, which explains why in the last three kms we were being told that it was Henao who was up there with Vinokourov, whereas it was, of course, my pet Rigoberto "so good we named him twice" Uran Uran. Oh, and the best excuse of the day, afterwards, was that the spectators along the route were using their mobile phones to tweet in such quantities that they overloaded the system coverage, preventing the GPS transmitters on the bikes from getting their information back to the control room.

Really? Mobile phones can interfere with bike positioning, now? This could become a whole new sport - Spectator Swamping, where fan gather in large clumps, all tweet furiously as the race goes past, to see if they can get the "kms to go" graphic off the screen.

Actually, that's a silly idea, please don't do it.

Going back to the road race, the final crushing blow for our coverage was that we saw Vino cross the line, followed by a rider that LLB and I were damned sure was Rigo (despite the commentary still saying it was Henao), then suddenly we were watching some deadly dull and incomprehensible "sport" which seemed to be using paint-ball guns. What - no list of the finishers? No podium coverage? You could at least tell us who came third?

Predictably, the BBC have apologised for their crap coverage and have blamed it on the host broadcaster. Let's hope they do better for the TT on Tuesday.

And let's hope that Fabian is recovered sufficiently to do himself justice. I don't know which would be worse - for him not to be fit enough to defend his title, or for him to take part even though he's in pain, and be beaten. What do you think? I think I'd rather he sat this one out, if he's not fully fit for it. After all, he did land heavily on that same shoulder that only recently had enormous pins in it.... ouch.

The only moment of humour in that entire episode was that as the peloton came to the same point in the race, our commentators said "..and the peloton are now approaching Cancellara Corner, let's hope they all get round it safely..."

One final word about Vinokourov: I am going to have to eat my words about this rider.

I don't like him: he's an unrepentant doper. He was caught doping during the Tour in 2007, the episode where his team, Astana, were thrown off the Tour: predictably, his own national body decided to ban him for just one year, rather less than the normal 2-year ban for blood doping. The UCI were about to push for a two-year ban when he announced that he was retiring. Two years later he came back to cycling. OK, technically he was "out" for two years, but he can still say that he was only banned for one year, grumble grumble. And he was not repentant.

Also, he has no eyebrows.

Last year he announced another retirement, and said that he was going into the management of the Astana team at the end of the season. Then, of course, he then had that terrible crash in the Tour, the one where he had to be hauled out the ravine by his team-mates, with legs dangling uselessly below him and pain all over his face. Clearly, it was time to retire. He retired.

Ah, but the UCI rules say that anyone with a doping ban can't be allowed to be part of the management of a cycling team. So this year he announced that he was riding again.

Now, I was the one who said repeatedly that in my opinion, he was only "on the books" as a rider because he wasn't yet cleared to move into management, and I rather smugly suggested that he wouldn't ride a single race.

Well, I was wrong, he rode. He rode well. And now he's won a gold medal in the Olympic road race.

*sigh*

Pass the ketchup, here I am eating my hat.

I still don't like him, he's still an unrepentant doper, and he still has no eyebrows, but I am beginning to admire him as a rider, especially as he most definitely is not on drugs now, as he will be one of the most-tested riders in the peloton, I would have thought.

Meanwhile, what's going on in Luxembourg? Well, thank the lord for Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour, and then Mark Cavendish not quite winning a gold medal, they've taken all the publicity and no-one is talking about Frank Schleck's fight to clear his name. Poor Frankie, we can only assume that he is seeing lawyers, making lists, having things analysed, and waiting anxiously for results.

My heart goes out to Martine, I can just imagine her at the school gates dropping off Leea, with the other mums asking "So, how's your husband doing?" with malicious smiles. Or little Leea in the playground, with the other kiddies poking her and chanting "your Daddy's a doper, your Daddy's a doper." Yet another reason why I just don't believe that Frankie would do anything illegal: he's far too much of a family man to put his family through this sort of thing.

RadioShack haven't put their team rostas for any forthcoming races yet - curses on them, they never do - but we are still hearing that Andy will be racing in Canada and in China, and now there is a possibility that Jakob will be racing after all: he's on Danish TV in 15 minutes' time as I write (ah, the wonders of the twitterfeed on the Shack site!) but alas, I don't have Danish TV, nor do I speak Danish. If you have, and do, then please do feel free to tell us what he says!

Thursday 26 July 2012

Jammie Dodgers

Oh! Who would have thought that a throwaway comment would cause such a flurry of tweets and emails!

There you are, this is what they look like, now having a second lease of life all through Peter "more fun than a Jammie Dodger" Sagan.

Figgy, this is all your fault - it was you who first described Peter Sagan as "more fun than a Jammie Dodger".

And you are so right, he is.

But what is a Jammie Dodger?

It's a biscuit, all right, a biscuit! Nothing unsavoury, Anna Z, are you listening?

Oh, well technically, unsavoury would be sweet, and they are indeed sweet..

Technical description: two layers of short-bread-type biscuit, embossed sides outward: stuck together with a layer of over-sweet creamy stuff and over-sweet very gluey red jam with added sugar: the top layer has a heart-shaped cut-out through which you can see the jam - this is a particularly important aspect of the true Jammie Dodger.

There are fakes out there, they have a round hole in the top layer, but they are Not Real Jammie Dodgers, and should be avoided.

No, the real Jammie Dodger (slightly less fun than Peter Sagan) has a heart-shaped hole. (A little like certain Schlecklanders, on hearing about TinkerJil, ha! ha!)

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Radioshack: they are NOT my team.

No sirreee, I am a Leopard fan. Clearly, my favourite Leopard has to be Andy Schleck, and I am a big fan of Frankie (despite his current poisoning problem) not to mention Jakob, Fabian, Jensi and the others.

I wasn't previously a RadioShack fan, not being particularly prone to liking Lance Armstrong: I admire the guy, and have my own opinion about the current doping case, but I'm not a fan.

Then this year, it was hard to like RadioShack, after the truly horrendous way they bought out Leopard Trek, and the unmitigated disaster of not telling the riders, not giving Jensi a contract, etc etc

Then we had the truly appalling things that RadioShack have said to their riders this year, including not paying them, shoving Frankie into the Giro at five days' notice, and the stupid dominance battles over not letting Kim Andersen go to the Tour (and how did that work out for you, Mr Bruyneel? Oh, of course, you weren't there either, were you?).

This behaviour wasn't restricted to just the Leopards: they even shot their own Shack man, Chris Horner, in the foot by telling him that he couldn't ride the Tour - then had to back down due to sponsor pressure, ha ha.

And now with the completely callous way they have dropped Frankie like a ton of bricks - well, I would be surprised if anyone could support them.

So I was heartily amused to read this article in Velonation about the Best Team category, which RadioShack won this year.

It's a good explanation of how a complicated category is determined, and I just laughed and laughed at the ending:

"..the classification will not always be won by the best team."

Too true! I think Sky were the best team in the Tour: best discipline, best consistency, best teamwork, best strategy (allowing that they wanted to win the yellow jersey, not the hearts of the French people) and lots of other "bests".

And what of RadioShack?

Will they even be a team next year? Will half of them (the Leopard half) leave? Only one tiny piece of additional information today - Alpecin, the mysterious possible-new-German-team-sponsor, have suddenly started advertising in the TV coverage of the Tour, and other cycle races. So it does seem that they are putting budget into cycling spheres, which could indicate that they are about to put a lot more money into cycling.

Do we hope so?

Or can we hardly bear the thought of yet more changes, while poor Andy still has a cracked pelvis, and poor Frankie is living the nightmare of trying to prove his innocence.

Saturday 21 July 2012

Chris Froome: or should that be Vroom?

In the last post, Figgy mentioned possible tensions between Friggins (Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome), and there's been quite a lot of publicity on that subject.

Regarding Froomey, it's worth bearing in mind that he's been as sick as a dog on and off for two years, until this year they finally diagnosed his obscure tropical ailment and fixed it: also he has a history within Sky of producing top-notch results in the lab, but not always being able to reproduce those watts out on the road.

He was also (if he and his fans will forgive me saying so, like a back-seat DS) a bit lacking in tactical experience, and during the Giro it was often reported (by the two of them) that Bradley Wiggins would be advising him on when to go, when to hold back, etc, with really good results.

So now that he's back to full health and being consistently good out there, I think that we all know that he's likely to be a really, really good rider in the next couple of years.

I think (not that I know these things) that Sky are going to send him to the Giro, possibly as team leader, to see how he gets on: at the beginning of the Tour, I had doubts about how he would bear up under the pressure, but I really need not have worried, he's been fantastic, and if you have listened to any of the post-race interviews, he's been consistently calm, modest, and has stuck to the "party line" that this Tour is for Bradley, and yes, he would love to win the Tour himself, and he hopes that he will, but not this year.

Although of course if anything dreadful happens to Bradley during the TT today, or the cruise tomorrow, we'd all be happy to see him on that top step of the podium...

He has a long contract with Sky, and (a little like Uncle Bjarne and Contador) Sky have stood by him through his illness, so I have every confidence that he will stay with Sky to repay their faith.

Also, he's only 27, against Bradley's 33 or so, which means that he may well be being groomed to take over as Sky's main man.

Finally, going back to the pressure of winning business, there is a huge difference between being the GC man, and being second: it's so good that Froome took a stage earlier in the race, and had a chance to experience the pressure of podium, interviews, doping control, more interviews, no cooling down, delayed massage, more interviews etc. It will be interesting to see how he gets on at the Giro.

So, is it all over? Is is really the Snore de France this year? Most of the news reports seem to say that the jerseys have now been settled, and the TT today won't make any major changes to the GC, barring accidents and dogs running out into the road.

Cor, talking of which, did you see that? The enormous black dog (described by other riders as being "as big as a pony", huh, slight exaggeration) that took Gilbert out yesterday. Lovely picture of Gilbert remonstrating with its owners, here it is:

Philipe Gilbert remonstrating with owners of loose dog

In the report, Gilbert, bless him, said "I wanted to hit them." And we can easily understand why, as this stupid family let their large dog just run around loose - during a cycle race! Are they mad? Have they never seen a cycle race?

Friday 20 July 2012

RadioShack - "the epitome of team riding"? I don't think so!

I can't quite believe this: I rushed home from work in order to catch the last 30kms of the Tour today, and in order to catch up on what happened earlier, I read the cycling news ticker.

Imagine my amazement when I read this:

Radioshack are hardly the epitome of team riding and solidarity

What planet are they on?

"The epitome of team riding"? Huh? They've had a different "leader" (or set of leaders) every day so far. I've spent the entire tour - not to mention the entire season - shouting at the screen about their poor groupage, and the fact that Andy, Fab and Frankie have, at various times, not had any other riders with them.

If you want to see team riding and solidarity, just look at Sky! *swells with pride at how well my team are doing, but tries not to make a big thing of it on the blog...*

Talking of the Tour, Angi on Twitter has been posting pictures of flowers, amusingly captioned as being various jerseys. (You have to be a bit of a botanist to "get" some of the jokes!) Then today I saw this on the screen:

Good, huh?

Thursday 19 July 2012

Frankie, we support you.

Well, you knew that we would, didn't you? Warm virtual hugs to poor Frankie, going through a terrible time just now.

At least dear Mr Bruyneel has managed to scrape up an ounce of compassion and announce in his blog that he supports Frankie.

Not in a major press-release, mind you, not on Twitter, just tucked away on his blog. Perhaps he assumes that everyone reads it.

"The phone call every sports director hates to receive" he starts, referring to the call from the UCI about Frankie's adverse result, then he says he phoned Frankie, and then he says "I believe Frank when he declared his innocence."

Oh good. Welcome to the club. We think he's innocent, too.

Mind you, just to stir these muddy waters, there's another report out today in Cycling News ("the one that all the riders read" said Cav in his book) that makes interesting reading.

Firstly it just comes right out and says that the Luxembourg media say that Frankie and Andy are going to Astana next year. Just like that!

It claims that there were rumours that Frankie was meeting Astana on the rest day, before being notified of his adverse result: although I understood that the announcement was made during dinner, which I presume to be the evening meal? Did anyone else hear these rumours? No, me neither.

Did anyone else know that Astana's operations company is based in Lux? Or that their Tour cars are registered there? Actually, that could be a bit of a red herring, as Lux is famous for having friendly and flexible tax laws, isn't it?

The report then goes on to reveal startlingly detailed information about their financial dealings. Almost embarrassingly detailed, really.

I don't know what to think about that: to some extent I don't really mind where the boys go, as long as they go somewhere where they will be happy, and will be able to race well.

And I really hope that the adverse result can be cleared up quickly.

Stick with it Frankie, we're all behind you! *waves Lux ensign in support* (it's only a hand-made paper one, using felt tips, but it's the thought that counts)

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Jakob and the Non-Payment

It's still in the papers, Jakob is still being reported as "suing" Leopard SA for his missing wages: although now their spokesmen, Carlo Rock (could you make up these names?) is stating that Jakob has changed the name of his private company, and hasn't done the necessary paperwork to get the money paid to them.

But do you not think that the administrator at Leopard SA would have noticed, or contacted him, or helped him, or reminded him what needed doing... and of course, there are apparently three others also complaining about not being paid.

I do think that the payroll department have a responsibility to ensure that all goes smoothly, especially if a team member is known to be less than happy.

Anyone who has ever read any books written by cyclists will know that their lives are very complicated, they get moved around from country to country, they don't have what you and I would think of as a home routine, and unless they can afford to each pay for their own private secretary, they must struggle to keep their paperwork under control. Indeed, we know that a lot of them can't even keep their ADAMS up to date!

So you do think that the admin people would make a bit more effort to ensure that things go smoothly.

And why are riders (yes, Jakob, this means you as well) complaining to the press instead of talking to their administrators about it?

For that matter, why does Jakob have to "sue" Leopard, instead of just asking them?

Or is it a mis-translation? In some contexts, to "sue" for something means simply to ask for it, not necessarily to take legal action, whereas the news report makes it sound as though Jakob has been forced to take legal action.

Of course, this means it could all be a storm in a teacup, blown out of proportion by the media who, as we well know, just love to make a story out of nothing.

However, it seems pretty clear now that Jakob is going elsewhere next season: Cycling News have been talking to Michael Morkov, ex Sky, now riding for Saxo-Tinkoff Bank (hard to resist calling them Stinkoff Bank, isn't it?!) who wants Jakob and Matti Brueschel to go back there, on the grounds of a United Danish Front.

Jakob's manager, Moreno Nicolleti (why wasn't he the one sorting out Jakob's money, then?) has stated in that report that Jakob's situation is "60 percent Riis, 30 percent Omega Pharma, 20 percent. Astana"

Meanwhile, somewhere in Luxembourg:

The door swings energetically open, and a greek god bounds into the room, which is lit up as though by a warm yellow glow.

Andy: "Jakob, mate, put that torch down."
Jakob: "Awwww, I liked it when Coug said that I lit up the room with a golden glow."
Andy: "How old are you, 12?"

Jakob pulls a mock grumpy face, then settles down on the sofa next to Andy.

Jakob: " Any chance of a beer?"
Andy: "Not while you are making trouble in the papers again."
Jakob: "What! Me?" (affects look of injured innocence)
Andy: "Yes, you. At the very least, you are breaking the rules of physics."

Jakob: (preening slightly) "Well, although I am pretty chuffed with my win of the Tour of Australia - "
Andy coughs behind his hand "a-hhheeeer, shitsmallrace."
Jakob continues as though he has not heard "- I wouldn't say that it breaks any laws of physics. Or are you referring to my incredible good looks?"

Andy points to Mr Nicoletti's report. Jakob raises his eyebrows, as though to say "What?"

Andy: "60% Stinkoff -"
Jakob: "Please don't call them that. It's not nice."
Andy: "I know, but Saxo-bank-Tinkoff-bank is so clumsy."
Jakob: "Oh, and Omega Pharma Lotto isn't?"
Andy: "Good point. Anyway, 60% to Bjarne, 30% Omega, 20% Astana. Really?"

Jakob: "Yes: I'd love to go back to Bjarne: it's a Danish team, we got on well, I've had some conversations with him and really, he's changed since we were there. No more boot camps, he promised!"
Andy: "I know. It's good to be on terms with him again."
Jakob: "So why not come back?"
Andy: "Mate, we've discussed this, we have a contract."
Jakob: (makes rude snorting noise through his nose) "Yes, and we all know how much Shack honoured some of our Leopard contracts, didn't we?"
Andy: "I know, I know. It's not an easy situation. Besides, too many team leaders in one team leads to problems. You said that, yourself, remember?"

Jakob: (sighs) "Yes, I know. But I can dream, can't I? Maybe Conti will go back to Astana?"
Andy: (makes mock tearing-hair-out gesture) "Mate! Don't start that again! You'll set Coug off, and she'll be making up mad plans to shuffle everyone round again, it drove me mad last time! Anyway, that's not my point. 60 + 30 + 20 gives 110, and you can't have 110% of anything."

Jakob: "Yes you can - we talk all the time about giving 110%"
Andy: "Yes, but it can't happen. There are only 100 per cents in a whole thing. You can't have more. 110% doesn't exist: it’s meaningless, empty rhetoric. It’s a phrase uttered when people want to prove how committed they are to something, when they want to impress and in my opinion, adds an air of desperation to the person making the statement."

Jakob: (leans backwards and eyes Andy as though he has just turned green and sprouted horns) "Are you feeling all right?"

Andy: "Sorry, I think Coug feels strongly on that subject, and is putting words in my mouth."
Jakob: "Oh, right. OK, so perhaps Moreno can't add up properly, that's all."
Andy: "And he manages your affairs? No wonder you didn't get paid on time!"

Jakob throws a cushion at Andy, and before it degenerates into a wrestling match, we will leave them to it.

But now we know that Jakob apparently has 110% to give. Good to know.

As an aside, I saw on Twitter yesterday that Leelu has threatened Jakob that if he goes to Astana, she will personally fly over and slap him. Not sure if that's a reaction to Astana's doping history, or their pale blue kit...

Would that be so bad? Jakob in pale blue? I'd rather see him in dark blue and yellow, of course - the Stinkoff kit is really nice: it's not often that a mid-season sponsor addition actually improves the kit, but this is one case where it did.

But although as a general point, I would rather see Jakob back at Saxo, is the Astana kit really that bad??

Monday 16 July 2012

Tacks at the Tour

Well, we are all staggering this morning: yesterday's stage of the Tour could very nearly have ended in disaster, in several ways, after some demented idiots thought it would be funny to throw carpet tacks onto the road, on the final climb of the day.

This was insanely dangerous for the cyclists, and poor Kiserlovski is now out of the race with a broken collarbone, thanks to these stupid people.

It wasn't even just the cyclists - here's a camerabike tyre with two carpet tacks clearly visible:

[caption id="attachment_1232" align="alignnone" width="600"]

Camera bike tyre with carpet tacks, Tour de France.[/caption]

And here are some of the tacks which were removed from tyres:

[caption id="attachment_1233" align="alignnone" width="600"]

Carpet tacks removed from punctured tyres after some idiots threw them onto the road in front of the peloton.[/caption]

For the benefit of non-UK viewers, carpet tacks are not nails, they are flat-headed metal tacks, used (as the name suggests) to hold down carpets. They are particularly nasty in this application, as the flat head means that when dropped, a high proportion will stand up on the flat head, with the pointy bit upwards: they not only have very sharp points, but the "shank" is not round, it is flat-sided and these sides are also very sharp.

They are designed to cut a three-cornered slit in stout carpet material, and I think we all know what they did to bicycle tyres.

Latest news so far indicates that they were scattered over the road some 200-300metres before the top of the hill. LLB and I discussed it at length, and I think it's quite clear that it was done by spectators, on foot, standing beside the road, and that they threw the tacks into the road as the race was passing them.

The fact that the break and the first block of the peloton were unaffected supports my view.

If caught, they should at least be done for the French equivalent of GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm) for causing a broken collarbone, and really they should be done for attempted manslaughter.

(Technically, for GBH you have to break the skin and spill blood - no really, this is absolutely true - but I think in this case breaking a collarbone and potentially ruining a career deserves to be punished.)

I mean, it's not just the riders, it's all the motorbikes as well: security bikes, camera bikes, TV bikes, interviewer bikes, Mavik bikes: one of those losing air pressure part-way down the descent could easily have been fatal.

Why would anyone do this? What sort of sick society do they come from, that they think it's ok, or funny, to do this?

My hope is that someone in the crowd will have caught them on their camera-phone, and will post it up on YooToob.

I reckon that if you had them loose in your hand, and started off by leaning both arms over the barrier, it would be quite easy to raise your arms as though just waving them, flinging tacks onto the road. I am sure that with the noise of the camera bikes, you would never hear them hitting the road surface, and as everyone would be watching the race, it's likely that no-one would see them do it.

So my hope is for someone nearly opposite to have unknowingly caught it all, clearly, on film.

I have no idea if these morons were actively targeting any specific riders, or allowing any specific riders to pass before spoiling everyone else's day: or whether they just wanted to spoil the race for everyone, indiscriminately.

I'm not quite sure which is worse: what do you think?

Sunday 15 July 2012

Leopard are in trouble?

Here we go again, this time Leopard are having to deny that they are having financial problems.

Interestingly, this report names Fabu and Frandy as being the other three riders who had complained to the UCI about not being paid on time - the fourth one being Jakob, which had already been reported a couple of times.

It seems a bit odd to me that earlier reports - the ones in which Jakob was complaining - didn't mention the high profile of the "other" unpaid riders: we were left to assume that it was domestiques who weren't getting paid. You do rather think that the "stars" not being paid would have made a much better story. Therefore I don't give a lot of credence to this report.

Also, just take a look at the financial backing of the team - RadioShack? Huge. Nissan? Very huge. Trek? Not exactly small. Plus the foreverer-tarred-in-my-view Mr Becca, who is frequently described as a billionaire: yes, he may well be undergoing investigation for not paying his taxes, I imagine that is very much an ongoing situation for any rich person wanting to hang on to as much of their wealth as possible.

All this lot added together probably barely notice the amount it costs to run a pro team, even if they have had to splash out on new helmets with a small panel of yellow on them for the Tour team.

Yes! Shack have found a way to co-operate with ASO's wish to have yellow helmets on the team classification leaders, while still embarrassing Sky for wearing "Bob the builder" dayglo helmets.

Actually, they don't look like new helmets at all - presumably one of the soigneurs spent ten minutes with a paintbrush turning the red sections into a sort of orangey-yellow, while the boys were warming up on the rollers.

Meanwhile, here's a photo that deserves a second look:

What is wrong with this photo? It's a bunch of Leopards on a podium, ah, an old photo, eh? But no!

There's the old Leopard kit, on the right, but who's that wearing it?

Then Little Fab in the middle, who ought to be in Leopard kit, but isn't.

Then Linus, definitely another Leopard, but he's got an extra stripe? Oh, he's wearing Shack kit!

Answer: it's the German Nationals (road), won by Little Fab (riding for Garmin Quackacuda) (ok, now known as Garmin Sharp, less amusing) so he's now in a national jersey, with Linus second, and the other guy is Julian Kern, riding for Team Leopard Trek "Junior League" as it were, wearing the old kit.

Ah, sigh for the happy days of Leopard Trek, brief as they were.

Any other Tour news?

Fabu's wife had a little girl, so yay for them: Tony Gallopin was sent home ill, *glum face* but Shack managed to get five riders in the first group yesterday, which is quite an achievement after a hard day of riding, a horrible last-minute hill, and the much-anticipated strong winds in the final few kms.

They also have five riders in the top 20 in the GC today, which is pretty good going - and don't forget that all these finishes are earning UCI points. The UCI site, annoyingly, hasn't been updated since the 17th June - come on guys, get with it!! - so it still shows Shack as 10th in the team rankings, but I think they must be a bit higher than that, by now.

Peter "more fun than a jammie dodger" Sagan continues to amuse, entertain, and win stuff: Sky are going great guns *waves Sky flag* and "Bumfluff" Van Garderen is holding the white jersey, and is looking stronger than his team leader, Cadel Evans.

Talking of which, anyone know how an Australian pronounces a very typical Welsh name? Half the commentators say Kadd'll, the other half say K'Dell. Sorry, what was that? Do we really care? No, I guess we don't!

Meanwhile, back in Luxembourg:

Mrs S: (exasperated voice) "Andy! Will you go outside and play? I am sick of you crashing around inside the house."
Andy: "Aww, but muuuuumm, I'm booooooorrrrred."
Mrs S: "Well, go out on your bi- errr, go swimming or something."
Andy: (dejected voice) "But I've been swimming for four hours already today, look at my fingers, they're like prunes."

He holds up two handfuls of wrinkled fingers to prove his point.

Mrs S: "Well, take the dog out for a walk. Just get outside, for heaven's sake."
Andy: (in weary voice) "Oh, all right. Come on Stuey, walkies."

Friday 13 July 2012

Andy goes Swimming

Drat! I read this news report in Velonation this morning, confirming that Andy's cracked pelvic bone is not healing up as fast as everyone would like it to, such that he can't ride his bike properly yet.

Instead he's doing as much other exercise as he can, and in particular he's doing a lot of swimming.

So why "Drat!"?

Because about a week ago, I thought it would be funny to write a Schpleculation post about Andy going swimming, and Jakob fixing up a bike underwater, bolted to the side of the pool, so that Andy could exercise his leggies without having to put weight on his backside. The underwater bike would have paddles on the spokes, to provide resistance, and the joke was going to be that Jakob set it too low in the water, so Andy had to breathe through a snorkel while using it.

Or possibly a modified aero helmet.

But there's not much point, now that the whole world knows that he's been "mainly swimming".

Ho hum. You would have heard it here first, if I'd found time to write about it when I thought of it.

And of course Andy won't be coming to London for the Olympics any more, although there's no reason why he can't come here as a supporter, surely? Come on Andy, you can stand with LLB and I: if you ask nicely, I'll let you wave my big Leopard flag, for old times' sake.

So, other cycling news? Well, my Main Team, Team Sky, are having a fantastic Tour. We're all impressed by Frome, and I'm well impressed with Cavendish: I think a lot of people were wondering how he would cope without his HTC train, and whether there would be friction in Sky, or a split in the team between riding for Cav and riding for Wiggins. However, it's worked out perfectly, as far as I can see, and they are still holding the maillot jaune, which is terrific news for British cycling.

The Shack aren't doing too badly either: despite a somewhat spotty performance, they are clocking up some good finishes, and are getting UCI points. They are even holding the team classification again today - but not wearing the yellow helmets.

This is a bit of a sore point for me: the organisers, ASO, decided to revive the "yellow cap" routine, and instructed all the teams to bring along a set of yellow helmets. Sky were leading the team classification, and wore the yellow helmets, and got a lot of stick on the forums, as people (who clearly hadn't read the race manual) thought they were showing off, or bragging about how they were going to get the yellow jersey.

Finally, a different team took over the lead of the team classification, and they chose not to wear yellow lids! Apparently it wasn't compulsory: four out of the 22 teams chose not to bring yellow lids, and Shack were one of them. Which leaves all those ill-informed people thinking that Sky are a bunch of big-heads. Which I find a bit annoying.

As far as the Leopards are concerned, Fabian has gone home to await the birth of his second child, so good luck to Mrs Fab! (mental picture of Fab at her bedside, holding her hand: "Push!" he says, "Push!" . At that moment he is distracted by his reflection in one of the bed-side monitors. "Hmm, my hair looks nice...")

The Tour had possibly the slowest sprint finish ever today: the break of 5 riders were over 10 minutes ahead of the peloton, so they weren't exactly under pressure to get on with it. After a thrilling (?) game of cat-and-mouse with Jean-Christophe Peraud, the UK rider David Millar, riding for Garmin Sharp, came in first.

The spectators seemed a bit confused, to see the leaders of the stage coming in at a gentle Sunday-afternoon pace instead of hammering for the line.

It's a particularly sweet win for David Millar, who is one of my "pets", by the way, as he is a Repentant Doper: back in 2004 he admitted to doping, took his punishment, and has been clean ever since - and not only clean, he is now an outspoken anti-doper. He admits that he was young and foolish, and not brave enough to say "no". I watched a wonderful interview on British tv a couple of years ago, the interviewer was harsh and unforgiving, and David Millar was just about in tears, but he admitted his mistakes with his head held high, and more or less said "don't do it, kids" to all the young riders coming into the sport.

This is his first win since then, so, as I say, particularly sweet.

As has been pointed out, four stage wins for four different UK riders, all of whom are in the Olympic team. *waves Union Jack flag in a sudden excess of national pride*

It wasn't a bad day for the Shack, either: they had 6 riders in the main peloton, all coming in with the same time, and yes, Frankie was safely there. He's still sitting 12th in the GC, which isn't bad, plus he's 8 minutes up on Maxime Monfort who, just a day or two ago, was being referred to as a team leader by the unlovely Mr Bruyneel. You show him, Frankie!

Monday 9 July 2012

Yay, Jakob!

Somewhere in Luxembourg, Andy Schleck is slumped on the sofa, dejected and with a sore backside. He is watching an incomprehensible children's tv show featuring a wooden spoon with a wig, eyes but no mouth, apparently having a conversation with someone offscreen, but not in any language that he recognises.

He looks around listlessly as the front door opens so energetically that it bounces back off the wall.

A greek god springs into the room, which is lit as though with a golden glow.

Jakob: “Andy! Dude!”
Andy: (rouses himself with some difficulty) “Jakob?”
Jakob: “Look!” (turns on the spot)
Andy: (reluctantly smiling) “Aaw, dude, you got the yellow.”
Jakob: “Yay for me! And yar boo sucks to the management, this will show them!”

He does the "stirring the custard" dance, making Andy smile a little more.

Andy: (throws a cushion at Jakob) “Dude, I'm really happy for you, well done, mate. But no UCI points?”
Jakob: “Who cares? Every team manager in the peloton knows that I'm good, I'm improving every season, I'm on great form, and I'm worth the money. "
Andy nods his head: "True, true. I'll be really, really sorry to lose you, mate."

For a moment the mood in the room drops, and the golden glow dims a little.

Jakob: "But hey! We'll always be mates!"
Andy: "Yeeeeeaaahhh, we will, won't we?"

They look at each other and start to laugh.

Jakob: "Come on, a bit more enthusiasm - look, a yellow jersey! Go and get yours, put it on, come on, come on!”

Andy is reluctant, but Jakob is fizzing and won't take no for an answer, and pesters Andy until the pair of them are wearing yellow jerseys and doing the stirring the custard dance...

Meanwhile back in the real world, here is Jakob on the podium at the Tour of Austria. Little Miss Botox to his left seems strangely unmoved by it all, but the other podium girl seems to be quite taken with him, which is what we would expect, frankly.

Turning to other, less happy matters, what on earth is going on at the Shack?

Well, I know the easy answer is that they are a team in turmoil, it is clear that half their riders are not having a good time, and it is entirely possible that we will be seeing a mass exodus at the end of this season, contracts or no contracts.

Yesterday there was a bit of a stink in the cycling news from Kloden: the team sent out a press release saying that Kloden had said that his legs felt weak.

Kloden used his Twitter account to respond (presumably they've learned not to talk to journalists, after Jakob's little experience) and described the RNT press release as "bullshit".

This is appalling on several levels: why are the management putting around stories that he is weak, why do they not know that he is not feeling weak, why do they not have the decency to show the press releases to the riders before they are issued, why are the riders apparently totally unable to talk to the management, having to rely on their own blogs (Horner) and tweets to get their side of a story aired?

Then today we have another truly appalling press release: we all know that the Shack are having a really bad Tour, we know that Frankie is tired, we can see for ourselves that he is not going particularly well, we could see through yesterday's stage that none of the others was feeling particularly great, apart from Gallopin the sprinter who climbed the hill faster than the others: yet they managed to get five riders in the top 15. Five out of 15!! But what did the press release concentrate on?

Encouraging the team?

Putting a good face on things?

The fact that they now lead the team classification?

No - they went with something like "We don't have a real leader in the team".

Gee, thanks, Shack, nice to know how much you care.

At present the only way out of this that I can see is for Mr Bruyneel to be given the sack from Shack, then everyone else can ride out their contracts in peace, Jakob can make his own decision, Kim Andersen can go to whatever races he thinks best for the team, the sponsors will be relieved to have an end to the bad publicity, and we can all settle down a bit.

As far as the rumours of the new German team go, I can at least confirm that, after careful scrutiny of the Shack site (well, I looked at the partners page) there is no sign of Alpecin as a sponsor for Shack.

Which means that they could well be starting a new team. Although there is no mention of sponsorship of anyone, let alone cycling, on their website. I am beginning to wonder if the whole thing has been a misunderstanding.

So, what are we expecting for today? It's the TT, it's fairly long, 41kms, it won't suit Frankie but I am sure that he will do his best: and Shack will be wearing yellow helmets.

Or will they? Did the ASO seriously tell every one of 22 teams that they had to bring a set of yellow helmets, AND a set of yellow TT helmets? What a ridiculous waste of money, especially for the smaller teams. I vote for the spray-can of yellow paint, myself.

Sunday 8 July 2012

Frank Schleck goes to Rabobank!

I know, amazing news, you heard it first here - Frankie has gone to Rabobank. I have no idea if Andy is going as well, or any of the others: at this time, only Frankie is confirmed.

He has also, in movement of great solidarity with his new team, changed his nationality to Dutch.

What am I talking about? Tour de Frank - sorry, Tour de France - stage 7 results, as shown by Eurosport who, you would assume, know what they are talking about:

There you go, Frank Schleck (NED) of team RAB. You heard it here first.

Other, less fictitious news: d'aaaw, my pet Honorary Schlecklander Teejay van Garderen, or "Bum-fluff" as he is known, has lost the white jersey of Young Riders, due to coming in 3' 8" down on that incredibly steep finish. He's had to hand it over to Rein Taaramae (or Rain Tiramasu, as I think of him). And of course Fabu has lot the yellow jersey, but we always knew that he would, and at least he now holds the record for the most days in yellow for someone who hasn't actually won the race.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Luxembourg:

Andy, slumped on the sofa, legs stretched out in front of him: "Pfff"
We hear the door opening, there is a gust of fresh air, papers flutter off the table, and Jakob bursts into the room, bringing a warm yellow glow with him. It is as though the sun has come out.

Jakob: "Andy! Dude!"
Andy: (rouses himself with some difficulty) "Jakob?"
Jakob: "Look!" (turns on the spot)
Andy: (reluctantly smiling) "Aaw, dude, you got the yellow."
Jakob: "Yay for me! I did it for Leelu, really."
Andy: (throws a cushion at Jakob) "Don't say that, you'll get in trouble!"
Jakob: "Yeah, right..."

At that moment, Andy wakes up and gazes around the room, disoriented and confused. It was only a dream.... but who knows, a dream that might well be true.

Saturday 7 July 2012

Welcome to Wordpress?

OK Schlecklanders, welcome to our new home: I'm not sure at this point if we will be here permanently, but let's give it a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

I have concerns about this re-blogging thing: honestly, what is the point of re-blogging? Someone is just stealing "my" stuff to make their dull, boring, empty blog look better: and anyone reading their blog is going to see, well, stuff by other people. So why would they bother going back to that blog?

OK, there is a valid point that someone might want to say "Hey, I found this really good blog the other day" but we already do that on Blogger, it's called "putting a link to someone else". Or we can just look at the profiles of other followers, and see what they follow, in case there's anything interesting there.

I just don't see the value in nicking other people's stuff entirely, to pad out your own blog.

Long-term Schlecklanders might even remember that back when I started the original Schleckland *sigh - "hold baby, throw bouquet" - ah, happy days* I used to assiduously ask photographers for permission to use their photos, as I despised the way that Tumblr people, in particular, used to re-blog, or "copy" as we call it, other people's photos.

I admit that I've learned not to do that anymore: anything published on the internet is fair game, it seems, but at least if people are cutting and pasting your content, they are putting in a bit of effort. To just click on a button provided by Wordpress - and worst of all, PROUDLY provided by Wordpress - seems to me to be sending out the wrong message entirely. And we, the blog writers, can't opt out: Wordpress say that re-blogging is a vital part of their package, and they want everyone to use the whole package in order to give the full experience to all users.

Well, maties, here is one use who will not be re-blogging, and who does not approve. Apparently, if you have a blog that is heavily weighted towards your own photos, and you want to stop people re-blogging them, you can start each post with a tiny, one pixel by one pixel picture. This is invisible to readers, but means that if anyone reblogs you, their system can't display the first photo as it is too small, and therefore none of the following photos are visible either.

I might try that, one day! Not that I have many original photos....

Right, new blog: what features do we have?

This one doesn't have Followers as such, but you can click on the "Follow by email" button if you like - apparently it sends you an email when I put up a new blog or when new comments arrive. Which saves you having to keep coming back and looking for new posts, as I am not the most regular of bloggers, sorry about that.

Comments are still freely available: as I understand it, I have to "approve" the first time you comment, but thereafter you are unmodified and can just say what you like (within reason). Anyone using the F word will be blocked! You have been warned. Play nicely, everyone. Thank you.

The system seems to assign a random funny cartoon icon to commenters who don't have a wordpress account: it seems that I get a choice of boring geometric patterns or cartoon monsters, so I chose the one that seemed more appropriate to Schlecklanders, ha! ha!

So, enough of the admin: today we are heading into the hills at long last, away from the long flat stages and the inevitable crashes.

I'm writing this before the stage starts, so I don't know if JVS is going to make the start line (apparently he lost consciousness briefly during the crash, and was "disoriented" immediately afterwards: no surprise there, then) but I have fingers crossed for him, and for everyone who was injured yesterday.

And oops, forgot to say CONGRATULATIONS, FABIAN!! for making it 27 days in yellow in his career so far, which is the most days in yellow for anyone who hasn't actually won the Tour. Yay, Fab!

Friday 6 July 2012

Death of an honorary Schlecklander

Boo hoo, I found out yesterday that Rob Goris has sadly died from a heart attack at the very early age of just 30 years.

Cycling News gave a brief report, saying that he was visiting the Tour yesterday and died in his sleep overnight.

He became an honorary Schlecklander last year, after the commentators kept referring to him as the Belgian Fritte Boy due to his er, somewhat chunky build. He came into cycling from Ice Hockey, bit of a change of career there: and proved that you don't have to be a tiny skinny little thing in order to be a good professional cyclist.

It is always tragic when a young man dies: I was particularly sad as this is the second Honorary Schlecklander to die, after poor Tondo died last May.

Luckily, before I began to get a complex about ever picking any more honorary Schlecklanders, I remembered all those who have gone on to bigger and better things: like Johan Van Summeren (JVS) who, after being a super domestique for so many years, came to fame on my blog for his strange habit of tucking up his sleeves, obscuring the Garmin-blue band. Then he won Paris-Roubaix last year, ha ha, good boy!

Not to forget Ryder Hesjerdal, of course: I was taking the mickey out of his name a year ago, and look what a great year he's had! Well, up until today, that is, when he was involved in a very nasty crash and came in over 13 mins down, in 181th place. Oops.

Talking of JVS, poor boy, he came in last today, 16 minutes down, having also been caught in that crash, and this is what he looked like:

Ouch! Not a lot of that jersey left! 14 minutes earlier, Frankie and his group came in, only losing 2 minutes or so, which was pretty remarkable, considering what a huge crash it was.

Strangely, Frankie appears to be frothing at the mouth as he crosses the line, below: at least, I can't imagine what else it could be?

Frankie Schleck frothing at the mouth at the end of Stage 6 TdF

Schleckland is Back!

Well, strictly speaking, not the original Schleckland: this blog is moving over to WordPress for a while, to see if it's better than Blogger.

The address is schleckland.wordpress.com

Go here to see what we're up to. This is what it looks like, for now:

I have imported all of this blog over to there, so you can still go back and check through old blog entries if you want to, but so far I haven't quite figured out how to get the Pages over there. Give me time! I'm well through my exams, one more to go but it's the big one, and I need to do serious revision before I take the exam. So bear with me, please!

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Schleckland is Back!

Hey Schlecklanders, welcome to our new home!

Blogger was all right to start with, but it will shortly be time to move on, so I'm trying out this one, although somewhat apprehensive about a terrible feature called "re-blogging" where, apparently, other bloggers can simply steal these blog entries and publish them on their own blogs.

I'm not at all sure that I care for that idea!

I mean, Tumblr is all about getting popular by being reblogged: and it's mostly (with due respect) just photos. I'm not at all keen on someone else getting the credit for all my hard work, but we'll see how it goes. Maybe Schleckland is so obscure that no-one else will want to reblog it!!

Please let me know if you've had any problems with this site, or if you spot anything missing from Eisen Andy.

Auntie Coug

Vier, funf, Schlecks again?

What is going on?

Yesterday, watching the recording of Stage 2's Tour with LLB, we clearly heard the commentators say that a new German sponsor had been taken on "by the Schlecks". The sponsor makes hair products, which lead to a lot of predictable jokes about hair, although oddly enough, they didn't mention tuftage. But they did say that the sponsor was on board "as from today".

They also did not mention RadioShack, which was very interesting.

I have scoured the news reports this morning, and all I can find is this report, which can't make its mind up whether to run with "Schlecks leave Shack for new German team" or "Shack get additional sponsor".

As Brian Nygaard says in the report - and, oh, how interesting that they chose to ask him, of all people - it is simply not possible to put a team together between now and September.

Mr McQuaid - remember him? - says that it would be lovely to have a German team again, but confirms that it's unlikely that a completely new team could be created between now and September.

The report also mentions the strong link between the new sponsor - Alpecin - and Trek. Which would support the idea that was rumoured earlier this week, about Trek being unhappy with not getting named billing in the team name, and looking to start a new team.

Jensi also has something to say, "I haven't received a call with a concrete contract yet" he says. Which implies that he has received some calls, just not a concrete one. This makes it sound as though a new team is a distinct possibility.

But there's a different report out today, in which Frankie is quoted as saying that he and Andy have a contract until 2014 and that they will honour their contract.

Then, just this afternoon - yes, I am updating this blog twice in the same day! Have I no work to do? - there is another report telling us that Kim Andersen is denying that he's been invited to participate. He, like Frankie, is saying firmly that he will honour his contract, which runs for another year.

How intriguing!

Oh,and a side issue from the Kim Andersen report is that apparently, Mr Bruyneel didn't let him go the Tour at all, even after he, Mr Bruyneel, was blocked from attending himself. What a meanie! Talk about dog in the manger, Mr Bruyneel couldn't go because of his part in the ongoing Lance Armstrong investigation, but he's told poor old Kim Andersen that he can't go either. "Boo!"

And what do we know about Alpecin? Well, it's basically hair products to prevent hair loss *muffled sniggers* and their tagline is "German engineering for your hair". In particular, they make a caffeine shampoo. Wonder if they do a clenbuterol conditioner? Let's hope not, eh?

Monday 2 July 2012

The Yellowheads

I don't know about you, but I have never paid any attention at all to the "which team is leading the Team Classification" in major races.

It just doesn't seem relevant: I know it contributes to the UCI points-plus-several-esoteric-factors decision in which teams get Pro-Team status the following year, but I just can't get too excited about it.

In previous years, the leading team would wear yellow numbers on their backs.

This year, the UCI have decreed that they must wear yellow helmets, and apparently instructed all the teams to bring along a set of their own helmets, coloured yellow ("the colour of baby ducks" as we all know) in case they lead the classification.

Which does make you wonder if some of the smaller teams - the ones with small budgets and, without wishing to be nasty, not a chance in the world of leading the classification - would just bring along a can of spray paint?

Well, Fabian won the TT (Yay! Go, Fabu!) so he is in the jellow jersey, and he is wearing a yellow hat as well. Sky won the Team Classification - which is calculated on the top three riders of each team - so they have been lumbered with wearing their yellow helmets.

I haven't seen footage of Stage 1 yet (LLB has recorded it for me) but I understand that already, the fans are complaining about it, especially with the confusion between Fabian and team Sky, (ooh, what a rumour that would be!) in the helicopter shots.

Meanwhile, back in Luxemboug:

Andy, with glum face : "Pfff."
Jil: "Aw, come on, cheer up, next year you will be in it."
Andy, still looking glum: "Pffff."