At last, some proper cycling on TV! Well, ok, it's not a UCI World Tour race, but it had 11 pro teams in it, and what's more to the point, we are getting lots and lots of TV coverage, yay!
It started with an ITT which we didn't get any coverage of: but Day 2 starts with a catch-up, so we got a chance to see Fabian in his National champion skinsuit, which was, er, very red. With a big red cross on it. Looked ever-so-slightly like the fastest Swiss Army Knife ever seen on the roads, and rather-more-than-slightly like the BMC kit.
More grumbles about the kit later!
Talking of BMC, they are riding in those horrible unperforated semi-aero helmets, which make it look as though they have ping-pong balls on their heads. Yes, I know it's a race, not a fashion show, but what the pro peloton wears and rides has a big influence on what is sold to kids on the roads, and I can't see many kids opting for the ping-pong ball look. At least the spiky normal helmet had an element of style about it.
Stinkoff appear to have made a rather arrogant choice of design for their new kit - it's so yellow that from the front, all you see is a mass of yellow. With a black nappy somewhere in amongst it. I can't help feeling that they might regret this choice at the Tour - for a start, no-one will be able to spot the Maillot Jaune; for a second, if they get it, no-one will notice that they are wearing it. It seems disrespectful to opt for a predominantly yellow kit, don't you think? Unless they are going to reveal a much blue-er kit for the Tour - sometimes teams have a change of kit mid-season, don't they - the UCI rules ("aaargh! My soul! My soul!") say that a team is allowed one change of kit per season, to allow for changes in sponsorship - but I don't know if they are then allowed to change back, or whether that would count as a second change.
A couple of years ago, Team Sky changed their blue stripe for a green stripe for the Tour, and then went back to the blue. I have no idea if they received special permission to do so.
Ooh, that's a nice kit - Giant. Who are they? Giant-Shimano, previously known as Argos, previously Skil-Shimano, with a brief interlude as the catchily-named 1T4i. I like the go-faster stripes on the back, very easy to spot from the helicopter shots. Perhaps they chose it after seeing arty black-and-white shots of the Cannondale Chipmunks' kit.
Oh hang on, now we can see them from the front. Oh dear, they look just like Trek. Oh dear, so do Omega Pharma, who used to be blue but are now black and white as well. Hmm. Oh, here's something different, it's Movistar - no, wait, it's the same shade of blue, but it says Vini Fantini. What happened to the fluoro yellow, boys? Oh, you sold it to Stinkoff.
I like the Garmin kit - they are now practically the only blue kit in sight, and the addition of a red stripe over the shoulder is a good one, as we can see it both from the back,and from the front.
Right, enough about the kit (for now...) Dubai scenery is weird: the skyscrapers look as though they were based on the results of a 6th form competition, using only egg-boxes and sticky-back plastic - the whole place looks as though it is CGI, and every time we get the helicopter shot of the city, I expect to see Spiderman swinging through the buildings. This impression is supported by the total lack of clutter - no rubbish, hardly any cars, no people, everything is pristine, empty, desolate. It's hard to imagine people actually living here, or even visiting here, other than for one of those "immersion experiences" where you wander round a film set being scared by animatronic dinosaurs.
The race coverage - which was not particularly thrilling, btw, small break out the front and everyone else poodling along and chatting - is interrupted by an interview with Fabian, looking healthy, relaxed and rather handsome. It's quite a long interview, and I am less transfixed by the words, than by trying to work out why Fabian speaks so strangely. (Yes, I know he's Swiss, it's not that!) Apart from the fact that his tongue appears to have a life of its own, he has those upside-down teeth that life-long pipe smokers get - but he's still very charming. At the end, LLB commented "Well, there were lots of English words there, but somehow he didn't say anything..." Didn't like to admit that I wasn't actually listening...
OOh, they're on one of the islands! I remember watching (on TV, not in real life) these fabulous islands being built: you know the story, of course - Dubai was a popular place to go, attracting lots of rich visitors (I have no idea why, not my idea of fun) but only a very limited amount of shore. And everyone wanted a sea view, and somewhere to park their posh boat. So they decided to build some fake islands just off the coast, to increase the length of shoreline. And they decided to make them pretty shapes when seen from above - clearly they knew about Google Earth and the fact that these days, we can see everything as though from low-flying planes. So they made palm tree shapes, and a cartoon map of the world, bringing in tonnes and tonnes of sand and built posh villas and hotels for all the rich visitors.
So far it seems to be a mixed success - there were problems with the intricate palm tree islands, as the water wasn't circulating and became stagnant (pooey whiff!), and there have been complaints about erosion and sinkage requiring what the developers endearingly call "sand nourishment" or "rebuilding" as we normal folk would call it. But you can clearly see from the race footage that there are indeed lots and lots of very smart villas, each with a carefully irrigated green patch around it, and many of them with a posh boat tied up out front.
Personally I'd rather have 10 acres of woodland and no-one else in sight, but each to their own... it's interesting to see it, and it makes LLB and I laugh to realise that, at ground level, you can't see the palm tree shape at all, and it could be almost anywhere!
This is a nightmare for the commentators, we have a mass of black and white as Giant, Omega and Trek are all mushed up together, and we are frantically checking their shoulders to see who is who - Trek have one white shoulder, Giant have two thin blue armbands, and Omega have two thick white armbands and the word LATEX CO in big white letters. This makes me splutter with laughter every time I see it - I mean, of all the places to put a sponsor name, the shoulders is the one that gets the most coverage in head-on sprint action. And they have chosen to allow LatexCo to have the priority shoulder slot. Having just looked them up, their latex products are actually harmless mattresses, pillows and bed toppers, but it still makes me snigger. Good thing that Team Sky aren't here, with their two black shoulders and one thick blue armband, eh?
As predicted, it's a bunch sprint at the end, and Kittel of Giant gets it.
So what do we think of this new race? Not bad, is the answer, not bad - not the best scenery, but better than Oman. It will be interesting to see if the following days are different, or just more of the same.
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