Guest Column:The Anti-George.

The following is a guest column from uber-grouch and New Mexico Transplant Brad. You may remember a previous guest column from him lambasting bike commuting and bicycling magazine. Verbatim...........
"I fast-forwarded the race and watched the last 20k before my evening class. Boonen is simply the anti-George. Whatever million ways that George can figure out how to fuck up a race, Boonen has the same ability to win them in what looks brilliant but is actually just Boonen being "not-George". So the question is, how many more ways to win P-R does he have up his anti-George sleeve?

I may be mixing up my P-R and R-V-V finishes but still,
Ride off the front and ride solo forever. Done. (P-R)
Win in two up sprint. Done. (R-V-V)
Win in bunch sprint. Done. (Everywhere)
Ride off the front and let every else crash. Done.(P-R)

P-R in 2010??? Early prediction is that George retires, drives the team car into a ditch taking out the front of the Peloton while Boonen somehow lands upright in a field where he bunny hops back into the cobbles and solos away with 55k to go!!"


Another point of view from Ralf Aldag(go rent hell on wheels if you haven't seen it)
This quote is evidence of how deep Aldag was/is in the game and how much he rules(via cyclingnews)
"It is difficult at dinner the night before, there is a lot of nervousness. What you don't want to do is tell your old stories when riders broke their collarbones or hips.
"The boys were were watching YouTube last night, a video of me riding through Arenberg. They asked why I was going so slow, but I could not tell them that I just saw Johan Museeuw smash his knee or Steffen Weseman go unconscious. I just laughed and said 'I was taking it easy.'"

parting shots

roubaix clips

I can't remember when there were this many decisive crashes in the final 20K of Roubaix. VanSummeran gets major points for the powerslide recovery.

The Arenberg forest is unreal. Watch at about 1:10 when guys just explode into the crowd. The moto cam really captures how trashed the cobbles are. It is hard to imagine struggling on these solo, never mind in a bunch at warp speed.