Trek Factory Racing - seriously?

Wow, that's a catchy name for a team - not! 

I'm hoping that Trek will come up something a little more stylish before they get the kit printed....

The UCI have announced the list of teams requesting Pro-team status, and would you believe it, there are exactly 18 teams applying for 18 places.

That should work out quite neatly, then, shouldn't it? Assuming that the Dark Lords are granted pro status again without all last year's faffing about, that is.

We never did get the full story about that, but rumour has it that it was to do with their ridiculously over-inflated travel budget - figures of 27 million euros were mentioned, compared to the mere 23 million which Team Sky spend on their entire operation - and the suggestion was that money-laundering was involved.

At least it was nothing to do with doping!

Unlike poor old Jonathon Tiernan-Locke, whose Biological passport shows irregularities after last year's Tour of Britain, but which only, mysteriously, came to light a couple of days before the British Cycling guy, Brian Cookson, was going up against Pat McQuaid in the UCI elections. Suspicious timing, huh? Make the UK guy look bad, huh? And who is JTL's manager, we ask ourselves? Oh yes, McQuaid's son. How very odd.

Leaving all that aside, Andy's been in the news again, for all the wrong reasons, *sigh* when he withdrew from Milano-Torino with a sinus infection. At least this time he didn't start, as opposed to DNF! *laughs* Yes, we have to be able to laugh at these things - although I bet he's not laughing much these days, poor boy.

So, OGL is booked to appear in Il Lombardie today, so fingers crossed that all goes well for him, and let's see a few of those Lux Ensign flags waving out there on the course - I've really missed seeing them along the course. I don't expect he'll be winning the race, but it would be good to see him pedalling well again.

That leaves just the Tour of Beijing *cough splutter* and the season is officially over, and hopefully we can look forward to a much, much better new year.

But really, Trek Factory Racing? Factory Racing? Might as well have "presented by" tacked on the back of it - sounds like a continental team, not a top level Pro Team. *sigh*