Two days until I undertake perhaps the toughest personal challenge of all — tougher than sometime riding the Tour de France route twenty-four hours behind the actual athletes: The abandonment of all refined sugars from my diet for the next fourty days and fourty nights. Yes, I’m giving up chocolates, biscuits and other assorted candy for lent.
A new series looking at a classic cycling jersey from a Tour de France of yesteryear with a history on the riders that wore the jersey and what became of it when it was resigned to history. First up the iconic ‘Z’ jersey as worn by Greg LeMond in 1990.
I decided to start with this one because it represents the era in which I first started watching professional cycling and it’s the first team I became a fan of. It wasn’t until 1990 that I first remember watching the Tour de France and by then this team was the best in the sport and on their way to their first Tour de France victory. I always wanted the jersey as a kid and as a result I became a big fan of their team leader, Greg LeMond.
1992 was the year the Cold War formally ended, Czechoslovakia split into two nations, Bosnia seceded Yugoslavia, Bill Clinton became US President, the Premier League was formed, Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series, Denmark won Euro ’92, the Summer Olympics were held in Barcelona, and Miguel Indurain repeated at the Tour de France.
For all the watching of, talking about and debating on the professional side to cycling we do, none of us truly knows what it’s like inside a peloton at the sharp end of the sport. For most of us that aspect of the sport is limited to looking at it on the shiny box in the corners of our living rooms or, if we’re lucky, from the side of the roads after waiting for several hours to get a good view point before they wizz by. Or perhaps in local races where we’re forbidden from crossing the white line.
So with that in mind, The Cycle Seen has struck a contract with a current professional who plies his trade in the goldfish bowl of the big-time, big-money, big-temptations road scene. Going by the name of ‘Scruffy Murphy’ and riding for, er, let’s call them ‘Headwind CC’, he will bring us his diary of the 2012 season as he see’s it, with no punches pulled.
Upon writing up the detailed and potentially financially crippling contract, The Cycle Seen met with Mr. Murphy’s team of lawyers who armed with a red pen, scratched with enough venom and intent across the cyclists actual name and team, to put a hole in the page. So, this is his name now and he’s a drunk, a fixer, and a lair, but nonetheless a cyclist at heart and he’ll lay it all on the line here. Call it an eye in the eye of the hurricane, if you will. –Ed.
1991 was the year of the Gulf War and the invention of the World Wide Web. Boris Yeltsin became the first freely elected president of Russian Republic, the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved, Mike Tyson was charged with rape, Freddy Mercury died, and Miguel Indurain won the Tour de France for the first time.
Remember that guy Jan Ullrich who used to finish second (or third) to Armstrong all the time baring that one time he won the Tour in 1997 when Armstrong wasn’t racing? Well, here on February 9, 2012 he has been found guilty of doping offenses related to the 2006 Operation Puerto investigation and had all the results he achieved since May 2005 annuled after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a UCI appeal into the cyclist. In the biggest case of “so what?” since Dennis Menchov was awarded a podium spot for the 2010 Tour on Monday, Ullrich was also banned from the sport until August 22, 2013 — not for life as the UCI had hoped — though they might have well just banned him until tomorrow afternoon given the difference it will make to a rider who has been retired for over half a decade.
Like boss, like team leader: Contador arrives at press conference
In a press conference that will have shocked nobody to the bone, Alberto Contador sat down along side team-manager and former performance enhanced doping pin-king, Bjarne Riis, and revealed the mind shaking news that he is in fact innocent of the doping violation for which he was found guilty on Monday. Contador was banned for two years but due to the back dating of the ban, he’ll actually be available to ride come August 5 of this year. “The way I feel right now is deceived,” he sobbed before assorted hacks, and a handful of his mates who had gathered at the back to roundly applaud him.
It was pointed out to The Cycle Seen this afternoon that Lance Armstrong finished third in the 2009 Tour de France as opposed to the 2010 Tour as mentioned in this article. It kind of negates the point of the article, but I felt that for the sake of good fun I’d leave it up anyway if you can stretch your imagination to believe that Armstrong’s third place (now second and as below will reveal, soon to be first) did in fact come in 2010. I mean, you won’t take it seriously anyway . . . we all know it requires 88 miles-per-hour to engage the flux capacitor). — Ed.
You wouldn’t believe were one of these can take you when fitted to your seat pin
The Cycle Seen has climbed onto it’s bike with a flux capacitor fitted to the seat pin and sped down the steepest hill in sight to a speed of 88 km/h (yes I know it’s only kilometers) and blasted forward twelve months into an uncertain future. Here’s what we found leading the way on this very website…
In a phenomenal turn of events, 2012 Tour de France runner-up, Andy Schleck, has admitted he used performance enhancing drugs through the early part of his career up to and including the 2010 Tour de France of which he was elevated to winner of just twelve months ago when Alberto Contador was found guilty by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) of ingesting the banned substance Clenbuterol. As a result, the UCI have stripped him of that Tour win and awarded it to the man who originally finished third, but who is now the eight time winner of the Tour, Lance Armstrong.
The man on the right has been bumped up to second today, which — if WADA take up the baton left beind by the US Feds this week — could prove to be his best Tour result!
The Cycle Seen is a gawk into the life of one average amateur cycling hobbyist who rides and races for fun and spends some time indulging in armchair expertise by watching the little stickmen on the television. Hence, my own cycle, or the wider cycle scene, as seen by me.
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The Autobus
The Autobus takes a humorous, lighthearted and often satirical look at the wonderful sport of professional cycling. It will appear at random, right here: Read More»
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Inside Cycling by Scruffy Murphy
Inside cycling is the dairy of a current professional cyclist working under the pseudonym, Scruffy Murphy in order to keep his identity safe. A view from the goldfish bowl of the big-time, big-money, big-temptations road scene, his eye in the eye of the hurricane views will come whenever he pleases, right here: Read More»
Sacrifice
The Cycle Seen is a gawk into the life of one average amateur cycling hobbyist who rides and races for fun and spends some time indulging in armchair expertise by watching the little stickmen on the television. Hence, my own cycle, or the wider cycle scene, as seen by me.
