News Flash: Aqu Sports Announces Tour of America Plans for 2009 and Beyond
Wilson, NC (Fat Cyclist Fake News Service) – In a packed press conference today, Aqu Sports announced details for its much anticipated and talked-about Tour of America.
“It’s been almost exactly a year since we sent out a press release asserting the Tour of America would begin in September of 2009,” said Tour Director Frank Arokiasamy. “We felt it was high time to start filling in the blanks.”
2009 Plans
According to Race Director Richard Dunn, “2008 went by really fast, and before we knew it — whoah, there was December and we still hadn’t signed up any cities or sponsors or teams for the 2009 event.”
“We probably should have started making calls before November, but you know, it’s really hot in North Carolina during the summer and the air conditioning in our office kind of sucks, and then when autumn comes it’s so beautiful and the weather’s so nice that you just want to get outside,” continued Dunn.
“Long story short, our plan for 2009 became to focus on writing a really solid plan for 2010 – 2012 and calling 2009 a mulligan. And I feel we did an excellent job of that,” said the Race Director. “I’ll leave the details up to Karen, our Logistics Director, to give you the details of those plans now.”
2010 Plans
“For 2010,” said Karen D. O’Neill, logistics director for the Tour of America, “We plan to blame the economy for our not doing the race.”
“Of course,” explained O’Neill, “that’s not the way we’ll start out. A few months from now we’ll announce that we’re going to do this race in 2010. Then we’ll go dark again for a while. It won’t be until sometime in early 2010 that we’ll actually make the announcement that either the economy is still too bad to support a race of this magnitude, or that the economy has recovered too recently for us to meet our financial obligations in a timely manner.”
“Which, of course,” concluded O’Neill, “leads us to 2011.”
2011 Plans
“For 2011, we actually do plan to conduct a Tour of America,” said Arokiasamy. “However, it will be in South America. And it will be unsupported. And it will be raced entirely on motorcycles, instead of bicycles. Also we will avoid cities and roads altogether, having the course go up and down the coastline…and under water, when there is no beach…or when the tide is high.”
Interrupted Arokiasamy, “We feel that this will give us precisely the kind of experience we need to come back to North America the following year for the Fifth Annual Tour of America.”
2012 Plans and Beyond
“By 2012,” said Arokiasamy, “we will have established ourselves as the premier stage race in America, having either put on a race or had a very good excuse each of the preceeding four years.”
“And for 2012, we hope to begin planning very exciting plans indeed,” effused the Tour Director. “Namely, we will tell everyone that the race is planned for a certain date in July. Then, when everyone shows up on that date, we will look confused for a minute and then take a quick look at our printed materials and slap our palms to our foreheads and exclaim, ‘Oh my! We actually had the race in June! I can’t believe we said July. Sorry about that!’ And then we’ll all have a good laugh.”
Concluded the owner of the fledgling race promoter. “And then, of course, we’ll get busy working on the 2013 race. We’ve got an absolutely terrific course in mind for that year.”
The news conference did not have a Q&A session, with the race promoter citing “important drawing of colorful lines on maps to do.”
Comment by Big Boned | 04.6.2009 | 6:43 am
I’ve not been able to find a registration form, but would be happy to pay my entry fee now if that helps any…Do I just send that money to you fatty?
Comment by MOCougFan | 04.6.2009 | 6:56 am
Maybe they should all do it on Moped’s the first year.
You know, I have never seen a Moped race. That is an awesome idea. – FC
Comment by Linda | 04.6.2009 | 7:31 am
Looks like they’re highly allergic to Texas but have great confidence in New Jersey.
Comment by km | 04.6.2009 | 8:15 am
Yeah, I want to know why the bias and avoiding Texas??!!
You’ll find your answer here. – FC
Comment by dug | 04.6.2009 | 9:48 am
dude. did you photoshop a SHADOW onto that map?
well played sir.
Comment by BellaCroix | 04.6.2009 | 9:49 am
Sweet! The course passes right through my city. I wonder if I could sign on to just ride that leg of the race?
Comment by bikemike | 04.6.2009 | 9:49 am
this is by FAR the funniest thing i’ve read all day…but, i’m keeping my options open, i haven’t read dug’s blog today, although if his isn’t about poop, yours will win, hands down.
Comment by WheelDancer | 04.6.2009 | 9:52 am
I figure that distance is just under my monthly training distance so my training plan will be to keep the same distance but cut a day off each month so I will be ready by the 2013 race. It’s great to have a plan!
Comment by Hamish A | 04.6.2009 | 10:16 am
I was wondering when these guys would surface again. Nice to see the FCFNS is on the ball ahead of all the other Cycling news websites!
Comment by springer | 04.6.2009 | 10:54 am
if RAAM would change their dates, its done. Then these bozo’s can go away
Comment by KanyonKris | 04.6.2009 | 10:57 am
After reading this exciting news, for some reason this came to mind:
dug – as a two-time award winning blogger, Elden now has staff people to do his photoshopping.
kris, you got the wrong one. i think you meant this one:
- FC
Comment by Linda | 04.6.2009 | 11:35 am
I understand there’s a woman in the UK that could give people a run for their money if this was a mobility scooter race.
http://blogs.app.com/saywhat/2009/04/06/elderly-woman-rescued-on-out-of-control-scooter/
Comment by SurlyCommuter | 04.6.2009 | 12:21 pm
In the future – say 2014 – the moped will replace the recumbent.
Comment by TomE | 04.6.2009 | 1:51 pm
I must say the one thing I liked about their “course” were the 5 mountain stages here in Colorado! I LOVED their pictures of bike “rides” and not races throughout their site! I think I saw a pink jersey in one of them!
Comment by km | 04.6.2009 | 2:54 pm
Wha….I never…how dare…do…I’m sputtering in rage at the assumption that Texas wouldn’t allow the tour through??!! What kind of leftist, Birkenstock wearing, beard growing, recumbant riding, Single Speed coveting, non bike mechanically inclined, 40ish age conspiracy is this???!!!!! Texas would let the tour in, it’s just anyones guess how many of them would get out alive.
Comment by KanyonKris | 04.6.2009 | 4:26 pm
Elden – I saw that blogging Demotivator and laughed. And while I appreciate your self deprecating humor, your blog is the opposite of the Demotivator: you have a lot to say, you don’t say too much and your audience is not a few.
Comment by Marla | 04.6.2009 | 6:10 pm
I’ve personally been waiting since the early 80’s for a Tour with Big Wheels. If you could only find an all downhill, grassy route.
Comment by Big Mike In Oz | 04.7.2009 | 1:50 am
I can’t understand why every major team on the planet isn’t lining up to be involved. Have a look at that course. It’s got everything.
Actually that last bit was sarcasm. I’m sure you’ve learned to recognise it if you’ve hung around here for more than 15 seconds. The main thing that is missing from that course is the “transit” stages.
Where are the excuse opportunities that are automatically linked to a 7 hour road trip between mountain top finishes. Especially in the South East where buses are renowned for being slow, bumpy and lacking in functional airconditioning.
Where the hell are Quick Step going to find a decent excuse now?
Comment by Mike Roadie | 04.7.2009 | 5:24 am
That looks like the route for the Tour de 7-11…..
Guess we are looking at 2014 now–I’ll be too old by then.
Comment by axel in texas | 04.7.2009 | 8:55 am
well, we don’t need y’all’s race that doesn’t happen, we have our own races that don’t happen – the United Supermarkets Tour of Texas didn’t happen, the planned one day pro race in Austin didn’t happen… I am sure the race failures in Texas are bigger and better than elsewhere ;-)!
Comment by Hamish A | 04.7.2009 | 9:33 am
How about making the 100 Miles of No-where a multi day stage ‘race’ for 2011 Fatty? No hassles with finding a host City every day, no worries about transfer stages, no fights over who gets the best Hotels… I think it could be a real winner!
I’m sure the Pro teams would be a lot more interested in signing on for your Grand Tour (of the living room) than they are for the Tour of America.
We might even be able to get Bob Roll to do the webcast commentary in exchange for letting him keep his hair this time around.