Saturday turned out to be a much better day for some than others. For me, it was great. Slept in late, went for a ride with the FPG (a little longer than we meant to be – there’s a turn on the loop at her parent’s house that I always screw up, so we were out for a little longer than intended), then off to the beach for some base work (am I doing too much base work on the savage tan? – it’s probably time for some intervals) and back to the house for cocktails. A brief check of the emails gave some pretty terrible news – my team had experienced several gravity storms throughout the day and many were lying in hospital. YIKES. El Ocho managed to break his collarbone at the Chantilly (pronounced Shon-TEE) crit, while some of our juniors had been wiped out in the Nationals road race. What a way for the Och to follow up his stellar rides in PA last weekend! The road rash from my “epic” 8 mile an hour crash turning onto Macarthur on Thursday suddenly seemed a lot less painful than it had. Get better soon, lads.
Sunday’s Tour stage was pretty epic indeed. The Chicken (whose nickname apparently has nothing to do with his chicken legs) was just great. He is one that I’d like to see do well for many reasons – he’s odd and funny, and it would be great to “replace” the last Danish yellow jersey with a new one. That last climb up to Tignes was just stunning scenery. One thing I couldn’t stand to see was the way the Valverde/Moreau/Mayo group was acting. They looked like a bunch of Cat 4’s out there. Moreau kept putting it out there but all anyone would do is roll up to him and sit on. Valverde was riding like a freaking sally. LAME! Especially since he is on my fantasy team, which is getting horribly whipped, and I need points badly. To that end, my team did not disappoint at all on Sunday, as I had first, second and fourth on the stage, with some other good results as well. Rasmussen in yellow and polka dots for a good long spell will rocket me up the standings.
It was good to see Mayo put down a hard attack and gap them, but clearly the riders in that group think a lot of Moreau’s GC chances, as when Mayo went they just waved “bye bye” to him. Although the chase group behind wound up staying back, every rider in that group except Moreau and Mayo deserved to get caught and dropped.
Speaking of the chase group behind, how freaking boring is Levi Leipheimer? Leipheimer clearly means “sackless bastard” in his native land. He needs to watch the movie “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” a few times.
Looking forward to the Giro di Coppi at the end of the week, where I will play domestique for some of our guys who have great chances in this one. We have the breakaway threats, we have the strong finishers, we’ve got it all. What we don’t have is numbers, so I will have to be real judicious in what I try to cover and what I let go. In any case, it will be the first time I’m in a real race with 3’s, so we’ll see how it goes.
3 comments:
Leipheimer clearly means “sackless bastard” in his native land.
You got that right. Last night I made two decent calls I'm proud of. First one was when Popo went off the front. I told the SW that "He's a total stalking horse for Contador. You watch - that group is going to tire themselves out chasing him. Last big climb, Contador is going to blast out of the first chase group." Too bad Contador couldn't hang on. Second good call - I saw the Levi interview when he mush mouthed about how it was good to be there, he didn't feel real great but would give it a good shot, do what he could, etc., and I told the SW, "He ain't winnin' today, and probably not ever. Dude's already making excusing for why he loses five minutes today. He's got the legs of a champion, but no heart at all."
Hey, I make excuses but I'm just some Cat IV idiot. He's supposed to be above that. Evidently he's not... dude's psyche is as fragile as a Faberge egg.
The funniest will be when Contador gets picked up by a team that has great things slated for him and he absolutely abuses Levi all year next year, a la Boonen after he got free from working (or, rather, waiting) for George.
But yes, as a Cat 4 I get to make excuses and also rip into pro racers who have more talent in their little finger...
The funniest will be when Contador gets picked up by a team that has great things slated for him and he absolutely abuses Levi all year next year
Hah! You're assuming that Levi is going to be driving the Disco train. He keeps on under performing, he's going to wind up driving Bruyneel's "B" car, the one that ferries food up to the real racers, and does support for the 'developmental' squad in the UCI 1.1 races. "Well, it's great to be here. I don't feel too good, but I'll try to keep the Skoda on the rode, between the ditches, and not run over Popo like he was Jesper Skibby on the Kloppenburg..." I used to kind of like Levi but I'm starting to really dislike him. He's kind of the opposite of guys like Hincapie and Voigt and Steegemans - tons of talent, but doesn't seem to have the cast iron backbone that champions or even the super domestiques have.
Post a Comment