Categories: Awesome Swiss GuysRacingThe Hardmen

WWSD

What will Spartacus do?

When it comes to hardmen, there aren’t many tougher than this guy. That he manages to mix massive amounts of V with similarly massive amounts of Casual Deliberation only serves to heighten the man-crushes of a bunch of older, fatter, balder men who see a visage of Spatacus looking back at us in the mirror every time we don lycra. We wish we could be him.

So I put myself into the mind of Fabs after his huge crash/broken back/ride anyway/forced to retire sequence the other day. The guy has had a lot of bad luck over the last few years, and as he gets to the twilight of his career, decisions need to be made. What Will Spartacus Do? Well, I don’t know, but I do know what Spartacus should do.

The only way for Faboo to go out is thus:

Take a break in the sun, drink rum, heal the injury and ride a scooter without a helmet. Try not to fall off.
Work off the fat from all the Mojitos and get training again.
Target the World Champs road race and win the bloody thing.
Look completely awesome in the rainbow bands (with black shorts) and win Lombardia.
Have a rest over winter, then train for one last Classics campaign.
Win Het Volk, E3, the Ronde and Roubaix while looking awesome in the bands.
Retire on the velodrome with a cobble in hand.
Un-retire. Break the Hour Record.
Replace fucking Jens on whatever commentary team I had to put up with listening to his shit the other night.

Shouldn’t be too big an ask.

Brett

Don't blame me

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chris says:

Jul 10 2015 at 5:02 am

@wiscot

@ChrisO

@brett

Oh dear, just watched the last km and if you need any further evidence of P&P incompetence…

What, do you mean that they called it as Matteo Trentin ?

Or that they didn’t seem to realise there was no point looking at Sagan 50 metres back because Stybar (formerly a.k.a Trentin) was about to cross the line?

Or was there some equally egregious error which I missed from yelling at the screen so much?

Or that Uncle Phil thought that Stybar was Cav for a moment? Really? The finish was 100% not Cav’s kind of finish, Cav is much shorter than Stybar and finally, I don’t think Cav’s ever worn RED shoes. I mean, it’s just embarrassing that PL gets highly paid to swan about France and do such a piss poor job. Again, PL has become an institution to the point where his obvious failings are trumped by his fame. If he was a rookie and did a screen terst he’d be shown the door after 5 minutes.

Have they got worse over the years or are we suffering from the benefits of everything being in glorious HD these days?

When I were a lad you could only really work out who riders were in the long shots from the helicopters from their jerseys and having a rough idea of which group was which and who was in it.

I suspect we were wrong just as much as the commentators back then, only no-one had a clue.
Oli says:

Jul 10 2015 at 6:39 am

@Mikael Liddy

Yeah, he seems like a good guy and, as I said, knowledgeable so I'm not hating on him, I just can't get into him as a commentator. It's just how I feel.
ChrisO says:

Jul 10 2015 at 8:35 am

Great to see Cav back.

Distinctly unimpressed with Sagan. Seems like he's actually trying to just place in all the sprints not win - yesterday he sat and watched Stybar ride away and was looking around marking anyone else so he could ride for second.

One green jersey without winning a stage is unfortunate, two begins to look like crappyness.
rfreese888 says:

Jul 10 2015 at 11:12 am

@ChrisO

Totally agree!

He didn't do diddly about Martin taking off on stage 4 and was sat there pulling his pud yesterday.

0 Panache
gilly says:

Jul 10 2015 at 2:03 pm

Love this man. His panache, courage, fucking outstanding guns, resilience, wonky faced handsomeness and cobblestone crushing awesomeness. I'm not gay but if I was...
Minnesota Expat says:

Jul 11 2015 at 9:11 pm

@chris

Have they got worse over the years or are we suffering from the benefits of everything being in glorious HD these days?

I'll give NBC credit for spending the $$$ for proper coverage, from having former pros as commentators, reporters on the finish line, following the peloton, and buying all the video rights, and then putting on a four-hour broadcast. Excellent.

Problem is the need to fill dead air with endless feature segments explaining bike racing, or picking their favorites for the day, or answering questions from Twitter. I just don't learn anything from these guys. And "Ask Bobke"?! Has anyone tuned in to "Ask Bobke"? Would anyone admit watching "Ask Bobke"?

Two recommendations; (1) Phil Ligget must stop shilling for Minions. It's a movie for 5-year olds and does not help his stature as a cycling broadcast institution (however creaky that is). (2) If Bob Roll won't take his next paycheck and go see a dentist, then we should launch a Kickstarter campaign and pay for it ourselves.
ChrisO says:

Jul 12 2015 at 8:14 am

Christ almighty Paul Sherwen has one idea in his head and he keeps repeating it.

He even repeats the fact that he's repeating it. "It's all about the final two kilometres, as I've said to you since the start Phil."

STFU then if you've already said it, at least a dozen times.

And just to illustrate how poor the coverage is - the TV not the commentators.

So this year every rider has a transponder fitted which gives live data as they ride. Why are we having time checkpoints every 10km when it would be perfectly possible to have virtual positions at every point in the TT. You could show one team on screen and their nearest rivals as virtual ghosts at any time. The lack of imagination is what annoys me.
chris says:

Jul 12 2015 at 9:44 am

@ChrisO

Agree, where are the real time strava flybys?
Phillip Mercer says:

Jul 22 2015 at 7:02 pm

I do love Carlton Kirby's innuendo and I don't mind the odd Kirby-gasm. I find Sean Kelly a bit tough going despite him being a legend. I've enjoyed Eurosport's coverage of the classics and other stage races during the whole season with a mix of Magnus Backstedt, Dan Lloyd and Matt Stephens.

I was talking with a SBS presenter and he was pretty frank about his opinion of Phil and Paul which was at odds with was he's read off the autocue. I asked him about when Phil said he would retire if COTHO was guilty and the fact he hadn't. The presenter's reply was that Phil loves the money too much. I now stream Eurosport to avoid Phil and Paul when I can.