Bicicleteiros #66: Transfers

In this podcast
Hans and Rob talk about all the season end transfers and rumors thereof.  This time of year the road action shifts off road to cyclocross or indoors to six-day track racing, but we're already looking ahead to the Tour Down Under which is when pros like Lance Armstrong and Cadel Evans will be back at it again.

There's no draft in pro cycling, so can't wait to see who is making the right moves and who is screwing up in the transfer game.  Only time will tell, but we've already weighed in with our two-cents worth, for what it's worth.

Not mentioned
One thing we neglected to mention since the last podcast was the death of Belgian cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke, however, we chatted a bit about it around that time, and as sad as his passing is, neither of us was surprised to hear about him joining the Pantani Club in the sky.  All we could do was shake our heads and mutter, "poor Frank."

His demise has only added to the pre-existing cloud that has hung over the sport during the past few years.  What will make the cloud go away?  Not a lack of positive doping controls, that is for sure.  Anyone who thinks for a moment that any race is ever 'clean' just because there were no positives, is naive.  WADA, the UCI and AFLD need to be relentless.

The UCI are crazy (what's new?)
Another thing we forgot to mention was the UCI's plan to scrap the Men's and Women's Individual Pursuit events in order to foster equality by replacing them with the hokey Omnium* and fake Keirin**. 

*What's an omnium?  Not many cycling fans could tell you, including myself, so I looked up this 3-year old World Championship event on Wikipedia.  According to them, it consists of 1) a 200m flying start time trial, 2) a 5 km scratch race, 3) a 3 km individual pursuit, 4) a 15 km points race and 5) a 1 km time trial. 

While I am a huge fan of the scratch race, I don't really see the point in a 3 km pursuit.  Why not go the traditional distance?  The same goes for the 15 km points race.  Maybe the officials are hoping to use this event to educate the masses about the various forms of track racing.  If that were the case, then why not have all the events at their usual distances, i.e. a 15-20 km scratch race, a 5 km pursuit and a 40 km points race?

**What's a keirin?  Well, the real thing is betting on cyclists the way one would on horses.  There's no motorcycle, rather there's a rider as a pacer.  I could go on, but you'll find all the details here, just refer to the section under the heading 'Keirin in Japan'.

Anyway, here's a petition to keep the real Individual Pursuit in the Olympics:  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepindividualpursuit/index.html

And here's the Belgian proposal:  http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rlvb-urges-uci-to-reconsider-olympic-track-changes

The Hour Record
Fabian Cancellara is thinking of going for the Hour Record which, according to current UCI rules, is restricted to being ridden on old-fashioned high wheelers these days (just kidding, of course), while Graeme Obree has given up doing it on his latest homemade bike made from the parts of various home appliances (only half joking).  I recently looked up the record on Wikipedia, when I realized I'd missed the last few record attempts. 

It seems that since the UCI erased a couple decades of records broken or attempted by some of the most exciting racers of my generation and the one before mine, and created some kind of "human record" (which they should've called the EDDY MERCKX or, Retro Hour Record (we're talking 1972 technology here), with another category for those who continue to evolve with the times (which they should've kept as the official UCI record), everyone has more or less lost interest.  Sorry about the run on sentence there. 

When I started cycling, Francesco Moser's 51.151 km/h was a sacred number we spoke with awe and reverence.  It was sacred precisely because it had previously been held by Merckx.  Some of my friends had it etched into their handlebars, so they saw it every time they rode.  In a span of a little more than 12 years, there were 9 new records!  How's that for excitement?  What do you mean Moser, Obree, Boardman, Indurain, and Rominger never had the record?  Bah! 

The more riders who attempt it, the more tantalizing the record.  Let's see Cancellara, Armstrong, Wiggins, Phinney and others go for it on the coolest bikes money, innovation and imagination can create!

Photo:  The "puddle" that crashed me by Ron

Posted by Rob.

P.S.  Well, speak of the devil and... is Stijn Devolder really skipping the Tour?  http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/devolder-to-concentrate-on-spring-classics-skip-the-tour

Tags:  NFTOS, Olympic, Pursuit, women's, men's, Tour of Lombardy, Paris-Tours, doping, Christian Pfannberger, Vinokourov, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Philippe Gilbert, Alberto Contador, Taylor Phinney, World Champion, Championships, Tour Down Under, focaccia, Magic Hat, Cuvée Mythique, owl, Specialized, BMC, Team Sky management, Radio Shack, Team Columbia-HTC, High Road, Astana, Caisse d'Epargne, Lotto, Garmin-Slipstream, Cervélo, Quick Step, Eddy Merckx, bicycles, 7-Eleven, Motorola, Subaru-Montgomery, U.S. Postal, Discovery, Tokyo, Bicycle Film Festival, Fixed Gear, Chicago Cyclocross Cup

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