Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Hell of the North

Magnus Backstedt won the Paris-Roubaix bicycle race today. I missed all but the last ten minutes of the tv coverage, so by the time I turned in on they were already in the velodrome. It wasn't rainy today, though, so it wasn't quite the crazy, dramatic mud bog that it can be sometimes.

Paris-Roubaix is a single-day race known for a good part of the course being run over cobblestone streets. Those of you with road bikes know how well those skinny tires transmit every bump and rut; can you imagine cobblestones? And when it rains, those cobbles are viciously slick, not to mention muddy.

There are pictures, like this one from 2001, where riders are barely recognizable. Postal's George Hincapie, by the way, had a good shot at winning that race but for a flat tire. That's one of the things that makes cycling so exciting to watch, you can never be sure of an outcome 'til the end.

In non-racing cycling news, the Cofidis team is in the middle of a big doping scandal. I'm not much of a Cofidis fan (mostly because of the way they dropped Armstrong in the middle of his cancer treatment), but I'll be really sorry if these allegations are true, especially if David Millar is really involved. Mostly because I get my cycling news from English-language sites, the English/Australian/American riders are the ones I know most about, so they sort of become my favorites by default.

Actually, I think Millar is a Scot, but you get my drift. Anyway, I like him, and I'll be disappointed if he ends up busted.

It is giving me something to think about besides hockey, though.

Posted by Nic at April 11, 2004 10:05 PM