Top Five Video Games About Cycling: Rasmussen ReTour de France
Published by Halverde on 7/30/2007 at 12:39.
You thought we'd forgotten about the videogames feature we started six months ago, didn't you? Not a chance, we just knew this was going to happen and so were waiting for someone to make the game. And we forgot about it, yeah.
Here it is: Rasmussen ReTour de France. It's in Dutch, so it helps if you're fluent in gobbledegook. The basic premise is that you are Michael Rasmussen, riding down a motorway. On the left is Mexico, on the right is Italy. Presumably this motorway is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
But the motorway is not empty of things to contend with. No, not other cyclists. No, not even cars. The things you're concerned with are 12-foot tall photographers and potholes in the middle of the road. Because of this, it's more "Guiseppe Guerini comes to Liverpool" than "a satirical recreation of Rasmussen's ill-fated Tour".
To stop your Tour from dying, you have to pick up pills and syringes and bags of blood. This fills up your time meter, which is conveniently transformed into a syringe in this game. The creators have stopped at nothing to make us laugh.
And... that's it. Michael Rasmussen can't turn very well, so avoiding the giants who just happen to be standing motionless in the middle of this motorway in the ocean is a bit difficult. You can't get to the Champs Elysees, or Italy, or Mexico, or anywhere. You'll just lose eventually. Our top score: 531.048
Official rating
0/10. The worst thing we've ever played. Even worse than the ASCII art version of Deluxe Strip Poker II. This is NOT in the Top Five.
Aside
2007 Tour de France race report coming later today, after we've finished wording it so that it antagonises the most amount of people.
Here it is: Rasmussen ReTour de France. It's in Dutch, so it helps if you're fluent in gobbledegook. The basic premise is that you are Michael Rasmussen, riding down a motorway. On the left is Mexico, on the right is Italy. Presumably this motorway is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
But the motorway is not empty of things to contend with. No, not other cyclists. No, not even cars. The things you're concerned with are 12-foot tall photographers and potholes in the middle of the road. Because of this, it's more "Guiseppe Guerini comes to Liverpool" than "a satirical recreation of Rasmussen's ill-fated Tour".
To stop your Tour from dying, you have to pick up pills and syringes and bags of blood. This fills up your time meter, which is conveniently transformed into a syringe in this game. The creators have stopped at nothing to make us laugh.
And... that's it. Michael Rasmussen can't turn very well, so avoiding the giants who just happen to be standing motionless in the middle of this motorway in the ocean is a bit difficult. You can't get to the Champs Elysees, or Italy, or Mexico, or anywhere. You'll just lose eventually. Our top score: 531.048
Official rating
0/10. The worst thing we've ever played. Even worse than the ASCII art version of Deluxe Strip Poker II. This is NOT in the Top Five.
Aside
2007 Tour de France race report coming later today, after we've finished wording it so that it antagonises the most amount of people.
Massive Michael Rasmussen Facebook Backlash
Published by Halverde on 7/29/2007 at 14:58.
:(
Dope Free Friday: ?
Published by Halverde on 7/27/2007 at 15:12.
(intentionally blank)
Yeah, it took us all day to think of this one.
Yeah, it took us all day to think of this one.
Astana's rest-day resort
Published by Halverde on 7/26/2007 at 11:31.
This would've been a lot more topical 36 hours ago. We've had two more doping scandals since then, but we never got to post that photo of the forlorn looking Astana team car at the start of last year's Tour and we're damned if we're going to let something like "current events" leave us with an equally massive regret.
Excellent. Now we just need to find one for Christian Moreni and Michael Rasmussen. And prepare one for in case anything happens with Alberto Contador. Which, of course, it won't, because the ex-Liberty Seguros, ex-Astana, ex-client of Eufemiano Fuentes, ex-client of Manolo Saiz, current Discovery Channel rider who has progressed to being the finest climbing talent in the world at an unsurpassed rate is definitely clean.
Excellent. Now we just need to find one for Christian Moreni and Michael Rasmussen. And prepare one for in case anything happens with Alberto Contador. Which, of course, it won't, because the ex-Liberty Seguros, ex-Astana, ex-client of Eufemiano Fuentes, ex-client of Manolo Saiz, current Discovery Channel rider who has progressed to being the finest climbing talent in the world at an unsurpassed rate is definitely clean.
Jews, Eagles and Elks
Published by Halverde on 7/24/2007 at 10:49.
Some gibberish from Bernhard Eisel's own, 100% official website:
We should probably add that this is from Google's own translation of Eisel's site, rather than an official translation. But the way the world is going at the moment, Google probably knows more about Bernhard Eisel than Bernhard Eisel knows about Bernhard Eisel.
What.
We should probably add that this is from Google's own translation of Eisel's site, rather than an official translation. But the way the world is going at the moment, Google probably knows more about Bernhard Eisel than Bernhard Eisel knows about Bernhard Eisel.
What.
Dope Free Friday: Jackie Chan's bike race
Published by Halverde on 7/20/2007 at 12:46.
We weren't going to do anything about this, but the person who keeps e-mailing us about it is very adamant.
Conclusive evidence that Jackie Chan is better at SELLING OUT than he is at riding a bicycle.
Conclusive evidence that Jackie Chan is better at SELLING OUT than he is at riding a bicycle.
That clip that everybody has already seen a thousand times
Published by Halverde on 7/18/2007 at 13:54.
Our favourite three comments:
happyhead7:
french labs always ruin the Tour.
ltaus14
doggy style. makes the race actually interesting, they should release animals at random to get more fans coz shit like this will happen again. fingers crossed
JapaneseCommitINCEST
YouTuber - 'ChinkEatBabies' is a fucking JAPANESE who erases my warning to non-Japanese people who don't know that JAPANESE rape children because JAPAN has very few laws against sex crimes & NO laws against INCEST.
Committing INCEST is a JAPANESE culture.
He changed the dolphin message to lie to you that other Asians torture animals to make the meat tasty.
JAPANESE torture animals; other Asians don't. I live in JAPAN & saw how they slaughter horses & farm animals.
A sort-of related P.S.
Apologies to everyone who's sent us Animals on Bikes things. It was all just a bit of a space-filler while there was nothing going on, so you can understand why we've been a bit lax with it. If we can't think of anything even slightly funnier to do, you'll probably see your awful pictures in November.
Rest day smiles
Published by Halverde on 7/16/2007 at 16:01.
Great news: There are no Americans in the Tour's top ten!
Now we just need to get rid of that Australian bloke who won't do any work and we're sorted for the best Tour ever.
Official rating
9/10. Swap Evans for Sastre and we've got a perfect ten.
Now we just need to get rid of that Australian bloke who won't do any work and we're sorted for the best Tour ever.
Official rating
9/10. Swap Evans for Sastre and we've got a perfect ten.
Dope Free Friday: Our man for the Tour
Published by Halverde on 7/13/2007 at 12:47.
As is tradition, we've marked the start of a big race by largely ignoring it. Last year we were in excellent form for the Tour, picking Valverde to win before he broke his collarbone, Mayo to win before it turned out that he was still a bit cack, and finally saying that Landis shouldn't win because he was too ugly.
But this site needs its Tour pick section, despite our atrocious display in 2006. And since whoever we pick will lose anyway, we might as well pick someone we like, even if we don't think they'll do anything at all. It's a minor victory, but a victory nonetheless.
This is Christophe Moreau
We're not going to mention his age, or his silly beard, or the fact that he was at Festina when all the naughtiness was going on. We just want him to win because he's French, which would hopefully annoy a few Americans. Allez Christophe.
Not-so-dope-free Friday Tour update
Today's the 40th anniversary of Tom Simpson's death on Mont Ventoux. And our Wiggles has gone on a lone attack in the Tour. It's all quite sentimental, but in a good way, like when your enemy's puppy dies.
But this site needs its Tour pick section, despite our atrocious display in 2006. And since whoever we pick will lose anyway, we might as well pick someone we like, even if we don't think they'll do anything at all. It's a minor victory, but a victory nonetheless.
This is Christophe Moreau
We're not going to mention his age, or his silly beard, or the fact that he was at Festina when all the naughtiness was going on. We just want him to win because he's French, which would hopefully annoy a few Americans. Allez Christophe.
Not-so-dope-free Friday Tour update
Today's the 40th anniversary of Tom Simpson's death on Mont Ventoux. And our Wiggles has gone on a lone attack in the Tour. It's all quite sentimental, but in a good way, like when your enemy's puppy dies.
William Fotheringham shocks us all!
Published by Halverde on 7/12/2007 at 13:22.
William Fotheringham shocks us all by writing something about doping that undermines the credibility of professional cycling. This is so out of character for our beloved cycling writer!
The only thing that could make it worse is if he had somehow spent the past couple of months instrumenting a character assassination on cycle sport, abusing his position in a national newspaper to write article after article on how cyclists are all drug cheats, and always ensuring to include a tag about drugs in cycling at the end of every race report he's written. And it would make it even worse if he'd apparently ganged up with Paul Kimmage to shout down Vinokourov and Kloden at the Astana press conference prior to the Tour de France. Yeah, if he'd done anything like that, people might even consider calling him a traitor to the sport.
William Fotheringham:
Our villain of the month. At least everybody understood the motives behind the Daily Mail's "revelations" about Robert Millar, as well as knowing to understand it as a glib pile of toss.
The only thing that could make it worse is if he had somehow spent the past couple of months instrumenting a character assassination on cycle sport, abusing his position in a national newspaper to write article after article on how cyclists are all drug cheats, and always ensuring to include a tag about drugs in cycling at the end of every race report he's written. And it would make it even worse if he'd apparently ganged up with Paul Kimmage to shout down Vinokourov and Kloden at the Astana press conference prior to the Tour de France. Yeah, if he'd done anything like that, people might even consider calling him a traitor to the sport.
William Fotheringham:
Our villain of the month. At least everybody understood the motives behind the Daily Mail's "revelations" about Robert Millar, as well as knowing to understand it as a glib pile of toss.
The devil wears lycra
Published by Halverde on 7/11/2007 at 14:51.
Good old Didi Senft. Where would we be without him? Probably in a world where people are slightly less likely to suspect cycling fans of being middle-aged overweight lunatics, to be honest. And who wants that?
We're presuming this is really him, rather than the result of someone dressing up a tramp outside of Subway so as to give our nation's capital a more "Le Tour" feel.
We're presuming this is really him, rather than the result of someone dressing up a tramp outside of Subway so as to give our nation's capital a more "Le Tour" feel.
World Cup Waving, London leg: French team performance analysis
Published by Halverde on 7/09/2007 at 12:01.
Britain may have invented waving -- in the now well-known story of the Feudal lord who determined he needed a way to differentiate himself from his knights in order to find a prospective sex partner at social gatherings -- but the country has long been off the radar in the demanding sport of professional waving. Hosting a round of the Waving World Cup, its first visit to Britain since 1994, still couldn't see the small nation impress enough to raise the profile of the sport in Anglophone nations.
Today we analyse the performance of surprise runaway leaders France, as part of a run up to the World Championships.
The tournament started well for France. In the 7.9km dash, the relay team were able to deliver a perfect iteration of the complex "dual wave".
And in the Emergency Services round that followed, France again stole the show. The gendarmes had no trouble with coaxing the audience into participation in the easy to do, but difficult to attain, "mass wave".
This fine performance in the warm-up period demonstrated the extent to which France have improved in the world of professional waving. As well as a perfect "from the wrist" wave, the girls were able to showboat to the extent of filming the wave itself. On top of delighting the millions of people who had turned up on London's city streets, the maneuver also allows for further analysis at one of France's famously strict training camps.
In the Giant Boy, Teddy Bear and Massive Chicken round, the team put in a confident performance to finish in a solid fourth place.
But Les Bleus saved the best until last. In the sport's most prestigious event, Macy Dupont dominated procedings, leaving all other competitors in her wake. Only the former world champions Italy could finish within 15 points of her.
And she's delighted!
However, France did not have it all their own way.
Having received low scores for her initial, uninspired catenacchio wave in the third qualifying round, Marie Chevaux was subsequently disqualified for the use of an illegal pointing gesture.
Despite trying to counterbalance the heterosexual tedium of a bride and groom pairing by including some kind of 17th Century transvestite on their truck in the Subvert An Ideology round, France once again failed to impress in their bugbear event.
In the Lunatic Round, the team incurred a harsh two-year ban for the demonstration of a clenched left fist in place of a traditional wave -- a symbol of rebellion. Due to the timing of the ban, France will not be eligible to compete in further Lunatic Round waving until the 2009 World Championships.
Jeanne Jambon finished a disappointing 16th. With fewer than three weeks to go before the World Championships in Paris, there is precious little time to improve her performance.
A closing joke
What's got six legs and a... Oh, never mind.
Today we analyse the performance of surprise runaway leaders France, as part of a run up to the World Championships.
The tournament started well for France. In the 7.9km dash, the relay team were able to deliver a perfect iteration of the complex "dual wave".
And in the Emergency Services round that followed, France again stole the show. The gendarmes had no trouble with coaxing the audience into participation in the easy to do, but difficult to attain, "mass wave".
This fine performance in the warm-up period demonstrated the extent to which France have improved in the world of professional waving. As well as a perfect "from the wrist" wave, the girls were able to showboat to the extent of filming the wave itself. On top of delighting the millions of people who had turned up on London's city streets, the maneuver also allows for further analysis at one of France's famously strict training camps.
In the Giant Boy, Teddy Bear and Massive Chicken round, the team put in a confident performance to finish in a solid fourth place.
But Les Bleus saved the best until last. In the sport's most prestigious event, Macy Dupont dominated procedings, leaving all other competitors in her wake. Only the former world champions Italy could finish within 15 points of her.
And she's delighted!
However, France did not have it all their own way.
Having received low scores for her initial, uninspired catenacchio wave in the third qualifying round, Marie Chevaux was subsequently disqualified for the use of an illegal pointing gesture.
Despite trying to counterbalance the heterosexual tedium of a bride and groom pairing by including some kind of 17th Century transvestite on their truck in the Subvert An Ideology round, France once again failed to impress in their bugbear event.
In the Lunatic Round, the team incurred a harsh two-year ban for the demonstration of a clenched left fist in place of a traditional wave -- a symbol of rebellion. Due to the timing of the ban, France will not be eligible to compete in further Lunatic Round waving until the 2009 World Championships.
Jeanne Jambon finished a disappointing 16th. With fewer than three weeks to go before the World Championships in Paris, there is precious little time to improve her performance.
A closing joke
What's got six legs and a... Oh, never mind.
Dope Free Friday: "Des Petites Reines au Top!"
Published by Halverde on 7/06/2007 at 11:59.
We've received this press release from ASO/Brandt, which implies that they chose the podium girls this year by way of a contest. Presumably it was a bit like a cross between Pop Idol and a beauty pageant, but better because there was no singing and all the girls were in polka dot dresses.
If anybody has any photos or YouTube clips from the auditions, especially the "hand a toy lion to a 55kg man" round, we'd love you to e-mail them to us. If we amass enough photographs we could probably pad the whole thing out for a week or so.
Before they even start the Tour, the six Brandt hostesses have already faced some stiff competition.
Determined to uncover the bubbliest girls, the sponsor of the Fighting Spirit Prize launched a grand-scale recruiting operation, worthy of American Idol or Pop Star, relayed by the company's web site. 600 young women signed up from all over France, providing a picture. Given grades by the public via the web site, they took part in highly-selective castings in Lille, Montpellier and Toulouse. The 3 members of the jury held 150 auditions to assess their appearance, ease, wit and vivacity, and video highlights can be seen on line.
After such a promising debut in front of the camera, Brandt's ambassadors are set to move on to greater things: with their red dresses, they are sure to be seen all over the world giving champions a peck on the cheek!
If anybody has any photos or YouTube clips from the auditions, especially the "hand a toy lion to a 55kg man" round, we'd love you to e-mail them to us. If we amass enough photographs we could probably pad the whole thing out for a week or so.
A new weekly summary thing that we'll probably never do again
Published by Halverde on 7/05/2007 at 09:19.
Here's a fun list of things we've learned in the not-quite-a-week since we last updated. We really love lists.
CONI are so wacky.
"Oil for Drugs" is such a stupid name that we actually thought that somebody was having us on. But no, it really is a genuine investigation (you can tell because it's been going since 2004 and it's still not even close to reaching any kind of resolution). It's all so haphazard that we're not entirely sure who's implicated and who isn't, something that's further confounded everyone with CONI's decision to ban Petacchi for a year and seemingly ignore Piepoli's non-negative test at the same time. Hooray, we said a bad thing about an anti-doping body -- this is bound to get us a mention on Trust But Verify.
CyclingNews.com is a million times more valuable than this site.
According to our last stock market valuation, DerailedUK was worth £2.20 provided we threw in the keyring we got at the top of Mont Ventoux and the Che Guevara hat we bought in Amsterdam. We were generally pleased by this. But now that CyclingNews has sold for £2,200,000, we're starting to feel a little insignificant. Hopefully this will kickstart a series of cycling website buyouts as major publishers scramble to get in on the action, and we'll be able to sell this site for £50,000 and retire to a small studio flat in a rougher part of Hull.
"Tip Top Girls" is a geniune contest.
At least, it is according to a badly-translated press release we've received. Luckily, said press release includes such words as "stiff", "members", "ease" and "cheek", so we're planning on turning this into a full update at some point this week. We like it when ASO makes it easier for us to keep this site updated (with smut).
Cycling.TV's prologue preview is the best in the world. Ever.
Us being nice about things is happening increasingly often, but that's just payola and most of you have learned to just scroll past it and get to the next bit where we go all "scathing". However, Cycling.TV's prologue preview is actually really good. At least ten times better than all the hyperbole of the print media and the helmet-cam nonsense of the rest of the internet, in fact. Rumour has it that they actually got arrested filming it, which means they've overtaken us in the "piss off lots of authority figures in the name of cycling journalism" stakes.
CONI are so wacky.
"Oil for Drugs" is such a stupid name that we actually thought that somebody was having us on. But no, it really is a genuine investigation (you can tell because it's been going since 2004 and it's still not even close to reaching any kind of resolution). It's all so haphazard that we're not entirely sure who's implicated and who isn't, something that's further confounded everyone with CONI's decision to ban Petacchi for a year and seemingly ignore Piepoli's non-negative test at the same time. Hooray, we said a bad thing about an anti-doping body -- this is bound to get us a mention on Trust But Verify.
CyclingNews.com is a million times more valuable than this site.
According to our last stock market valuation, DerailedUK was worth £2.20 provided we threw in the keyring we got at the top of Mont Ventoux and the Che Guevara hat we bought in Amsterdam. We were generally pleased by this. But now that CyclingNews has sold for £2,200,000, we're starting to feel a little insignificant. Hopefully this will kickstart a series of cycling website buyouts as major publishers scramble to get in on the action, and we'll be able to sell this site for £50,000 and retire to a small studio flat in a rougher part of Hull.
"Tip Top Girls" is a geniune contest.
At least, it is according to a badly-translated press release we've received. Luckily, said press release includes such words as "stiff", "members", "ease" and "cheek", so we're planning on turning this into a full update at some point this week. We like it when ASO makes it easier for us to keep this site updated (with smut).
Cycling.TV's prologue preview is the best in the world. Ever.
Us being nice about things is happening increasingly often, but that's just payola and most of you have learned to just scroll past it and get to the next bit where we go all "scathing". However, Cycling.TV's prologue preview is actually really good. At least ten times better than all the hyperbole of the print media and the helmet-cam nonsense of the rest of the internet, in fact. Rumour has it that they actually got arrested filming it, which means they've overtaken us in the "piss off lots of authority figures in the name of cycling journalism" stakes.
