It's 5am. It's Stage Two of the 2011 Tour de France, Contador is well cross at having been caught up in a spectator-caused accident close to the finish - but not close enough to be covered by the 3km rule - and being now 74 seconds behind the Schlecks. There is much grumbling over breakfast.
And it's the Team Time Trial, no-one's favourite day. Oh well, come on, say the coaches, get your bony butts out there and get spinning.
The boys are all togged up, the practice bikes are all rolling, numbers are pinned in place (*yelps of pain from the back of a coach as one rider tries to pin his own numbers on without taking his jersey off first*) and soigneurs are anxiously checking lists to ensure that riders are presented in the correct order.
Suddenly, a stir goes through the Village.
"They want to check our saddles."
"What?"
"They want to check our saddles. UCI Rule 1.3.012 says that the TT bike seat support must be horizontal, and they are doing spot checks now, right now, before the race."
"Whaaaat!"
Yes, in an utterly bewildering move, the UCI decided that it was time to spring a surprise inspection on the TT bikes, right before the TTT. In the TdF. The biggest bike race in the world. The biggest cycling event of the year.
Are they crazy? After all the kerfuffle we've had with doping, Contador, race radios, etc etc, they now decide to throw this into the mix.
A hilarious jig was produced:
.... there - isn't that just the most ("least") professional-looking bit of kit you have ever seen?
And the bikes were trundled up one by one, fitted onto the jig and if they "failed" then the mechanics had to alter the saddle positions until they were accepted.
The report in VeloNews said that almost every one of the 22 teams were caught out by this, and in the SaxoBank team, nearly half of the bikes had to be adjusted.
Can you imagine how upsetting this must have been? I mean, I don't ride a racing bike myself, and I've certainly never attempted to achieve the TT position, but I've read enough times about how hard it is to maintain. The briefest and least-informed of looks tells you that their backs are pretty much horizontal, and they need to be able to see ahead, so if you stand up straight and tilt your head back until you can see the ceiling above your head (*terrible cracking noises as Cougar Girl attempts to look up: just ignore them, I'm built of Meccano*) then you have partially achieved it. Add to that the effort required to pedal, to keep your balance, to assess road conditions, to cope with the distraction of your DS shouting in your ear "Faster, faster! Go on! Don't brake! You can do it! Faster!" and so on, and even a complete non-cyclist can appreciate that having your saddle position changed could well be disastrous.
Bjarne Riis summed it up beautifully when he said "This is bullshit," and “I’ve never seen something like this before. Bullshit.” I make no apologies for repeating his language.
Radioshack's Johan Bruyneel was pretty miffed as well: he cornered the UCI WorldTour manager, Philippe Chevallier, and apparently said
“The whole season you’ve ruled like this (with last-minute decisions and poor communication with the teams),” and. “We spend thousands each year in the wind tunnel and today in front of the world’s press, at the most important race of the year, you do this!”
Chevallier replied curtly, “I won’t discuss this here.”
The report goes on to say that "team managers from several of the world’s biggest teams insisted on stepping behind the bike-check tent and airing their grievances in private to Chevallier and the other UCI commissaires in attendance. "
"Airing their grievances" - I bet they were!
And best of all, and I wish I could take the credit for spotting this, check out the highly technical device used to get the jig level before they start checking:
Can you see it? Yes, there is a little pebble underneath the bar. Wow. I am speechless. (Well, nearly.)
They create a jig specifically for measuring level-ness, and omit to add a simple mechanism for levelling the jig first??? A little screw-out leg, perhaps, with a spirit level built in at some point?
Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, as we all know (*hangs head in shame*) my mean-spirited and small-minded suggestion that maybe Contador would be stung by a bee (or swallow a wasp) has completely backfired, as apparently Frankie did exactly that shortly after the TTT began.
The report in AP - which has been repeated by about a dozen papers word for word, but for which I can't find any additional details - says that "he initially “panicked” before remembering previous similar experiences that helped calm him." Does this happen a lot, then? I know when I was a dirty greasy motorcyclist, back in my hell-in-leather teens, swallowing flies was pretty common (motorcycle joke: how can you spot a happy motorcyclist? Ans: by the flies on his teeth. Sorry.) but I didn't know of anyone swallowing a bee/wasp. I imagine that could be pretty nasty, as a lot of people are allergic to them.
It didn't end there for poor Frankie, apparently: "he also cut his nose during the stage after hitting a camera."
Held by a spectator, presumably? What is it with the spectators this year?
Talking of which, if the UCI want to throw their weight around a bit, I suggest they leave the orientation of the saddles alone, and force the organisers to do a bit more work on crowd control, and marshalls to stand on the traffic islands.
All year so far we've been watching what you might call "lesser" races, and comparing their camera work and marshalling to the TdF, either favourably or unfavourably. Now I'm thinking I have to revise my standards downwards - after the various dramas of Stage 1.
Right, that's all I have to say for today, other than a general complaint about the monotony of the search terms over the last few days. If I told you that of the top 10 search terms, eight of them contain a combination of the words Andy, Schleck, Girlfriend, Jil, and 2011, well, you can imagine the face I am pulling. 30% of the people who came here via a google search, ie the ones who don't already know where it is, came via "Andy Schleck girlfriend 2011". 30%!!!
And of course I've had to go and Google it myself now... yes, Eisen Andy is first and second on the page, with Miss FeeDee in third position ("Hi, sweetie!") Well, why do I worry? Welcome, Schleck fans! (As long as you are not deranged obsessive stalker-types, we don't like that sort.)
Right, I'm off to finish watching the Schleck On Tour documentary, with thanks to Susanne for the link: it's here, in case you didn't find it.
And thanks to BoulderEl, the new Schleckland Top Newshound, for bringing the whole Bike-check episode to my attention!
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