Never mind the heat, feel the cold hard cash.

I'd give it another month before you start getting excited about anything that's happening on the road if I were you.

As the cross and 6 day season winds down, it falls to the sports crazed cousin, road racing, to enliven us for the coming year. But he hasn't started yet has he? As I write all we've had the Tour de Downunder and the first stage of Qatar.

Tour de Downunder? Tour de Downunder? Has there ever been so much media hype about such a boring race? The worlds media descended on South Australia as gossip columnists elbowed cycling jurno's in the face in an effort to get front row at the press conferences. The great and the good of Aussie society joined it's politicians in turning up for hospitality and photo opportunities. All of them proclaiming their love of cycle racing, all of them telling anyone who would listen that they always ride a bike and that cycling is the greatest sport in the world. Well F*** me.
If this is what it's like with a 'low key' bike race 10,000 miles from cycling heartland what the hell's it going to be like come July?

Lets have a look at the race, nothing much wrong with it as a race if you ask me. Something for the locals to aim at as they attempt to generate some sponsor type excitement and nothing much wrong if you're a European team and want a little pre-season warm up. But for the UCI to hold it up as a top class event is taking the piss. And for the event to be sold as something approaching the TdF in terms of a sporting challenge is ever so slightly wrong.
The organisers may well have dreams of attracting the stars and even of attracting the stars when they are competitive, or God knows, maybe even attracting the stars and getting them to race seriously for the overall. But lest face it this is a long, long way off. Maybe when Uncle Pat looks into his crystal ball he may well see a future where big time races attract major teams across five continents for twelve months of the year or maybe he just sees a half empty beer glass and a sobbing pissed bloke, I dunno. But what I do know is that just because a race organiser and the UCI think it's a major race on the global calendar doesn't make it so.

But good luck to the organisers, I doubt if there has ever been so many journalists drawn to a bike race that have known so little about what was going on. Still, as with all great bike races, ply the punters with the best local wines and you'll get star ratings and a great write up.

Hows the bank balance?

Still Qatar is where it's at this week. The race that is currently being sold as the Tour de France mark 2 attempts to kick start the excitement for the coming European season. A little closer to Europe, fewer media hacks and no pesky locals steeling the 'Pro' teams limelight does not, as yet, generate much excitement. Sure the race is talked up, which race isn't, but the sprinters aren't yet at full speed and whilst a few psychological points can be scored we all know the real action is at last a month away.
Back in the 60's and 70's the pre-season action was in the South of France, 'Grande Prix this' and 'Trophy the other' provided a little light competition for the teams prior to a Belgian spring. Nowadays the money has moved East and so have the pre-spring races.

Publicity wise the Tour de Qatar had it's limelight stolen this year, with Lancey boy grabbing all the headlines Downunder the media Jonnies in the land of sand needed to pull something out of the proverbial 'look at me, look at me' bag. So what could be better than the claim that Le Tour de France was going to start in Qatar, brilliant. Imagine the massive crowds, imagine the electric atmosphere, imagine the publicity caravan in the desert, imagine the hoards of locals turning to the bike as a means of transport, imagine ASO's bank balance.

That's what I like to see, the real action, the real excitment is where it always was, in the bank account of race organisers.

BTW

Oh, nice one Rog, who said Qatar wasn't exciting?


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Phone lines are now open for your calls.

Marks out of 10 please judges.

There is a rumor that there is set to be a major change in the way teams and riders are eliminated from major races and that these changes will be outlined by Uncle Pat when he announces the 2009 World Calendar this coming Thursday.

At the end of 2008 the UCI needed to regain credibility (titter ye not) with fans, teams, sponsors, jurnos, and race organisers. So they scrapped the 'Pro-Tour' and came up with the 'UCI Pro-Tour'. Now everybody is happy, the UCI rule the cycling world again, ASO, RCS and Unipublic have all bowed down before the golden throne and all cyclings problems are at a stroke, solved.
But the UCI ever keen to keep up with the times and in an effort to attract more armchair cycling fans have hit on a novel way of promoting the sport. Starting with the Tour Downunder riders will be eliminated from stage races not just for missing the time cut, crashing or failing dope tests, but also as a result of public phone vote.

Your call only costs 2 Euros a minute.

At the end of each stage a panel of experts will select 10 candidates, who will be scored on their contribution to the race, their riding style and their ability to execute certain predetermined tactics. Following the judges marking the phone lines will be opened up and the public will be allowed to vote on which rider will be eliminated. The experts for the first event of the season have yet to be announced, but it is thought that they will include, Frank Vandenbroucke, Michael Ball, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov and Tammy Thomas.

An unnamed UCI source has reportedly said 'The public vote will add and extra fun element to stage races, which until now had been boring and predictable.' He/She/It went on say that 'The added pressure will also act as a deterrent to doping and aid the UCI in their goal of getting richer, sorry, I mean getting a clean sport.'

More new races.

In addition to the ground breaking changes to race results it is thought that the UCI are also planning to unveil the new 'Tour de Russia' with the proposed date being 'all of May'. A (different) UCI spokesman has said 'the Russians are desperate to give us lots of money and we felt that the ideal slot in the calandar for a race is May, after all noting much is happening then is there? and anyway RCS have pissed us off, so up their's.'
The spokensthing refused to comment that the Tour de China was scheduled to take place in July with a top prize of a billion Euros, 'We have a very good relationship with ASO and would in no way introduce a race with a greater prize fund in an effort to bugger up the Tour de France.'

Shock new team anouncement.

Hold the front page, stop the presses. In a totally unexpected anouncement it has been anounced that British Cycling will announce that they will run a pro team in 2010 and that that team will have a major sponsor.

The team, it has been announced, will feature 'riders', some of whome will be British and some of whome won't.

In another shock revelation, sorry, announcement, it has also been revealed that the team will have a management structure that will include coaches.

As we went to press there was no anouncement about bicycles, but an insider has anounced that bicycles will be involved in the team and possibly ridden by the riders.

As yet there has been no announcement about Mark Cavendish, but it is thought that at some stage over the coming years there will be an announcement relating to Mark Cavendish and a team with a major sponsor.

More announcements as they happen.



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Oh yes he is, oh no he isn't, oh yes he is, oh no he isn't

The pantomime season is upon us.

As the winter approaches theaters across the UK are gearing up for the pantomime season. Suddenly seats that have remained empty due to an excess of Shakespeare and an over reliance on local amateur dramatics will have backsides on them as Aladdin, Cinderella and their chums run through their paces. Men will dress up as fat women, women will dress up as young boys and the audience will will scream with delight and shout out 'behind you'. (similar shouts could be heard at the Saunier Duval team bus during July).

In cycling we like to keep up with the times and so we have our own pantomimes. There are the annual favorites; stories of family feuds between Uncle Pat and the ASO, sagas of riders running away from dope testers at Le Tour and the annual comedy of German cyclists getting busted. But this year we have a new pantomime that is sure to get the kids flocking to the cheap seats. This year instead of Puss in Boots (I don't suggestyou use that as a Google search term) We have Lance at le Tour.

Lance at le Tour started a couple of months ago with a slightly odd announcement that Lance was to make a return to the sport and ride Le Tour, this shortly turned into a return to cycling and riding le Tour to win. Not a bad start, but then as the weeks progressed it went from riding le Tour to win to, riding the whole season with le Tour as the highlight. Then it became riding the whole season over 5 continents and riding the Giro as well as le Tour. This became riding the whole season aiming to win the Giro and maybe riding le Tour to help another rider, which of course became riding the Giro to win as team leader and supporting the leader at le Tour.
This then turned into riding the Giro to win and maybe not le Tour, which of course became; riding the Giro to win and only 50/50 for le Tour. - Phew....

And we still have 6 months to go. Over the coming weeks we can expect the 50/50 for le Tour to become 100% not riding, but Lance will be there every day to offer support to AC (that's Alberto Contador and not AC from operation Puerto). This will change into 100% not riding, but Lance will be there on the key stages, which will by June be; 'Tour de what? Never heard of it.'

Hung, Drawn and Quartered.

In a move as unexpected as Uncle Pat winning Ireland's got talent, the Italian rider's association, the AACPI has called for dopers to be kicked out the sport for life.

Their letter to Uncle Pat is here: Letter to the UCI (from Velonews).

There's not much to say about that is there? I could be churlish and say 'about time' or 'it's a bit late' or 'as if it will have any effect', but I won't. Instead I'll welcome it, yes there will still be Italian riders that dope, just as aliens number 1 and 2 continued to do when the Gerolsteiner team had a strong anti doping line. But open anti doping statements, longer bans and the like will have an effect on some riders. I'm not naive enough to believe such words on their own will win the 'war' but they will go some way to altering the prevailing mind set and as such are to be welcomed.
Others, I'm sure, will pick over the statement word by word, compare it's fine words against the actions of certain members of the AACPI and so on, but I'm happy it's been said and I'll leave it at that. This pantomime will continue, no doubt, but maybe we could start to believe in angels again one day.

UCI and ASO; that meeting in full.

Pat McQuaid of the UCI and Jean Etienne of ASO patch up their differences.


So the UCI and ASO have had a love in, nice.... (I'll apologise if you're reading this after you've just eaten and the vision of Uncle Pat getting down to do the dirty is upsetting you, but there you go).
They have both been busy issuing statement listing their various positions (!!!!!) and in case you missed them, or in ces you didn't understand them, I'll translate:


Things are excellent,There is a charm offensive on both sides. Said Uncle Pat. What he means is:
I still hate the bastard. But at least I've stopped kicking his dog.

We are very happy and very content with the way we are communicating with them, and they likewise feel the same about the way they are communicating with us:
We are now in the same room, but we are still screaming insults at each other. We had a buffet and we finished up throwing cake at each other. Mum says I can have jelly for tea.

"We had a meeting in Paris on Monday. I met with Jean Etienne, the new president of ASO, and one of the directors of the EPA. We had a discussion about various elements such as next year's calendar and they also explained their objectives with the Tour presentation.
I passed that twat Etienne in the street, I kicked him and said their Tour presentation was crap.

The route is interesting.
Call that a race route? My 4 year old nephew could come up with a better race than that.

And so on...... the words piss up and brewery spring to mind.

KoM (King of the morons)

Kohl and Schumacher consider their futures.

It came to pass that another of the Gerolsteiner riders was caught partaking of CERA. Bernard Kohl joins space alien Schumacher on, what we hope is, the road to oblivion.
Still one thing is for sure Bernard is keeping a fine tradition going. Just take a look back at the previous list of KoM winners, go back to the 80's and you have a who's who of doping. Lets take a look;
Kohl 2008,Rasmussen 05, 06, Virenque 04, 03, 99, 98,97, 96,95, 94, Botero 2000, Chiappucci 91, 92, Claveyrolat 90, Theunisse 98, Rooks 88.
They have all failed tests or admitted to doping after their retirement.

If I look at the book shelves, I see rows and rows of cycling related books. There are a lot of books on coaching, books on periodisation, weight training, diet, books on great races, autobiographies and biographies of stars and water carriers. But you know what? There's not a book on the history of doping. That would make an interesting read, who's taken what and when they took it. The protests against testing and the riders caught cheating. You could slot in a couple of comedy chapters covering the bizarre excuses offered and finish up with a look at the long term heath consequences, both physical and mental of doping. Surely there's one waiting to be written?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling#2000s
Provides a good evenings entertainment and plenty of opportunity to feel angry and pissed off. Whether or not there would be enough potential sales to encourage a publisher to put up the money is another question, but if you feel you have that great unwritten novel inside you..... feel free to make with the idea.



Don't book that Parisian hotel (yet)

Whooo, hold on there, enough with the on-line hotel booking and the suitcase packing. Lance may not be visiting France after all.
In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport he admits he's riding the Giro to win, but goes on to say he might not ride in France.

'With the problems that I've got with the organisers, journalists and fans, I could get distracted from mission.'
He hopes a diplomatic solution can be found, but goes on to claim he's not had the OK from ASO. I bet you thought ASO had given the all clear? But just look past the September headlines and you see that they are pretty vague (how un French......ha, ha, ha). So as yet we don't know what the score is.

Lance says. "Is it possible they won't invite me? Everything is possible but I would find it incredible, a sort of own goal. I want to be in Paris but in a calm situation."
Er, yes it is quite possible he won't get asked, I don't find it incredible, come on Lance, you may well feel it's time to move on, but does everybody? An own goal, I doubt if ASO will see it like that, to be honest I doubt if they'd care how it was viewed outside Paris. Calm situation, yeah, like that's gonna happen.

If we assume that Astana have spent long enough on the naughty step for ASO to be satisfied. Then they must be in line for a ride. So if Astana are riding and Lance is a member of Astana and he's not currently under a ban, can ASO stop him?

What's I think is interesting, is that Lance not riding will generate as much publicity as Lance riding. I mean he won't be able to use the press conferences to get the cancer message across, but then is there any chance of that happening should he ride? I'd suspect the press events would follow their once traditional format, loads of questions about drugs, loads of bad blood (sorry feelings), photos of those asking awkward questions and a lot of shouting and waving of the arms. Things in Italy would I suspect be a little calmer. Maybe looking at all the potential grief will persuade him to just ride the Giro, or hey, Giro and Vuelta.
So we await the turn of events, it's all eyes to Paris, just don't let them stray towards those hotel rooms quite yet.

World Cup tickets for sale, only £500 for three days.

On a far more uplifting note (if you're a British track fan, as I am) the Sky sponsorship deal with British Cycling get's going at the first round of the world cup in Manchester in a few weeks time.
Victoria Pendleton, Ross Edgar, Jason Kenny and Jamie Staff are all to be found listed under the new Sky+HD trade team. +, is this the first time a + has appeared in a trade team name?

The world cup format of course allows trade teams in addition to national squads, so for a set-up like BC it's a great chance to give exposure and competition to even more riders.
Whilst Hoy and Wiggo aren't riding, it's pretty much the full Worlds and Olympic squads in action, so expect plenty of podiums from the home riders.

The world cup falls at a perfect time, a couple of weeks before the first of the Revolution track series and at a time when cycling is still riding high in the nations consciousness. Tickets can't be had for love nor money, although for five hundred quid I might be tempted.
A couple of years ago we sat in a half empty stadium and watched a round of the world cup, the UCI were none too impressed and said never again. However the success of the Revolution series (playing to full houses) and the World Championships caused a rethink, the result every ticket went with a couple of days of going on sale. So expect a great 3 days racing. I'll see you there.