The Silly Season

With the daily drama of the Tour de France behind us, cycling fans have to make due with the intrigue that defines the weeks before riders and teams are able to openly announce their plans for the next season. So we get lots of speculative articles. Where will Contador land? Caisse d'Epargne? Garm*n? Katusha? A new team with formula one sponsors Santander and Renault? What about Wiggins? Will he stay at Garm*n or is he off to a new British squad in the works, SkyTV? And will Lance lure Andy away from his brother to ride for the Shack? It's enough to make my head spin and it's been less than a week.

And then there's this image, which arrived in my in-box on Monday, from Hollywood with only the follow words of explanation: "2010 trek 6.9 with Di2 dura ace."

So, in the spirit of the silly season, I ask: could this image and these words signal the seemingly unthinkable? Could Hollywood, long loyal to the Big S, be considering a switch to Trek for his next ride? We'll have to stay tuned.

Colorado Photo of the Day

Yes it is snow.
Yes it is summer.
Yes that is a Trek.
No it is not my Trek.
Please come ride with me.

Armstrong cycles?

Cyclingnews has a story announcing the dissolution of the Trek-LeMond partnership, citing Greg LeMond's repeated disparaging statements as the reason for the split. I certainly don't have the legal expertise to comment on the competing motions filed in court -- first by LeMond and then by Trek -- but LeMond's record of anti-Armstrong statements are pretty well documented (check out this forum from way back in 2004),* and if you equate Armstrong with Trek -- something the company has worked hard to do -- I guess it begins to make sense. But what do I know? Not a damn thing.

What I'm wondering is whether or not this clears the way for a Lance Armstrong brand of bikes being marketed by Trek. Since there's a long tradition of Tour de France riders starting their own brands this seems like a good bet, and I'm sure that Lance still has some sort of obligations to the Trek brand stemming from his official rider days. Since the Madone=Lance for all intents and purposes, they could just rebadge that and call it a Lance.

One interesting thing is that with Klein all but dead, and LeMond leaving the fold, the Trek mothership is definitely getting smaller.

*Of course, no matter how bad that controversy got, it was never as bad as the brief flare-up between LeMond and Floyd Landis. Here's just one article documenting that rather absurd episode.