Seeing as everyone and everything is talking about the Tour, I thought I would be slightly perverse and draw attention to the most sublime looking event that took place a few days before the Tour started.
The Retro Ronde van Vlaanderen took place on June 28 and looks to have been an absolute hoot. Old boys, old clothes, old bikes, even old cars bound together with that unique Flandrian atmosphere make this a must see (or perhaps do) event for a lifetime list.
Photos are from the Centrum RVV website www.rvv.be/nl/crvv/activiteiten/retroronde
Whilst we weren't talking about the Tour, I caught an Armstrong interview with Ned Boulting for itv4. LA was laidback, nonchalant but talked with subtle barbs aimed at a certain Spanish pretender to his crown. He is the king of smackdown talk without ever resorting to anything so trashy as actual smackdown talk. On twitter I noticed he subtley patronised Contador saying that they would need to re-lay the tarmac where the Spaniard had done his turns in the TTT. Yeah right - Armstrong was pulling as hard as anybody and Popo and Kloden were hardly soft pedalling. Insincere and false praise indeed.........
I'm loving the conspiracy theories around help from Big George and Columbia to leave LA in the Stage 3 break with all other GC contenders behind the split, the did he or didn't he ease up, to keep Spartacus in yellow and even better the assertion that Contador did that massive turn on the front at the end of the TTT to try and put LA in yellow and screw things up!
I hope the next few weeks are going to be rivetting and unpredictable in a way the previous Armstrong Tours never were.
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