Riding cohort Patrice just sent me an email. It was a story of Sean Yates winning a time trial in England

The new Team Astana has started out the new year with a win. Sports Director Sean Yates won the Southborough and District wheelers 10-mile time trial on New Years Day, 30 years to the day after he first won the race.

When he was given the prize, a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. If I keep progressing like this, I might well turn pro one day, he joked. Yates raced as a professional from 1982 to 1996. After drinking half the bottle, according to a team press release, he said, "This cycling lark is piss easy."

First of all, the Southborough and District Wheelers sounds like an event 5 drunks at the local pub threw together over a bar bet which might explain Sean's nonplussed nature.

Regardless, the quote seems quintessentially British. Compare your typical American athlete gibberish.

Reporter (making a statement while pretending it is a question): Tom, it was a tough game tonight.(?)
American athlete: That's right. They played really hard tonight, yknow. But, we dug deep and, yknow, gave 110%, yknow. We'll keep working hard, yknow, and taking one game at a time, yknow, and think we can make the playoffs, yknow.

Compare that with Yates' literate and humorous reply. Can you even imagine a typical American pro athlete using the word lark?