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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. The instructions for playing are simple: just go to the FSA DS site and login. By February 1, 2025, you should find everything you need there. Though not sooner (stay tuned).
Other stuff…
I’m busily setting up a WordPress blog for if (ok, when) I do get the itch to write. And please feel free to continue chatting at our Reddit.
I can be followed on Twitter, or Threads (chrsfnt), or Bluesky (chrispodiumcafe). As is true for many of you. Please do follow me there so I can follow you back. Please post in comments any other links you would like people to know about.
I recommend following Michael Baumann’s Wheelysports newsletter, which I find to be very similar to our approach here. Michael is a professional writer, mostly about baseball, for some of my favorite pubs, but it’s only a matter of time before he publicly admits that his true sports love is the Tour of Flanders. [That’s my guess. I don’t know him well, just corresponded a bit, but I have a keen sense of who might be a cobbles addict.]
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I won’t miss the cycling, because the show, as always, goes on. I won’t miss Belgium or Italy because I intend to go there again, with a bike or two. I won’t miss riding because I plan to start all of that up again in the spring. I won’t miss the great stories of the past two decades because I can revisit them. I confess, I do like just writing, I am vain that way, but whatever I needed to say, I finished up saying it already. That’s a life lesson. Not all journeys are endless. [Except, of course, Journey’s. That’s another life lesson, about what vanity really looks like. I digress…]
But I will miss the community. It was always about the community. I remember in the earliest days you could call up a world map which would show where people had logged in from. San Francisco! Minneapolis! Brussels!! Riga! Where is Riga? It was fascinating, and though anecdotal at first, it did become an actual community, not just wired together but connected, in that exciting way that sports brings people together.
I had the privilege of being a central figure here, but that’s not what I will remember most. What I will take with me is an accident of geography, being just about farthest from the action (time-zone-wise) such that by the time I would show up to the live chat, everyone was already there. The Cafe that I walked into so many mornings, latte in hand, was a building full of old friends, humming with activity and chatter, jokes and race-talk, with a big screen bringing the action to all of us. Knowing there was always a place to sit, a race to watch, and good friends to watch it with… that is what it was always about. Thank you.
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