Preview

Hoste

I’m just not a big Hoste fan, he seems a little too “stabby” in the back region. He did blow Flanders, so maybe he’ll be out for revenge at Roubaix. But I would like to think he’s still weeping over his botching of the finish at Flanders. Do you think he ever goes out for a beer in Belgium and some smart ass jumps right in front of him at the bar and says. “Oops, second again, Leif.”? What kind of person would do that? What kind of person would type that?

Freire

Oscar got the old one-two at Wevelgem from Hammond and Burghardt. They played it to perfection. I was impressed that Freire bridged to the front group, well, he did follow Burghardt, but still it’s a smart move by a sprinter to get ahead of the race. I didn’t see McEwen hitting any extra wind. He worked with the break also, so he’s in shape and he’s moving up my man crush list. But he’s also a Spaniard – he’s going to be home watching Roubaix on TV – so that will really affect his chances.

Thor

Thor was in the first chasing group at Wevelgem, so hopefully he might be getting over his case of the runs. This could be a good opportunity to SMASH!

Boonen

A limp wrist cost the Boner his Flanders triple. My giddiness at typing that last line is far too high for a grown man who’s a husband and father of two. He’s still a classics monster and can’t be counted out, but he seems a little bummed about his Flanders boo boo. And a bummed out Boner isn’t a fast Boner.

Ballan

He’s in great shape right now, but there’s a definite lack of bergs in Roubaix. Not the launching platform he had in Flanders – but he did make Hoste cry…

Cancellara

Fabian’s move at Flanders was absolutely breathtaking, too bad he had too much company at the front. Boonen better send a nice fruit basket to Steegmans on his birthday. Cancellara is wicked strong right now, he’s just not able to lose his cabooses.

Burghardt

He just won Ghent-Wevelgem, so he can’t be discounted. But experience counts for a lot at Roubaix, and I just don’t see anyone letting him and Hammond get away again. “Magenta” jerseys are very hard to spot also.

Flecha

C’mon Flecha, show us some of that arrow magic! You can join the ranks of those other great Spanish Roubaix winners! What? oh, right…

Anyone

Frederic Guesdon, Servais Knaven, Johan Museeuw, anyone who doesn’t hit the ditch or fall in French cow dung has a legit shot at winning. Roubaix fever – it’s like really bad food poisoning!

The Cobbles

The cobbles always win at Roubaix. They will knock guys over, they will deflate tires, and they will make Spanish guys whimper.

Race Day

2:10 Sunday

I have a limited window while Claire’s asleep and Emma’s watching a movie to see Roubaix on cycling.tv. I’m watching it on cycling.tv because the Versus coverage is 1 hour, and if you subtract the remedial explanation of the race and the moronic profiles of the racers, that’ll give you about 35 minutes of the actual race. Why bother? C’mon Versus, just show the g-damn prairie dog stunt riding championships – you know you want to…

So there’s no replay yet available from cycling.tv yet, the only thing in the premium on demand section is Pais Vasco. I will wait diligently until the Roubaix link comes up and simultaneously curse cycling.tv. This internet TV feed thing is getting a little annoying. The buffering, the play rates, and you have to watch it on your computer. I have a wireless laptop, so it isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really lend itself to having people over to watch the race. And don’t bother explaining how to hook it up to my TV, I don’t care. It’s not going to happen, and there’s no way I’m making a trip to Radio Shack to see bitmapped choppy images of races. Hmm, lazy, demanding and un-technical – does that sound “American Consumer” enough for you?

So, I’ll be refreshing the cycling.tv links obsessively for about another 15 minutes, otherwise, plan B means I’ll be up until the wee hours of the night watching the race after the link is finally active. I’m mentally e-stabbing the cycling.tv company as we speak.

2:25

Still no Roubaix link, but I have seen the trailer for “The Flying Scotsman” about 30 times. I haven’t had my sound on, but I imagine it goes something like, “In a world, where there’s only one cycling related movie, we decided to publicize it in only one place – over and over – until absolutely no one has any desire left to see the movie. Brought to you by the producers of ‘Dunston Checks In’.”

2:54

Can you imagine if you had invited friends over to watch the race and the link still wasn’t up? I would imagine we’d eventually have to square off in a contest of feats of strength to pass the time. I bet I can totally out squat thrust Andy Shen.

3:21

We’ve finally devolved to oil wrestling in my imaginary Roubaix party/feats of strength fiasco. And Andy cheats, by the way…

3:56 and the link is up! Excuse me and Andy while we towel off..

Fast forwarding through Anthony and Brian’s Cervelo love session…

Always enjoyable to see George’s crash in double speed, like a Keystone Cops routine.

If you wanted to convert a friend into a cycling fan, the one race to show them would have to be Roubaix. The crashes, the cobbles, the weather, they all have the best potential to turn a normal sports fan into a cycling fan. It’s not as complicated as the Tour, there’s just one winner – it’s very easy to comprehend the concept. Plus, crashes are really cool, unless you’re Jimmy Casper at Wevelgem – that was just nasty. I wonder if he gets a bulk discount on neck braces now.

This spring there has been no doubt that Cancellara has been the strongest. His move at Flanders was just incredible; too bad he had 9 cadavers with him on the front.

There seems to be a humungous group off the front with 130-ish to go.

Beppu has a mechanical or something and gets his bike looked at by the Disco car, funny how the car accelerates while the mechanic holds his saddle…

The front group is 33 guys! Does that even count as a break? That’s more like a herd. O’Grady, Hammond and Steels are there, but it can’t be very dangerous as there are some Skil guys there and also some Spanish dudes that aren’t Flecha. Chances=nill.

Gap at about 4 minutes, and an Astana hits the ditch. I wonder how Thor’s SMASH colon is doing? I predicted he’d win Roubaix this year before San Remo, and then he got the trots. He was in the first chase group at Wevelgem, though.

I’ve come back to the laptop after a stuffed animal meeting with Emma, and thankfully I cannot start again where I left off. So it’s a fast forward a thon now. Internet TV – it’s like a self-stab in the neck!

Nice, my browser window just closed, how do you inform Microsoft that you’d like to ship a bag of rabid weasels to cycling.tv?

Look, there’s the Flying Scotsman trailer again, I might just go to the movie to throw the contents of my neighbor’s cat’s colon at the screen.

Here’s a painful fast forward through everything I’ve seen so far. Streaming internet TV is the future – and many people will be jumping off of things in that future…

I do suppose that this is better than no TV coverage (or Versus coverage) at all, I should be less spiteful, I should also be a lottery winner, but, you know…

Here’s sector 22 of the pave, let’s peer vulture-like at the pack, as we scan for carnage.

Shouldn’t someone wanting to win this race launch from this front herd? Hello, Stuey? Is your radio on?

Brard the French champ has troubles, in addition to being French, of course…

Guy in a gorilla suit by the side of the road, good to know that the international sign of knuckleheadedness is alive and well. Does Didi the Devil’s work release allow him time off for the Classics?

Grabsch riding off of the front for the Ale-Zabel free milkmen. His best chance would be for the entire group to fall down behind him, this is Roubaix, so that’s actually a possibility. Somewhere Frederec Guesdon is giggling.

Remember way back when they used to have shocks and goofy specialized bikes for Roubaix? I remember Museeuw’s goofy Bianchi that ended up in a ditch during the chase after Tchmil in 94. Good times. No disrespect to Oscar, but Tchmil had the best curb bunny hop of all time off of the front of that race.

107k to go and it’s going to be a lot of Grabsch footage at the front of the race until the forest.

Klier is at the front working hard on his resume after Burghardt’s win at Wevelgem.

Back to the action after digging a canal to divert water away from the side of the house, and here we find out something very important. If you pause the race and try to come back, apparently it plays hell with the streaming video. Good to know.

Ok – it’s after 8:00, beer time, let’s see how this race looks through the prism of Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat. They can still claim that they are the pride of Chippewa Falls, but they sold to Budweiser a couple of years back. The beer’s still good, but if you want small, independent Wisconsin beer (if that’s important to you), you’ll have to go with Point. And there you have a broad run down of middle size beer brewing in Wisconsin, anyone still awake?

All of the little play and rewind icons on the cycling.tv site have little red “x’s” through them – that’s bad, right? If I have to fast forward again, I might lose my mind.

I’m sure there’s all sorts of ways to properly stream this race, and I should ask their tech support, but I really don’t give a crap. Put the race on and let me navigate through it – and make it bullet proof. That’s it. FAQs are for suckers!

Great! I get to reload the race stream again. Excuse me while I pour my beer onto my laptop.

Mmmm, another fast f-ing forward. All the same junk over again. Um, cycling.tv, there’s this thing called itunes, you can have your video download to users and then they can navigate the files. Oh wait, you’re basically a middleman, it would make much more sense for Eurosport or one of the networks that carry the races to open themselves another revenue stream by putting the races up on itunes themselves. Wait, why is my browser suddenly locking up as I write that?

Hmm, let’s see circus servers+one of the most popular races of the year=email boxes at cycling.tv filling with e-hate mail.

I’ve been staring at a partially loaded navigation of the cycling.tv site for five minutes now.

Ok, we’re back and Grabsch is in the Arenberg, we’ll see how the pack handles the bounces. They’ve put barriers up along the entire Arenberg section, crashing there would be like crashing in a rock tumbler.

Lotto at the front in the peloton, Boner sitting second. Grabsch back on the smooth stuff.

Oof, big old crash in the forest. CSC guy off the bike. It is Fabian?

Boonen pushing on the cobbles, the Boner is looking good. Hee hee.

They’re out of the forest, it’s Boonen, Eckout, Hoste, and Flecha I think.

They have a moto gunning it through the Arenberg to see the stragglers. It looks like closing time at a Danish disco.

They pan past the group to try and tell who’s left, it’s like picking out goldfish in a carnie’s dirty bowl.

Van Petegem is up there with Boonen. The gap is dropping like a Kevin Federline album.

Cancellara trying to get back on after his flat, it would be a good time to try and push the pace, if you’re not interested in him beating you.

Is Thor SMASH in the Boner group? How can not see him?

Grabsch is getting pulled back by the herd, the gap is 2:55.

Pozatto is in there also, I wonder if anyone else is going to launch? Stuey? Come in Stuey.

Kopp attacks – wrong answer.

I can’t tell if Thor SMASH is in the group. Where’s my little Thunder God?

There’s Thor SMASH! He’s in the Boner group! Still in the race.

Hammond gunning it in the cobbles and he’s a little off the front. That’s short lived.

Couple of guys trying to bridge to the herd.

The herd is thinning at the front, Dean, Stuey and Pozatto have come back, the gap is 1:54. The herd’s chances have dropped from nil to completely nothing.

Magnus has a flat, doesn’t he ride solid steel tires? Once again let me voice my dismay at Liquigas’ choice of crotch chevrons.

Quick Step on the front chasing, now’s the time to take a leak if you have to.

Fabian and Hoste have got together, perhaps another opportunity for Leif to finish second? And if you think I’m going to make some sort of parallel between Hoste and Leif Garret and his 70’s crap rock anthems about roller skating, you’re sorely mistaken.

Beppu is still in the race! I had him pegged as a feed zone hero.

Boonen picks ups some self tanner in the feed zone.

CSC is bringing the herd back. Today has been awfully un-crashy, my inner NASCAR fan is very disappointed.

There’s a Gerolsteiner split off the front with a dirty uniform. He will have hell to pay from the skating federation. And he’s not wearing any ruffles!

Still trying to find Thor in the group, hello? SMASHING?

They are flying over the cobbles right now, Lotto pushing their luck! That’s quality punning right there!

The Boner looks comfortable at the front – is he over his Flander’s boo boos?

Stuey pushing hard at the front. Ballan is still in the race also.

A Lotto guy just desperately waved a elbow at a Quick Step guy trying to get him to pull. Riiiiight…

Flecha still near the front, trying to get across now with Michaelson, and acting very un-Spanish.

They’ve almost caught the front herd. Let’s see if they use the front as a launch pad.

It looks warm enough for some French mankini sightings – here’s hoping!

Three off the front from the herd. Kopp, Van Impe and Pollack. Oy, Stuey slides out, he looks fine though. There’s about 40 groups out on the road now. The organization is about as clear as Croatian Parliament.

Flecha in a small chasing group with Michaelson.

Devolder bubbles up to the front in the main pack with 41k to go – that’s like a sprint to him. Gusev is there also, just because.

I wonder if Flecha has a chance from this group? I wonder if they even show Roubaix on TV in Spain?

Boonen has Van Impe and Cancellara has Michealson up at the front. Van Impe and Michaelson – that’s star power! Knaven time!

Wesemann jumps, who the hell is he riding for now? Is he sponsored by Chico’s Bail Bonds?

Boonen pushing it, let’s see how the pave works out.

Disturbing oversized French head character by the side of the road. Just saying…

Flecha is hammering away at the front, ahead by a nose. Heh heh…

The Boner keeps surging. Yes, I’m giggling.

Seems like Thor has been dumped front he race like a sack of herring entrails. Un-SMASH!

Boonen keeps surging – he looks really strong. Van Impe weeps into his radio.

Wesemann and Stuey have bridged. Wesemann could actually get to ride shotgun in the team Fiat if he wins.

25 k to go, Kopp caught. Stuey jumps. Boonen getting attacked in the rear. Hee hee

Fabian back in a crap group, so Stuey will get a shot. Stuey looks really good.

Flecha can smell the finish line from the second group…

At 20k Stuey has 25 seconds – nice.

Boonen chasing and being followed like Angelena Jolie at the adoption agency.

51 seconds with 17k! Go Stuey!

So if Stuey wins, will he send McEwen an email of his taint?

Flecha attacks from the chase group. Could be very too late.

C’mon Stuey!

Michaelson hits the dirt, and perhaps had a problem with certain deep section wheels that shall remain unnamed.

The Boner is flying through the dead wood, but he’s probably too late. That is such a classy sentence.

Stuey still cruising. Flecha looking around for some help.

10 k to go Boonen getting no help.

C’mon Stuey, thank God he’s not riding certain rims that shall still remain unnamed.

Flecha is a Mo in a group of Shemps.

So are Wesemann’s teammates all Cat threes? What team is that?

CSC team car comes up and tells Stuey to not crash – that’s good director-ing.

Van Impe falls back to Boonen, but they’re later than lunch.

Stuey! Stuey! C’mon Stuey!

Wesemann has a good chance of placing and winning his entry fee back.

2 K C’mon Stuey! No crashing!

Into the velodrome!

STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU (take a breath) UUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEYYYYYY!!!!!!

Stuey wins!! God bless him.

Wesemann is sprinting for a new pair of gloves, but Flecha gets second. Wesemann will have to take the transit bus home.