Paris-Roubaix: Garmin finally find the way to win

As you may remember from earlier, Pance HQ has relocated from it's previous Midtown Atlanta location, to the leafy 'burbs of Decatur. The move means that not only do I now have a roomy basement in which to store my bike collection, but I also have to commute to my workplace. I've done my fair share of bike commuting, so I set off on my first trip into town last week in my usual carefree manner, little knowing that a car with my name on it was lurking the streets. As I said on a popular social networking site, and can't be bothered to write out again:

"So there I am waiting at the red light, when some dude comes from the right, cutting the corner big style. So he's heading straight for me and does a bit of swerving and hits my front wheel. Then he goes into the yard of the house across the street, does some more swerving and hits some signs and stuff. I get a buckled wheel and a slight bruise on my hand. He has big bits falling off his car and is pretty sheepish about being such a fuckwit. I'll be sending him an inflated bill for repairs."

If you're having trouble picturing the scene, here's a picture. Just imagine I'm the 12 foot tall Fabian Cancellara, (as I often like to do while I'm out riding) and the black line is where the car went.

And here's my entirely reasonable and under-inflated repair bill.

I also revisited the scene the other day. Most of the debris had been removed, but some wheel marks remain.

So, now the dust has settled at the corner of North Decatur and Oxford Road, and it's also settled on the roads from Paris to Roubaix.

Fabian Cancellara was, once again, the rider everyone was watching. He looked strong, but his every move was shadowed by his opponents, especially that Thor Hushovd, who seemed stuck to his wheel like glue. While Spartacus did eventually manage to get away from the pack, and flew past nearly everyone ahead of him like they were stood still, by the time he made his move it was already too late; Johan Van-Summeren of Garmin-Cervelo, was already up the road after attacking the day's break, and even the mighty Spartacus couldn't catch him. 

It was a timely win for the Garmin, who looked so strong on paper but had failed to deliver a Classics win this season. Some pundits were even saying they were shite. Although not one of the big stars of the team, Van Summeren rode a very canny race, and showed that when the big names are watching each other, there's always a rider to take advantage.

So in the Velogames world, what does it all mean?

It means the Bile Beans are back on top that's what! There's only 5 points between the Beans and Evil Chan though, and still 3 races to go. The final transfer window, (for those of us too cheap to do the Velogames Premium Team thing) is now open. So it's time to select your riders for Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The "Ardennes Week" races are a bit hillier and tend to favor the sort of rider you might expect to see in the top-ten of a grand tour, so maybe it's time to drop some of those burly hard-men from your team.