Tour day schmalz stage 1

Hyperbole! False excitement! Remediation! It’s the Tour on Versus! My Direct TV has been spotty today, so I’m watching a later broadcast – thankfully it’s Phil and Paul. I’m full of Chianti, so I will be relying on spell check and moxie to make it through the stage.

Phil and Paul have just said nothing unexpected in front of a green screen photo of what may be any town in France. Note to VS, you are not fooling us, we know they are in a booth that smells like hangover and armpit, just show the Euro feed…

The early highlights show Voeckler going for every jersey possible – is there a jersey for “dreamy Gallic fellow with no GC hopes”? Then, Voeckler is your man!

Duclos-Lasalle junior has crashed and the Tour doctor looks at his wrist, and oddly does nothing about that abomination of a haircut. He’s out of the Tour sadly, perhaps we should start an ebay charity to get that fellow a proper haircut – it’s 2008, there’s no reason to look like an idiot any longer.

VS insists on showing the miles to go and that throws off my calculations.

86K to go and there’s Voeckler and the legion of dry hump riders off the front, I’m hoping for the token Agritubel rider being there also, as I enjoy making the “Agritubel is poor” jokes whenever possible. Some people hope for an exciting finish, I hope for opportunities to mock.

Frankie interviews George Hincapie, the lock to the vortex of boredom has been opened. George no longer sports the Oakley racing jackets, I would pour my Chianti on the floor, but it is all gone. Time to switch to Leinenkugel’s. And yes, Leinenkugel’s is in my auto spell thingy…

Uh oh, slight uphill finish with wind – Thor SMASH weeps, cue Freire and Bettini – is Bettini even in the Tour? I suppose a journalist would know that.

Erg, the VS is spotty on my Tivo the audio keeps dropping out. I got Direct TV so I could watch bike racing, and now the damn dish is out! The day the Tour starts! I despise the heavens!

And now we have random lines of digital crap with no sound. When the Direct TV tech shows up tomorrow, would a nice hello be a bag of my own spoor? Maybe if it was in a gift bag?

I scan past the digitized crap and see I missed an interview with Jonathon Vaugthers, well, I pretend I actually miss it anyway…

Valverde has real shot at this stage today, and honestly I have no idea why he would want to win today. He’ll have to defend the yellow and he’d have to accept the winner’s prize, which is a cup of my spoor (VS has made a deal with me).

Here’s an interview composed of guys discussing the new rules changes. We will now stretch that footage for the next 3 weeks.

A shot of the leading group, the pack of the dammed if you will. Don’t see any Agritubel up there. No food tent for the team tonight! There! I made my first “Agritubel is poor” joke of the Tour! Sadly, they will not stop.

Frank Schleck and Popo and others go down in a touch of wheels. Eh, I’m much more impressed when Frank goes into the trees.

The group has a lead of 3:15; they contest the KOM points at the 50K to go mark. KOM is translated from the French for “who gives a drifter’s crap”.

I must fortify myself for the next 50k of boredom. Here’s the moment I give free market research to VS. Firstly, hire me to commentate. I’m tired of being humble – you need me. You need a quasi-literate dumbass – you already have a semi-literate dumbass, I will not say who – as I am very classy. Secondly, make the first hour all call-in from fans. There’s nothing going on anyway, and if anything has happened, it has developed slowly, so why not take calls? It’ll increase interest and it increase the chances you will get a pack of the mentally ill following the race. But that may just be the Chianti talking…

Oh wait, I was wrong there is an Agritubel guy up front, I hadn’t recognized the new Agritubel jersey as I have been watching bike races all season – and um, they haven’t done too much so far. I should’ve recognized him as the guy racing as if every point earned on the road meant earning more meat for the team to eat at the team dinner.

The Agritubel guy wins the green jersey sprint, I smell horse meat tonight!

37K to go 1:48 to the pack, the break’s chances are “abso-lutely-god-damn-none”.

Some Cofidis guy jumps from the front group, as he wants to be the guy who puts his head in the cut-out hole in the yellow jersey novelty billboard at the finish.

Two riders are away now, rolling through an area of France that resembles Dickeyville, Wisconsin – it is a town, you can check it. I know, as I have been there. Never been there sober, though.

The two off the front have about 1:20, let’s pretend for a moment that they have a chance.

27K to go, two beers in and we have a race on!

Hey! It’s a Thor SMASH interview! Wow, they went with a “god of thunder” motif! Well done VS! Way to dig deep. Thor SMASH is a well-spoken guy, but he comes off slightly dim here. But in all fairness, it seems as if he’s answering questions such as: “do you like winning?”, or “do you like winning at the Tour?”, or “do you like…stuff?”

Another crash, but it’s only Frenchmen and Spaniards – so it’s no big deal.

20 k to go – now it gets interesting. We get to see if Columbia tries to get Cav in yellow. We get to see if Valverde can outsprint the others. We see if Fabian can get away again. And we get to see how many Spanish guys hit the dirt in the final 2K. My guess is five.

11K to go, now it gets interesting. It looks like we have a few Silence-Lotto at the front, steadily decreasing Cadel’s chances at the overall.

Steegmans might have good chance today, as he did well in uphill finishes earlier in the year. That sentence just made Tom Boonen’s faux hawk wilt a little.

There’s a crash – how many Spaniards do we have down? Vegas wants to know! Is it Soler? Does he count for the Spaniard over/under?

I might have forgotten to mention that today would be perfect an Oscar Freire win, and I love me some Oscar!

We are together for the ultimate Cat 4 finish. Soler just overshot the corner coming back to the pack; we just need to have a derelict and a dog in the road to make this a park race in NYC.

The pack is strung out now, robbing Spaniards opportunities for hitting the pavement.

Can you name another Spanish sprinter besides Oscar Freire? No? Well, then I will keep on mocking their finishing skills…

Ah, there’s a split in the groups, the bonus line chickens have come to roost.

6K to go – this is going to be mayhem! I am loving this. There’s no team in charge, Soler is in trouble, and we have about 2k until another Spaniard bites it.

5K and they are spread out! Thor SMASH is pooping, and we could have a shot at a duel between McEwen, Freire and Cavendish! Mmmm, headbutts!

Columbia at the front, notice how they have no idea where Cav is…

3k to go and we have Gerolsteiner in the grass. Still no sign of Cavendish. This is going to be good.

So Columbia fancies themselves a leadout team? And they chose Milram-ish colors, hmm….

This dive into the fast section may actually kill someone.

2K to go, this is great! Where is Cavendish?

Erg, this is an uphill finish! Where’s the mayhem?! Dammit, ASO, if you are going to do away with the prologue, make it a sprint finish! This is Liege-Bastogne-Liege. That’s not even the cool part of Belgium!

Some Agritubel guy attacks! Anyone satisfied with that? See what you’ve done, ASO?

Hilarious TV moment where a gendarme gets his ass over the barrier to avoid a Jaja repeat situation.

Schumacher jumps – everyone seems to want to take a shot. He seems boned at this point.

Kirchen gets to Schumacher – I see Cadel behind sprinting – when was the last time you saw a GC guy sprinting on the first stage?

Valverde sweeps Kirchen up and takes the win – shocker. Gilbert second. Dammit.

Valverde now wins a week of guys taped to his ass.

Soler finishes down enough to try for the polka dot jersey.