Cyclist Fakes Road Rash to Look More Pro

"What's Up Guys?!"

Knowingly pining for attention he pulled up to the group ride with his bandaged drive side knee and elbow facing his group ride buddies asking “What’s up guys?”  “Aw man!  You okay dood?”  The eyes of his concerned buds were drawn to the hospital fresh woven bandage-sock over his “road rash.”  Unbeknownst to them, Joe Bellante of Cincinnati had hammered the hill on the way to the Hyde Park Square coffee shop so his espresso tan quads and calves would be bulging and glistening with sweat when he arrived adding to the pro effect of the bandages. 

Super Nuclear Pro Looking Band-Aid

“It looks like it hurts, but I have to say, that looks super pro,” said a teammate.  “Super Pro Joe,” another shouted.  The group laughed.  Joe waved it off saying something like, “oh it’s nothing but a flesh wound.  Just went down doing hill sprints at Devou Park last night.  I’m good.  Let’s roll!”  Under the guise of being injured, and looking ultra-super-duper-nuclear pro,  Joe pummeled the group into pithy writhing crybabies as he “won” every climb and town line sprint for the next 2 ½ hours with his bandaged knee and elbow.  In reality, everyone gave the bandaged guy a longer sympathy leash, exactly what Joe was looking for.

So Gory...So Fake!

It all started with putting his glasses over his helmet straps.  Then the whole pro thing cascaded into a white carbon frame, bar tape, socks and shoes.  Then Joe noticed the best riders in the world all sporting the road rash net: Levi, Boonen, Hoogerland.  You name ‘em.  It seemed as if all his favorite riders were toughing it out on the Tour De France roads with eye popping white bandages or some crazy colored tape over their knees and elbows.  “Now that’s how to look pro,” he thought.  He grabbed the Parmesan cheese grater out of the kitchenette at work and rolled up his pants leg.

A Metal File and Some Ketchup-Perfecto

He stopped short of self inflicted rash.  He wasn’t crazy.  He opened the fridge, grabbed the ketchup and walked back to his corner office where a $2.95 box of gauze and a roll of medical netting were waiting.  There he went to work on his Joe pro look.  The bottle made a farting noise as he squirted a coin sized blotch of ketchup in the center of a square, applied it to his elbow and rolled up a section of medical netting.  “Ba bam!  So pro!”  He said to himself looking in the mirror.  But who has road rash only on the elbow?  He did his knee as well, ripped the back of his jersey and dabbed some Heinz 57 near the hole.  To compliment the look, just before the ride he slid a square of gauze down his bibs on his right hip.  “Perfecto!”

WIKI LEEKI: 2011 Tour De France Route Map Leaked

(Nose Hit News Service/Paris, France)  Just hours before Tour De France organizers planned release of de 2011 race route, Le Wiki Leeki (a French organization that is not on strike) allegedly unveiled portions of the route and uncorked the champagne themselves.  French authorities are redundantly calling it a faux hoax.  Included in the leak were details of new starting cities, a time trial in the Basque town of Testostero'ne, and a full map pictured below.

Stages 1 & 2

Stage 1, according to Le Wiki Leeki, takes place after the traditional prologue in Paris and follows the traditional flat start to the tour taking riders 135 miles from Clenbuterol, originally settled by Russian immigrants and finishes in Cera, known for its potent blood red wine.  Stage 2, the group contends, continues through the northern part of the country with an undulating 120 mile circumnavigation of the wine producing country between Vino and Landis'eille. 

Stages 6 & 7 

The first week of the tour ends with a bumpy ride, according to the Leeki, as the road tilts up for the first time.  Of particular interest is stage 7, which Wiki says will depart in Aach-Gee-Aach and finish 145 miles and three Category 2 climbs later in the Belgian town of Balco.

Stages 9-11 

These three stages take riders from through the heart of the Pyrenees Mountains in the middle of the 2^nd week says Leeki.  While stage 9 from E'peeo to Cortisone features 3 HORS rated climbs, stage 10 ending in the ski resort town of Puerto is certain to be a pivotal stage Le Wiki reports,  since it will be followed by a stage 11 time trial from Homologous to Mayo, where mayonnaise was invented.

Full 2011 Tour Route Map

Bike On The Moon But First, Antarctica

(Houston, TX - 04.01.09) The hatch of a former Apollo space capsule slammed shut this morning behind a pair of French ultra endurance cyclists who will spend three months of isolated training to simulate conditions for an upcoming attempt to circumnavigate Antarctica on a tandem mountain bike, funded by Fulzaprilidev, a private Russian space travel company.  The two must now live in the cramped refrigerated facility until the experiment ends 104 days later, allowing coaches and scientists to assess the effects of isolation and cold on their minds and bodies.  If successful the duo will proceed with their plans for Antarctica and may one day ride on the moon.

 

"How do I feel?  I am very motivated. There is a kind of relief. We have been working for a long time and finally we are getting to the start point," French Captain Avril Tompe Le Jour told reporters just hours ahead of the experiment.  "The challenge is to live and ride with the same person for a long period but it is a positive challenge. I think we are going to learn a lot about each other," added his Stoker teammate Très Drôle.  "The aim is to test the physiological and psychological effects of cold and isolation.  And, like the moon and Antarctica, this capsule is without a bicycle shop," he added.

 

(pictured left: Avril Trompe Le Jour on an training ride in the French Alpes) The two climbed into the facility at Houston’s Space Institute of Biomedical Problems (SIBMP) at 12:01 am CST and the hatch was firmly closed behind them.  They will not emerge again for the next three months unless they decide to pull out of the experiment for health or personal reasons.  “Unfortunately, we will miss half of the Tour De France,” Le Jour joked.  The cyclists will be allowed to take small personal effects like books, laptops and DVDs into the facility but, aside what would fit in the packs affixed to their specialized tandem bicycle will otherwise be sealed away from the world.  They will be travelling nowhere, but the aim of the experiment is to imitate the need for full autonomy that the three month circumnavigation of Antarctica will entail. 

 

As with a real trip, the supplies for the expedition have been painstakingly worked out in advance and no additional goods will be allowed to enter the capsule once the experiment starts.  In a bid to precisely simulate possible scenarios of a tandem circumnavigation around Antarctica, communications with the outside world will be limited to the battery life of a satellite phone.  They will be limited to two sets of cycling clothes each.  The workouts have been personally designed for the athletes to allow them to almost exactly simulate the rigors of riding on the ice for hours at a time. The former craft has been transformed and is made of three modules: one tent-size for sleeping, one refrigerated room that houses the knobby treaded tandem on rollers with a computer to track mileage and measure vital athlete biomedical information, and a third, just big enough to store the tools, food and supplies that would normally fit into panniers and highly modified carbon fiber trailer. 

 

The experiment is a joint project between a Fulzaprilidev, the SIBMP and the Ultra Endurance Cycling League (UECL) and will eventually lay the path for an as yet unplanned privately funded lunar attempt.  The three organizations are planning at the end of the year to send two more cyclists into the isolation facility for 205 days -- the estimated duration of a tandem bicycle trip around the southern pole of the moon. 

 

The two were chosen from a pool of over 4109 elite cyclists including American Triathlete April Foolsday.