Get yer rocks off, get yer rocks off honey....

Here today, gone tomorrow.

Here to stay! Perhaps one of the most unfortunate tag lines a cycling team could ever hope to have. A bit like 'All are riders are clean', there's nothing you can ever predict for sure in the world of cycling. I have long been of the belief that a team that styles itself as 'Here to stay' will be gone in a few years. Sadly my scepticism looks like being proved right as the current economic climate hits sales of rocks. (There are still plenty at our local garden centre, but alas no takers, even at 50% off). What is sad is that when (not if) the team goes down the toilet it will be the younger riders and team staff that are left out of pocket, the has beens and ex-dopers have made their money and doubtlessly have plenty stashed away. Wouldn't there be value in carrying out some cost cutting now? There are plenty of names on the list that could have a black line through them, thus freeing up some 'capital' to keep the rest of the team going.

More doper scum news.

Johan Museeuw has been found guilty of using a range of products that would cause a chemist to sit up and take note. Museeuw confessed in January 2007 to partaking in in the product now known as Ricco's little helper, the legal bods have now all collected their fees and as such the due course of the law is said to have been run.
Museeuw and three others, Jo Planckaert, Chris Peers and Mario De Clercq, have all been given a suspended 10 month sentence and a fine of 2,500 Euros (ESPN news, Yahoo) or £15,000 (Cycling Weekly).
Prosecutors had been calling for 2 years in the clink, sadly this never happened and the four will get to walk away with nothing more than a small dent in the bank account and a ban from bike racing. The investigation that led to the four getting nicked took four years, thousands of hours of police time and involved phone taps and raids on houses and offices. Needless to say the four are considering an appeal, FFS. Now I don't know much about Belgium law, but is it possible that fines can go up on appeal? That would put a smile on my face.

And the good news.

Whilst Museeuw and his evil chums do their best to despoil the image of cycling Vision 1 Racing (the team formally known as Swift) do their damnedest to go the opposite way.
Vision 1 are still looking for a main name sponsor, so if you happen to have a few hundred thousand Euro spare......
What would you get for your money? Well how's this, Nicole Cooke, World and Olympic champion (the only cyclist ever, male or female to do the double) a team of hard working racers, based in Belgium with a great management structure Team Swift

I've blogged on them before, but hey, I talk about dopers a lot and this is a hell of a lot more worth while.
Swift / Vision 1 don't play at bike racing, they have a permanent base in Belgium and compete all year round, cross in the winter and road in the summer. They are well respected in their adopted country and continually deliver good results. Go on, you know it makes sense.



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Have you spoken to Lance recently?

So the Tour de Britain route is announced for 09 and with it the news that they have invited Lance to ride. Good idea, I mean he's gonna be short on miles come September and I'm sure he'd love to risk life and limb riding round the UK's semi closed roads. My club is thinking of sending him a mail, we've got a time trial that could do with a shot of extra publicity and Lance must have a free Sunday in July now.

Still the ToB joins what must be a bulging in box over at Lance towers, surely there can't be a race in the world that hasn't invited Lance to ride. The only way he'll be able to fulfill all the requests is to indulge in a spot of cloning, currently not on the UCI list of banned activities, but soon to be added I suspect if Lance gets interested. Now I may well have misunderstood what was said, but aren't the Tyler Hamilton twins a product of a cloning experiment gone horribly wrong?

A match made in heaven.

I don't know, you wait all you life for a gold medal and then two come along at once. Nicole Cook has announced her new team for 2009, it was an announcement that took just about every cycling pundit in the business (all 2 of 'em) by surprise. There had been speculation about who she'd ride for following the withdrawal of Halfords from womens racing, which in it's self was a strange move you'd have thought. But I don't think anyone saw the link up with Swift racing. Talk about 'left field' (apologies to my US readers if I got the phrase wrong.).

Nicole's press release is here Vision 1 Racing
In it she talks about it being 'time to give something back to the sport' . Which must make Nicole the first person under the age of 30 to say they are giving something back, it's normally a euphemism for 'I'm too old to race, I'll promote an event and do some coaching' (well it is in my case :-) )

The right one.

It's a great, great move. One for which I can't quite find enough praise. One that when you look at it logically makes a lot of sense for everybody concerned.
First the link up with Swift: I mentioned last week that Swift were offering you the chance to help fund their team for 09 ( Own Our Team ), Swift are a great team and they are doing things the right way, they have a base in Belgium and live the whole season out there training hard and showing total commitment to bike racing, they deserve a lot of success.
Second for Nicole: In Swift / Vision 1 there's the perfect match up in terms of up and coming riders, a great ethos and a management structure that shares Nicole's aims and ambitions. There is no doubt that she will have excellent support in races, but equally there is no doubt that the set-up will prove poivitol in the development of British riders with a view to 2012 and beyond.
Financially it makes sense for everybody. For Swift it will help generate extra sponsors and for Nicole it will give her a stable base for the next four years. There's not a lot of money in womens bike racing, even with double gold as a calling card I doubt that Nicole would be commanding a salary much above that of the average team rider, so as money is not an issue there are other things that make a team the right one.

But it's the prospect of rider development that appeals to me. The girls that rode with Nicole in Halfords / GB colours this year undoubtedly benefited immensely and to be able to have a continuity over several years in that development will pay dividends for all concerned.

Finches, as an alternative to those long winter miles.



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