Old School Cycling

Hallo Fans,

With spicy meatball news just arriving on the Greasy Italian newswire, we must warn you: BRACE YOURSELF for the powderkeg punch of what could be the most destructive and lethal cycle racing tag-team ever to be witnessed by Mankind.  In some horrible and apocalyptic turn of the Fates, Frank Vandenbroucke and Stefano Garzelli, the twin Kings of the Washed Up, will don the Orange Armor of Euskatel Acqua e Sapone.  Of course, a classics rider who has done nothing but has a famous dad and a Giro winner who now races bush-league one day races couldn’t do this alone.  They are lead by Palmiro Masciarelli, a KEY domestique for Francecso Moser, and supported by Macsciarelli’s 3 sons.

Hallo Fans,

The Leadville Trail 100 had somehow played to the favor of Fate and Chance and lucked into the Showdown of the Century: Shin-splint Armstrong and New-Hip Landis were going to have their first showdown since becomming American Twins of the Golden Fleece.  The showdown would be epic in nature: 14,000′ feet of climbing, 100 miles of dusty dirt track, all in July when our cycling lust couldn’t be hotter. 

Lance committed months ago, hip to his new chapter of athletic adventures like the Lance-athon in NYC.  (Note: does anyone notice that Jaja beat his time, without his own cameras and world class pace runners?)  On December 19th, Landis throws his Yellow Cap in the ring, ready to break in his new hip.  One week later, Lance plays the Coward’s Card by retreating from the battle.  From Lance’s patsy department: “Lance had a scheduling conflict come up and he regrettably cannot participate in the event.” 

To think Lance can forecast his special moment that far in advance!  A true champion.

Hallo Fans,

It seems the Italians get the most introspective during the winter holiday, for two days in a row they have been throwing down their fine leather gauntlets.  New this day is Paolo “Il Falco” Salvodelli boldly declaring, like his compatriot Ivan Basso, will be riding the infamous Giro/Tour double.  As he stated, “The Giro is open and up for grabs and it will be better for my chances.”  He must have forgotten that Basso is going to be there, or knows something we don’t: the Giro is being ridden completely downhill.

With regards to the Tour, “At the Tour I will support [Alexandre] Vinokourov and [Andreas] Klöden but I will also have my own space.” Sounds like Vino is rubbing off on him already. 

….in 2008.

That’s right, Cycling Fanatics, Paolo Bettini has declared he will blow his candle out in two years.  In a blink of the eye, he will be gone.

….a blink that contains two full cycling seasons including both World Championships and the Olympics…again.

We understand, Paolo.  You’re tired and you just can’t do it anymore.  Losing focus in the off season, the legs aching like an old man’s, it’s time to hang your machine in the stable and play with your grandchildren in the garden.  And of course when you have reached your limits, it is only natural to tell your fans.  And tell them that you are certain that in two years you will be done.

Thank you, Paolo.  You’ll be removing your shadow from the other tiny Italians like Salvatore Commesso, and of course the Tiny Prince Himself.

Hallo Fans,

glückliches Weihnachten from your friends at Old School Cycling!  We are just finishing our month-long winter holiday in the Swiss Alps, eating strudel and sipping brandy.  But not without a few training runs in the snow, yes?  Even the leading pop-cycling journalists must place careful deposits in the pain cave for the fury of The Season. 

It seems that during our holiday the world of European Cycle Racing has gone to slumber like sweet babes in the cradle.  One is only left to dream….How fat is Jan getting now that he is “training” with no hope to race next season?  Will Hinault finally be convicted of cannibalism?  Will Vino finally be caught drinking oxygenated blood for performance enhancement?  Will Landis finally get his day in court?  How many drug busts will Tinkoff have before Milan-San Remo? 

It will be an amazing season, Sports Fans.  Relax and enjoy yourself fireside, the holiday won’t be here much longer.

Hallo Fans,

With French Laboratories admitting fault and an Air-Tight case at the ready in the Landis camp, it seems only a short matter of time until the Death Blow is lain by the Tour De France Hero and he is set free to race his bionic pelvis back into the Top Ranks.  But with the Pro Tour teams tucking themselves in for their winter slumber, who has room at their inn for a hungry amish boy from Pennsylvania?  Let’s take a look…..

Tinkoff: With Floyd’s rock-hard case and aquittal, he may just not be dirty enough.  But their bear-fur pockets are deep, it seems Manolo is selling them a Pro Tour license, and they need a GC Champion.  Hamilton?  Washed up.  Ullrich?  Head case.  Floyd’s got the fresh hips of a school boy and the tenacity only a Badger could understand.  This team is a Perfect Safety Team should he have to turn to the evil powers of the Dark Side to return to the Peloton. 

ANY FRENCH TEAM: The temptation is strong for the ironic domination of a Cofidis or Ag2R but….well….Floyd’s hate for the French is now white-hot and couldn’t possibly calm it down enough to leave those teammates alive.  He can’t waste even a drop of his Essence hauling a team of dead weight winers.

CSC Tiscali: This team has stated they just want to Try Hard and Stay Sober, results are only an afterthought.  But sponsors don’t pay the bills with fluffy feelings, but with Cold Hard Cash.  Although Bjarne feigns confidence in his Spainard, we all know he’s bluffing.  He cried the tears of the Fool who realizes the mistake of kicking his Coos to the curb while deep in a Drunk.  He is a Man Alone, and needs a Champion.  Although Bjarne’s creepiness would be too much for the Average Man, Floyd would tolerate nearly anything for a shot at the Pro Tour.  However, he can do better than racing for Greasy Uncle Riis.

MAPEI QUICK-STEP: This is the Old School Cycling Official Pick!!  With T-Bone racking up a quiver of Wins in the spring and an unquenched thirst for Green Jerseys, they are going to the Tour.  They have no GC contenders and really no GC support, but they are a team founded on Brass Balls and Floyd is a Man that Fits Right In.  He is a pure-guts rider and this is a pure-guts team.  FLOYD LANDIS IN THE QUICK-STEP COLORS IS A LOCK FOR THE TOP STEPS OF THE PODIUM.  Go to your bookie, bet all you own and can borrow, and tell them Old School Cycling sent you.  You are in Good Hands.

= ?

Hallo Fans. Gather round the Blazing Hearth and settle in for a bedtime story.

“Kings and Pawns,” Dumas wrote—that is the way of the world. But, being omniscient, we here at OldSchoolCycling.com can improve upon Dumas’ schema. Another dimension exists: the Chessmaster. And this changes two very important letters of Dumas’ phrase: “n” and “d.” Kings are Pawns. The Chessmaster, flying under the radar, is the Kingmaker.

At the Giro d’Italia last May, the crown prince succeeded the Throne of Armstrong to become King of the Grand Tours. However, assassins lay in wait. Just before freshly-coronated Baby-Caesar Basso’s confirmation race, Brutus—going incognito under the name of Dick Pound—struck.

What could have motivated this? The answer is, of course, the same answer that applies to 99% of questions: money. And who stood to gain the most?

NOW THAT BASSO has recovered from Dick’s Brutus-Pounding and is poised to re-mount the Throne, Johannesberg Bruyneel has purchased Basso-rights for a paltry sum. Without that pounding, millions more per annum would have been required to wrest Basso’s Kingly services from Riis’s greasypaws. The Great Dane was ready to Death-Grapple to hold that contract. But could he take on such a Serious Man as Bruyneel?

Last July, Bruyneel’s boys in blue belched and burped through le Boucle like babes babbling at the breast. He knew long before le Tour that none of them could get the job done. This was unacceptable to him. He had to win… He simply had to. Desperately, he searched for a solution. And just in the nick of time, he found it. So it was that he created a devious plot that gave his boys an outside chance at victory by eliminating Basso from the race. Even more importantly, he engineered the elimination in such a way as to prompt the Great Bald Viking to chew the CSC contract to shreds and turn Basso out like a worn-out stepchild.

Turned out by his beloved Bjarne, Ivan was left shuddering in the cold, scared and confused, when a nice man approached with some hot chocolate, a balaclava and some mittens. “Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll fix this whole thing up for you,” said the nice man. Basso whimpered and the man walked him towards his hotel across the street.

“Come, come. We’ll get you some nice hot soup and a good bed. You’ll be as good as new in the morning,” the nice man said, putting his arm around the boy. “Call me Bruynie.”

Ivan nodded and put his head against the man’s chest. “Okay, Bruynie.” He never saw the toothy grin that spread over the man’s face.

We’ll leave the particulars of that night, spent in front of a blazing fire, to our Dear Reader’s imagination. Suffice to say, that nice man inked up a contract in the afterglow of the next morning and made Basso a Disco boy.

One might be tempted to call Bruyneel a Kingmaker, a Chessmaster. But perhaps one must look further. For why was Bruyneel so desperate? What drove him to such lengths? Perhaps there is another layer to peel…. But where would it lead?

IF ONE HAD FOLLOWED Bruynie after he left that hotel alone, one would have seen him briskly walk through the shadows of the cobbled streets, glance furtively around, then suddenly duck into an unmarked building. Were one to have followed him inside that building, one would have witnessed a medieval scene in flickering torchlight…

Bruynie knelt in front of a figure in flowing black robes. “Master, it is done,” he uttered.

The figure nodded once and extended a hand. Bruynie took the hand and pressed his parched, quivering lips to something glimmering in the torchlight. As Bruynie lifted his head, the glow revealed what he had kissed: upon a manicured pinky perched a Ring of Seven Diamonds, and on the fine wrist above was circled a yellow bracelet….

The figure now looked up, and his eyes—his eyes burned in the dancing light like pools of molten steel.

Who could wield such pressure upon a Manne like Johan?

KAISER SOZE!!!!! The REAL Chessmaster!!

HE CAN KILL a man with his bare hands—and will, if need be. And that is why Basso must kneel and press his lips to the same ring that Johannesberg “Bruynie” Bruyneel kneels before and kisses: the Ring of Seven Diamonds.

Hallo Fans,

At the top of today’s Cycle Racing News-wire is Oscar Pereiro’s Line In The Sand: he refuses to ride Le Tour de France should they not declare him winner.  In his whiny wimpering words, he was promised by ASO that they would declare “a” winner by the end of October.  Open investigation on Landis?  HOOEY.  Clear and admitted errors in the lab work in France?  POPPYCOCK.  Pereiro: “Mommy, GIVE ME MY TOUR!!!!”

Oscar, I must say for all Cycle Racing Fans: SHUT THE !@#$ UP.  You would have been nothing but an afterthought had a True Man of Grit, your team leader Alesandro Valverde, not paid his dues for Aggressive Riding.  Luck gave you that gift, and another of a forgotten break away.  Like the bleating Lamb in the Lion’s Den, the Fates will hear your call for attention. But I doubt they will put your Mother’s teat to your hungry lips; instead, it is certain, you’ll receive an Iron-Hard Gnashing in the Fangs of Hard-Truth.

Floyd Landis shredded the Peloton in a single solo day striking a 7 minute blow on you and “your” Yellow Jersey, fueled by Whiskey and Brawn.  You can’t outride a man on a CAMEL.

Hallo Fans.

Too simple to be complicated, yet so chaotic we cannot comprehend it, the doping Saga’s fingers stretch & grow like Lady Capitalism in the age of Electronets.  So, Les enfants du sport… Unite!  But for now, the news.  Today’s winner is…

Tinkoff!  Yes Fans, there is a new Festina, sans the deceptions and tears of Virenque (who, by the way, has been spotted frantically trying to get a new sponsor by changing team kits as he experiences dramatic weight fluctuations).  Team Tinkoff, lovechild of a certain notorious Russian millionairre, has not only reported the signing of one T. Hamilton, but also has openly expressed interest in Francisco Mancebo.  The alleged signing of Hamilton is one thing, but Mancebo RETIRED IMMEDIATELY after being implicated in the Operacion Puerto scandal.  This appears analagous to fleeing, which in criminal trials is admissible as evidence of guilt.  Franny Mancebo:  the Scott Peterson of cycling?

Tinkov/Tinkoff is all about the loopholes & technicalities.  He drynx from jah Cup of Crime, as does any Russian man o’ millions.  Mafiosi, meet les directeurs sportif!  The Doping Soap Opera–le Dope Opera–is growing to near-incomprehensible proportions.  Like the inverse of glaciers.  (Oh wait, that’s junk science….)

As co-founder of one of the largest media outlets in the World, we here at OldSchoolCycling can confirm that le Dope Opera is, for the media, replacing the sport itself.  Sure, there are Roubaix, Flanders, le Tour… but our studies show that when you, dear readers, czek the news, you are looking for some Dirt!   

And le Dirt is what we specialize in. 

Read on, and get dirty.

Hallo Fans, 

A special aside from le Dope Opera.

In the months preceeding the NY Marathon, many arguments were had between cycling fans and hip hop fans over which was bigger:  Lance Armstrong or P.Diddy running the NY Marathon.  The answer to that one was definitively given on TV; the entire marathon coverage was basically about Lance, and they had a camera set up in front of him for 26.2 miles called the Lance-cam.  This was not done for P.Diddy, who finished in just under 5 hours.  The marathon elite complained about the coverage of Lance’s Marathon, which usurped the attention given to them.  However, the Tour is 10,000x bigger than any marathon and Lance is 10x bigger than the Tour—which, to keep our math straight, means that Lance is 100,000x bigger than any marathon.

Unfortunately, manny runners are going to think that running is harder than cycling, since Lance only finished 869th (out of like 33,000) at NYC, but was the best in the history of cycling.  Lance compounded this problem by saying the marathon was the hardest thing he’d ever done.  However, he didn’t train much for the marathon, but trained 4-7 hours a day for 18 years for the Tour.  Further, he wasn’t built specifically for the marathon and he was built to race a bike. 

Don’t worry, we’ll get back to The Drug Saga soon enough…

Long before the Atomic Eruption of Discovery’s new sellout Champion, Fate and Logic seemed to have brought the Heir to Armstrong’s Throne to their clubhouse.  Levi Leipheimer, the US Postal stableboy-cum-superstar was coming home.  The news came as Discovery fell to pieces during their first Sans-strong Tour and Leipheimer raced without the support of his Gerolsteiner team.  It seemed perfect..he’s a self-proclaimed Lance wannabe and certified Lance look-a-like when his balding pate is under a helmet: look here and here!  He trains with Lance.  He rode in Tenerife with Dr. “Evil” Ferrari to recieve his Treatments.  Even his wife married him solely because this Knockoff could satify her Lance Crush.  The substitution is simple and perfect.

 After Le Tour De France, Levi joined Hincapie at the US Pro Championships, and like a true Working Slave exhausted himself with Hincapie on his wheel to deliver Poor George his Stars and Stripes.  Like a homely girl whoring herself to the Homecoming King, Levi willingly Took It from Discovery before he was even wearing their kit.  Finally, it seemed, he would have his chance at the Golden Fleece.

 BUT NAY!!  In a handful of weeks, IRONY has struck!  Basso has been successfully courted and Levi is cast aside for this Golden Boy.  Once again, Levi shall be bridesmaid to a Boy in Blue.  With Hincapie’s Stink still fresh on his back, he is not only left to sup on the scraps from Basso’s table, but his sure-to-be stardom has been preemptively wiped from the Discovery Memory-banks.  After trading his freedom to race alone, he now bears the Yellow Shackle and plays a sad, Second Fiddle…for an Italian.

Hallo Fans.

 Oh my my!  With the evil reek of Discovery’s latest signing still fresh, one Graham Watson finds himself touring the country lanes outside Milano and happens upon a certain man, a-training run, draped head to toe in the Discovery colors… and that man’s name is Ivan Basso.  Of course Graham had his tourist camera and captured a few pictures for the Internets.

 But what do these photos really say, dear Readers?  Consider the Yellow Shackle clamped tight ’round his gentle arm…. look deep into his young, tender doe-eyes, and you’ll see it:  FEAR.  Sweet, sweet Ivan.  Even now, as Lance has hung his machine in the stable, you must still kneel at his Throne and press your lips to all Seven Diamonds on his Pinky Ring.  Does he whip you with his Maillot Jaune?  Do you enjoy the salt of your tears, Ivan?  You clearly love to suffer, but Lance’s Mind Poison has broken you, and now you are drunk on it.  We can only hope that the One Nutted Puppetmaster can command your mindless shell to victory.

God Speed, Basso.  You will be Beaten next season.  We can only hope you are put out of your self-inflicted misery.  As Vinokourov carves out your liver to share with Hinault, may you finally reach Eternal Peace…. as they find Sustenance.