Some other things we saw but didn't take photographs of:
-- Johan Museeauw eating a sandwich
-- Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside
-- Tony Bell
-- The awkward looking man from Cycling.tv looking particularly awkward
-- A scouser leaning into the CSC team car shouting about how much he loves their team
-- Some kids being told off for riding bikes (they were riding BMXs, so it's fair enough really)
-- The usual entourage of British ex-cyclists
-- A tandem with a tandem kiddie carrier thing attached, carrying a full family of four
-- A man with an excessively long beard

The jersey status, copied and pasted from a press release we got e-mailed
Yellow jersey - Mathew Goss, South Australia
T-Mobile Sprints jersey - Martin Pedersen, CSC
E.ON King of the Mountains jersey - Rosesems
Points competition - Russell Downing

TOMORROW:
The Yorkshire stage.

We're afraid to say that we followed the first stage, from Glasgow to Castle Douglas, vicariously via the internets. It's nothing personal or anything, it's just that Scotland is, like, in a whole different country and stuff.

Anyway, following the race vicariously has been made rather easy this year. Tour of Britain TV's morning show is a convenient way to follow the latest news, despite the terrible fact that it means we have to be out of bed at 11am to watch it. The programme does delve into the world of not-quite-professionalism -- the interesting interview with John Herety of Recycling.co.uk took place in the boot of the team car (it was a big boot and the door was open, don't worry) and Nick Nuyens was interviewed in front of a rental van with a Quick.Step sticker on the bonnet, neither of which really sold us on the magic of cycling (there must've been a cardboard "Tour of Britain" sign somewhere that the show could've used as a backdrop, surely?) -- but this detail does nothing to detract from its charm. There's a real sense of respect for the sport despite the show's flaws, something that the more polished, soulless cycling media could do to learn from.

The programme also offered a real insight into the workings of race teams, with footage from the Davitamon-Lotto team bus. Allan Peiper's tactics for the stage were equal parts sensible and bemusing: "Don't piss in public," and "Follow Quick.Step because they're the best team." The camaraderie on display certainly presented cycling as a team sport, something which is otherwise overlooked by people who've not been hopelessly engulfed by cycling culture.

The race:

During the race itself, three riders broke away on the 25km mark -- Martin Pedersen (Team CSC), Luis Passamontes (Unibet), and Mathew Goss (South Australia.com-AIS). The peleton chose not to follow.

At the feed station at 39km, the classy Andreas Kloeden pulled out of the race and went home. He stated bronchitis as his reason, although we think this might be a reluctant superstar codeword for lack of interest. That's fine; we like Tom Boonen much better anyway, at least he doesn't wear those stupid nose strip things.

As the stage went on, the three leaders managed to increase their lead to eleven minutes. After the peleton bizarrely gave away half an hour on the exact same stage last year, the sentiment in the breakaway group must've been more than a little similar to Frank Schleck's infamous "Fuck, I'm going to win this shit." Luckily for those of us who rely on people actually wanting to follow the race after the first stage, the peleton had cut the lead to two and a half minutes by the finish. The promising Aussie sprinter Mathew Goss didn't hold off his sprint until late enough on the uphill finish, and Pedersen took the win comfortably ahead of Passamontes. The time bonuses for the win meant that Pedersen took the yellow jersey, and Goss slotted into second position overall thanks to the points he'd amassed in the intermediate spints. Russell Downing took third place in the bunch sprint to finish a promising sixth on the stage.

This is going to be a very good ToB, we can tell.

Rider of the stage:
Luis Passamontes, for surpassing his performance in the ENECO Tour. (That is to say, he didn't get disqualified whilst out the front this time around.) He also picked up the most aggressive rider award, quite justifiably, confirming our paranoid belief that everbody in cycling is plagiarising our opinions.

...tentatively titled, "Road closures as cycling tour reaches city".



The Liverpool Echo therefore FAILS. Furthermore, this "coverage" makes us feel like crying.

Which roads can I drive on whilst those nuisance cyclists are holding us all up?

We know you're "looking forward to it", but our report of stage one will actually be appearing tomorrow morning (ish)
Because we need to tidy up some of the "jokes" and also make sure that we don't insult anybody who we might meet whilst we're ligging at the race start/finish areas over the next few days.

Today we're going to force our opinions of the teams right down your throat, then later deny all knowledge when we're proved to have been very, very wrong.

First, the teams occupying race numbers 1-46

Quick.Step-Innergetic (1-6)
Nick Nuyens has taken a break from suing Belgian television channels to defend the title he won last year, and he's brought Tom Boonen, Juan Manuel Garate and Filippo Pozzato with him (as well as two other people we've never heard of). If they actually bother, this team could win the race without even breaking into a sweat. But they won't.

T-Mobile (11-16)
Another dream team line-up, but new recruit Mark Cavendish will almost certainly be more of a threat than Andreas Kloeden, Olaf Pollack or Michael Rogers. As well as belonging to the Arnaud Tournant school of beguiling eyes, Cav is special in that he's a British rider who actually seems capable of winning things.

Great Britain (21-26)
We've actually heard of all of the riders in the Great Britain squad, which is a good sign. Roger Hammond is leading the team, and is expected to make a big announcement on route about his future following his departure from Discovery Channel. After his performances in Eurosport's studio during the Tour, there could definitely be a future for him in the underpaid world of cycling punditry.

Davitamon Lotto (31-36)
As if to deflect criticism that he only rides one event a year, Peter Van Petegem was included in Davitamon Lotto's preliminary start list. Obviously the organisers of the Paris-Roubaix were so angry about him reneging on their exclusivity deal that he decided to stay in Belgium instead.

Ceramica Panaria-Navigare (41-46)
If Paride Grilo doesn't win a sprint finish, we'll eat our luminous press bib. That's how confident we are. Well... perhaps.

TOMORROW:
More team news, unless we find something else to get excited about.

Ever noticed that when the media reports on the common occurance of a person driving a car colliding with a pedestrian (usually a child for it to get onto the news), said pedestrian has been "hit by a car"? And ever noticed that when the media reports on the extremely rare occurance of a person riding a bicycle colliding with a pedestrian (usually a child or elderly person, the slow moving and innattentive), said pedestrian has been "hit by a cyclist"? Yeah, us too. Man, even linguistics has it in for us.

But hey, you don't have to be a linguist to notice bad journalism. Like this report, which makes secondary school level English language mistakes such as using "insuring" instead of "ensuring" and secondary school level journalism mistakes such as being a massive pile of garbage we wouldn't normally waste our time reading.

Pedantic? Yeah. Let's take it up a notch:



Cyclists might be deranged, child injuring, metric system loving Europhiles, but even we're not fucking stupid enough to try and incite a search for someone who's five feet and nineteen inches tall.

That's all. What, we had to insult someone today.

It's a very rare occasion when we have kind words for a Walloon who desperately needs to see a dermatologist, but Philipe Gilbert's stage win on today's final stage of the ENECO Tour was quite marvelous. We thought Francaise Des Jeux was just a team for plucky losers, but apparently they also employ plucky winners. Gilbert and Lokvist still need to make the final step to the next level, but mark our words, they'll be winning big things in a couple of seasons time. BIG things.

To completely ruin everything we'd previously written about the ENECO Tour being a bit rubbish, the organisers decided to include a hugely demanding route for the final stage. Since it was a direct copy of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège route there's no prizes for originality, but it did result in an exciting final day's racing that never once seemed predictable.

Take the final result, for instance. We hoped that Stefan Schumacher would take the overall lead back from George Hincapie, but we never expected him to do so by going unpunished for knocking Hincapie off his bike and taking the time bonuses for third place on the stage. Of course, the organisers probably just took note of Hincapie's astounding ability to fall off his bike whenever he's in a good position to win something and acted accordingly. Even more dramatic than when he snapped his bars off at Paris-Roubaix? Well yes, since this almost resulted in a fist fight on the finish line.

The ENECO Tour, then. That's it over with. And you know what? It was good. We stand corrected.

So the season has nearly finished, and what have we to show for it? A billion banned riders, no more team sponsors, and George fucking Hincapie leading the ENECO Tour. But fret ye not, there's still plenty of opportunities for redemption left this season (and we're not referring to rubbish cyclo-cross).

5. Tour de l'Avenir (August 31st to September 9th)
The winner of this prestigious event always goes on to do grand things later in their career. Like... you know... that guy who finished 20th in the Tour? And Bradley Wiggins outsprinted Saul Raisin to win a stage a couple of years back, so it's not just an event for breeding misplaced hope in those crazy riders from mainland Europe. Don't worry, we're just playing it for laughs -- the list of past winners includes Gimondi, Zoetemelk, Lemond, Indurain and Fignon. So pay attention; it's an ideal event for wannabe know-it-alls.

4. The Tour of Lombardy (October 14th)
A race that's always exciting viewing, largely because it's contested almost entirely by charismatic Italian riders who haven't won a thing all season and are looking to get their contracts renewed with their teams. It might as well be called the Tour of Ride Very Hard Or You'll Be Racing For Barloworld Next Season.

3. The Tour of Britain (August 29th to September 3rd)
The Tour of Britain is more than Britain's ONLY national tour, it's Britain's BEST national tour. Don't believe us? The level of competition has improved every year since it started, no mean feat considering that the first edition boasted both Tom Boonen and Andreas Kloeden. In fact, we're already salivating at the prospect of seeing so many fabulous riders dossing around on the hills and still managing to drop the best riders our fair country has to offer. If we can get hold of a press pass, there's going to be plenty more written about the ToB on these pages in the next few weeks.

2. The Vuelta a Espana (August 26th to September 17th)
Will Carlos Sastre turn up on the start line to ride his fifth consecutive grand tour? And, more importantly, will this be the fourth consecutive grand tour with the prospect of having its winner stripped of his title? The only certainty with the Vuelta is that a) the Americans always take a kicking; and b) the second and third weeks of racing are always rivetting. That's good enough for us.

1. World Road Championships (September 19th to 24th)
This is the big one. And there are so many questions that need answering: Is the Spanish squad far, far too talented for its own good? Can Nicole Cooke finish the season as world number one, World Cup winner, Women's Tour de France winner AND World Champion? Will this be the year the world realises that Michael Rogers isn't actually that good at time-trialling, you know, when you think about it? Come September 25th, we'll all know the answer to those questions (as well the names of several East European female riders, which we'll forget within a week). It's going to be sad not seeing Tom Boonen in his rainbow jersey next year, but we'll have to get used to it because HE'S NOT GOING TO WIN THE WORLD CHAMPS THIS YEAR. Unless he finds his Ronde Van Vlaanderen form, that is.

We were all set to say how rubbish the ENECO Tour is, then Stefan Schumacher won the prologue, Tom Boonen won the following stage and took the race lead, and Manuel Quinziato won the second stage with a superbly timed attack 2km from the finish. Next year we'll have to send a memo to all the riders we like, telling them that we can't write nasty things about the race if they keep winning in it.

Of course, when a route has a highest point of five metres above sea level it's obvious that the whole race is going to be fairly neutralised. At least moving the time trial from the very end to halfway through the race means that Bobby Julich or George Hincapie won't move up from 12th place to win the whole race on the last stage. And this way we get to see Joost Posthuma gritting his teeth as he dangles six seconds ahead of the peleton on the final day in a last ditch attempt to make up the 15 seconds he trails the race leader by.

Still crap though. Even with a course designed to cause at least 20 crashes a day, no stage race that has less climbing than the Tour of Britain should be allowed into the ProTour.

Something we got e-mailed, and presumably are expected to get all riled up about:
An article on Cyclingpost.com, claiming that cycling is too hard without doping (obviously they haven't heard of the ENECO Tour). Because footballers play two matches a week, apparently that legitimises the theory that shortening races prevents doping.

We're already writing a serious article for another website on this matter, so we'll keep it brief: To get through a grand tour, you need a strong preparation and adequate nutrition -- DRUGS ARE TAKEN TO BE COMPETITIVE. Here's some shocking news: David Millar didn't take EPO in the 2003 World Time Trial Championships because he thought that he couldn't make it around the 41.6km course. He did it because he wanted to win.

To return to Cycling Post's football analogy, to suggest that shortening stages and races would prevent doping is like suggesting that football matches be reduced to thirty minutes to prevent diving. Quite amazingly, someone probably got paid to write that article. Perhaps shortening his working hours would cut back on the rubbish he writes?

Giving Jan Ullrich the number 7 was a good move. As well as keeping him out of the spotlight, it's also a lucky number -- ideal for a fragile superstar just racing for fitness. But making Alessandro Kalc -- the directeur sportif of a minor mountain bike team, no less -- the team leader over the rampant Ivan Basso? What's that all about?

Maybe Dr Eufemiano Fuentes should just stick to things he's good at. Like administering complex and illegal procedures to increase an athlete's ability to compete.

....Oh.

Yeah. We obviously translated it wrong.

Amazingly, we beat Cycling News to the news of Virenque's crash. Don't worry though, we've not turned into a legitimate news source or anything. And to prove it, here's something worthless we found on YouTube.



Hooray! Some totally not-fake footage of a bike police chase! Those cycle messengers really can ride, huh?

Watch it here.

Sort of news:
Iban Mayo has become good again. Is it possible that those pretty Orbea bikes just don't work in July, due to an unlikely mechanical oversight?

Housewive's favourite, Richard Virenque, may well find himself burdened with the moniker of "naughty nurse's favourite" too, having crashed in the Alps today. With 32 stitches in the head and a broken nose, Dicky must've crashed out in style.

Now, in a strange instance of life imitating that James Waddington book we read ages ago, he's been taken to the most up-to-date intensive care unit in Grenoble. We're trying to find something funny to say about it all, but it's hard because Reesharr is one of those few riders that we like. He's a flashback to the pre-Voeckler days, when French cycling had national heroes who were actually good.

Get well soon, Richard. If you're really ill, that is. Which you probably aren't, since we found this story on a Canadian site called SLAM! Sports rather than a reputable source.

The reason why we haven't updated recently:
We're having a post-Tour rest, like Andreas Kloeden. Unlike Andreas Kloeden, however, we did lots of things prior to the Tour, so our rest is justified. The extent to which we're following cycling at the moment is watching Eurosport's minute-long highlights of the day's racing (without screaming at the TV when the voice-over mispronounces a rider's name) and discussing how much we like Jens Voigt. This "not having to care about things" stuff is bliss.

Between writing things for other, more reputable sites and taking care of wounded cats, we've not had much time to update this site. Plus we vowed not to mention Lloyd Flanders and his disappearing twin's naturally high testosterone levels, and we forgot to post that thing we wrote about Nicole Cooke when it was relevant.

Anyway, today we found the best film ever, and you can watch it for free over the internet. Remember La Jetée? Amelie? Belleville Rendevous? This film combines the best bits of all three, and even has an added bonus in that it probably won't ever be remade by Terry Gilliam. If those rubbish magazine tech reviews are bike porn, this film is like a bike ode of love. An audio-visual bicycle sonnet for everyone's enjoyment!

That celeste one is totally our type.

...Advertising their Tour de France specials during the coverage of the Vattenfall Classic. Presumably the fact that they didn't sell any copies of their unfortunately redundant magazines prior to or during the Tour means that the logical step is to advertise them after the Tour has finished. In their defence, the "Who will win the Tour?" question is still to be answered, and at least this way you won't have to read an outdated editorial about how Floyd Landis's ride inspired thousands or an updated editorial on how Floyd Landis's doping shocked everyone.

The Armstrong Mafia groups are already constructing water-tight defences of Landis ("He drank beer! Other people have high testosterone! He quite often drops a peleton and holds them off for 150Km in training!"), while the European papers are rumouring that he had someone else's testosterone in his body. Juding by the pathetic way Phonak were riding, it appears as though he probably syphoned them dry in the first week of the Tour.

Idea: why not just a safety "roof" for testosterone levels, like they used to for haemocrit levels? Anyone above a certain figure has to take an enforced break. It's not as though positive tests happen every week, so the "some people have naturally high levels" defence shouldn't even apply in this instance. It's at least 10% more logical than "I was so excited with the win that I accidentally squirted the wrong bodily fluid into the cup", or whatever it is Floyd is using to defend himself at the moment.

Tomorrow:
Nothing about Floyd fucking Landis.