Way back during the cold and rainy spring cobbles season, we held a remarkably successful fundraiser for Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix raising over $1300 in defense of bad roads. Well after many months of me delivering newspapers to earn back all the money you fine people donated which I lost almost immediately at the dog track, I finally earned back every penny and wired it off to France in a moment of clarity. Whew. Well, guess what arrived from France in la poste today? This!

Want to know what was inside?...

This!

Which I immediately put into its pre-designated spot in my cycling shrine....

where it will sit in the loving embrace of my prized Rabobank foam-finger, my collection of official Tour of California badges-of-smugness, and my signed photo of Jens! And there it will stay until next spring when I will bath it with my tears, and then hastily package it up and mail it off to whoever wins the 2012 Paris-Roubaix "pick-the-podium" contest. You're welcome whoever you are you stupid jerk. Now go enjoy Le Tour.