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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@Deakus
Jensy is always a good listen. When Jensy speaks its always enjoyable!
Interesting to watch Sagan get the Cancellara treatment in Quebec City this afternoon. If you want to win, you need to lead...
@Buck Rogers
The wonder of the GTs has to do with the stories and narratives that unfold"”not all at once, but over the space of three weeks. They are able to take on their epic quality precisely because they develop in serial form. But we've lost our capacity to dream in stories of this nature, to a great extent because the narrative is flawed. The narrative is flawed, not because some athletes cheat (cheating is as old as these stories), but because we have become less credulous and we lack the imagination to create new stories. Armstrong's defeat of cancer to become the greatest GT rider in history makes a great story (and it appealed because it was different, if very American). On a smaller scale, so does Landis's recovery to take the Tour. In a bygone age, we would have continued to revere these stories. Horner, the new Methuselah, is a great story. But it's almost too good; we're so numbed that we need ever greater stories and we recognize that all these riders have protean flaws...
@Steampunk
Merckx alive, that was a helluva brutal finish! Looks like Sagan just ran out of gas and big skinny-malink Gesink rode the smarter race.
For anyone interested, here's the link Steamy neglected to provide for your viewing pleasure: http://www.steephill.tv/players/youtube3/?title=Final+Kms+of+Grand+Prix+Cycliste+de+Qu%C3%A9bec+2013&dashboard=&id=1BYSMesIjGk&yr=2013
@Buck Rogers Don't get me wrong, I know where you're coming from. But given that Horner is, at 41, and leading a GT, is going to have the shit tested out of him. Now you're a MD and while I'm not, I've been in medicine for over 23 years. What drug can you think of that would enhance his performance to this level that they don't already test for, or we would know about? I've thought long and hard about it, and actually had a lengthy conversation with one of my Doc's who also holds a Pharm-D and is a avid cyclist/ super fan. We can't come up with anything in the formulary.
Not being argumentative just to start a fight, I'm curious.
@scaler911 Dammit Jim, I'm an eye surgeon, not a chemist!!!
Man, how do I know??? I did not know about the ability to abuse EPO when they started using that in the early '90's, didn't know about the ability to abuse HGH when they started that, same goes for CERA and lately micro-dosing EPO. Not to mention that no one has a test for blood transfusions yet.
Just b/c you cannot come up with what drug they are on does not lend credibility to an truly unbelievable story.
Look at the last 20 years since they started the heavy EPO doping in the early '90's, everyone said that no doping was going on, then Festina happened. They improved the testing and continued to improve testing, and then Floyd Landis happened. Continued improving then Contador, Rasmussen, you name it. Not to mention that Lance was riding and unfolding an unbelievable story during all this improvement, all the way to present day. When and where does it stop??? Hell if I know but I really doubt that they are still getting them all.
As long as they money is huge and someone wants a contract, there will be cheating. And if there is a truly unbelievable story, one is crazy not to suspect something.
Also not trying to be argumentative, just trying to find an argument that actually is not emotionally invested (like most of you have said that you are: "Lives near me" Love the guy" "Just a great guy" "Raced against him" etc).
I would LOVE to believe, but I believed Pantani, I believed Lance for a while, I wanted to believe Floyd and Cantador and Schleck and Rasmussen and all the others.
Guess I'm jaded but I am open to convincing but I have not seen anything that comes close to explaining this performance.
Look, you're a smart guy and you know science, does this ride REALLY add up to you?
@Buck Rogers Do you really believe that Cobo was clean??? He's more believable than Horner on paper! And when Valverde won it???
Oh come on! Cobo's win was a joke. Other than one Tour stage in 2008, his few other wins (9) were all in the Iberian peninsula. Horner's palmares way outweigh Cobo's.
@Steampunk
Methuselah? IIRC you earn your ducats at a university, correct? Because that sounds like an argument I would have with a good friend of mine who is a Doctor of Post-Modern Literature.
Damn but I love getting into the whisky and having a good debate with that guy. It's like a tennis game of poetry against brute force.
@wiscot
Your cheery picking one of the MANY points that I have made. Good Lord.
I used Cobo as an example of someone who was not at all credible but he was a hell of a lot younger and could conceivably be peaking later in a three week GT than a 41 tear old who has done shit for 3 years, never has peaked late in a GT and all the other too many points that I made to remember.
I really need to stop championing this cause. It is getting too depressing. Please, believe what you want. I wish I still believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny, too.
@wiscot Make that "You're".
Jeesh, you guys are making me so crazy that my grammaritcal skills are going out the window!
I am really the only guy who has followed cycling for the last 27 plus years that is convinced this is not a "natural ride" around here???
Nah, probably just the only one stupid enough to bother trying to speak about it.