After seeing Rogers unfortunate crash in  the 2007 Tour de France while in being in the virtual yellow jersey on the road. Rogers has disappeared off my Pro tour radar.

After watching this year Spring Racing Classics I noticed that Rogers was not present in any of the starting lists. This got me thinking “where the bloody hell are you Rogers?”  On a quick internet search I found the following info. Mr Rogers has again contracted Epstein-Barr virus and will out of training for 4 – 8 weeks depending on the web report you read. As this news is a shade over a month old at the time of this posting I must admit that I missed this bit of info all together.

The projected recovery time will have him in compete rest for the first 4 weeks and not to return to the bike for not be returning to training until early May 2008. This has undoubtedly pulled Rogers off as team leader of Team High Roads Giro d’Italia team and might end his ride in the Tour de France.

The ringing of the bells calls a close to the 2008 seasons Spring Classics with the finsh of the 94th edition of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Alejandro Valverde from team Caisse d’Epargne found the finish line ahead of Davide Rebellinand and Fränk Schleck in a close finish, the win has given Alejandro his second Liège-Bastogne-Liège with the first title been taken in 2006.

With all the main contendors missing the winning move has seen the likes of Thomas Dekker, Cadel Evans, Paolo Bettini and Kim Kirchen miss out on a podium place, but that racing in the UCI world.  Full Face Report in here.

With the close of the classics it’s time to prepare the couch for the up and coming Grand Tours. The 91st Giro d’Italia is due to kick off on 10 May - 1 June 2008.

The 23 April we saw the 72nd La Flèche Wallonne, It means something in Belgain?!?! But I’m bugger if I know what it is. This years race covered 199.5 km’s was taken out by Team High Roads 29 year old rider “Kim Kirchen” in the final 100 meters. On the Australian front, my man Cadel came in a close (by 1 second) 2nd overall.

Kim Kirchen taking out the La Flèche Wallonne 2008

The Next race to look out for is held on 27 April, she goes by the name of “Liège-Bastogne-Liège” once again it’s in Belgium.

For the full race report take a trip over to cyclingnews.com

I found an interview with Cadel. It give you a small look into how his 2008 season is going, being Cadel he doesn’t give much away in the intervew.

Well I haven’t put much thought into how I should break the news, it’s come down to this, If you’ve heard the song by “I fought the Law but the Law Won”? Well my race went something like this. “I fought the Tree but the Tree won”, in a nut shell I clipped a tree with my right shoulder. Now for the race run down. Let me explain how it all came to be, remember that I had no intention of attempting anything other then taking home the coveted “Lanterne Rouge”. A sort after prize that a sat on many chairs and drank only a few beers to archive while the true MTB boys took on each other..

The “Riders Debrief” was at 11:30am, so we all strolled down to listen to the “Debrief”. Straight after it was done they were ready to sound the starting horn. None of us where ready so we rolled onto the course a few minutes behind the actual start.

Lap 1:
It was nothing but traffic and not knowing the course I found myself waiting for a spot to over take, I put this down to a recon lap.

Lap 2:
Time to get some open space (after heading back to the car to get rid of the Camel Pack) and time to get the right lines down on the course. Feeling good and warmed up.

Lap 3:
The first of the team riders star to breeze past you, at this point I’m thought to myself… was that “Jeff Toohey”?!? I Google Jeff a few days before the big day, turns out Jeff has done this a bit… and has some huge results under his belt (World 24hr Solo MTB Age Group Champion). It was at this point that while reading the Google search results I had found my true calling for this event. I was to be a “moving chicane”!

It turns out I hadn’t seen the Might Toohey on course yet, then again I couldn’t see the number boards just these insanely fast… young dudes tearing up the track. All these thoughts of Jeff Toohey got my thinking about beer. Here in Oz we have a beer called “Toohey’s New” (not a brand I drink myself but it’s beer none the less) the remainder of lap 3 was all about beer and the cold beers I had sitting back at the car. As a true athlete (which I am not) a beer started to sound pretty good.

Lap 4:
I’m finding my groove, I gotta admit that at this point I wasn’t enjoying the ride as much as the first three laps. I had made the choice to pull in after each lap and have a good drink (non alcoholic). Princey had ripped the cleat off his MTB shoe and was waiting for the expo shop to bring in a new pair of shoes.

I was cruising around on lap 4 when I hear this someone call out my name. Looking back and here comes Daggs up the trail. Daggs asked where Princey was so I told him the cleat story. We started to descend through a sort forested single track. I clipped a tree with my right shoulder. The hit was a fast thud with a slight click, the sort of click that makes you think… did something just break? I held my line until the track open up where I could get out of the way of any traffic and check my range of movement on the shoulder. It wasn’t 100% by a long shot but the bloody thing still had full range of movement.

Along with the tree went my confidence on all the descents back into the start/finish. The shoulder and neck hurt and it was now officially beer o’clock. I got into the secret stash of pain killers and I was off to the showers… my day was done at the 3 hour mark. Sad but true!

On another note. Jeff had a small issue and was whipped off to hospital at 3:45am. He returned at around 9:30am and was still in second overall, he didn’t re-join the race and ended up a close 4th. Not bad for a dude that did 288km’s in 15hours and 45 mins offroad. Bloody machine!

Things for the Bike

• Cateye to be removed and replaced with Polar 72
• Battery required for huge dual halogen MTB head light (I’ll spot the kangaroo’s a mile off with these babies.)
• Tail Light.
• Tubes.
• CO2 adaptor for MTB Style tube valve.

Things to take with:

• Zipp ties for things that loosen in the night.
• Spare AAA batteries (spare for tail light)
• 24 litres of water
• Chair
• Food (No alcohol allowed… bummer)
• Wet weather gear (Not sure why if it rains I’ll be in the van)
• Warm clothes
• Chainsaw (for logs out on the course)

• A four man team so I can assume a management role
• Spare set of legs
• King size bed to sleep the night away
• A 24 pack of Jim Beam UDL’s
• A chef on staff
• Two swedish lesbian massage therapists (I’m sure they’ll be there when the dehydration kicks in)
   

The rules and competitors list and rules (made to be broken) arrived via email last night. There are a grand total of 107 entrants. 23 of which are classified as “Solo Men”, these are the lads I’ll be up against. Fear not you other 22… I’m aiming for the 23 position at the finishing flag and I’m prepared to fight for it.