oddsnark » Cycling

Rate The Mate: Lance Armstrong and Ashley Olsen?

oddJoe — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:16:51 +0000

Lance, what are you thinking? Laving your wife for Sheryl Crow was one thing, but hooking up with one of the Olsen Twins, that’s just creepy weird.

If the celebrity tabloids are to be believed, the seven-time Tour de France champion has been spotted wining and dining Ms. Olsen and getting cozy around New York City. Dude, she’s 21 and has the brain the size of a squirrel, what the hell do you talk about?

Even though you are the Iron Man of sport and a champ for overcoming cancer, this has got to stop. If a three-way erupts with Mary-Kate, then the Apocalypse is surely upon us.

Crazy first day at the Tour

Sill — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:24:57 +0000

Crashes and a Sprint to the finish highlighted day 1 of the tour.

With about 20 Kilometers to go Robbie McEwen crashed. Typically he’d be out… but his team waited for him and pulled him back to the sprinters group. From there he was able to sprint to the finish to take his 12th stage win!

Yeah, first off all when I wipe out (probably going 45Km/hr) I usually just sit by the side of the road for an hour. I don’t usually get up and sprint to the finish…. but maybe I’m just a pansy.

Swiss takes Prologue

Sill — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:18:01 +0000

The Tour de France is officially started! and a Swiss, Fabian Cancellara, took the first race of the year, THE Prologue.

In first loser was Andreas Kloeden of Germany who was 13 seconds behind and George Hincapie of the U.S. who was 23 seconds behind. George is a great time trial specialist and hopefully can be considered for the overall race. Although, Kloeden might be a good favorite.

Either way… the tour has begun and will cover 2,120 miles and feature six mountain hikes, three summit finishes and two individual time trials. Basically way more miles that we’ll travel in our cars for the next three weeks!

Tour Starts Saturday!

Sill — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:36:32 +0000

The 94th annual Tour De France starts THIS saturday with the race prologue. The prologue will be an 8km race around London (which will be sure to make a mess) reaching average speeds that normal people only dream of.

The Tour as always should have it’s share of joys, jubilations and drugs. It’ll be interesting to see if Team Discovery (sans - Lance, year II) can regain some semblance of a team. Or if some of the other teams like T-Mobile or CSC will be able to take some more races.

Either way it’ll be safe to say that the majority of the people in US and Canada will barely know that the tour is even happening.

Friday videos are back and they’re painful

oddJoe — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:34:30 +0000

You may have noticed that we took a little time off here at oddsnark. Well, we were, uh, helping to bring malaria medicines to parts of Africa. Yeah, that’s right, we were helping people. You got a problem with that? But whatever the reason, we’re back and better than ever.

Now we want to do a little something for all you clock-watchers counting down the seconds to the end of the work week (and the start of that after-work happy hour where you’ll get a little too drunk and make a pass at the cute girl from marketing), so to help you get through the day, here’s a little video to remind you that even if your job kinda sucks, at least you’re not getting road rash after taking a spill on a bike at 100 mph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvVd9U5J-Xs

Youch!

Hooray Chemistry!

oddJoe — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 16:17:03 +0000

At first blush, the news about Floyd Landis failing a second test for doping does seem to be bad news for him and for the sport of cycling. Test results released yesterday confirmed earlier results that the Tour de France winner had elevated levels of testosterone in his system during the crucial Stage 17 when he made up an eight minute deficit on Spain’s Oscar Pereiro. Unless there is a successful appeal, Landis will be stripped of his title and banned from the sport, while cycling continues to suffer in the eyes of the public. But why does this have to be spun as bad news? Isn’t this great news for chemistry? Think of the brave and noble chemists who worked long hours and put all their training to good use to find out the truth. This might lead to an increased interest in science among young people and enrollment in chemistry programs might go up as a result. So, instead of booing cycling, let’s all give a cheer for the chemists.

Floyd Landis Not Of This Earth?

oddJoe — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 17:15:20 +0000

After test results showed that Floyd Landis had an unusually high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in his urine, the American cyclist claimed in a press conference that he had unusually high levels of testosterone in his body. Well, it seems now that not only is Landis a real manly man, he’s an unnaturally manly man. New test results have revealed that the Tour de France champion’s urine sample, the now infamous Sample A, contained synthetic testosterone that is not produced naturally in the human body. The only logical conclusion here, of course, is that Landis is some kind of alien being whose physiology is not yet understood by modern science. So unless the International Cycling Union thought to write into its rules that only human beings can win the Tour de France, everybody should just back off and leave the man, er, whatever be.

French To Ban All Americans From Tour De France Next Year

oddJoe — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:31:27 +0000

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the US has a long and proud cycling tradition and that we’ve all been glued to the action during the Tour de France. So we’re all thrilled over Floyd Landis’ victory in the three-week, 3,600-mile race, right? Just nod your head. In all seriousness, it was a pretty amazing feat for Landis to come back from eight minutes behind Spaniard Oscar Pereiro to win the grueling event.

We’re pretty sure that at some point someone will come forward with “allegations” of steroid abuse or some such thing, but we hope for now that the French will treat our new cycling champion with a little more hospitality than our last one. At the same time, we’re pretty sure that someone here in the US will inadvertently call him Lance instead of Landis, kind of like that girlfriend you had in college who kept calling out her ex-boyfriend’s name in bed. To help avoid confusion, keep in mind that Landis is from Pennsylvania not Texas, he has battled with an arthritic hip instead of cancer, and he barely speaks any French. Think you can keep them straight now?

One More Reason For The French To Hate Lance Armstrong

oddJoe — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:31:12 +0000

Last night hosting the ESPY Awards, Lance Armstrong quipped that the players on France’s World Cup soccer team had all “tested positive… for being assholes.” Today, the seven-time Tour de France champion returned to Gaul and cycled the most gut wrenching stage of the race, up to the top of L’Alpe d’Huez, just for the Hell of it. He is so very fortunate that France has strict gun control laws.

Seriously, I am becoming concerned that Lance’s cajones have grown to such a size that they might collapse in upon themselves and create a black hole from which nothing can escape.

Pain In The Ass: The Tour De France Is Underway

oddJoe — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:04:23 +0000

Now that the World Cup is finally, thankfully over, we can all move on to another Euro-centric sporting event with almost no American storyline, ensuring it will be ignored here in the States: The Tour de France. You remember the Tour, right? Lance Armstrong and yellow jerseys and all that? Well, there’s no Lance this year and as you can imagine that means lower TV ratings. In fact, the USA’s best hope this year is Floyd Landis, a rider who suffers from a chronic hip injury. Cancer, arthritic hip, there’s always got to be a tragic story behind our athletes. If you want to find out more about Landis you can check out his personal Web site, and if you want to follow all the Tour action, we highly recommend the very detailed coverage being provided by Tour de France 2006.