Friday Mail: Grey Manrod Retraction and Omloop Eve

First order of business today is a retraction the size of which would even impress Pat McQuaid regarding Wednesday's post about the Grey Manrod Associates lawfirm which is representing Floyd Landis in his dealings with the UCI.  As you are aware, NYVelocity publishes all of Mr. Landis' emails as well as those of his attorneys Sigmund A. Manrod and Chade O. Grey.  Well, after our Wednesday post, NYVelocity was less than happy with our accusation that Grey Manrod was a fictitious firm, and they tweeted the following message to the Manrod firm with a link to our post:

"People STILL think @GreyManrod is fake.  I'm sorry they don't believe in miracles"

I just want both GreyManrod and NYVelocity to know that we here at COMO CYCO are firm believers in both miracles and GreyManrod.  In an attempt to make amends, we would like to place an order for some GreyManrod merchandise, namely the gangsta' hat.

Do they come in any other colors?

We'd also like to extend an open invitation to Mr. Chade O. Grey to be interviewed via email exclusively for this blog.  Please email me if you are interested at comocyco@gmail.com.

Second order of business, for the reader who was still a little confused by Wednesday's post and wished for a more explicit explanation of the roles Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen are playing in the Floyd Wars Saga, I hope this helps.

Emperor Verbruggen                    Darth McQuaid

(Feel free to cut and past their images in your Floyd Wars Saga schematic)

On to some Friday biznezz... this Friday is a special Friday.  Because this Friday is also known as Omloop's Eve so named because tomorrow is the first race of the Belgian road cycling season, called Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (pronounced "AM-loop het NEE-blah-blah").  But today, you can celebrate the Flanders classic by hanging a pair of your best sweaty, muddy cyclocross socks from the mantlepiece and rubbing your favorite pair of ornamental cobbles until St. Molenberg cycles across your front lawn and curses at you in Flemish.

St. Molenberg is the patron saint of sprinters, and as such was a great fan of blowing his own horn.

Oh, how I wish I was going to be on the snowy and muddy cobbled streets of Belgium this weekend.  However, as we cannot spend the weekend in Belgium and instead will be in glorious Missouri where the weather is beautiful and the roads are dry, let's be thankful for the smorgasbord of cycling events going on right here.  On Sunday the Froze Toes race is going down if you will be in COMO, and if you will be in St. Louis, you may want to check out the Death by Hills ride, put on by Team Seagal.

And now to a couple of letters:

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PooBah,
I just found out that PedNet will not be conducting their Cycle Recycle event this year due to a budget constraint.  Budget constraint?  How much money does it take to run that program?  I've enclosed a photograph of the bike that my son received last year at the event which should explain my frustration.


Sincerely,
Frustrated Columbia Resident

Frustrated,

To answer your first question first:

"Budget constraint?"  A budget constraint is defined by a situation in which limited funds make reprioritizing tasks necessary.

As to your second question:

"How much money does it take to run that program?" Approximately 40 million kroner.  Ok - I just made that up.  I have absolutely no idea. 

Lastly, to address your frustration:  First imagine how I feel!  I just learned that the seat on your kid's bike was swiped out of my front yard last year, dammit!  That was my best lawn chair....

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Dear PooBah,

I've got red hair.  I've noticed that upon occasion you like to make fun of people with red hair.  It's not cool, dude.  We deserve the same courtesy as cyclists with brown hair, blonde hair or no hair at all.  And you really need to lay off of Team Leopard's red-headed superstar Dominic Klemme as well.  The guy is my fricking hero.

Anonymous

Anonymous

OK, I promise.  I will lay off the ginger red-head jokes.  But regarding Klemme, come on, man....

Even Jens laughs at his ass....

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Dear PooBah,
Who is the scariest pro road cyclist?
Thanks!
Gerry T.

Gerry-
Man that's tough.  There's a lot of ways to define "scary"......there's scary good, there's scary intimidating, there's scary fast.....then there's scary looking.  I'm going to assume you're speaking of the last possibility - scary looking.  And for that I am reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode that freaked the shit out of me when I was a kid....I think the episode was called "Nightmare at 20,000 feet" and starred William Shatner who sees some kind of gremlin on the wing of the airplane he is flying in, tearing apart one of the engines.  Well I recently stumbled upon a photograph of Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky after he woke up on a flight to Oslo which was oddly reminiscent of that damned gremlin....

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Dear PooBah,

I finally did it!  I finally learned to do a track stand on my fixie!  I'm going to get me some hipster-tail now!  Thought you should know...

Mr. Hottie

Mr. Hottie,

Nice work! I would agree - you're going to be fighting the hipster-chicks off now....Especially since most of them love dating guys they can share bras with.

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Dear PooBah,
Everytime I ride to work my skirt gets caught up in the rear wheel, so I have to keep hiking it up to get it out of the way.  I've heard of something called a skirt guard that women can put on their bicycles to keep their skirt out of the spokes.  I've never tried one but want to know if they work before I spend a lot of money on one.
Thank you so much!
Angela B.

Angela,

Great question.  Unfortunately, they don't work at all. You're method is working much better - and is a lot cheaper - right?

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Have a great weekend.  Ride and race safe!