This weekend, we went from Liege-Bastogne-Liege to Neige-Hoth-Neige and back again, all within the same day! Seems the riders were paying for the beautiful weather we had in the Cobbled Classics …
Sometimes it snows in April
Meanwhile, Velocast took a wrong turn and ended up at the London Book Fair, getting the inside scoop on all those authors and publishers. Those bookworms are loose cannons!
If you pin your numbers on, but no one sees them under your rain cape, are you still in the race? That was the great philosophical question a lot of the riders were grappling with as they prepared for the race.
Dan Martin, looking for an escape route. Or the London Book Fair. “I want some literature and I want it now!’
The tribulations of having a girlfriend who could not care less about cycling.
The Fans of Bob Jungels were out early to nab a good spot. Just me, or does he look like Spike Milligan in Three Musketeers?
Oh, alas poor Hilltop, I knew him, Horatio. (A little Shakespeare action as it was the 450 anniversary of his death this weekend.)
Chaos and disorder
It was cold. It was very very cold. So cold, it froze the fire out of Purito. It also caused Ekimov to tweet in Fabianese – swap the cloves! Or maybe he had a little Shakespearean flair.
King Kelly was in top form, even if some of the riders weren’t. And he knew just when to go get coffee.
Meanwhile, Michael Rasmussen – remember him? super skinny guy who didn’t know Mexico from Italy? – seemed to not appreciate the hard work Carlos Betancur went to in order to drop some of the excess ice cream weight. But, um, what a weird way of saying it … ?
A few of tweeters were disgruntled about the re-routing of the course, shaving off 5km of a 250km race with no climbs affected – five WHOLE kilometres! – and were aggrieved that – egad! – the extreme weather protocol might come into play. Because whenever snow makes it difficult for tweeters to get into work, they don snowshoes or take to their sleds to get to work because, dammit, they’re getting paid to do their job! No excuses! So it was nice to see some taking the piss out of their own reactions.
By the end of the race, which saw driving rain, bright sunshine, and ‘a bit of a blizzard’, it was Wout Poels who took the first Monument for Sky.
Strange but true
Poels’ win was like Marmite. Some loved it, some hated it. There were even some who didn’t have an opinion either way (which is rare on Twitter).
Unsure who the many interlopers are …
O! Somebody slap me!
They looked tired, don’t they?
So it’s a shame that the races weren’t, well, the most exciting races we’ve seen this year. I wonder if we would like them more if they didn’t come right after the Cobbled Classics, which are almost always super duper.
The question of u
Over the weekend, track rider Jess Varnish spoke out about the way she was told there was no Rio for her, in fact, there was no more British Cycling for her as she was dropped and she alleges that she was told to ‘go and have a baby’ by Shane Sutton.
And why on earth would someone talk to a woman’s partner about her career – and not her?
And it was giving Aussies a bad name.
Oh and for all those who don’t believe there is sexism in cycling? I’ll just leave this here …
The Gruppetto
The Wolfman barbecues when he says he’s going to barbecue.
Do a little dance …
Oh, now that is a sad sad face …
Felix found a little kitten in his bike bag, adopted him and has named him Wes.
I wonder if Marco will be wearing that hat while he’s coaching. I triple dog dare him …
While the Velvet Samurai has gone back to his roots.
Love this picture!
More Shakespearean hijinx!
I guess we all have our breaking point …
JV taking Maserati Millar‘s poison pen in his stride.
Bond – vanquished by a fleet of Boris Bikes. It’s true!
The last word
