Perfect timing.

Steebs had enough time to make out with his Crux and still give the classic victory salute as Sven rues his last lap slip ups from behind.

Zdenek Stybar had the cyclocross world wondering all season what his plans for the world championships were. He played coy throughout the season as to whether or not he'd be racing in today's big race in Hoogerheide. He had ridden well in a number of world cup races many times playing the aggressor, but seemed to be having more fun doing supercross style jumps than racing for wins. When he finally announced the week before last that he would indeed make an appearance in the big race it set the cx world abuzz. You see, since he turned his focus on road racing and a pursuit of spring classics glory and cut back on his CX ambitions things just haven't been the same. His classic battles with Belgians Sven Nys and Neils Albert are the stuff of legend were sorely missed...until today.

That's all she wrote for Sven - Stybar stayed on and Nyes had to dismount, he never got close after that.

The racing was vicious and just over half way through the race it became apparent that our prayers were going to be answered and we were going to be treated to another battle royale between Nys and Stybar. They traded places at the front a number of times - sometimes on purpose and sometimes on accident. Heading into the last lap the crowd was at a fever pitch and Sven led them through the start/finish line with Stybar hot on his tail.  About a third of the way though Stybar powered through on Nys' left and put the current champ in discomfort to say the least. Sven was having trouble getting back on his wheel but was still within reach until the turn shown above. It was a muddy, sweeping, slightly off camber left that Stybar was able to ride through and Sven - very uncharacteristically - took a bad line in his haste to close the gap. He had to dismount and by the time he righted the ship Stybar was gone and had time to prepare his victory salute. 

SC WC Podium - Stybar, Nyes, Pauwels.

It was a great race with Pauwels coming in a solid third and filling out the Belgian contingent on the podium. Nys as always was gracious in defeat and Stybar was a deserving winner and looked great in his 3rd rainbow jersey in the last 5 years. 

Lucky folks in the crowd. 

All in all it was a great race as expected. All the best were there and the two (arguably) best CX racers in the last decade gave the crowd, and the rest of us, a true treat. Stybar is looking strong and it bodes well for his chances in the spring classics in the coming months. Here's hoping he can improve on his 6th place in last years Paris-Roubaix and the rest of the monuments this spring.

There will be mud.

Zdenek Stybar will make an appearance at the UCI CX Worlds - Photo credit: Dan Seaton/VeloNews.jpg

It's time. It's world champs time in the UCI Cyclocross series this weekend. Going to be some great racing with all of the big boys in attendance. Even Styby has confirmed that he'll be present and with the recent rains it should be nice and muddy for the weekend as the course in Hoogerheide just loves to hold water for days after a heavy deluge. The UCI youtube channel will hopefully be showing the racing live here in the states, but it's not a sure thing due to the Universal sports deal. If not you can always try Sports-livezz, Procyclinglive or Cyclingfans. 

Whatever you do make sure you find some way to watch one of the greatest sporting events of the year, and then you can watch that other big sporting event happening this weekend... whatever that may be. 

The beauty and innocence of childhood - through a go pro?

  

Helmet cams are everywhere these days. They catch the best and the worst of bicycling, skateboarding, action sports and pretty much any other type of activity you can think of. I have seen some amazing footage of all different types of cycling on the net, especially mountain biking, but I can honestly say I've never watched a P.O.V. video that put a bigger smile on my face than this one did. This youngster of only four years of age is named Malcom. His father Dan set him up with a helmet cam and then took him down Hellion at Highland MTB Park in Maine. Apparently it was the first time Malcom had tackled the first ramp, and his joy and pride at doing it comes through loud and clear for us all to enjoy. This kid is going to be a ripper for sure, already shreding some serious trail on a 16" rigid hardtail BMX bike. Wouldn't be surprised to see this kid on a World Cup podium someday. Thanks to Mainehaole on youtube for sharing his experience with the rest of us. 

If you ain't cheatin'....

Why Vince McMahon? - read the cracked article and you'll understand. Photo credit: WWE

You ain't tryin'. I came across this article on Cracked about 5 of the dumbest ways people/teams have won (big!) in sports. While well worth the read, it is a hilariously sad tribute to how - for some folks - winning is all that matters and the ends justify the means no matter how gross a reinterpretation or stretching of the rules it might take. How does this apply to us? Well take a look at number four on the list. It re-tells the sad tale of the UK's Philip Hindes and his brazen flopping to get a restart in the 2012 Olympic team sprint.

Hindes in the middle of his floparoo - Photo credit: PA

Hindes was the lead rider in the 3 man team sprint crew followed by Jason Kenny and anchored by Sir Chris Hoy. As he came out of the block he started to wobble, flailed for a second and then fell down the track. The Olympics use UCI rules for the event and as such, any rider/team falling during a team sprint by mechanical or accidental means is awarded a restart.

This is where things get sticky... when asked about the fall immediately after the race Hindes professed the following “We were saying if we have a bad start we need to crash to get a restart. I just crashed, I did it on purpose to get a restart, just to have the fastest ride. I did it. So it was all planned, really.” - Insert loud record scratching sound here. 

Even though the Olympic committee heard these words and knew about the shenanigans the team was allowed to take the restart and went on to win the gold. Immediately after the race Hindes was asked about it again in another BBC interview stating “I just did it to get the restart. My first wasn’t the greatest so I thought to get the restart.”

Once word started to get around the British Olympic team issued a laughable response to the whole issue saying that due to English being Hindes second launguage (He was born in Germany) he misunderstood the question and that the fall was completely accidental after all. For his part, Hindes changed his story to "No, I just went out of the gate and just lost control, just fell down...My back wheel slipped and totally lost control and I couldn't handle the bike any more and just crashed." 

He went on to give another interview proclaiming in clearly understandable English how it was his inability to understand English clearly which caused him to say that he had crashed on purpose and that it was all planned in advance by his team if he started poorly. Click the photo of Phil below to watch for yourself.

Hindes keeping a straight face. - Screen grab via: The Telegraph

After watching that video it is clear that his near complete mastery of the English language would have been thrown off by the question "what happened?". 

But I digress, most will probably say no harm no foul because the Brits were obviously the better team as evidenced by their prodigious haul of medals that summer. For me however it's always a question of integrity, of winning with panache. Not winning by getting away with stretching a rules. It reminds me of the Piti principle that the Velominati keepers subscribe to:

"The Piti Principle - Punishment for violating the spirit of the law: A model of punishment wherein a competitor is sanctioned for abusing the system while still technically staying within the guidelines."

If this is not an example of that I don't know what is. 

Third times a charm.

Podium girls go round the outside. Gerrans in pure bliss after winning a 3rd TDU - Photo Credit: No Idea.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow? I have to admit that I have no idea what day, or what time of said unknown day it is in Australia. What I do know is that local boy (on a global scale at least) Simon Gerrans knows what day it is... it's the day he won his record third overall Tour Down Under stage race and then got smooched up on by two lovely Australian sheila's in front of a few thousand of his biggest fans. After having stood on the top step of the podium in 2006 and 2012 he was arguably the big favorite to win this years edition, and though he faced stiff competition all week, his consistency put him at the top in the end with a first, second, third, fourth and fifth place (not in that order) in the first five races. Only his 11th place in todays final stage saw him finish outside of the top five, but he was merely playing it safe and insuring that the slim one second lead he held over Cadel Evans remained intact. 

It was another excellent performance in his home tour and a 9th Australian victory in 16 editions of the TDU, a race where the home grown riders take defending their turf seriously. Four of the top five spots this year were filled by Aussies (Evans in 2nd, Porte in 4th and young Nathan Haas in 5th joined Gerrans.) with only Italian Diego Ulissi crashing the party in third place. There was excellent racing all week long in the intense heat and one can only hope that the rest of the calendar can hold a candle to the way the 2014 Tour Down Under started things off. 

A Colombian affair.

Kingtana doin' work. Photo credit: James Startt

This photo shows the real story of todays final climbing stage in this years Tour de San Luis in Argentina. The pace up the Mirador Del Sol was set by race leader Nairo Quintana. He had to do the work because of an attack by the diminutive Italian Domenico Pozzovivo shown behind him to the right in the photo above. The AG2R rider was one of the only true dangers to Quintana's bid for the top step of the podium and when he attacked, the Colombian - who had no teammates left in the lead group - was forced to forgo any thoughts of a stage win to insure that he consolidated his overall chances. This left the door wide open for his young countryman Julian Arrendondo to play it smart and ride Nairo's wheel until the very end when he sprinted around to finish a slim 1 second ahead of Argentinian Sergio Godoy and 4 more ahead of Quintana who rolled across third on the stage, but improved his overall lead over Garmin's Phil Gaimon to 35 seconds. 

The next Nairo? Julian Arredondo is turning heads in Argentina - Photo credit: Tour de San Luis

Not to discount what Arredondo accomplished today. In his first stage race in his maiden season as a full time world tour rider for the Trek factory team he has won 2 of the 6 stages thus far. Adding to the impressiveness is the fact that he has done it on two of the hardest climbing stages against some of the best pure climbers in the business. He has also shown an intelligence and tactical thought process that belies his young age of only 25 years. He was patient on stage 2's final climb up the Mirador del Potrero de los Funes. Allowing Phil Gaimon to do the lions share of the work in hopes of picking up the GC lead (which he did) and then out-sprinting him at the line for the win. He took a similar position  today and the results were the same with the young Colombian solidifying a second victory and confirming Trek's belief that he was ready to play a role for them on the World Tour stage. 

Out front. Again and again.

Jens - right where you'd expect him to be. Photo credit: Yuzuru Sunada

Insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Some would say this description applies to every breakaway that Jens Voigt is ever a part of these days, but he just can't help it. It's not in his DNA to not attack, to not fight and to not cause pain to his opponents. Besides, we've been witness to him making some of the most ridiculous attacks stick during his career, so who are we to doubt him?

Few things in cycling make me happier than to watch Jens power away from the front of the peloton with 85 kilometers and two cat 1 climbs to go. I laugh at the incredulous thoughts that must be rolling through the pack's collective mind as they see him attack time and again like a boxer who is outclassed by his opponent but won't go down. It pains you to watch but you can't help but root for them...and hope for a miracle knock out in the last round. 

There would be no miracle knock out for Jensie today. He was caught by the peloton just as he crested Wilunga hill for the first time. They went around and up again and young Richie Porte returned the favor to Cadel Evans and took a solid win on the queen stage of this years Tour Down Under. Simon Gerrans was on form and crossed the line with Diego Ulissi 5 seconds ahead of Evans to take the Ochre jersey back by one second.

Gerrans may well win the overall for a record third time but for many of the fans the real star of the show finished 4 minutes and 35 seconds back in 53rd place, but with the peace of mind to know that he gave every thing he had today - just like he has for nearly two decades.