Podium Cafe

FSA-DS: Pick 5, Climber edition!

2012-02-15T06:25:30Z

So, your classics squad is totally set by now, right? No? You're going to keep obsessing over the results in Oman until the deadline to see if you can figure out who is going to be really hot versus only kinda good and who is going to tango with the pavement before Het Nieuwsblad? Okay, I understand.

But, unless you plan on picking up the top 15 places in every race between now and the middle of April, you need to think more broadly. Besides, just think about all those delectable points on offer in stage races, the Ardennes, Lombardia, San Sebastian, and more! So, I take you through five of my favorite climbers and stage racers to give you some advice that will surely come back and haunt me in the final VDS standings.

Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha, Spain)

The epitome of the pure climber, J-Rod does nothing good but go uphill. He is pint sized, explosive, and dogged in his attacks. He has also been one of the most consistent VDS performers in the past several years. He was the third highest points scorer in 2011 and the second highest in 2010.

Pros: Consistency. For years, J-Rod lacked big, headlining victories but was on innumerable podiums. Then he got even better. J-Rod pulls points all season long in Classics, Grand Tours, smaller stage races - you name it, if it has a hill, he's scored there. To illustrate, lets look at last year: his first win was a stage of the Tour of Basque Country in April, he nabbed second in both Amstel and Fleche Wallone, finished 3rd overall at the Giro, won two stages at the Dauphine along with the points and KOM competitions, took a short break in mid summer, and came back with a vengence to win the overall and a stage at the Vuelta a Burgos and two stages at the Vuelta. Phew! Also, that is a typical season.

Also, nobody likes the 2012 Vuelta route as much as Purito. Except maybe Contador, but that's for another reason.

Cons: Value. If he has a similar season, he will be produce 85-95 points per salary unit. That's pretty good. But, he is unlikely to exceed expectations and produce "extra" points. He's a good foundation for a team, but that means everyone and their mother will have him.

Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky / Colombia)

Uran is exploding in a big way. 240 points in 2010, 887 in 2011. He's climbing through the elite echelons of the sport like a scalded cat. He's leading the next wave of Colombian domination of any and all mountain stages in races.

Pros: Uran is one of the big promises in the youthful generation of the sport. He is 25 years old and has been getting better and better since his first pro season in 2006. All indications point to him maturing in a big way over the next few seasons. He was 5th in Liege-Bastogne-Liege last year, was leading the best young rider's competition in the Tour de France until he got sick with a few days to go, and notched top-5 finishes at the GP Quebec, the Giro dell'Emilia, and the Volta a Catalunya. He's pulled off results of this caliber since 2006, but he's doing so much more consistently now.

Cons: Low value. If he merely replicates his 2011 season, Uran will only net an efficiency ratio of 74 points per salary unit. If you compare that to many of the other riders at the top of the sport, that's low. Evidently the pricing gods expect him to get as good as I think he will. Also, he'll have competition for Wiggins for leadership in a number of races. Hopefully they can divide and conquer outside of July, where Uran will be sheparding Wiggins up the mountains.

Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Lotto - Belisol / Belgium)

6 points! 6 points! This from a dude who looked like he was totally going to place in the top 5 of the Tour last year before his hopes literally came crashing down.

Pros: He's Belgian, but he doesn't ride the cobbles! But seriously, VDB is one of the big names poised to make the biggest jump in his points-earned column in 2012. If he performs up to expectations in the Tour alone, he will have almost 400 points to his name. And he tore up the Dauphine last year.

Cons: All the unknowns. If you pick up VDB, it will be because you think he has made enough progress in the last two years to truly ratchet up his performance. He scored 455 and 450 points in 2010 and 2011, but the second data point is a huge question mark. Many people would say he was a level above his 2010 form, but we don't know for sure. Also? The dude is hardly seen after July. All that talent being put out in the pasture until spring, such a shame.

Frank Schleck (Radioshack - Nissan Trek / Luxembourg)

Andy's older brother, or, the Schleck brother who doesn't daydream about ponies until the Tour. He's got class - he finished on the third step of the podium at last year's Tour and would stand a very good chance at winning the Giro this year if he targeted it. He goes uphill fast enough to finish in the top 5 of the Ardennes and almost any Grand Tour he gets to play leader for if he's on form.

Pros: Unlike Andy (and I do like Andy, I'm just not as enamored as I once was), Frank races his bike all year long. Or, longer than Andy does, at least. As a result, he pulls in more VDS points - about 300 more last year, and they are the same price this year! Additional bonus? Mean Uncle Johan might split them up this year (hopefully) and send Frank to the Giro. Cross your fingers, people.

Cons: He may be surgically attached to Andy come Tour time, keeping either of them from jumping away to a stage win and up the GC. Also, Andy is cuter. And Frank crashes a lot.

Also, it's Andy's turn to win the Luxembourg national title in the road race, so that's -100 points for Frank.

Ivan Basso (Liquigas - Cannondale / Italy)

Say hello to the darling of Italian cycling!* Who doesn't love the grin sexy Ivan gets when he starts going hard? And those massage videos, oh those massage videos... (you're welcome, Gav)

So, why else should you give signore Ivan a look this VDS season?

Pros: He's cheap! Seriously, at 10 points this dude is a steal. Why? Because he is going to win the Giro. Last year he only achieved 80 points per salary unit, but that's also because he bypassed the Giro in favor of the tour, where he finished 8th. Do you know how many more points are on tap for winning? Hell, I bet Ivan makes almost 800 points out of the Giro alone.

Cons: Cons? What are you talking about? I guess you could choose to abstain because he has a tainted past, but I forgave Ivan for that long ago and think he's totally clean now. And if you lack a Y chromosone, you probably did too.

*Moms who are fans of cycling, that is.

Uran and Schleck photos by Michael Steele (Getty Images Sport); Basso photo by Bryn Lennon (Getty Images Sport)

Presenting PdC U-25 VDS 2012!

2012-02-14T21:57:18Z

While Omloop Eve is drawing ever closer, there were some rumblings over on my 5 to watch post over the last week about a possible U-25 VDS league. I jumped all over the idea (originally proposed by Lopex) and created a spreadsheet and a few simple rules. I will task myself with all of the score keeping as a lot of the scoring relies on the FSA DS scores but all of this will be explained in full.

The whole purpose of this game is to give some of these younger guys some attention. All riders 4 points and above are excluded from this game. No Sagan, EBH, Phinney, etc. I want to give a the spotlight to younger guys who aren't priced quite as high but still have a ton of talent...Trust me, it will be fun!

With that, lets go to the flip and get all this explained! =]

Riders List

Here is a link to the spreadsheet

Please let me know if there are any mistakes...The age limit is that the riders must have been born on 2/25/1987 (Omloop Day) or after to be able to make the cutoff. I originally had it to where they had to of been born after 10/15/1987 but this adds a few more riders to the mix. If you want to add any continental riders, just ask and I will make the necessary changes.

Rules

There are not a lot of them...in fact, there are only 3 simple rules

1. You have 13 POINTS with which you can choose your 10 RIDERS.

This amount is specified so that you may choose up to 3 two (2) point riders and fill in the rest of your team with 1 pointers.

2. You must use at least 4 riders from Professional Continental teams

I'm sure gs will love to include all of her Topsport and Landbouwkrediet boys

3. You must use riders from 5 different countries

Example: You can have 6 Belgians but to make a valid team you need to have riders from 4 other countries to complete your roster.

The last two rules are to get more variety within teams and again, to get some lesser known riders to be picked up.

Scoring

For scoring, FSA DS points will apply for this game. Creating and keeping my own scoring system would be too much work at this point. I am wanting to give this game some excitement though so I am adding a bonus points system for the top U-25 racers for each FSA DS calendar race.

Here is said bonus system:

Grand Tours

Stage: 30

Overall: 150, 100, 75

Monuments & Worlds

100, 75, 50

Top Stage Races

Stages: 20

Overall: 60, 40, 20

Top Classics

50, 30, 10

Best of the Rest

Stages: 10

Overall: 50, 25, 10

One Day: 25

Minor Stages

Stages: 5

Overall: 25, 10, 5

One Day: 15

Example: If Juraj Sagan was to win a Giro d'Italia Stage...his 80 FSA DS points for the stage win would be counted plus 30 bonus points for being the first U-25...so 110 overall for his win.

Please please let me know about this bonus point system...I just want to make sure that it isn't skewed to far in one direction or one set of races or if I need to increase/decrease for some races.

How to submit

Send an email to u25vds@yahoo.com...make sure you follow the simple 3 rules.

Choose 10 riders with 13 points...Make sure you:

1) Have a maximum of 3 two (2) point riders

2) Have at least 4 riders from Professional Continental teams

3) Have at least 5 different nationalities represented

IMPORTANT: Submissions will be taken until 9 p.m. Eastern US time on Friday, February 24th! You have 10 days =]

If there are any questions, please let me know!

P.S. FrenchKheldar just reminded me of something...Don't forget a team name when submitting!

Life In The Slipstream, by Andrew M Homan

2012-02-14T17:37:02Z

Title: Life In The Slipstream: The Legend Of Bobby Walthour Sr
Author: Andrew M Homan
Publisher: Potomac Books
Year: 2011
Pages: 241
Order: Potomac Books
What it is: A biography of an American double-World Champion who made his name racing in the slipstream of motor-pacers and on the Six Day circuit.
Strengths: Excellently researched and a fascinating story about an era in cycling's history when the sport was all about speed.
Weaknesses: The more you learn about this era of cycling - not just in the US, but also in Europe - the more you want to know.

Away back in the early years of the twentieth century cycling was a global sport, with American, European and Australian riders all mixing it up and the racing taking place on at least three continents. Riders sailed form one continent to the other in order to take up invitations to race. America itself had a Northern Circuit and a Southern Circuit of races. And it also had its own version of the Tour de France. A race that captured the public's imagination. A monstrously hard and viciously cruel race, held annually. A race that stripped the fat from a rider's body. That race was the Madison Square Garden International Six Day Race.

As the clock struck midnight on Sunday, December 8, 1901 sixteen two-man teams lined up on the pine boards of the Garden's oval and took the applause of the 12,000-strong crowd. At five minutes past the hour, William C Rothwell - aka Young Corbett, the world featherweight boxing champ - aimed the starting pistol at the Garden's roof and pulled the trigger. Sixteen riders shot out in a line and began circling the Garden's wooden oval. When the crowd hushed, all that could be heard was the soft hum of wheels turning as the riders went around and around and around.

Quite where Six Day racing began is, like many things in cycling's history, a matter of some dispute. Birmingham and London have both been given. But it was when Tom Eck, a canny American promoter - some might prefer to call him a huckster - imported the idea into the US that the sport really took off. Americans went crazy for it. They thrilled to see riders trying to stay in the saddle for six days and six nights. The authorities, though, took a dimmer view of the sport and tried to halt it in its tracks. In New York, legislation was passed restricting riders to no more than twelve hours on the track a day. The promoters immediately came up with a work-around solution: they'd put riders on the track in teams of two. Thus was born the Madison.

In the first 24 hours of the 1901 Garden Six the top teams had covered a distance of more than 800 kilometres. Four of the original 16 teams had already abandoned, one of them the French duo of Jean Gougoltz and Caesar Simic, who retired citing illness. Victor Breyer, of Le Vélo and Paris's Vélodrome Buffalo fame, offered little sympathy to his compatriots:

"What Six Day rider does not [feel ill] at one stage or another? That is part of the game. To complain of that is as though a boxer should complain of one or two stiff punches. Nothing is wrong with Simac's heart except lack of courage. It was a plain case of quit."

Little Jimmy Michael from Wales - the Welsh Midget, the Americans called him - was writing a guest column for The World. Once one of Choppy Warburton's circle of riders, then lured to the camp of Tom Eck, Michael had earned quite a name - and quite a fortune - for himself from racing in America. Here's one scene from his reports:

"In an incredibly short time Walthour had opened a gap of half a lap and was driving every nerve into still more feverish effort. One by one he picked up in flashing speed McLaren, Chevalier, and Samuelson. The crowd that jammed the Garden went frantic. Hoarse yells and shouts from the men, shrill cries from the women, the waving of hats and of handkerchiefs heaped up a tumult that is rarely witnessed in the Garden. [...] Human nature could not long sustain such an awful strain. The killing fight was kept up for two miles and then Walthour gave up the task and steadied himself down to ordinary plodding."

At ten laps to the mile on the Garden track, Bobby Walthour had been out there on his own for more than a dozen and a half laps before he had to surrender and roll back into the main group. Walthour had, by this time in his career, earned respect and a reputation in American cycling circles. He'd started out in 1895, as an amateur, and by the following year one newspaper had run the headline 'Walthour Greedy' in complaint about the amount of victories he was taking. Within weeks of that he turned pro. His own account of his first race with the big boys is a not unfamiliar story:

"I decided to turn professional and went over to Montgomery to take part in a professional race there. [...] Well, we started out in the first race. It was a mile heat and I was as green as grass and strong as the devil. I jumped into the lead. Then I took the second quarter and was still ahead of the bunch. When I got to the third quarter I commenced to wonder where the rest of the fellows were and I turned to look at them. By George, they had all drawn up together in a bunch a short distance behind me and were preparing to start a great dash so as to go by me in a hurry and leave me completely out of it. I was lucky that I saw them. I 'dug' and not one of the guys passed me, not only that, but I won the other two races also and [George] Quinn [a Boston pro who, before the race, had told Walthour to get back on his bike and ride home] was just about as sore as he could be."

From such Hinaultesque beginnings Walthour quickly became a star of Jack Prince's new Southern Cycling Circuit, which included stops in Atlanta, Chattanooga, Memphis, Montgomery Nashville and New Orleans. Prince hoped to be able to entice riders on the Northern Circuit to come south of the Mason-Dixon line and enjoy some warm-weather racing in Spring. The races varied between mass start and one-on-one, some were paced by tandems. Generally though all were short: Walthour was becoming a specialist sprinter. This was at a time when Major Taylor ruled the roost when it came to American sprinting.

The late Victorian era saw a quest for speed. Bike versus horse races were not unusual, the public willingly paying to see whether two wheels could beat four legs. The Victorian era was also the age of steam, and it was inevitable that steam and bike would come together. Charlie Murphy and EE Anderson raced behind steam trains. Eddie McDuffie raced behind a steam-powered tandem. A two-man motorised tandem was certainly less ungainly that the multi-man machines that the quest for speed was producing: triplettes, quads, quints. There were even plans for a quindecuplet, a fifteen-seater multicycle. The steam engine quickly gave way to electric and then petrol-driven engines and it was behind these that motor-paced riding became most popular. Each new evolution in engine technology kicked the speed of the riders pacing behind them ever higher. Motor-pacing was a sport packed with excitement. And it was a sport Walthour excelled at. From 1900 onwards, with the exception of Six Day races, Walthour's cycling life was spent in the slipstream.

The slipstream is only of so much value, though, in a Six Day race. Every rider wants to sneak a lap on the field, escape on his own and creep around the oval, closing in on the tail of the bunch until he has rejoined and put his rivals a lap in arrears. But stealing a lap is no easy feat. Especially when the rules stipulate that no rider may gain a lap in the event of a crash. On the fourth day of the 1901 Garden Six, Walthour was about to gain that coveted lap when, behind him in distance covered, now ahead of him on the track itself, a rider went down. The who and the how are not material: it was the why that everyone wanted to know. Was it just a case of shit happening at a shitty time? Or was the crash a deliberate attempt to deny Walthour a possible race-winning lap? No one knows. Such a state of unknowing was one of the delights of Six Day racing.

On the final day of the Gadren Six, the riders punch-drunk with all the hours in the saddle, the crowd thronging the Garden were treated to the sight of Albert Champion - Paris-Roubaix winner 1899 and a star of the American cycling circuit - hurling himself around the Garden oval on a single-seater motor-pacer. Breyer, the man from Le Vélo, screamed out at the sight: "Mon Dieu! Champion will kill himself! He is going too fast for such a track!" Champion was barely clocking 70 kilometres an hour, a speed we're blasé about today but which, in 1901, was almost incomprehensibly fast. But Breyer was right about Champion's bike being too fast for the track: the Frenchman crashed into a wooden railing and was thrown from the machine. It continued on without him, almost crashing into spectators in the box-seating area. Champion didn't qute manage to kill himself though - he hobbled off the track with a couple of dislocated fingers and a lot less skin than when he'd entered it.

And still the riders circuited the oval, now going fast, now going slow. Five teams were tied at four laps ahead of the others. Nearly 4,100 kilometres had been covered in 142 hours of riding. And then came the grand finale: a one man sprint between one rider from each of the leading teams. Nat Butler, Benny Munroe, Lester Wilson, Oscar Babcock and Bobby Walthour took the track. From the gun Butler set the pace, with Wilson in second wheel and Walthour riding third. Try and picture the scene a moment. Getting on for midnight of a Saturday night. The beating heart of New York city. Twelve thousand fans screaming their lungs out and stomping their feet. The air a fug of tobacco smoke. And five riders circling the yellow-pine oval wondering who'll blink first.

Down the laps counted and then came the bell. The last lap. Less than 200 yards. People today get excited by the thought of Greg LeMond beating Laurent Fignon by just eight seconds at the end of 3,288 kilometres of racing, or of Eric Caritoux holding out to win the Vuelta a España by just six seconds. How about deciding more than 4,000 kilometres of racing with a single sprint? Because that's how the victor of the 1901 Garden Six - of many Garden Sixes - was decided. And - in 1901 - the winner of that sprint was Bobby Walthour.

* * * * *

Trying to tell the story of Bobby Walthour's life is no easy task. Sixty years and more have passed since he died. A century ago he was at the fag-end of his career, still pulling in the punters and still making a living from this cycling lark, but not winning the races with the ease and frequency he used to. A lot of water has passed under the bridges of time. Somewhat unusually, Walthour never got to document his own life. No authorised biography of his life was written. No attempt was even made to tell the unauthorised story. All that really exists to record Walthour's passing are the stories published in newspaper and magazines during Walthour's life.

But what a wealth of information those archives contain. Walthour was a Southern star and his hometown papers, the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Journal, chronicled his career. Other papers regularly featured stories about him, including the Boston Daily Globe, the Chicago Daily Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily Tribune, the New York Herald, the New York Times, the New York World and the Washington Post. And then there's the specialist cycling press, who paid the man his due, especially during the European years of his career, particularly L'Auto, Bicycle News, Cycling, Der Raddensport, Radwelt, Les Sports, Le Vélo and La Vie Au Grand Air. For Lost In The Slipstream, Andrew Homan has mined the archives of these, and more, in order to pull together the details of Walthour's life and times.

That times bit is important here: Life in the Slipstream is the life - well, the legend - of Bobby Walthour. But it is also a chronicle of that particular era of cycling. It offers fascinating insight into a now-forgotten discipline, motor-paced riding. Even though Dernys are still a part of the sport on the track today, and even though many cycling fans still think fondly of Bordeaux-Paris, we no longer think much of the history of motor-paced cycling.

And then there's Walthour's European years - post-1904 - which add colour to what we already know of that era in our sport from the too many Tour-centric books cramming the bookshop shelves. One minor fact for you from those years: in Paris, it took 15,000 paying punters to fill the Vélodrome Buffalo, 20,000 to fill the Parc des Princes. But, in Germany, it took 40,000 to fill the Friedenau Sportpark, Berlin. And that was just one track in Berlin, just one track in Germany. Throughout the Fatherland Walthour was impressed by the crowds he witnessed when he raced at Dresden, at Leipzig, at Stieglitz, at Spandau, at Frankfurt.

Unsurprisingly, six years after his first visit to Europe, when he'd raced in France, Germany and the UK, Walthour moved full-time to Germany in 1910, where he stayed until the outbreak of the first World War. Walthour explained the move to the Washington Post:

"Bicycle racing is the national sport in Germany, just as baseball is here. It is nothing to see 45,000 persons out for a race. And they even pay us to train. Our contracts call for us to begin training on Thursday, and we must train in public every day until Sunday. On that day we race. They have cement tracks abroad and six or seven motor-paced riders will take part in one race. It is pretty exciting too."

Excitement was one word for it. Dangerous another. Motor-paced riding was fast and, with each evolution in engine technology, just got faster. Records fell with regularity. As did riders and their pacers. Broken bones, ripped skin, if you walked away from an accident with just these, you were lucky. Many were not lucky. Many died. Riders and pace-men that Walthour knew from riding with and gainst. In Germany in particular the game seemed to be at its hardest, the death toll highest.

Walthour, though, was one of the lucky ones: hundreds of crashes, dozens of bones broke, but he lived into retirement and died aged 72. A double-World Champion, winner of two Madison Square Garden Sixes, victor in countless other races. A star on both sides of the Atlantic.

* * * * *

It's about twenty years now since I first came across the name of Bobby Walthour, in Peter Nye's Hearts Of Lions. Walthour's name has cropped up now and again in other books of that era, but Homan's Life In The Slipstream is the first proper attempt to put some order on his life and career, and place Walthour's story in some kind of context. Homan's source material - period newspapers and magazines - necessarily limits the book's scope: this is very much the legend of Bobby Walthour, the publicly told story of an American cycling star. In order to read the man behind the mask we must read between the lines and make our our judgements.

Homan's source material could also limit the book's readability, turn into an informative but tiring account that limps from one race to the next, bogged down in dry detail. Homan, however, is the master of his source material and allows the story to come alive. By quoting liberally from his sources he allows the voice of the time to ring out a century later and, in the quotes form the many interviews Walthour gave during his life, to allow Walthour's voice to ring out, a century after he set the cycling world alight. Far from being a dry tale of a rider whose contribution to cycling is often overlooked, Life In The Slipstream is a vivid account of an era that deserves to be remembered.

FSA DS - Don't Forget the Frenchies !

2012-02-14T16:45:59Z

Merde! As I look at the country flags from proposed FSA DS teams, one country seems to be largely ignored: France.

Yes France. The country that held the first bike race. The country that invented gothic art, the guillotine, codeine, the rabies vaccine, the oboe, the bikini, and, without a doubt, the country that perfected polka dots (yes ant1, you should click this link).

Here are 5 French cyclists (and a couple of bonus picks) that should make every FSA DS team better - or at least far more fun to support.

Photo*: Thomas Voeckler being awesome, 2011 Paris-Nice.

1. Thomas Voeckler: Europcar

Who doesn't love Thomas? Let me know and we will together shun them.

Le chouchou (darling) de l'Alsace had a terrific 2011 VDS season. He was the best mid-priced rider in the entire competition. Costing only 8 points, Thomas finished 14th overall with 1280 points and was better value (points/price) than all the 13 riders above him. If he doesn't decide to run for President in the April French elections, I expect him to have another huge year.

Finishing 4th in the 2011 Tour de France, Voeckler wore the yellow jersey for 10 days. All France swooned, and swooned, and swooned some more. Defying all pundits, he defended Yellow through the Pyrénées and much of the Alps, before finally dropping to 4th overall on Alpe d'Huez, the last mountain stage. This brilliant run in yellow even surpassed in élan his previous extraordinary 10-stage reign in yellow during the 2004 Tour.

Voeckler will cost 14 points in 2012. But admit it, you will hate yourself when he bravely clings to yellow this July and you forgot to draft him.

2. Pierre Rolland: Europcar

He was one of the better 2 point picks last season, finishing with 310 points. He costs 6 points this season.

Yes, yes, you know him. Lance Armstrong tweeted that Pierre was a rockstar when Rolland won stage 19 of the 2011 Tour de France at Alpe d'Huez - voted the Queen stage by the Cafe gang (you!). This monumental stage victory seemed just reward after Rolland had selflessly shepherded Europcar team-mate Voeckler in yellow for half the Tour. Rolland would go on to win the white jersey (best young rider) while finishing an impressive 10th overall in the Tour. Wow.

Rolland has already podiumed in 2012, winning stage 3 of l'Etoile de Béssèges. 2012 could be a break-out season. Most importantly, Albertina "likes" his Facebook page. You can too.

Photo: Tourbecco in Team Moo kit cycles over a French flag at Alpe d'Huez.

3. Jérôme Coppel: Saur - Sojasun

My favourite cyclist! A local boy, born in Annemasse, France minutes from Geneva. This talented young rider is pure class, twice winning the U-23 French TT championship. He has very (OK: very, very) occasionally been included in discussions of the next great French hope. 2012 will prove his legion of fans wise beyond all wisdom.

While 2011 was admittedly slightly disappointing - I picked him to win the 2011 Tour - he did still manage ~~14th~~ 13th overall in the TdF GC . He was also good FSA DS value, earning 400 points, at a cost of only 4. He is a bargain at a cost of only 6 points this season.

2012 is off to a flying start: Coppel won the 2012 Étoile de Bessèges at the start of February. Frankly, it's a little scandalous that I don't get VDS points for this great stage race victory. Super Ted, get your #@&à§ç act together earlier next season!**

Coppel has publicly said that he will target a strong GC placing in the 2012 Tour de France (assuming the ASO bastards give Saur - Sojasun an invite). We'll get a good chance to further assess his early form during Paris-Nice in a few weeks.

If you want to join the cool kids and be a Coppel fan, go to his official web site and join me as a member of his fan club. See your humble author dressed in his Jérôme Coppel fan club gear. Membership includes invitations to join the "Kop Coppel" at races (and a signed autograph photo - swoon).

Photo: Jérôme Coppel Fan Club at Tour de Romandie

4. Sylvain Chavanel: Omega Pharma Quick Step

Chavanel will start the 2012 season wearing the French national jersey.

2011 was a good FSA DS year for the stage hunter, earning 645 points at a cost of only 4 (value!). In addition to his French road race championship, Sylvain finished 2nd in the Tour of Flanders, and held the red jersey in the Vuelta for 4 stages.

Chavanel costs an increased 10 points in 2012. Whether he has success or not this season, you know he will attack and try to win stages - promising excitement for any aspiring fantasy league DS. What more can you ask?

Chavanel trivia: His family is from Spain, his grand-father was born in Barcelona but moved to France during the Spanish Civil War. However, Chavanel is French though-and-through: "I hardly know a word of Spanish – just swear words."

Photo: Chavanel winning stage 7 of the 2010 Tour de France.

5. Samuel Dumoulin - Cofidis

Don't mistake him with his Dutch cycling namesake Tom Dumoulin - Tom is much taller. At 5' 2" Samuel is easy to find in the official Cofidis team photo. A long time professional, Dumoulin can climb a little and sprint a little making him a threat in any mid-mountain stage.

Samuel is a hugely popular rider in France. I remember a Tour stage where he was all alone and behind even the first grupetto, before he came in to view we could hear his name being yelled repeatedly lower down, and everyone instantly joined in as he approached.

At a cost of 4 points you can expect some vaue in some of the smaller French races - he has already won the 2012 Grand Prix d'Ouverture La Marseillaise (more VDS points I should already have Super Ted**). At a minimum, you will always know he is coming by the cheering fans.

Very Short Video: Samuel Dumoulin @ 2010 Tour de France

Quick Bonus Picks:

OK, ok, I admit I know nothing about cyclists. So let's go to a real expert. Vlaanderen90 in his excellent Five Newbies to Watch for in 2012 article suggests that the young French rider Roman Bardet of Ag2r La Mondiale is good FSA DS value:

Bardet was one of the stars last year on the U23 circuit with lots of high finishes in hilly races. 2nd in U23 LBL, 2 stage wins in Tour des Pays de Savoie, mountain stage in the Tour de l'Avenir and some high finishes at the hilly Tour de l'Ain. He showed some early strength with making the break at GP Marseillaise and should make his presence felt in the hills over the course of this year, stage races and one-day races alike.

My double-secret FSA DS tip: Know your brothers. Sylvain Chavanel is gold, Sebastian Chavanel not so much. Romain Feillu is fast, Brice Feillu is a 2010 & 2011 goose egg who will finally be dropped from my team.

"Feillu me once, shame on you. Feillu me twice shame on me."

2011 - Team Sexy Marmottes DS Willj

Cedric Pineau might be related to occasionally polka-dotted Jérôme Pineau (I have no idea), but neither is related to Thibault Pinot. And sadly, Sebastien Hinault is not the alcohol-soaked love child of Bridgette Bardot and Bernard Hinault.

Finally, Alexandra opines that John Gadret may win the Giro and I just dare you to disagree with her - I double dare you.

Vive le FSA DS et Bonne Chance !

* All photos and video by Will and used with my permission
** This is attempted humour. I love Super Ted.

Six Months EXACTLY Until Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian!

2012-02-14T08:00:52Z

Hey Humans! We clams have awoken from our winter nap and all of the Bay of Biscay is abuzz in preparation for this Most Beautiful Race. As usual, please disregard the meat grinder located just pass the finish line with the tube extending out into the bay to spray fine nutrients for all us bivalves to snack on. Better than popcorn!

The early handicapping suggests a two-man sprint to win between Phil and Al.

6 MONTHS HUMANS! THE BIVALVES ARE EXCITED!!!!

An insight into the minds of Belgians

2012-02-13T23:04:29Z

A friend* of mine tipped me of on a quite interesting study conducted by a Belgian economist. Daam Van Reeth studied how a number of different variables - like the parcourse, doping news, uncertainty about the outcome, and patriotism - influence the TV audience during Tour de France. He only use data from Flemish television, but since Podium Cafe is the site where people dream of Belgium, we might learn something from the study anyway.

Now, there are not a lot of surprises here. Belgians love high mountain stages, and even more so if it's mountain top finish. The 10 most viewed stages between 1997 and 2010 are all high mountain stages, and 8 of them finish on a mountain. Number 1 is the Tourmalet stage in 2010, and number 2 is the Morzine stage the same year. But that is only true for average audience, when it comes to peak audience, two Paris stages is 1st and 2nd. Tourmalet 2010 is 3rd, and Mont Ventoux 2009 is 4th.

On the other hand, the stages that interest the Belgians the least are time trials and flat stages during the first week (bunch of wackos...). The prologue in Strasbourg in 2005 is the number 296, both for average audience and peak audience. Compared to the baseline, the audience is more than 34,000 fewer during a individual time trial, and more than twice as many stay away during a team time trial.

Even more obvious is that a close race is positive, same goes for Belgian success (with Van Den Broeck adding even more viewers in 2010). Van Reeth also introduces a "Boonen-dummy" (funny on so many levels) to see how if Boonen's absence in 2008 lowered audience that year. It did, at least the average audience was almost 35,000 fewer because of his ban. The result for peak audience is not statistically significant, but indicates a rather curious positive effect.

Apparently, Belgians love when the race goes through Belgium. Well, at least when the race visits Flandern, the audience goes up a lot during those stages. The Walloon stages is far behind in popularity, and barely significant.

To finish this post, two interesting tidbits. First of all, Armstrong's comeback raised the number of viewers. Not by a lot on average, but the number for peak audience is not far behind the same number for Belgian success. Secondly, doping news doesn't make much of a difference, the Belgians watch cycling anyway.

*He said it was important research. At the same time, his interest in sports is rather limited. It's possible that he was sarcastic.

Strategy Check: Cobbling Together Victory?

2012-02-13T07:42:21Z

[All this week we will be featuring different angles on playing our year-long fantasy game, the FSA Directeur Sportif. Remember, deadlines for submitting your teams are Feb 22 for the women and Feb 24 for the men. Don't miss out! Let's start with -- what else? -- the cobbled classics.]

One rite of winter in my family is when my brother starts emailing me with his team and asking me if I think it's Belgian enough. Mr Van P knows the various strategy choices and has tried a few over the years. But like the moth to the flame, he can't not stack his team with Belgians. Cobbles addicts are like that. Trust me, I know.

I don't usually engage too much in these dialogs. Maybe I'm a lousy brother, but I have trouble settling on my own strategy, and something inside me tells me not to look at Pete's team. Sure, I'd love to follow my heart and go all-in on the classics, but stacking a squad full of Belgies -- what happens to them after Brabantse Pijl? Last year he went completely off the rails and built a team of 25 Belgians. Hell, it was almost entirely Flemish, except for Gilbert, Monfort, Amorison and Baugnies. It's like setting an April 12 expiration date on your team's season. Meanwhile, I quietly built a nicely rounded team stacked to compete through October. Needless to say, in our field of nearly 700 teams last year he finished... 148th. Exactly 210 spots higher than me.

Should you be like Pete and build a Cobbles Team for your FSA DS entry? First, let's define what the Cobbles Strategy looks like. "Classics" can be defined various ways -- if you include the hilly classics, the fall classics, etc., but for me it centers around the fourteen events that define the Cobbled Classics:

The Omloop and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne
Monte Paschi Eroica
Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico (every classics hopeful picks one or the other)
Milano-Sanremo
Vlaamse Wielerweek: Dwars door Vlaanderen, E3 Prijs Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem, Driedaagse de Panne
The Monuments: Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix
Scheldeprijs and Brabantse Pijl

Yes, I know, Milano-Sanremo and the Strade Bianche are not cobbled classics. Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico are not classics at all. But I bunch these events together because the guys who want to win in Flanders are doing these earlier events, because they are hard, their place on the calendar make them ideal for polishing one's classics form, and MSR is a destination race in its own right. So you get a lot of the same top guys competing for points in this grouping.

Fourteen events on a calendar of some 200 days of racing is nothing much. You could ignore them at little peril, maybe picking up some surprise points en route to your grand tour strategy or whatever you've got cooking. But they are fun, and the three monuments are big point pickup opportunities, so they are probably worth getting involved in. Among last year's top 30 riders, there were ten guys who made or should make an impact at the races I just listed. But pick any one of them and you'll see that a "cobbles strategy" is only half true. Fabian Cancellara was wildly successful in his spring campaign, and scored 1300 of his 2091 points in the classics calendar. Greg Van Avermaet scored 260 of his 1200 points in spring. Bjorn Leukemans was even better, but his 485 was still barely a third of his season's points. The second-best cobbles rider in the world right now, Tom Boonen, scored all of his 580 points on the cobbles, and was one of the worst bargains in the game.

The point is simple: finding guys who win in spring is fine as long as they don't pack it in as soon as the daffodils start to bloom. To win on the infernal stones AND win for you, a rider has to be a bit more evergreen than, oh, Peter Van Petegem. The other part is, he has to be reliable in Flanders. Winning the classics is one of the sport's great crapshoots, but secondary finishes in a monument can add up quickly, so if there's anything resembling consistency to a rider's spring game, that's worth knowing.

Let's quickly run through the top 15 classics guys from 2011, in no particular order...

1. Fabian Cancellara

Reliable? Like a Swiss watch. His triple win in 2010 would be a record for cobbles points if we tracked such things.

Got any other tricks? He's always good for a few results, especially in time trials and double-especially at the Tour de France time trials. But the world championships are his best point haul post-spring.

2. Philippe Gilbert

Reliable? At this point he's had a couple strong runs at Flanders, but he never does Paris-Roubaix. I suspect he will try for Gent-Wevelgem again. And at Brabantse Pijl he's essentially unstoppable.

Got any other tricks? Um, you do follow cycling, don't you?

3. Tom Boonen

Reliable? Absolutely. See Ursula's article.

Got any other tricks? Hm... see Ursula's article. He used to own the sprint world, and scored massive points in 2005-06, but at this point he isn't interested. Now? He still picks low-hanging fruit in his back yard.

4. Bjorn Leukemans

Reliable? Like a Belgian watch. Following an interruption in his career in 2009, he's been a stalwart in Flanders and Roubaix. Bound to score a big win one of these days. He's also a good illustration of Brabantse Pijl's importance: a lot of guys have cashed in their chips after Paris-Roubaix, but the climber types can score some nice points in this last classic.

Got any other tricks? He keeps going into the Ardennes, finishing 7th at Amstel and 9th at Liege. And he's likely to grab some small-race points in Belgium later on (Ronde van Belgie or what have you).

5. Greg Van Avermaet

Reliable? Hm, tough call. Van Avermaet has looked fantastic two years running, but he hasn't scored big in the two monuments. No idea why, as he keeps getting better. He's a wild card, especially with Gilbert joining BMC. But in 2011, he paid big dividends to teams like my brother's.

Got any other tricks? Summer classics, smaller Belgian stuff. He's likely to enter the World Championships as a dark horse. More uncertainty there too though, since he'll still be on Gilbert's team, but that could simply mean he'll unleash his awesomeness a month later in the season. Either way, points are points.

6. Nick Nuyens

Reliable? Er, maybe at this point, yes. He had some off-years along the way but most of the time he can be counted on for a high finish at de Ronde and some other nice results.

Got any other tricks? I wouldn't count on much. Amstel Gold is a target, and he's done well there at times. Elsewhere, he falls into handfuls of point but that's it.

7. Juan Antonio Flecha

Reliable? Yes -- his CQ points have been between 419 and 641 for ten years, except for one bonanza run in '04. But he hits 35 this year and was nothing special last spring after losing a heartbreaking Omloop finale. That sell-by date may be approaching.

Got any other tricks? Funny, he usually shows up for at least one stage race a year, somewhere up north. Last year it was the Tour de Luxembourg, the year before the ENECO Tour, he won the Circuit Franco Belge in 2008. If his owners are lucky, this year's splurge won't be confined to the Tour of Qatar.

8. Edvald Boasson Hagen

Reliable? He's limped through two consecutive spring campaigns now, but before that he won Gent-Wevelgem, and before that... he was a teenager. So who knows? Also, his classics ceiling is hard to predict. Can he win the Tour of Flanders? In its new incarnation, he seems like an ideal candidate, but I've been worked up about budding superstars before.

Got any other tricks? Trying to control myself here... he's technically not great at everything just yet. But his repertoire keeps getting longer and longer, with Tour de France stages and the ENECO Tour added last year.

9. Thor Hushovd

Reliable? I suppose so. He fared poorly with the rainbow bull's eye on his back last year, but part of that was his crash in MSR, which deprived him of one of his two regular almost-Monument-winning points -- a pretty good haul most years.

Got any other tricks? Defo. Tour de France stages have become a mortal lock. The Norwegian nats, a sprint win here and there. He's money, probably for another season or three.

10. Sylvain Chavanel

Reliable? I'll say yes. He didn't show in the classics before joining Quick Step four years ago, but in three years since he's been outstanding on the cobbles. If Boonen weren't Flemish or Chava were, they'd be co-leaders by now. Changes to de Ronde should keep him very relevant, and if he were to make the finale of Paris-Roubaix, well, that would be so freaking cool.

Got any other tricks? The only truly predictable one would be the French nats, road race or time trial. After that, he always bags something, with a Tour stage being the most dramatic and the ENECO Tour the pointy-est.

11. Alessandro Ballan

Reliable? Only unless you think the Mantova investigation is going to rear up again. Or cytomegalovirus. Last year was the first time in three years that he looked fantastic on the cobbles, but even if the landscape has changed, it's still encouraging that he rode like the guy who was glued to Boonen and Cancellara in the 2008 Hell of the North. They were the Three Kings of the Cobbles back then, with Ballan just the slowest sprinter. I loved his fourth in MSR last spring; if that's part of his repertoire now, his value goes up.

Got any other tricks? Hard to predict, like a lot of the guys on this list. But his signature wins, the '07 Ronde and '08 Worlds, were presaged by victories just prior. He gets hot, he's gonna win a race or two.

12. Sebastian Langeveld

Reliable? Eeehh, no. I mean, everyone on this list is going to show up somewhere in spring, but compared to the top guys Langeveld spends too many classics anonymously. When he's good, he's quite good. But the transition to GreenEdge is another wildcard.

Got any other tricks? Nope. Less so than anyone here. It's all or nothing in the classics for Seb.

13. Geraint Thomas

Reliable? Well, last year was his breakout season in the classics, with a dashing performance in de Ronde coming on the heels of a near-miss in Dwars door Vlaanderen. He has the pedigree, so he should be considered reliable in a few years' time... BUT! For 2012 he's pledged his season to Olympic track events and is skipping the classics this year. I knew the British obsession with track was ugly, but I didn't know it was this bad. Unless Thomas is pulling the ultimate sandbag here, it's a shame.

Got any other tricks? Yeah, track. Seriously, what is wrong with you people?

14. Johan Van Summeren

Reliable? As far as his teammates are concerned, absolutely. Summie is one of the great teammates you could have: big motor, blocks a ton of wind. But Paris-Roubaix is his only real specialty, and nobody, not even the reigning champion, is assured of a good day on that (ahem) road.

Got any other tricks? Nope. Well, if Garmin win a TTT someplace (maybe even the worlds) then that's something. Otherwise, forget it.

15. George Hincapie

Reliable? At long last, no. His last top ten in Paris-Roubaix, his most beloved race, was in 2008. Flanders he's hung in with the leaders, looking threatening right to the end last year, but the guy is 38.

Got any other tricks? Finishing the Tour, where he will set the all-time record this summer, if things go well. Also, the plethora of American stage races is a boon for his owners. However much we love those events here, they aren't contested at the same level as their more established Euro cousins, which means winnable stages for home-nation all-rounders like Big George. Not many points in that cache, however.

This list omits all the sprinter types -- Cav, Greipel, Freire, Farrar, etc. They obviously win all year round, and their reliable classics hopes are limited mostly to MSR, Gent-Wevelgem and the Scheldeprijs. Nothing to sneeze at. But for the sake of brevity, well, you know who they are. It also omits a lot of lesser-heralded riders like Jurgen Roelands (another one of Pete's big scores last year), Lars Boom, Bernie Eisel, and on and on. The classics are stacked with talent these days, which makes them even tougher to predict. A lot of Classics guys are priced very low or very high, depending on whether last year's Classics Crapshoot worked out well for them. Your job is to figure out which is which. Good luck!

Photos by Chris Fontecchio for the Podium Cafe

Boonen: Bust? or Bustin' Out!!!!

2012-02-12T22:00:10Z

Admit it. The other day when the VDS competition was opened it was like Christmas morning as you opened the rider price list. There you were, slowly going down the list from expensive to cheap, hoping that you'd find your favorites at a great price. You started at the top, trying to guess if Phil-Gil was worth 36 points. Certainly-if he has another season like last season; but can he repeat that? Hmm.

Moving down, you saw Bert at 30 and mentally put that away until you heard the ruling. J-Rod, Cance, and the Tour winner at 26? Interesting...Manx Missile at 22? Seems a bit high but if he ever puts a complete season, it could be worth it....Whoa! Green Bullet at 22 too? (All sorts of visceral reactions to that one from Get That $#^%@#er Out Of My VDS! to There's My Captain!

By now in the back of your mind there's this vague notion that Someone Is Missing but the list is so interesting you can't yet ID who...Two kids at 20...clearly the VDS Eds want me to pay through the nose....18 pointers all sort of similar...Someone's Definitely Missing...16..Schlecks, Big Bird, Bobo, The Testosterone Tootise..14....Greipel, eh? WHAT THE HELL WHERE IS HE WHERE IS MY MAN WHERE OH GOD IS HE DEAD I CAN'T BREATHE I HAVE HIVES DOES LORE KNOW DOES SHE I HAVE TO HIT VIEW ALL ONLY BAD RIDERS NEED VIEW ALL GGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH...12 points and then you see it, right below Jurgen Roelandts and on top of the Little Bald Nugget:

37.

OPQ

PRT

Tom Boonen

580

Stop! VDS has now Officially and Successfully divided the world into two parts: those who can't believe that the Ed's are that freakishly stupid and those who had none of the above reactions and calmly moved onto Nugget where they thought they saw a big bargain there. I leave it to you to decide which part is the better. I know which one is the more popular.

I don't think I am giving anything away in saying that Tornado Tom is so far one of the most popular picks so far. Nor would it be surprising to read that Tommeke is the most popular rider pick in the history of VDS. Only one year-2009-was he not one of the most popular picks and you could explain that by noting that a double Grand Tour winner from the year before was priced only five points more. Even that year he totally won the popularity contest against the likes of Cancellara, Evans, Oscarito, etc, etc. etc.

As you probably know, the prices of the riders reflect in part their popularity. New guys like EBH and Sagan get a youth surcharge for instance cause everyone loves the new kids. Since 2008, Boonen's price has been 25, 20, 22, and 20. So WTF is up with the 12 points this year? Below I make the case that he's the biggest bargain since sliced bread or yet another dumb pick for suckers who for some reason are partial to a totally forgettable small flattish country with no hills worthy of a name. (Ursula moves away from any windows lest the Belgian mafia decide to take him out.)

The Case For Picking Tom (as if you needed a case)

The guy is serious this year. Currently the #2 ranked CQ rider (after TDU winner Gerrans) Boonen has three stage wins already as well as the overall at Qatar. The other three times he won Qatar he went on to chalk up VDS season totals of 1525 (2009) 1019 (2008) and-pulling the trusty calculator out of my pocket protector here-2736 (2006) points. So take his Qatar win and couple that with his San Luis workout and you have a Boonen who's more focused on the beginning of the season for years. (He's riding Oman too.) We should fully expect Boonen to seriously contest the Omloop AND KBK and continue right through the cobbles season, collecting a couple wins and several podiums along the way.

Yeah, the last couple of years have been kind of a downer for our favorite rider but that's mainly because he set such a high bar in the middle of the last decade. Every year he comes up with a big win (it seems) including last year's Gent-Wevelgem. He's still an A-list cobbles threat of compared to the rest of 'em (Cance, Phil, etc.) he can smoke 'em all in a sprint. Its not hard at all to envision him scoring 1000 points on the cobbles + MSR and that alone will make his-what are you kidding me just 12 freaking points?-worthwhile. And a focused Tom will score more points in the summer. 1500 point isn't out of the question. If I could I would Photoshop a picture of the Death Star with Tom's picture on it.

The Case Against Picking Tom (besides the Jens avoidance-of-popular-picks Rule-its a Swedish thing)

Hel-lo? Seriously? You're bringing up 2006? Well since you are let's look at his CQ season points totals, starting in 2006 when he was 26 for the cycling season:

2559, 1479, 1328, 1377, 777, 502, 298 (so far this year)

If that doesn't paint a picture of, what, disinterest? partying? premature aging? I don't know what does. But let's look a little closer at these numbers. You know the biggest factor in the decline here? Boonen back in the day had two components to his dominance: his cobbles/classics abilities and his bunch sprinting. What we see here is the gradual decline in his sprinting to where he just won two sprints last year: G-W and 1 stage at Qatar. So you look at his "resurgence" this year and what do you see? Him winning bunch sprints against B and C class sprinters. Give him a pat on the head. Look closer at the Qatar stages and he won when there was limited competition due to punctures and winds splitting up the peloton or he got boxed in close to a kilometer back from the finish and...never really tried to change his positioning. His win at San Luis was also against inferior competition. The bottom line says that he'll be lucky to win one bunch sprint this year. The sprinters have literally passed him by.

Prematurely too. Its not just that the Cavendishes and Greipels and Galimzyanovs are physically faster; Tom just gives up too soon. That's why his point totals have declines when he was in his physical prime. And what is true for the bunch sprints is also now true for the Classics and Monuments. Since winning Paris-Roubaix in 2009, his Classics dominance has gone with the wind. If I had to pick a moment when he Lost It I would pick his last race of 2009: October 11th, Paris-Tours. On the Rue de Grammont, they should put up a tombstone there with the inscription that reads "Here lies Tom Boonen R.I.P. October 11th 2009. Phil-Gil laid him down" That was the day that Boonen came in 2nd to Gilbert in a three-man sprint with Bozic. Remember? Boonen should have won, but misread a fagged out Bozic and Phil, who has no business out sprinting Tom, lightly stepped around him for the win.

That was his last race in 2009. In 2010 his first big race, MSR, he lost out on the sprint when Oscarito blew by him. E-3, Flanders and P-R? Cancellara did to Boonen what Secretariat did to Sham in the Triple Crown in '73: blew his doors off and eventually broke his spirit. We know how last year went. DNF in P-R? Seriously?

In VDS a rider who scored 580 points the year before like Tom did would be priced at 8 points. He's getting a 4 point surcharge because he's popular-and to make him feel better.

Rebuttal

Sham? Seriously? Aren't we being a bit hysterical? The guy is only 31; its not like he's been dead for 20 years or anything. I agree that he's needed an attitude adjustment, but it sure looks like that's happened...finally. Tornado Tom's awoken from a two year nap and is hungry again. I can revise my hopes down some: 1000 points still seems likely and for a 12 pointer that's just fine. (I still think he'll crack 1500.)

Counter-rebuttal

O-VER-RATED! clap clap clap clap clap O-VER-RATED! clap clap clap clap clap clap clap

What will happen

Yes, well, I think this debate is over. Yeah, the two views of him above are kinda extreme. He neither sucks and he's no longer a god. Why that is, I'll leave to you to figure out. I do know that I love it when he's winning and so do most people reading this piece. And that's the most important thing in picking a VDS team: do you like your guys or not? Yeah, you'll read all sorts of rationalizations about picking one rider or avoiding another one. All sorts of calculations of rider efficiency and what not. You want to know a secret? All that stuff-and I do it a ton-is just rationalization, used to justify picking riders the writer likes and connect with. Yeah, some of the rationalization is good, seemingly, but how many people are gonna put riders they dislike on their team? Right.

Most of us love Tom Boonen. If so try to put him on your team. He's still the Straw That Stirs The Drink on the cobbles. Every team keys off of him. That alone makes it fun to root for him. And when he retires the peloton will be a little sadder. My gut tells me he's worth 12 points. How much more...I don't know. His start to the season has been better than it has been in years so maybe he's gonna recapture some of his glory. Physically he should be capable of doing so. Definitely his form now makes (for me at least) the Omloop/KBK weekend more interesting than it has been the last couple of years, since 2009. A good weekend for him should portend some serious ass-kicking this spring. Plus his team looks better than it has for years. They have alternatives to needing Boonen to win now, even in stage races. He can always rub Nugget's head for good luck.