One for the old guys

Today's finish in Paris-Nice was for the old dogs, the grunters, the weekend warriors who dream of hitting a finish line first.

It started a couple K from the final summit when a octet of known names hit the gas for the final time and summited the Cat 1 Col de la Mûre; a nasty little gift, with pitches of 12%, the organizers threw in a dozen kilometers from the finish after six previous categorized climbs. Ripping down a wickedly fast descent the group opened an 18 second gap and all looked set for Olympic champion Sammy Sanchez to take the stage. Radioshack had the young legs of Janez Brajkovic and the wisdom of old guy Andreas Kloden.

Then a beautiful thing happened. Brajkovic launched with Kloden on his wheel. Watching Kloden gritting and wincing the final few meters was like watch a sprint in slow motion. With a lunge his front wheel clipped the line a spokes turn ahead of equally suffering Sanchez.

For those of you who have never or only passingly noticed this race for the sun forget any idea that this is just a bridesmaid event until the Giro and Tour come around. One look at today's Paris-Nice stage profile and anyone who has donned a pair of Sidis can feel the pain.

As for Andreas, chances are today was like watching a rare sunset, you savor the moment, burn it into your memory, and cherish into the future - after 13 years in the Pros you know how to savor, you know what it's worth. Congrats Kloden, you richly deserve it!

"R" - Racing Reruns

Team RadioShack - "The Shack" - have blessed the New Year by doing a facelift to one of the worst looking kits in last years peloton. The new kits will hit the road just in time for the Aussie Pro Tour opener - the Santos Tour Down Under.

Each year January reveals new looks in the peloton, new teams, new riders, new kits, 2011 repeats that tradition. This year it appears you are either black & white or red & white, other wise you are "so last year."

The new look Shack kits are emblazoned with a huge scarlet "R" on a white background. Unfortunately what may also be 'so last year' are the results of the "R."

Hmm? "R"

While the kits are a clear aesthetic leap forward from that mess the boys road in throughout 2010, the "R" unfortunately may most accurately stand for Rerun and Retirement. For the team the Aussie Tour will be a rerun retirement of Lance Armstrong. Really.

Sadly the rerun part of "R" will also apply to Results. "R" as a team is a little long in the tooth. The average age of this team is staring down the road at 40.

Maybe the biggest "R" for fans of the new look Team RadioShack should be Realistic - at least you can realistically ride in a new kit that doesn't look Ridiculous.

Let the Leaves Fall

This weekend 26 teams - yes, including Radioshack, the apparent bad boys of racing - take to the start in Milano before riding north, looping the gorgeous Lake Como and finishing in the lake town of Como after climbing up from the lake shore and summiting the climb to Madonna del Ghisallo. They will ride through the falling leaves, la Classica della Foglie Morte, the Classic of the Falling Leaves. If I were a pro this is the one race every year I would ride for the sheer joy of riding my bike - and then end my season and stay in Bellagio for a few weeks.

And when I think of riding my bike for joy's sake Chris Horner often comes to mind. Horner loves this little race as well, and fairing quite well in it over the past few seasons - four tries and always top 15 with a best 7th. His participation in this year's race of the falling leaves looked in doubt when organizers RCS once again played punitive politics and "woops" left Radioshack off their start list. Something about some Italian dog eating the invitation, or something. Off that is until the Shack threatened to sue in the CAS and the UCI jumped in (part in the paternalness to insure next year's Pro Tour gets off to a credible start.)

After investigating the news, VeloNews has learned that the team will indeed be on the start line of the Lombardy race October 17. “There was an oversight by the organizers,” an inside source told this VeloNews. “A letter confirming the invitation was lost apparently. And so they are working with the UCI to work things out so the team can start the race.”

And to prove there is a cycling god the finale of the Classics season will be broadcast in America. To also prove that god has a sense of humor and a bit of devil in them, it will be televised on Universal Sports. But for the wise, know that you can turn the two US blithering idiots off and get a live Eurosport feed for some insightful, culturally intelligent and civilized commentary.

More about the fall Classic can be found in the new book published by VeloNews The Spring Classics. An adaptation of The Spring Classics: Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races can be found here.

Keep it simple stupid!

"Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!"
- Charlie Brown, commentary by Snoopy

(If I can quote someone with a sense of aesthetics and style)

Okay - look at those kits (if you can stomach it) - arms up in victory or flying half mast, it doesn't matter, they are butt-ugly! I've seen $19.95 sale jerseys at Performance with more going for them. And what's scary is Greg Henderson (pictured) is a fine sprinter - so that means unless something isn't done fast, we're going to be looking at that design disaster for the next several months.

Listen, Team Sky, think forward.... it's July, the big dance, your man, Wiggo, plodding sloooooowly up the Tourmalet, and we have to stare at that design road kill? What are you thinking? I'm not even sure you could coax lammergeiers into descending on that.

C'mon guys how frigg'n difficult does this have to be? Over on Cycling Weekly (.com) they ran a little adhoc competition (one that cost Sky and Rupert Murdock absolutely zilch!) and based on the stuff shown in Design A Jersey For Team Sky they got a nice diverse collection of designs. From the article one entry came from Kevin Dakin who said, "Sometimes, simple is best. A mate of mine once said to me of jersey design, 'can you see it from the helicopter?" And actually his design was nice, simple, and light years better than that Life Aquatica-looking bit the boys are being forced to wear downunder.

Some of the contest designs have a lot going for them and would make nice editions to the peloton - okay, maybe not the giant sun burst in the crotch on design number four.

One of the bits in the contest was that "We'll also send the best ones on to team boss Dave Brailsford and ask him what he thinks." Bravo, excellent idea, now quit mucking about, SEND THEM NOW!!

And if there are any left overs invite the RadioShack kit designers over for some chips and a pint, show 'em what ya got and for all our sakes, and a plea from the peloton, give them a design!

Seriously, I have a pretty decent vintage jersey collection - frankly, more than anyone has a good reason to own - but looking over the kits from the 80's and how hideous some of them are, I'm now starting to scratch my head and wonder how bad they really were?

Photo copyright Graham Watson Photography

Job Search: Designer needed urgently!

RadioShack twitters a "sneak preview" of its red and grey kit for the upcoming 2010 campaign... hmmmm? Reportedly "designed" by the folks at Nike, which makes sense if you are going to be the sponsor, but I'll admit Silence-Lotto may be looking at style infringement rights.

The tweet goes on to say that there "may be some tweeks" before the actual road debuet in the the Santos Tour Down Under in Australia January 17-24. Tweeks? Like a new team name maybe? Like a new design team maybe?

While there have certainly been worse kits - virtually everything worn in the pro peloton during the 80's - the new kit first-stab may be all the reason Armstrong needs to repeat of Italy's Ottavio Bottecchia original 1924 feat of the capturing the maillot jaune and hold it from the beginning until the final crit on the Champs.

BTW - still not sure how you sneak preview anything when you tweet about it yourself?

BTW2 - Armstrong looks damn fit for early December... Alberto, how's holiday going?

Horner Shacking up with Amrstrong & Leipheimer

Local Bend pro cyclist Chris Horner has penned a contract with Team RadioShack for the next two seasons enabling him to continue riding with former Astana teammates Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, according to The Oregonian article posted tonight on their website. The O - for which Horner reports regularly in a race diary and feature columns - reports that Horner, in one last show in his Astana colors, will line up for the start of the season's last great classic, the Giro di Lombardia, on October 17th.