Well, after a tweetastic few weeks with the cobbled classics, everyone has settled down just a little bit. This week, we have a few final pictures and thoughts from Roubaix, flowers and an apology to a certain podium girl, a Roman win and a bumper gruppetto.
Goodbye Roubaix
Just a few little bits and pieces from Roubaix this week. First up, That Boy Phinney looking like he gave everything he had by the time he made it to the velodrome.
This is just too good a picture to leave out.
How do you explain to a four-year-old that cycling is a team sport but only one guy ‘wins’?
Who said cyclists aren’t poets?
Fabs working on the footpath.
Peter & The Podium Girl (revisited)
We had a more circumspect Peter Sagan this week during Brabantse Pijl, as he presented Maja Leye, the podium girl he pinched, with a bouquet and a personal apology during sign-in. Not staged at all.
After he won the race, he made sure his hands were kept to himself. Look at this picture though – is it me, or does PhilGil look a lot like Thor Hushovd? Really? Just me??
A Portrait of Bertie as a Young Man
Alberto Contador posted up a few pictures of himself when he was an amateur, taken about 11 years ago. He must have a portrait in the attic because he doesn’t look any different – age has not withered, et cetera et cetera.
The Roman Spring of Amstel Gold
Spring has finally sprung in Belgium, after what can only be described as, well, winter during the spring classics. We’re all very excited. But that meant that Amstel Gold was, indeed, a golden day – and for no one more than a certain Roman Kreuziger.
Hmm, looks to me that the Katusha team meeting was conducted at some sort of space station: “Alright boys, here it is: fire a photon torpedo directly down the thermal exhaust port, which leads to the reactor core, leading to a chain reaction that will destroy the Death Star … any questions?”
“Moreno, I am your father …”
The peloton had to make a quick escape through a field during a crash that left the world champion at the back of the group and Thomas Voeckler in hospital with a broken collarbone.
The news of Voeckler prompted a lot of tongue jokes (hey, tweeters are nothing if not obvious), but I liked this picture best.
PhilGil sheds his Thor disguise from earlier in the week and attacks!!!
Roman Kreuziger gave a great performance on the day. But don’t you think this picture looks like he’s in front of some sort of pre-recorded backdrop that has nothing to do with him? Who is that gigantic man looming over his shoulder?
But for many of us the sight of a Carrot breakaway – and the fact that Mikel Astarloza stayed out (and upright) for quite a while – was the strangest sight of the race. (That Euskaltel kit is verging on a glow – like it!)
The Gruppetto
Nothing like some Argonaut Instagrams!
No idea what Fabs is talking about. None. But I heart him.
David Smart spots the doppelganger. Eat, Chris, EAT!!!! (It does look, however, that Jack Skellington has the perfect head shape for those hideous hideous aero helmets that some teams have been forced to wear. Seriously, that madness has to stop.)
How do you find a Sharpie at an airport with a dead phone? You mobilise the Twitter Army.
Surely every training ride is punctuated with a cigarette break?
“If we could talk to the animals …”
This nearly had the last word.
Because Yoda gets …
The Last Word
