Nutella | VeloVoices

As I wasn’t able to compile a Tweets column last week, due to being stuck in Edinburgh without a computer, this week we have a double helping of Twitter fun. And as I have already compiled an entire Tweets of the Week Extra around the Rasmussen tell-all, I will not be delving into that subject … so, for better or for worse, this will be about happier, more positive things – like Taylor Phinney in eye makeup, Peter Sagan riding the waves and Panache’s unnatural obsession with chocolate spread. Let’s get to it! (And make sure you click the links – and it might not look like it but most of the headings are links!)

Well, did you evah…

…see anything quite so disturbing??? Ye gods! A few weeks ago, some of the peloton were racing in Japan and decided to give everyone a thrill by pitting themselves against (small-ish) sumo wrestlers, for the amusement of, well, everyone. This first picture is Argonaut Marcel Kittel eyeing up his competition, with Peter Sagan on the side looking on.

Here, Chris Froome seems to have gone all floppy, in that ‘if I just pretend I have no bones, this guy will lose interest in snapping me like a tiny Sky twig’ kind of way.

While we’re in the mood for cyclists in strange outfits, here is recently retired Dave Zabriskie and family ready for some Halloween hijinks. It helps to be lean when you’re in this sort of superhero onesie.

And here is Peter Sagan wearing practically nothing at all. The ‘lean’ comment applies here too. Everyone together now: ‘I got a ’30 Ford wagon and we call it a woodie ...’

Just like me, they long to be …

One thing is true about cycling – the guys in the peloton are almost always happy to engage with fans, especially the little ones. Luke Rowe and That Boy Phinney have certainly made some little fans happy.

And sometimes a fan makes a cyclist’s day. (If it’s not women plying him with homemade cookies, it’s women plying him with dog accessories … Jens really does live the life of Riley, don’t you think?)

Fashion – turn to the left!

That Boy Phinney has been out and about in the way only a 6’5″ good-looking corn-fed young American can be.

I wonder, however, if this is the look he’s going for. It’s uncanny. Un. Canny.

Oh, my. I seem to have hit my head and gone back to the 1980s (when, OBVIOUSLY, I was only five years old, so I only vaguely remember those years …). For British readers who don’t realise this – Americans call their trousers ‘pants’. For Americans who don’t realise this – the British call their underwear ‘pants’. So Taylor’s description is waaaaaaaay funnier to a British audience … Altogether now ‘Reach out, touch faith …‘

Sweets for my sweet …

So, our beloved Panache has gone off on a bit of a tangent – a hazelnut tangent, it would seem. As Oleg Tinkov has not come through with sponsorship money for our podcast (only Panache was willing to do a deal with him, by the way – Tim and I not so much), he is now trying to coax Nutella to maybe look our way. How’s that working for us, Panache?

This is, of course, Panache looking the way only a 6’5″ good-looking corn-fed young American can while holding a jar of hazelnut chocolate spread.

This next one hits a little closer to home than usual – what with the revelations from last week. (Except I for one do not believe that Rasmussen did anything nefarious with Nutella. But if he did, he wouldn’t have had any regrets and he’d do it all again …)

Remember Panache running around Alpe d’Huez in his Speedos this summer? Chad was there too. In his Speedos. He might have been high on sugar, so easily coerced.