Quick and dirty Cheering Guide to the Giro d'Italia 2010

by Colleen

Alright people the Giro kicks off in less than 8 hours- 7 am CDT, so let me throw some stuff together really quick so y'all know who to root for. If you're following from Chicago, I believe you can watch delayed footage on Universal Sports, also known as NBC channel 5-3.

Teams we love:

Saxo Bank- Because they have the Schlecks!!! The dynamic brother duo who placed like 2nd and 9th (maybe?) in last year's Tour de France. For pictures, please refer to my earlier cycling post. Right, but neither Schleck is competing in this race, so we'll root for the Sorensen brothers: Shlecks-lite! And check out their team jerseys - so professional looking, so corporate, oooh.

Liquigas- The only guy we've heard of before is Ivan Basso. I believe he either rode in last year's Tour or last year's Vuelta, or both. Not that much to remark on here aside from the announcers always seeming to find something to comment on the Liquigas team....and I have no idea why that ends up kicking them over into the Root-For category, but it does. We're definitely not picky. Go Liquigas-the Meh team we love of 2010!

Milram- COW JERSEYS????

Need I say more?
Ok. Last year they also had a surfeit of young, good looking riders, so we're not complaining. Gooooo Milram!

Teams that make us go BOOOOO:

Rabobank- Ah yes, Saxo we meet again. Tell the Rabo to be quiet, we anticipate a riot, this common crowd, is way too loud! Boooo!! Better get the ECB to give you a bailout because you're gonna need it by Stage 7,  thatsright, Rabo, how bout them monetary policies? :D

Garmin Transitions- ARGH, this team is just way too smug and smooth for it's own good. It makes us want to go down to the Garmin store on Michigan avenue and kick it!! Well, not really, but we had to watch them pace their way through the Tour all last July with their  perfectly uniform, streamlined, efficient cycling, riding around like they owned the course. BAH. They're the Type A, ivy-league MBA grads of the pro-cycling world and now that we've typed that, we want to punch something.

Teams that intrigue us:

Astana- National team of Khazakhstan and formerly Lance's old tour team. They say that new guy Alexandre Vinokourov is all that and a bag of chips this season.

Columbia HTC- What, Cavendish isn't riding in this one? Never mind. Oooh, but that Greipel guy is good. I think last year he was on a different team...not sure about that and really too lazy to check on it, so moving on.

One Man Wolf-Packs:

Cadel Evans, baby! How could you not root for a mug like this? 

(yikes)
And now that he's recovered from his mental blow-up that occured in the later stages of last year's Tour?

Yes, Cinderella story, people, Cinderella story. He IS australian after all, like Russell Crowe. We'll see.

Viva la Giro!

Pictured below: your friendly, neighborhood Saxo Bank rider, aww:

*pictures are from posts on www.podiumcafe.com

Late night open thread.

hahaha

A Free Review of the Free Agency, To Date

 by Colleen

Yeah, yeah, I do realize we're about two weeks into this now, so this post is hardly timely. But you know what? You can call my writing a lot of things - untimely, unseemly, sloppy. Jeeeust don't call it late for dinner! ba dum dum.

Oh, and I'm writing this from work which means I can't back this post up with stuff like supporting facts from ESPN and NFL.com because then it would be really obvious what I'm not doing. So without further ado, here's my review of some of the FA transactions from memory (mostly):

Sean Hill out, David Carr in

Ah Sean Hill. He left a memorable mark on the great 49er QB Debate of 2006 2007 2008 2009 as commentors on both sides debated the finer nuances of Hill's 'it' factor and Smith's 'upside' using questionable statistics and a lot of repetition. In the height of the frenzy, Hill was praised for his cat-like instincts and nick-named Swan. Some comments even started off with "Montana, Young, and Hill..." and did NOT end with "...and one of these things is not like the others." Yes, it was cray cray. Sheer insanity.

Sean is heading out to a fresh environment in Detroit where he's designated as backup QB to a former-first round draft pick with a shoulder injury. Oh wait...
Best wishes, Hill! Thanks for the memories, for sure!

Hello Carr, we don't want anything less than 5 more rings in the next decade, and chances are you probably aren't going to be the one to do that - that's what we expect from Alex Smith. So just step back and keep the bench warm. Welcome to San Francisco.

Pashos

Tony Pashos left the 49ers to go somewhere...and do something...more than he did when he was in San Francisco...probably. I draw a blank when it comes to making any relevant comments on a defensive position.

Chester Taylor to the Bears!

Am I the only resident of Cook County excited by this?! Chester Taylor is a decent running back who was overshadowed by Adrian Peterson for most of his young career. Martz should be an ok OC for a running back to work with. Taylor may see a decent amount of carries this year, and I think he'll take take the ball and run with it. (ah ha ha ha)

Photography

by Colleen

Guess what!! I heard about this 365 project that the kids are doing these days on flicker, excuse me - flickr. The purpose of the project is to take one photo every day for 365 days, and what with the notice of this coinciding with New Years-fricken-Eve and all, I've decided that THAT's what I'm doing in 2010.

But it's not a new years resolution, cuz .... I don't make those. So starting tomorrow, 1-1-10, one picture/post, per day, people. Hopefully not too sporadically*.

*my tribute to Brittney Murphey. rip.