Riis thinks Fabian should try to win LBL this year.  Me, I'm not so sure. 

Spartacus looks pretty skinny for this part of the season, especially in his face.  He just sailed away from select groups 50km from the finish in TWO monuments (I'm not really counting Boonen's assistance in Flanders).  It would seem difficult, but not impossible, to keep this form until Liege.  That would be a peak of 21 days.  Personally I think it would be too much to expect Spartcacus to win LBL in another long breakaway---it would be the equivalent of breaking away to win the yellow jersey on stage 1 of the Tour and then extending his lead in the final mountaintop finish.

What does the Cafe think?

"'I fought alongside Ullrich to try to beat Lance, now I will do it together with Alberto,' Vinokourov told the Spanish daily MARCA."

Linky: http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/02/news/vino-%e2%80%98i-want-to-help-contador-win-another-tour%e2%80%99_103984

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As discussed here, it looks like our skinny Spanish overlord will be dominating the Tour for years.  The Accountant can time trial like Anquetil and climb like Gaul---he really appears to be the second coming of Fausto Coppi. 

All of this is great if you're Spanish or thinking of hiring El Pistolero next year.  But if you're the ASO, how do you design a course to create dramatic tension and prevent Alberto from being ahead by four minutes prior to the capstone moment of Le Grand Boucle?

An engineer once told me that bicycles are designed to withstand some enormous number of vibration cycles before failure, with each cycle being the equivalent of riding over a cobble.  Something like a half million or a million cycles.  The engineer then told me that the design spec amounted to about 25km of cobbles. 

Paris-Roubaix has 53km of cobblestones.

Not surprising, then, that the Queen of the Classics played host to the strangest mechanical ever---Hincapie's broken steerer tube.  And we can pretty much count on one contender being taken out by a mechanical Sunday.  So I've created a poll so that the Cafe can weigh in on what will happen this year, with parenthetical examples of memorable mechanicals from the past. 

The Manx Terror just won MSR.  He bagged 4 TdF stages last year among a bunch of other victories.  He's not unbeatable, but no one seems faster than him when he has the correct launch---his finishing speed is excellent.

So . . . what else does he need to do to cement his place in the firmament of sprinters?  The remaining items of hardware (as I see them) would be a rainbow jersey, another monument, and a points jersey at the Tour.  All of these could prove elusive: Great Britain tends not to have a strong squad at the Worlds, the other monuments don't play to his strengths, and grand tours have not just hills, but mountains.

I think he needs to go after the green jersey next.  His new Svengali, Ete, can tell him how it's done, and since apparently just talking to Zabel makes you a better climber, I think he'll have the legs this year.

I'm the guy who posted the thread early this year attaching the tag "wheelsucking" to a thread about Levi's team protesting a loss of time for him.

And Levi has now won another GT time trial, this time attacking his own teammate on the penultimate day of the most important race for Astana this year.

I formally retract any accusation of wheelsucking at Levi, and I will order an Astana jersey later today.  Despite my impending jersey order, my most fervent hope is that some team buys Levi's contract out and then lets him win whichever GT Contador doesn't enter next year.  Because I think he could, and now, I hope he does.

So NBC aired, or re-aired, the BMX (supercross?) finals last night.  For those who didn't see it, Latvia and France won gold, and crashes occured early and often.

The big question on everyone's mind, including Chris Hoy's, is whether adding BMX was worth cutting the 500m and kilo time trials from track.  That was controversial because it apparently makes it much less interesting to be a female sprinter, due to a lack of events.  (And no Tammy Thomas comments allowed, folks.)

What is the opinion of the cafe on BMX afterwards?  Is it a sport worthy of a medal ceremony?  Or is it, like chess or ballroom dancing, best performed without laurels, ribbons, and Bob Costas?

Mr. Excitement plans to protest to race jury about his finish.  He lost another 23 seconds today because of some snafu with a motorcycle, and Astana wants the race jury to correct the problem.

So, if Levi gets his 23 seconds---which is a lot, even in a Grand Tour---and he steps onto the podium based on that erased gap, would that represent yet another example of race jury kindness to Levi (ToC 2007) or a karmic return on the occasion when a race jury rudely extended its middle digit (TdF 2005)?

Not trying to Bogart the sidebar, but . . .

I'm going to do my annual Port Royal Avenue hillclimb this weekend in honor of De Ronde.  For those unfamiliar with it, Port Royal Avenue is a cobbled berg in Philly just off the Schuykill River bike path.

It starts here:

View Larger Map

It is steep and rough, but not very long, very much in the spirit of Flanders--according to Google Maps, it climbs a bit over 300' in 1 mile, for an average of 5.6%, but is quite steep at the bottom (cobbled) end, about 12.6%.  It is also in such poor condition that I no longer descend it, though I descend like ~:>, Sastre, or a little girl.

So who else is riding their Hellingen this weekend?

"Anne Putz, Reebok's head of corporate public relations, said in a statement that the company does not prohibit its athletes from expressing personal opinions. Reebok sponsors the Norwegian cyclist Thor Hushovd, who announced last week that he may boycott the Olympic opening ceremony to protest the Chinese crackdown on Tibetans. 'We support our athletes 100 percent on the field, providing them with the best products to help them achieve their goals,' Ms. Putz said. 'Off the field, we never influence our athletes about their personal views.'"

---Today's NYT, article starting on A1.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2180254/

Apparently the POTUS attached a power meter to his mountain bike.  I, a non-racing randonneur who gauges his fitness with an occasional climb of Lyceum Ave in Philly, suddenly want one.