The Fifth installment in the Pro Rider Trilogy*

Let's start with some numbers from CQ:

That table of numbers is one of the odder tables you'll ever see. Let's go to the jump for some wild and unfounded speculation about what they mean.

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In CN today we see Johan Bruyneel predicting that his new sprinter, one Gert Steegmans, will produce 10 victories this year.  So let's keep this short and sweet, while waiting for Flanders:  you think Gert has a chance in hell to get 10 wins for RadioShack?

On a whim, I went to the Versus website to see if they've announced their race schedule for next year. They have!

The unexpected highlight here is the Tour of Philadelphia on June 6th. Nice. 

Other highlights are every day of three stage races: Down Under (Jan 19-24), California (May16-23) and France (July 3-25)

Lowlights: nothing from Italy or Spain. No Flanders or Amstel Gold either. No Missouri in on the list either so I wonder if this is a finalized schedule. Either that or they want to see if Lance participates this year. No Ireland either. 

Otherwise you have an hour of the following one day races: Paris-Roubaix (4/11), and Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Fleche Wallone (both 4/25, so La Fleche is once again a few days late).

You also get hour highlights for Paris-Nice (3/7 & 14), Criterium International (3/28), Romandie (5/2), Dauphine (6/6 & 13), and Suisse (6/13 & 20)

Seems like Versus strips down their coverage little more stripped down every year. Possibly they'll add a race or two IF Lance races it.

I checked CTV and Universal to see if their schedules are up in any form, fictitious or otherwise: not yet.

EDIT: Now with Poll Power!

Hi there. You might remember me from such transfer-related posts as RadioShack and J-Rod to Katusha.  In this post I'll try to figure out the significance of Daniel Moreno transferring to *Lotto. Good? Bad? Boring? Let's get to the bottom of this.

On the surface, this is one odd transfer. Moreno says he doesn't speak the same language his new teammates speak. *Lotto is also, ahem, not known for stage racing prowess, which is Moreno's main ability. If Evans had stayed at *Lotto this might have been a good transfer as Moreno has been a good domestique for Valverde the last couple of years, but Evans flew to coop.  As it stands now, *Lotto's GC hopefuls are Van den Broeck, Lloyd, De Greef, Moreno, and a whole lot of empty space. None of these guys is a top tier Grand Tour hopeful; all of them would be having a great grand Tour if they finished in the top 10.

So I guess that for Moreno, who is in the prime of his career at age 28, he finally gets a chance to ride for himself at the Vuelta and that overrides the cultural difference on his new team?

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It's all over the web: Team RadioShack's final roster.  Below is my take on how they'll do.  You may disagree with some of my conclusions, though why you would do that, I have no idea. ;)

Edit: That Beppu and Zubeldia are on RadioShack is news to their former teams it seems. Below I talk about the team like they are but who knows? Maybe they'll form a completely different Team Limbo with Wiggo.

At first glance you might think Disco is back. Many of these boys are Disco alumni from one year or another:

Armstrong, Beppu, Brajkovic, Leipheimer, Li, McCartney, Paulinho, Popovych, Rubiera, and Vaitkus. But that's only 10 of the 26 so to be cautious we shouldn't get too carried away with the Disco Reunion Tour 2010 meme-even if those nine represent most of the key riders for next year. Plus of course you have most of the team management back from the Disco days so maybe that ReunionTour meme is correct.

What about second glance? Bunch of geezers on this team, probably more than any other team. Riders who will be 30 or more next year with age as of the Tour de France (to pick a race totally at random) in parenthesis:

Armstrong (38), Horner (38), Irizar (30), Kloden (35), Leipheimer (36), McCartney (36), Muravyev (30), Paulinho (30), Popovych (30), Rast (30), Rubiera (37), Zubeldia (33).

That's 12 of the 26 for those keeping track at home. Oh-notice that six seven of these guys are on both lists so far.

Another way to look at the team: If you combined their VDS scores from this year (2009) you would get.... 2882 points, good enough for 13th place in the final 2009 standings, behind 12th place Euskaltel and ahead of Lampre. Their leading scorers from this year? Surprise! Andreas Kloden! 642 points. 2nd-Levi Leipheimer with 603, and 3rd Lance Armstrong with 568. 

All right, enough with the team. How are they gonna do next year?

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Ever since next year's Tour route was announced and probably well before, Mark Cavendish has proclaimed his intentions of winning the Green Jersey that Thor Hushovd won last year. Of course, the God of Thunder's fashion sense has told him that Green will still be In next year so he'd like to keep it too. Then there's the like-minded Green obsessions of Ale-Jet, Benna, The Wenatchee Whippet, and several other Fast Men. All these guys want to wear Green next year! They're obsessed-like Bella Swan obsessed!  And since she (Bella) lives in Forks, Washington, one of the greenest places on earth, I can just imagine these sprinters making treks this winter to Forks in hopes that one of Edward Cullen's sisters would fall MASSIVELY in love with them. (They, of course, would want nothing more than to passively love one of these stupid, stupid vampires, who, they imagine, would turn THEM into an immortal and (important!) ridiculously fast vampire so they could win the Green Jersey hundreds of times over and spend the rest of their undead existence passively obsessing over their vampire wife. The ultimate PED!)

Yeah that was one long run-on sentence. Sue me. I live in a world where millions upon millions of girls and women swoon over the Twilight books. Like there's nothing better to do in the world than to have no inner drive to do anything original at all. If that ain't heck, I don't know what is. And I am just waiting for some writer to finally capitalize upon the fact that most men fantasize a similar passive existence. "Why the hell would I want to examine my life?  I just want to be... wanted!" 

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I feel a little better. On the flip we'll write about Cav's chances for the Points Jersey. 

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Interesting team, that Katusha and an interesting pick-up on their part, picking Joaquin Rodriguez from Caisse d'Epargne. For CN today comes word on the race schedule for J-Rod next year and it's much like in previous years, with two exceptions: there's  Tour de France for the first time and there's no Alejandro Valverde to support. Here's his early season (up to the Tour) schedule:

warm-up: Volta a Mallorca then Volta ao Algarve

Tirreno-Adriatico which has the Wolf Mountain stage again

Spain and the Basque Country: Volta a Catalunya then Pais Vasco

The Ardennes Trio: Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallonne, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege

Tour prep: Luxembourg and Suisse Tours

Tour de France

On the flip, a look at his new teammates and wild-eyed speculation on how he'll do.

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Most Disappointing voting is the post below. Quite an assortment of riders here. We got cobbles , we got sprints, we got Grand Tour GC's, we got all-rounders. We got guys on French teams. Who do you like?

Interesting assortment of nominations as you'll see below. No dopers. But injured riders still count.

Here's the flip side to Most Disappointing Rider and in a weird way are sort of like the Best Supporting actress/actor categories in the Academy Awards to the leading categories of Best Rider and Best Race. Which rider in your estimation improved the most this year?  And as a side issue, should neo-pros like Jakob Fuglsang be included?  Should there be a rookie of the year poll-or maybe best U-23/young rider of the year poll? Anyway, the floor is open.