And today we had the Presentation of the teams - cringe, it never improves, does it? Well, I say that: this year's effort was considerably better than that terrible bull-ring fiasco a year ago - or was it two? I can't remember.
This time they had the teams staying on luxury liners, apparently, and being brought in one team at a time on launches. With their bikes.
You would have thought that anyone with any sense - or, for example, the insurance agencies - would have !seen the potential for accidents, falling overboard, being sick, dropping bikes etc, and would have said "Non!"
However, luckily it all seemed to go without incident, there were one or two near misses which made LLB and I cry out in two-part harmony, but no-one actually fell in the water, or dropped their bike.
And was there anything of note, apart from me saying "Hi, Jakob!" and "Hi, Andy" at the appropriate moments? (They were both looking, good, if anyone is interested: Andy was looking quite relaxed, and laughed during his interview.)
Well, Blanco have their new sponsor, Belkin, and they have a new kit to go with it: kinda similar to the Blanco kit but with the shoulders in Belkin pale green, quite retro, quite nice.
Team Trek, on the other hand (that's me trying out new names, in case you hadn't realised) turned up with newly painted bikes - weirdly, although they are by definition Trek bikes, they were painted Bianchi blue.
Which is almost, by coincidence, Ass-t'na blue. This could lead to problems in any big pile-up - the Ass-t'na boys will grab the bikes in their uniform colour, and there will be squabbles!
Once again, though, the organisers missed the point of the presentation: we want to see who exactly is in the race, so a graphic on the screen telling us all the names would be a good start. And a clear shot of each rider in turn, with his name highlighted, and I think it would also be massively useful to have them labelled as "Sprinter" or "Road Captain" or "Climber" etc. It would make it much easier to establish what sort of team had been sent.
Ah well, at least we saw Our Andy, and he's looking good.
Wonder if Frankie is sitting at home watching? Not much longer, Frankie, you will soon be racing again!
I can't believe Leopard bikes are now Astana twinses! What the hell were they thinking?
ReplyDeleteImagine if there was a pile up and Andy picks up the first blue bike he sees, sets off on his merry way and discovers its 5 sizes too small for him! Oh dear...shenanigans ensues!
Maybe at the presentation they should have a box of blowup water wings as they get off the boat in case of any whoopsies into the water, but you know if I was there I would be on stand by to play lifeguard in case, say Jakob falls overboard, I would save him and give mouth-to-mouth (wheather he needs mouth-to-mouth is beside the point, but I would have to do my duty!)
I really hope Andy and Jakob do well this year, they really need something to smile about :)
Michelle