Heads-Up! Next week, March 23, on cycling.tv you can see the Dwars door Vlaanderen for free. It’s at 13:20 GMT - that’s eight hours ahead of my time here in the SF Bay Area. Need to check your local time in GMT? Go to greenwichmeantime.com. Right now, cycling.tv is showing an hour-plus clip of K-B-K. And on March 27th, they will show the Brabantse Je Pijl live. Another freebie, I think.

You’ve probably seen the interview with Lance on cyclingnews. com. Sounds like P-N was kind of a wasted effort in terms of a training race. The shortened stages just turned into kinda crazy mass sprints, which are dangerous this early in the season. It’s kinda like the upcoming Milan-San Remo - everybody knows it will end in a crazed sprint. Cunego, Van Petegem and Boogerd have already said they won’t race MSR. Cunego came right out and said that it’s not worth the risk of a crash, rubbing elbows for seven hours along a coastal highway - It’s too early in the season for him to risk an injury and maybe jeopardize the rest of his season. We’ll see if Lance is going to race there....

Here is a really funny and impressive factoid - Tom Danielson points out in his diary that Eki started racing the same year that Tom was born. And Eki can kick Tom’s (and most everyone else’s) butt out on the roads, too. I always carry the image in my mind’s eye of Eki, grinning like a fiend, flying along the tough climbs and descents in the San Gabriel Mountains out of Solvang. He’s my Iron Man and I love the guy...