Tweets of the Week: Dust, Formica, Wildcards and a box full of Lotto

Here at Tweets of the Week we try to look on the bright side of life but sometimes, well, it’s difficult. Those who have tried our patience this week are Astana and His Nibs claiming all the wildcards, CIRC and the unbridled incompetence of the UCI and … oh, that’s it. However, cheeky tweeters worldwide have given me plenty of fodder to put a rueful smile on our faces. We also have a little Paris-Nice, a Lotto box and we’re kicking’ up the dust at Strade Bianche.

The long and dusty road

This picture saddens me. I thought of anyone in the peloton, Spartacus would hold out and not put one of those melon helmets on his head. #NotNoice

It was a day of wind and crashes and windy crashes. We have not, however, heard reports of rats flying from the trees, like the sandstorms in Oman.

Trek’s Jasper Stuyven crashed so badly that he needed to go to hospital to get his wound cleaned in the operating room. And if you look closely, you can see that his hand has grown to three times its size. He now has the hands of a giant.

While this! Honest to God, some people are just slack-jawed jackasses. So did this guy proudly say to his friends, ‘”Hey, yeah, I got this bidon from a Trek rider who was really injured, so, you know, he didn’t need it or anything!”? I hope they told him he was a bad, bad man.

Ian Stannard abandoned as well (although he too had a cut leg, he wasn’t being anti-sunshine as suggested).

Sep Vanmarcke, on the other hand, just kept at it, ploughing a lonely furrow. In fact, for the longest time, I thought the guy on Eurosport was calling him ‘Formica’ (he was being very precise with his pronunciation, which is what made it undecipherable). “Who is this Formica guy?” I kept asking. Anyway, from now on, he’s known as Sep Formica at VeloVoices Towers. Peter Sagan was playing with Russian fire and an observation about Take Out The Trash Day at Casa Cancellara.

There was a very worrying part of the race where Sep Formica started dangling his tongue out – reallllly stretching it out – and he kept doing it. Okay, he might have been tired, but this Tommy Voeckler gurning has to stop.

Luckily Formica has a sense of humor – and he’s speaking Fabianese! Do you think he took a Rosetta Stone course so he could talk back to Fabs when he started doing his Jedi mind tricks on him during the classics? “You will ride with me. Work hard for me you will.”

And in a turn-up for the books, The Fonz was out in front of the race for quite some time. Until he had to go back to his job at the garage. Ayyyyyyyyyyy.

Never to be outdone, even Morrissey showed up at the race.

While Daniel Oss’s 70s soft metal mullet whispered in the wind.

The Velvet Samurai, on the other hand, did not do as well in the race as everyone predicted – least of all, Mr Tinkov. Ominously, only a crumpled bit of kit remained.

You know what, I’m not touching this one.

Of course, once Stybar got into the home stretch, everyone said they picked him for the win. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. But we have proof that Matt Rendell *did* pick him for the win well before the race started. Looks like Sean and Al got it really wrong.

In one of the more random tweets of the race, we see Stybar’s bike after the race, exhausted, maybe a little drunk from the podium champagne, just hoping for a massage and a shower.

Now *that* is a trophy!

I think the final tweet in this section should be from the winner.

We’re living in a box

Finally, FINALLY, a team uses some imagination when photographing their riders. Catalogue poses from De Gendt, Gallopin and Sieberg; Bak and Greipel are trying to make a break for it; Wellens goes all boy band and Henderson has probably done something to Hansen to make him curl up into a ball. Fabulous, no?

Holding back the ears

The podium girls couldn’t resist those ears so they decided to blow in them.

Seems Etixx has perfected its cloning programme.

But what of Wiggins? He had a snazzy new merino wool TT champ’s jumper (although there was some question over brand guidelines – can the rainbow stripes be on a black sweater – is that allowed?) He also had a snazzy rainbow-striped car following him. Ah what the hell, if it’s not on brand, Sky’ll pay the fines.

Dan Wuori let the visuals do the talking.

While Cycling Expert was putting a positive spin on Wiggins’ placement after the prologue.

I will survive!

Cries Vincenzo Nibali, looking down the barrel of an unlicensed team and a no-show at the Tour de France. Basically, His Nibs has said that, hey, if Astana’s licence gets revoked, they’ll get wildcards to the big races as a pro-conti team! Simples! Except, um, they would have no license – they wouldn’t get bumped down a rung and default into a pro-conti licence. Maybe he could ride on Team Wiggins?!? Food for thought. Speaking of food, what about cake?

There was a big, long discussion that went over about three days concerning what team His Nibs could go to if Astana found themselves licence-less but I won’t bore you with all that. I’m going right to the sordid sex scandal.

You know, I think cycling needs a good sex scandal.

Send in the clowns

Speaking of sex scandals, this is what CIRC has thrown up – guys are using Viagra at races!? As Nick points out, it would be hard to disguise that. (Thank you and goodnight!)