2011 Season Preview (Nick of Time Edition)

Team LEOPARD TREK finally unveiled its remarkably "meh" kit in the most overblown and underachieving press conference since this on January 6th, 2011. The Tour Down under starts January 18th.  Here, cycling fans, is my rundown of the major teams that will factor in the upcoming campaigns:

All photos/graphics/logos relating to The Warriors courtesy The Warriors Movie Site


                         These are the Armies of the Peloton
1.

                                                   Garmin Cervelo
SOMMELIER: Johnathon Vaughters (Ajax)
WEAPONS:  Everyone... but who's Michel Kreder?

2. 

                                                   HTC-Highroad
THE BOSS: Bob Stapleton
PHAROAH: Mark "I'm not a fookin' animal, you know..." Cavendish

3.

                                                 Team LEOPARD TREK
TEAM MANAGER: Brian Nygaard
WEAPONS: Scarves (thanks to The Pit Walk), Fabian Cancellara, Jens Voigt, Andy Schleck's stomach, hair-gel.

4. 

                                             Liquigas-Cannondale
WEAPONS: These (from pezcyclingnews.com)

5.

                                              Omega Pharma-Lotto
WEAPONS: their website, the Pride of Wallonia (thanks to The Service Course)

6. 

                                               Saxo Bank Sungard
CAPTAIN of SHIP: Bjarne "everything is fine" Riis

7.

                                                   Sky Procycling
WEAPONS: Team bus, doing what every other team does with more pretension , free television

8.

                                                     Katusha Team
BOSS: Andre Tchmil 

9.

                                           Quickstep Cycling Team
WEAPONS: Tommeke and his his song (via Cycling Fans Anonymous)

10. 

                                                  Movistar Team
WEAPONS: This dude (who's featured on their their 2011 kit)

11. 

                                            Rabobank Cycling Team
ALL THEIR HOPES REST UPON: Robert Gesink, oops, I mean Robert Gesink

12.                                       the Baseball Furies:

                                                 Team Radioshack
BOSS:Johan Brunyeel, Lance "On your LEFT!" Armstrong, & this guy
FUTURE DEPENDS ON: Jeff Novitzky, battery sales, who am I kidding?
WEAPONS: Snicker Bars, In & Out Burger, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, Chevrolet, Tiago Machado
TEAM SONG: This

13. 

                                                 BMC Racing Team
BOSS: Jim Ochowicz 
WEAPONS: Cadel "Cuddles" Evans, "Big" George "I had good legs on the Molenberg..." Hincapie, Taylor "not so mini" Phinney, Brent Bookwalter

14.

                                                 Euskaltel-Euskadi
TEAM LEADER: Igor Anton (image from Anne Cubberly)

15.

                                                 AG2R La Mondiale
WEAPONS: Pantone #19-0192 "Tawny Ultressa", Nicholas Roche
MISSING: Sebastian "Bernard's not related to" Hinault 

16.                                             the Gladiators:

                                Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team
WEAPONS: Johnny Hoogerland, Stijn Devolder

17.                                       Satan's Mothers MC:

                                                Pro Team Astana
LEADER: Alexander "blood in my thighs" Vinokourov

18. 

                                                   Lampre-ISD
WEAPONS: Alessandro Petacchi, Damiano Cunego, Michele Scarpone


19.

            HTC-Highroad/Garmin-Cervelo/womens' pro-cycling
WEAPONS: Tough, Mara Abbott, Emma Pooley, Kristen Armstrong, Jeannie "Betty Norris" Longo-Ciprelli, and many, many, many more!

20.

                          Team Pegasus/Fly V Australia/Geox-TMC

21.

 

               Androni Giocattoli-Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni/
                                                  Acqua & Sapone

2010 Year in Review (Prologue)

Of course re-hashing the past year is the cycling-blog equivalent of taking an extremely short pull, but at least I'm taking one before I get dropped.

First things first... I've been sucked into the Twitterverse (@sfc750) and I'm finding that my perennially adolescent brain finds 140 character capsules of thought ideal.  Inside The World of TwitCraft I've found a wonderful community of bicycle racing enthusiasts, fellow travelers, and knowledgeable cycling bloggers from which to constantly peruse (and that's when I'm not captivated by an @GhostfaceKillah rant).  As a fan of pro-cycling I've had more interaction with PROs in Twitterville than standing outside a team bus while its raining in downtown San Jose (unless I use my Mother to cut in line).  Levi Leipheimer once told me what gearing to use when riding up Kings Ridge (didn't help), Taylor Phinney told me his early season goals, and numerous PROs often tweet about their "sensations" and why they love (insert bicycle product here) so much.  Sometimes they will allude to a fine cafe in Lucca, or its equivalent in Belgium.  They don't Tweet about Spanish doctors much.  Even The Lance often posts about his favorite musicians and movies.  It is a never ending Xanadu of bike geekery and it's much easier Twattling along about riding up hills than actually going out and doing so.

Additionally I have succeeded in letting another year pass w/o jumping on the CX bandwagon. It is, of course, much too popular now and I'm having trouble finding a suitably underground cycling activity to suit my *Aesthetic* (as riding a Fixie has long ago "Jumped the Shark" and doing what Danny MacAskill does is simply not possible without computer aided visual trickery).  Similarly, in keeping with the Fred Coda, actually racing is incomprehensible.

So in future posts I will be re-hashing what others have written better about the year in cycling 2010 (12AFA). Here's a spritz of whats to come (thanks to MrThehiddencucumber):