Al and Andy, Sigh

I also posted these comments on Bike Snob's comments section, but since they're so (un)brilliant, I decided to post them here as well in order to avoid preserving them for the ages:

Okay, here's my final (and only) word(s) on the now-infamous chain-drop incident. I know when Alberto talks he sounds like Mike Tyson would if someone were brave enough to squeeze his pant-yabbies, plus many of us can't understand a word he says anyway, whereas Andy has the looks that makes little girls (and other people) have NSFW fantasies, plus his accent is so cute you just want to hug it, and you understand everything he says. HOWEVER, the as-promised words are TEAM SPORT and COMPETITION. Racing is a team sport, so either Andy screwed up by dropping his chain with unskillful shifting, in which case he deserved to lose time for being worse at his sport than Alberto; or Andy's mechanic, who is also part of the "team" in "team sport," screwed up by giving him an improperly adjusted drivetrain to work with. Either way, it's not as if Alberto actually pulled the chain off the ring. It's a competition, not a group ride.

If you can cite examples of winners who exhibited fantastic sportsmanship, well, good for them. But if they had lost after waiting for the competition to catch up, they might have looked foolish, not magnanimous. Plus, does anyone ever ask the riders who get dropped again, even after being waited for during their difficulties? Do they feel grateful, or do they feel as if insult has been added to injury? Waiting for a rider who has self-dropped is like saying, "I know I can kick your ass either way, so I'll just take a break while you work out your little issues." It's like the tortoise and the hare, except the hare actually does win. So, Andy, even though you're so cute it makes us all want to wet our knickers, quit whining and race. It's not an amateur Saturday group ride.