Wannabe Bike Girl

Edvald Boasson Hagen has a lot going for him. He’s young, he’s strong, he’s Norwegian Time Trial champion (best everyone’s favorite Norwegian, Thor Hushovd). And, best of all? He’s winning.

When I first hear that Hagen was going to T-Mobile, I was upset (same with Mr. Thomas Lövkvist). But, it turns out that T-Mobile went away, replaced by High Road and … Even though they have Hincapie, who I don’t like, the team is pretty awesome. Which was totally a surprise for me.

Speaking of surprises, unrelated to Boasson Hagen though, Slipstream turned out to be a dud for me. Not the team or their accomplishments, but the fact that they changed their style (in my eyes). Last season they were this upstart, US team with nothing to lose. This season they’ve imported talent — good talent, don’t get me wrong. But it feels like a thrown together team. I know that, really, this is an off year, but I miss the fun that was Slipstream last year.

I think I’m just too picky and spoiled to be a Slipstream fan, which sucks because I like Steven Cozza, Trent Lowe, and Lucas Euser. I liked the NY Times article my mother sent me last year. I like how these guys are really dedicated. But I just don’t like the team. I suppose I had it coming. I have always said that it’s hard for me to like teams in cycling. Never hard for me to dislike them, just hard to like. I had that problem, even when I liked Christian Werner on T-Mobile, hell even back in the days when I liked Hamilton and Armstrong (ugh). I think that maybe the only team I really liked completely was FDJ, and that didn’t last.

Anyway, I lost the point somewhere around here. Just that while High Road isn’t my favorite, I do like Boasson Hagen and I especially like it when he wins things.

Photo (c) jaydoubleyougee @ flickr.

It’s becoming harder and harder for me to watch cycling. And before you jump to any conclusions, let me make a couple of things clear. This post has nothing to do with the price of cycling.tv, nor the availability of free streams or doping in any way. Instead, this has to do with the way my life has changed. And what I say when I mean watching cycling, is really everything that goes with it. Watching and following it online (whether at cyclingnews or Podium Cafe).

None of this is related to doping, which I am sure many people expect. But, instead, this is directly related to working. I go to bed early and get up early or I got to bed late and get up late. My sleep schedule is directly related to one thing — work. The thing that makes cycling different from soccer is that cycling tends to go on longer, the start times aren’t readily available to me (at least not as easily as the soccer ones) and most of the races tend to start when I’m rushing around getting ready for work.

Really, I love going to work at 9 am on a Saturday morning (I work every Saturday, just so you know). I’m not really whining about my inability to watch, mostly the fact that it’s a pain in the ass. Especially this year. For the first time my boys are doing well. Or at least they were (kidding, I know they’ll win again). But this is the year that I feel the only race I can watch in full will probably be the TDF and only if Verses is showing it and I can record it. Otherwise, I just don’t have the time.

And now for the thing that’ll shock some of you. I don’t care that I can’t watch. I get far too much into sports and my emotions are wrapped up in the riders (players/teams) that I love. And when they lose, it’s like I’m losing (read this to see what I mean). Which means that watching this stuff is stressful. We’re talking nerve-wracking, stomach twisting, make myself sick kind of stress. Yes, I know this makes no sense and it’s probably unhealthy, but this is how I am a fan. I already follow so many sports that watching one less live is much better for me. Of course, that doesn’t stop me completely from having an emotional response. I practically cried when Sylvain won some of the races/stages.

I get emotional about sports, it’s who I am. And cycling is clearly no exception. I miss watching cycling, up to a point. I don’t miss hating the riders who win when my boys don’t. I don’t miss the heart-in-throat moments as the finish line approaches. But I do miss the excitement, the thrill of watching my favorite rider cross the line. But the world rolls on without me, it’s not necessary for me to watch every race that Sylvain races in. Last year I watched almost every single match Arsenal played. I can’t do it this year and I had to tell myself that it’s not that important. I watch what I can and that’s okay. And the same applies to cycling.

Not being able to watch the races doesn’t make me less of a fan. It might make me disconnected and out of touch, but it doesn’t mean I love the sport any less, because I don’t.

(The Dwars door Vlaanderen picture in the post was taken by lieven_vs @ flickr).

I haven’t posted about this, mostly because I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to say. I mean, you’ve read the posts below. Everyone knows how I feel about Sylvain. It’s … I don’t know, this isn’t something I’m used to. Kind of like when Arsenal got to the Champions League final or the Buckeyes were in a third national championship game in the 2007 season.

These are things that happen. Especially to people I like. And yet here we are. Sylvain’s won two good races and stages of two more huge races. He’s having an extraordinary season and I am at a loss for words. Which probably means this blog post will end up being huge. But moving back to the whole thing about Sylvain winning. To me, it’s not unexpected. I always believed he could do it, I just never thought he’d find the right races. Even during the Tour, you could see the determination, the drive that he has to win. It was just waiting for the right way to manifest itself. And it turns out, that way is found in Belgian.

I have never believed he was capable of winning the Tour de France and I’ve said so, many times. Even Sylvain himself has said that’s not what he’s capable of either. I know the French are looking for a Tour winner. They heaped so many expectations on Sylvain that it’s obvious this was one of the reasons he hasn’t won anything at TDF. Last year, though, was something special. He came so close to winning stages. He drives breakaways and he took KOM points and jerseys and was fantastic. It was clear to me that he’s only getting better.

If you ignore his two stage wins and the day of yellow at Paris-Nice, because he’s won smaller French stage races (and stages of French races), you see that he was waiting for something. It took the cobbles and bad weather for it to come through. Instead of doing what he’s doing every year, he managed to go a different route.

Without ever having raced in these two Belgian races, Sylvain managed to win both Dwars door Vlaanderen and De Brabantse Pijl. And, of course, everyone is shocked and surprised, including myself and, of course Sylvain. Because no one, not even the boy himself, knew that he was capable of winning either (or both) of these. Of course, the chances of him repeating these wins Sunday at the Ronde van Vlaanderen is low, if not highly unlikely. But he is, of course, still a favorite. While the race is potentially too long, if he’s in the right break and if his teammates are working for him, you never know what will happen.

Of course, this isn’t just about Sylvain winning races. It’s not about a Frenchman winning Belgian races and knocking the hard hitters (as it were) down a few blocks. It’s not even about the French taking back “their” sport. It’s about cycling at it’s finest. It’s about a boy I’ve believed in, practically since I started being a fan, finally proving what I knew all along. Sure, you might ask Sarah, how did you know and I really don’t have an answer for you. I could see his potential, even on that day when he should have won a stage of the tour and Armstrong had to prove a point. Or when Chris Horner ruined another one of Sylvain’s chances.

But you also have to weigh all of that alongside how much was working against Sylvain. Riding for Brioche La Boulangère made life harder for him. He had to compete with a team full of young, French riders. And it was on that team that he had to give up all hope of winning things at the Tour in order to be super domestique for Thomas Voeckler (and who can forget how hard Sylvain worked to keep Voeckler in yellow). It was really not until he left BLB for Cofidis that we saw a change in his riding. He was still, and remains even now, the best young French hope. But people have written him off. He became yet another in long list of French riders who failed to live up to their potential. Of course, that’s not the case at all.

As we’ve seen both last year and this year, he’s more than just what the French media have depicted him as. He’s special, like all people are special, but he finally seems to have found his spot. To me, it’s more than amazing. It’s everything I wanted as a fan. It’s better than rooting for Armstrong to win the Tour back in 2003. Better than Christian Werner getting to rider in the Tour. It’s better than Matt Wilson winning the Australian road race championship. To me, Sylvain winning these races proves to me that sport is not lost. That if you hang in there long enough, good things do and will happen. Of course, as a fan of team sports, I already knew this, but cycling is different.

We cannot forget, of course, that cycling is a team sport as well. Sylvain could not have won as handily as he did in any of his races without his teammates. Especially the Belgian ones. Nick Nuyens, once a QS teammate of Tom Boonen, has worked his ass off for Sylvain. There were some great pictures of Nuyens celebrating as he crossed the line. Not, of course, because he won, but because his teammate had won. And Nuyens had helped in that effort.

So, while to me this is mostly about Sylvain, it’s not just about him. As a former (reformed?) Armstrong fan, I will never forget how important the rest of the team is. And, also, as a fan of both Wilson and Werner (two tireless team riders), it’s hard to forget how vital teammates are. So, while Sylvain’s wins are great for him as an individual cyclist, they are fantastic for his team. Just as they are fantastic for his nation.

As a fan, this is as good as it gets. There’s nothing better than wins such as these, which I’ve said before. I only hope that he can keep this form until July. Just once, I’d like to see him win a stage of the Tour. Not the whole tour, not even the yellow jersey (though that would be brilliant, but too much for even him to bear — we saw what it did to Voeckler), but just one stage. A mountain one in the heart of France. That is what I want.

But if it never happens? That’s fine. Sylvain has done more for me as a fan than any other rider. And he hasn’t let me down. That, in the end, is what’s important to me. Hell, if he never wins another race, I’m okay with that (though that’s highly unlikely to happen). I’m proud of him and proud to be a fan of cycling. And nothing can take that away from me.