Tweets of the Week: Pandas, punches and press-ups

This week, we are missing the boys – many are off on holiday, out of tweeting distance. That said, I have soldiered on, fishing the twitterstream to find conversations on nicknames, cage fighting, airport angst, KuKu Penthouse (of course!) and much, much more …

Panda Power

Dan Martin gets into the spirit at the Tour of Beijing. This pic was taken by Ashley Gruber.

We didn’t see the final metres of Il Lombardia so we didn’t see how this happened, but ouch! This picture was taken by Jered Gruber. The Grubers seem to be stalking young Daniel and are going to the ends of the Earth to do it!

A few beers with a bear …

What’s my name?

Which brings us on to nicknames. There are a lot that run through this column: Sacred Haunches, Divine Haunches, That Boy Phinney, Mick Jagger, Nibblets, Gramps, Panzerwagen, Ladies’ Favourite, the Sharpies, Argonauts, Shackers, Skybots, Movistarlets, Pharmers, et cetera et cetera. Rouleur got in on the act. (Haven’t they been reading this column for the past two years????)

Le Fight Club

From victories to boxing matches all in a few tweets. It’s like lightning the way things change on Twitter.

All I can think of is that photograph of Hinault having it out with some strikers.

So the guy who is on the right hand side of the picture, trying to calm things down. Is that Jamie Farr off M*A*S*H? His French cousin? Just me? Really?

Panic in Detroit

Jens has been jetting about, doing charity rides, visiting sponsors and whatnot. This time, he takes on Usain Bolt and wins (or so he says. Not sure I believe him).

J’accuse!

I’ve been accused of favouring a certain Swiss time-trialist over Tony Martin when I’m putting pictures up. So to dispel these horrible (yet, let’s face it, oh so true) accusations, here is a picture of Tony Martin and Igor Decraene, junior Worlds TT champ. I have to say, Igor’s all-white skinsuit was not leaving anything to the imagination. I have cropped this photograph to protect my more innocent readers (I’m assuming I have one or two!).

Armstrong … still

Yep, with all those films coming out about Lance, we’re not going to get away from him any time soon. Scott Mercier had some strong words about what some people have been saying about those Postal days. (If you don’t know, Mercier was one of the few riders on US Postal to not dope – in fact he left the sport because of the doping culture. His story is here.)

So we’ve got the documentary ‘The Armstrong Lie’, which is out now. We’ve also got at least 410 dramatisations of the Armstrong story in the works. Speculation is rife as to who will play the riders in the films. NYVelocity has my vote for his casting suggestion.

Farewell, Marco

#IBoughtThat … #OrDidI?

Last week, we all thought Oleg Tinkov had put his money into Cannondale for the 2014 season. This week, we’re not so sure. One thing is for sure, without another big-spending sponsor, Cannondale might not make it into 2015.

Chris Horner is absolutely not going to be on the new Trek team next year. Trek have stated they just couldn’t come to terms. He’s 41 years old, recovering from broken ribs, a lot of his career spent injured, wanting a million bucks for next year. Sponsors perhaps thinking this isn’t the safest of bets. I wonder what the next series of hashtags is going to be.

The Gruppetto

Surely Speculoos should be sponsoring something somewhere. Maybe we’ll try to get them as a title sponsor for Team Fondue. Team Speculoos Fondue has quite a ring to it.