MS150 and the Week in Review Quiz

Congratulations to all the COMO MS150 cyclists out there. You put some good miles on your legs, and gave your bikes some sweet love they deserved. And you raised money for a wonderful cause! Many of you wrote to me asking if I would be there, but alas, I was stuck at work this weekend and unable to join in the festivities. Boo.  Before we get to the Week in Review Quiz, I thought in honor of everyone's participation in the MS150, I would put together an MS150 Cyclist Style and Etiquette rating scale. Tally your scores.

1) Did you ride all 150 miles?
If yes, give yourself 50 points. If you rode anything less, you get 35 points for at least showing up. If you rode the double century option, answer the following question: Did you tell more than 3 people about it? If 'yes', deduct 10 points for being smug.

2) Did you wear a jersey from a UCI Professional Continental, Continental or ProTeam (Examples include Garmin Slipstream, Astana, Columbia HTC)? 
-Were you NOT on a road bike? Deduct 5 points for clashing cycling cultures.
-Were you on a road bike? Deduct 10 points: you are a poseur.
-Deduct 20 points if you were sporting the full kit (team jersey AND bibs).
-Add 10 points if you were wearing retro pro-kit from a team that has been defunct for more than 20 years (not including 7-Eleven or any team Greg LeMond raced for, because he’s gone weird on us).

-Add 20 points if the above non-LeMond, now-defunct team kit was made of wool.

3) Were you sporting a Garmin Edge 705 GPS unit on your handlebars?
-Deduct 10 points: Seriously, the roads are well marked, there are like 1000 other cyclists to guide the way, and this is a fund raiser in mid-Missouri. You're not training in the Dolomites.

4) If you were riding a road bike, did you attempt to draft off of anyone on a recumbent, mountain or hybrid bike?
-Fail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go directly to FAIL.

5) Did you drop anyone on the ride that 1) you didn’t know and 2) you were initially drafting off of for more than 20 seconds without permission?
-Deduct 10 points for each occurrence, unless:
a) You said “nice pull” to them as you passed: Then only deduct 5. You still should have spoken to them before you started drafting in the first place.
b) You said absolutely nothing as you passed: Deduct 25 points UNLESS one of the following situations occurred:
-1)The rider you dropped was older than 17 but younger than 40 and you receive mail from the AARP. Add 25 points.
-2)The cyclist in front of you was riding a road bike valued at more than $4000 and he/she had hairy legs and/or an inverse belly-to-calf diameter ratio. They don’t ride enough to deserve their bike so you get grudge points – but not a lot. Add 5.
-3)They vomited and/or snot-rocketed and/or crop dusted you while you were drafting. You dropped them in self-defense. Deduct 5 – you still should have spoken to them before drafting off of them.

6) If you were the person in #5 above that had an unwelcome wheelsucker that did not greet you and drafted for more than 20 seconds….
Add 5 points for snot-rocketing them.
Add 10 for crop dusting (but deduct 15 if you hit mud. Not cool. Ever).

Ok – on to the Week in Review quiz.

Question #1: What is this?

a) Mark Cavendish's Dimple Rumpy

b) Fried flopped Mutton

c) A half-eaten Clif Bar

d) A deep-fried Oreo Cookie

Answer: d).  As featured on VeloNews' coverage of the Tour of Missouri, they highlighted some fine Missouri cuisine and included this delicacy.  Something for all of us to be proud of - eh?  Watch it here.

Question #2:  What happened to this cyclist (Anibal Borrajo) during stage 5 (the time trial) of the Tour of Missouri?

a) He hit mud while trying to crop dust.

b) He double-punctured.

c) He got hit by a car.

d) He set a new Tour of Missouri Time Trial speed record.

Answer: c)  Yup.  Borrajo races for Colavita-Sutter Home and inside the last two kilometers of his time trial run, he was hit by an event VIP car on the course, knocking him off the road.  He was fine other than a little road rash but the crash broke his front wheel.  Because he had no team chase car, he ended up waiting10 minutes at which point Columbia HTC's support vehicle actually stopped to help him so he could finish the stage.  Nice.  Read about it here.

Question #3: This bike was photographed on Ninth Street by yours truly.  What is the name of this handlebar configuration?

a) The double flop-and-chops

b) Pork chop and flops

c) Flip-flop and chops

d) 'the pronghorn'

Answer: d)  I've never seen this configuration before, and honestly, cannot understand it.  Does the rider really feel the need for extra bar-end extensions inside the flopped chops?  I think this beast is as yet, unclassified, so I get to name it myself, and I'm calling it 'the pronghorn' for the obvious similarities  to pronghorn antelope.

Incidentally - the above photograph is actually a cropped portion of a larger photograph (seen below), which is the original version I found on the internet when I did a search for images of pronghorn antelope.

As you can see, this pronghorn is no longer with us.  But his head is.  And it has been mounted and then posed in the great outdoors.  So let's see...it was shot out in the wild, brought inside, had all of its internal structures replaced with sawdust and glass eyes and shit, and then taken back outside into the wild to be photographed up close as though it were still alive.  Wouldn't it have been easier to just leave it alive and in the wild and photograph it with a telephoto lens?  Maybe I've missed the point.

Question #4: Identify this object:

a) A six-pack cooler that attaches to your bike.
b) The new, slightly less hip, front-end messenger bag from Chrome.
c) The new insulated carrier for pizza-delivery-cyclists.
d) A dog-carrier for your bike.

Answer: d) It even comes with a little sunshield so you don't burn your Chihuahua.  Check it here.

If you scored 4/4, take your oreo cookie for a ride in its front-end basket and help yourself to a deep-fried Chihuahua...wait a minute - reverse that.

Pedal on!

Observations on the Tour of Missouri

As with any cycling fanatic in the US, and certainly in Missouri, it was with great excitement that I recently attended several of the stages of the ongoing Tour of Missouri (TOM); specifically, the finish of Stage 4 in Jefferson City and the entirety of the Time Trial in Sedalia, Stage 5.  Several things have always impressed me about this race, most of which is the accessibility to certain cycling Gods that we usually only get to see on TV or webcasts as they ride through Europe.  This year's TOM has no shortage of true legends that can make any grown cycling fan (yours truly certainly included) feel and act like a little girl at a Backstreet Boys concert back in the day.  Marco Pinotti, David Zabriskie, Jens Voigt, George Hincapie, Yaroslav Popovych, Levi Leipheimer, Franco Pelizotti, Floyd Landis and Thor Hushovd are but a few in this year's contest. 

But these guys are seasoned veterans.  They have have been around the proverbial crit circuit more than a few times and have experienced the richest life that the upper echelon of pro-cycling can offer to be sure:  from racing through the rain-soaked streets of Barcelona, up the crowd-packed course of l'Alpe D'huez, time trialing through Monaco and finally coursing down the Champs-Elysees - and that was all just at the Tour de France and doesn't even consider the thousands of other European destinations these pros will ride through and the millions of obsessed fans that will flock to watch them over the course of a season.

So I'm left asking myself - "I wonder what they think of Missouri?"  Thus I set out to compile a little data and try to do a comparative analysis of racing in Missouri versus elsewhere and in so doing have made some observations.

Observation #1:
One of the pillars of any major professional bike race has become the "podium girl.'  You've seen them.  They are the lovely, statuesque ladies, typically perched on stilletoes, who hand the winner the trophy, kiss him on both cheeks and then pose with the champion of the day for the photographers.  They are certainly no stranger to Thor Hushovd.  He has had an excellent season, in spite of the dominance of the Manx Missile (aka Dimple Rumpy).  Here is a picture of Thor at the 2009 Tour of California with an all-too-common Barbiesque podium girl besmocked in red.

Thor has also had a very good Tour of Missouri - having won a stage and been the bearer of both the yellow and green jerseys, thus has gotten some podium time in our great state as well.  Here is Thor with a red-clad Tour of Missouri podium girl.

Observation #2:
Anyone who has watched the Tour de France is probably very familiar with the wildly popular costumed fan hailing from Germany named Dieter "Didi" Senft whose alter ego is The Devil.  He frequents many of the stages of each year's race and taunts the cyclists, screaming and gesticulating with his pitch fork and hellish guise, seen here:

Watching the finish of Stage 4 the other night in Jefferson City, I got to see the Tour of Missouri's version of The Devil at the jersey presentation and snapped a picture of him.  He apparently comes from Clark, Missouri and goes by the name, The Mad Mennonite.

Their tacts are quite different in taunting the racers.  While The Devil of the European scene prefers to evoke the fury of hell and the terror of Satan himself in reminding the cyclists how badly they are already suffering by mocking and laughing at them......

the Mad Mennonite chooses instead to be reticent and pensive, harshly staring at his pedalling victims with cold eyes behind dark sunglasses, loathing their brightly colored costumes and willing them to think twice about whether they will have the strength to finish without the assistance of a horse, or strong mule to pull their carbon buggies along.

Observation #3:

Everywhere the golden fleece of the maillot jaune goes in the Tour de France (worn by Alberto Contador here), he is surrounded by throngs of fans, eager to catch a glimpse or possibly a discarded bidon souvenir of the rider who possesses the talent and dedication to have ascended to such lofty, and select heights of the cycling elite.

At the Tour of Missouri, the yellow jersey bearer (JJ Haedo here) is given time to reflect upon his accomplishments alone and is always encouraged to recycle his used water bottles instead of casting them along the roadside as trash.

In all seriousness, the TOM is an amazing event and opportunity to bring some of the world's greatest cyclists to our very doorstep.  In addition, it allows Americans to see great American cyclists race.  I've long felt it was an absolute shame that such prestigious US athletes like our current national champions Hincapie and Zabriskie can be recognized in Europe more than in their own country where they must travel with relative anonymity, hardly receiving a mention from the conventional, non-cycling-centric sports media. Recently interviewed regarding the future of the TOM, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder said, "Nothing is guaranteed. We signed a three-year contract to do three races and this is the third year of that contract. As things stand now, unless we race supporters can pull together a herculean effort, I think that's what it would take [for there] to be a fourth edition of the Tour of Missouri."

Let's hope the Mad Mennonite has some tricks (and money) up his sleeves.

Pedal on.

The Manx Missile comes to Missouri

Yes indeed, just a week away from the start of the 2009 Tour of Missouri. I have been trying to decide what I might be most excited about regarding the upcoming tour. Our two National Champions, George Hincapie and David Zabriskie competing in the Show-Me-State? The return to racing of cycling legends who were injured in this year's Tour de France, Levi Leipheimer and Jens Voigt? The entry of the TdF's 'king of the mountains' and polka-dot jersey bearer, Franco Pellizotti?

No, no and no.

For me - it's all about seeing Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile.

Now, you may ask, what is up with his nickname? Let's take the second part first: Missile. Everyone knows what a missile is...it's an object that is fired, thrown or dropped, or otherwise chucked at a target. A projectile of sorts. Well this makes sense. Cavendish certainly is an object that is frequently projected.

Now let's take a look at the first part: Manx. For those of you who aren't aware, Cavendish is originally from the Isle of Man. The term 'Manx' may be used to refer to anything pertaining to the Isle of Man, or its people, language or culture. However, it may also be used in reference to the animals of the Isle of Man. Hence the elusive Manx cat!

Now what is peculiar to the Manx cat breed is that they all possess a mutation which leaves them either with a tiny stub of a tail, or more frequently, they have no tail at all. It is for this reason that in the Manx language, they are called 'stubbin.' Based on how much of a tail they are born with (or without as the case may be), they can be sub-classified and named accordingly. For example, a Manx kitten born completely tail-less is called a Dimple Rumpy because there is a dimple where the stubbin ought to be.

For anyone who has been watching any cycling this year, you are well aware that one of Cavendish's favorite and most endearing things to do is to execute an elaborate gesture for when he crosses the finish line in first place. Think on this for a moment, because this demonstrates what a careful tactition and master racer he is. I can imagine him sitting on the edge of his hotel room bed the night before a big race deciding which gesture he will perform the following day when he beats everyone else. Some examples:

This is the "I am so far out in front of you as I finish this stage, that I no longer need my glasses to shield my eyes from your sweat" salute that he gave to Thor Hushovd, recently.

And here is the "I'm calling long distance to my rivals because they are so far behind me" salute he passed on to the rest of the bunch sprint.

And of course, this is his patented "I am cupping my ear to hear if there are any other cyclists behind me, but it is so difficult because they are so far away," salute to his respected colleagues.

But this last one is a bit of a mystery, even to me, the most die-hard of Cavendish fans. I think he's trying to convey one of two things here.

Either a) he secretly wishes to be a ballerina.

Or b) he is demonstrating truly why he is called the Manx Missile by highlighting the dimple where the stubbin ought to be.

I vote b).

Welcome back to Missouri, Cav....you prince of of the Dimple Rumpys.