Podium Cafe

I've analyzed the form curves of the main protagonists and I think he'll surprise everyone.

The Reddit emergency VDS rescue team is happy to announce that Jens has generously donated his price list and calendar for the women's game. It should be available shortly for immediate team-building on the Cafe's new Reddit group. The deadline for submission will be Omloop day, 1st March.

Hi all, as of right now I have no further information about our site, and I am assuming we will be unable to offer the game for 2025. But! If you stop by our Reddit page there is discussion of potential alternatives. I apologize for this mess, I thought we had an understanding about keeping the game going, but I guess not.

In case there are any lurkers wondering where VDS has gone, we're still on hold (as of 19/02) pending an announcement from the team. Around 90 former PodCaf members have joined a Reddit group, where discussion of possible alternatives to VDS, in the event it can't resume, are being discussed.

Finally I think it's a spaceship not a steamboat. Still if they're at the fiddling with the sails stage and staying stuck there we could be floating around for a while before they figure out stuff like how to open hatches to let people in. What I like about pro cycling and the café is that you never know what's going to happen next, the goalposts are always ready to move even though there's more than a semblance of logic holding it all together. Cars irrupting on the course, horses. The finish line is not the finish line. Читать дальше...

There has been some confusion/ doubt in our resolve to run the FSA Directeur Sportif again this year, but doubt it at your peril! For now I will take advantage of SBNation leaving the Cafe running a bit longer for a few notes:

Biniam Girmay | Alex Broadway / Getty Images

Title: New Black Cyclones – Racism, Representation and Revolutions of Power in Cycling
Author: Marlon Lee Moncrieffe
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2024
Pages: 212
Order: Bloomsbury
What it is: Marlon Moncrieffe’s follow-up to Desire Discrimination Determination in which he again addresses the issue of racism in cycling and raises some challenging questions about the ways in which we might rid cycling of its colour bar
Strengths... Читать дальше...

and some last 2025 FSA DS instructions

This is it. I do not know when SBNation plans to turn the site off (read-only mode), but I assume it is by January 1.

First things first, as I’ve signaled before, the FSA Directeur Sportif is cued up for another go-round. Not sure about 2026, but 2025 is on. I can’t deprive myself of the chance to price Tadej Pogačar after his megamonster year. Or deprive all of you of the dilemma that price will pose. I could never look Ursula in the eye again if I missed this chance. Читать дальше...

Photo by Tim de Waele/Corbis via Getty Images

A look back at the whole Flanders thing and what it meant to the Café

A handful of things that made it unique around here

I have no idea how to structure this post so I’m just gonna get into it. Things got kind of strange at times, probably a function of American fans in our Editors’ circle. When your favorite sport delivers the best it has before lunch, you have all sorts of time to indulge the ideas knocking around your head. Keep in mind that the online cycling content alternatives consisted of CyclingNews and VeloNews, not known for weird humor (stupid... Читать дальше...