Stage three of Paris-Nice was a real matrimony of the ancient and modern with Slovakian sensation Peter Sagan taking the win and Jens Voigt (pictured), a man old enough to be his dad, roaring into the race lead. Now, to continue the adage, all the race needs is 'something borrowed, something blue'.
Twenty-year-old Sagan is a real phenomenon. The former world junior mountain bike champion had only been professional for a couple of weeks in January before he found himself hobnobbing alongside the likes of Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pereiro in a breakaway in the Tour Down Under.
Then on Tuesday, in his debut European stage race, he finished just five centimetres behind Frenchman William Bonnet in Limoges - which, to be fair, accounts for the clear nasal advantage held by Bonnet and his prodigious proboscis.
Recognising that he was just a sniff away from victory, Sagan proved he isn't just a punchy sprinter on Wednesday by attacking on the final ascent to Aurillac to nail the first professional win of his career. A career which will no doubt be as long and illustrious as the combined length of the noses of Bbox Bouygues riders (it's not just Bonnet, have you seen Pierrick Fedrigo's extraordinary snozzle?)
Sponsored by a well known energy drink carrying the misleading sales-pitch 'it gives you wings' - (it doesn't, BS has tried it) - Sagan's flight to the finish belied his tender years and suggests we have witnessed the arrival of a future superstar.
"He could be my son," said grizzly Jens after he donned yellow, adding: "Really, I think they should have a distinctive grey jersey for riders over 35." Together with tricycles and compulsory colostomy bags?
Voigt, 83 and still going strong despite his nasty spill in last year's Tour, joked: "The young guns keep pushing and say, 'Hey, old man, go away!' It's not getting easier with the years. But I still train hard, I still have the dedication and I'm still determined to get a few results."
Cycling's Chuck Norris underlined his determination to reach Paris for one last swansong this July in what would be his 13th and final Tour. The German's recent track record is not great: last year he failed to reach the French capital "after that stupid crash" and the year before he lost his saddle on the final lap of the Champs Elysees.
Back to Sagan - maybe he is the key for the 'something borrowed, something blue' part of the equation. You see, the Slovakian is the latest rider in Liquigas' ever-growing production line of top stage racers, including the likes of Messrs Basso, Pellizotti, Nibali and Kreuziger.
Indeed, you could go as far as to say that Sagan has 'borrowed' the limelight from his team-mate Roman Kreuziger. Just three year's Sagan's senior, Kreuziger, whose well-heeled family are amongst the Czech Republic's affluent elite, must be rather miffed at this young upstart. Isn't Sagan meant to be Roman's slave in the peloton? As such, he'd better watch out, or he could get a beating and be left black and, er, 'blue'.
"I'm here to help Roman Kreuziger to win Paris-Nice," Spartacus Sagan quickly said, falling in line.
IN-VISA-BLE: In non-news this week, seven-times Tour de France champion (etc and so forth) Lance Armstrong was left outraged when South African immigration officials were caught out doing their job at Cape Town airport.
With no room left in his passport for a visa stamp, Armstrong couldn't believe his bad luck when an officious official had to audacity to momentarily block his entry into the country ahead of a race this Sunday.
Resorting to his most powerful weapon since his first retirement in 2005, the 38-year-old voiced his anger on Twitter, showing the same contempt for the officials that he usually keeps for the drug testers who have the temerity to ask him for blood samples during major races.
"Not the friendliest welcome I've ever received but we've all seen immigration officers like that," he harrumphed, before phoning up Ben Stiller and asking him for a role in Zoolander II.
BS can picture it all now: reminiscent of the classic scene in Lethal Weapon 2 where Danny Glover is trying to get a South African visa, Armstrong would have been thwarted at customs as the confused official, not in the loop about his comeback last year, uttered the words: "But... you're back."
It reminds BS of the time he tried to board the Eurostar to Paris without any identity. He tried to fob off the suits at customs - "don't you know who Mr Saddles is? He is a biking blogger extraordinaire!" - but they were having nothing of it.
GONE WITH THE WIND: Riders all over Europe have had to battle against the elements this week as the cold weather continues its reign across Europe.
Paris-Nice is usually called 'the race to the sun' but the 68th edition has been hampered by heavy winds and snow - so much that organisers considered renaming the event Paris-in-fact-not-very-Nice-at-all.
Wednesday's stage three was shortened by 50km because of snowfall, while during the Prologue, RadioShack's Belgian sprinter Gert Steegmans was actually lifted off the ground by a whirlwind.
"I saw The Wind coming," said team director Dirk Demol, setting the scene with the kind of panache reserved for Hitchcockian horrors. "Leaves and tree branches flew in the air and a second later Gert was lifted in the air too. He was blown away from the road and tumbled over and over many times. It was a terrible crash. I've never seen such a thing in my life. It took 12 minutes for the ambulance to arrive while we waited and could do nothing."
While at QuickStep, Steegmans was always riding in the shadow of Tornado Tom Boonen so the upshot of this collar-breaking freak injury is that he can now at least apply for the moniker 'Whirlwind'. It has more foreboding that Gust Gert, that's for sure.
Elsewhere, the start of Tirreno-Adriatico was hit by a sprinkling of snow, while one of its competitors, Robert Gesink, almost failed to turn up after he had to walk to the airport to catch his flight from Barcelona because roads had been closed owing to the adverse conditions.
So cold too was the weather in Italy that BMC's Karsten Kroon apparently resorted to wearing scuba diving gloves while racing.
Back to the crashes: Bonnet's win on Tuesday in Paris-Nice was overshadowed by a nasty spill involving Dan Martin and Jimmy Casper, one which may have been avoided had gormless organisers not insisted on using a narrow road with a raised traffic divider ahead of the final bend.
And finally, Italian model Alessandro Petacchi came a cropper when he collided with a 'planter' during training, according to reports. BS has no idea if said planter was human or mechanical, but it still resulted in some nasty gashes for Lampre's former hotshot. Talk about sowing the seeds of doubt...
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "If I have hurt my sport through the case of the 2007 Tour, I am here today to be forgotten. I have felt no resentment since my return. Instead, I feel that everyone was happy to see me. My popularity is still the same and that's what matters most." Alexandre Vinokourov takes a lesson in the Riccardo Ricco school of public relations.
Follow Blazin' Saddles throughout the week on http://twitter.com/saddleblaze.