If you happened to see this rogues’ gallery clustered together on the front page of your local newspaper, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to wonder, “Huh…I wonder what kind of nefarious deeds these miscreants have perpetrated?” But if you’re NBC, and you’re trying to show what pro cycling is all about, these are the kind of photos you provide the curious viewing public.

Since I’m an Olympics zealot, on top of being resolutely messianic about all things pro cycling, I watched the entire length of the men’s road race live online all of last night. When there’s no announcers, coupled with the initial several hours of, quite honestly, not exactly scintillating action you’ve got to create some diversions. So I started to explore the photos and bios provided online by NBC of the cream of the planet’s pro cycling community. And holy crap, when you put them all together it’s a pretty comical collection. It looks like a compilation of webcam screen captures, discarded passport photos, characters appearing on milk cartons, high school yearbook out-takes, and FBI most-wanted mug shots. Nevermind the fact that quite a few pros don’t have any photo or bio (hence the “?” placeholders). Don’t worry too much, they’re only lowly unknowns such as Santiago Botero, Carlos Sastre, Franco Pellizotti, and Stuart O’Grady. NBC even threw one of our next door neighbors under the bus, providing absolutely nothing for Canadian Ryder Hesjedal, and duplicated the treatment for the sole Chinese rider Liang Zhang. D’oh! Maybe that’s why he made sure he was prominently positioned at the head of the peloton for the opening kilometers in metro Beijing.

A few random Men’s Olympic Road Race notes:
1. Absolutely stunning venue/scenery, despite hefty doses of haze.
2. What’s all that crap on the roads? Oh yeah, it’s discarded musette bags and water bottles. In Europe those would be scooped up in seconds, in China not so much. I bet the heavy security presence made sure nobody dared set foot on the course. [Addendum: apparently the Aussie contingent’s family members had access issues at the road course. There’s an awesome quote from O’Grady in there concerning the lack of fans: “It was like silent murder.”]
3. Wow, somebody figured out how to have crystal clear, live television transmissions inside tunnels. Pretty cool to see, instead of the usual helicopter shot overhead waiting for the peloton to emerge.
4. When riders retired and headed to their team digs, it looked like they were entering self-storage facilities.
5. Overall, quite a collection of not-so-aesthetically appealing national team kits. You can never go wrong with the classic Belgian kits, Luxembourg looked cool, I liked South Africa, but far too many looked like bargain basement club jerseys.
6. While the riders were trying to be discreet in the opening kilometers, quite a few riders “watering the lawn” were doing so in view of Chinese citizens within metro Beijing. Not quite sure if they’re aware of Euro tradition in such matters or if they cared.
7. I don’t have any idea how riders stayed sufficiently hydrated. There didn’t appear to be any neutral water motorcycles (like the Tour), I believe each team had only one support vehicle making reaching all the riders more difficult (at least there were no more than five members per team), and that feed zone looked pretty sketchy. The shower was pretty cool. I wondered how one man squads (like Cancellara) dealt with getting water outside of the feed zone. When you’re simultaneously the team leader and domestique, I guess you have to head back on your own and scoop up some bottles. Or intimidate lesser riders into giving up theirs.

Cadel Evans sports a Free Tibet base layer | Tour de France | Photo ©: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

I think some Chinese Olympic officials’ heads just exploded.

I wasn’t aware of Cadel Evans’ Free Tibet campaign until this past Sunday’s Tour stage where it was visible as he crossed the finish line, but evidently he’s enlisted Sock Guy to create some Free Tibet base layers and socks with 20% of the proceeds going to the grass roots activist organization Students For A Free Tibet. It seems that Evans has been wearing the base layer since this year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege where it was first spied when Evans unzipped his jersey while climbing.

Evans is definitely heading to Beijing to represent Australia in the individual time trial, and I wonder if he’s feeling rambunctious enough to heed the call of this ad campaign. From the few articles I’ve read where Evans is discussing the issue, it appears that he’ll adhere to the nicey-nice code enacted by Australia’s and most (if not all) national Olympic committees and not make any waves. But it’s not like you’d want to telegraph such motives in public. I really wonder how far Chinese officials will go to prevent such a display from occurring…will they check luggage? search athletes as they assemble to begin a competition? Who knows.

And now for the quote of the day regarding Simon Gerrans’ stage 15 victory in Prato Nevoso, Italy:

If there is ever a nuclear war and all of mankind is wiped out the first living thing that will crawl out of the cracks will probably be the cockroaches, but they will be followed closely by Simon Gerrans.—Dave Sanders, Australian cycling coach, talking about Simon Gerrans being virtually indestructible.

Exactly three years ago from the date of Gerrans’ first TdF stage victory, Simon finished in 3rd just 8 seconds behind stage winner Paolo Salvodelli on the 18th stage of the 2005 TdF (Gerrans’ first Tour). I still remember this photo showing a completely spent Gerrans rendered inert not too far past the finish line. He just dropped to the street with his bike cast aside, all wonky against the crowd control barrier. What an effort. Maybe in three years time Danny Pate will experience a similar turn of fate.

Juan Jose Oroz mere seconds from bridging to the 2-man break | Tour de France | Photo ©: VeloNews.tv screen capture

That’s the first time in my life that name has ever left my mouth.—Phil Liggett upon stating that Juan Jose Oroz has just begun bridging up to the break

There’s just no love for Juan Jose Oroz, the man responsible for prolonging the agony of breakaway riders Arnaud Gerard and Samuel Dumoulin in today’s stage. Not satisfied with completing all 5 Monuments consecutively (plus all of Flanders week and the Ardennes week) since last fall’s Tour of Lombardy, Oroz is now working on tackling the first Grand Tour of his Euskaltel-Euskadi tenure.

Undoubtedly reeling from the Ricco kerfluffle, and momentarily flummoxed by having absolutely nothing to say about The Hardest Working Man in Eusktaltel, Liggett missed his chance to champion the cause of perhaps the only pro cyclist who puts empty aluminum foil food wrappers back in his jersey pocket. Yes, in the furor of exercising his right as someone about 1.3 hours in arrears of Cadel Evans to break away with impunity and make the Team Columbia leadout train break about 1 more bead of sweat, the man appears to be dancing to the beat of Soul Coughing frontman M. Doughty’s ethos: “I can be condemned to Hell for every sin but littering”. I guess that small gesture makes up for the hundreds of bottles Oroz will likely pitch onto French countryside this Tour. Or not. Maybe Oroz is working on a “My First Tour de France” scrapbook complete with a chapter on “Stuff I Ate While Racing”.

And of course, not content to simply bypass Oroz’s minor Green predilections and lacking anything constructive to say about the man breathing new life into a doomed break, Liggett then blasts the sight of a French windmill farm as a blight on the landscape. Nice.

The undisputed King of Clip Art Comedy is David Rees, whose work resides at My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable. Of particular note is his series entitled Get Your War On comprised of clip art office workers reacting to the insanity of a post-9/11 America. Brace yourselves for a torrent of obscenity-laced humor likely to make you laugh so hard you’ll cry if only to just simply keep yourself from crying in despair.

Of course, being intimately connected to the pulse of the pro cycling universe, I happened to discover that none other than Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon were cube-mates to the stars of GYWO. Click here to enter their world.

Vive le Tour.

Arguably the most famous date in literary fiction is June 16, 1904…Bloomsday…the single day James Joyce steers protagonists Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus throughout the streets of Dublin. Ulysses is a fearsomely lengthy, legendary tome: dense, complex, employing different literary styles for each of the 18 chapters, the object of a landmark obscenity trial. Yet it’s also a love affair with his native Dublin, penned in exile. Says Joyce, “I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.” Buried hundreds of pages into the book, the date is revealed to the reader in a solitary mention. And why June 16, 1904? It was the day of Joyce’s first date with his wife-to-be Nora Barnacle.

Style-wise, Tim Krabbe’s elegantly crafted novella The Rider is the anti-Ulysses: stripped down prose, crisp sentences, a sleek and svelte 148 pages in length. It, too, takes place on a solitary day, June 26, 1977, revealed in the very first sentence. Thirty-one years ago today. It’s a book which can be comfortably digested in a single sitting. It’s a book which definitively addresses what it means to be a racing cyclist. And it’s a book which will stay with you for as long as your passion for cycling flickers.

It’s no surprise that the Rapha braintrust live and breathe The Rider. Take a moment to read of their own Tour du Mont Aigoual, find out from the man himself the significance of June 26, 1977, soak up some photography, and go for a ride.

It all seemed so innocuous. A pro cyclist is laboring up a climb in searing heat, he’s thirsty, a spectator offers a beverage, said pro takes the hand-up and puts it away. Nobody bats an eye.

But let Glen Chadwick explain what happened in Philadelphia last Sunday…

I joked to Eric the night before about grabbing a beer out of the crowd up the wall and on the second last run up there in the break opportunity beckoned! Out from the crowd came this shiny freshly cracked icy cold can of beer and I grabbed that sucker, which obviously pleased the crowd, they couldn’t believe it. I necked half the can like in a commercial and launched the remains over the heads of some spectators further up who were equally surprised. It tasted great to be quite honest and refreshing to say the least! I didn’t realise at the time, but out team car was behind and saw me grab it also and gave ‘em a good laugh. They reckon if it was on film that it should of gotten the play of the week on ESPN. That would be a classic!

Have you ever pondered the actual physical manifestation of the idiom “talking out of one’s ass”? Well…problem solved. Solved by one of the most bizarre cartoons I’ve ever laid eyes upon. And made even more stunningly surreal by its cycling reference.

First, before you hit play, a bit of context. This clip is from an Adult Swim cartoon entitled Assy McGee. The eponymous title character is described as, “an ultra-violent and emotionally disturbed police detective who just happens to be a walking pair of buttocks”. In this episode, “Bikes for Bombs”, Assy McGee is trying to track down the thief who stole his beloved bike and happens to uncover a rogue element within the CIA.

All I know is that one (if not both) of the show’s creators, Matt Harrigan and Carl W. Adams, are fans of cycling. And my wife is seriously disturbed that I managed to ID the bike on the wall before its identity was revealed.

See the entire episode of “Bikes for Bombs”.

Read some more about Assy McGee if you so desire.

What did we do to fritter away copious amounts of time in the days prior to the Internets? I spent one summer on the road, way back in 1989, living out of a suitcase for nearly four months racing all over the place. A big chunk of time was spent in my one and only venture to Superweek, and significant amounts of my downtime (not spent drinking beer, eating burritos, or documenting what happens when teammates’ bikes abruptly disappear from the roof of a speeding car) was spent poring over Tour de France results buried in the fine print of the New York Times. I had a few teammates with me, and we would cut out the Tour results everyday and quiz each other. Questions like:

“Who finished fourth on the 17th stage to Alpe d’Huez?”
“Well…is there any doubt that it’s Colombian Abelardo Rondon?”

“Ok smart guy…who finished 6th in the 11th stage to Blagnac?”
“Of course that’s none other than the ever suave style-meister Ronny Van Holen, making his solitary appearance in the top ten.”

Sad, but true, that’s how many hours were spent keeping our minds occupied while driving around Wisconsin. I can’t speak for my partners in crime that summer, but I’ve never quit poring over the fine print of race results, and nowadays the corpus of results is nigh overwhelming. But for those with a shred of perseverance there’s nuggets of trivia to uncover…like how many pros since 1998 have finished all five Monuments of Cycling.

Why 1998? Well…that’s how far back cyclingnews.com archives reach. During the 11 seasons from 1998 to the present approximately 1100 pros finished at least one Monument, but only 33 finished all five:

A few notes about the table…The first number in each race column is how many times the rider finished that particular Monument, the number in italics is his best finish. Some of the pros had results which stretched back prior to 1998. If they finished on the podium the results are included, but other finishes aren’t listed. Riders such as Andre Tchmil, Andrea Tafi, Franco Ballerini, Michele Bartoli, and Max Sciandri very likely finished more Monuments than I’ve listed, but all podium places throughout their careers are here.

Greg LeMond and Bob Roll are highlighted in yellow since their palmares were prior to the time period of the other riders, but these two are the only Americans to finish all five Monuments so I thought I’d include them. 

I can’t say enough about Greg LeMond. I started following his career as a junior world champion and world-class amateur in the late 1970s before I even owned a road bike. I followed his duel with the Russians at the 1981 Coors Classic, my first issue of VeloNews chronicled his 1983 pro road title earned at Altenrhein, Switzerland, I still own the Oakley Factory Pilots purchased by my parents in 1986 to commemorate my high school graduation. That summer in 1989 was spent totally enthralled by LeMond’s Tour victory. Prior to his gunshot wound, LeMond raced a full Euro calendar. Maybe it was just a different era, but nobody since LeMond has finished top ten in the Ronde and Paris-Roubaix and rocked the Grand Tours (Giro and Tour) all in the same season. Think what you want about LeMond’s trials and tribulations these days, but to me he will always be one of the all time greats on the bike during my lifetime.

And what about Bob “Bobke” Roll. Top 25 finishes in Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege are nothing to sneeze at. The 7-Eleven era of Euro cycling is one of my favorites. Lately, Andy Hampsten has been omnipresent in any and all pro racing publications, both print and online, in honor of the 20 year anniversary of his Giro triumph. What absolutely stunned me about Hampsten’s first Giro (in 1985) is that he was basically a 23 year old Cat. 1 amateur in America when 7-Eleven came calling. He was hired initially only for the Giro, and he took out a pro license just for that event. Imagine your first pro event being the Giro d’Italia! And then you win a stage to boot and finish 20th overall on GC.

A barely visible Juan Jose Oroz | Paris-Roubaix | Photo ©: CycleTo.com

You’ll be excused if you’ve never heard the name of Euskaltel-Euskadi pro Juan Jose Oroz Ugalde. That’s him at the tip of the arrow above, firmly ensconced in this year’s Paris-Roubaix peloton. And since Juan Jose Oroz flies so far under the radar, this is the only photographic evidence I’ve ever found of him suiting up for Euskaltel-Euskadi other than his team mug shot. My research into Mr. Oroz began at the finish of Paris-Roubaix where I routinely look to see which brave Euskaltel-Euskadi souls soldier on to the velodrome in Roubaix. I’m sure most Basque mountain goats would prefer to donate a kidney than suit up at Paris-Roubaix. But ProTour obligations are ProTour obligations and I’d heavily wager that the Basque men in orange venturing to the Paris-Roubaix start line were intimately familiar with the location of the first feed zone…and their respite from Hell. In this year’s edition of Paris-Roubaix, Oroz was one of two Euskaltel riders to complete the distance–no mean feat. Euskaltel rode their stock Orbeas–the only concessions to Roubaix’s punishing parcours being the traditional box-section wheels equipped with Vittoria Pave tubulars plus the decidedly Low Budget Superstar application of electrical tape on the bottle cages to provide some extra grip.

Just for curiosity’s sake, I checked the results of the previous week’s Tour of Flanders. And sure enough, Juan Jose Oroz survived that challenge, too. Huh. So I checked some more…and checked some more…and discovered an interesting fact: in the six month span from late October, 2007 through late April, 2008 Juan Jose Oroz has survived all five Monuments of Cycling. A feat that no other cyclist in the pro peloton has done in that same time span. Not only that, but during that time Oroz was completing his first year on a ProTour squad so each Monument was his first attempt. And not simply content to duke it out in the Monuments, Oroz managed to complete the sweep of Flanders week at Gent-Wevelgem and complete the trifecta of Ardennes week events by surviving Amstel Gold and Fleche-Wallonne to boot.

Juan Jose Oroz turned pro in 2006 for the Spanish Kaiku squad at the relatively late age of 25. 2007 seemed a bit weird–he rode for Orbea Oreka SAD from January, 2007 through May 11, 2007 and then from May 12, 2007 to the present he has been employed by Euskaltel-Euskadi. The Orbea team didn’t fold in 2007, the only obvious answer to me explaining a mid-season team change, and my cursory efforts to explain this unusual jump to a new squad have gone unanswered. Perhaps it was a feeder team and Oroz sufficiently impressed Euskaltel-Euskadi to warrant an invitation to The Show.

Only three men have won all five of cycling’s Monuments: Rik van Looy, Roger De Vlaeminck, and (no surprises here) Eddy Merckx. I’ve embarked on a task to determine just how unusual it is for a pro to merely finish all five, something I suspect is becoming increasingly unusual in this contemporary era of specialization. I started simply looking at all American attempts at the Monuments and only two have made it to the finish line in each: Greg LeMond and Bob Roll, each competing back in the 1980s. For most Americans with multiple Monuments under their belts the Tour of Lombardy is the missing piece, perhaps not too surprising due to its October slot on the calendar. Most American pros are already back in the States re-charging their batteries in October, unless your name is Chris Horner and you’re trying to impress potential Euro employers.

Perhaps among Euro riders finishing the Monuments throughout the expanse of a career isn’t such an unusual feat, but maybe I’ll find out otherwise. In Oroz’s case I don’t know if this is simply a bet he’s placed with his Euskaltel teammates (100 euro says you can’t finish them all, Oroz!), if this is some sort of Euskaltel rookie hazing (Uh, Juan Jose…uh, before you get to rock all those stage races in Spain and Portugal you’re heading North. For all the Classics.), if Euskaltel pays by the kilometer raced, or if Oroz is simply a glutton for punishment with enough pride never to quit anything he starts. Regardless, Juan Jose Oroz deserves a wee bit of applause for knocking them all out in his first attempt at each, all within a six month period. Maybe a bit of Oscar Freire and Juan Antonio Flecha has rubbed off on him (although I’m almost positive that even this pair of Spanish, Classics rock stars has yet to see the finish line of every Monument).

Juan Jose Oroz’s six months of suffering:

Joe Strummer | Vigorelli Velodrome | Photo ©: Janette Beckman

From 1935 to 1967 eight PRO cyclists set the world hour record at Milan’s Vigorelli Velodrome on ten separate occasions, making it the most heralded venue in the lore and legend of the almighty Hour. No other velodrome has seen as many successful attempts to further the distance a human being can power a bicycle over 60 immensely painful minutes:

• 1935 October 31…Giuseppe Olmo (ITA)…45.090 kph
• 1936 October 14…Maurice Richard (FRA)…45.325 kph
• 1937 September 29…Frans Slaats (NED)…45.558 kph
• 1937 November 3…Maurice Archambaud (FRA)…45.747 kph
• 1942 November 7…Fausto Coppi (ITA)…45.871 kph
• 1956 June 29…Jacques Anquetil (FRA)…46.159 kph
• 1956 September 19…Ercole Baldini (ITA)…46.394 kph
• 1957 September 18…Roger Riviere (FRA)…46.923 kph
• 1958 September 23…Roger Riviere (FRA)…47.346 kph
• 1967 September 27…Jacques Anquetil (FRA)…47.493 kph

And then The Clash rolled into the Vigorelli Velodrome in May, 1981.

This past month or so has been a time of intense reading…all 8 fantastic issues of Rapha’s Rouleur in rapid succession, plus plenty of books. And what held my attention the most were a couple of biographies about The Clash: Johnny Green’s A Riot of Our Own and Pat Gilbert’s Passion is a Fashion. And while the only hour record Joe Strummer and company may have been setting in the nether regions of the Vigorelli Velodrome was how may pounds of weed four human beings can smoke, Strummer and bass play Paul Simonon were hardly strangers to cycling. According to Pat Gilbert, while recording Combat Rock,

Paul and Joe turned up to Freston Road [at the Ear Studios recording studio] each day on their bicycles: very unassuming, very English. Joe used to borrow Gabriella’s [Gabriella Salter] bike, actually, that was his favorite mode of transport. Paul, he always cruised around West London on a bicycle with cow-horn handlebars. He used to ride everywhere with his hands in his pockets, hair greased back in a quiff.

Who knows…maybe Joe and Paul bumped into the Masi family prior to hitting the stage.

And for something that has nothing to do with cycling, but everything to do with today’s date, I leave you with one of the greatest, if not the greatest, April Fools jokes of all time: the mysterious tale of Sidd Finch.