2012 Tour de France: The Best and Worst

For the two or three of you that actually read this blog, you may have noticed that I didn't post anything last week.  That is because the GEEC and I decided to skip town with the COMO CYCO dog in pursuit of cooler climates which were happily discovered far, far away at a much, much higher altitude thankfully.  But what we gained in more pleasurable weather and scenery, we lost in Tour de France viewing, unfortunately.  So today I'm left trying to pick up the scraps of everything that went down in the past week.  Perhaps you missed a thing or two as well.  Just in case, let's catch up with some of the best and worst moments of the last week of the 2012 Tour!

Biggest prick in the 2012 Tour de France peloton?

That would have to go to the Stage 17 fan on the climb to Peyragudes....(credit)

Egoi Martinez was amused....passenger on AG2R motorbike - not so much.  But the man in the hat and little else prompted hashtags ranging from #dongstrong to #ricardo montaldong on Twitter.

Most aggressive former cyclist in the 2012 Tour de France?

Easy - Bernard Hinault on the final podium in Paris - chucking a trespassing hipster off stage and into the front row!  The Badger still has it!

Most unsurprising Tweet sent by a cycling spouse during the Tour?

Mark Cavendish's frequently half-naked girl informing the world she forgot her knickers.....shocker.

Biggest cycling news distraction from the 2012 Tour?

Lance Armstrong using Livestrong money and personnel to lobby against USADA who is currently charging him with doping.  Livestrong's purpose is supposed to be to raise cancer awareness isn't it?

"If I hold my thumb like zis, and speak wiz a German accent, I look a leetle bit like Hitler, ya?"

2012 Tour Team which invokes the most love-hate feelings?

RadioShack Nissan Trek...

Love: Jakob Fuglsang.

Despite not being paid by his team, then being removed from the Tour roster and any other UCI World Tour competitions by bossman "Hog" Bruyneel, Jakob still goes ahead and wins every other race he enters this summer...(incluing the Tour of Austria and a giant sausage) while the man who attempted to shackle him awaits formal doping charges.  Suck on that salami, Hog.

Hate: Chris Horner

(credit)

Way to cover what was supposed to be George Hincapie's solo ceremonial break-away and then awkwardly suck his wheel 100 meters in front of the peloton on the Champs Elysees, stealing his glory for riding in the most Tours de France of any cyclist, you ass-munch. 

Cyclist who breathed the freshest air into the 2012 Tour?

Sagan, of course.  Not content with three stage wins and invoking the likes of Forrest Gump, a chicken and the Hulk during his victory salutes, Sagan attempts to steal more hearts by boob-raping female fans with magic markers.

Most insensitive photo posted on Twitter during the 2012 Tour ?

Richie Porte of Team Sky, crashed out on the couch in his tighty blackies and teddy the day after the Tour.....photo taken and posted by his girl Tiffany.....very not cool.

T-shirt with the least-veiled double meaning worn by a significant other during the Tour?

Christian Knees' girlfriend's shirt reading: "I heart CK."

Worst execution of a stoic game face in a period of great suffering during the 2012 Tour?

This one is a tie between SaxoBank's Chris Anker Sorensen literally every single day....

....and Bradley Wiggins' expression while on the podium in Paris during the singing of his National Anthem by Lesley Garret:

I'm giving this one to Wiggins because, as painful as that performance of God Save the Queen was, Anker Sorensen actually shaved two of his fingers down to bone when he reached his hand into his own moving spokes to retrieve some stuck paper, yet still finished the tour as "Most Aggressive Rider" while Wiggins only contemplated shaving his ears off in spokes during the performance of his national anthem.

What was your favorite Tour moment?  Discuss!

The Cobbled Road of Good Intentions

Sometimes our best laid plans run afoul....what seem like great ideas at one point can actually be epic failures when looked at with the fresh eyes of retrospection.

Examples are found in every cultural genre:

Movies:

Children's books

Music

And of course, cycling

Indeed, the road to the proverbial firey place below is occasionally paved in cobbles of good intentions.  Speaking of which, a certain American cyclist is in the news a lot lately and appears to be tripping delightfully down a yellow-cobbled road of sorts. Things certainly seem to be going Armstrong's way lately, as his new RadioShack team just secured a four year UCI ProTour license and he has recently taken his partnership with Nike to a new level with a new clothing / marketing campaign to commemorate his return to road racing titled "Hope Rides Again."  The visual end of this endeavor has been impressive including the installation of a massive billboard of LA looking down on the other, lesser known LA (Los Angeles) with an eerie Orwellian gaze.

To further emphasize the visual blitzkrieg, Nike recruited artist Shepard Fairey to paint some impressive murals in celebration of the Second Coming.

If you are unfamiliar with Fairey's work, you can visit his website titled Obey Giant, which refers to his early iconic image of Andre the Giant, and also the overarching theme of his vision "manufacturing quality dissent since 1989" against, one may guess, commercialism, corporate propaganda and the American machine of consumerism.  Interesting then, the pairing of Fairey with a company whose 2008 revenue was 18.6 billion US Dollars and whose reach extends to 160 countries around the world.  But, what better partner to support a Foundation to benefit the fight against cancer - right?  Because this is about fighting cancer, and not promoting personalities and commericial ideologies - right?

Fairey and Armstrong have also used the "Hope Rides Again" campaign to advertise their forthcoming global art exhibition to "raise funds and awareness for the fight against cancer" called STAGES.  In case you are bumming around in New York on Halloween, you can check out the grand opening at the Deitch Projects Gallery.  As with all Nike's Livestrong engagements and products, 100% of the proceeds go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation (and 100% of the Nike products are guaranteed to be branded with a certain iconic logo).

Obey Giant indeed.

How important is it that altruism be anonymous, or at the least, not be an advertisment scheme?  Does it matter that each Nike Livestrong item purchased comes with a simultaneous marketing master plan if it also means money is going into the cancer research jar?  Is it important that the new line of Nike apparel designed for the Livestrong campaign, in the spirit of its founder, a professional cyclist, has absolutely nothing to do with cycling?

Does it matter that the same company supporting the Livestrong campaign, Nike, was as recently as 2008 found to be involved with forced labor and squalid living conditions in one of the biggest apparel factories in Malaysia?

At least LA is keeping his home town inspiration in mind during the development of all the new products as can be seen on the heels of some of his new kicks, called the Nike Zoom Tiempo, to be released Saturday the 24th.

This article states that "Nike's design team worked with Lance Armstrong to create a Zoom Tiempo inspired by Lance's hometown, Austin, Texas."  But I wonder whether Texas would have felt more inspirational if instead of the shoes, Lance had chosen to be the pitchman for small-town Texan Spoetzel Brewery, maker of Shiner Bock, his self-proclaimed beer of choice, and host of the Shiner BASH, an early fundrasier for the Armstrong Foundation many years ago.  Instead, he's recently agreed to endorse the slightly larger and more financially lucrative Missouri-brewed Michelob ULTRA.  He stated in a press release:

"I'm always making decisions that complement my active lifestyle, and this includes my beer choice when I want to enjoy a cold one with friends or when taking a break from training."

In related news, Shephard Fairey has found himself in a bit of hot water lately, for allegedly using an image illegally.  And Armstrong's chief rival (in the minds of the media and spectators anyway) Alberto Contador, has been catching a lot of flak for his recent adoption of a certain 'fingerbang' salute, seen here:

I wonder if Fairey and Contador shouldn't consider a collaboration as well?

Pedal on!