Skimming off the scum.

Blue - the new yellow!

Last year it was Astana, this year it's Fuji-Servetto. Last year there was winging, this year there is winging. Last year Astana muttered and got on with it, namely riding the races they could ride, this year Fuji-Servetto have thrown a right hissey fit and have run off to CAS complaining that the nasty boy in the play ground has been pulling faces at them and saying they smell.
What's the bloody problem? You employ a bunch of dopers, they get caught, the men who run world cycling - ASO obviously, say piss off you're not riding our races this year, go and sit on the naughty step and if you're good for a year......

Any fool, could see it coming, I don't care if you cahange your sponsor and swap your stupid yellow jersey for a stupid blue one, it's still the same team, same management, same staff, many of the same riders. So what's changed? Well, er, em,..... Anyway, you ain't riding, so get used to it, buy some panniers and do a little touring, I hear the roads in France are quite empty come July.

More Schumacher news, sorry, comic moments.

Hurray for the German courts and their continued efforts to 'piss off Stefan Schumacher', (Yes you can read that either way). They have just found that the Schumacher v Holczer was a waste of everyone's time and money. This will give Holczer a chance to go after alien number 1 in an attempt to recover 4 months wages. Hopefully Schumacher will fight that in the courts as well and hopefully he'll have as much chance of winning that as he had in the recent case. Still, never mind Stefan, I hear the local supermarket are giving away cardboard boxes, I'd stock up on 'em if I were you, carry on like this and you'll soon have to sell your house to pay legal fees. Give it up man, see sense for God sake.

Boiling kidney beans, how similar to running a professional cycling team.

Someone who has not been boiling kidney beans, but who does a good job running a pro team is Scott Sunderland. He has, in yet another not-at-all shocking move been unveiled as El supremo of the new Team Sky. Scott was responsible for the creation of the Cervelo Testers and having done that and in the process, I suspect, ironed out any creases in the team creation process walked away ready to do the same again. So it's a good job he got the totally unexpected call to set up Team Sky.

The managerial setup at Sky looks, sorry, will look, very impressive. Sunderland and Sutton will, I'd guess, be backed up with the coaching expertise of Rod Ellingworth and allegedly Roger Legeay and topped of by big Dave Brailsford. It will be an impressive line up and one which just about any other team would give their right arm for.

Brailsford has a lot of cache in Europe, he has delivered a team with a strong anti-doping focus, a string of young successful riders that pro teams are fighting to sign up and he has now delivered a major global sponsor at a time when other sponsors are having second thoughts. Not a bad record eh? He'd do a good job at the UCI too.


.