Monday, February 23, 2009

Peloton Justice

I spent the end of the week with my son in Rochester, N.Y. as he auditioned for graduate school at the Eastman School of Music. If interested, more about that trip can be found here. We returned on Saturday, and I settled in to watch the final stage of the Tour of California Sunday afternoon.

I have seen the costumed idiots in Europe running alongside the racers on climbs, but never have they seemed as intrusive, obnoxious , and numerous as they did on this race. Several times, they completely disrupted coverage of the race, and I was in suspense as to when one of them would actually knock over one of the cyclists.

Later, I was surfing articles about the race, and found this sequence of pictures showing Lance Armstrong thrusting one of these guys (I'm sure it was only a coincidence that he happened to be the one carrying syringes) into a snow bank. Nice move - I'm sure most people would fall off of their bikes if they tried shoving a fat, running guy while riding - and check out Chris Horner's grin of delight (in the Astana kit several riders back).

2 comments:

gravy said...

I don't remember that guy, but I remember Rodgers punching a fan near the peak of the big climb. I'm worried he's going to get fined for hitting a fan... oh well.

http://bicycling.com/blogs/tourofcalifornia/expert-blogs/boulder-report-stage-8-fan-101

Adrian Olivera said...

HAHA! Awesome! Both the costume and him getting thrown outta the way!