OK, we're not at the Tour de France any more, but we - or rather, Our Glorious Leader - came 20th, which means UCI points, yay! - and we are definitely going to be Trekking next year.
Hooray for Trek, it's been confirmed today that both Andy and Frankie have signed for the new Trek set-up, along with Fabian.
Andy confirmed that it will mean new jerseys - so yes, we can speculate about those for the rest of the year, and we can beam thought-waves to the Trek design team: all together now *face of concentration* b-l-a-c-k---s-h-o-r-t-s....
This is excellent news, and I am already looking forward to the new season, even though this one still has the Tour de Inflatabubbles (also known as the Tour of Poland) and the Zombie Town Tour (Vuelta) to go, along with a few shitsmall races and the Tour of Britain (which is, I have to say, with due respect to the country in which I live, a shitsmall race).
Mind you, LLB says that wearing "old" kit shows that you are long term fan, not just a fly-by-night newbie. Wonder if he's trying to cheer me up by saying that, though?
Presumably the new kit will have a prominent Trek logo on it: do we all know what that looks like? (left)
And their house colours appear to be, err, red silver and black. Umm, that's a bit close to RadioShambles colours... but let's hope they go to a decent design team, eh?
Other news: well, Britain won the Tour AGAIN!!!! for the second year running, and with a much nicer bloke. I will admit to shedding a couple of tears at the podium ceremony - well, Froome was crying, why couldn't I? The person I felt most sorry for was Michelle, his fiancee: there she was, watching him on the podium, with a damned camera up her nose: a most unflattering angle, and she clearly wanted to burst into happy tears, but was trying very, very hard not to do so.
Man of the Night award has to go to Contador - yes, I know this might be a bit of a surprise, but he had been thoroughly defeated, every journalist is making snide remarks about his day being "over", all he got was the crummy Team award - come on, get real, no-one cares about the Team award! - but he stood on the podium with the rest of Stinkoff and he smiled rather sweetly. I was impressed.
Stinkoff are going to be tricky next year, apparently the Russian banker Mr Tinkov, owner of the bank, wants to be the main sponsor so it will be Tinkoff Saxo Bank, which does not roll off the tongue as Stinkoff did. It also has rather scary echoes of Leopard - rich banker as sponsor, wants to take more of an interest in it, wants to boss everyone around by changing the name and sacking a few people: yes, we know where this will end. (Uncle Bjarne being sacked while under investigation and trying to reclaim an unpaid loan: let's hope not, eh?)
Oh, a word of condolence for poor old Cadel Evans, dying like a dog every day, and again, journalists all around writing him off. He did come second in the Giro, remember? Apparently although his contract has another year and a half to go, he's being called in by management to "discuss terms" ie a pay cut. Not good news.
Yesterday we had the shock announcement that Stuey is retiring a year earlier than planned - he wants to go out on a high, and who can blame him? Perhaps he's going to Trek as a DS or a coach? That would be fun.
Talking of coaches, and Orica - or O'Reeka, as Sean Kelly kept calling them - did anyone else laugh as much as I did when their coach got stuck under the finish gantry?
And did anyone else cheer loudly when Jakob came in 7th in the GC? Good boy, Jakob!
So there it is, the Tour is over for another year: perhaps we'll have Andy and Frankie both on the podium, but on even higher steps than last time? Yay!
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