"On the Seventh day of Christmas..."

On the Seventh day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

"Looking cool in Oakleys"

"Relaxing with Jakob"

"It's a - KAN GA ROO!!!"

"Slighty dirty face"

"I'm with my bike"

 "Don't cwy, Uncle Andy!"

"And a picture of Andy and Jil!" 

What's that? They're not Oakleys? Like I care!! "Looking cool in shades" didn't fit the carol, nor did "Looking cool in sunglasses" so I went with Oakleys as being possibly the only make of shades as worn by the pro peloton that I actually know. When I say "know",  I do of course mean "have vaguely heard of" as I am simply not into labels, designer stuff etc.

Regardless, Our Andy is looking pretty darned cool in them. And kinda young!

It's the last day of 2014 today: not the best year for Eisen Andy fans, what with Andy struggling, being injured again, and then retiring.

I feel so bad that the career-ending injury happened in my home town, while I was watching (so to speak) and I feel even worse that, although we briefly breathed the same air, I didn't get a close eye-to-eye look at Andy as he sped past me along the Embankment on his we-didn't-know-it-then-but-it-was-ruined knee.  I saw Fab, which was breathtaking, and Kittel, which was less so, but I didn't actually see Andy's face. They go so fast! Whoosh! and they're away.. and so much depends which side of the peloton they are riding on at that crucial second. Ah well, at least I was there, I was at le Tour in London, I was present at Andy's last professional race. *sigh*

"On the Sixth day of Christmas..."

On the Sixth day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

 "Relaxing with Jakob"

"It's a - KAN GA ROO!!!"

"Slighty dirty face"

"I'm with my bike"

 "Don't cwy, Uncle Andy!"

"And a picture of Andy and Jil!" 

I always loved the way Jakob was just relaxing in the background, watching tv and not paying any attention to the interviewer.   Does anyone know what happened to Jakob's flat in Mondorf? Does he live somewhere else now he's with another team? Do they still hang out together?

"On the Fifth day of Christmas..."

On the Fifth day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

 (All together now:)

"It's a - KAN GA ROO!!!"

"Slighty dirty face"

"I'm with my bike"

 "Don't cwy, Uncle Andy!"

"And a picture of Andy and Jil!" 

Hooray for the Tour Down  Under, always good for a laugh, and  hooray for Our Andy, always prepared to smile for the journalists, no matter what ridiculous things they think up for him to do.

"On the Fourth day of Christmas..."

On the Fourth day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

"Slighty dirty face"

"I'm with my bike"

 "Don't cwy, Uncle Andy!"

"And a picture of Andy and Jil!" 

Cute, huh? Can't remember how long I've had that particular photo sitting in my "cycling blog possibles" folder waiting to be used... what with the injuries, and before that with the not-so-good performance, it just never seemed like the right time to include it.

So I'll include it here! Hopefully you are all still stuffed full of turkey and good cheer, and you won't mind seeing Our Andy with a filthy face!

"On the Third day of Christmas..."

On the Third day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

"I'm with my bike"

 "Don't cwy, Uncle Andy!"

"And a picture of Andy and Jil!" 

I have no idea where this park is, or why Our Andy (I am making the most of saying that, as at the end of the year he officially won't be "ours" any more, but will be a private person, and therefore printing photos of him and talking about his life won't be fandom but will be "stalking"...... ) was posing with his bike,  but it's from early 2013. If anyone know, feel free to tell us!

"On the Second day of Christmas..."

On the Second day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

 "Don't cwy, Uncle Andy!"

"And a picture of Andy and Jil!" 

Aww, *sniffles*  I always get a bit emotional when I remember this video, of the post-race Liege-Bastogne-Liege moment back in 2011, when Our Andy had ridden a good race but had not actually won it again, and he was having a quiet moment in amongst the hecticness, when Martine brought a tiny Leea over to him to wipe his face and give him a kiss. Remember?

"On the First day of Christmas..."

On the First day of Christmas, the Quacktain gave to us:

"A picture of Andy and Jil!" 

It's Christmas day, so I'm not seriously expecting any Schlecklanders to come here, but just in case... Happy Christmas, everyone!

In case any non-Shlecklanders have landed here, and are asking themselves "Who's the Quacktain?" then I have to admit *shamefaced* that it's me. 

It's a nick-name that developed a couple of years ago: I was promoted to Captain of the Schleckland Ship, or the SS Schleckland if you prefer, so I was Captain Coug for quite some time.

Here's my twitter avatar (right). Please note the Lux Ensign flying at the masthead!

Then, I can't quite remember how, there was something on Twitter about ducks...

.. and I made myself an avatar of a duck with photoshopped RadioShambles kit - left - and there was some tweeting of terrible puns about ducks and Someone (you know who I mean, Susan Figgy Change-my-name ) started calling me the Quacktain.

It kinda stuck.

Anyway, the Quacktain (that's me) sends the very best wishes to all Schlecklanders old and new, and to Andy and Tinkerjil and all the other Schlecks, old and new (!) and I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas.

And no, I'm not actually sitting here typing at 8am on Christmas day, silly - I set the next few posts up in advance. I'm not daft!

Andy's writing a book!

Well, I know what will be on my Christmas list for next year - Our Andy has announced that he's thinking of writing a book!

There's a very welcome article on Cycling News this morning, in which Andy mentions that he has a job, but can't tell us about it yet - ooh, I hope he's going to be a commentator for Eurosport, wouldn't that be fab? He'd be brilliant at it (said she, loyally).

Seriously,  I have no idea if he'd be good at it or not , but I suspect that he would.  I was really impressed with Juan Antonio Flecha, ex-Sky rider, the one who got boomphed by the car at the Tour in 2011....

....here is the wicked moment, as if we needed reminding - Flecha was hit by the car, Johnny Hoogerland was catapulted over the barbed wire fence leading to 37 stitches and a new pair of shorts, and Tommy Voeckler kept on cycling.

Flecha popped up at a couple of races as a commentator, and he was really, really good! Nice voice, insightful, interesting, and at the end of the race we got some footage of him chatting, and now that his hair has grown long again, he had turned into a good-looking dude!

Anyway, if Flecha can do it, I think Andy would be even better: after all, he speaks four languages fluently, every rider in the peloton would talk to him, just think what great post-race interviews he would get!

Andy mentions that he was very depressed for a couple of months after retiring *sends virtual hug* but he's feeling better now, he's been working at the gym, and has taken up roller-skiing, and is now thinking about writing an up-beat book about the good times with Jensie and Stuey and so on.

That's a book I'd like to read! Lots of photos, please, Andy, lots of photos.

Stinkoff 2015 kit... meh.

*rolls eyes* Here we go again, first new kit for the new year - apart from the French Army camo kit, of course - and already they are falling foul of Auntie Coug's Don't Do It Kit Rules.

To remind you, these rules include:

1) Have a big distinctive logo on the top of the back for helicopter shots.
2) Don't waste anything on the stomach area as you can't see it when they are riding.
3) Ditto the back pockets, as they are covered by race numbers (Garmin, take note).
4) Print the team name in big letters across the tops of the shoulders, highly visible in head-on shots.
5) Scrap the asymmetric kits!! It's annoying!!
6) Put the rider name in big letters sideways on the near-side of the jersey. Not in tiny letters on the collar, we can't read those.
7) Put the sponsor name along the thigh - nice and clear. Have it heading downhill on the right leg, uphill on the left leg.
8) Remember the highest proportion of tv coverage is from a camera bike on the near side.
9) Watch some damn footage!!
and finally 10) avoid groinal emphasis - please! please! - and white shorts.

Stinkoff have failed on point 10, they have gone for the total groinal emphasis look:

Ugh! I hate this, it makes them look ridiculous and surely does nothing to bring new young men into the sport.

It's bad enough having to admit that you wear lycra to compete in it, without looking as though you are wearing a nappy.

Oh, and finally, to go back the the Auntie Coug Rules for a moment, kit designers should give some thought to national jerseys: it would be good if the UCI issued a ruling that national jerseys have to have some relationship to the team colour.

Although I really loved the Captain America suit, and I was pretty struck with the Team GB kit, I would really prefer that National jerseys were just a big panel with the national flag in it. Fabs looked great with the Swiss flag on his back, it was eyecatching and obvious, but you could still see what team he rode for.

As you can see, above, Stinkoff have given Sagan (and Valgren, Danish champ) totally different kits, and it annoys me to heck that they have made a gesture towards team solidarity by including the yellow leg bands, but they have failed even at that, because instead of one yellow and one blue (check the photo) they have given him two yellow bands. Why?! Why?! Consistency, chaps, for heavens' sake!!

*goes off to sit in corner and harumph about it for a while*

The new kit starts arriving...

Trek factory released some photos recently, including one of the riders being given their new kit:

Quite impressive, isn't it: neat piles of nicely folded kit, all spread out on tables, presumably marked by size.

I assume that they have already been given their "own" jerseys with their names on, and that this lot is leggings, casual stuff, gilets, gloves, all the rest of it.

The style doesn't seem to have changed, which is a relief in the sense that we already recognise it, and a disappointment in the sense that it's not that good a kit - the stripes are worthless (can't see them from any distance and close up they look like that bit under the chin of a whale, you know, the ones that circle underwater then come up vertically with a huge open mouth) the names are too small to be read on tv, and I really, really object to asymmetrical kit on the grounds that it means, in effect, remembering two kits for one team, depending on where the camera bikes are.

It's also worth repeating at this point that most footage is shot from the nearside, so listen to me, kit designers: don't put the "different" item on the off-side! We won't see it!

Getting back to the sheer quantity of stuff, it looks as though Trek are doing quite well - until  you see the pics of Team Sky taking delivery of their kit for next season:

I believe the word here is "awesome!"

French Army Team - conti - in camo!

This report made me laugh out loud, and proved a good antidote to the Ass-t'na doping fiasco: the French army have put together a pro cycling team and have been given a "special" Continental licence by the FFC (French cycling federation).

We're unlikely to see them, as they'll only be racing at Conti level, and we barely get all of the World Tour races on tv, but frankly we'd be unlikely to see them anyway, as their kit is - yes, you've guessed it, the title was a bit of a giveaway, wasn't it? - is a variety of dpm or camouflage.

(dpm is the proper name for it, it stands for something like Disruptive Pattern Material, ie it breaks up the outline of person, plane, tank etc making it less easy to see)

Here it is:

Hilarious, eh?

Once again, I have to say, do these kit designers never actually see any racing? Do they actually look at what they are doing?  The plain panels on the outsides of the thighs might well be there for sponsor names, but it looks as though each rider has a large black frog, or possibly a bull with big horns, sitting on his groin.

Not nice.

I don't know if it is accidental or not, these groin-emphasising designs, but it makes me quite uncomfortable (or makes me snort with laughter through my nose, disastrous if drinking while watching racing) and I don't think it enhances the image of cycling. I'd love to be able to ask some kit design houses about their choice of design, and their apparent disregard of visibility while the kit is actually working on a real body, on a real bike.

And please note the rider second from left, who is ruining the entire effect by wearing fluorescently bright orange shoes.....

So Astana scrape their way in, huh?

After weeks of speculation in the press, and more rumours than you can shake a spoke at, the UCI have finally confirmed that Ass-t'na are in, but Europcar are out.

On the one hand it's good that Ass-t'na are in the World Tour, as their team contains arguably some of the best riders out there - Contador, Nibali, Sagan, and of course Fuglsang - but it's a bit of a blow that they have not apparently even been punished for having two confirmed dopers on the team, ie the Iglinsky brothers, both of whom have tested positive for EPO.

Both of them have been sacked by the team, and it was hilarious reading Nibali's take on the situation: "I didn't have anything to do with them, they are stupid, I didn't train with them, I barely know them."

Great way to show team spirit, Nibbles.

As an aside, is it worse that the two dopers were related, or better?

I have rather assumed that it's a good thing - if the two brothers were "in it" together,  they could cover for each other, help to hide the stuff, maybe help each other to use it.  Doping is not something you can do alone, you have to buy the stuff, store it, hide the needles etc used to get it into your system, get rid of the waste products: this all takes time, and over the years I have come to realise that riders don't get a lot of privacy - remember that article, with pictures of Andy sitting on the stairs outside the room while his brother entertained his girlfriend? - so I guess if you decide to do it, you might as well rope in your family as accomplices, and presumably whichever brother got roped in to help, thought he might as well get the benefit?

But if it were two separate riders, that would (I think) imply that doping was more widespread. Possibly.  Either way, it's very bad for Astana, and not particularly helpful for cycling in general.

On the subject of "finding a silver lining" at least with Andy being retired, we won't get a wave of "oh look, both Iglinsky brothers were doping, that proves that if one brother dopes, so does the other, and as Frankie doped (Note: technically, Frankie did not dope, he was found to have a banned product in his blood but he still maintains he does not know how it got there) then Andy, being his brother, must also have doped" rubbish.

Sigh. At least we have been spared that.

And meanwhile, poor old Europcar didn't quite make it, due to lack of funding: they say "it was only a 6% shortfall!" but the UCI said it was a "substantial" shortfall: as always, we never quite get the full story from anyone. I assume that if Europcar were going to continue to sponsor (you will remember that they have just said they are leaving at the end of 2015), then the team would have found a way to make up the missing money, but with the main sponsor leaving, well, I can see that it would be hard to get the smaller sponsors to cough up a bit extra. This is such a shame, we shall miss Tommy "I Talk To Myself" Voeckler and his mad face-pulling. Presumably we'll see them in the Tour, but they won't necessarily be at any of the other races. Shame.

It look as though it's going to be a smaller peloton next year - only 17 teams applied for World Tour licences, and of those, Europcar didn't get it, so by my reckoning there will only be 16.

They are,  according to Cycing News:

Sky,  Ag2r La Mondiale, Astana -  come on Jakob, jump ship! - BMC Racing, Cannondale, FDJ, Katusha, Lampre-Merida, Lotto NL, Lotto-Soudal, (is it me, or is it daft to have two Lotto teams?) Movistar, Omega Pharma-QuickStep, Orica-GreenEdge,  Giant-Alpecin, Tinkoff-Saxo and Trek Factory Racing.


In the next few weeks we should start to see photos of new kits appearing, so I'll try to keep up to date on who is wearing what: and of course, soon after Christmas we'll have the Tour Down Under to look forward to!

Andy gets the Tour trophy at last.

In what must have been a bittersweet moment, Andy was invited to Paris a couple of weeks ago to be presented with the "giant fruit bowl" trophy for winning the Tour in 2010.

"Finally after 4 years"  he tweeted.

Presumably it took them that long to wrestle it out of Contador's arms?

Or maybe they had a new one made - after all, who'd want a trophy that had someone else's name engraved on it?

I think I'd want a new one, wouldn't you?

On the one hand, it's very annoying to have to wait until you have retired from the sport before you get the trophy... but on the other hand, when he was still racing, his view was always "I don't want to win that way, I want to win on the road, on the day" and we all knew what he meant.

But now that there is sadly no chance that he will compete at the Tour again, well, maybe it doesn't feel so bad to accept the trophy.

*whispers: Ugly great clumpy thing, isn't it?!*

I don't know who took this photo, but it clearly was not an official photo - quite apart from the candelabra sprouting out of Andy's head, there's a very amateur "red eye" dazzle.  But we don't care, it's good to see him off the crutches, and smiling.

Ass'tna: why Vino is a baaaad leader

Ass'tna are in the headlines again, for all the wrong reasons: not only have both of the Iglinskiy brothers separately tested positive for EPO - shocked intake of breath at their stupidity - but now one of their tiny little stagiaires has failed a doping test for anabolic androgenic steroids, something which sounds as though it involves elements of a sex change along with weight-lifting enhancements.

Presumably it has some application for cyclists.

Unless the stagiaire is really a girl... which seems unlikely.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't like Vino, I was glad when he chose to retire, although I did have to give him a bit of respect for getting back on the bike after than horrendous tumble down the ravine, when he broke quite a list of bones. And why do I dislike him? Apart from him having no eyebrows? Answer, he's an unrepentant doper. I can forgive the ones who did it, confessed, and stated how stupid they'd been and that they would not do it again. But I have no time at all for the ones who only regret being caught.

David Millar is a case in point, I saw him on an English news programme talking about his disgrace, and to see a grown man so nearly in tears was very moving. He spoke out so strongly about how he'd been pressured into it, and how stupid he had been for giving in to the pressure, and ever since then, he has been a vocal opponent of doping.

Vino, on the other hand, did it repeatedly, got caught, and muttered and fumed all the way through his ban, and has refused to acknowledge any wrong-doing. These days, he won't even talk about it. He says he has "paid for" his doping. Not, you note, for his mistake, just for getting caught.

And now two of his team have been caught doping, just when cycling really doesn't need any more of these episodes. And it's two brothers, which is particularly hateful, as it adds fuel to the "Frankie doped, so Andy must have done it too" brigade. Which of course is ridiculous in so many ways, not least because Frankie wasn't doping: he was found to have ingested something that would be extremely bad for his health, and he strongly maintained it was contamination. At that time, there was no excuse but we have all seen that in recent months the UCI are relaxing that rule. Pity they can't relax it retrospectively, eh?

Getting back to Astana, it's worsened by the fact that they should have immediately taken themselves out of racing, according to the MCC rules, but they swindled it so that they could compete in the races which were important to them, and then used the voluntary ban to get out of going to Beijing, while waving a halo and saying "Hey, look what good guys we are, voluntary ban, look, we're giving up racing all on our ownsome". Hopefully the UCI will fine them good and proper for not attending.

I've always worried about the lovely Jacob being on his team... am I the only one to be concerned about him? He seems so mis-placed there, although they have allowed him to shine a little more than he would ever have done, had he remained at Stinkoff, what with Contador and now Sagan. So from a career point of view, top marks. But on the other hand...

Tour of Beijing Day 4

The day started with scandal - at the sign-in board, the Giant number 1 rider, Warren "Onion" Barguil signed his name as normal, then instead of handing the pen to the next person, he drew a little heart over the box for his number 2,  Johannes Frohlinger.  (Sorry, can't do umlauts.)

Is there something going on here?

Then Movistar come up to the board and once again, there they are, mucking about on the podium, pushing each other and generally having a good time. Then I realise that their number 1, Benat Exhausted (Intxausti, really, but I can neither spell nor pronounce it) is trying to sign on in the number 2 box, and number 2, Capecchi, is pushing his arm away to prevent it.

Just as an aside, I wonder what they do with the sign-on board after the race? Anyone know? Do tell...

Our coverage starts at 64k to go, Graeme Browne (always pronounced in an Australian accent with rising inflection, in the style of Leelu - gone, but not forgotten) is in the break, and we are told that once again we have missed seeing the Great Wall. This time, there was a sprint there, but the organisers decided to put it in early, before TV coverage began.

I really don't understand the Chinese: they have this massive (literally) tourist attraction, something that virtually everyone in the world has heard of, they route the race past it, but in such as way that we can't actually see it.

We would have loved to have seen it! Instead we get worrying shots of armed military-uniformed types, standing with their backs to the race: what message are we supposed to take from that? The riders need an armed guard? The people of China so hate the rest of the world that they will attack them? For this, and many other reasons, I am very pleased indeed that this is the last time we will be racing in Beijing.

At least today we have trees: in earlier stages, the trees were planted suspiciously consistently alongside the road, leading me to speculate that they were actually the same thousand or so trees, in tubs, that were being loaded up each night and set out each morning on the next stretch of road.

And at least today, we don't have what look like concentration camps along the route: lines of identical huts, crammed together, in the middle of nowhere, for no apparent reason. LLB wondered if they were holiday villages, or something left over from the Olympics, but I thought they looked more sinister - and derelict - than that.

Oh, I spoke too soon, there we have another one: and this one really is derelict, some of the buildings have no roofs on them. Very strange. And rather uncomfortable to watch.

Luckily, we get to the end, and Dan Martin and his teeth win the stage. Once again, not exactly heaving with spectators, but at least the sun was shining, and the trees were quite attractive, with what the yanks call "fall colour". Ah well, just one more day and it will all be over.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Luxembourg:

Teo: "Mummy..."
TinkerJil: "Yes, darling?"
Teo: "Ooo know Auntie Coug... "
TinkerJil: "Yes, darling. "
Teo: "Well, oo know her bog... "
TinkerJil: "Blog, darling. "
Teo: "Bog. "
TinkerJil: "Blog. "
Teo: "Bog. "
TinkerJil: "Alright, I know what you mean: yes, I know about her blog. "
Teo: "Well, umm, it dussint say IzzenUnndy no more, duz Auntie Coug not like Daddy no more?  "
TinkerJil: "Any more darling, not no more. Say it nicely. "
Teo: "Any more. "
TinkerJil: "Well done. No, it's not that Auntie Coug doesn't like Daddy any more, it's just that Daddy isn't riding in quite the same way - he's retired now. Remember, we talked about it? "
Teo: "Wetied. Wetied. No more sy-kling. "
TinkerJil: "That's right, no more cycling. Well, not as much, anyway. "
Teo: "Did Auntie Coug only like Daddy coz he sy-kulled, den? "
TinkerJil: "Well, not exactly, she admired his sportsmanship and his incredibly good temper as well, but mainly she used to write about him cycling, so she can't do that any more. "
Teo: "Oh. No more bog? "
TinkerJil: "Different bog. Blog. More about cycling in general, less about Daddy. "
Teo: "Oh. Boring bog, then. " TinkerJil: (laughs) "Yes, a little boring, now."

Tour of Beijing - thank god, it's over.

Sighs of relief, amidst the coughs, from the entire pro-peloton (apart from Ass'tana who are laughing uproariously at having skived off of it) that they will never have to go back to the Tour of Beijing again.

LLB and I watched stage one in disbelief: grey-brown scorched earth, no greenery, no trees, thick grey air, no spectators to be seen, and our commentators bravely pushing the Party Line about "dust" in the air. Dust! Who are you kidding? Smog, mateys, smog pure and simple. No wonder nobody bothered to turn out to see it... even the finish line was, ooh, let me see, possibly three-deep with spectators, who appeared to have been roped together into as small an area as possible in order to make it appear to be bustling and popular.

Stage two was mercifully shortened due to the, er, air quality (ie SMOG) and although I accept that shortening a stage and changing the finish just 40 minutes before the race started could account for the lack of spectators, well, you would still expect to see good numbers at the near-the-end KOM point, wouldn't you?

Well, here is Philly Gilly crossing the line to enthusiastic cheering from both the spectators.

Pathetic, huh? I would be ashamed, if I were the organisers, to call this a finish. If they managed to get the red banners, the doping caravan, the podium truck, the photographers etc etc up there in time, you would have thought they could have bussed some of the spectators up there as well.

And as for stage 3, well, blow me down and call me Shirley, Tyler Over-Hyped Farrar only actually won the flipping thing!  I seem to have spent the last five years criticising him for never winning, but always being talked about as though he had a chance.

Finally, stung by my comments, he managed to scrape a stage win, whoo hoo, pity it had to be the non-event that is the Tour of Beijing but at least the team will be happier with him.. oh, too late, they've already given him the shove and he's off to MTN Qhubeka (not Quebeca, as I keep writing it) for next season. Oh well, at least MTN-Quebec *laughs* will be happy with him.

What was that? Why do I dislike him so much? I think it dates back to when I first started following cycling properly, he was on every advert break, with his fat smug face pushing the Transitions specs. I couldn't understand why he had the advert deal - no doubt worth a huge amount of money - while he never won anything.

Oh no, perhaps we'll see a new series of ads featuring his chin-enhanced face... let's hope not, eh?

The start of an era...

... and it's one without Andy in the peloton, but he says he'll still be around: he's not dead, you know, and he said in the post-conference interview that although he can't be a pro-rider, he still knows a massive amount about cycling, tactics etc.

*suppresses unworthy thought that if he's no longer cycling, he might actually be more accessible than he was before*

So he might be a coach, he might start the Schleck School of Cycling, he might be Frankie's soigneur, we might see him in the team car at races, he might be commentating - he does speak at least four and a half languages,  you know - and you can bet that the sponsors will still be interested in him, he'll be drawing crowds wherever he goes for years to come.

So it's not all gloom and doom, although of course we are all sad for him, he was visibly upset at the press conference, but what a man, eh? To stand up there in front of a million flash guns, with a wobble in his voice, and to bravely tell us all that he's retiring due to the knee - and a thousand curses on that stupid spectator (not the pink shirt bloke, although curses on him anyway, and on all spectators who impede the race) who knocked Sky's Garcia to the ground, which caused the fall involving Our Andy, as well as Simon Gerrans and a couple of others. They all got up and carried on, but as we know, Andy's knee was permanently damaged by that crash, so if that was you, it was YOUR fault. May you get punctures every single time you leave the house.

A lot of riders would have just issued a bulletin, but I really admire Andy for standing there in public and saying it.

He commented that the ligaments in his knee had recovered well, but not the cartilage: he said "there is hardly any cartilage left under my knee" and that there was a risk of permanent damage if he continued trying to train. "I've done everything..." he said, and you could hear the desperation and frustration in his voice.

I'm not medically trained, I don't know if cartilage can re-grow, or whether it can be surgically replaced, so there is still a chance (in my mind, at least!) that he might return - but it sounds as though, for now at least, he has accepted that this is the end of his pro-rider career.

I shall watch with interest to see what happens.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Luxembourg:

The phone rings.
TinkerJil: "I'll get it, don't get up, love,"
(she answers the phone)
Andy: "Who is it?"
TinkerJil: "It's Jensie, he says now that you are both retired, he has a suggestion....."

Andy Schleck Retires: for real.

Ah dear, the end of an era.

Earlier today, at a conference in Luxembourg, Our Andy confirmed that he is retiring from pro-cycling.

*sheds a tear*

Never mind, it was wonderful while it lasted! Who will ever forget the whole Stomach of Anger thing? Or the singing cat? And at least Andy has Tinkerjil and son Teo, he has a whole new life to ease into: no more being away for 250 days of the year, no more training, training, training: no more having people knocking on the door at 7am asking him to pee into a cup: no more nasty, nasty internet people making hurtful remarks.

Good luck, Andy! Have a great life:  and if I ever get to Luxembourg, I might still come and knock on your door to say hello. I might even sing you my version of the Singing Cat song, and I bet you won't be able to make out a single word of it.

Goodbye, Schlecklanders: in particular, farewell to all the early girlies from several year ago - Leelu, Nim, Fede, PeeDee, Gnasher, and everyone else who was sent to the Naughty Corner: farewell to the Howald Tunnel, farewell tuftage, farewell to amusing and entirely made-up conversations between Andy and Jakob, farewell to my silly race reviews, even farewell to the wonderful Loupe episodes: I've just gone back and re-read them, and they still make me laugh. ("A bird sang, and everyone listened"!)

And a final word to any fairly recent Andy fans - please feel free to go back to the beginning of this blog, there are some great early pictures of him!

Hmm, do I wave goodbye, or do I salute as the SS Schleckland sinks?

*waves goodbye*

Andy Schleck semi-retires?

There's been quite a lot of speculation about what Our Andy is going to say in tomorrow's press conference *looks up times of planes to Luxembourg - drat, can't make it* .

It seems that the conference has been called by Trek, not by Andy personally, which I take as a positive sign: if Andy were just going to retire, the conference would have been organised by his agent, not by his team.

At present he's still coming back from the knee injury, we don't know yet whether he will be able to ride at the top level again - the damage to his knee is described as "possible career-ending" so there is the chance that he won't be able to compete again, and any team would be stupid to extend a contract to a rider that can't yet show that he can ride. What with the reduction in sponsors, team size, etc, every team is going to have to pick the very, very best it can afford, and there are plenty of riders out there without contracts, so I can't imagine Trek giving a precious slot to an injured rider.

So, what are the options? Apparently Trek had considered farming Frankie out to a pro-conti team towards the end of his ban, so that he could get some race miles into his legs. This didn't work out, but it's an interesting concept: maybe Trek will put Andy into a pro-conti team for a year. This would allow him to come back into form slowly, out of the spotlight, with very little pressure, and it would be very good for his ego to be the biggest fish in the littler pond. Ok there's the "shame" of dropping out of the major league, but we've seen a number of big riders do just that, due to lack of contracts - and lack of teams - at the top level. I think Andy could take it.

Maybe Andy will take a year off, on doctors' orders, to let this injury heal properly? That would be a viable alternative, as well: Frankie had a year off, Contador had two years off and came back strong and fit - and Andy is younger than both of them, so he has some years in hand. It's debatable as to which are the "best" years of his career: I'm not a sports fitness expert so I can't comment on that, but I would have thought he'd be able to afford another year off, before being considered "past it".

Or maybe he'll choose to retire completely. I'm hoping not, obviously, but if that knee is not recovering, then it might be the only option.

We'll find out tomorrow.

Andy Schleck retires?

Noooo!

Surely not!

News today on Cycling News, apparently Andy has called a press conference for Thursday of this week, and the journalists are speculating that he is going to announce his retirement, in the wake of his various injuries, and the very real probability that he won't be getting a contract extension at Trek, bearing in mind that Frankie has already been re-signed.

Of course, he could be merely announcing that he's going to another team: this would be preferable from my point of view, of course, although it would be a darned shame that he wouldn't be riding with Frankie any more.

It could, of course, be a domestic announcement, maybe a second Baby Schleck on the way? Unfortunately, it's more likely to be a cycling announcement, and I guess we have no option but to wait for it to be reported.

Fingers crossed, Schlecklanders, fingers crossed...

Worlds: Luxembourg having trouble finding a team.

I know I shouldn't laugh at this, but it did make me chuckle: there's a report out in Cycling News that says:


"Luxembourg is struggling to field a team for the Elite men's road race, with Fränk Schleck (Trek Factory Racing) confirming that he will not ride.

Bob Jungels has pulled out the time trial and road race due to a saddle sore, while Andy Schleck is still recovering from his operation after rupturing his knee ligaments on the London stage of the Tour de France.

Luxembourg national coach Bernhard Baldinger needs to find two riders to complete the three-rider squad with Ben Gastauer."

If they need to find two more riders to complete the minimum three-rider squad, then they only have one rider don't they...  that's not so much "struggling to field a team" as "not having a team!"

To be fair, it's a very small country, but what happened to Didier? And the whole of the Leopard Trek feeder team? 

Fighting in la Vuelta? Surely not!

It's that time again, it's silly season in the peloton.

Headlines read: "two riders ejected from Vuelta for fighting."

Fighting?

Pro cyclists? Surely not.

We all remember the last "fight", it was Barredo and Rui Costa, Barredo hit Costa with his wheel and they fell to the floor like a pair of girlies.

This one was actually better: not even a proper fight, just Brambilla of Omega Pharma Armbands and a Stinkoff rider (Rovny, never heard of him) slapping each other while riding along.

They were tootling along in the normal way, side by side, with Brambilla giving the Stinkoff rider "the eye", I don't know why: then from our angle, Brambilla was slightly behind Rovny, who suddenly turned round and slapped at his hand. It looked for all the world as though Brambilla had poked Rovny on the bottom. Alas, no on-board cameras on the bikes, we'll never know what really started it, but Brambilla slapped at Rovny's arm, Rovny pulled at Brambilla's shoulder and nearly shoved him off the road, then Brambilla gave Rovny a lovely backhand slap in the face.

Brambilla looks back at Rovny, who ducks like a complete girly, clearly expecting another slap, which he then gets, he slaps back, gets slapped, slaps back, etc etc, The rest of the group cycle past them, looking at them and clearly thinking "What the **** are you two playing at?!", while Rovny waves his sunglasses at Brambilla, presumably shouting "You broke my shades, you nasty boy, I'll tell my DS of you."

Brambilla puts his hand on Rovny's shoulder and pushes him, but it backfires totally, leaving Brambilla riding on the grass verge. Rovny waves his shades at the nearest car, but oh dear, it's the red commissaire's car: they have seen the incident, and Rovny is told to go back to his team car in disgrace.

The commissaire then catches up with Brambilla and a conversation ensues:

Commissaire: "You! Off!"
Brambilla: "What! Why? "
Commissaire: "You know perfectly well why. "
Brambilla: "No I don't. "
Commissaire: "Yes, you do. You were fighting. "
Brambilla: "Was not. "
Commissaire: "Was too. "
Brambilla: "He started it. "
Commissaire: "Look, I don't care who started it, you're fired.  "
Brambilla: "You can't fire me. "
Commissaire: "Of course I can you stupid man, I'm the commissaire! "
Brambilla: "Oh. "

Brambilla drops back to his team car.

Brambilla: "They fired me! It's not fair! "
Omega Armbands DS: "Pull over, son, you're out of the race for punching Rovny. "
Brambilla: "I never did! It was like this: " *demonstrates backhand swipe a couple of times*

Omega Armbands DS: "Look, it doesn't matter if you punched him or slapped him, you are off the race. Now pull over and get in the car."
Brambilla: "Shan't. It wasn't my fault. He started it. "
Omega Armbands DS: "You poked him, we saw you! "
Brambilla: "Well, he wasn't taking his turn. "
Omega Armbands DS: "That doesn't matter. You're fired, you're off the race, so get off the bike. "
Brambilla: "No. "

He pulls away from the car and continues cycling, swinging his arms mutinously.

Omega Armbands DS: "Get. Off. The. Bike. Now"
Brambilla: "S'not fair.... "
Omega Armbands DS: "Right, that's it, off the bike: wave bye bye to the folks at home, then get off the bike. "

Brambilla cycles away from the team car, waves  bye bye to the camera bike, makes a heart-shape with his fingers, blows a kiss to the camera bike, then stoically looks ahead as he cycles his last hundred yard in the Vuelta. His lower lip wobbles, and he tries not to cry.

The unforgiving camera bike won't go away, despite having had the wave, the gesture, the kiss and everything. Brambilla's lower lip wobbles even more, and a tear rolls down his face, as he mentally starts composing his letter of resignation, updating his CV and contemplates life in the Pro-conti league...

Tour of Britain: first day, first crashes

Well, that was a turn-up for the books - the Tour of Britain has started, and the sun was shining on them!

We watched in amazement as twenty teams of about six riders each - not too sure as the ToB website, in a display of staggering ineptitude, lists the teams but doesn't bother to list the actual riders, nor their bib numbers - rode around Liverpool in glorious sunshine, while in Spain, on the same day, the Pro Teams struggled in heavy rain, ice-slick roads and (comparatively) low, low temperatures.

Life, eh?

So what did we get? Alas, no Trek, so no hope of seeing Andy, not that he's riding again yet, as far as we know: maybe he's sitting indoors watching the Vuelta? I think it's highly unlikely he'd be sitting indoors watching the ToB, ha! ha!

It was not exactly exciting, being a Crit, eight laps around the unlovely town of Liverpool, taking in the back of the industrial areas, the city centre with the terribly complicated road markings (easy to follow from the helicopter shots - city centre that way, car park THAT way - but it must be massively confusing if you are in a car, at road level, with cars in front of you covering up the road?) and the rather nice round green park at the end of the loop.

The crowds were not exactly "crowded", if you see what I mean - five deep around the finish line, as you would expect, but plenty of space elsewhere on the loop. It does seem that cycling fever only hit the UK for the actual Tour, not so much for the domestic race. Even though apparently it's been upgraded from a shitsmall race to a second tier race (presumably merely "small") much to the pride of various domestic team DSs, who were interviewed at odd intervals.

Our coverage started right at the beginning, and we get a good look at the finish/start overhead gantry, which looked extremely flimsy: good thing they didn't invite O'rica, their bus would have finished it off in an instant.

No sooner do we start than Cav - wearing his own personal brand of helmet, it seems, and riding his own personal brand of bike with no sponsor names on it - pulls over, gets off the lovely un-decalled bike and, to everyone's horror, sits down on the pavement. Heart attack? Feeling faint? A mechanic runs up and pushes something into his hand. A gel? Is he passing out from lack of sugar, so early in the race? No, it's an Allen key, he's fiddling with his shoes: no doubt this will prompt him to design his own range of shoes.... after a shortish time, he's back on the bike, and drafting behind the car more closely than I have ever seen it done before, so we all sat with hearts in mouths in case he bumped the car and crashed into the back of it.

A small handful of riders gradually manage to get off the front, I get all excited as the commentators say that the lovely Yanto Barker is among them (I have no idea which one he is as we have no team list, nor bib numbers, thanks to the major failing of the ToB website as mentioned earlier, but don't think I am going to forgive them) but alas, he's not one of the four who eventually manage to get away.

It's very odd to see different kits, as there are only a handful of the familiar Pro-teams here: Giant, Garmin, BMC,Sky, Omega Pharma Armbands and Stinkoff. Many of the conti teams are copying the style of pro teams, but most of them lack the one single sponsor name, so their kits are cluttered with small names and hard to sort out. Eventually we deduce that the four in the break are Bardiani, looking just like Cannondale but without the stripes: NFTO (who have seen the BMC kit and liked it very much); An Post (who apparently also liked the Cannondale kit but didn't have any fluorescent markers, so the little old lady who ran up their kit did it in plain dull green) and the all-black Rapha Condor BLT. 

That last one might not be BLT, ("Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato", a popular sandwich combination) but that's how I see it.

70k later, they are still going round the loops, the four are still a little way up the road, and I've decided that the bloke doing the commentary has what is possibly the dullest voice and least interesting turns of phrase in cycling. BriSmithy is doing his best, and gently correcting the many mistakes as we go, but it does not make for fascinating listening.

Nine and half hours later, they get to the final, with a bunch sprint finish, but what a mess! No proper lead-outs, a mad dash to the line, a major crash on the left, Ian Stannard of Sky does a lovely porpoise-style dive above the peloton, elbows in all directions, Adam Blythe does a terrific turn of speed but starts it way, way too early and is left in the dust: and Kittel takes it quite convincingly, with Cav in third, just edging Tyler "Also-Ran" Farrar off the podium. Apparently Cav crashed earlier in the race, but we didn't see that.

Finally, we get a sweet little podium girl, all by herself, visibly hoping that the rising wind doesn't flap her full skirts around too much, carefully helping the tall strapping German into a selection of jerseys, and luckily he co-operates by bending at the knee, as she is nowhere near tall enough to get the jersey done up. He's a complete star, and helpfully holds the bottom together behind his back while she does it up, and the pair of them laugh all the way through it.

Andy takes the Ice bucket challenge!

Mad, mad.... but it shows he's a good sport.

What's the Ice Bucket Challenge? Blimey, where have you been?  It's a fund-raising charity-bullying tactic currently going the rounds, where you get nominated by a so-called "friend" to have a bucket of water dumped over your head while you are videod, and you give some money to charity. If you don't want to do it, you have to give a much larger sum to charity.

This is fine for celebs, and people who want publicity, and it's a perfect fit for pro cyclists, especially the ones out in Spain for la Vuelta, who were suffering in temperatures way up the 30s and into the 40s.

Not so nice for the rest of us, who prefer to give to the charity that we choose, to give however much we choose, when we choose, and to do so privately.

But that's just me being a kill-joy. Ha ha.

Anyway, back to twitter-land and celeb-ville:  Maxime Monfort nominated Andy, and here he is doing it:

Here's a link to the video: if  the link fails, just type in "Andy Schleck ice bucket challenge" and you are sure to find it.


 In his pre-embolism speech, Andy nominates Frankie, and two bigwigs in Lux. Frankie's video is also there, it looks as though it's Martine who gets the pleasure of doing the bucketing, ha ha!

And finally, under the general heading of "what an odd creature the internet is", there is an option on YooToob for "subtitles" on these videos, and I have no idea what programme they are using, but it is clearly struggling with Our Andy's accent:

Hilarious, eh? Andy Schleck leaves cycling and starts a foundation for making sex movies. What a great headline that would make!

Contracts... but not (yet) for Andy

August is gone, and now we start the usual end-of-season shuffling, where we wait until the music stops and everyone moves round a team.

Except that this year, there are a couple of significant obstacles: loss of teams, reduction in numbers.

Firstly, the Cannondale Chipmunks are closing this year, as they are merging with Garmin to become Cannondale-Slipstream. It's an odd thing about takeovers, that it's often the "smaller" partner whose name remains.. looking at it logically, you would say that Garmin are folding, and Cannondale are taking over their remains, surely?

I know a lot of people are very loyal to the Garmin argyle, but I'm hoping the Cannondale kit is the one that remains, as it's so distinctive and easy to spot. And I like their way of putting a Nationals distinction into the stripes on the back, which does not interfere with the uniform look of the kit. I personally hate the way that Stinkoff have ruined their line-up with the faded red Denmark national kit of Valgren. And I hate to say it, but Sky have done the same with having Kenyack in his tasteless white Nationals jersey. Don't do it, guys! Even slapping a big old "flag" across the back is better than ruining the entire kit, but the Cannondale stripe is, to my eyes, better.

Secondly,  Brian Cookson has announced that he wants to reduce the numbers of riders per team. Stupid idea, Brian! With fewer teams, and fewer sponsors, surely it makes sense to have more riders per team, not fewer?

We already have some teams unable to send a full roster to every race - even Sky have been sending out short teams, for heavens sake - and there seem to be more crashes than ever before, not to mention this weird Movement for Credible Cycling group and their "your Cortisol levels are too low so you aren't fit to race" restriction. They seem to have come from nowhere, have no legal or UCI-backed influence, yet can tell teams to pull riders from races with no compensation or appeal. Weird.

Anyway, with all this going on, many of the teams are already reducing their numbers: it used to be something like 28 and a couple of neo-pros, I think, and it's going down to about 24.

This means that teams won't be able to support riders who are not contributing: they won't be able to have as many neos, they'll lose their older riders, and anyone having a streak of injury or illness - well, they just won't be able to carry any such riders, any more.

It was announced recently that Frankie has been given a new 2-year contract with Trek, but there is deafening silence about Andy.  Does this mean that Andy won't have a contract?

Not necessarily - I interpret this to mean that Trek are drip-feeding transfer and contract info, in order to squeeze as much publicity as possible, which is perfectly reasonable and is not necessarily bad for Andy.

We all know that they - Andy and Frankie - have always said publicly that they will not race for different teams, and it seems unlikely that Frankie would have signed for Trek if they were refusing to give Andy any sort of contract. On the other hand, Frankie is a family man with two children and (no matter how much we don't believe it) a past doping conviction. He might not have much of a choice. Personally I think that if he'd been forced to accept a contract without Andy, he would have said something about it... so I am hopeful that there will be another announcement soon.

Looking at it logically, though, Andy's knee injury was described at the time as "possibly career-ending" so if I were Trek, I would be waiting to see if he can get back on the bike before making a contract, and if I were Andy, I would completely understand.

Normally, before Brian Cookson announced the shrinking of the team size, I would have been promoting the idea that Trek would gain significant benefit from having Andy on the team, even if he never won another race: he's a great ambassador for the sport, he's a "good guy", he's a three-time TdF podium finisher, he's a legend in the sport, he has a terrific fan-base, and I would have thought that any race organiser would be delighted to have him.

But I'm not so sure now, how that would work, with fewer riders on each team. Can they afford to give a space to someone on this basis?

On the other hand, how many times have we seen someone have a terrific season and win everything, then completely fail to win a single race the following year? Costa, Cadel Evans, Philly Gilly, Wiggo, come to mind. BMC must have been furious, to have spent all those millions on Gilbert, only to see him fail and fail and fail. Andy, on the other hand, is probably not going to be terribly expensive for Trek to keep.. and there is every chance that he'll recover well. 

Let's hope so, eh?!

Andy's off the crutches!

This has to be good news from Luxembourg: Andy tweeted a pic of his crutches and the phrase Adios, amigos, which I think we can take to mean that he is no longer using them.

Let's hope he doesn't over-do the rehabilitation! Take it gently, Andy, please!

"missed my singing on Tour de France"

I think that has to win the prize for weirdest search phrase which, put into google, leads to this blog!

Last night, after creating a new post, I checked my stats - oh dear, I'm so sad - and there it was, bottom of the list of search terms being used at that moment. What's that? You don't believe me? OK, here's a screen print:

There you go, bottom of the list, "missed my singing on tour de france.." Weird, or what?

Of course, having got there, I now have to check out the other arrival routes - 5 people came by typing Eisen Andy, which is fair enough. 

But four people - or the same person four times, which is even more unlikely - got here by typing Andy Schleck bulge.  Bulge? Why?? Oh *blushes*.

Copine? *typing sounds as I find a translation site* ah, girlfriend. No surprise there. Not sure about Johan Otter injuries, though.... clearly they were directed here because of the frequent Johan Van Summeren references. No idea who Johan Otter is, though.

And yes, one sad person is still trying to establish whether Jakob (not sure yet whether he has been reinstated as "the lovely Jakob" or whether he truly did make a mean remark about Andy recently) is still going out with Loulou *snorts through nose at made-up name* (said she, known variously as Coug, Captain Coug and The Quacktain) and if they try again, they will no doubt be sent to this post now.

And finally, the scourge of the internet, while seeing what other sites "Andy Schleck bulge" lead to, I found this:

"Andy Schleck naked"

Yes, it appears to be Andy Schleck, naked.

(*speechless*)

Slightly better news from Luxembourg.

Thanks to the Schlecklander who put up the link to the video in yesterday's post: it was very good to see a new, fresh video of Andy:

Here he is hobbling across the room of his apartment, using crutches but not looking too bad.

Last time I was on crutches it was like Transformers - creak, crunch, clatter clatter, groan, scuff, thump, "Oh sorry, was that your ankle" etc etc. Andy seems to manage it with grace and ease!

I have no idea who the bloke in the blue shirt is.. and I have no idea what Andy was saying, as he was presumably speaking Luxembourgish (as the interview was for RTL.lu).

But he seemed quite happy!

If anyone out there would care to email me a translation of the conversation, I'd be delighted to add it here:  otherwise I might have to make something up, and you know how they always turn out...

And here is the knee in question: after his description of it as being "like my knee exploded" I was expecting a lot worse than this, but I am sure that it is quite painful enough, no matter how neat a job they made of the outside.

Uurgh, that's enough medical matters for now... does anyone else think that his apartment still looks like the bachelor pad of a bloke that has a cleaner, and who uses it more for storing his clothes and stuff, than for actually living in?

I didn't see any sign of TinkerJil or Teo, for a start. But it certainly looks like his Mondorf apartment, from what I remember of earlier videos. Those slope-edged balconies are quite distinctive...

Anyway, leaving aside that speculation, it's good to see that he's home safely, out of hospital, and looking quite lively and happy. I wonder if he's following the Tour on tv? Would you, if you were out of it? I'm not sure if I'd be glued to the set, following every move and debating loudly what they should have done... or whether, like last time he fell in the Tour and cracked his pelvis, he'd prefer to go on holiday and get away from it all.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Complaints to Schleckland!

Sorry everyone, I've received complaints that I haven't written about le Tour!!

You are quite right, and I've been a bit deflated since Our Andy crashed out with a very bad knee injury,  and I've been a bit thrown by an unsubstantiated but persistent rumour that Jakob said something like "Andy's head is full of hunting and fishing, and he will never be in the TdF again" which seems like an incredibly disloyal and hurtful thing for a friend to say.

Are they not friends any more?  Does Jakob not live in Mondorf any more?

However, life - and le Tour - goes on, so I will do my best to continue blogging in the sure and certain knowledge that Andy will be back with us one day.

Although the post-operation report is, frankly, a bit scary:

"Besides the ligaments and the meniscus, we can also confirm that the cartilage behind the knee cap is damaged, which is the worst and most painful part of Andy’s injury," team doctor Andreas Gösele said after surgery on the Trek website. [Sarcastic Note: the Trek website could do with some surgery hahahahaha] "The surgeons have removed a part of the meniscus and have arthroscopically shaved the damaged cartilage. In terms of rehab he cannot put load on his knee for at least two weeks, so crutches will be necessary."
"I'm feeling pretty bad, to understate it," Schleck said. "I'm gutted. My knee looks like there's been an explosion inside."

Uuuuuurrrrgggg!

So, best wishes go to Our Andy and let's hope he takes the advice of the surgeons and takes a proper rest. Two weeks on crutches, Andy! No cheating! No hopping around the apartment! Let's hope TinkerJil pegs him down on the sofa and doesn't let him do anything too energetic.

So, back to the Tour: lots of broken legs, not least of which is Contador - hmmm...

Somewhere in Luxembourg:

Bing Bong! The door bell rings.

Andy: (starts to get up) "I wonder who that is?"

TinkerJil: "SIT! I'll get it."  (sounds of door opening and friendly greetings)

TinkerJil: "Andy, love, a visitor for  you..."

(Contador limps into the room on crutches with his leg in plaster)

Conti: "Andy! Hope it's ok to drop in like this, you did say that I would always be welcome in Luxembourg? "
TinkerJil: "Of course you are, here, sit down. " (clears a mess of papers, pizza boxes and baby toys off the sofa)
Andy: "Berto! Hey, good to see you, sorry to hear about your leg.  "
Conti: "Yeah, and I'm sorry to hear about yours. At least mine is only broken. "
Andy: (groans) "Don't remind me. How long before you ride again? "
Conti: "Depends, but it's not a bad break. "
TinkerJil: "But you rode on it, for 20kms. "
Conti: "I know, not the cleverest of things, but I didn't realise I'd broken it. Besides, you can't talk, you finished the stage. "
Andy: "Well, I had to - Cougar Girl was waiting in London, I couldn't let her down... "
TinkerJil: (scolding) "She would have understood. You should have abandoned straight away. "
Andy: "Yeah, well, probably I should have done, but you know how it is... "
Conti: "Yup. We're riders. We ride."

An hour later, Conti gets up to go and there is some confusion over whose crutches are whose...

Meanwhile the Tour continues, Jakob is bandaged like a mummy, Frankie had a good ride yesterday and came 7th, putting him up to 14th in the GC, and BumFluff is still in the top 5. It should be a nice easy day today, then a rest day tomorrow, then back into the mountains.

Anxious days ahead in Schleckland

It's the news we all didn't want to hear - Andy has had to abandon the Tour after a nasty fall, and has badly injured his knee.

He was sent to Basle for surgery, which took place yesterday (Wednesday) to repair (brace yourselves) the "meniscus and cruciate ligaments in his right knee".

I can barely comprehend how gutted he must be feeling - not only has he had to leave the Tour, and Frankie: it's yet another chance for the Andy-snipers to have a go at him for something which is so not his fault: his contract runs out at the end of this year: this type of injury is being referred to as "career ending": and on top of all that he has the actual physical pain of the injury to contend with, not to mention what will no doubt be weeks of recovery, followed by weeks of "will he be able to ride again" speculation in the cruel and heartless world of the press and the social media.

I would hope that all cycling fans, no matter what they think about him, would wish him well and hope for a speedy and complete recovery, and certainly here in Schleckland we are sending him virtual hugs and our very best wishes.

Andy's in England!

Well, it's Saturday morning, and less than 197 miles away, Andy Schleck is getting out of bed in a hotel, opening the curtains and saying "Uurgh! What horrible weather!"  as he views the grey clouds of England.

Such a change from last week - all week long it's been blue skies and warm sunshine, beautiful weather, just what you want to welcome the Tour to England, especially after the filthy weather of the Giro start in Ireland this year.... but alas, it's business as usual, and the forecast is for rain. Ho hum.

Last night we watched the Tour Presentation, which was the usual would-be spectacular, but which had flashes of amateurism all the way through - microphone problems, people looking the wrong way and, bizarrely, large numbers of the riders taking "selfies" (short for Selfish Lookit-Me) while they were actually on the stage! Incredible,  so rude.

The Eurosport presentation was absolutely lamentable,  they have gone with a pair of hosts to discuss the Tour before and after each stage, and this year it's some French bloke who is at least enthusiastic, and Greg le Mond, who is an ex-cyclist who spoke out long and hard against Lance Armstrong when everyone else thought he was a god.

Now that he has been proved correct, he has been given the job of co-hosting the Tour coverage, but oh dear, oh dear, he really is not up to the job. Quite apart from the fact that he can't seem to string a sentence together clearly, he can't actually speak English. Not knowing who he was, I asked LLB what his native language is, on the basis that he was clearly struggling with English-as-a-second-language, like many of the riders who he was interviewing.  "American" answered LLB, sardonically.

Just as the presentation was getting into some sort of rhythm, Eurosport decided to drag riders in for little interviews with the two hosts, regardless of the fact that the presentation was continuing behind their backs. Presumably someone had worked out that there was sufficient gap between one team and another to allow for an interview, but it all went horribly wrong and at one point we were listening to a non-English interview with Valverde (ex doper, unrepentant) while in a tiny box in the corner of the screen, we could see Team Sky arriving on stage.

Even worse, they cut back to the team presentation halfway through Richie Porte's piece, then started talking to Froomey - last year's winner, I would remind you - but cut away mid-sentence to another little interview! No disrespect meant to the rider concerned (I can't remember who it was, through the red haze), but I do think that live on-stage talk with the previous winner should take precedence over any other interview.

Luckily, Trek had appeared earlier, before the little interviews began, so we got to see all of them, and thanks to the plethora of English-speakers, they got three individual pieces: Frankie as leader, Fabs, and Jensie, who is always good value for money. Frankie did well, the presenter, Jill Douglas (who did a cracking job, incidentally) asked him a question about the cobbles which he clearly did not want to answer, probably as he didn't want to be reminded of the last time he fell on the cobbles in le Tour and broke his collarbone.  So he simply didn't answer the question at all, choosing instead to make a pleasant remark about how nice it was to be here. Cunning, eh?

Unluckily the Ass-t'na section was cut out by another little interview, so we didn't get much of a look at the lovely Jakob, who is wearing number 42, which has caused much laughing here in Schleckland.

It was interesting to see how many of the riders had shaved heads this year - Jakob had a cap on, so we don't yet know about him - and even JVS had had his hair cut. Which made him surprising good-looking!

The exception to this was Froomey, who appears to have let his hair grow for the event - instead of being shaved to the bone as he normally is, he had a very-very-short crop instead.  No doubt Team Sky have carried out extensive research on hair length....


So that's the Team Presentation out of the way, and here are my instructions to Andy for the weekend:

Today: take rainjacket in car, just in case: stay near front, avoid sprint and possible tumbles.

Sunday: take lots of gels, hard day with lots of annoying little hills, careful at the end going round the shopping centre, do not detour into shops.

Monday: maintain position within the peloton, watch out for drop-bears when going through Epping Forest (wear old-fashioned aero helmet with the point uppermost to deter them), then when approaching the Embankment, get yourself on the right-hand side of the group, ie away from the River, so that I can see you.

After that, you can do what you like! *laughs*