Velo Angels - Ride, Girls. Ride.

The Rules of the Road

Professional cycling is the most unusual sport where an individual goes up on the podium, but a team gets him there.  Just think about how crazy that is -- only one person gets the glory of the victory, but it takes an entire 9 person team each with his own roll, to put the one star in the right position at the right time to take the win.  

 

That's the crazy part -- the most important person on the team that day could be the person who dropped out halfway through, because he spent all his time while in the race shielding his teammates from the wind, grabbing water bottles chasing down a break.

A lot of my favorite riders are those guys -- the ones who bang their heads against the wall for miles on end while their teammates, the stars, are able to keep protected and fresh for the end.  They don't win much, but they are absolutely worth their weight in gold for their teammates.

 

Lots of times, these guys are setting the stage for the opportunists.  These are like the backup plan for the team.  Most every team has the one star, the one who the whole structure is built around -- but every team knows that too, so every team is watching the same stars.  So a lot of times those teams will send someone else up the road, to take the pressure of the star, and to have another option just in case the star can't get away.

  

These attackers can make it up the road and win sometimes, but in the end of the day, the stars are stars for a reason.  They know how to win, and they do it a lot.  Men like Boonen, Cavendish, Cancellara and Armstrong just have that killer instinct, to constantly react the right way when they are in the right position.  But they can only put in the right place at the right time.  And that's due to the efforts of their teammates, men who never make the podium, but have earned the victory just as much as the stars have.

 

Ah, cycling ...... the Classics

Wow, quite the introduction from Mai, so guess I have to actually say something now! As Mai said, I'm a boring lawyer who for some strange reason loves pro cycling. My own love goes back a long, long time -- I read an article about Greg LeMond when he was still with Renault, and then in 1985 I saw him battling with his teammate, the French asshat Bernard Hinault.

Hinault had crashed and broken his nose the day before, and LeMond was minutes ahead and was ready to take the yellow jersey but he was ordered back. Needless to say, I was hooked after that drama.

Since then I've stayed with the sport through doping scandals, through Indurain winning 5 Tours in a row in the most boring way possible and then Lance completely changing the sport by winning 7 Tours and absolutely nothing else. But through all that, I just fell in love with the tactics, the drama, and the insane suffering these men put themselves through.

But before we talk about the personalities, the teams, the tactics, and the drama, we should first start at the beginning -- just what the hell are they doing out there? When it comes to pro cycling, you kind of break everything up into 3 distinct categories -- the Classics, the Grand Tours, and everything else.

First, my favorite, the Classics. The Classics are one day races, where every man gives everything they have over 6 hours of racing. The Classics start with Milan San Remo, a sprinters Classic in Italy that can sometimes be won by strong men surprising the peleton by attacking near the end. Overall I find this to be pretty boring given the team tactics involved.

 

Next are the cobbled Classics -- races won by hard men, racing over cobblestones in the Flanders region of Belgium and northern France. The most famous of these is Paris-Roubaix, the hell of the north, though I personally love the Tour of Flanders myself. These are crazy tough races with sick short climbs -- 20% for a kilometer or less -- just good stuff I tell you.

 

Later in the Spring are the Ardennes Classics, Liege Bastogne Liege and Amstel Gold. These are races through the gorgeous hills in the Ardennes forest of Belgium and Holland, and Mai loves these mostly because her boy Andy won Liege last year. 

Finally, at the end of the year, you have the Giro di Lombardia -- the race of falling leaves.  If you want some gorgeous scenery, this is probably the best race for you, and it always seems to be won by someone attacking at the right time, which always makes for an exciting race.

These are all hard races for hard men -- races requiring a bit of luck, good tactics, and pure strength to win.  Everything is decided by one day where you give everything you have, and for me at least, there is just nothing better than that.

As Mai said, I clearly have a lot to talk about here, so I'll leave you with the one-day goodness, and in the next few days we'll get back to the rest that pro cycling has to offer.