The Sport of Professional Cycling

Other than baseball, which I followed for a time in the late eighties because of a slight romantic interest in Drop Dead Gorgeous Ted, (my son’s little league coach) I have never been much interested in sports. In fact I’m quite proud of my Super Bowl virgin status, having never seen one in my entire life. But my lack of interest in sports changed when my husband, who is British, introduced me to Bike Racing, or as Paul Sherwen calls it, “The Sport of Professional Cycling.”

I have to be honest, one of the greater draws in Men’s Cycling has to be the uniforms. Men’s Cycling uniforms have football and baseball beat hands down. Basketball uniforms, it goes without saying, are the least interesting and frankly, from a fashion point of view, don’t enhance the player’s natural physical talents at all. I can remember the first time I saw a man in bike shorts. I almost fainted.

It’s how they package the packages, you know?

Allright, I’ll be nice, and all PC correct, no need to slap me. Stop! Quit It! I’m a latent feminist, so just stop already. I enjoy Men’s Professional Cycling for the subtleties of the race. Cycling is a team sport with only one winner. This aspect of it fascinates me. Sure, they are all working for the walk around money at the end. Still and all, there are a few who strive to be the team leader and they work hard for the money.

So I’ll sum up my admiration of Men’s Pro Cycling in two words. Lance Armstrong. Oh, he’s not the only contender, but he does have the first chance of anyone in history to win the Tour de France six times in a row. SIx times! In A Row! That alone is one reason to take even a slight interest in the sport. His best competitors are worth watching as well. They all have distinctive racing styles and customized equipment that add interest to the event.

We are heavy into the men’s pro cycling season now. OLN-TV is the place to view the bike races. Right now in our area they are showing races on Sunday afternoon, early Wednesday morning, and Thursday night. Some of them are reruns, but I’ve learned that watching the reruns are just as fascinating as the first time we watch the race. There are subtleties, as I have mentioned earlier. And the subtleties don’t really have to do with the uniforms.

The Giro d’Italia is the first of the three Grand Tours of the season. It starts Saturday May 8 and will be broadcast on OLN-TV. The Grand Tours are torturous three week bike races in which the riders pedal up to 200km per day. The second Grand Tour is the Tour de France, the final is La Vuelta, in Spain.

As interesting as the bike racers are the commentators for OLN-TV. Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll provide entertaining and colorful commentary along with history and statistics.

I would rate Bike Racing as somewhat of a geeky sport, too. Although there are moments when the entire peleton can go down in a spectacular crash due to one rider losing a tire or not making a corner, in general it’s not as macho as football or basketball. Another geek factor is the peleton itself, which sometimes appears to be precision engineered. You could almost say Bike Racing is the Macintosh of sports, whereas the likes of football, hockey and soccer are the Dells and Gateways.

Allright, enough of this. Just watch one bike race and see if you don’t like it. And since you were so nice to read all the way to the end, you may have ice cream before you go to bed. Yes, with caramel sauce.

Stay tuned.

CKS/BL tridiot rating, oh this one has to be way up there, my calculations put it at 116.7385

Today’s post sponsored by Google