Will Magnus Backstedt ever get another shot at a second Paris-Roubaix win? Not at his current pace, where a shoulder injury is screwing up all his plans for spring. He's optimistic, but this is the problem (from CN):
"I was doing Madison training down the track in Newport in October. We mistimed a Madison change and the guy that I was riding with came in straight underneath my wheels at 60 kilometres an hour. There is nothing you can do when that happens, I just went down and that was it. I thought I had just snapped my collarbone which means that after three weeks you are good to go again, but it turned out to be a lot worse. It was a fifth degree separated shoulder, so all the ligaments had gone. Anything that was in there previously is not in there any more. The collarbone went straight up through the trapezius muscle. I'm struggling big time with flexibility and I have still got a metal plate in my shoulder as well, which causes even more stiffness."
Gawd, what the hell is he whining about? I mean really, take an ibuprofen, staple-gun your shoulder ligaments back into place, and get out there!