Bicicleteiros #41: Buck Stops Here

The Vuelta a España promises to the be the showdown that never got a chance at the Tour de France this year. I've taken the liberty to chop up this podcast à la Tarentino (I use his name quite liberally here), so that cycling fans can cut to the chase, since time is of the essence with the Vuelta starting today in Granada.

Hans predicts Contador will take amarillo from day one, and wear it all the way to the finish in Madrid. I say there'll be a surprise similar to the first stage of the Giro, where Christian Vande Velde took the jersery in another team time trial stage. When you start a stage race like that, it's even more of a lottery than in an individual time time, because you could have a total newcomer roll across the line with the fastest time, because he's been fortunate enough to find himself on a strong team. Of course, I also predict Contador will be in yellow come Madrid.

To kick things off, Hans un- (synthetic) corks a Mas Delmera tempranillo, a Spanish wine from Tarragon. He's not sure what year it was though.

I'm still fumbling around with Garage Band and I managed to delete a not-so-vital portion while edition, which may have been worthwhile for our diehard fans we know you're out there! For a bit Hans is talking about the picture of the fireman holding up an ouriço, or hedgehog, and that comes up again later. (36:35)

How can you talk about the Vuelta this year without mentioning the Tour de France? The organizers of the Tour and 49% owners of the Vuelta barred Contador's Astana team from riding, so he had to settle for winning the Giro d'Italia instead. This could set up a treble for him, which would see him being the fifth rider to win all three major tours, and become the rider to have won all three grand tours within the shortest amount of time. Inevitably the failed ProTour format, the AIGCP, the old FICP rankings and the English Premiership all come up in the course of conversation.

For those of you who dropped by for more than just the cycling, maybe you stopped by for Hans' ability to drop in appropriate background music and poignant comments like "it's like Bruneel, he's in a downtown situation, and he's the minority," he quips at 20:08, followed up by "it's the American dream," at 22:00, and remarks about Leonardo Piepoli at 25:00. We eventually end up talk about creating a nature slideshow presentation (26:00), for which I recommend the Pecha Kucha format.

Other fine moments to note are at 30:27 (...but dude, I know how to put that look on!), 35:00 (...and I'll just drop some Latin names to this), 36:10 (...I can narrate to this kind of stuff), and finally the golden moment at 37:25 with "I have something beautiful for you..."

Photo of a fresh mountain lion kill, a mule deer perhaps, by Hans.

Posted by Rob.

Tags: NFTOS, O Irmão da Xuxa, h-monster, el gringo, Rob, Hans, Auckland, New Zealand, Hagerstown, Maryland

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