Tweets of the Week: Sweet Chaves and the last of the roos

Hello, hello! So we’re into the racing now and it’ll be like this until the end of October. One thing, however, that won’t be going on until the end of October is cyclists cuddling joeys. Therefore, this is the last Tweets this year where such behaviour will be featured. But it won’t be the last Tweets to feature the Little Kangaroo. We have a whole lotta Chaves love in this one …

Joeys and such

I like that the Tour Down Under starts so laid-back. Not only do the riders mingle with the wildlife (and vice versa) but they also take a lot of time to meet fans.

And I have to say, those orange straw fedoras are pretty swanky looking. Nothing against Skoda, but the white freebie hats you get at the Tour just ain’t as classy.

Cuter than a koala

Orica-Scott know a crowdpleaser when they see one, so our beloved Esteban Chaves is making his season debut in the Tour Down Under, sharing team leadership duties with Caleb Ewan.

The @estecharu show! pic.twitter.com/DJqRCKNFPA

— Josh Evans (@JoshJEvans) January 14, 2017

Be my, be my baby

Possibly the only thing cuter than Esteban … a baby hard at work with a diaper on his head.

Seems in July, we’ll have a Baby Birdsong to celebrate. Congrats all round.

What I think about when I think about kits

“This is Katusha, this is Katusha, this is Katusha …” This does not look like Katusha. I will be getting very confused during some of the live-tweeting this year. The big K was so much better. This could quite simply be anyone.

While I am thankful to the cycling gods for changing Astana’s bibs from aqua to black, I am very disturbed by the sooty gradient into the jersey. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. So there.

On the other hand – and I know that I am in a very small minority in this – I love AG2R’s kit. Here’s a picture of the kit on the beach …

All the kits together. I foresee some problems. There’s a lot of red and near reds – and Movistar and Orica still look alike. Sky and Bora and Data-Dimension are all about the black. Are we going to be confused by Quickstep and FDJ? Let’s hope the helmets have some sort of differentiation to them.

City cyclists, busy cyclists …

Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary, said last week that cyclists were not road users, only motorists are classed as such. “…where you have cycle lanes, cyclists are the users of cycle lanes. And there’s a road alongside – motorists are the road users, the users of the roads. It’s fairly straightforward, to be honest.” (If you remember, Grayling was the guy who was caught on camera accidentally dooring a cyclist last month.) Anyway, Ned Boulting has written him a letter which you can copy and paste and send to Mr Grayling as well.

These non-road users were also in the news because it seems that men-of-a-certain-age were using their love of riding bikes as a way of dealing with mid-life questions. This is nothing new – I’ve always thought exercise was as much a way of healing inner strife as winnowing down outer flab.

The Gruppetto

Cycling really is all glamour, all the time.

I’m unsure of what #goldencoffee might mean and way too scared to ask. Has GVA always had such heavy eyebrows?

Chloe Hosking making dreams come true …

We were having a Twitter discussion just the other day about team photos and how boring most of them are. (We all voted the Lotto-Soudal ‘boys in boxes’ from a few years ago as the all-time best team pictures ever.) Looks like Cannondale has upped their game.