It's Dope-Free Friday, which means a rapid search through our bookmarks to find something interesting to write about, because otherwise we'd have to put something up here on No Update Weekend or Can't Be Arsed Monday, and that's just not something we're prepared to do.


Bikerfox then. The joke is that he's not sexy but says he is. Which is pretty much the same thing as us saying his website is funny, even though it isn't.


We bet he's American.

We don't really know where Calshot is, and we're trying to avoid learning because it sounds all Southern and would ruin our tough Northern veneer. Apparently the Calshot Track League is pretty much operating at a loss and needs more support from local cyclists, which sounds like just about every other track league in Britain, really.

Because it's getting late in the afternoon and we actually forgot we were going to take the unprecedented step of writing two updates today, we've not got anything planned to write here. We don't even have a proper press release, so we can't just copy and paste that. We DO have an entry form that we were presumably supposed to upload here, but we're not going anywhere near it because we get enough Word documents to deal with at work.

But you should definitely go to Calshot Winter Track League if you live nearby or whatever. One of our London colleagues informs us that it's very fast and less than two hours from central London, which are presumably supposed to be good points even though they sound like very bad points.

Further literature: How the proper cycling media does these reports. We'll get the hang of it soon, maybe.

Next Guilt Free Thursday:
We'll promote some more good causes. Feel free to email us about your event/company/poncey sculptures; it'll make a nice change from all the "you're just compensating for having a small penis" nonsense we normally get.

An important figure in the cycling media recently mocked us for saying that this site was anti-capitalist. But it's true -- we once looked at the pictures on the Wikipedia page for Noam Chomsky. To prove our alliances are entirely moral, here's Strike Bikes! They're a group of striking workers who occupied their factory and have resumed production of bicycles to make their own microcosmic socialist paradise. You can buy them online, or you can be A FUCKING SCAB and buy a Trek or whatever. Related news article / The Strike Bike itself.


It all sounds a lot like the plot of a Ken Loach film. Maybe even a Sergei Eisenstein film, but then you'd have to understand that footage of a horse followed by footage of a rolling wheel is supposed to imply a bicycle.

This is definitely a recurring feature for whenever we're too busy to write something interesting. On the plus side, it's got the added bonus of us possibly getting in trouble if we say anything really bad about the event.

Future Revolution at Newport Velodrome on October 13th-14th

Future Revolution is a new event developed out of the hugely
successful Revolution Series. The Future Revolution has all the
attributes of the main Revolution but is geared towards juniors acting
as a stepping stone to the racing at the main Revolution and potential
progression into the national squad.

The event will take place across two days at the Newport Velodrome
providing an exciting mix of racing for boys and girls. The programme
will be designed to test the riders to their limits as well as
providing crucial development in team skills. Races will include team
and individual sprintevents as well as plenty of endurance action with
feature Revolution events thrown in to enhance the excitement.

The Best British junior riders will line up to take on their
international rivals with riders racing for team points as well as
individual glory.

In a similar style to the Future Stars at Revolution, national teams
will race for overall glory with riders accumulating points in each
race. Teams can enter up to 10 riders so the advantage will be with the
larger squads.

With teams from the USA, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Italy already
lined up to take on the Brits the competition is set to be intense.

Come and see Chris Hoy, Ross Edgar and Craig Maclean on Saturday 13th
October!

Please visit www.futurerevolution.co.uk for more information Tickets
(0700) 5942579

Sounds a bit like normal Revolution, only it goes on for two days, takes place in a rubbish velodrome, and not as many people will be interested in watching it. We should probably be more supportive of young riders, but we've got to make up for not being able to write nasty things to go with the photos we took of the children's events at the Tour of Britain prologue.

This is beyond abysmal. The once glorious Orbea followed up their beautiful Orca with the very functional Onix, before going into complete and utter freefall. You couldn't pay us to ride this bike. It's not even fit to bunnyhop all over Jeremy Clarkson's fat, right-wing face.


The Orbea Alma. It's got a World Champion rainbow banner on it, but being World Champion at any of the mountain biking disciplines is only about two steps up from being a bit good at darts.

Look at the photography, they're not even trying anymore. The bike needs turning round so you can see its chainring, then straightening up. In a good bike photo, the cranks should be aligned so the one to the back of the bike is pointing straight up and obscured by the seat tube, presenting a straight line down to the chainring. Valves should both sit perfectly at the bottom centre of the wheels, even if this means removing the chain and realigning the wheel on a fixie.

Whoever makes our next new bike would definitely already know that.

We almost bought some champagne when we heard the result of the USADA hearing. But we didn't, largely because we were feeling a bit hypocritical after the criticisms we've been making about the UCI's handling of the Valverde case.

But whatever. This is Floyd Landis we're talking about, and we're definitely not going to go soft on the apple-faced twat. Tonight we will know the wank of the victorious, in full knowledge that he won't be racing until 2009.

We're saving reading the comments fields on Trust But Verify until bedtime tonight, so we can sleep the most contented of sleep.

A final, hilarious thing from floydlandis.com that somebody emailed us:

This may not be the place to ask this question, but it is the first place that I could find to post. I have been thinking about testosterone, the things that Floyd did differently the night before the test was conducted( have a few drinks), and where testosterone has been recorded in nature.
1)The only thing that Floyd did differently was have a drink of beer.
2) Beer is made mostly from water.
3)The water used to make the beer came from somewhere. My guess is from a "mountain stream" or maybe from a public water supply well or river or lake.
4)I make the assumpton that the beer was made in Europe.
5)I am unfamiliar with the water testing rules in Europe for water to be consumed by humans but, most likely it does not test for testosterone.

The question I would like to have an answer to: Has the beer been tested for testosterone? There must be a way to determine the lot number and the manufacturer of th beer. Test the water used to make the beer.

Thank you for considering this idea. If this has already been discussed, then please disregard.

Sincerely,
Todd Keyser

Take a look at this eBay listing and try to work out what's sexy about it.


Is it the helmet?


Is it the lack of postal insurance?


Is it any of this stuff?


Or is it the plastic tits?


Yes. We bet this page has had twice as many cyclists look at it in the past week than have bothered to watch the Vuelta this year.

We don't even know which German companies comprise the evil alliance that developed the prototype, but it's such a boring design that it's obvious that none of them employ Italians. But it only weighs 3.5kg, which means we could carry an extra 3.3kg worth of shopping home from Tescos compared to if we used a UCI legal bike. It's also probably very easy to lift onto a roof rack so you can drive it to local a park to show off with.


Five gears is the wrong amount of gears. The more gears, the better the bike. Everybody knows that.

We didn't follow the Tour of Britain this year because we were far too busy at work Googling cheats for BioShock on the Xbox 360 and looking out of windows. We made up for it by going to the race headquarters in Reading on the day before the prologue to follow riders around and spy on podium girls.


Agritubel, "Le Tubulaire Bovin". Tubes for securing cows' heads to things, apparently.


Cars. There were lots of them. They were Volkswagens, or Vauxhalls, or Vodafones. One of those V companies.


More cars. These photos are a bit boring because we weren't really feeling as michevious as we normally do when the Tour of Britain is going on.


Plus we'd been up til 3am the night before, and then had to get up quite early to get on the motorway to make sure we'd be in Reading in time for us to stand around in a car park.


Also, it was our birthday. The podium girls sang happy birthday, but it still felt like it could've been better spent. There wasn't even a cake!


But at least Tinkoff were there. We were desperate to see their crest in real life, because on photographs it always looks like the disembodied arm of a swordsman sticking out of a cloud, and a unicorn on a zebra crossing.


On closer inspection... It is exactly that. How utterly bizarre.

Tomorrow
Photos of teenage girls, plus whatever else is left on our camera from the prologue.

Here's a bike-related music video for you on this Dope Free Friday, because musicians never take drugs. It's got some Wicker Man style animal masks too, so we could probably also count this as an Animals On Bikes update. The video is from a band called Bat For Lashes, which means absolutely nothing to us but is probably a very clever and witty name for a band, possibly referencing HP Lovecraft and Captain Beefheart.



Now that everyone is goths, it makes it a lot harder to tell whether this song is supposed to be pop music or something that only twats with shit hair buy so that they can talk about the CD incessantly until they accuse the band of selling out because more than ten people own a copy. These days, even men in hockey masks screaming about slitting throats could count as pop music, so we've pretty much given up on understanding popular culture altogether.

Anyway, that's another £25 from Parlophone Records in our pocket, and we didn't even have to watch the video with the sound on this time.

Monday
Some Tour of Britain photos. If we're not too busy.

Massive improvement in world folding bike design. The loss of tiny, tiny wheels is a controversial move, but at least it could just about pass for a proper bike on a dark winter commute.

Here's the video, which looks like it was filmed in the hallway of the company's managing director's £200,000 apartment in Milton Keynes. In fact, the lonely-looking man in the video probably is the managing director himself. He may have a Blackberry and a tub of turquoise paint, but he still hasn't ever known the love of a woman.



We're sure it's not an exaggeration to suggest that this could be the greatest thing mankind has ever produced. We don't even care that it looks like it'd crumple if you took it faster than 20 miles an hour, we want one to add to our collection of silly bikes we never ride and will eventually have to sell when our parents want their garage back.

Coming soon
A load of stuff about the Tour of Britain prologue. Although the way we're going, it'll probably coincide with the race ending.

Well, it's not about cyclists doping, and should at least make us all think very, very hard about the drugs in sport issue.

Shoulder pads and steroids.

Man, four games. Cheating to win in the world's most pointless sport is one thing, but getting away with doing it? That's just naughty.

As usual, we've managed to ignore the opening week of a grand tour. We're not sure why, really; this year's Vuelta's gotten off to an uncharacteristically interesting start. Probably just laziness, or trying to avoid e-mails from mentals who want to discuss Floyd Landis and David Millar with us.

It's more or less been the Oscar Freire show, which we can live with. He's got a pretty funky face, but we like the guy. This weekend is the big one, with the race's only proper time-trial on Saturday and one of them mountain things on the Sunday, so don't miss it.

But how will you watch?!

Eurosport
Do you like tennis, volleyball and snooker? If so, you'll love Eurosport's cycling coverage. It's a real demonstration of our dedication to the sport when we keep our deceptively costly subscription to their service, despite the fact that whenever we tune in to watch a race they're usually showing something like a repeat of the 2003 World Under 12 Curling Championships Second Qualifying Round instead. But David Harmon knows his stuff, even if he seems to be slowly catching David Duffield disease. Could be time to get some disinfectant on those Eurosport commentary booths before another good commentator starts babbling about how the Spanish paint their roads, and how some no-hoper is obviously going to win the stage because he's such a bally good guy.

Cycling.tv
This wins our award for best Vuelta coverage. Live, on-demand highlights, as-live. But only the live is free and despite being at a decent 400 kbps, that 1,200 kbps will start to look pretty tempting for €21. It's not a lot of money, but if you're as tight as we are you'll probably scratch your head for two and half weeks then buy it just in time to really, really enjoy the excellent coverage of that final stage. Plus there's some steamy studio action with Rebecca Charlton, who's even prettier than that girl on the internet who you think is your girlfriend. There's also rumours abound that we'll be making an appearance on this week's show, but we're trying our damnedest to wriggle out of it, so you'll have to watch it and see.

Belgian telly
Give it up, you'll never get your Sky dish to pick that up.

The North is better than the South. In the North, girls compensate for being ugly by developing eating disorders and staying under sunbeds until they get a tumour; in the South, they just put on a pair of oversized sunglasses. In the North, men put things in their pockets, not into man-bags, and they don't talk to each other either. And, most importantly of all, the North has the National Time Trial Championships, while the best the South can offer is a bit of poncing around at somewhere called Hillingdon. Well, that and the Tour de France.

Sadly, we moved to London, where the streets are paved with gold (apart from in West London, where they appear to be paved with dog shit), so we were unable to attend the TT champs. But we did manage to send a correspondent to follow it for us. Eyes and ears everywhere, like Josef Stalin.

Everybody's favourite British rider stood on the top step of the podium -- the popular Matt Brammeier of Profel, who won the U23 event. It was a typically classy ride, winning by 50 seconds over just 29 kilometres. This is good, because we've been looking for someone to write about all the time since Valverde's name became a bit tainted. From now on, we're a Tom Boonen, Jens Voigt and Matt Brammeier fansite.


And that skinny, grumpy guy won the seniors' event, meaning he won't be seen wearing pringle lycra in road races, time-trials or individual pursuits until at least June next year.