It can't be said enough how much VeloNews ass Cycle Sport has kicked in the last year or so. As of last spring, CS officially got off its high-priced duff and started doing journalism again, to the point where I no longer cared if their Tour preview arrived in August. I guess what I like best is that their articles tend to raise subjects worth talking about, rather than the bland result-recitation VN tends to ladle out.
This month's edition just arrived (my renewal negotiations dragged on a bit), and a few items already caught my eye.
- Was Marco Pantani murdered? Every fibre of my being wants to ignore this tabloid piece, but... I just... can't. The theory is that his room was all torn up, yet he had no scratches on his hands, no broken fingernails. No signs of violence at all -- except those mysterious compressions around his jugular. There is general agreement that he died of a cocaine-induced heart attack, but that still leaves both suicide and murder on the table. Pantani's mom thinks someone choked him and shoved the coke in his mouth. In a shocking development, the investigation by Italian authorities has been deemed woefully inadequate.
- Excellent coverage of the Quick Step juggernaut. Speaks for itself.
- Not sure what's more shocking, the length of Ullrich's hair or the lack of girth to his midsection.
- My favorite aspect of CS: If you can string two interesting sentences together about some aspect of Cycling, you can win $100 as the "letter of the month." Seriously, check out the quality of the winning entries. I'm riding on free Veloflex Carbon's right now for a puff piece on Lance.