Sound and fury, signifying nothing

It's all about sound and fury (CC)

It probably does not speak well for the Broom Wagon's character that, with the year's third grand tour barely a week away, we are drawn to transfer gossip like a Lindsay Lohan-loving moth to a bonfire of New Weeklies.

Three days after the Vuelta a Espana kicks off on August 29, trading restrictions end. This frees teams to poach merrily from other teams, and riders to get the hell out of there/talk Alejandro Valverde down from a ledge/let Jurgen van den Broeck's tyres down (select a, b or c depending on whether you are Levi Leipheimer, Alberto Contador or Cadel Evans).

Of course many of the deals are already being struck, which makes keeping up with the news an interesting exercise in reading between the lines.

Things are clear enough at Rabobank, where Camperdown's own Mat Hayman is fleeing along with Juan Antonio Flecha, possibly for the new British-based Sky team.

Contador's contract at Astana is absolutely non-negotiable, which means it is negotiable, but for a whole suitcase full of roubles and an expensive watch.

US Postal/Discovery Channel/Astana old boys continue to pour in to youth drop-in centre The Shack, including George Hincapie, possibly Leipheimer and Chris Horner, and probably Sergio Paulinho.

Meanwhile, Evans has a year remaining on his contract and, by the sounds of it, some long afternoons ahead in an office filled with anti-snoring medication and used Belgian lottery tickets.

"Afternoon spent with Silence-Lotto management," Evans said on Twitter this week. "Lots of talking ... and talking ..."

"Lots of talking ... and talking" pretty well sum up the weeks between the Tour and the Vuelta. It also brings to mind the line from Macbeth: "a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

And to think, the Broom Wagon wasn't even around in Shakespeare's day.

First Wednesday book club

Graeme Obree is one of the Broom Wagon's cycling heroes, so we were delighted to see him join Lance Armstrong's midweek bunch ride through Paisley, which it turns out is not just an attractive tablecloth design but also somewhere in Scotland.

Obree, now 43, is best known for smashing the world hour record on a bike made from old washing machine parts and a bit of metal he found by the roadside.*

He also duelled on the track in the mid-90s with English star Chris Boardman, fought self-loathing and alcoholism, survived suicide attempts, and pioneered a superman-style riding position so effective it was later banned.

All this is detailed unsparingly in his autobiography, Flying Scotsman – which, if we can go all Oprah's book club on your ass, is well worth a trip to your local internet retailer.

*Like Obree, the Broom Wagon has access to a washing machine and a spanner. Unlike Obree, our engineering ingenuity is limited to the time we spent the afternoon truing a rear wheel.

No matter how many spokes we turned, there was no shifting a persistent wobble, so we finally took the sorry, fishtailing mess to the Local Bike Shop. Which was where Friendly Local Bike Shop Mechanic gently pointed out the whacking great crack in the axle.

Dispatches from the Twitterverse

@wegelius finds inspiration on his morning carton of kevyt-maito.

Escaping over water is no longer an option for devoted dad @bradwiggins.

Jersey manufacturers print the southern cross and union jack as God, but not @Greghenderson, intended.

According to this dubious study, 40 per cent of tweets are pointless babble, 38 per cent are conversational, and only around four per cent are news. Where this leaves @ChiaraPasserini's shopping lists is a whole 'nother study altogether.

For those wondering how long it takes @mcewenrobbie to relieve an itch, the answer is: no faster than 9.58 seconds.

Classic YouTube

You might think that 'girlier' is a dubious rhyme for 'courier'. And you would be right, but that doesn't make this take on the roadie/fixie war a work of some genius.