Wannabe Bike Girl

I know there’s cycling stuff going on, so I’ll talk about a little of it. First off, Cadel Evans. Totally made the right move. He didn’t get (though I don’t know why) GT support from Lotto. Maybe it was Evans, maybe it was the team, maybe it was something else completely, I don’t know. But, for whatever reason, it wasn’t working and I think he’s made completely the right choice. Why? Because, among other things, BMC has Hincapie and while I know some people freak out at the thought of George on a team without Lance again, I don’t care (obviously). I think that George will, if he goes to the Tour in ‘10 (which I think he will, now that Evans is there), he’ll bust his ass for Evans. I might not be a fan of Evans at all, but after his performance at Worlds ‘09, he deserves a fighting chance.

Second, Haussler and the whole riding for Germany vs riding for Australia. I think he should be allowed to do whatever he wants. I don’t know why people think it’s okay to just make shit up and post it as if the cyclists themselves have said it. Clearly Haussi hadn’t changed his mind and I think that’s fine. Why should it matter? I suppose because he’s one of the best cyclists Germany has right now (and whose fault is that? Not Haussi’s). I mean, good for Haussler. He knows what he wants and why should the German Federation think that they know better? It’s not like he’s breaking any rules. Haussi for Australia! Yeah, I almost did Haussi for Aussie, shoot me now.

Also, if you haven’t seen the most recent Bartape episode, it’s the TDF part 2, with Haussi’s stage win. It’s not the best (that’s Milan-San Remo), but it’s good.

Oh, for god’s sake.

After finishing third in the recent Tour of Spain, Evans, who rides for the Belgian Silence-Lotto team during the regular season, clearly came to this race in top condition. But few picked him as a possible favorite since he, well, never wins. The French sports daily L’Equipe gave him a measly two stars out of five, on par with the modest French rider Sylvain Chavanel, another rider that has trouble winning.

This is pulled from this article on the Bicycling.com website. I get that Cadel Evans has trouble winning major races, but to compare him to Sylvain Chavanel is laughable. I don’t know who the author is or what research he did, but Sylvain has never really been a challenger for a GT. He probably never will be, he’s more of a classics rider. He had an amazing 2008 and a decent 2009, and to be honest, he’s won at least once race or stage almost every year since he went professional. But I’m not trying to establish if Sylvain’s better than Cadel Evans, because you cannot compare them.

Cadel’s a GT racer. He’s been fourth, third and second in the Tour De France and third and fourth in the Vuelta a Espana. You cannot compare their results. Just because a rider “has trouble winning,” doesn’t mean he’s bad. Sure, L’Equipe was right to rate both Sylvain and Evans low, after all, neither of them are dominating riders. But for fuck’s sake, don’t say that they both have trouble winning. They’ve both won stages the tour, they’ve both done moderately well. It’s not like Evans hasn’t won a race in his whole life.

We won’t even get into the ‘modest’ thing either. I’m sorry, but just because a rider is French and hasn’t won the tour doesn’t mean he has trouble winning. Maybe Evans does, but don’t compare them. It doesn’t work. Apples and oranges are both fruit, but they’re nothing alike. Sylvain and Evans are both cyclists, but guess what? They’re nothing alike, either.

No, not doping, just an article I found on cyclingnews. Everyone knows I’m not a fan of Cadel Evans and I am a fan of Philippe Gilbert, but damn. It’s never fun to see a team possibly imploding (well, sometimes it is — train wreck and all), but this is just odd. From CN (link posted above):

“Before the race he told us he was not doing well, but during the race he said he was fine,” Gilbert said to sporza.be.

In the finale the team rode for Evans, “but we knew that he was not good enough to win. It is not easy for us to have a leader who does not know what he wants.”

I am like … what. Who says that kind of stuff? Granted, I can totally see how a) that happened and b) how Gilbert, et al, would react. But holy cow. Is that the kind of thing you say in public? Sometimes I think yeah, definitely, because sometimes things won’t change unless you say something public. But at the same time, isn’t this something to bring up with the director and the person in question? It’s a hard call, to be sure. And I don’t mind watching people air their dirty laundry, as it were. But still.