Top five best ever videogames about cycling: Super Keirin
Published by Halverde on 11/29/2006 at 14:51.
#2 - Super Keirin (Super Nintendo)
Thought you wouldn't see another one of these until our self-imposed three weeks of track related updates were over? Here comes Super Keirin. It's almost as if we had this planned all along.
Super Keirin isn't actually as good as any of the games that've preceded it on this list so far -- it's made it up to number two purely on the basis that keirin racing is the best thing ever. In fact, we're not sure to what extent it IS a video game -- your control over events is limited to moving your little man into a betting booth and picking two numbers.
Trying to find your way to the velodrome is just the start of the fun.
Still, if owning a microcosm of autonomous keirin racers has always been your greatest desire, this game will more than satisfy. We've already drawn attention to the Japaneseness of the previous game in the list, but this one is the most Japnese sports game we've ever played. And not just because you have to learn kanji before you can understand what's going on.
She looks friendly now, but as soon as she's parted your money from your wallet she'll call the security guards and get a restraining order and not answer your phonecalls when you drink a bottle of whisky and try to apologise at two in the morning. You were too good for her anyway.
Whereas the West would make a track racing game where you exercise control over a cyclist or a team of cyclists, keirin racing in Japan is a gambling sport like horse racing or greyhounds. Which means a Japanese track racing game is a gambling game. Fair enough, apart from we don't get any sense of wish fulfilment from watching little pixelated men ride in circles.
The one at the front is the pacing vehicle. The graphics get much better when he swings over.
And true to Japanese form, your little character has a rival. We're not sure how you're supposed to beat the rival and complete the game, but we suspect it has something to do with winning more money than he does.
See, we told you they get better.
At best, the game rewards you for being able to understand the numerical expression of the chances of you losing all your money. At worse, the conditions for winning and losing are entirely down to the results of a random number generator, rather than, you know, skill. It probably depends on whether you're a glass half-full kind of person, we suppose.
Conclusion
If you're a compulsive gambler, can read Japanese and don't mind watching little men ride slowly around a track, this is the game for you! If not, wait until next week's game, which pisses all over every other game we'd previously listed (and is therefore quite obviously Pro Cycling Manager).
Download Super Keirin from us
We're not sure how legal this is. Semi-legal, perhaps? Nevertheless, we suspect Nintendo wouldn't make any money from you going onto eBay and buying a second hand Japanese copy for hundreds of pounds, so it's not like you're stealing.
Download Super Keirin. You'll need an emulator to run it on too. Like this one. Stealing games is difficult :(
Thought you wouldn't see another one of these until our self-imposed three weeks of track related updates were over? Here comes Super Keirin. It's almost as if we had this planned all along.
Super Keirin isn't actually as good as any of the games that've preceded it on this list so far -- it's made it up to number two purely on the basis that keirin racing is the best thing ever. In fact, we're not sure to what extent it IS a video game -- your control over events is limited to moving your little man into a betting booth and picking two numbers.
Trying to find your way to the velodrome is just the start of the fun.
Still, if owning a microcosm of autonomous keirin racers has always been your greatest desire, this game will more than satisfy. We've already drawn attention to the Japaneseness of the previous game in the list, but this one is the most Japnese sports game we've ever played. And not just because you have to learn kanji before you can understand what's going on.
She looks friendly now, but as soon as she's parted your money from your wallet she'll call the security guards and get a restraining order and not answer your phonecalls when you drink a bottle of whisky and try to apologise at two in the morning. You were too good for her anyway.
Whereas the West would make a track racing game where you exercise control over a cyclist or a team of cyclists, keirin racing in Japan is a gambling sport like horse racing or greyhounds. Which means a Japanese track racing game is a gambling game. Fair enough, apart from we don't get any sense of wish fulfilment from watching little pixelated men ride in circles.
The one at the front is the pacing vehicle. The graphics get much better when he swings over.
And true to Japanese form, your little character has a rival. We're not sure how you're supposed to beat the rival and complete the game, but we suspect it has something to do with winning more money than he does.
See, we told you they get better.
At best, the game rewards you for being able to understand the numerical expression of the chances of you losing all your money. At worse, the conditions for winning and losing are entirely down to the results of a random number generator, rather than, you know, skill. It probably depends on whether you're a glass half-full kind of person, we suppose.
Conclusion
If you're a compulsive gambler, can read Japanese and don't mind watching little men ride slowly around a track, this is the game for you! If not, wait until next week's game, which pisses all over every other game we'd previously listed (and is therefore quite obviously Pro Cycling Manager).
Download Super Keirin from us
We're not sure how legal this is. Semi-legal, perhaps? Nevertheless, we suspect Nintendo wouldn't make any money from you going onto eBay and buying a second hand Japanese copy for hundreds of pounds, so it's not like you're stealing.
Download Super Keirin. You'll need an emulator to run it on too. Like this one. Stealing games is difficult :(
Track racing for beginners: the madison
Published by Halverde on 11/23/2006 at 13:12.
Summary
Remember that Sony advert? The one with all the bouncing coloured balls? Watching the madison is just like that, but it lasts an hour.
How does it work?
Imagine that all those coloured balls in the advert are racing rather than just bouncing randomly, but only half of them are actually racing at any one point (which half that is can vary at the racers' discretion, so don't get cocky and think you've got it all figured out). And you're supposed to know which two balls are winning and which ones just scored five points for being the first to bounce to a specific distance even though there are balls everywhere you look.
Tips for new fans
The trick to following a madison when you're at a track event is exactly the same as the trick for following the advert when you're at home: go and get a cup of tea whilst it's on.
Remember that Sony advert? The one with all the bouncing coloured balls? Watching the madison is just like that, but it lasts an hour.
How does it work?
Imagine that all those coloured balls in the advert are racing rather than just bouncing randomly, but only half of them are actually racing at any one point (which half that is can vary at the racers' discretion, so don't get cocky and think you've got it all figured out). And you're supposed to know which two balls are winning and which ones just scored five points for being the first to bounce to a specific distance even though there are balls everywhere you look.
Tips for new fans
The trick to following a madison when you're at a track event is exactly the same as the trick for following the advert when you're at home: go and get a cup of tea whilst it's on.
Manchester Velodrome food review: veggie burger and chips
Published by Halverde on 11/20/2006 at 23:16.
We're not saying there's anything unhygienic about the South Bank Cafe's kitchen or anything, but we thought we should take the safe option for our first review. Nobody ever caught salmonela from a load of mashed carrots and some breadcrumbs, right?
First impressions
The overall first impression isn't too bad. It doesn't take too long to arrive, and looks reasonably edible. The large queues are a good sign, because people definitely wouldn't queue up for something that was a greasy mess. Would they?
Lasting impressions
Getting the burger and chips dumped separately in front of you looks pretty good, but it soon becomes apparent that it's going to be tricky to carry both at once. And it's even more difficult to eat a burger whilst trying to balance a tray of chips and hold a beer. Those valuable calories you'll be aiming to gain from eating the food will be wasted just juggling it all around. But it tastes good, and since it comes from a sporting venue it must be beneficial to your fitness.
Sports fuel rating
7/10
Conclusion
There's no doubt that veggie burger and chips is the ideal meal for an aspiring athlete, but the fact that it's so tricky to handle doesn't stand in its favour. We can see youngsters turning to less healthy fast food alternatives such as fresh fruit, purely because they demand much lower levels of dexterity. But otherwise this is the ultimate sport supplement for adults or children. Recommended.
First impressions
The overall first impression isn't too bad. It doesn't take too long to arrive, and looks reasonably edible. The large queues are a good sign, because people definitely wouldn't queue up for something that was a greasy mess. Would they?
Lasting impressions
Getting the burger and chips dumped separately in front of you looks pretty good, but it soon becomes apparent that it's going to be tricky to carry both at once. And it's even more difficult to eat a burger whilst trying to balance a tray of chips and hold a beer. Those valuable calories you'll be aiming to gain from eating the food will be wasted just juggling it all around. But it tastes good, and since it comes from a sporting venue it must be beneficial to your fitness.
Sports fuel rating
7/10
Conclusion
There's no doubt that veggie burger and chips is the ideal meal for an aspiring athlete, but the fact that it's so tricky to handle doesn't stand in its favour. We can see youngsters turning to less healthy fast food alternatives such as fresh fruit, purely because they demand much lower levels of dexterity. But otherwise this is the ultimate sport supplement for adults or children. Recommended.
Revolution 14 exclusive post-event photographs!
Published by Halverde on 11/19/2006 at 16:55.
We were on duty, but got intimidated by all the schmoozing going on and didn't feel like doing the journalist thing. The wristband was altered accordingly.
As a result of our reluctance to be proper journalists, we thought we'd hang around indefinitely after it finished and bring you some exciting pictures that no other website would have. Does Cycling Weekly demonstrate this level of dedication to its readers?
It seemed like it'd be quite funny to do this, but in hindsight we should've just taken some pictures of Gilberto Simoni.
Did you see us walking around? We were carrying a disgusting coloured messenger bag with "My Other Car is a Pynchon Novel" written on it. If anyone asked about it, we explained ourselves as being a website that purveys the finest "pseudo-intellectual cyclo-babble".
We took this photo in anticipation of trying to think of a rubbish joke about vans being allowed to drive clockwise around the track. But it turned out that the vans were the bane of our existence.
We were still in the velodrome at noon the following day. This is why you shouldn't accept lifts from people.
Only three weeks to Revolution 15
To celebrate, we're going to try and milk the track racing related updates for the entire three week period. It's going to test both yours and our patience, but we'll get through it together.
Top five best ever videogames about cycling: Tour de France
Published by Halverde on 11/14/2006 at 16:41.
#3 - Tour de France (PS2/Xbox)
Do you remember when Tour de France came out? When it set the world alight? No, we don't either. The first we heard of it was a mention of it in a friend's magazine, and we knew we had to play it. Apparently games shops work on a weird reverse supply-demand logic that suggests that if nobody wants the product then the price has to be raised. But we finally got our hands on the Xbox version, so it was worth remortaging the house for.
If one thing is becoming increasingly apparent from reviewing these games, it's that the box art is always grossly misleading. In Tour de France's case, the box depicts Mapei riding a team time trial, despite the fact that the game features zero (0) team time trials, zero (0) individual time trials, and zero (0) examples of riders actually working as a team.
Its greatest act of deception, however, is that it also doesn't feature a Tour de France. At least, not a proper one. Instead, you get a Tour de France "mode" -- an alarming Japanese take on the Tour, as you create and then take control of a new rider with the intention of winning the Tour de France at the end of a five year period. To do this, you race and train all year round, then enter the six stage Tour in July. Unlike other games which, you know, let you revel in your success, the game ends after the five years of hard training are up, whether you've won the Tour or not. Only the Japanese could create a game that is all about working hard, and ends before your effort is transformed into achievement.
But playing the Tour de France mode isn't all futile. After your five years are up, you unlock real life racers based on the teams that your character rode for during his career. These eight racers are: Beloki, Botero, Etxebarria, Mancebo, Millar, Moreau, Vainsteins and Verbrugghe -- without doing any research into the matter, we reckon that at least six of these riders have been implicated (or worse) in doping cases at some point. And the game manual gives special thanks to Manolo Saiz. Woops.
The game's controls are intuitive and easy to learn (even if it is to the detriment of the manual). Holding the A button causes your rider to pedal, tapping it repeatedly causes him to sprint/attack. Y lets your rider drink water, and X brakes. Simple.
Sadly, the basic game mechanics prevent you from ever exploring the inviting control scheme. Rather than starting as a peleton, the race's competitors are spread across the route in groups of seven. And you're always in the last group. Chasing down the leaders every time you play becomes a major chore, especially when you're trying to compete for the overall in the Tour, and leads to you constantly hammering the sprint button to blast past the slower moving groups. You'll come to miss the tactical ingenuity of Pro Cycling Manager by the time you've completed your second race.
On top of this, the whole game is riddled with bugs. We bought it whilst the 2003 Tour de France was going on in real life, and were shocked to see our rider fall of his bike for no reason on a descent and crash out of the Tour. Needless to say, the bug happened every time and led to us amusing our friends by selecting Beloki and reproducing his famous crash. Even more annoyingly, the Ventoux stage sometimes drops you through the floor and out of the race just as you come up to the finish line. Anybody who's ever ridden up the Ventoux will understanding just how frightening a prospect it is to see your suffering go to waste in a such a way. And did we mention that when you crash out of a race, your rider sits on the floor whilst his horizontal bicycle bounces increasingly higher in front of him? Or that you can sometimes sit in the wind shadow of riders you can barely even see on the horizon? Or that you have to train your rider so that he can turn when he encounters a corner?
The game's saving grace comes in the form of its two player mode -- a two-up race to the end of a chosen stage. Rather than just a straight race, however, the developers added a points system, with the winner being the rider who picks up the most points on the road. With bonuses at the finish and at intermediate sprints, but also points allocated for the length of time your character spends leading the other rider, there's a lot to think about. If you sit on for the whole race and only sprint at the checkpoints and finish, your friend will pick up the bonus points for dragging you along and win the race. Conversely, if you do too much work then you'll find yourself unable to compete in the sprints and lose the race that way. For such a simple system, it's alarmingly tactical.
Conclusion
Buy it on eBay for a few quid, then crack the same joke we did as you demonstrate how you can make Beloki fall off in the middle of the road and injure himself.
Tomorrow
Another thing we wrote ages ago in anticipation of the winter lull.
Do you remember when Tour de France came out? When it set the world alight? No, we don't either. The first we heard of it was a mention of it in a friend's magazine, and we knew we had to play it. Apparently games shops work on a weird reverse supply-demand logic that suggests that if nobody wants the product then the price has to be raised. But we finally got our hands on the Xbox version, so it was worth remortaging the house for.
If one thing is becoming increasingly apparent from reviewing these games, it's that the box art is always grossly misleading. In Tour de France's case, the box depicts Mapei riding a team time trial, despite the fact that the game features zero (0) team time trials, zero (0) individual time trials, and zero (0) examples of riders actually working as a team.
Its greatest act of deception, however, is that it also doesn't feature a Tour de France. At least, not a proper one. Instead, you get a Tour de France "mode" -- an alarming Japanese take on the Tour, as you create and then take control of a new rider with the intention of winning the Tour de France at the end of a five year period. To do this, you race and train all year round, then enter the six stage Tour in July. Unlike other games which, you know, let you revel in your success, the game ends after the five years of hard training are up, whether you've won the Tour or not. Only the Japanese could create a game that is all about working hard, and ends before your effort is transformed into achievement.
But playing the Tour de France mode isn't all futile. After your five years are up, you unlock real life racers based on the teams that your character rode for during his career. These eight racers are: Beloki, Botero, Etxebarria, Mancebo, Millar, Moreau, Vainsteins and Verbrugghe -- without doing any research into the matter, we reckon that at least six of these riders have been implicated (or worse) in doping cases at some point. And the game manual gives special thanks to Manolo Saiz. Woops.
The game's controls are intuitive and easy to learn (even if it is to the detriment of the manual). Holding the A button causes your rider to pedal, tapping it repeatedly causes him to sprint/attack. Y lets your rider drink water, and X brakes. Simple.
Sadly, the basic game mechanics prevent you from ever exploring the inviting control scheme. Rather than starting as a peleton, the race's competitors are spread across the route in groups of seven. And you're always in the last group. Chasing down the leaders every time you play becomes a major chore, especially when you're trying to compete for the overall in the Tour, and leads to you constantly hammering the sprint button to blast past the slower moving groups. You'll come to miss the tactical ingenuity of Pro Cycling Manager by the time you've completed your second race.
On top of this, the whole game is riddled with bugs. We bought it whilst the 2003 Tour de France was going on in real life, and were shocked to see our rider fall of his bike for no reason on a descent and crash out of the Tour. Needless to say, the bug happened every time and led to us amusing our friends by selecting Beloki and reproducing his famous crash. Even more annoyingly, the Ventoux stage sometimes drops you through the floor and out of the race just as you come up to the finish line. Anybody who's ever ridden up the Ventoux will understanding just how frightening a prospect it is to see your suffering go to waste in a such a way. And did we mention that when you crash out of a race, your rider sits on the floor whilst his horizontal bicycle bounces increasingly higher in front of him? Or that you can sometimes sit in the wind shadow of riders you can barely even see on the horizon? Or that you have to train your rider so that he can turn when he encounters a corner?
The game's saving grace comes in the form of its two player mode -- a two-up race to the end of a chosen stage. Rather than just a straight race, however, the developers added a points system, with the winner being the rider who picks up the most points on the road. With bonuses at the finish and at intermediate sprints, but also points allocated for the length of time your character spends leading the other rider, there's a lot to think about. If you sit on for the whole race and only sprint at the checkpoints and finish, your friend will pick up the bonus points for dragging you along and win the race. Conversely, if you do too much work then you'll find yourself unable to compete in the sprints and lose the race that way. For such a simple system, it's alarmingly tactical.
Conclusion
Buy it on eBay for a few quid, then crack the same joke we did as you demonstrate how you can make Beloki fall off in the middle of the road and injure himself.
Tomorrow
Another thing we wrote ages ago in anticipation of the winter lull.
Want to write for DerailedUK?
Published by Halverde on 11/13/2006 at 12:51.
Even being half-arsed cycling journalists is too much effort for us at the moment. We need another writer to help us cut down on the number of off-days. See also: someone to back us up when we get into message board arguments.
Ideally, you will fulfill at least one of the following requirements:
Other news
In trying to make the website look less knackered in Internet Explorer, we've accidentally made it look much, much more knackered in Internet Explorer. We suspect that this will be fixed once we've scrolled all the images down off the bottom of the page, which is good because we're not clever enough to be able to fix it any other way.
Ideally, you will fulfill at least one of the following requirements:
- An ability to mash words together in a coherent and amusing way.
- A possession of some kind of knowledge about cycle sport.
- An understanding of HTML and similarly geeky things.
But, as evident from what you've already seen on this site, none of the above are particularly neccessary.
Because we're incredibly poor, we can't offer anything in the way of payment. But there are a number of fringe benefits of writing for us:
- Occasional press passes at cycling events. Imagine being able to watch race finishes from the press area, rather than having to associate with sweaty, ignorant punters.
- No boss, no deadlines. No pressure, innit. Just dump some funnies up here whenever you feel like.
- Opportunities for contact with minor celebrities from the world of cycling.
- FAME (albeit very slight).
Other news
In trying to make the website look less knackered in Internet Explorer, we've accidentally made it look much, much more knackered in Internet Explorer. We suspect that this will be fixed once we've scrolled all the images down off the bottom of the page, which is good because we're not clever enough to be able to fix it any other way.
The Podium Cafe "The Cycle Sport Manifesto"
Published by Halverde on 11/11/2006 at 14:44.
We miss the old days when we used to write this website as a result of our love of road cycling, rather than as a means of antagonising people. But even now we still don't delight in dissing other members of the cycling writers community, and especially not Podium Cafe, who are so gobby and full of flawed, irritating arguments that they could easily work for DerailedUK. Once they got the hang of writing in fragmented sentences for humourous effect, that is.
Judging from their website, they've got a troupe of loyal readers that we'd be pleased to have in exchange for our own audience of cycling journos and incredibly talented riders. Advertisers won't touch us with a ten foot pole, just because the people who read this site get sent all their stuff for free. You're ruining us, famous-types.
Anyway, we're going to dissect Podium Cafe's latest dig at Cycle Sport's I Support Drug Free Sport manifesto. This is more an act of annoying a popular website than defending a very popular magazine, so we're allowed to do it without being accused of selling out.
"1) clear testing policy, uniformly applied.
comment: Sounds palatable enough, if not original."
Comment: We like their clever use of "not original" in the place of "unoriginal". It grabs the attention and is interesting, if not usual.
"2) Database of rider records, including DNA.
comment: I suppose I'm for it, at first blush. And the riders' comments about being treated like criminals sounds more like union gamesmanship to me (although if they're saying that to keep the bargaining chip, fine, whatever)."
Comment: We're only onto the second point of this scathing damnation and already the author is saying something akin to, "Dunno really, they're probably right." This is what Iain Duncan-Smith used to be like whenever we watched Prime Minister's Question Time in 2003.
"3) Publicize the therapeutic use exemptions (i.e. I can take X substance for my Y condition)
comment: huh? I'd rather have enough adults in charge so that nobody needs me to go looking up people's TUE."
Comment: Huh? Are the people in charge currently all youths? Or is the author's point in the word "enough"? Just keep hiring; the more people on the payroll, the quicker the problem will go away.
"4) teams should publicize their anti-doping policies, and they should bar use of outside doctors
comment: Hm... I guess this is meant to push the T-Mob model, which I like very much. This isn't worded exactly right though -- again, publicizing stuff means I have to look it up. A better idea is just to require teams to swallow the T-Mob program... except that it's unproven and undigested so far."
Comment: If things are publicised then people have to read them. Uh oh! They should just leave it covered up -- that'd stop the cheats from being able to hide their nefarious practices.
"5) Get riders to speak up about the wristband campaign
comment: the program veers sharply toward irrelevance. Let's see if we can correct the course..."
Comment: Actually, we agree with them on this point. See, we told you Podium Cafe isn't all bad.
"6) No finger-pointing or whistle-blowing
comment: I'd ridicule this, but I think CS is just saying they're not advocating this, not that it should be forbidden."
Comment: We're not sure what Cycle Sport even meant by this, and we can't be bothered getting our old copy out to have a read. Just pretend we said something witty here (and feel free to continue doing that for all subsequent comments).
"7) Don't imply guilt by excluding guys from races
comment: hm... this is where the Bill of Rights clashes with the sensibilities of the peloton, I think. Tough sell here, but I don't object."
Comment: We disagree with both CS and PC. It's a point that can't be enforced in any way -- if you deny a rider a place in a race because you think he's a cheat, it's hard for an audience to decode from it anything other than your implication of guilt. We're looking forward to seeing all this in action next season with Basso, Ullrich, et al.
"8) Attitudes must change; doping is not acceptable.
comment: CS proving my original point from last week. To be kind, this is pointless grandstanding, as if riders dope because it's fun."
Comment: Because not enjoying doing something means that it can't be deemed unacceptable? Wear a grimace whenever you break the law, no jury would convict you.
"9) Recognize the true clean riders and portray them as champions
comment: what happened to not implying guilt? If someone wins Paris-Roubaix but the UCI thinks someone else is cleaner, do they give the other guy the trophy? Also, I'm clean (as far as you know), and though I'll never win or even compete for five minutes, does this mean I still get a trophy? Seriously off course now..."
Comment: Trophies for everyone! If CS had made this point, we'd have been in full agreement. Celebrating clean riders seems pretty sensible to us.
"10) Slowly drive out the cheats, and raise a new clean generation
comments: This is pretty vapid. I'd like a pony too. Also, is doping being grandfathered in for the current generation? Whatever."
Comment: A pony? We'd like an Orbea Onix. (If we have an Orbea rep reading this, do get in touch.)
"11) Don't cover up bad news; report the positive tests
comment: Stupid. Testing is an inexact science, to say the least, so riders deserve a heads-up before telling the press. In fact, even if a guy is caught red-handed, there's no precedent for law enforcement running first to the press and then to the suspect."
Comment: A peculiar take on the word "report". Nowhere does it mention not giving riders a "heads-up". Apparently mentioning positive tests is a bad thing now (which is, more or less, exactly what Landis's defence team are busy presenting to the world).
"12) Fully support testing, blady blah
comment: more of the same..."
Comment: LAZY. We read the first eleven, then number twelve was RUINED for us by the lack of comment.
"13) we don't want to be taken for fools anymore
comment: Exhibit A in my case that CS is making it about themselves. If the peloton is reading this, my message is: fix the problem; don't worry about me."
Comment: "Don't worrry about me", apart from when you want to publicise things (see #3, #4).
"14) "if you're clean, come out and say so."
comment: Fortunately, they're done. Possibly three or four items too late, because this last one removes any doubt that the author of this manifesto is in middle school. I've paraphrased most of the items, but this one is verbatim, because its silliness speaks for itself."
Comment: Fortunately, we're done too. Podium Cafe's ending was much better than ours, but this whole thing stopped being amusing ten points ago.
The Cycle Sport Manifesto
The end?
If any other website/blog wants to do a DerailedUK "The Poduim Cafe "The Cycle Sport Manifesto"" update to keep this ridiculous chain going, that'd be neat. It's already getting that Louis Althusser "petty, complex, divisive debate about something very particular" unreadability about it -- with your help we can really crack this thing and open up extreme new channels of cycling pretentiousness.
Tomorrow
Who knows? The suspense is just killing you, we can tell.
Judging from their website, they've got a troupe of loyal readers that we'd be pleased to have in exchange for our own audience of cycling journos and incredibly talented riders. Advertisers won't touch us with a ten foot pole, just because the people who read this site get sent all their stuff for free. You're ruining us, famous-types.
Anyway, we're going to dissect Podium Cafe's latest dig at Cycle Sport's I Support Drug Free Sport manifesto. This is more an act of annoying a popular website than defending a very popular magazine, so we're allowed to do it without being accused of selling out.
"1) clear testing policy, uniformly applied.
comment: Sounds palatable enough, if not original."
Comment: We like their clever use of "not original" in the place of "unoriginal". It grabs the attention and is interesting, if not usual.
"2) Database of rider records, including DNA.
comment: I suppose I'm for it, at first blush. And the riders' comments about being treated like criminals sounds more like union gamesmanship to me (although if they're saying that to keep the bargaining chip, fine, whatever)."
Comment: We're only onto the second point of this scathing damnation and already the author is saying something akin to, "Dunno really, they're probably right." This is what Iain Duncan-Smith used to be like whenever we watched Prime Minister's Question Time in 2003.
"3) Publicize the therapeutic use exemptions (i.e. I can take X substance for my Y condition)
comment: huh? I'd rather have enough adults in charge so that nobody needs me to go looking up people's TUE."
Comment: Huh? Are the people in charge currently all youths? Or is the author's point in the word "enough"? Just keep hiring; the more people on the payroll, the quicker the problem will go away.
"4) teams should publicize their anti-doping policies, and they should bar use of outside doctors
comment: Hm... I guess this is meant to push the T-Mob model, which I like very much. This isn't worded exactly right though -- again, publicizing stuff means I have to look it up. A better idea is just to require teams to swallow the T-Mob program... except that it's unproven and undigested so far."
Comment: If things are publicised then people have to read them. Uh oh! They should just leave it covered up -- that'd stop the cheats from being able to hide their nefarious practices.
"5) Get riders to speak up about the wristband campaign
comment: the program veers sharply toward irrelevance. Let's see if we can correct the course..."
Comment: Actually, we agree with them on this point. See, we told you Podium Cafe isn't all bad.
"6) No finger-pointing or whistle-blowing
comment: I'd ridicule this, but I think CS is just saying they're not advocating this, not that it should be forbidden."
Comment: We're not sure what Cycle Sport even meant by this, and we can't be bothered getting our old copy out to have a read. Just pretend we said something witty here (and feel free to continue doing that for all subsequent comments).
"7) Don't imply guilt by excluding guys from races
comment: hm... this is where the Bill of Rights clashes with the sensibilities of the peloton, I think. Tough sell here, but I don't object."
Comment: We disagree with both CS and PC. It's a point that can't be enforced in any way -- if you deny a rider a place in a race because you think he's a cheat, it's hard for an audience to decode from it anything other than your implication of guilt. We're looking forward to seeing all this in action next season with Basso, Ullrich, et al.
"8) Attitudes must change; doping is not acceptable.
comment: CS proving my original point from last week. To be kind, this is pointless grandstanding, as if riders dope because it's fun."
Comment: Because not enjoying doing something means that it can't be deemed unacceptable? Wear a grimace whenever you break the law, no jury would convict you.
"9) Recognize the true clean riders and portray them as champions
comment: what happened to not implying guilt? If someone wins Paris-Roubaix but the UCI thinks someone else is cleaner, do they give the other guy the trophy? Also, I'm clean (as far as you know), and though I'll never win or even compete for five minutes, does this mean I still get a trophy? Seriously off course now..."
Comment: Trophies for everyone! If CS had made this point, we'd have been in full agreement. Celebrating clean riders seems pretty sensible to us.
"10) Slowly drive out the cheats, and raise a new clean generation
comments: This is pretty vapid. I'd like a pony too. Also, is doping being grandfathered in for the current generation? Whatever."
Comment: A pony? We'd like an Orbea Onix. (If we have an Orbea rep reading this, do get in touch.)
"11) Don't cover up bad news; report the positive tests
comment: Stupid. Testing is an inexact science, to say the least, so riders deserve a heads-up before telling the press. In fact, even if a guy is caught red-handed, there's no precedent for law enforcement running first to the press and then to the suspect."
Comment: A peculiar take on the word "report". Nowhere does it mention not giving riders a "heads-up". Apparently mentioning positive tests is a bad thing now (which is, more or less, exactly what Landis's defence team are busy presenting to the world).
"12) Fully support testing, blady blah
comment: more of the same..."
Comment: LAZY. We read the first eleven, then number twelve was RUINED for us by the lack of comment.
"13) we don't want to be taken for fools anymore
comment: Exhibit A in my case that CS is making it about themselves. If the peloton is reading this, my message is: fix the problem; don't worry about me."
Comment: "Don't worrry about me", apart from when you want to publicise things (see #3, #4).
"14) "if you're clean, come out and say so."
comment: Fortunately, they're done. Possibly three or four items too late, because this last one removes any doubt that the author of this manifesto is in middle school. I've paraphrased most of the items, but this one is verbatim, because its silliness speaks for itself."
Comment: Fortunately, we're done too. Podium Cafe's ending was much better than ours, but this whole thing stopped being amusing ten points ago.
The Cycle Sport Manifesto
The end?
If any other website/blog wants to do a DerailedUK "The Poduim Cafe "The Cycle Sport Manifesto"" update to keep this ridiculous chain going, that'd be neat. It's already getting that Louis Althusser "petty, complex, divisive debate about something very particular" unreadability about it -- with your help we can really crack this thing and open up extreme new channels of cycling pretentiousness.
Tomorrow
Who knows? The suspense is just killing you, we can tell.
The DerailedUK media awards 2006 part two
Published by Halverde on 11/08/2006 at 13:28.
Welcome to the world of DerailedUK, where you can begin to write something, get sidetracked, then think "Just stick the words 'part one' after it and finish it tomorrow". Unfortunately, we've forgotten all the funny ones we were saving for the second half of the post, so we'll just have to make up any old rubbish on the spot and just pretend we've taken care to present you with something entertaining.
Relax, we're still treating you better than most cycling websites are during the off-season.
Rider of the year
The winner is... Jens Voigt
Ignore the fact that Jens hasn't won much this season. Also ignore the fact that Paolo Bettini has done EVERYTHING this season. And also ignore the fact that this is a Tom Boonen/Alejandro Valverde fansite. Because Jens is our rider of the year, and will be every year until he retires (and probably will be for a couple of seasons afterwards). The things you could do with this rider. In fact, if we had a team of nine Jens Voigts, we'd probably have... a not very balanced team. But at least it'd be made up of damn hard men.
Best race coverage
The winner is... Cycling.tv
Eurosport has improved vastly this year but Cycling.tv has to win for the fact that they cover EVERYTHING, even those Dutch cyclocross races that nobody is very interested in. We still stumble upon people complaining about the site not broadcasting a particularly obscure Eastern bloc stage race, but if you walked long enough you'd probably also stumble upon someone eating a dog poo. People are stupid: fact. Plus the Cycling.tv guys are totally nice, and didn't even get offended when we cracked a few jokes about them during the Tour of Britain.
Best British national stage race
The winner is... The Tour of Britain
We only really invented this category so we could relive those moments when we met Pippo Pozzato. He didn't really like us all that much, but we still think of him every time we're soaping ourselves up in the shower.
Tomorrow:
The third part of this. Or we'll drop it in favour of something new if we still can't remember the funnies.
In other news
Doper goes to cheating team. Gasp!
Relax, we're still treating you better than most cycling websites are during the off-season.
Rider of the year
The winner is... Jens Voigt
Ignore the fact that Jens hasn't won much this season. Also ignore the fact that Paolo Bettini has done EVERYTHING this season. And also ignore the fact that this is a Tom Boonen/Alejandro Valverde fansite. Because Jens is our rider of the year, and will be every year until he retires (and probably will be for a couple of seasons afterwards). The things you could do with this rider. In fact, if we had a team of nine Jens Voigts, we'd probably have... a not very balanced team. But at least it'd be made up of damn hard men.
Best race coverage
The winner is... Cycling.tv
Eurosport has improved vastly this year but Cycling.tv has to win for the fact that they cover EVERYTHING, even those Dutch cyclocross races that nobody is very interested in. We still stumble upon people complaining about the site not broadcasting a particularly obscure Eastern bloc stage race, but if you walked long enough you'd probably also stumble upon someone eating a dog poo. People are stupid: fact. Plus the Cycling.tv guys are totally nice, and didn't even get offended when we cracked a few jokes about them during the Tour of Britain.
Best British national stage race
The winner is... The Tour of Britain
We only really invented this category so we could relive those moments when we met Pippo Pozzato. He didn't really like us all that much, but we still think of him every time we're soaping ourselves up in the shower.
Tomorrow:
The third part of this. Or we'll drop it in favour of something new if we still can't remember the funnies.
In other news
Doper goes to cheating team. Gasp!
"If we refer to it as 'Armstrong's return to racing', everyone will read the update."
Published by Halverde on 11/05/2006 at 13:46.
Oh hey, Lance runs the New York marathon today. We've already covered it way back in the days when we weren't funny, but we thought that we should give it a special mention since every other cycling and sports site on the internet has written about it this morning.
The first website to upload a photo of him running will be permanently added to the adblocker in our browser so that we can never, ever read it again.
The first website to upload a photo of him running will be permanently added to the adblocker in our browser so that we can never, ever read it again.
The DerailedUK media awards 2006 part one
Published by Halverde on 11/03/2006 at 12:16.
It's that time of year again. That time when cycling journalists have to think of things to write about whilst there are no races going on. Stop complaining, this still beats the weekly ride around the Peak District that other publications are inflicting on you.
Because it's our first year, the award ceremony is very no frills at the moment. But we've already arranged next year's awards, which will be a glitzy event with celebrity guests and presented by none other than Anthony McCrossan. (Anthony, we'll talk.)
Without further ado:
Best descent from Cycling Weekly's most popular writer to racist old man ranting about Muslims and immigrants
The winner is... Tony Bell
Testing our patience to the maximum, Tony turned from ocassionally amusing journalist to constantly irritating racist in a matter of months. It's a bit like when we heard about Mel Gibson ranting about Jews, but worse because we actually liked Tony Bell beforehand. Rumour has it he's going back to the comic soon, so hopefully he'll come full circle and give up on calling veiled women Daleks. And if not, hopefully a woman in a niqab will find it in herself to exterminate him.
Best deer-in-headlights Tour de France commentary
The winner is... Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen
Having discovered the lucrative American market, Phil and Paul set about attempting to mention Lance Armstrong in every single sentence they uttered, regardless of context. But Phil and Paul had put all their eggs in one basket, and banked on the Tour de Lance being an endless phenomenon. This year's perplexing, stuttering commentary in the absence of Armstrong made them appear way out of their depth, and will stand as a demonstration of the reasons why aiming for impartial, intelligent coverage is much better than chasing after dollar signs.
Best promotional tactic
The winner is... Oscar Pereiro
Technically, Floyd's current PR campaign is the biggest the sport has ever seen, but Oscar raced a camel. This should set a whole new precedent for all kinds of human/animal races -- we're desperately hoping to see a ferret beat Bradley Wiggins in next year's Tour prologue.
Tomorrow:
Part two. Or whatever.
Because it's our first year, the award ceremony is very no frills at the moment. But we've already arranged next year's awards, which will be a glitzy event with celebrity guests and presented by none other than Anthony McCrossan. (Anthony, we'll talk.)
Without further ado:
Best descent from Cycling Weekly's most popular writer to racist old man ranting about Muslims and immigrants
The winner is... Tony Bell
Testing our patience to the maximum, Tony turned from ocassionally amusing journalist to constantly irritating racist in a matter of months. It's a bit like when we heard about Mel Gibson ranting about Jews, but worse because we actually liked Tony Bell beforehand. Rumour has it he's going back to the comic soon, so hopefully he'll come full circle and give up on calling veiled women Daleks. And if not, hopefully a woman in a niqab will find it in herself to exterminate him.
Best deer-in-headlights Tour de France commentary
The winner is... Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen
Having discovered the lucrative American market, Phil and Paul set about attempting to mention Lance Armstrong in every single sentence they uttered, regardless of context. But Phil and Paul had put all their eggs in one basket, and banked on the Tour de Lance being an endless phenomenon. This year's perplexing, stuttering commentary in the absence of Armstrong made them appear way out of their depth, and will stand as a demonstration of the reasons why aiming for impartial, intelligent coverage is much better than chasing after dollar signs.
Best promotional tactic
The winner is... Oscar Pereiro
Technically, Floyd's current PR campaign is the biggest the sport has ever seen, but Oscar raced a camel. This should set a whole new precedent for all kinds of human/animal races -- we're desperately hoping to see a ferret beat Bradley Wiggins in next year's Tour prologue.
Tomorrow:
Part two. Or whatever.
