Originally thought the Tour of California being scheduled simultaneously with the Giro would have been a fail of catastrophic proportions. It turns out it wasn’t. Today’s stage 1 finish was crazy, chaotic, and exciting. The field was huge, lots of big stars pushing their teams, and the crowds were massive! Cav took it in the end, but JJ looked to have a little juice in the tank to make it interesting. Sad to see Boonen go down, as well as Chris Horner and Stuey O’Grady.

Epicness

In the Giro we’re witnessing some of the more exciting stages I’ve witnessed in a Grand Tour in a long time. Stage 7 traversing the strade bianche could only be summed up with the overused word, epic. It was a day that legends are born. The fact that Cadel Evans took the stage wearing the rainbow stripes of the World Champion took it over the top in its epicness. Yes, epicness.

Needless to say I’m back to being full of amore for the sport of cycling. I’m able to cheer riders again, albeit with reservation as we can never be sure that they’re clean. But at least I’m actively rooting again.

Personal Bici

On the personal bike side, I’m actually riding regularly. Right now it’s been 2 days a week at best, but that’s the best it’s been for a long time. Soon enough I’ll schedule a few days a week to commute as well, so that should keep the process of decreasing my waistline in proper order. Unfortunately for me, I’m getting older and my recovery time is longer than it was 2 years ago. Legs feel stuffed longer, but I’m hoping that will change as I gain more form. I’m guessing that I completely atrophied at one point so my legs were at a feeble level of strength when I started Spring ’09.

I started yet another Tumblr account, this time for this site. The official Cycleboredom Tumblr is live, and I’ve done no HTML/CSS customization (except for some font families). I’ve been wanting to just post images, and other randomness that doesn’t need a full blown WP post like this. So I cooked one up for meself!

If everything goes well, sometime next month I should have my Gunnar built. Can’t believe it’s taken so long. I have 9 speed 105 ready for it if you can believe that, but I’m in no position to buy anything new. In those 2 years off from cycling, I managed to acquire a daughter. That’s where all our money goes now. Occasionally I’m able to get something for the bici collection. Lately, everything has gone to clothing considering I’m wearing some kits from 2001! If I have time, I’ll document the build and the outcome. I’m sure the report on how 105 works will be exhilarating to say the least.

Please visit the Giro presentation gallery on Cyclingnews.com.

Please visit Roberto Bettini’s image gallery on Cyclingnews.com!

Christmas in July

Collectively as bike geeks we know the Tour de France heralds the bikes and gear available on the shelves for the upcoming season. The latest and greatest is lacquered upon the riders and paraded around the “hexagon” (Paul-ism) of France. Well, usually the latest and the greatest.

This year’s product WTF moment came when we finally got our eyes on what we heard was a new helmet from Giro named the ProLight. Oooh, it’s both pro level, and it’s light. But damned if this helmet turned out to look like something I’d sell to someone buying their first hybrid. Or a triathlete.

It’s visage sparked something though. Something deep within the recesses of my product addled mind. The Giro Boreas. That was the hot helmet in the late 90′s, up until the 2000 Tour when the Pneumo was introduced.

So I wondered if Giro regressed so much even the Boreas looked more technologically advanced than the ProLight. Unfortunately I was right, and I could’ve stopped there. Just saying that Giro released a helmet that looks worse than a helmet they sold in 1999 should’ve been damning enough. But I’m a bigger **** than that. I had to go for the kill – hit ‘em right in the ol’ Roc Locs. Is there another helmet, that’s so ugly, so painful to look at, that it could potentially kill the ProLight if the two were compared? A tall order you ask? No, and I didn’t have to look outside Giro’s walls for such an insidious shell-top. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Giro Eclipse – literally the only helmet worse looking than the ProLight.

It’s not my imagination either – many of the riders looked as though they didn’t want to wear it. Pretty sure Popo never took his Ionos off the entire race. Lance gave it a shot for a few stages as well as Contador, but it was result was inevitable. The normally product-pimping peloton was definitely not ringing the endorsement bell on this one.

Put me down for – none!

What I miss now is having the reps sell me on the product at Interbike. Some of the cooler ones were able to poke fun at some of their products telling me what I already knew: “You don’t want this one!” Then there were the über-reps with their heads up their asses spitting the company propaganda verbatim. Needless to say they didn’t get big orders. Luckily those insurance salesman were repping **** products/companies anyway so it never hurt us.

At this rate we’ll see this as the top of the line offering in a couple of years!

Annnnd…

To be honest, the helmet doesn’t look that bad. It cuts a decent side profile. You just won’t see it on my head. Crap – what am I saying? I’m the person who defended this helmet purchase years ago. I can’t be trusted for any cycling fashion tips after that debacle.

Finally, if any of you, “Who cares what it looks like, I’ll be passing you while you’re looking in the mirror…” douchebags want to comment go right ahead. Pass me and go join the freak-peloton with: shirtless melanoma man, bibs over cotton t-shirt dude, mismatched pro-kit ass, the aged helmetless masters prima-donna, Cat3 pack-meat race-face wad, fairing-using rocket recumbant man, and the countless hordes wearing their 10 year old helmets backwards. You all deserve each other.