Pegasus: How the winged horse has fallen from grace

You can pretty much write into the books right now: not only will Pegasus Sports miss out on a Professional Continental license for next year, it may not even exist at all. This will be a crushing blow for cycling in Australia. For many years now, many avid recreational cyclists have been staying up, watching the Tour de France and other european races, just wishing we had our own team to support.

Tour of Bright: Why I love it and hate it

Many avid cyclists will be descending upon the Victorian Alps this weekend for the Tour of Bright, one of Australia's toughest amateur stage races. 3 stages over two days: a hard, 91km (or 127km for A Grade) slog from Bright towards Ovens, over Rosewhite Gap to the Kiewa Valley, a high-speed dash towards Mt Beauty before heading up and finishing at the top of the Tawonga gap; a undulating, out-and-back, 15.7km time-trial the afternoon after stage 1; and a 56.5km ride from Bright to the top of Mt Hotham, 30km of which is uphill.

Crit racing has begun

Finally, after months and months of training and waiting, the criterium season is here. It's always an eagerly anticipated weekend when daylight savings begins again in October and the big cycling clubs around Melbourne begin holding their crits again. Many people don't like crit racing, instead opting for climbing or waiting it out for the bigger tours of the season to roll around. I love it. The atmosphere at meets is great and the racing is intense, even in my lowly C grade.

Event of a lifetime....or not

Looking back on last weekend of sport in Melbourne, I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to see anything live. I'll have my grizzle in a minute but first I must congratulate the organising committee for the 2010 World Road Cycling Championships. It was a magnificent success, attracting 157,000 people on Sunday to the Men's Elite Road Race. With the weather and the number of people, I was mighty annoyed with myself that I didn't attend. This was compounded by the fact that I was denied entry to watch my beloved Magpies with the Premiership at the 'G, despite the fact that there were over 6,000 empty seats in the MCC reserve. I will get back to this a bit later.

Sidetracked

It's funny what curveballs life will throw at you (or insert other clichéd comment about life). As a diehard Collingwood supporter, I was very nervous about Saturday past, only a win would ease my discomfort. From there, I had a win-win situation in front of me: if we won, I could bask in the glory whilst I previewed the UCI World Road Cycling Championships with a relaxed and happy outlook; if we lost, I could use the World Champs to distract myself from the pain.


As it happened, neither occurred (typical) so now I have to preview the races with no real information and without the chance of being able to get down to Geelong to watch a single race. Nevertheless, here is my best effort.

It's about time

I was very excited to read in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago that Robbie McEwen has signed on to the new Pegasus Racing/Fly V team for next year. Of course, one has to take this with a grain of salt as it is likely that he has a clause in his contract the stipulates he can bail if the team isn’t granted a ProTour license. Given the fact that CEO Chris White has yet to announce who the major sponsors of the team are, there is some speculation that the team may fall through. However, with the signing of McEwen virtually guaranteeing them a start in next year’s Tour de France and the fact that White plans to unveil the major sponsors for the team during or shortly after the World Championships later this month, the team is gathering momentum.

Ain't Misbehavin'

As is the case this time of year, university has taken over my life, with mid-semester exams leaving me a slave to the desk. Thankfully, these are done and dusted so we can get onto the more important things in life.

Recently, Dad and I were watching the Ben Cousins' doco on his drug abuse problems. Afterwards, when discussing the saga, we were both struggling to work out why people are claiming that he's such a hero for beating his addiction. Also, we both agreed that it's unlikely that he's changed at all and still has the smug arrogance about him.

My dad is a psychology teacher and student counsellor at a public high school. It's clear that, at times, he is personally affected by what he's witnessed, particularly in relation to drug use. It's at this point I feel particularly humbled (being privately schooled and living in a high-income suburb) because the conditions that these students live in manifests this behaviour. Often, they live between divorced parents, experience abuse or mix with the wrong peers.