Sagan Soars at Gistel-Wevelgem

Sometimes I miss the cold winters of Northern Europe, which seem to be all the fashion since I moved to the Atlanta.  Maybe it’s the romantic notions of hard-as-nails riders, fighting it out against the elements.  Or maybe it’s just because I want a fat-bike.

So this weekend I decided to take a break from such Southern US pass-times as:

·         Driving my pick-up truck

·         Sitting on the veranda drinking mint juleps

·         Oppressing people of color 

And headed up to Boston.  Not the crappy Boston in Lincolnshire mind, but that Boston out of Cheers.  I was rewarded with chilly winds.  And some real snow.

Anyhooze, the point of my rambling, is that once again, it was a chilly bike race for the Pros on Sunday.  My new signing for the day, Heinrich Haussler wasn’t impressed, “This isn’t sport any more, it’s bullshit. It’s not a race in these conditions because with the wind it’s minus 10.”  Maybe Heinrich could take some comfort from the fact that the event was shortened by 45km, or the fact that he started the race-winning break.

The bad news for Heinrich though, was that Slovak-Superstar and Wheelieing-Wonder-Kid Peter Sagan was along for the ride too.

Also bad news for Heinrich, was that many of his break-away companions were not doing their share of the work, "The bloody wankers just sit on and go: ‘no, no, we've got a guy at the back and all this bullshit.’"  You tell ‘em Heinrich!. A few more quotes like that and you’ll be up there with Bradley Wiggins and the famous “cuntgate” incident.

Still Heinrich bagged fourth, and Sagan won, which helped give me a healthy score for the day, along with Rouleurs. 

Bile Beans	71
Rouleurs	71
Mungo Cycling	55
Evil Chanbots	53
Caffe Americano	44
ENRICO 666	40
KLOEFEKAPPERS	40
Fulgas	36
vicarious victors	30
Bodged blaggards!	29
synergy	2

And I’m on top in the league again.

Rank		Team	Directeur	Score
1		Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	306
2		KLOEFEKAPPERS	Jan Van Belleghem	279
3		Rouleurs	tdm911	261
4		ENRICO 666	Erik Mortier	255
5		Evil Chanbots	Danny Chan	253
6		Fulgas	Vincent Lavallee	195
7		Mungo Cycling	Mungo	168
8		Caffe Americano	Sherwood	168
9		synergy	Adrian Leggett	163
10		vicarious victors	eddy wu	161
11		Bodged blaggards!	Warwick Anderson	111

So Sagan finally got himself a Classics win.  It’s only Gent-Wevelgem though, and everybody knows that the cool one’s to win are the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix, which just happen to be the next two races coming up.  By the way, although I love George Chapman to death, it is worth noting that his “next race” widget is not always on the money, check out the startlists at CyclingFever for a better guide. It should be a Sagan-Cancellara showdown, but who knows?  You need luck as well as talent to win the big races.

E3 Harelbeke - Give him an inch and he'll take a mile

I may only be a Fantasy Cyling team manager, but if I was a real team manager, there is one piece of advice that I would give my boys before they left the bus in the morning, "Don't let Cancellara get away on his own".  Unless I was Cancellara's team manager - whoever that is now that Johan Bruneel has been ditched - in which case I would say "Just get a gap and time trial to the finish Fabian". When Spartacus decides to go, there doesn't seem to anyone able to stop him.  So with about 35km to go, he went. And he pulled out a nice gap by the line.

There was no lack of class in the chase group, and despite a plucky attempt to catch him, they had to settle for fighting it out for second - which went to Peter Sagan ahead of his former team-mate Daniel OSS and Geriant Thomas.

There was a pretty large helping of Bile Beans in the top ten today. A good score for me, but the Kloefekappers did nicely too.

Bile Beans    85

Kloefekappers     71

Enrico 666    71

Rouleurs    71

Evil Chanbots    70

Fulgas    61

Bodged Blaggards  60

Synergy    51

Vicarious victors   43

Caffe Americano   43

Mungo    40

In the overall I'm the Kloefekappers are still out in front, but the Bile Beans are not far, behind.

Rank		Team	Directeur	Score
1		KLOEFEKAPPERS	Jan Van Belleghem	239
2		Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	235
3		ENRICO 666	Erik Mortier	215
4		Evil Chanbots	Danny Chan	200
5		Rouleurs	tdm911	190
6		synergy	Adrian Leggett	161
7		Fulgas	Vincent Lavallee	159
8		vicarious victors	eddy wu	131
9		Caffe Americano	Sherwood	124
10		Mungo Cycling	Mungo	113
11		Bodged blaggards!	Warwick Anderson	82

Next on the menu is Ghent-Wevelgem, which is usually one for the sprinters.  Is it worth swapping in a few fast finishers into the team?  I made a drunken substitution last night, I hope it works out.

Scores on the Dwars

Another race, and another chance for everyone to get cold and wet on the roads of Northern Europe.

There are few things in cycling more heartbreaking than watching someone’s plucky attack get caught just before the line. Unless of course that somebody is showboating bell-end Thomas Voeckler, and even then I was a bit sympathetic to his plight.

That’s racing though, and Oscar Gatto won the dash for the line as little Tommy’s legs gave out in the last few meters.

I was feeling pretty smug heading into the Dwars door Vlaanderen. I spent an embarrassingly long time checking out who was going to be riding the first 4 races. I was only going to be three riders light of a full squad, and I only used up one transfer. Things started to go wrong before the race even started though. Sylvain Chavanel decided not to start as he had a touch of the sniffles. Then my one transfer, Alex Dowsett came to grief during the race and banged up his knee – I hope he’s better for on Friday. Then none of my riders did very well at all, despite Ian Stannard being a big strong donkey for much of the race.

It was mostly low scores all-around in the league, but the Kloefekappers and Enrico 666 and did pretty nicely, thanks to an Oscar Gatto hunch. Also up there were the Evil Chanbots, but Danny used up a ton of transfers to field a full team and came away with little to show for it. So scores for the day.

Kloefekappers 47

Enrico 666 55

Chanbots 23

Mungo 19

Bile Beans 12

Rouleurs 6

Everyone else 0

And the overall, where the Kloefekappers are in the lead, Bile Beans are down to second, and Enrico 666 are close behind in third spot. I looked up Kloefekappers on a well known on-line translation service, which informed me it means "Kloefekappers". Thanks, well known on-line translation service, very helpful. Maybe it's because Flemish isn't an option, but I'll just have to take a wild guess that it means "Cloth Cappers".

Rank		Team	Directeur	Score
1		KLOEFEKAPPERS	Jan Van Belleghem	168
2		Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	148
3		ENRICO 666	Erik Mortier	144
4		Evil Chanbots	Danny Chan	129
5		Rouleurs	tdm911	119
6		synergy	Adrian Leggett	110
7		Fulgas	Vincent Lavallee	98
8		vicarious victors	eddy wu	88
9		Mungo Cycling	Mungo	73
10		Caffe Americano	Sherwood	68
11		Bodged blaggards!	Warwick Anderson	20

The fun continues on Friday with, E3 Harelbeke. And we should see a few more big names out on the roads, as Sagan, Cancellara and Boonen are all down on the start sheet after skipping the race today. I hear it might be cold and wet again. Time for some transfers?