JUNE 2009 - HOW TO BEAT THE TOUR DE FRANCE GAME

By now, you'll probably be sick of hearing how tough the Tour is, how it demands 25,000 calories a day and reduces the life expectancy of a pro cyclist to somewhere below that of a sparrow. But it's not hard, you're just doing it wrong. Here's our guide to winning the Tour de France.

Uh, if it was a video game we mean.

This is the title screen. For now we'll select "Game Start". There's no point entering a "Cheat Code" -- unless you ride for a big team, cheating means there's a small chance the game will randomly eliminate you and ban you from playing for two years.

Now you have to select your player. Whoever you get your hopes up for will slip backwards through the peloton on the first uphill or suspiciously quit the race out of the blue. Whoever excites you and finally makes you feel passionate about the sport again will be banned for doping. The trick is to select the least interesting, most uninspiring rider and stifle your tears.

This is the "Race Screen", where much of the action takes place. Whatever you do, DO NOT click the "Attack" button. Ride defensively and wait for your rivals to lose. Unless you're a completionist, you can skip the first week altogether.

This is your PR manager. He'll advise you on what to do to get your name fondly dropped by David "Harriet" Harmon live on Eurosport every few minutes. Tactics include bumping into commentators over breakfast, paying for journalists to fly to your exotic training camp, and completely bombarding the media with some bullshit stories that'll endear your white Anglo-Saxon arse ass to profitable territories. Cycling is a mediasport; you can't achieve success without first becoming part of the symbiont.

Congratulations, you've won. The magazines are raising their bottoms in the air in the hope of persuading you to do an interview, the bloggers are writing bratty, solipsistic evaluations of how you performed, and the fans are quietly swallowing their disappointment and switching the channel over to the Moto GP coverage.

CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST WINNER: LANCE ARMSTRONG AT THE GIRO

Lance Armstrong waited. The gears below him clicked and whirred into place. There were losers in the race. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Johon Bruneal were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
Lance was a pro cyclist for seventeen years. When he was young he watched the tour de France and he said to dad "I want to be on the bikes daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE DEFEAT BY LOSERS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the blockhous stage of giro Italy he knew there were losers.
"This is Johon" the radio crackered. "You must beat the losers!"
So Lance gotted his livestrong trek and pedaled very hard.
"HE GOING TO DEFEAT US" said the losers
"I will attack at him" said the Pelozziti and he jumped away from the pelleton. Lance countered at him and tried to blew him up. But then the road steepened and he were slowed and not able to pedal.
"No! I must defeat the losers" he shouted
The radio said "No, Lance. You are the losers"
And then Lance was a Leipheimer.

WORST OF THE WEB: COSMO CATALANO ON "HOW THE LIEGE-BASTOGNE-LIEGE WAS WON"
IN WHICH WE MAKE ANOTHER NEW ENEMY BY CRITICISING SOMETHING THEY'RE PROUD OF

Fried hardware and one of us being struck down by terrible, terrible illness conspired to save Cosmo here. There was simply no way we could get from "I've had an idea that might antagonise someone" to producing the damn thing three days later. We have to do everything within three days, because after that we start thinking clearly and stop being blindly amused by how obnoxious we are.

A narrow escape, Cosmo.

We'll make sure we successfully pick a fight with someone next month. At this rate we'll be losing enemies rather than friends.

From: Wendi Olsen
Subject: A mighty shield in a war against acne occurrence.

cate chose these pretty little traditional valentines cards from bunny cakes i love them
Quilt kits finally all done
the girl loves chocolate milk
and then i found myself a mother funny i thought id teach awhile longer and have grant all to myself and save some money
and again when you are at a good weight and having regular cycles you can absolutely add in a lot more whole wheat and whole grain foods as well as all fruits and vegetables and other good carbs like beans if your cycles get a little kooky or you gain weight thats when you know you need to reduce again
he is the perfect mix to me of blues and folk and funk and feeling
my room is clean and im knitting
i know some people dont love the whole valentines thing but it is so fun to me i dont care if the greeting card company made it up- any day where i get to be pretty treated with sweetness have a declicious dinner and some romance is right on in my book hoy
one more thought about best friends
at 18 i planned to live the tahoe hippie life forever one day i felt compelled i knew it i just had to leave i packed up my car and moved to the central coast
im just obsessed with him
hey my little family
like this one for instance my older brother uploaded it while reminiscing about the old buggie he rebuilt in the 80s
cate (incredulously) what were you a child of adam and eve
but we feel more blessed and amazed than ever at lifes unexpected twists and turns and how happy we are that there is a loving heavenly father that understands the little picture we have in our minds for our lives and gently and lovingly helps us change our vision to a masterpiece i really love life

TREK ADVERT
WE WILL WORK AS COPY WRITERS PLEASE HIRE US MARKETING DEPARTMENTS

DERAILED FLASHBACK
OH HOW WE LAUGHED

LIVE UPDATE FROM THE CYCLE SHOW 2006 - October 6, 2006

We didn't get sent free tickets, so we're not actually there. But we can pretend.

9.57am We're stood waiting outside, really regretting spending loads of money on getting the early train. And everyone is looking at us because we're covered in sweat from running through the city to get here on time. :((((

10.05am It's open! Later than expected. Someone stood on the back of our shoes and hurt our ankles, but we're so excited that the excrutiating pain has already dropped to a dull ache.

10.25am It's too busy. The only stand we can get near to is the Barclays one, and they're insistant that we take out a mortgage.

11.10am We found the bit that lets people test ride a mountain bike. We're too shy to have a go, but we're hanging around feigning indifference and taking photos so we can write something sarcastic about it later to make us feel superior.

11.43am Everybody in the cycle fashion show is a bell end.

12.15pm We're hungry, but going to the café means talking to the pretty girl behind the counter. We'll steal a Ginsters pasty from a service station on the way home instead.

12.34pm Found Johan Museeauw. We're not brave enough to ask him serious questions or have a friendly chat, and he just looks confused when we finally say "Why are you so good?" quite quietly. Everyone is looking at us like we're stupid, we can tell.

1.20pm David Duffield just rode past on a skateboard wearing a backwards baseball cap and shouting "cowabunga". We've realised that we must've left the camera outisde the café, so nobody will ever believe us that it happened.

1.50pm There's a trials riding section, to prove that people with baggy trousers are allowed to ride bikes too. We take a photograph of their captive audience: a bored looking man stood with his bemused daughter.

2.30pm Too many people. We leave the show and mission through London.

3.00pm Our train is delayed.

7.30pm We've arrived home in Liverpool, only to discover we're locked out of the house.

7.45pm But it's ok, because we can climb in through the bathroom window.

7.47pm We're watching cartoons and feeling sorry for ourselves and wishing we'd done something better with our lives than become mediocre writers for a rubbish website whose future prospects are, at best, successful integration into the PR-by-proxy world of English language cycling journalism.

7.48pm Having a bit of a cry.

To conclude:
Great show, full of wonderful people. We've got lots of bags and stickers and rubbish cotton caps to give away on the website. 7/10

Please send us free tickets next year
Pretty please. It's like payola, only you don't get the feeling of guilt because you know we're still going to write something nasty and sarcastic about it all.

ANIMALS ON ARE BIKES
PARTICIPATING IN FUCKING STUPID PARADES IS NOT COOL GUYS

It's no good, we can't feign enthusiam about this. We're sure he's a nice guy really and not the kind of attention-seeking tedious wanklord we've spent our whole lives avoiding, but come on. You're seriously doing this, you bead-wearing heap of land-blubber?

You're supposed to punch a shark in the nose if it approaches you in open water. We'd be happy to oblige in this instance.

A VERY BRIEF REVIEW OF THE 1ST BETA OF CYCLING MANAGER ONLINE

BATTLE OF THE AGES: CYCLING WEEKLY VERSUS CYCLINGNEWS

What could be worse than having to read internet-based cycling articles because your crazy ex-girlfriend canceled your subscription to ProCycling as part of an ongoing campaign to provide you with a steady stream of mild annoyances? Havng this period coincide with both the "major" sites having a redesign, that's what.

Which new site is better? Let's take a screenshot of each and jump to a conclusion based on that:

Nice, a bit Web 2.0, as though cycling website design is finally catching up with where most other commercial websites ended up five years ago.

Nice, a bit Web 2.0, as if... wait.

They look the same. You know, if you're going to keep emailing us to tell us that the cycling media isn't becoming standardised, you might have to stop standardising it in the first place.

Conclusion: We'd really love to find out where girls keep their stockpile of crack cocaine, or whatever it is that makes them act so mental. And Cycling Weekly wins because they have enough quality control to rewrite the pigeon-english press releases they get sent.

ADVERTISE HERE

We have decided to sell out. Please give us money or free things. One of those Colnago caps from Prendas will probably be enough for us to happily slurp your seed down.

Adverts will be those ones up there that we're currently using to advertise for our mates. Also, skyscrapers down the side if you want them. Also, obnoxious, loud splash pages, pop-ups, and whatever else you can dream up. We're willing to completely destroy our readers' experience here.

We don't know if we're serious. Maybe if we like you or we get drunk and think it'd be funny to advertise something we constantly complain about. Email address is the same as it always was if you'd like to find out.

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Oh hey, these turn out quite well when we only do one every six months or so.