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?


.

Those Schumacher questions in full.

The life and times of the three stooges.

Bernhard Kohl may, or may not be going to train as a chimney sweep as has been claimed in some quarters, which is a shame, I fight for the front of the queue in an effort to brick the bastard up in one if the chance became available.
Still we have had the odd pearl of wisdom from the 'man':
"My attorney found part of the justification of the suspension incomprehensible" He is reported as saying. Now 'call me old fashioned, call me straight laced....' but how is this possible? Unless the attorney in question is as deranged as his client. It's very simple it really is, you take CERA, you get caught, you fail to give up the name of the dealer, you get a two year ban. There are vegetables in our house that can grasp that.

Hey now, I'm glad to see Kohl's suffering financial difficulties and whilst I have no wish to see a man suffer unduly there's no unduly in this case, so as far as I'm concerned I hope he enojys the suffering.
His statement as to why he refused to go into details about his suppliers is quite something though isn't it? He claims that naming a supplier 'would neither have uncovered a doping ring nor uncovered the doping of another athlete' Well, as you're never going to name names, we can but guess, but I for one don't believe that Kohl was the only athlete that was supplied by Mr X. So naming him I'm sure would have prevented doping products going to other athletes.

And then of course we had : "I know, of course, that I didn't help cycling any with my behavior, but I am also not responsible for the general situation in cycling."
Who's a clever boy then? As Basil Fawlty would say 'Stating the bleeding obvious' are we? No, on your own you are not solely responsible for the current mess, but you sure as hell contributed to it and worst of all it's your mentality and the mentality of scum like you that dropped us in the deep end that we currently find ourselves in.

But on the bright side he has admitted that he is not currently considering a comeback, which is good news and sadly more than can said for Schumacher.
The German federation, has, apparently, a list of questions for Kohl's best friend. We may, or may not, have had a sneak preview of those questions and even if we haven't we'll take a guess at exactly what they are:
Question 1) Are you a cheating scumbag?
Question 2) Are you a cheating scumbag?
Question 3) Are you a cheating scumbag?
And so on for another 200 pages.

Exactly what is the problem here? Schumacher tested positive for CERA on both his samples, but has some how got the anti doping authorities running scared by threatening to sue them and indeed the entire French nation. WTF! Just ban the tosser for the maximum period allowable and be done with it, don't surcome to his playground bully tactics, for God sake.

Why the inaction on the Schumacher case? From what I can understand the UCI can take no steps until they have a full notification from the French Anti Doping authorities, who where the ones that did the original tests. What's the issue here? Afraid? Lost the results? Have some pathetic political point to make? Whilst the authorities drag their heals there is precious little to stop Schumacher applying for a license.

Now whilst I for one would quite enjoy the prospect of seeing Schumacher sitting in tears by the roadside as the peloton road past and he was left with no team, I don't actually want to take the risk of that actually happening. Even in the supposeed current climate of zeroish tollerance I'm sure there is some fool out there who would offer him a jersey, maybe a green and black one with a skull and the initials RR?

It has been confirmed that a certain Mr Chicken really is banned, but this hasn't stopped him training with a view to making a return.
Quite which continent he's training on is anyone's guess, hopefully Antarctica.


Tie me Kangaroo down sport.

I know as far as the worlds media goes the Tour de Downunder is the only show in town, but for God sake do we really need newsflashes every time Lancey boy takes a drink from his bottle? In fact the whole thing has got so out of hand that any rider in the race is under a microscope they normally never see until July. Today someone (not Mr Armstrong) got into a break for a whole 1k and it made it to the news wires (or should that be the news RSS feeds?)

Now I'm all for a bike race getting talked up, I'm all for the media reporting on our sport, riders being interviewed and sprint finishes making the evening bulletins, so I'm actually rather pleased with it all, but surely there needs to be a little perspective here? Ah well, maybe not. So it looks like that cool million, or whatever it was, is perhaps one of the shrewdest race marketing moves ever seen. What's it gonna be like come July is anyone's guess.

To be honest I'm watching the stages and feeling a little jealousy, not so much for watching the racing, but just for sitting somewhere warm, sipping the local wines and putting the world to rights, South Australia is a wonderful place, it's been a long time, too long.



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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.



.

Evans to ride for team GB in 2010?

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

Lotto say Cadel is riding, Cadel says he's not, Molly say woof, woof, woof.

This is getting to be so much fun, Cadel is really pissed off, Lotto lost Popo over the closed season and didn't get a replacement for the Alien after he was 'unavoidably detained'. On the up side they signed Charlie boy, who looking at the way Popo rode in 08, is a good investment, but Cadel really needs someone who can be with him in the final few K of the final climb of the day, but riders like that are few and far between and expensive, they're either riding for Mr 60%, Astana or currently doing time.

So, it looks like new teams all round for 2010, hummmn, isn't 2010 the date for new GB Pro Tour team (or team Sky/Tesco/Halfords as it will be called), maybe Cadel could get a ride, the organisation, training and preperation will certainly be better than anything he's had at Lotto and the Brits are a nation of animal lovers, so Molly will be well taken care off - surely the clincher then.


Downunder with the French.

Talking of quality fields Le Tour de Downunder looks like having a massive field, the Euro-centric peloton, having spent years whinging about traveling to the other side of the world seem to have fully embraced the land of Koalas and Kangaroos (rightly so). Of course they won't be hitting form there, or in the case of the French anywhere else, but there presence is a big plus for the race organisers and for Uncle Pat, the UCI and their vision of a global race series. The TdU is a great race, the local riders will be attacking like crazy, the local citizens will be having the time of their lives, the racing will be fast, the sun will be out and the French won't win, oh, sorry, that's July.




.

And the winner of Julys stage is.........

For God's sake man, just say no.

Spam, tis a wondrous thing, non? My spam filter has just picked up a mail offering 'Special treatment for your beloved.' Now stupid me, I thought this was going to be an offer of new bar tape for my Colnago, or even my track bike, but it turns out that they are offering little blue tablets to put more ding in your dong, so Dee Qin, unless you can offer something that's more relevant for the average cyclist I'm deleting your mail.

So the comeback starts in Le Tour de Downunder. The UCI have waived the 6 months notification rule, by 12 days, to allow Lancey boy to be on the start line. It's a great rule and makes a lot of sense, however the precedent was set with Chipo just rocking up at California with a bike and riding.
Still the UCI claim they contacted Lance twice, to tell him about the rule and didn't get a response, hummmh, looks like UCI is drilled into Lances spam filter along with all those mails offering performance enhancing drugs.

And the winner is.....

One of the million reasons I love cycling is that there's never an off season, if you like bike racing there's action all year round, road, cross, track, XC, downhill, BMX even TTing, but of late there is of course another exciting option to keep you entertained when there is no racing (or indeed when the Tour de Poland is on) and that's who'll be caught next. This is a really exciting new twist to our sport and only a recent addition to the calendar, but one that I'm sure will go from strength to strength in the coming years.
It's October now,three months since the Le Tour finished and the stage winners are still in doubt, how exciting is that? A stage race that goes on for three months! Well done the UCI , they really are making it a 12 months round sport.
Add to this the new sport of comeback racing and, you can have a really exciting twelve months without ever once seeing someone actually ride a bike, I know we want to attract new viewers to the sport, but shouldn't they be introduced to seeing people riding bikes first?

The chip circuit.

Meanwhile, the 6-day season gears up. I should state here that in my eyes the 6-day season is the supreme height of bike racing. And this season the cup will runneth over, Zable is to knock it on the head, and will be partnered by Brad Wiggo on his final rides. All of this has prompted Brad to do a bit of training. Undoubtedly Brad will be training out from the town where he lives, this just happens to be on my training route. Now Brad has fessed up spending a few months in his local there after Athens, but this isn't the problem we find when riding through it. Our misfortune is a newly opened chip shop and as we stagger through on our circuits we are assailed by the smell of freshly chipped chips. It's getting more common to see knackered cyclists drift in for a refueling stop of the fried potato nature. You see, 'tis a town of evil temptation for the cyclist.
Brad has admitted that his dalliance in the town caused him to have a crap season, pah, we're ahead of you there boy, we're crap before we get tempted.
On second thoughts, maybe Brad will be tempted by a chippy supper, frits, fries or chips, call em what you will, form one of the corners of the triangle that make a great 6-day race, the others are beer and bike racing, oh, hang on looks like Brad is in the perfect spot to cover all bases. Looks like he'll be having a good winter.