Our main man, teammate, and Slipstream soigneur Jonny Coln is on the scene at Paris Nice and is sending us mad BlackBerry shots from his time this week working in support of Millar and the argyle boys. This one's from this AM of the crew in the bus before the stage to the Ventoux. Sunny at the start/snow at the top of that God forsaken hill.

Go big Jonny.

I love that expression. Especially when Phil Liggett blurts it out when a sprinter comes across the line first, arms outstretched with a bike length or more in front of 2nd place....thus the guy relgated to 2nd getting to see the winners clean set of wheels.

And so it was the case for our HOME BOY Pete P-Lo Lopinto in his first two races of the season! Chalk two 'W's up for the small teams! Pete, a former crit guru on the Kodak Sierra Nevada Team last season is now using all his experience to mentor and lead his new THF Realty Cycling team. After pulling in the W at the Scottsdale AZ Grand Prix, P Lo and the THF Realty crew lined up with the Toyota United's and Rock Racing's of the world at the DU crit here in D-town and threw down. Read all about it on their web site but the most CLASSIC result of P Lo's victory here in Denver this weekend is again his truly CLEAN set of wheels, a set fueled by bread and water. You GO P Lo!:

Photos by Serge Desrosiers

So I made mention that I'd love to see TJ rockin a legit National Champion's skinsuit instead of the podium jersey he was rocking. Looks like the got it to him post haste although we did not get to see much of it due to issues TJ had apparently at the GVA held in Loenhout:They could've shipped him a red white and blue Giro though! Ha! By the way, the picture above was taken by the person shooting Geoff's folks at Cross Camp. Lots of good shots of the various races the Euro Crossers are competing in while over there.

He even grabbed a nice shot of Paco suffering it out against the big'uns in Torhout!

Hmm. Sven. The Cannibal Part Deux. Father. Husband. Crosser.

AND HE'S TOTALLY UN-PRO!

My God. First, he demonstrates crappy tape jobs wherein it is my opinion that his mechanic should have to work the pits without his Wellingtons for a day. Now this?? (queue in a record scratching horrifically...):
For shame, Sven. For shame.

See, Radio Freddy agrees with me that ya just gots to match that tape and that saddle. And if matched white? Mmmmm white. Very PRO. Call me OCD, but it would cause my skin to crawl with all that un-matchiness going on with my bike.

Get PRO Sven. quickly. You're losing points. Niels is taking you down you on the PRO tip.

I saw that Mini Bart (where Wellens is Big Bart) got his today at Huybergen. I am stoked for that. That little mofo is tenacious. Of the embarrassingly obscene 100's and 100's of hours of 'cross vids I've studied, that guy is always in the mix...typically in the top 5 until the 50th minute when Sven drops everyone on the 2nd to last lap and goes on to usual win and Bart's wings fall off.

What's interesting about this guy is that he's been at it for some time now. He nipped Colorado's Walker Ferguson at the 2000 Cross Worlds...but both beat some current names that day like Enrico Fanzoi (bronze at Worlds last year), Klass Vontornout (won his first Elite the other day) and others. That was a solid class of Juniors.

Holy crap. This is an unbelievable youtube capturing the moment Ryan and Steve hit head on. It is NOT what I expected. In fact, pretty fricking horrific. Frankly, I can not for the life of me figure out which side is 'correct' as so many dudes are weaving through and over that tape.

So I got my new doses of the motherland from Josef and I am watching the 2007 Jaarmarktcross and Bart and Lars are throwing down.....hard. It's a mud fest and both these guys are known mudders. Lars gets a gap on Bart and is coming through the start finish with 2 to go.

Then he starts slapping himself silly.

I'm like....WHAT THE?...so I rewind that shit and sure enough, homie starts slapping himself in the face. Ha! What a retard. Bart takes him in the end anyways but is this supposed to be his motivator?

By now, cross hoars, you've read every character and examined every pixel of this CyclingNews article on Nys' C50.

But holy crap on a stick. I'm gonna kick the ass of Sven's mechanic for the bunk job he did on his tape when I gets to Belgie! I mean Mourey's crappy tape job is one thing, but how could the Cannibal be let out on the parcours with this! For shame.

There is hope ladies and gents. A magazine with a fairly wide distribution followed through on their promise from about this time last year....and that was to give 'cross some due coverage. So I sent them an email to say KUDOS by looping back and reading good 'ol Mud and Cowbells dot com.

So here goes:
To the Procycling staff:

You did it! You embraced the tidal wave otherwise known as cyclocross and I am immensely happy. The coverage in your December 2007 issue was spectacular. The stories, photos and tech articles gave a great insight to the now full time discipline of 'cross for your readers to learn about. I've been a subscriber to Procycling for time ad infinitum and I enjoyed the fact you are one of the first long standing road cycling mags to not treat it as the 'winter training sport' pro roadies traditionally leveraged to keep the fat off after drinking too much Leffe and eating too much chevres on their winter holidays. Cross is life for so many cycling enthusiasts now. The specialization of the sport over the last decade (most intensely the last 5 years here in the States) has both racer and bike industry person enamored.

Let's look at it from the angle of the Procycling reader's typical demographic (and I'm venturing a guess here!):

Exhibit A) 25-55 males with full time jobs and likely families to boot.

Now take that info and lay that over the top of the sport of 'cross:

Exhibit B) Races that are 45 minutes to an hour of absolute fun (OK, fun is relative to how much suffering you want to take) putting riders on courses that their entire family can watch them lap after lap slog through the mud, jump over barriers and be treated to a carnival atmosphere. Pretty different to a road race where you wave goodbye to your loved one and see them in 3.5 to 5 hours.

What do you have: A perfect match when you combine the two.

The tidal wave is reaching its crest and the bike industry is waking up to it. Racer fields are growing and the availability of specific frames, tires, bits and training knowledge are creating a frenzy of information need. And you supplied some goodness. Kudos!

Greg Colorado-USA

Nice work Procycling!

Unbelievable weekend as you've all read by now. Compton is absolutely sick and deserving of the world cup win....the first by an American. Seeing her last weekend at the Redline and Boulder Cups, my buds and I were drop-jawed at her power. The sand was nothing for her....and literally she rode the entire sections while most the men's pros and 35 opens ran it. Sick.

Boom. That was the sound Lars made blowing Sven (his teamate...ha!) and everyone else up. Wellens had a great weekend obviously but Sven was not Nijs this weekend.

Totally weird observation. When Sven suffers, he switches his porting technique. Even in total deep mud like today, when he is on song, he ports under the down tube. But when the suffering sets in, he wraps the head tube. Weird. Maybe I'm just a total geek but it's just something I've noticed after watching zillions of hours of Flemish.

Photo ©: Isosport