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Surreal notes from the road
I’m not making this stuff up. I really couldn’t.
According to an item in last week’s Denver Post, ABC TV was in town recently auditioning for its new reality show, “Are You Hot?” A quote from the Bill Husted column: “You don’t have to be talented to be on this show,” says ABC reality chief Andrea Wong. “You don’t have to sing, you don’t have to dance, you don’t have to do anything – except think you’re hot.”
Sounds like the gig I’ve been seeking for years (aside from the hot part) — $100,000 for doing nothing (I know there are those of you who would argue that’s what I’m doing anyway, but I can guarantee that the money in this gig is nowhere near that).
I thought nobody would be able to top “The Surreal Life,” but here are three more actual shows-to-be, from the casting page of ABC.com:
The Swap: “Have you ever dreamed of living a completely different life? Imagine swapping lives with a total stranger for 2 weeks….”
The Will: “The Will seeks someone with a sizable fortune and a substantial sense of humor to be the Benefactor of this program in which his or her family will compete, game show style, to be named the heir to his or her family fortune.”
Extreme Makeover. Really needs no explanation, does it?
And we can’t get cycling on network TV? Somebody, please, make a reality show out of this year’s Saturn men’s team. Just add Emmanuel Lewis to the squad and I think we’d have something.
Am I still here? Do I still have a column? Oh, okay, on to the notes.
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Last week we mentioned that Navigators will be holding its opening training camp in Tuscany this year. While that may sound a bit extravagant, team director Ed Beamon explained that “once we hit the ground, doing camp is more cost effective there than in certain parts of the U.S. Hotels here [in the U.S.] are more expensive, food here is more expensive. Last year, we were in Scottsdale [Arizona], which is not a cheap area. You’re not going to get a hotel there for less than $80-90 a night.”
Beamon also noted the obvious advantages of holding camp in Italy. “For starters, having tasted Italy, you just want to go back,” he said. “It’s a great place to be, and from a cycling perspective, it’s a great place to draw energy from. Part of our rationale is just to tap into that enthusiasm and mentality. The professionalism of the sport and the atmosphere of respect that the sport enjoys there, it’s good to expose guys to that environment.”
Check the upcoming issue of VeloNews for more on the team’s European plans, which this year could include a handful of Belgian spring classics. Beamon was trying for entry for the team into Het Volk and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in March, and said he was “hoping to know for sure by early next week.” The team was also trying to gain a spot in Ghent-Wevelgem. “We’re hoping for an invite,” said Beamon, “and it’s looking good.”
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Closer to home, the Trek-VW Colorado regional road team recently announced the addition of two very familiar names: Clark Sheehan and Jim Copeland. Over the winter, Copeland left his spot as Saturn team director after two seasons, while Sheehan leaves behind the 7UP squad that he was a part of for the past four years.
With Copeland and Sheehan looking to spend more time close to home, the Colorado squad should be a good fit.
Don’t count Copeland and Sheehan out of the national scene entirely, though. Trek-VW has plans to take its regional road program nationwide with a new Trek-VW All Star team. The team will draw on riders from the nine regional Trek-VW teams across the nation and will contest a handful of National Racing Calendar events in the All Star colors.
Among the names that team manager Jim Dunlap has floated are Travis Brown and Walker Ferguson from Colorado (Lee’s Cyclery), Drew Miller and Scott Price from Arizona (Landis Cyclery), Skip Foley from New Hampshire (Goodale’s), Mark Kebbekus from Georgia (Free-Flight Bicycles) and Barry Wicks from Oregon (Bike Gallery).
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Last week we also reported that both Redlands and Sea Otter will some new key stages this year. Well, add the Solano Bicycle Classic to the list. For 2003, the race has added a 4.11-mile, Mix Canyon Hill Climb time trial. The course begins at about 550 feet above sea level and climbs more than 2000 feet to the finish. The hill climb will be Stage 3 of the race, contested in the morning of a double-stage day with the downtown Fairfield criterium in the afternoon, and should provide a big GC shake-up.
With its position on the calendar, March 27-30, now the weekend before Redlands, Solano should take on added importance as an early season measuring stick for U.S. teams.
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I’ll admit it. I watched just about every episode of Tough Enough III on MTV. I never knew that I secretly dreamed of becoming a pro wrestler.
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Speaking of made-for-TV, Wendy’s International promoter J. Baumeister is trying to put together an eight-race, eight-week U.S. criterium series complete with weekly Fox Sports TV coverage. The series would try to tie together several existing high-profile U.S. criteriums, and possibly a couple of new events. Baumeister has been in contact with a number of individual event promoters, but is still waiting for word from a potential sponsor to see if he gets the go-ahead.
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Add Webcor to the list of new Division 3 teams for 2003. The San Francisco Bay Area-based team made its official team announcement this week, with a roster that includes former U.S. Postal and Saturn pro Darren Baker and 1998 elite national champion Patrick Heaney. The team will also see the return to the peloton of longtime Shaklee team manager Frank Scioscia. The rest of the roster is: Jeff Angermann, Greg Drake, Dario Falquier, Marc Hagenlocher, Ted Huang, John Kelly , James Mattis, Chris Montague-Breakwell, Erik Sperling, Ben Stafford, Lionel Syne, Bernard Van Ulden and David Wyandt.
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Darren Baker? Dusty’s kid?
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Based on past experience, I can’t wait for some feedback on this column. My all-time highlight was when a reader called my writing “dull, with an edge of stupidity.”
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And finally, because a frighteningly large number of VeloNews readers get their only sports news from VeloNews:
What to watch for next week: Super Bowl XXXVII, San Diego, California. Sunday, January 26 at 6 p.m. EST.
