SB Nation User Blog: Chris...

QOTD: What's Phil Drinking?

Chris... — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:14:36 -0000

Slow news day news... Lord knows I have endless respect for Philippe Gilbert, at least when he's riding. But does he expect anyone to believe this?

At this stage, I noticed that our team is stronger than last year. I've seen some riders have put a step forward compared to 2009. Someone like Jurgen Roelandts is much better than the same period last year.

Um, OK, have fun with that. Jurgen Roelandts, all of 23 this past season, is one of the more promising Belgian kids around, with a pretty good string of non-victorious top ten results in a variety of sprints, including stages of the Vuelta. [And some truly awesome hair.] You never know when a sprinter is about to make the leap, and maybe in a few months we'll start running his numbers next to the Greipels and Farrars of the world. Unfortunately, he'll have to continue his development without Johan Van Summeren, one of the top five leadout train partners in the world. Also, there was some Australian dude with a funny colorful jersey who I think might have left too.

Still, I will give Phil a pass. There's much to be said for the power of positive thinking. It's gotta be at least as viable a team strategy as whatever else Omega Pharma have tried over the years.

Numbers: Legitimate Greip

Chris... — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:36:31 -0000

It was early last winter* that Ursula and I and others stumbled into the newly-discovered world of cycling sabr-metrics, examining and tinkering with numbers to unearth certain "truths" about cycling. I started with sprinters, and even managed to show that... wait for it... Mark Cavendish is a pretty fair sprinter. It's been a fun exercise, though Ursula has taken it much further than I have. I'm still pretty much stuck on sprinters.

[* the season between Lombardia and the TdU]

But this tinkering has increased my excitement about sprinters, a class of riders I usually focus on when there are no classics to write about or grand tours pending. Even in the early Cavendish Era, a closer examination shows that there are other sprinters worth paying attention to. Tyler Farrar, for one, in part due to our geographic connection as well as his glittering future prospects.

Next, and equally worthy of some attention, is André Greipel. Second in the world in victories this year, Greipel is better known as the guy who wins sprints for Columbia when Mark Cavendish is otherwise occupied. In early 2008, Greipel burst out of his early-career T-Mobile-induced slumber as soon as he donned the High Road black incognito kit (remember those?), winning more races in Austrialia that January than he'd captured in his top-level pro career to date. As we approach the 2010 Tour Down Under, it seems right to look a little closer at Greipel's performances, and contrast them with his main rivals in Adelaide, Allan Davis and Graeme Brown.

First, let's set the premise a bit better. Greipel and Farrar had similar successes this year, ranking close to each other in victories, points and even deadlocked head-to-head. But they only faced each other in six sprints, for the simple reason that Greipel is Plan B at Columbia HTC, while Farrar is Plan A at Garmin-Transitions, meaning different race plans. Well, results are entirely relative, so while they might make for a good comparison if they faced off more, it's more accurate to judge their performances against riders other than each other. Thus, Farrar vs. Cav. And Greipel vs. Davis vs. Brown.

Greipel, Davis and Brown have gone head to head to head in places like the TdU, Ster Elektrotoer, the Tour of Poland, and the Tour of Belgium. Each is sort of a B-list sprinter in their respective team lineups, either running interference for Cav, Boonen and Freire in July or watching them on TV. However unique they may be -- and I realize their respective focuses aren't identical -- their roles in the peloton are comparable enough for a valid comparison. Which leads us to the numbers...

Rider	%Finale	Wins	Win%	AvPlace	Top 10%	Top 5%	CQ Pts
Allan Davis Past	78	8	11	5.6	80	58	...
Allan Davis '09	74	3	11	5.5	59	40	1085
Graeme Brown Past	91	4	5.8	8.3	67	52	...
Graeme Brown '09	84	4	12.1	7.0	69	36	794
André Greipel '08	65	8	27.5	5.3	58	48	1241
André Greipel '09	96	17	58.6	2.9	96	82	1391

We should also include the head to head scores. Let's just run 2009.

Greipel 10 - 4 Davis (4-1 Greipel in wins)
Greipel 8 - 4 Brown (6-0 Greipel in wins)
Davis 5 - 7 Brown (1-1 in wins)

A few more words about the numbers. "Past" for Davis and Brown indicates that I lifted numbers from this post which lumped 2007 and 2008 numbers together. This explains why Allan Davis can go from 8 "past" wins to 3 wins in 2009 and not see his winning percentage drop. Also, for Greipel and for all the 2009 numbers I eliminated one-day races and only looked at sprint stages in stage races, since this is really where these guys compete. This lopped off a couple of Greipel's 2009 wins, but he has plenty to spare. Oh, and for some reason CQ isn't picking up all of the TdU as "sprint stages," including wins by Davis and Brown. Whatever.

Anyway, the resulting ranking of the three, as stage race sprinters, is pretty clear:

Greipel
Davis
Brown

Starting with Brown, the comparison we ran with Davis last year held true in 2009, though he showed a bit more with some minor one-day wins in Belgium, including Nokere-Koerse. He really doesn't beat either of his main two TdU rivals much, but he did nip his countryman for one stage this year. The most you can say about Brown is that, in January at least, he will give the other two a run for their money, but the rest of the year Davis and Greipel will compete at a slightly higher level. Nice bounce-back year for Graeme after a bad 2008, though.

Davis is an example of why points systems are at least as telling as the sprint stuff I am working with here, and why maybe all of it needs to be taken together (at least until Ursula merges them in to a "wins above replacement sprinter" figure). Davis' 2009 numbers aren't radically different from Brown's except for the CQ points, where a few results tell the difference between the respective Aussie closers. While Brown won a handful of races, Davis can look to some secondary placings for serious comfort: fourth in Milano-Sanremo (a race he nearly won in 2007); second in Paris-Brussels behind Matt Goss; and second at the GP Wallonie after Nick Nuyens. These aren't races where you're likely to see Brown on the podium. Bottom line: when Davis isn't crossing swords with the Graeme Browns of the world in stage-race sprints, he's battling the big boys on the one-day scene. And with some success, at that. Moreover, his seasons have been pretty consistent, so look for more of the same this year.

So, perhaps Davis and Greipel, winners of the last two TdUs, make for a fair fight? Maybe in Australia, but on his home course the numbers for Davis aren't actually very promising. He's only bested Greipel three times in the last two years, twice for the win, in the TdU, while Greipel has reeled off six head-to-head wins en route to the 2008 overall title, followed by a crash-out in 2009 that cleared the path for Davis. Greipel has had the benefit of his Columbia mates in past seasons -- best in the business -- though turnover in their leadout team might change things in 2010. For now, if Greipel stays upright in Australia, he's presumably the man to beat.

Comparisons aside, Greipel's 2009 season was nothing short of awesome. A 58.6% winning percentage, for instance, is better than Cavendish in 2008 and Boonen in 2006. Last year Greipel won 11 consecutive sprints at one point, and when it came to finishing top ten or top five, he was practically automatic, averaging better than third place. Again, these are Boonen and Cav numbers. The knock on him would be the quality of the races, but a) you can only race where your team puts you on the roster; and b) he scored four Vuelta stage wins, even beating Boonen, Bennati, Farrar and Freire head to head early on. If the 27-year-old Greipel isn't thinking of what he could accomplish as the top man on another team (say, in 2011), he should be.

One closing note... my rankings of this trio in one-day races, which is a nice reminder that no three riders, even these three, are all that much alike:

Davis
Brown
Greipel

Sorry André. Stick to what you're good, maybe even great, at. Who knows, maybe the one-day results are just around the corner too.

Photo by Ezra Shaw, Getty Images Sport

O'Grady Battling Pneumonia; TdU in Doubt?

Chris... — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:15:45 -0000

So says Sporza. It sounds as though he'll be OK, just shut down for a few days, but after an autumn where he had to leave training camp when his daughter got ill, and he himself was hospital-bound after collapsing, O'Grady is contemplating whether or not to do the Tour Down Under. O'Grady has a number of results at the TdU, including second last year and an overall win in 2001, so for him to miss his nation's biggest race -- and the Pro Tour points that come with it nowadays -- would be a bit of a blow. Rest up, Stuey.

Photo by Bryn Lennon, Getty Images Sport. And yeah, I know, it's a bit silly, but sometimes you just gotta laugh.

Yahoo! Cycling and Computers, Together At Last!!

Chris... — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:49:13 -0000

Thanks to Lucybears for starting the conversation in the Fanshots, but this needs its own post, or it least it launched too many brainwaves for me not to write. Was anyone else as flabbergasted by this as I was?

An online survey targeted at Silicon Valley Professionals revealed that an astonishing 50 percent are cycling enthusiasts and follow the local scene.

This is the lede in a CN story of how Yahoo! decided to plunge into cycling. 50% is a huge number. Not quite NFL, but I would take a guess that the Oakland A's wouldn't mind of 50% of Silicon Valley tech dudes, or any other sliver of the population, cared about them. I'd bet the Giants aren't far above that figure. Anyway, in response to this local phenomenon (and probably some assumptions about how Silicon Valley isn't entirely alone), Yahoo! has plunged itself into pro cycling as the title sponsor of America's latest new team. There are a lot of interesting subplots here.

First, another American team... at some point this has to stop, right? Maybe not: nowhere in the CN piece do they utter the words "Tour de France," the ultimate choke point on big teams and sponsors. So for now, let's assume they intend to build slowly, and if circumstances allow Yahoo! Cycling to someday evolve into a Tour team, c'est la vie. By 2013 or so, who knows whether the Shack will live on, or whether Columbia will still be an American team. Anyway, if the Tour were a short-term goal I would be dubious, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Second, the tech connection... cycling and computers don't seem like the most natural fit, and yet this site is testament to the lie. Cycling's roots are in the blue-collar farming and mining worlds, but cycling fans come from all sectors of society, or at least they have. Now, since the sport is expensive and hard to access through traditional media, it's people who are at least comfortable with computers who have the greatest access to the sport, at least in the US. We use the internet to commune and watch races, but computers have a vital role to the riders as well: they analyze fitness or bike positioning or to design training plans. They share data with coaches, show terrain from tomorrow's race, or even help young North American pros stay connected to friends and family from their unfamiliar European base of operations. True, nobody needs a computer to ride a bike or even to develop into a professional cyclist, but they provide enough advantages that you're seeing at least a strong tendency for bikers to be computer savvy, and vice versa.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, the business model. A disclaimer: here's where we fans start to wander off into the intellectual deep end, and if you grab on to me, chances are we'll both drown. [h/t Tracey Jordan.] But the cyclist-as-billboard model seems to be taking another hit here. Headman Kevin Klein describes the concept thusly:

"The whole idea behind the Yahoo! Cycling Team is the recruitment of high tech professionals in the Silicon Valley and to provide a platform for partners to achieve more involvement at the community level."

So unless he intends to hire software engineers to run bottles up to the front, I assume what he means is that this huge supply of tech dudes who love cycling will be enlisted as supporters of some sort -- informal? fan club members? shareholders? I dunno. But they are aiming at some level of grassroots support to go along with the Yahoo! money dump. Presumably this will all become clear when they do their official launch in January.

Traditional business models have always called on cycling to act as the medium, not the message. I am always open to new ideas, so the idea of cycling transitioning into the message is intriguing, to say the least. It would say just as much about the sport at the pro level as it would about the growing popularity of cycling for other purposes: transportation, exercise, and dare I say it... entertainment!

Bottom line: Keep an eye on Yahoo! Cycling, as a new team and a barometer of changes in the larger cycling world.

How Do You Watch the Tour?

Chris... — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:12:03 -0000

You've probably heard that the Comcast-DirecTV death struggle has caught Versus in the middle -- Comcast bought our erstwhile Tour TV channel, and DirecTV refuses to pay exorbitant fees for their constant stream of hunting infomercials (and the world's greatest sporting event south of Oudenaarde). So DirecTV subscribers like me are faced with a choice: Comcast or... actually, I'm not sure what, which is why I am writing this post. As much as I want to watch the Tour live, and as little loyalty as I feel to DirecTV, I don't appreciate being a Comcast pawn and their prices don't look good. The internet has solved most of my problems in life (besides that nagging watts/kg issue), and I hope it'll solve this one too.

So, did you watch Le Tour on-line last year? If so, how? I know ASO is pretty proficient about shutting down illicit video streams, but are there any licit ones? Thanks.

La Vuelta 2010: Parcours Announcement

Chris... — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:40:00 -0000

Use this as a live chat. Actual route details shortly. ~~Please say there's a fashion element to this event~~... Update! Not to rant or anything, but what kind of a sorry-ass grand tour unveils its route without a live gathering of any consequence? Cyclists rarely get out in public for anything fun -- the odd swim shot in Curacao or another November vacation, and these route announcements. This is a precious opportunity for them to show they can don nice threads, accessorize, and gel their hair to look like an American cardinal. And I would think pretty much anywhere in Spain is a perfectly acceptable locale for just such a gala. This would also serve the Vuelta's interests by drumming up a little more attention and creating some buzz. So what does the Vuelta do? Details are sketchy, but I believe they slipped a piece of paper under the door of the Unipublic offices to a waiting AS reporter at lunchtime on a Wednesday. This paper, it was said, contained the URL that the reporter could use to look up the Vuelta route. Feel the drama as the AS reporter manually types in the address -- a situation that just begs for a typo and one of those "get bent" messages that Explorer does so well.

Morons! [audio ~nsfw]

Another UPDATE! Apparently there was a presentation. Some nice suits and whatnot. So I kinda sorta take back my rant.

Stages:

Best of the Aughts: Classics Studs

Chris... — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:58:51 -0000

Without slipping into a full-on tribute to the eternal awesomeness of the classics, let me just briefly tick off a little of what makes them so great, and what it means about the riders who contest them, in the hopes that we can crown a Best Classician of the Aughts. First is the ability of one-day races, and all the arbitrariness that implies, to spread around the glory in often cruel and unpredictable ways. We usually agree that the best rider won, but more specifically we mean the best rider on that particular day who wasn't otherwise eliminated by illness, injury or a late puncture. Did someone wake up with better legs? Maybe, but we'll never know. So any hint of consistent excellence against such odds is a huge indicator of true class.

The other big factor to consider is that no two classics are alike. Hell, sometimes even the same race changes from year to year. But although we tend to draw a hard distinction between the Ardennes (climby classics) and the Flemish stuff (thoroughbred grinds), the reality is many more shades of gray. No rider since Merckx is suited to every type of classic, but even among the wildly varied body types, most classics champions can hack it over a pretty fair number of different courses. So while some apples-to-oranges comparisons are inevitable, if Philippe Gilbert can win Paris-Tours and Lombardia in 2009 then this exercise is worthwhile.

One last elephant in the room: doping. Any "best of the aughts" is going to capture a lot of data from both sides of Operacion Puerto, calling into question the value of plenty of results, even those from the unchecked doping era of ten years ago. [I don't subscribe to the theory that a doped win was valid if everyone else was juiced. Too messy.] Ten years from now, this column will be more fun to write. Whaddyagonna do?

So with apologies to Michele Bartoli, Nico Mattan, Alessandro Ballan, Michael Boogerd, Oscar Freire and others, here are the nominees for top Classics Studs from the Aughts. In vaguely chronological order...

Erik Zabel

For: One of the most successful cyclists of any stripe in history. As a sprinter, he naturally gravitated toward the greater glory of the Tour, whose points jersey should have a Vinoeque picture of Zabel on it. Nonetheless, the Energizer Bunny of German cycling (non-Jens! edition) racked up more than his share of one-day glories in the aughts, hitting a massive career peak from 2000-04 when he never slipped below #2 in the world rankings. And if you think he was just a sprinter, contemplate that he won the Amstel Gold Race along with two MSRs, two Paris-Tours editions, Vattenfall, Henninger Turm, Koln and the German championships

Against: Stated simply, not enough of the big events. The only monument he ever won was MSR. He became famous for just missing out on the Worlds, with a pair of silvers and a bronze medal in a five-year span. Of all the guys on this list, Zabel suffers the most from lack of diverse results, despite the fact that as sprinters go he was a terrific climber.

Bestoftheaughtsbecco Says: Does anyone dislike Erik Zabel? I mean, anywhere?

Paolo Bettini

For: Breadth and number of wins. He won in Spain, Greece, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and of course Italy. He won three of the five monuments -- best in the Aughts -- as well as two Worlds and an Olympic gold medal. He won three World Cup competitions. Of the "climbers" on the list, Bettini is the only one to break through at a significant "sprinters' race," Milano-Sanremo. Even more than the Worlds or Lombardia, he owned Zurich, with four podiums in five years.

Against: Never overwhelmingly great so much as consistently close by, poised to strike. Of the sprinty climbers, if he was ever the fastest I never saw it. Valverde, DiLuca, Rebellin and Cunego have all shown top gears superior to Bettini on most days. He also feasted on late-season stuff, when the competition is thinned out some, and on national team duty, where Italy usually gave him unreal support, possibly out of fear that he was going to go for the win regardless of what Ballerini had in mind. Also, no wins in Flanders (not for lack of effort) and curiously little in France. If it sounds like I'm nitpicking...

Bestoftheaughtsbecco Says: This entire conversation goes nowhere without the Cricket.

Davide Rebellin

For: Good to the last drop (ahem!). Rebellin's consistency was slightly different than Bettini's -- in his narrower menu of races, Tintin was pretty much always in the finale. And if Bettini's finest hours were often in Azzurri colors, Rebellin won regularly and convincingly for an otherwise pretty thin Gerolsteiner outfit. In addition to his great, unprecedented signature trio of Ardennes wins in 2004, Rebellin scored five podiums in Liege, two in Amstel, four in La Fleche and three in San Sebastian... starting in 2000 up through 2009. Talk about consistency.

Against: Unfortunately, there's a pretty good chance he was consistently doped to the gills in these races. Of the guys on this list, only DiLuca inspires less confidence in his integrity. And even if you somehow believe in him, he probably rates as the least diverse climber worth mentioning. No national team success outside of his tainted Olympic medal, but then registering for Argentinian citizenship doesn't usually endear yourself to the Azzurri management.

Bestoftheaughtsbecco Says: His doctor couldn't find anything to get him over the Poggio? Whatever.

Alejandro Valverde

For: Seeing is believing. When Valverde wins, he usually blows the competition away with a lightning-fast finish unmatched by any of the Italians. Rebellin and DiLuca each got him once, and Boonen pipped him for the World title in Madrid, but that's about it. Setting aside his grand tour success (off-topic!), Valverde covers a lot of classics ground... pretty much everything but MSR, the cobbles and the truly flat stuff. He ignores Amstel but targets La Fleche (1 win, 1 2nd) and L-B-L (2 wins, 1 2nd) regularly, along with San Sebastian. All this despite focusing mostly on the grand tours.

Against: A little of this, a little of that. He could be #1 on this list if his attention weren't elsewhere. Ultimately, he doesn't contest enough classics to own the decadal title. His integrity is a constant source of questions. I dunno... Nobody here is as much a product of both the pre- and post-Puerto worlds. Valverde belongs in both, or maybe neither. Very confusing.

Bestoftheaughtsbecco Says: Guys like him have no business blowing off MSR. Maybe he and Boasson Hagen can split the cost of a cycling history tutor.

Tom Boonen

For: Within his element, he's the most dominant cyclist of the decade. On the cobbles he has three Monument wins (Roubaix x 3, Flanders x 2) and a slew of Flemish successes in places like the E3 (four times), Scheldeprijs (twice), Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (twice), Gent-Wevelgem, etc. His signature run in 2005 netted him Flanders, Roubaix and the world title. And with five podiums beginning in 2003, he might be the most dominant Paris-Roubaix rider ever before he's done.

Against: His top-end speed has deserted him before he could break everyone's sprint and classics records. The cocaine stuff is irrelevant to this conversation, but it doesn't help that he disappears in late April and isn't seen much afterwards, save for a couple grand tour points successes. Losing to Gilbert on the Ave du Grammont this fall cost him a shot at expanding his resume in interesting ways. And while it might be nice to see him try some of the crossover races (San Sebastian, Amstel), he probably can't win on anything climbier than de Ronde.

Bestoftheaughtsbecco Says: Is it possible to be a little too Belgian? With a few exceptions, most of his wins are at races he could have ridden to from his parents' house.

Honorable Mentions

Johan Museeuw: The Lion of Flanders had a great career, stretching into the Aughts with two more cobbles for his shelf and second at de Ronde. But about those chemicals...

Oscar Freire: How many world titles does it take to get into a conversation on classics studs? More than three, if you're acool, all-round sprinter like Freire who just misses out on the biggest prizes a bit too much.

Peter Van Petegem: Even Boonen sticks around the sport longer than Van Petegem did. Of course, it's hard not to like a guy who hopped out of the Roubaix velodrome showers and started training for the next Ronde. And his signature treble in 2003 (Flanders-Gent-Roubaix) was one for the ages. But there's more to life than cobbled classics. There, I said it. Are you happy now?

Danilo Di Luca: Nobody spent more years of the Aughts winning under a dark cloud of suspicion, which is kind of a tribute to both his on-bike success and the skill of his legal team. Launched with his Lombardia win in 2001, the Killer scored results all over Europe -- San Sebastian, Plouay, the Ardennes and at home. His finest hours were at the Giro, however, and once you start talking about the "pipi of the Angels," it's hard to carry on much further. You broke my heart, Danilo. You broke my heart!

Filippo Pozzato: Pippo obviously doesn't come close to winning the title here, but it's worth noting that he has an MSR win, two Omloops, and seconds at MSR and Paris-Roubaix. He is a consistent threat to win three of the five monuments, and could maybe eek out a crossover win at Amstel, San Seb, or the next two World Championships. When we write the 2005-2014 version of this column, Pozzato could be pretty high up the list.

Alexandre Vinokourov: Not my favorite subject, but Vino wins on instinct and aggression, the kind of skillset that could work just about anywhere. So far that's included just Amstel and Liege, plus lots of stage-race success. And I understand he's been a hit with the preparatore crowd too. Punk.

Damiano Cunego: Cunego is staking a claim on "best Lombardista ever" with three wins in a short time. He has failed in the Ardennes though, other than a single Amstel win, and sadly doesn't seem overly focused on MSR, where he could wind up that closing speed against the right crowd and set the record straight about La Primavera not being a "pure sprinters' race."

Erik Dekker: He'd have made the top half of this post easily had his career lined up with the Aughts. Dekker had a more diverse list of wins than just about any of his peers, including Paris-Tours, San Sebastian, Amstel Gold, and a handful of time trial national titles. Put him on a team with Zabel and Bettini and you've got a chance to win every classic known to man -- multiple times. But as good as he was as a rider, he can't escape his record as a Rabobank strategist for the last three seasons. Ouch!

Random observation: Is it me or does it seem like Milano-Sanremo is the race you have to have on your palmares to win this category?

THE VERDICT! Bettini... by a nose.

Photos by Doug Pensinger and Pascal Rondeau, Getty Images Sport

Contador's Toughest Climb?

Chris... — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:00:39 -0000

Cyclojournalists worldwide are flocking to Pisa, Italy, in desperation to find some news, or make it if need be, and with no better method for this than finding something to say about Alberto Contador. Sporza: Vino will work for Pistolero. L'Equipe: Contador likes his new armada. Blady blady blah.

Here's an Alberto Contador story worth contemplating: is the 2010 Tour his last great challenge? Consider this: with the backing of a great team, he has looked more or less invincible in his last four Grand Tour starts. A year from now, free-agent Contador will be gathering somewhere with a hand-picked team (Garmin? Caisse d'Epargne?) chosen to launch his assault on Lance's Tour records. That team will not merely be the one who buries him in a pile of cash; it'll almost certainly include the lure of a great support squad fully at his disposal and dedicated to his success in July (and elsewhere). Plenty of things can change over the course of that contract, such as the ascension of a more complete challenger (sorry Andy), but odds are we will see lots of pistol shots and yellow jerseys in that mix too.

The outlier is 2010. Lance is not only back, he has succeeded in putting the band back together, reassembling the aging core of his Postal/Disco/Astana teams at the Shack. He has, in effect, come back to the sport and pulled Contador's support team out from under him. Not unfairly -- Armstrong's accomplishments are unprecedented, and he made a few careers along the way (coughbruyneelcough). But from Contador's perspective, suffice it to say he's lost a lot. The reigning Tour champ now finds himself in familiar colors but with a supporting cast that ranges from familiar (Noval) to novel (de la Fuente) to bizarre (Vinokourov). I don't know who he's getting his training tips from, but suffice to say it's not a DS with fourteen grand tour wins under his belt. Worse, Contador comes off a fall/winter rife with uncertainty, if not turmoil -- the dragged out contract matter, the rush to build a team, all of which is just now being put to rest as training camp begins and the veneer of normalcy takes hold.

Everyone is out to get him -- that's what it means to be on top. And however protected he may feel, the fact is he's never been this vulnerable before, and likely never will again, not in his prime. 2010 will be interesting, indeed.

Photo by Jasper Juinen, Getty Images Sport

Daily Awesome: Amy and Steevo Discuss Thanksgiving

Chris... — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:49:03 -0000

Daily Awesome: Amy and Steevo Discuss Thanksgiving

And you thought cyclists were fun to be around?

If you were a bike component...

Chris... — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:03:07 -0000

which one would you be? I thought that since we're making fun of this twit in another post, we can honor the nonsensicality by, you know, resembling that remark. Willj wants to be a campy 29-tooth cog. I personally would go for a 1960s era derailleur with the cool campy logo. Front or rear, whichever is simpler and cleaner. I guess that would be the front. Rear derailleurs are almost never clean. But they do have feelings.