Seriously. Is it almost September? This was not the agreement, this was supposed to be an endless summer. And all you A-Holes down there in the Antipodes are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, enjoying longer days and shorter nights. I don’t need to tell you where you can take that, but it’s dark and it smells. I have no patience for the changing of seasons when it means I’m going to be benching Number One and busting out the headlight.
I’m not going to lie to you; the Vuelta is my least-favorite race of the year. Part of it is the parcours-it’s hard enough to get excited about flat sprint stages in the Tour, but these stages in central Spain that go down a straight freeway for hours are just too much for my brain to find interesting. Hey look! There’s another shrub! Wasn’t he a President at one point? There will be some redeeming points of the race, I’m sure, and the shit-steep climbs they dot along the route are certain to be highlights of the season. But after you do the math, this is the grand tour with the weakest field, the worst route, and-most damning-the strongest signal that Summer is coming to an end on the half of the world that matters.
I can’t be bothered to sort out the route and what stages are going to matter, but I’ll tell you this: for the last few years, the winner of the Vuelta VSP has won the VSP GC. A few years back, @Marcus complained that he only lost the VSP because @Nate used the second Rest Day Swaps to his advantage to take the win, but after heavily increasing the penalties, he kept losing. Typical of a man who posts photos of his todger on a Cycling site. (@Nate, your win was clean according to the VCI.) Speaking of which, at worst the Vuelta will distract from Pat McQuaid and his bid for losing the UCI Presidency.
He has a strong lead in the 2013 Anti-V competition, however.
Check the start list, get your picks in, and don’t Delgado this baby; it could be your ticket to the shop apron. Bon chance.
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Just watching a live stream of Eurosport...is 'toym bonnifickayyshun' a new scoring concept Sean Kelly has developed? No disrespect to the double hard bastard intended.
Horner!!!!
@Cyclops
YES!
I wonder how spunky Purito will feel tomorrow? Is he going to leapfrog Valverde or even Nibali? I feel good about Horner, though.
@Beers
Yeah, everyone except the 41 year old Horner that is.
@Erik
I just had to look and see if anyone picked Horner from the get go and as far as I could see only Erik did.
STRONG fuck'in work, mate. Serious crystal ball, there.
I hope you also played the lottery becasue you are spot on so far!
@Buck Rogers Thank you! But it is still only 26 points by my math. Depending on how Valverde and Rodriguez shake out I can still lose.
I had a feeling Horner wanted it. Let us all hope it is legit. As I've noted above, I really want it to be.
Well at least nibbles losing the lead should reshuffle the super prestige a bit....i think he will blow on the angliru...i just need valverde to have a storming day tomorrow and for horner to forget to take his sherbert!
@Erik
You know, I truly, sooooo truly want it to be legit! And it might just be!
As a child of cycling who came to the sport in the mid-to-lates '80's I have lived and died a million deaths with pro cycling and God I hope it is all clean now!
I really need to just keep my negativity to myself on this subject.
So .... Go Horner you CRAZY FUCKING AMERICAN!!!
On another note, I checked ESPN's homepage today and it was like 1986 all over again (except then it was the daily newspaper). An American about to win a Grand Tour for the first time and NO, ZERO, mention of it anywhere. And here I thought we had come so far!
Fucking Awesome! Horner!! A local (from Bend OR just over the hill from me, and a guy that would be in our group road races from time to time before he became pro).
The suck part is over on cyclingnews the commenters are all just tearing him up saying there's no way a 41 y/o AMERICAN can win a GT without doping. Fuck those guys. I've met Chris, raced with him a few times. I'll fall over if he's not clean.
@scaler911
CANT. STOP. MYSELF.
Not saying that he isn't clean (well, actual, yes I am) but you cannot blame anyone for questioning this!!! Come on!!! Look at the last 20 years, man!
Anytime someone does some completely unbelievable, oh say, I don't know, like being the first person in the HISTORY of CYCLING to lead a GT at 41 years old, esp when, if it IS a level playing field the differences are so minute between the top athletes, and esp when the athlete in question has truly done fuck all for the last two years, you HAVE to question it. And it is not like he is competeing against a bunch other old washed up guys not in their primes. And all the other top guys in the peloton have had bad days, not Horner. You HAVE to question it, if nothing else to keep the sport credible.
We all know that he was desperate to find a new team, no one wanted him next year: Why? B/c he hadn't done shit for years. If he truly had the talent, I find it so hard to believe that some team would not have invested in him. And the Vuelta seems to be the most tainted, least tested event for GT's for the last few years.
Do you really believe that Cobo was clean??? He's more believable than Horner on paper! And when Valverde won it???
Besides, I grew up racing in New England in the late '80's and early '90's and met and raced at the same races as Tyler Hamilton. SUPER nice guy.
Michael Barry, just the nicest guy in the world.
I hope he's clean but you either have to not know any cycling history or be completely in lala land if you are not questioning this performance. Nothing peronsal, and it is not like you are new to the sport, you know this sport more than someone who started riding three years ago. Hell, you went a hell of a lot farther in the racing scene than I ever did. I topped out as a Cat 3.
But, you know, if it smells like shit, looks like shit, and even tastes like shit, you really have to entertain the idea that it is shit.