Helen, do you have a problem with lion-riding?

I don't see that there is anything unusual about riding stone lions bareback - it is a completely normal thing to do ... and Sammy isn't the only lion-rider. It was the first thing I thought of doing when I saw this one in Barcelona! Hehehe.

Go Stuey!!

Although, not strictly a Hot Cyclist, being an Adelaide girl, I can't let SexyBanker, and Mr HTFU, Stuart O'Grady's victory in the Herald Sun Tour in Victoria go unmentioned. He cruised to victory on the back of an awesome time trial yesterday. Go Stuey - he's got to be my favourite un-sexy cyclist!! (Photo stolen from Riis Cycling Website).

By the way, for those of us who haven't checked out the Sexy Schlecks' Luxembourg Fanclub site lately, they now have a hot picture of Frank and his sexy stare on the front page, and a link http://www.frankandandyschleck.com/ to UK and Ireland supporters site with pretty pictures (albeit ones we've seen before ...but you can never have too much of a good thing!).

Shock over Latest Schleck Results

As if he has not had enough to contend with of late, there have been some very unfavourable results released today for Frank Schleck. The innaugral Hot Cyclists Poll, which closed yesterday has seen Frank upstaged by younger brother Andy, who has been officially voted the Hottest of Hot Cyclists. Andy topped the standings with 47 percent of the vote, ahead of Frank with 39 percent. Swiss hearthrob Fabian Cancellara was a distant third, attracting the remaining 13 percent of votes.

While this result may come as a shock to many readers, the ever graciuos Frank has commended his younger sibling on the win, stating at the presentation "First of all I just wanna say how proud I am of my little brother Andy. It was a world-class performance from both Andy and the team out there today. I think we made that race and Andy was in a class of his own at the end".

Andy himself was quite overwhelmed with the win, his first victory over such highly rated competitors. "This is without a doubt the greatest thing in my career so far. I've won a couple of times before against professionals - in the Luxembourg Time Trial Championships and in Fleche du Sud, but this is the first real 'pro-victory' for me, so I'm incredibly happy," he said after receiving his award.

Fabian Cancellara also had a podium finish with a valiant third place, which was a strong effort considering the very pro-Schleck voting public. After the presentation, Cancellara commented "Bronze is definitely a nice and unexpected surprise. It really takes a lot of pressure of me before the time trial since now I already have a medal to take home from here". "At first I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to win, but I quickly realized that I did very well - better than I could have expected in advance," Cancellara added.

The result has no doubt been a welcome distraction for the Team SexyBank brothers, who are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the ALAD investigation into the non-event that took place in 2006 where Frank did nothing officially wrong and is so over with now that it is not even worth mentioning anymore and just needs to be forgotten about so that the Hot Cyclists can get back on their bikes and practice being hot again to make all the Fangirls happy.

All quotes were stolen from the Riis-Cycling website and used completely out of context, and the photo is by Tim de Waele.

Rules for Lance ...and rules for mortals.

Ok, I know Lance is Lance, and love him or hate him, he's a pretty superhuman individual, but should that superhumanness extend to there being one set of rules for him and one for everyone else? The UCI are letting him race in Adelaide in the Tour Down Under in January, two weeks before his mandatory 6 month period before he's allowed to race is up. How do the UCI expect to be taken seriously? Yes, it is only two weeks, but with the mess cycling is in at the moment, can they really afford to be seen to bend the rules? I mean it's a slippery slope, right. Would they have let Basso race in the World Champs if he'd asked, and pointed out that it was only 3 weeks before his ban was lifted? Why not? If it was another rider in Lancey's situation, would they be so generous? What's the point of having rules, especially ones that are designed to eliminate dope-cheats, if you bend them as soon as it is beneficial for the organisation to do so?

Right, that was my rant for the day ...and I am secretly going to go and watch Lance race when he gets down here, but that's not the point :)

...And here is something completely irrelevant and pointless, but it looks nice :)

Frank Schleck Salad

The last thing that I expected to wake up to this morning was news that Hot Fabian Cancellara was likely to be declared the winner of the one of the TdF time trials - especially since it is October, not July ...but he probably will be because Schumacher's performance was evidently too good to be real, and he's tested positive for EPO. I wonder where it will ever end??

...And SexyBank have taken Frank and Andy's names off of the rest of the year's races. My imagination has been running wild, and I've come up with a perfect resolution to this whole situation. Here it is: SexyBank don't deserve Frank and Andy - they should just call Riis and tell him it's over, and that Hot Fabian is leaving with them. QuickStep obviously need people who can win races now, with Bettini retiring and Schumacher about to be booted. So the Hot Cyclists should join Sexy Tom Boonen at QuickStep and form the Ultimate Sexy Team - they'd look hot in blue anyway. The next step will be some team bonding and race practice. The obvious setting for this the Tour Down Under in January, which of course is in Adelaide, Australia. Which is, of course, where I happen to live. Then I need to get a gig as an official Tour physiotherapist (when I was a physio student, they actually did try recruit people to rub down the riders ...but that was before it was a proper UCI event)... see where I'm heading here?? Perfect solution!

... And Frank Schleck Salad?? When I saw that SexyBank had removed Frank and Andy from their race schedule, I thought I'd check Google to see if this was in response to news from ALAD. To which my friend Google responded: Did you mean Frank Schleck Salad? No, but I'll have some anyway!

Distraction Techiques

Here is some much needed, and hilarious distraction. Follow the link and click on Ventoux TV and choose 'Frank and Honest' and 'First Bike: Frank Schleck'. I love the fact that Frank's favourite English word seems to start with F and have 4 letters - every time he speaks, it just comes out - he's so cute! And I love the fact that his first bike was a girl's bike.
http://www.ventoux.tv/player.aspx

Waiting... waiting...

There isn't really much to say right now. I don't like waiting. I'm hoping there will be some sort of news from ALAD soon - I'm assuming that is what SexyBank are waiting for, and not for the whole DNA thing to happen (because at the rate the Puerto case - which is closed again now - moves, he'd be lucky if it happened anytime this millenium!!). I'm also waiting for my sexy new road bike to come. I hate waiting.

One thing I'm not doing, while I'm waiting, is reading any more of the crap in the media about Frank. There has been one press release from SexyBank, and one statement by Frank, they say exactly the same thing, and they are the only statements made by either about the situation. I've read them a number of times, and just can't seem to find the bit where it says Frank is suspended - can anyone help me?? It is obviously in there somewhere, because every news article that comes up on my Google Alert is about this 'suspension' ...or is it that 'suspended' sounds so much more scandalous than him not entering any races until they know the ALAD outcome?

Oh, and I didn't see the bit where it said he was 'connected' to the Operacion Puerto case either, as is widely reoprted in the media. What I read was: 'There is no evidence in the full Operacion Puerto case file that suggests his involvement in the case'. I must have issues with my interpretation of this, because I took it to mean that there is no evidence to suggest his involvement in the case. I guess that's why I'm not a clever journalist.

...And another reason why I'm not reading any more "Frank is an Evil Doper" articles are those pictures they keep using. Below is another example:

I've noticed though that Frank is still listed to race next Thursday in Italy on the SexyBank website ... so hopfully I won't be waiting too much longer.