Jens & Boonen—Piratical Sorts

Jens Voigt....a calming presence in the peloton...

I have a man-crush on Jens Voigt. But you already knew that.

I've called him a hard man.

He's so hard, he inspired a (Genius!) Twitter feed, called Jens Voigt Facts (with a companion website...keep refresh the page to see more entries). A sampling:

• Jens Voigt prepares for Tour de Suisse by reassuring scientists at the Large Hadron Collider that he means no harm.
• Sharks have a Jens Voigt week.
• Jens Voigt can touch MC Hammer.
• Lance Armstrong was born the day after Jens Voigt. However, Jens immediately attacked and by the Texan's 13th birthday Jens had already turned 16.
• You get the idea...

...NOT!!!

He's a rare character. And he's now a blogger. I hate the competition. (Seriously. He gets more readers in a day than I've had in two years of this blog.)

But I love him all the same.

But he may be getting come competition. There may be another character in the pro peloton who—with a cheeky grin and a mischievous manner—can upstage the master.

His name?

Tom Boonen.

The Belgian?

Yep, the 2005 World Champion, 2007 Green Jersey winner,  and multiple winner of Paris-Roubaix and Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders, to all you gringos out there).

NOT a Lamborghini.

The Lamborghini-crasher? The coke-head?

Now, now. He was avoiding a cat. And what's a little recreational drug use among friends...After all, Ullrich made mistakes, too!

Let's get this back on track.

In a recent post, Jens laments that he will have to miss going to a Foo Fighters concert with his 15-year-old son, because of his professional obligations.

He shares his conundrum with Tom Boonen. As Jens writes:

...Tom Boonen came up with a good alternative plan. When I told him about my dilemma, he was like, “No really! You know what we can do?” And he gives me this little pirate smile …

“We can stop along the road and start hitting each other! We’ll be in the news all over the place so it brings added exposure for the team. But we’ll also get kicked out so you’ll be able to get home and see the concert. Then at the Tour de France we’ll hug and make up in front of the cameras and get lots more visibility in the press. Everyone’s a winner!”

You cheeky monkey!

Genius. Pure genius.

That sounds like something I might have come up with in my boarding school days—like swallowing a pinch of Copenhagen just before class to get up a nice infirmary-sending vomit...and thus avoiding a test.

It's brilliant! And it shows a complete understanding of what it is to be a professional cyclist. It's entertainment. It's the limelight. Everything they do feeds the media machine—especially if you are a national hero, as is Boonen.

I only wish that they had done it! Just think of all the column inches it would have generated!

And think how much fun JensVoigtFacts.com would have had with it.

I lament.