Nuyens wrestles win from favorites

Sunday saw the running a thrilling editions of a classic sporting event with a long history. At the start there were many possible contenders, but come the finish there could only be one winner. Yes, it was Wrestlemania XXVI here in Atlanta at the weekend. Although I didn't actually watch any of it, I did see that excellent film "The Wrestler", so I think I can say with some confidence that the "good" oiled-up 'roid-head, beat the "bad" oiled-up 'roid-head after a lot of poncing about.

While cycling may have its fair share of oil and 'roids, it's not always quite so easy to predict who will win. Such was the case with the Ronde Van Vlaanderen. Or if you prefer, the Tour of Flanders.

Prior to the race, everyone (including me), thought Fabian Cancellara would ride away with the win. But it was not to be for Spartacus. I managed to catch a bit of the race thanks to a stream of questionable legality over at CyclingFans, but I had to leave when they were still 30km from the finish. I thought I'd seen the race-winning move when Cancellara went with 45km to go, but it seems the chasers reeled-in him and breakaway companion Sylvain Chavanel. More attacks came and went, but come the finish it was Nic Nuyens who proved to be maybe not the strongest, but definitely the smartest rider of the day, when he out-sprinted Chavanel and Cancellara for a well-deserved win.

All of the action has led to a shake-up in the mini-league. Much to my annoyance, Evil Dr Chan is now heading up the table, while the Bile Beans are down to second spot.

There's not much in it though, and we've only had 3 of the 7 Classics races so far, so it's still wide-open. It's everyone's favorite one-day race on Sunday, Paris-Roubaix, or the Hell of the North. Just in case you didn't know it's a flat one, but the fun comes from all the sections of cobbled road. It's a proper hard-man's race, especially if it rains, (fingers crossed it will). Check out the race back in 1985, when men were men.



After missing out at Flanders, Cancellara should be super-motivated to repeat his win of last year. I hope so as he cost me plenty of Velocredits.

I'm also hoping that my Garmin boys might actually do something for once. With the demise of the Cervelo Test Team and the creation of Garmin-Cervelo, word on the street was they'd be the team to beat in the Classics - but they've been shite so far this season - it's high time they got a result. I won't be getting a result with Taylor Phinney though, as the talented youngster won't be riding.

Boonen bikes best at Gent-Wevelgem

The Gent-Wevelgem Classic has been and gone and it was a timely win for Tom Boonen ahead of Bennati and Farrar.

Back in the day, or more specifically, 2005. Tom Boonen (or Tomke, as his Belgian fans like to call him) had his breakthrough year. He was the man to beat in one-day races. Everyone was talking about the hungry youngster being the next Eddy Merckx.

May be it was a case of too much, too soon for Tomke. He seemed to have a mid-life-crisis sometime in his twenties. He got himself a hot 16 year-old girlfriend.

And a Lamborghini. Which he crashed while avoiding a cat.

Not to mention the cocaine. Which got him banned for a little while, but not too long

And he's also had his fair share of crashes and injuries.

But probably the biggest barrier to Tomke's success has been this guy.

Yes, that Fabian Cancellara (or Farticus as I believe he is known to his fans) has been a race-winning machine for the last few years and makes winning a Classic look like a piece of piss. Last year he cleaned-up at Flanders and Paris-Roubaix; leading to all those silly electric bike rumors. This year it seems everyone is talking about his magic bearings.



The point of all my ramblings is that the Velogames Classics site is now open for the first set of transfers. It's time to pick your squads for the upcoming Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, and only a fool would leave Fabian Cancellara out of his team. After Gent-Wevelgem, it looks like the Bile Beans have just held onto the lead, but Evil Dr Chan had a good showing on Sunday and are closing in fast.

Goss goes full gas at MSR

While many of us may have been hoping for another good turn from Mark Cavendish at Milan-San Remo, it turned out to be his team-mate Matt Goss who took the victory.

Or Matt Goss as I like to call him.

Here's a clip of the last few minutes of the race - I hope your Dutch (or possibly Belgian, is there a difference?) is good. Even if it isn't, I think you'll see that Goss won from a very select group of top-class riders (and someone from the FDJ team).



Goss is turning into quite a handy rider with a couple of Grand Tour wins and now a Classics victory. What this will mean for Cav's status as top sprinting dog in the HTC team remains to be seen, I suspect young Cav is just having a slow start to his season and has had a couple of distractions over the winter with his new girlfriend.

So in the old Tour De Pance minileague, it seems the Bile Beans are off to an early lead - mostly thanks to Matt Goss and Greg Van Avermaet.

It looks like my recent week-long trip to the wilds of Canadia for a spot of skiing could not have come at a worse time for my fantasy cycling prospects. The Bile Beans were hastily picked before I departed, and it looks like I picked several guys who were never going to show up for the first couple of Fantasy Classics. Now I find out that Haussler is now a ? for Gent-Wevelgem and Friere and Boasson Hagen have just confirmed they won't be riding.

I can take some consolation from the fact that although I'll probably lose the lead in the minileague, I did manage to hold on to my "King of the Plane" status while playing In-Flight Trivia on the trip to Canadia.

And I did meet a famous person the other day. As you can see I've had to edit the phone number to prevent blog followers from pestering Minnie with nuisance calls. Although, judging from the address, I think the number could well have been made-up.

So next up in the Fantasy Classics calendar is Gent-Wevelgem. Which takes place in Belgium, so lets hope for some nasty Northern European weather to make for a suitably tough race. Wikipedia tells me it's known as the "Sprinters Classic" so I'm hoping some of the few remaining fast-men in the Bile Beans squad will be able to grab the win.

Gilbert Goes for it at Strade Bianchi, MSR on way

Well we had the Strade Bianchi race down in Italy, and it was Phillipe Gilbert, (or Pip Giblet as I like to call him) what won. Luckily for me he was picked for the Bile Beans line-up, along with another high scorer for the day, Greg Van Avermaet. Points for the Beans then, and a finish ahead of the only competition in the league from Warwick's Pantaloons.

It doesn't really matter though, as it was only a training race. The real action starts next weekend with the first of the monuments of one-day cycling, Milan-San-Remo. MSR is usually a race for the sprinters if they can make it over the final climb. It takes a proper hardman to go for the solo win at MSR, think Cancellara in 2008, or Sean Kelly back in 1992.





You can now get picking a team at Velogames, but be careful who you chose, as there's only two chances to re-select your team.

Standard Teams - Two Transfer Windows ahead of (a) Ronde van Vlaanderen and (b) Amstel Gold Race

I thought I was being all smart by going for a sprinter-packed line-up for MSR, but my boys may suffer in Gent-Wevelgem. I also noticed that the rider list seems to feature pretty much everyone, so you better check the start list of the races to make sure who you've picked is actually going to ride. I wouldn't go picking Riccardo Ricco, for example. He might be out of hospital after his DIY blood transfusion, but I don't think he'll ever ride with the Pros again - good thing too, I never liked him.... although he did earn me a lot of points at the Giro one year.

In other cycling news, I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that I managed to finish the last of the Snake Creek TT series, despite some adverse weather that scared off some of my less hardy team-mates. Most importantly we got free beer and chili afterwards and I earned myself this super-cool belt-buckle. Now I just have to obtain a belt on which to display it.

I think I'll wear it in combination with that bronze medal I won at a cross race.

In non-cycling news, there's a little Pance on the way, who I hope will stay in the womb long enough to not interfere with the final week of the Tour De France and my Fantasy Tour blogging duties. And Pance HQ will soon be moving to a new location. My local freesheet will be the Decatur Dispatch.

Instead of the Ponce Press

And our new house will also be handy for the "British Isle" at the supermarket.

I'm off for a week's skiing "vacation" starting  tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll get to update the blog or send out a reminder before the MSR starts on the 19th. Make sure you get those teams in people! The mini-league name and code are still the same as they were for the training races:

League Name:    Tour De Pance
League Code: 26025027

Velogames Classics training race #2 - Strade Bianche

It's nearly time for the next race in the Velogames Classics season. It may only be a 'training' race, but the Strade Bianche should be a good one, with a strong field and a tough course with some dirt roads thrown in.

The rider list is now up, so it's time to get picking some likely winners. Here's some previous winners:

Unfortunately, I won't be able to watch the action unfold live, as I'll be racing myself at the weekend. The third round of the Snake Creek Gap Time Trial series is nearly here, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will hold out for another couple of days and make the experience slightly less unpleasant than usual. I've nearly got my bike working again after the February round killed most of the moving parts. I'm not sure whether it was the hub-deep creek crossing or just 34 muddy off-road miles that was to blame. If I can just get this last event finished, I can get my hands on one of these sweet belt-buckles and not have to worry about my 'pants' falling-down ever again.

Omloop Over

The sun keeps shining down on Atlanta, where I'm still in shorts and where shop regular Angel decided it was time to look out his summer dress.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, the wind and rain were out to play for the Omloop. The men were sorted from the boys, and it came down to a sprint between the breakaway pair of Sebastian Langveld and last year's winner, Juan Antonio Flecha (or John Antony Fletcher as I expect he's know on the Sky Team bus). It was Langveld who crossed the line first, bagging the first big win of his career and showing he's one to watch for future Classics.

So, the weather sorted the wheat from the chaff and Unfortunately the Bile Beans line-up for the race seemed to consist mostly of chaff:

 Rider 1: Philippe GILBERT,OLO 
 Rider 2: Edvald BOASSON HAGEN,SKY 
 Rider 3: Lars BOOM,RAB 
 Rider 4: Greg VAN AVERMAET,BMC 
 Rider 5: David MILLAR,GRM
 Rider 6: Russell DOWNING,SKY 
 Rider 7: Martijn MAASKANT,GRM 
 Rider 8: Adam BLYTHE,OLO 
 Rider 9: Leif HOSTE,KAT 
 Rider 10: Marcus BURGHARDT,BMC 
 Rider 11: Karsten KROON,BMC 
 Rider 12: Koen DE KORT,SKS 

Although I only manged to score a paltry 52 points it does look like I won the minileague. It's only a training race though, so there's still time to get a team together for the real Classics starting off with Milan-San Remo on the 19th of March. And you can still get some training in at the Strade Bianche this Saturday - if you were around for the Giro last year you may remember that those roads can make for some good and grubby racing.

Velogames Classics Open For Business

It seems the Velogames Fantasy Cycling season has caught me by surprise and started early this year. Tomorrow to be precise, with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. That Velogames man George Chapman promises he's made his website super reliable for this season, so let's hope it all goes well and he remembers to do the Tour of Spain this year. So it looks like my Blogging hiatus has been rudely interrupted and I'll have to think of some things to say over the next while or so.

Although some of the pros have already done a spot of early season racing in sunny places like Qatar and Oman, this will be the first time they'll have the opportunity to ride in some unpleasant Northern European weather. 

Since moving over here to Atlanta, I've noticed that there are places in the world where it isn't always cold and grey like Yorkshire was. We did have that icy week  back in January, but I've been enjoying wearing my shorts recently, so I'm hoping for a cold and rainy sufferfest for the race tomorrow to make me even smugger about the sun we've been getting.

Anyway, I best go and pick a team, stay tuned for more stuff. If you pick a team tell us about it in the comments. I haven't looked to see if we can do a minileague yet, but if we can I'll set one up.