Just a quick note to all you lovely people: You are not imagining things. The fanpost column has temporarily disappeared from the page. The support people are working on a thing. It will return when they are done with the thing. There've been some database-related troubles, which they are working to fix. Sorry for the dread 503 errors you may have been seeing earlier today.

Just a couple items on which I don't like to leave you hanging...

Kits/Prizes: Everyone who bought a kit should have either received it or have been in contact with me about whatever is going on. We have a few in process still, for various complications. But if you haven't received your VDS prize, it's because I haven't sent them. That will change this weekend. Someone recently told me I was every bit as good at managing order fulfillment as I am at managing my VDS team. Speaking of which...

VDS: Things are on or ahead of schedule for VDS 2012! We haven't done a lot of public comment on it this year, since I think we have it more or less down. The VDS Committee is tinkering a bit with the race calendar, but we should easily make our traditional February 1 opening, or possibly launch a little early. If you're new and wondering what I am talking about, go here. Needless to say, there will be a Men's VDS and Women's VDS again in 2012. Hang tight! [God, that's a weird idiom.]

Just a couple quick notes... on the kit shipping, everything that went through a standard order (via Google checkout) has gone out. If you ordered this way and haven't gotten an email notification, contact me. Some will start arriving as soon as today; others, esp. Europe, as late as end of next week. [Canada supposedly takes six to ten business days, but I could float a package to BC faster than that.] Please make sure everything is correct and contact me at chris[at]podiumcafe.com if it isn't, or if you don't see something in two weeks. Don't email back to the notification if you want my immediate attention. Thanks!

Also, who's that Douglas guy on the front page? You may have figured out already, that's dansel, now employing his full name, and now officially coming on board as our third formal staffer. Douglas will cover a wide variety of stuff; it's really just a matter of three people being better than two right now, as opposed to having him take over one specific area. Anyway, Jen and I are very, very, very pleased to welcome Douglas to the team!

Good news -- if you ordered a Podium Cafe kit you're probably going to receive it this week! I know, it seems like it takes these things forever, but the reality is that it took about five weeks to make minimums, and there's about 45 separate steps between us saying "want a kit?" to one showing up at your house. So here's some final deets:

• Domestic shipments are starting today. If you did a regular Google order to a US address, you absolutely should receive it by the weekend.
• International orders should ship by Wednesday. There aren't many and I intended to do them first, given the longer shipping time, but Google Checkout doesn't show me all the info I need, and my laptop was stolen this past week, so it was quicker to deal with the US orders and ask Sui Juris to send me the int'l order info I need. In any case, look for them to arrive in 1-2 weeks, assuming a week or so of transit time. Might be more like 5 days, but don't quote me.
• Next up are friends and family orders, i.e. not through Google, and prizes! At long last, we have everything in hand. I will have all that out by the weekend, possibly sooner, depending on whether I have the addresses of every recipient.

Missed out on ordering? We will have a couple random items in stock (XL bibs!), although most of the extras are ticketed for the prize box. But! We have plenty o' tee shirts in all sizes! With the holidays approaching and with my shipping system stocked with printer ink and blank labels, now is a great time to put in an order! The original price of $20 each included shipping, but if you buy more than one, I'll take off $5 from each extra one (i.e. two for $35, 3 for $50, etc.). Email me: Chris[at]podiumcafe.com.

Thanks for your patience guys. And I look forward to getting back to writing Offseason Capsules. I have a half-baked Katusha report in my head already...

Sept 13: We're gonna make jerseys for sure, and bibs are just about there.  Arm warmers lag, but here's hoping - see above for photo of arm warmers with jersey.  

The order window will close Wednesday AM (EDT).  Thanks to everyone for their patience on the invoicing.

Having problems with the Google Checkout widget below?  Make sure you've selected "wide" as your PodiumCafe.com preferred viewing option (look at the top right grey box, next to "view").

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You want to look that epic, right?  In addition to a good set of legs and lots of post-processing, you're gonna need a PdC kit.  Lucky for you,  the 2011 ordering for Podium Cafe kits is now open.  We had enough interest to offer short-sleeved jerseys (we expect to make the minimums), bibs (we hope to make the minimums), and arm-warmers (who knows if we'll make the minimums).  Those of you looking for hats?  You're a lonely little group - we'll have to address that with another project.  And if the expression of interest in this round is any indication of future interest, the long sleeved jerseys made last time will be the last ones, ever.

Please read ALL of the information below before ordering. 

Remember, we have to make the minimums, and we can't order stuff if we don't make minimums. But we also don't want to delay indefinitely either. So don't delay! Order ASAP!  The store is on the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Two days ago I passed on an alert regarding virus warnings people have been receiving from the front page of the Podium Cafe and other SBN sites. In sum, the warning is fake and the directions in the warning are attempting to get you to install a virus. Closing the browser -- preferably by force-quit -- makes it go away, and the message pops up only occasionally, and only if you have a browser with no script-blocking functions. But it's still a potential threat and we have had one report of infection, which is one more than I'd ever hoped to have.

What to do and how to help... On the flip:

Continue reading this post »

Last week was very educational. Maybe even too educational:

We learned that Floyd Landis had a lot to say to Paul Kimmage about his and cycling's dark secrets. Lance was again a primary villain, but so too was the UCI in Landis' seven-hour long chat. Pat McQuaid's reaction was no less alarming.

On to happier subjects, we kicked off not one but two of the world's greatest competitions... the Fourth Annual Podium Cafe Virtual Directeur Sportif and the First-Ever Women's Virtual Directeur Sportif! Both of them are guaranteed to make your cycling fanhood 127% better this season, or your money back.

We learned quite a bit about BMC's top riders, straight from the source, DS John Lelangue. We also checked in on Katusha, in our latest Team Capsule. Plus some other minor matters, like, oh, the 2011 TOUR OF FLANDERS ROUTE!! And some other Classics courses.

Then we found out how much it costs for the privilege of putting on a major American stage race for a day. We also heard about Mile-a-Minute Murphy, the world's fastest man back in the day.

And then there were the results:

• Cyclocross? Pauwels in a dash. And the Hulk in a, um, Hulk.
• Ellen van Dijk in the Women's Tour of Qatar.
• Lars Boom in the Men's Qatar prologue.
• Tyler Farrar won the Trofeo Majorca. Or did he?

We're working on colors, and Gav wants to see what a blockquote looks like.

So, here's a blockquote full of useless information. Kind of like the UCI and those rules they like to make up whenever they feel like it. Yessss, today seems like a good day to make up a rule. Let's see, what shall it be? Oh, right, we haven't messed with bike racing in the United States lately. Let's do something there. Rightio! Should be great!

Okay, that's what a blockquote looks like.