Stage 3 - Cav plays Chicken and Griepel cant stop griping

Greipel failed yet again to prove to anyone he can win a sprint in a relatively minor tour (let alone a monument) after being beaten to the line by Rabobanks' Mike Mathews. "I am just upset because I couldn't do my sprint like I wanted to." whinged Herr Gripes. We too would be upset if we wanted to win something and couldnt (due to others being better). 

Goss goes back into the leaders horrible tangerine jersey after lousy support couldn't even swap out a flatted back wheel forcing him onto his spare bike with 10km to go. He came home 3rd.

Somehow Cavendish was unfortunate enough to not only have to race whilst battered from yesterdays troubles hurting his neandethalesque body, but he had cars to dodge too. Upon being asked about his potentially lethal experience and if he had to deal with cars and trucks et al he mumbled "Quite a bit yeah, you know, more than you want in a professional race I think." He thinks. Does he really? We here at the 'wagon think that during a professional road race there should never ever ever ever ever ever ever be any none race traffic anywhere near these highly strung athletes. Ever. Especially Cavendish: What happens if he tried to outsprint a car, did a tour de Suisse and caused another horrific pile up. Innocent car drivers could have been killed! Still, it might be better news coverage than watching the current Landis/Armstrong/etc carnage almost engulfing the periphery of mainstream media at the moment.

Prince Albert and two more pricks

It’s been a busy few days in the cycling world, what with one thing and another, and in all the hubbub it’s easy to miss little snippets of information as they come out. Fortunately though, your intrepid seekers of truth and justice here at ‘wagon towers rarely miss a trick, and like to keep our fingers in as many pies as possible. As a result there are a few doping (yes…sorry to keep banging on about it, but it is wrong!) related stories that we feel need discussing.

Firstly, the fable of ‘Prince Alberto and the Septic Steak’. News is emerging today that the Spanish Cycling Federation (herein referred to as SCF) will be waiting a further three weeks before deciding whether Alberto is guilty or not, and whether they will be issuing a suspension. This comes on the back of a statement from an un-named UCI member saying that he expects Contador to receive a two year ban.  Now, we’re all for due process and fair trial but this whole situation seems to have been mismanaged from the start (evidence of clenbuterol abuse surfaced DURING the tour…so why was he allowed to continue riding?). The fact that the SCF are dragging their heels over this can be interpreted two ways:

• 1)    Contador IS NOT guilty and the long wait is due to a desperate scramble around for any evidence that can be used against him – unlikely.

• 2)    Contador IS guilty and, in the wake of  Valverde’s doping scandal, the SCF are desperately trying to put some form of damage limitation in place for Contador, the Spanish Cycling Federation, Spanish cycling….or all three.

It’s up to each individual to draw their own conclusions, but the evidence certainly seems ominous for the Spaniard.

Moving swiftly on, and we come to everyone’s favourite nauseating little weasel Riccardo Ricco, who, it seems, has been claiming (to anyone foolhardy enough to listen to him) that it is possible to win the Giro d’Italia without doping, and what’s more, he’s going to prove it. Firstly, how on Earth Ricco would actually know anything about dope-free riding is beyond us as, by all accounts, he’s been a shameless and unrepentant substance abuser since his early amateur days. He’s miraculously changed his ways of late though. Funny what getting caught does to you, eh? Secondly (and this hardly bears thinking about), but if…IF by some despicable twist of fate Ricco did win the Giro without doping, we here at the ‘wagon think we speak for the silent majority when we say it’d be just unbearable as a spectacle. Again, we’ve nothing against giving people a second chance, but only if they’ve earned it – Ivan Basso, as a prime example. But Ricco hasn’t earned it. At all.

Lastly, but by no means least, we come to professional cycling’s very own pantomime villain: Floyd Landis. Yes, he’s back in the news again, this time with the outrageous (and not at all ironic) claims that doping should be legalised. So, the man who had everything, then lost it all, then conned his fans out of thousands and thousands of dollars, then lied in court under oath (let’s not forget this is a man from a very religious background), then lost everything again, then tried to claw back some credibility by accusing all and sundry of being drug-cheats, is now saying that because doping is rife and out of control, it should be legalised. Outstanding, Floyd, what a class act you really are. Cycling may very well be in a bad way at the moment, but to give up the fight and accept it as our lot? With that kind of defeatist attitude it’s no wonder he had to cheat in order to win….

Swift-ly does it, leaving Cav in stitches. Lance, again. Tour de San Luis.

Sky's young buck Ben Swift managed to avoid the final 3km carnage and out sprinted Radioshack's vet paceman/jester Mcewen to the line. Cavendish and Goss both went down, with Cav looking like he'd had a night on the tiles back in Douglas. Unfortunately for Greipel it seems both Goss and Cav will be fit enough to ride the remainder of the tour.

Good to see a strong finish from 'Wagon fave Romain Felliu. If there is any justice in the peloton his Vaconsoleil team leader Ricco-ck will crash arse first onto a bollard or fence post sustaining awfully debilitating but none life threatening injuries allowing Felliu or Hoogerlands to take the captains armband. Pleeeeease.

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It seems the inverted iceberg shaped pedastal of honesty and integrity Lance has been teetering on for a few years now might soon give way. Yet more allegations about to published in Sports Illustrated (we didn't realise they did more than swimsuit editions either) Here is a preview of a larger article to be published on Jan 24th, with more allegations of Armstrong using a Ferrari (not the cars) to go faster. Since Lance will have re-retired his ego and his legs, he should have plenty of time to come up with reasons or excuses to refute the claims made by all these other people. We here at the Broom Wagon just don't know what to make of the Armstrong saga. Is it really possible that the greatest TDF rider of all time was doped? Or was it possible he was clean? Both arguments are entirely plausible. Doping involves too many traceable elements, and we don't mean in pee, blood or hair. The doctors, the emails, phone calls, text messages, meetings, payments. Its surely all too easy to be sold out by anyone of the people involved, which leads us (and desperately wants) to believe Lance rode, and won clean. Though we should also say that if Lance is proven guilty of having doped, it will be the last straw before his fall from grace. We don't know Lance, and the closest we have been to him is about 3ft from him at the 2009 TDF Annecy time trial, but we suspect, like he proclaims, he won't be 'losing any sleep'. And neither will we.

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Why is it that whilst I look out of my window onto another severe frost, there are people getting paid to ride bikes in really lovely places. By lovely I mean warm. Like in the Tour Down Under, and also just across the South Pacific ocean the Tour de San Luis is underway. Whilst not a Pro Tour even we find its worth tracking as some pro tour teams are taking part: Liquigas, Ag2r and Movistar. Stage 1 was taken by Roberto Ferrari, no relation to the above mentioned Dr. we hope. Stage two featured a mountain top finish, that sounds rather exciting. What a shame its not on any media over here in the Shire.

Stage 1 to Gossy Gossy Gander and bye bye Roid.

When, will I, will I be famous? Matt Goss can answer that with his legs. Very soon. Four wins in two weeks now for Cav's teammate, but where was Greipel? 4 Seconds back. A looong time at a sprint finish. Goss shouldn't have too many worries about being cold during tomorrows stage, he'll be wearing at least 3 jerseys the greedy devil.

How about those new Euskaltel helmets then? Very snazzy. When viewed from above, which will be mostly never, they reminded us of something Munch might paint. Have to say during todays break away how old fashioned the Euskaltel bikes looked too. Shallow dish rims, skinny tubing. Like being back in the 80's.

Best hair in the peloton? Obviously goes to Matty Perget. Such lavish, luscious flowing locks. Aaaaah. Now Pellizotti's cut his mane off this is the bonce to watch we reckon.

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It seems Roid Landis has finally accepted he is hated by so many people that he can't find a job, and doesnt want to race anymore anyway. Boo hoo. His drug cheating was so bad he couldn't get into the now defunct pro-cycling rehab team that was Rock Racing. Bye bye.

Pretty Vacant-soleil

Vacansoleil seem to have put out a firm statement of intent with the recruitment of convicted dopers Ricardo Ricco and Ezequiel Mosquera. Indeed, by promoting Ricco, or 'the Cobra' to give him his self appointed nickname, to team leader Vacansoleil have well and truly nailed their colours to the mast. Quite what impression this gives to the younger or harder-working members of Daan Luijk's squad is open to interpretation. Do the younger rider, such as Wout Poels, Pim Lithgart, or Martijn Keizer now pick up the message that it's ok to cheat? And what about the slightly older, hard working riders who've stayed clean throughout their careers? Riders such as Johnny Hoogerland, Stijn Devolder, and Matteo Carrara may now feel that they have somehow 'missed a trick' by not fuelling themselves up with a Floyd Landis special. It's one thing to offer a second chance to someone who has strayed, such as in the case of David Millar, who has repented his once questionable ethics and now works actively to try and clean the sport of cycling up. On the other hand though, to bestow the team leadership on such and unrepentant (not to mention arrogant and odious) wretch as Ricco? We find that hard to stomach.

Speaking of Johnny Hoogerland, he is a rider whom we hope to see much more of over the coming season. He falls into something of a niche category, along with riders such as Philippe Gilbert, Dan Martin, and Vincenzo Niballi, as rider who are hungry and attack-minded - ultimately a joy to watch! Las years Tour was, at times, almost nauseating due to the Contador-Schleck love story. In fact, there were times when the tactical bike-chess and blatant homo-eroticism looked as though it'd end up in a John and Yoko-esque bed-in.
Schleck is a rider who is infuriating for his obvious natural abililty, but complete lack of ruthlessness. After the infamous (and now tedious) chaingate affair Schleck promised us that he was angry and that he'd have his revenge, and we, like so many other deluded fools out there, expected him to come out fighting. In fact, he did quite the opposite and, despite a surprisingly good effort in his final time-trial, he seemed to gift the tour to Contador by not attacking. Ever. Andy Schleck may have won over a lot of new fans with the somewhat dignified way in which he took the moral high-ground over the chaingate affair (see Avram Grant at Chelsea/West Ham for a footballing equivalent), but we're sure he also lost a few fans too, with his passive response on the bike.

With the Tour Down Under kicking off a brand new season in the cycling world we find ourselves bouyant and excitedly optomistic (like a 16 year old whose girlfriend is coming over to stay whilst his parents are on holiday) as to what the coming year will bring. We pray (to the God of Thunder) that the sport that we love so much isn't let down by dour, negative racing and damning doping scandals.

For now, though, it's time to roll....

Welcome, readers!

And so here we are, at last! The 2011 cycle racing season commences down under with a line up that some Americans, and a French sports daily, might call 'dope'. 

It has been reported that Greipel, wish some Pharma motivation injected into him might just get the Ochre jumper. Or should that be an Ogre jersey?

Lets hope that without any Contrador-Schleck smooching towards a drugs tainted mechano failure gifted race win a la 2010's Tdf, the Aussie tour is a bit more meaty with its racing. Even if meek Bertie wasn't suspended there isn't much chance we'd see him in the Hindmarsh Most Agressive rider jersey anyway.

It is a shame Lance is quitting the pro race circus circuit after Australia. Lets hope he goes out with a bang, and not a (test) failure. 

Being Brits, we won't hide our dislike of annoying mod wannabe tour failure tWiggo, or our love for the simple but very fast Chavendish.

First post over, if you're still here then lets hope you check back throughout the season. 

Let the racing commence!