Floyd Landis, A Man of Many Talents.

So there's this. Apparently, the Floyd Landis as a hacker case is real, at least to some dope of a french judge. I can't really wrap my head around this entire thing for a few reasons. Allow me to expound in no particular order.

1) In my opinion, which may be wrong, but I feel as though a court case shouldn't be a total waste of time. If the state is going to prosecute someone I feel like there should be a good reason to do so. I also realize as I type this, that this happens all the time, but in a case that will require a US citizen to travel to France to defend himself on allegations of hacking into a database of lab results, what's the real end game? What do they really hope to prove? Even if Floyd really did do it, doesn't it seem as though the real charges should be attempted identity theft or something along those lines? Basically a drug lab got hacked, what's the worst that happened, somebody found out a bunch of people's blood types? Or, maybe, from a complete conspiracy theory angle, the french are mad because some positive tests they're hiding could have been found. Ohhhh...

2) Am I really supposed to believe that Floyd Landis is a computer hacker? Remember the movie Hackers from the 90s? I must have watched that movie a dozen times as a young teen. It made hacking seem so cool and it was right about the time that internet became readily available where I lived. I even tried to do some computer hacking of my own. Though, I found that when I tried to hack into other computers I was not presented with visual of binary code forming columns and I also never seemed to float through the inside of a computer's motherboard looking to unleash my cookie monster virus at just the right section of 000000001. Yes, those are incredibly geeky references to this movie. I also remember that I wanted to spray paint my dad's computer tower in camouflage since that's clearly what all the real hackers do. That request was denied. Basically, what I'm saying, is that while Hackers the movie was probably a far far cry from what actual hacking involves (for full disclosure I did once successfully hack into some else's computer. However, it was mainly a .exe file that I tricked them into downloading and then it gave me access to their cd-rom, keyboard and the ability to screen shot their desktop. Randomly opening and closing someone's cd-rom drive and changing the order in which keys type was fun, but not really hard core.), I don't think Floyd would know how to do it any better than I do. Could he have hired someone? Sure, but why isn't that guy being called to France? And, at the time this alleged hacking took place, Floyd had plenty of dough to pay off a hacker. I mean, if that's what happened and that guy ratted you out, don't you think you admit to that?

Watch this movie. The sub-title is clearly foreshadowing for Floyd Landis in some way.



3) The comments on the VeloNews article once again restore my faith in the fact that most people who take the time to post comments to articles are insanely ridiculous. (The same could probably be said for people who write blog posts about comments being made on articles...) Most of these people clearly hate Floyd, which is fine, but I was pretty surprised when some say things like, "I'd like to see him defend himself in the french court..." to which I sort of wonder, why? I'm pretty sure the US is not going to extradite (I have no basis for this belief) Floyd on stupid hacker charges and it seems pretty clear that all of France is not Floyd's biggest fan so he probably doesn't much of a fair shot at this trial, so if I'm Floyd, I just go ahead and make France one of those countries I'm never allowed to go to again on va-kay. Why would Floyd want to pay to defend himself in this mess? It won't prove anything either way. I think this is one of those court orders you conveniently ignore. He could always take a super aggressive stance like the golden boy and say he's not participating in a witch hunt. That would at least get some blind American backing.

4) I feel like I already covered this, but who gives a damn?

Cyclocross Rivalries

I really like this little blog. I like writing about things that are not about me. Mostly those things that I write about are cycling related and for most people that's simply not interesting. So me and this little blog run into a bigger problem of things to write about when for the casual cycling fan the road season has come to a close and my personal favorite time of the year, cyclocross, has started.

I've expressed how hard I find it to describe cyclocross to someone who's never heard of it many times. We're a niche within a niche so that makes it pretty tough. I guess this shouldn't really matter to me because I've never bothered with google analytics (?) to see how many people stop by and read my ramblings, so I suppose it's not out of the question that I just write about whatever I want to write about and assume that it's simply getting lost in the interwebs. Which, I also suppose, is fine.

That brings me, in a totally unrelated sort of way, to today's topic, rivalries. Boy do I love a good rivalry. There's just something about a group of people deciding they dislike another group of people for really no good reason beyond their own attraction for someone or some other team. I am a pretty firm believer in that rivalries are 100% good for any sport. You know why Nebraska decided to leave the Big 12? Mainly because they felt like their old rivalry game with Oklahoma was being ignored. When Nebraska officially moved to the Big 10, both Michigan and Ohio St. were quick to make sure that their game stayed on the schedule. Both of those schools need that game. College football needs that game. Rivalries are what keep sports interesting and meaningful and they extend well beyond the scoreboard.

Cyclocross, while growing, is still a terribly small niche within the already niche sport of cycling. The races are often not close to where you live and the tiny amount of coverage they are given make it very difficult to follow and stay up to date on. One website trying to fix that, and doing a pretty good job, is cyclingdirt.org. Through their attempt to bring better coverage to the sport, they've also shined the light on a rivalry that has apparently existed for quite some time between Tim Johnson, current National Champ and Johnathon Page, former multi-time National Champ.

The first time I became aware of the rivalry was watching videos of the 2009 GP Gloucester last year when this happened:

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Let me try to break the video down, just a bit, to help people who may still actually be reading but not understand what they saw. In a cross race there are sections, sand especially, that you are a huge advantage if you are in the front. The reason being, if the guy in front of you looses his line or dismounts and has to run, you then have to go around him through a bad line which may force you to dismount giving the guy in front a huge advantage. Similarly, if you're in front and you bobble then at least everyone behind you is equally affected and you are in a sense still in control of the situation. These two guys, Page (who crashes) and Johnson (the one with his leg out) both want to be in the front going into the sand so they are racing for the entrance.

Here are Page's post race comments when asked about it:

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And Johnson's at about :38 :

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There's also a video of Jeremy Powers who's response is basically, "rubbin' is racin' and we're all friends."

Disclaimer:This is where I clearly take a side and show my loyalty in this rivarly.

I could dig up a ton of videos of Page after every race he doesn't win complaining about how everybody was using negative tactics and nobody rides hard and nobody wants to race and nobody's being aggressive and blah blah blah. But oddly enough, these comments only come after he doesn't win. Page races mostly in Europe where, rumor has it, the races are way more aggressive than in the states, with guys chopping corners for 30th place, so it seems odd, that he's always upset when these things happen in the US. This year in Madison for the first round of the USGP, while there's no video of the incident, apparently Page took issue with Johnson once again.

Look here at about :15 where he interrupts an interview.

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And here, in his own interview, where he can't even answer questions he's so angry:

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This is how Ryan Trebon responded on twitter after the race.

Powers once again denied all rivalry. Which I actually believe because he's probably the nicest person in lycra.

But, I think this video, if you can actually get through it all, the bike geek level is really, really high if you haven't noticed, these guys, totally independent of the situation, without naming names, pretty much call Page out. My assumption is that he's "that guy" when they say "that guy," but I could be wrong.

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Anyway, what do I know? No matter who's at fault I think having a rivalry like this is 100% good for the sport. Polarizing figures/situations make people take sides and when you take a side you cheer louder for your guy. This weekend at the World Cup in Switzerland will be the first time these two have raced on the same course since Madison at the USGP. With the larger field size and both guys having to start 3rd or 4th row it seems unlikely that they'll be spending as much time in small groups where they can annoy one another as they do over here. That's also the unfortunate thing about this rivalry, it's pretty short lived on a yearly basis since Johnson races mostly in the US and Page races almost exclusively in Europe. But, you take what you can get I suppose.

What I'd really like to see is a Ryan Trebon v. Jeremy Powers rivalry. It sort of exists. I feel like there's a the Kona v. Cannondale mind set with a lot of fans. It doesn't hurt any that the Kona guys are west coasters and the Cannondale guys are east coasters. I think it would be good for both of those bike companies if they could figure out a way to build that rivalry up. I have no ideas for how to make that happen. Especially since they also seem to actually like each other, which, in my experience, dampens the spirit of a true rivalry.

First Cross Race, Ouch!

I don't want to make any excuses here, I basically sucked. I raced in the 3/4 instead of the 4 because it had a 2 hour later start time, 11am, and I figured it wouldn't be that much fast. Truth be told, I don't know if it was that much faster or if I was just going that slow the whole time. But I finished way, way, way, way off the leaders and must closer to the last place guy than the first place guy.

The course was not suited to someone like me. Of course the only course actually suited to my needs would be on that starts at sea level, ends about 1,000 to the 2,000 feet higher. Throw some barriers and a few tricky corners to screw up the purest of pure climbers and I probably have a chance. This course was a fun one, but only gained an approximate 1' of elevation per lap. There were technical sections but there also a lot of wide open power sections, which, made one of my greatest limiters glaringly obvious. That limiter being the ability to put power down.

I started pretty much in the back because they staged us by registration number. I registered like a week before the race so apparently that means I start in the back. I felt like I got a decent start, you know, considering and was trying to make my way up through the first half of the course. Somewhere in there, and I'm not exactly sure where by my moving up switched to moving back and that was a pretty consistent theme for the rest of the day.

Things you need in a cross race:
-Power
-Bike Handling Skills
-Snap
-Muscular endurance, a lot!
-Aerobic endurance, not a lot, but it certainly helps.
-Will power.

Things I had for this race:
-will power.
-1/2 bike handling skills.

Will power does not win races. It does however make you fight really hard to catch the group of three guys in front of you that somehow seems to be getting further and further away. It then transitions that focus to holding off the guy behind you who seems to be getting closer by the lap until he finally passes on the last power section. It also motivates you to sprint to get on his wheel which I was unable to accomplish.

So, the positives, because I mean, it was still fun:
- I beat the guy in the bowling shirt. But, if there were 2 more laps, who knows.
- My tubeless tire set up seemed to work great. I was running about 30lbs of pressure in both tires and with all the roots in the tree section I'm pretty sure I would have flatted with a tube in there.
- There was an obstacle of logs lining a walking path. The course went over it, 180 degree u-turn and then back over it again. I rode that section every lap which makes me feel good about my bike handling skills. Not sure it was faster to ride but I wasn't getting passed by guys getting off their bikes either. Even in traffic.
- I was sort of motivated before, now I'm really motivated because getting your ass kicked by that much is bad for your soul, or something like that.

Links to Cool Stuff You, yes You, Should See

Random things I've run across today that I think you should see.

Read this article about the current life of former Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. Like him, hate him or refrain from caring, but this is a pretty piece about a guy who seems to honestly want to right his wrongs. He's still one of my favorite pro bike racers, even if he isn't really a pro bike racer anymore.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5652787

I pretty much stand by my position that Greg LeMond is an old, angry, bitter man. But I saw an add for the new trainer that his company, LeMond Revolution put out and this thing is genius! I'm still a much bigger fan of riding on rollers but sometimes a trainer would be nice. Like the times where you just want to watch a movie and not worry about getting caught up in a chase scene and following the action left to the point that you are now crashing into the wall. Yeah, that's happened to me more than once. The problem with trainer and rollers has always been that they destroy your tires, problem solved!
http://www.lemondfitness.com/product_detail/465/lemond-revolution

My personal favorite pro ass cyclocross racer is Jeremy Powers. Like most folks I pick my favorites based on personality and I find him entertaining, insightful and charismatic. Basically a person I'd like to hang out and ride with if I personally knew him, which I don't. This year, he's working with Sam something or another, a guy that makes cyclocross films and their putting small episodes of what is supposed to be a larger, season long film at the end. Anyway, if you go to http://www.jeremypowers.missingsaddle.com/ you can see the first three installments.


Cyclocross is a hard sport to describe. I often stumble through some "You ride a bike that looks like a road bike but has knobby, fatter tires. It's off road and on. There's obstacles..." Needless to say, that's not very good. This guy, who I just stumbled across, does a pretty good job of describing cross through a cartoon of sorts. Check it out: http://slonie.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/cx-comic/

I didn't find this one today but it's worth a mention. http://www.cyclingdirt.org/ is a website dedicated to off road cycling. That means that during the year they cover mtb races, which I don't really follow much, but during cross, they follow cross, so I go here about a ga-billion times per day. If you're a super dork like me and like pre and post race interviews from the super fast guys and some really good race coverage, get familiar with this site. This year, during the USGPs they have live video with three different cameras on the course. That's pretty awesome.

Last but not least, and I don't want to harp on this, but with Amgen Tour of California 2011 route was announced today, http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/amgen-tour-of-california-host-cities-announced/144560. Is it just me or does bringing back the Solvang TT seem like an obvious attempt to give Levi an edge? The state is GIGANTIC! They're going to new places every year. Solvang is a cool little town and all, but there are other places that could host a great TT. Even a hilly TT like this one which Levi seems to really like and win. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist here, but it just seems like the head honcho for the ToC is a big Levi fan. I'm just saying...

Winning the Tour with Seasonal Allergies

I haven't really formed much of an opinion or done much research on the Contador testing positive news. My initial response, since it's a positive for Clenbuterol, which is a steroid product used inhalers, was that I remembered an interview I read with him a few years ago where he complained about having really bad seasonal allergies and that he liked it when it rained so that he could breath. I also remembered his losing one of the week long stage races, maybe Paris-Nice, and he blamed it on allergies. Who knows?

I'm not sure I care if he's positive or not. He's trying to go with some food ingestion theory, who knows, maybe it's true. I find it more surprising this year since his performance, while obviously good enough to win, wasn't that explosive form that he usually embarrasses everybody else with. If he had tested positive last year it would have been the same as when Ricco tested positive after riding faster than the motorcycles to the summit finish. But not this year, it just didn't go that way. It seemed like he was always on his limit and sort of relieved that nobody else was just a tad better. Maybe that means that in 2007-2009 he was way doped up and this year he was only a little doped up. Again, who knows?

The other thing that jumps out at me is the timing. Why'd it take this long to report the positive? Floyd's positive was announced within a week of the end of the Tour. This was announced at the end of September? I'm sure they told him ahead of time as that seems to be the practice, but what took it so long to hit the media? Especially the American media who have a pretty clear anti-Contador agenda. A Contador positive will make all the Armstrong lovers out there shout with "I knew its!"

Maybe I'm just a cynic but I just don't care any more. I want the sport of clean up like everybody else but when this story hit the velonews front page, I skipped it to read about cyclocross races I'd already read about. I guess I'll be more interested after the trial or case or hearing or whatever they're going to hold to decide what happens.

One thing that I do find sort of ironic, no Riss rider is ever caught up in these scandals. It's clear that this one pre-dates the Riss/Contador relationship, but, it's there now. With everybody else fleeing the Riss Cycling ship I wonder how Riss plans on handling the situation? Seems like in the past he'd have taken a hard line right from the start, but when it's your new golden boy that essentially brought the sponsor money in, it's got to be a little tough to tell him he's out of a job.

Lion Attack

This shouldn't take long.

This morning on Good Morning America there was a story about a Lion attacking his trainer at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Here's a youtube clip of the video:



1st, that dude is not being attacked. If he was being attacked, this video doesn't end with him hobbling away. It ends in two ways, 1) carted off on a stretcher. 2) a few weeks later he's being passed through the Lion's poop. It looks like there's a 400lb animal who wants to rough house a little bit. I also feel like if he's really being attacked the other trainer doesn't come over and coax the Lion off, he gets the hell out of dodge.

I'm not a crazy PETA person and I really have no problem with these kinds of exhibits, but when a wild animal acts like a wild animal I don't think there should be some insane overreaction with investigations and even the remote possibility that the animal be put down as a result. That Lion did not seek out to live it's life at the MGM Grand and because of that, if the Lion occasionally acts like a Lion who would prefer to live in it's natural habitat, I don't blame it. If you chose to be a lion trainer this is an inherent risk that you take and I find it telling that you never hear the trainers coming out and saying the animal did anything wrong.

For all of my waxing I think Gilbert Arenas on his blog a few years ago during shark week summed up my point the best (of course I am paraphrasing), "Nobody gets attacked by a shark. The shark lives in the water, you don't. You're the one trespassing. If you're at home watching tv and a shark comes into your house and bites you while you're on the couch, that's an attack." There's been on update on how Gilbert feels about sharks carrying unloaded weapons.

Good Move by Trek

Sticking with the theme from yesterday of bike companies supplying bikes to top level riders, Andy Schleck just announced via twitter that he and Frank will be riding Trek's next year. I'm not sure what the rest of their team will be riding, but this is obviously a great move for Trek.

No other bike company in the world, except maybe Cervelo, but on a much smaller scale, has seen their business explode like Trek has, simply because a fan favorite rode their bikes to victory. Trek could either predict the future or got extremely lucky when they landed the Postal Service contract and Lance Armstrong crazed fans around the world all rushed out to ride bikes with the same decal on them.

I would imagine, but I'm obviously just guessing, that Trek's market share declined a bit during Lance's first retirement and would start to fade even more now that his second retirement is much less of a ride off into the sunset sort of fashion. This would leave Trek trying to figure out what team they can provide bikes to that would most likely lead to another craze from fans to ride the same bike as their hero. Sure RadioShack seems to be sticking around for another year, but I also assume that Trek won't be too sad to put some distance between themselves and Johan the wizard of eBay (unconfirmed and not his actual eBay user name).

If I were Trek the obvious and logical answer is the new team without a name from Luxembourg which happens to have every American's new favorite grand tour hope if only because they hate the Spanish guy that was mean and beat their previous hero, Andy Schleck. I don't know what kind of hold Trek has on the Luxembourg bike market, or if there is a Luxembourg bike market, but they certainly like their place in America and since Americans like to look like their heros, I'm sure that Trek hopes that this Contador-is-the-devil and Andy-is-the-savior made up rivalry plays itself out for years. Which, thanks to VeloNews, it probably will and America will sit on the edge of their desk chairs waiting to learn the latest reason to hate Contador and Specialized but love Andy and Trek.

I'm just hoping that Trek's new commercials can compete with the Specialized commercial from this past TdF where Andy Schleck claimed to knock out a bear. While this claim is totally unreasonable since he's the only person on the planet with skinnier arms than me, it makes for riveting advertising. I could barely contain my need to own a Specialized bike as soon as he said that, because I once saw a bear while riding my bike and I'm pretty sure if I'd been on a Specialized I'd have been much less scared and would have simply got off and fought it. If you missed it, the commercial is below. Now, let's all wait and see what Trek comes out with, probably something involving rain and fireflies.

Garmin-Cervelo Merger

I'm just going to come right out and say it, I'm anti the Garmin-Cervlo merger. I read an interesting piece a few weeks ago, which I'm too lazy to find and post a link for you, describing just how bad of a decision it was for Cervelo to start their own team and how much more successful they were as the bike supplier for Riss Cycling Inc. (CSC and then Saxo Bank). What most bike companies need to remember, and what most pro level teams always know, is one high end carbon frame is just as good as another. Pro teams need bikes but they don't need your bike. Obviously most consumers forget this fact which is obvious by fat dudes riding $5,000+ carbon frames because their man crush won a big race on it. But I'm sure if you could get Fabian Cancellara off the record to tell you what the best bike he's ever ridden is, he'd have a tough time narrowing it down. As they say in the industry, they're all laterally stiff while vertically compliant.

This little test team that Cervelo put together was mostly a bust. To me it seemed like they could never quite decide if they were going to be a classics team, where they had reasonable success, if you could success as a lot of podium finishes but never the top step, and pretty dismal grand tours, thanks in a large to Carlos Sastre, who apparently thinks just showing up is good enough to meet contract obligations. When you're the bike company and you decide to step out on your own you better win some races, else, what's the point of funding it from both sides? For the most part, Cervelo failed to do that, which is why they are now closing up shop and moving back into a role that makes more sense for them in the market place, bike supplier, not team management.

So, while I think Cervelo is doing a smart thing by cutting losses, I don't think the Garmin merger is the right fit. It seems to me that all the high level Cervelo riders who are now going to be donning argyle lycra have their rival already on the team's roster. I read the piece where Vaughters basically says that Hushovd and Farrar will be complimentary to one another, but I don't buy it. Is Hushovd now going to give up his attempt to win points jersey's to lead out Farrar? Doubtful. So who is Garmin going to hang their hat on? They seem to have made a huge investment in branding Tyler Farrar as the future of that team, but for the most part he's come up sort of short in grand tour sprints. Sure he's got a few, but not enough wins to wonder why they went looking for another sprinter. But Hushovd? Anybody who watched the Tour de France this year could see that his best sprint days are behind him. Pure top end speed just isn't coming out of the legs of the God of Thunder anymore and if you want to beat pure sprinters and win points jerseys, you better do better than a consistent 10th place bunch finish and getting in the early break for scraps on the road. That strategy worked for Hushovd in 2009 but he was faster then and Cav got a goose egg on one stage. In 2010 Hushovd used the same strategy and ended up 3rd in that competition. It just seems that by adding all of Cervelo's top level riders you create a delima over who you're bringing to the biggest races of year and who's working for who. I don't see either of these guys, at least honestly, behind the scenes, taking a step back and saying the other guy deserves to be the leader. When Garmin brought Julian Dean and then Robbie Hunter over to lead out Farrar it was pretty obvious that these guys, while once top level tour sprinters were now past their prime and were happy to take on a mentor role to guide the young talent. I don't see Hushovd taking that same approach.

And, this doesn't even bring up the problem of Haussler. Where the hell does he fit into the equation? 2010 was basically a bust for him, which was just royally capped by being left off the Australian World's team despite giving up his German citizenship to ride for Australia in Australia. He's been injured all year so who knows what 2011 will hold. Maybe Haussler was a one hit wonder and this question will answer itself. But if he comes back strong in 2011, that's going to also cause some scheduling issues.

I don't know where I think these guys should have gone. Maybe as an American I think that Cervelo's biggest market is America so sponsoring a Milram or FDJeux wouldn't make much sense and the other American teams are already locked into bike deals. I also realize it's easy for me to sit at my computer and say these guys won't work together and this and that but I am not the guy writing the pay checks. Vaughters seems like a really smart guy from both a business and racing stance. While I disagree with this merger, they must see value, so we'll see what happens. I do think this clearly points to the fact that Garmin will no longer even pretend to think Christian Van deVelde (sp?) can win a major grand tour. They now have the roster of a classics team who will go to grand tours to support sprinters and stage hunters. I actually think this strategy is a really smart move for them as a team, but that does not alleviate the concerns that I mentioned before. When you've got this many talented people who are all trying to win the same races, somebody's not going to be happy. Maybe this new Garmin-Cervelo team will be the modern version of Mapei. I hear Cancellara might be leaving Saxo Bank. Maybe he wants to ride an R3 again...

Figuring It Out

In my opinion one of the great things about cycling is that there is no shortage of etiquette that has never been written down but is simply passed on through the generations. Some of it explicitly through direction and conversation, often times through observation from watching the guy on the ride that kicks your butt weekly. A, "Man, if he's that fast, I gotta do what he's doing," sort of thing.

I really enjoy all the aspects of cycling that make it a great club once you know how to act, but sort of keeps out the riff raff until they figure it out. Why do cyclist shave their legs? You want to know the truth? Because all the other fast guys do it and I(us) want to emulate that. I have a friend who says when he goes on group rides he tries to follow the fittest looking guy with hairy legs. Why? Because in his opinion that guys not likely to get dropped, because he looks fit, but if he does, he'll have a partner also getting shot out the back. My friend does not shave his legs. Shaving your legs is just one example of the unspoken rules of cycling that if nothing else, lets everyone around you in the group that you've committed to this masochistic sport. I'm leery of guys on rides with hairy legs. I try not to follow them or get stuck close to them when the pace starts to lift. Why? They haven't committed. They're ability to handle their bike at 28+ mph with handlebars 6 inches from mine is questionable. At the same time, I'd expect a pro would have the same concerns about riding next to me. That's just how it works.

Recently, and by recently I mean over the last 4-6 months I've noticed a growing trend that is both comical and really weird amongst people on bikes and that's the use of aerodynamic gear for everyday riding purposes. I can't tell if it's the same guy or multiple guys, but I've seen an aero TT helmet bobbing up and down the Mount Vernon Trail as I commute to and from work a bunch. The guy wearing the aero helmet isn't on a TT bike either, which makes it more odd. Some people probably wouldn't even notice. In fact, most people probably don't notice, but I do, and that guy should really get a regular helmet. But hey, at least he's wearing a helmet.

This morning, it was really windy. Not like coastal Belgium windy (not that I've ever experienced coastal Belgium wind) but none the less, windy, which is exactly why I shouldn't have been surprised to roll up on a guy from one of the local teams on his TT bike with full race wheels, disc in the back, deep section up front. He sort of caught me snickering at his disc wheel as we were stopped at the same light. But, I mean, what do you expect? You're riding at least $3gs worth of carbon wheels around on a Tuesday morning training ride? Of course I'm going to laugh at you. Isn't training supposed to be harder than races? That's why pros train on 32 spoke box section wheels, not Zip 808s.

Your equipment should have a purpose, and all of it shouldn't be for training and racing. If it's going to be, there's a level of equipment that meets that criteria. If you have to ask what it is, you should look around more at the guys that are faster than you on your local ride, you'll start to notice.

Age has almost nothing to do with this learning curve. Guys who got into the sport really young will know way more than guys who suddenly decided their disposable income should buy a $4,000 bike with a 45 degree rise stem. But, there's hope for everyone, that's the great thing about cycling. While you might not get welcomed to your first few group rides with hugs, just stick it out, and eventually, you'll either learn what you need to know, or prove that you already know it, and somebody will say hello, and at that time, you'll know you're in. When I lived in Richmond it took making it to the end of the Tuesday night ride three times before people in the parking lot started saying hello. In California, it took months before I was able to make it over the climb with the fast guys and then eventually win a few uphill sprints before I started getting welcomed into the ride. But I like that aspect. Once I made it in I felt like I'd earned it. The people there trusted me and that felt good. Riding bikes is dangerous. You can't just open your doors to anyone with a pair of lycra shorts. If you do that, you become another sport that happens to use a bike.

The guy with the aero helmet is clearly has a lot to learn and the guy with the disc on a Tuesday morning thinks he's the best in town. Both need to pay a bit more attention, but they'll figure it out. Hopefully I will too.

The "Value" of Team?

I know as American cycling fans we've all been taught by the Johan and Lance era that having the strongest team possible focused on only one rider is the only way to win a stage race. In fact, many of you reading this right now probably argued that the reason you thought Lance could take down Contador at the 2010 Tour de France was because Lance's team was stacked and Contador's was not (well, that's not entirely true, they just weren't people most American's were familiar with). In 2009 I argued that the lack of cooperation from Lance and co. on Astana would do absolutely nothing to hurt Contador's chances at winning that year's TdF. The reason? Because while having a team around you is nice, if you're the best guy there, it doesn't really matter. Ok, so where's my proof? I think we only have to look back to the recently concluded 2010 Tour of Utah.

Levi rolls up to the race solo with no teammates and wins. I guess it could be argued that the Trek/Livestrong team would certainly be there to help out if needed, but in the stages that ended on mountains, none of those kids were around long enough to really be considered helpful teammates. Especially not in the Floyd with Lance in 2003 or Novarro with Contador in 2010.

In every interview Levi insisted that he wasn't there to win the race, that he only came for training, and hopefully a stage win. I don't know about anybody else, but I found this to be almost insulting to everyone else there. It's one thing to be humble, but everybody pinning on a number knew who the best guy was. All you had to do was look around and see how many other guys starting that race had return flights from Paris back at the end of July. (Sure, Hincapie and Bookwalter both raced the TdF, but neither were an overall threat there, nor in Utah.) Levi continued to say that he had no teammates and it'd be hard to control the race, but again, when you're the best guy there, especially by the leaps and bounds that he was (or Contador has been in his other 2 TdF victories), having teammates is simply a luxury. My biggest concern would be who's going to go fetch me a bottle?

The racing went pretty predictably as I thought it would. Levi doesn't lose much time in the prologue but the guys that beat him aren't threats. He wins an early big mountain day and gets a cushion. He rides a solid TT which he retains his lead. Marks the guys that are threats throughout the following stages and if he feels good on the queen stage, attack and see what happens, if you don't feel good, follow wheels and collect another domestic stage race overall win. And, that's exactly how it happened. The one scenario that throws my prediction and feeling about the supremacy of teamwork off, he flats and is forced to wait on a neutral wheel instead of having a teammate hand you theirs.

More than confirming, at least for me, my thoughts on how teamwork is sort of overrated, or at least grossly under utilized, especially in these scenarios where one guy is clearly better, is that the Tour of Utah made it really obvious just how wide the gap is between top domestic talent and the guys racing in Europe. Levi seemed to win this race by opposing is will on everyone else. At the Tour de France, he to took a beating daily. He was never close to finishing in the lead group in the big mountains and his time trial was just ok. But, when Levi comes to the Gila or to Utah all the domestic guys must be at least a little pissed. Prize money, which is arguably a lot more valuable to them than to him, is literally going up the road in a Mellow Johnny's kit. Chris Horner at the 2009 Gila remarked that "You're a pro, I'm a pro, this is a pro race," when he was asked if they should feel bad for coming and beating up on these guys. While I certainly see where he's coming from, I also sort of feel like it's the same as when my high school Varsity baseball team had to scrimmage the JV and our coach told us with absolute seriousness, "If they score, you guys lose." If Levi doesn't win when he goes to Utah, teammates or not, it'd throw up some kind of red flag to me. I don't know exactly what kind of red flag, but the final outcome just seemed so obvious as soon as he announced he was racing. The level in Europe is just so much faster than most of our top domestic pros and the level between them to your local 1,2 hero, also great. Cycling's funny that way.

Basically, I have one simple point to make that I think the Tour of Utah helped solidify, at least to me. The overall value of teammates, when it comes to racing strategy, ie., pulling back breaks, chasing down attacks, etc., has been over hyped to most of us. Whether it's Levi pulling that guy back or his teammate, his legs still have to do the work to make up that distance. Sure there's the aid of the draft, but when you're climbing, even at their speeds, the draft is so minimal that it's not the same aid as it is cruising at 30mph through some valley. If you're that much better than everybody else at the race, you're going to win, and I think that's what people should keep in mind. Nobody's bringing a squad to the Tour de France made of local cat 2s because they like the way the guys look in the kit. Everybody, except maybe some of the French squads, are bringing the best guys they have available, and in most cases, a mediocre climber (Remember, Levi wasn't even the best guy on Radio Shack in Paris. He consistently finished in a group behind Horner.) in that group would be finishing in the front group at Utah. So even if your TdF squad isn't stacked with previous podium winners, they're still a solid bunch and it's still going to come down to which team leader is better. And, in my opinion, that's what makes bike racing great. Most of the time, the best guy wins.

Bike Dreams

I have dreams about bikes almost constantly. You'd think for someone so obsessed with bike racing that in my dreams I'd primarily be winning races. But in reality most of my bike dreams have nothing to do with racing. The other day I dreamed up this weird solution for bikes with only one set of bottle cage mounts on the frame. It was a cage that would somehow stick to the frame. I dreamed up some sort of adhesive that was as secure as normal mounts but could easily be removed when you no longer wanted the cage there. Seemed like an awesome solution for cross bikes if you don't want the screws in the frame while you're racing. I obviously have no background in adhesive chemistry technology so if someone else out there has some ideas on this, let me know. We could makes 10s of dollars.

I also have a recurring dream that I own a custom bike building company. I'm never the primary builder but people in these dreams are always asking me what they should do on the frames their building. I always give them answers but know that I generally just make it up on the spot. My bike building company is a sham. I don't know anything, I don't build anything, but apparently I'm successful. That's kind of weird. I like my dress code in those dreams though. Always jeans, a t-shirt and a shop apron. I guess you have to look the part.

Sometimes I have dreams where I'm a pro-ass bike racer but I'm never racing my bike. I'm always dealing with the other stuff like sponsor obligations, r&d, that sort of thing. When it comes time to race, I wake up.

Even though these are just dreams I feel like they sort of mimic my current life. I love bike racing. I want to race my bike all the time but I never seem to be able to. Something gets in the way. I only raced twice on the road this year. Another commitment just got in the way. At this rate, I'll never upgrade. I'm destined to be a 4 for life. Cross season is right around the corner and I really want to race. I want to race every weekend, but that's neither feasible or fair. Not feasible because I can't afford to race every weekend. Not fair because Jill shouldn't be subjected to standing on the sidelines of a cross race every weekend. Racing my bike is what keeps me motivated to ride, even if there are no races on my calender. It's weird. That doesn't even make sense to me and I just wrote it. Jill says sometimes when I'm sleeping and I have my hand on her that I move my fingers like I'm shifting gears. She says she knows I'm dreaming about riding my bike. I don't doubt it, but it's odd that I don't remember those dreams. Hopefully I'm winning.

Outliving Your Competition

I know I'll probably catch some flack for this but I just read an article reporting that Julie Lockhart, the current women's 65+ cyclocross national champion, just won three more national titles in the 65+ road, tt and criterium events. Far be it for me to take anything away from Ms. Lockhart's national champion status but the road race, along with her cyclocross race from 2009 was, well, uncontested. She did apparently beat a field of 3 in the TT and no field sizes were reported in the crit, and quite frankly, I'm too lazy to google. it.

So what does this actually mean? Well, it certainly doesn't prove that Ms. Lockhart is fast, even in relative terms, what it proves, at least to me, is that Ms. Lockhart really enjoys the bicycle and continues to plunk down the coin to travel to national events where she's outlived her competition to claim another title.

Back when I used to race triathlon, before my Favre-esk running retirement, it was sort of a long standing joke that if you wanted to qualify for Kona you just had to wait until you're 80. For a lot of people that's the only way they'd ever qualify for that race because they can't come close to sniffing a finish time that would do it. Does this take away from an old person's accomplishment? In my opinion, it sort of does.

There are people who want to race and those that want to race. The italicized racers show up because they want to test themselves to see if they're better than the other people who also showed up. If you qualify for some event because you benefited from a slow field, that, to me, still means more than being the only 70 year old who's managed to fend of osteoporosis.

I think it's cool when old people show up to races and still have a lifestyle where they stay active and participate in races. Let's face it, the age categories in triathlons were made up to be able to recognize middle of the pack finishers for giving it a go.

When I think of cyclocross national champion I think of Tim Johnson who beat a top field of pro racers. I don't think of 65+ year old ladies who were the only ones in their category to show up. When the call up is only for 1 person, why bother running the race? Make her do a lap and hand over the jersey.

One day, when 65+ and win my first national title, I will re-write this entry proclaiming myself the greatest champion to have ever lived.

On Hold

This is not going to be terribly interesting, I'll just throw that out there from the start. Nobody is going to be upset if you stop reading now.

I work in education and sometimes it absolutely baffles me that various offices around campus seem to get away with such a low level of productive service. I understand that the bottom line isn't the focus of an institution of higher learning, but when you call an office that services maybe a couple thousand people and you sit on hold for over 20 minutes, you gotta assume someone on their end just decided to either not answer, or take a smoke break.

It's also always the same offices too. You call their general line and the first thing the automated system says is to refer to the website, but shocker, their website is next to useless. When you show the patience of Job and finally get a representative on the phone, the chances your question is answered fall squarely in the "unlikely" category.

Call centers constantly monitor productiveness of their people and if you don't meet the requirements set by some metric, you get canned. I'm not saying everybody that works for these offices at universities should be losing their jobs, but would it be so terrible for these offices to have some level of accountability?

When I call United Airlines and sit on hold with them for 30 minutes it's frustrating but I also realize that they're an international company with millions of clients. In most cases, I'm at least given an answer to my question, whether it's the one I'm hoping for or not.

I think the competitive playing field of higher education is changing as more and more people seem to be perfectly happy with a degree from the university of school online. The university of school online runs their university like a business and the bottom line is key to their success. I've had plenty of interactions with students who tell me just how great their experience was with any of these online colleges. Again, I'm not saying that a degree from one of those should be valued the same as one from an established university, but, in a lot of ways, that's the way the worlds going. University offices need to start treating their customers as if they are actually customers. Treat your office as if it's a business. Develop some sort of measure of productivity so you can actually tell if you're people are doing a good job.

Then again, I guess it doesn't really matter since you have no option but to contact these offices because they are you're only option. They know it as well as you do so there's absolutely no incentive to start doing a better job. Such is life I guess...

2010 Tour de France Recap

It's that time of year when the Tour de France comes to close and 90% of American cycling fans think that the cycling season has also ended. This was the first Tour de France since 2006 when I was on a bike everyday that I didn't watch it on a daily basis. This made for interesting following. I'd like to not repeat this in future July's. In no particular order of importance here's what I took away from this year's Tour de France.

- Mark Cavendish gets two goose eggs for points on two sprint stages and still finishes 2nd in the competition? I don't think you'd be crazy to assume that Mark Cavendish has a chance to win EVERY sprinter stage. With a lead out, without a lead out, he obviously just needs 200 meters of clean road and it's over. Obviously sprinting is rough and tumble activity so there's never a guarantee that any sprinter will make into the last 200 meters to actually sprint, but if he's there, he's gonna win. It has to suck to be other sprinters right now. Without a crash you are just racing for 2nd.

- You've got to give it to Thor Hushovd, for a guy who was sprinting about as fast as a Cat 3 he did his best to collect points and build a buffer. But, when you come to the line with more than 5 other sprinters and you lose to all 5 of them every time, you're not going to win that jersey.

- Since I didn't watch the stage yesterday I didn't see the jersey controversy, but I'm going to take the opposite stance that almost everybody else I've read is taking and that is, Why does Lance Armstrong thing he's above the rules that everybody else plays by? If any other team shows up to the tour and decides they're just going to wear different jersey's this day, he'd be the first to say, "well you can't do that." But, that rule doesn't apply to him? I don't care if the jersey's were symbolic of those living with cancer. Aren't all 200 bikes he came to the tour with symbolic of that as well? I understand that Lance came out of retirement to spread the good word of cancer survivor ship and all that jazz and I'm not knocking that mission. But, I also feel like that became a pretty good story line to make up for the lack of wins during this 2nd run at professional cycling. When you're winning a bunch of races you often don't need a constant gimmick to try and over shadow your mediocre results or remind everyone that you're here for some other reason. Lance has stated that he's going to be doing plenty of non bike racing starting now, couldn't he have worn his 28 jersey's then?

- It also drives me nuts that the two guys doing velo center (who are terrible by the way!) Bring back Jason Sumner and Neal Rogers and the old format! Take the time to point out, "Lance isn't happy by the way" as the video shows Lance complaining about being forced to wear the jersey of the sponsor who's actually putting up the funds for him to joy ride around France. Who gives a crap if Lance isn't happy. The story line here should be, "Lance tried to wear a different jersey, but just like you, I and he knows, that's not in the rules."

- Somewhere in the Lance comeback tour I lost interest in the story and only wanted to see results. Obviously that didn't happen. But I also got fed up with the fake rivalry between he and Contador. I also got fed up with all the people asking if Lance was working for Levi once he started giving up massive chunks of time to go for a stage win. Seriously, 90% of RadioShack fans have no clue about bike racing. I know the fairy tale is sweet and all, but come on, Levi lost California when there were other guys in the race who were actually fit. No shot he even sniffs the podium of the Tour de France on a year when there's actually talent there.

- I guess I have to mention the "chain gate" incident. I read from velonews live update "Schleck drops his chain, Contador attacks." But really, that's not what happened. Schleck attacked, Vino and Contador respond, Schleck drops his chain. That's not even close to the same thing. If I'm Contador I'm not sure I stop right there either. Contador wasn't sitting behind Andy both riding piano, Andy's chain falls off and then Contador jumps him. Tons of pro riders backed up to the idea that if you start the attack and have a mechanical, sorry about your luck. Nobody's obligated to wait. Could he have waited, maybe, but he doesn't have to. I think too much was made of this, and most of it was made by the pro-andy and pro-lance and anti-contador factions out there.

- Looks like Contador is fallible. Who would've thought? I'm obviously not training with him daily so I don't know what differences he made to his tour prep this year but he lacked all sorts of snap that we've seen in the past. If going into this tour you had said that Andy would have set a tempo up the Tourmalet that Contador wouldn't be able to attack from, I'd have said you're crazy. Obviously he didn't need all that extra fire power to win so it's sort of a moot point. But, if Andy, or even somebody like Jani Brajovic, is close in the TTs, these races are still up for grabs.

- Some french dude won the KOM. 6 French dudes won stages. And a French guy won the most aggressive rider of the race, which seems like a dumb and impossibly subjective award, especially since the winner, Chavanel, was aggressive early and on the Champs-Elysee. But, you know, if some sponsor wants to put up money for it, no problem. But, with all this french success does that mean the French will have a contender in the near future? I don't think so. As Bob Roll said when I went to hear him speak recently, "the cheese is too soft."

- I know it's easy for me to sit here and be a Monday morning quarterback on Schleck's tactics. Maybe he was already at his limit on the Tourmalet or even other stages, but if I'm him I'd rather attack Contador repeatedly in hopes of gaping for whatever time I can get and run the risk of dropping out of the top 20 than ride a super fast tempo that he's holding on to and assure myself 2nd. I just feel like at that level, 2nd is as good as 15th. You either win or you don't. I can think of another promising stage racer who wouldn't attack when he was young because he was afraid of blowing up and losing his podium spot. That guys wasn't riding in this tour de france because that strategy basically has huge long term negative side effects. That rider, Tom Danielson. Let's hope Andy doesn't turn out like Tommy D in terms of long term racing success.

- If I were Chris Horner I'm on the phone with Johan saying, "Either I lead this thing at next year's tour or I need a release." He finished top 10 at the tour and part of his job was to fetch bottles. If he's not wasting energy going back and forth from the front of the race to the team car and back or chauffeuring a broken Lance up the mountains, he's at least in the group with Sanchez and Menchov. He's the ultimate teammate so he never once complained about doing his job as it was assigned, but seriously, it's got to suck to be the best guy on a team and have your chances of doing your best ride being weighed down with 7 bottles shoved into your jersey.

- I think a lot of Americans who thought that Contador didn't have a strong team learned some new names. I wasn't surprised at all that he had a solid set of climbers to help in the mountains. Daniel Navarro obviously opened some eyes. You don't have to a team of previous podium place holders to ride around france the fastest.

- No positive drug tests in this tdf. Does that mean that riders are clean or the doctors are better? Who really knows, but I guess we have to assume clean. Well, Petacchi seems like he's going to get busted again. You'd think after about the 4th or 5th time his name gets brought up in this stuff he'd have figured out the right amount of inhaler medicine that he can take and still fly under the radar.

- I almost forgot. Congratulations to RadioShack for winning the team classification. You made it such a big priority after realizing you had no shot at the podium with a single rider. Way to stick to the message throughout the race so that everybody was aware of just how important of a goal this was for the team. Oddly enough, I remember a few Postal and Discovery teams that laughed at this competition because it was meaningless. I think you have to notify whoever came in 2nd because I'm not sure they're aware they were racing you.

I guess I'm out of stuff to say. What a pity.

What We (I) Learned from Stage 8

As luck would have it the entire staff of TeamLandall was far away from computer access during what has been the most decisive stage of this years Tour de France, #8. By the pure definition of decisive, people lots and gained time they either desperately wanted or couldn't afford to lose, yes it was decisive. But, I think in the grand scheme of things, it didn't show us all that much, and simply made for a new story line and one day of drama. I think it may be easiest and best, especially since I'm pretty late here, to do this in points rather than narrative.

Things that happened:

- Lance crashed. A lot. Bob Roll said that Lance never suffered a puncture in his 7 tour victories, and while I find that a little hard to believe, it's easily accepted that he basically had 7 years of insanly good luck. During those 7 years if he crashed, it was after the split had been made and at that point all the leaders are obligated to wait. When Beloki decided that going through a huge patch of melted tar at 50mph was a better idea than the perfectly good asphalt to either side, Lance was able to ride through a field without puncture. I'm not really sure what voodoo lady Lance paid for 7 years of good luck, but one things for sure, his check this year bounced.

Phil Ligget said if you're going to lose 2 minutes you may as well lose 10 and while I don't fully agree with him, I do see his point. I am on record before this race as saying Lance had no shot of winning and would be scratching to stay in the top 10. But nobody, not Andy Schleck or even Contador want to beat anybody because they had the worst day they've ever had on a bike. You don't want to beat somebody because they fell down. You want to be them because you're better and you want to get the opportunity to prove it. While I don't think anybody except maybe Phil Ligget and Trek bicycle riders really thought Lance stood a chance, this isn't the way you want to see him go out.

- I have a theory (go figure) about Lance and the peloton. Back in the day, Lance ran the show. He left the sport for three years and when he came back he wasn't the same dominant force he was before. There are plenty of stories of Tours in the past where Lance at the beginning of a stage would say, "ok guys, nobody races until the bottom of the first climb" and they'd essentially soft pedal as a group to that spot. When guys would attack out of that group it was Lance who would chase them down and bring them back into the fold. He had that kind of power. Since his departure, that power has shifted. I don't know who exactly has it, but it ain't him. There's now hope among "everybody" that Lance can win a stage. At this point, I'd be really surprised to see that happen. Not only because I don't think Lance is fast enough to win a stage, but also because I don't see the group letting him. I think there are plenty of people in the peloton who were somehow affected during the King Lance reign and can use this opportunity to exact some revenge. Not that I think he can win a long time trial anymore because he hasn't ridden a long time trial in 2 years that would lead anyone to believe that, but I think soft pedaling and attempting to have the freshest legs for the TT is his only chance. No Gifts right?

- Andy Schleck put the drop on Contador. As soon as Contador looked over his left shoulder I knew Andy was going on the right. He put in a great move and stuck with it to the line. Clearly waiting on Sanchez once he realized that Contador wasn't coming with. While it was a great move and it's tough to get a real perspective of speed due to the motorcycle with the camera riding beside them, it just didn't look as explosive as the moves we've grown accustomed to seeing from Alberto. Either way, that doesn't really matter, because for that day, it was enough, Contador couldn't follow it, and Andy is in yellow.

- Contador has got to be pretty satisfied with where he's at. :41 down on a guy that he beat by over a minute in last years last TT. Let's face it, :41 isn't enough of a head start in the prologue when they were all on fresh legs. I know Andy's the TT champ of the great cycling nation of Luxemburg, but even he can't be too comfortable with anything less than :90 going into the final TT. Contador wins TTs routinely and Schleck routinely talks about how he's improving. I'm not sure Contador needs to do anything but follow wheels. But, I think he's too competitive for that so we'll see some fireworks. Andy has got to repeatedly attach him. Even if he can only get 5-10 seconds at a time, he needs as much of a cushion as possible.

- I know I'm supposed to really like Cadel. He's tough and crazy. But, I just don't. He's a diesel engine and I just don't like that kind of riding in the mountains. As soon as Schleck attacked he went 10 guys backwards. He can't respond to any of that and nobody else seems to have too much trouble riding at his tempo. However, he has won races wearing the rainbow stripes so I think that's pretty cool. And, I guess it should be noted that the anchor attached to his new yellow bike on Stage 9 was caused by a broken elbow. The dude is tough. No doubt about that! Remember when Tyler Hamilton rode himself into 3rd overall with a broken collarbone from a crash in the 1st week? Sometimes I don't ride if I have a stomach ache. These guys are insane!

- Everybody stand by as Levi plummets out of the top 5 as soon as the third week hits.

- I'd probably be remiss if I didn't at least mention Ryder Hesjedal and the incredible first week he's had. He put on a show on the cobbles and has rode outside of himself in the mountains to stay respectively high on GC. Nobody saw that coming, not even his team. Hopefully this surprise success doesn't peg him as the future stage race hope of Canada. I think it's obvious he's better suited as a classics guy and the un justifiable hopes of tour de france victory have done more than one potentially great classics rider in, ie. Daminao Cunego, Sylvan Chavanel, etc. Still, he's put on a good show thus far. But, it should be noted that I'm sort of partial to tall, anorexic looking cyclists though. Go figure.

So that's it. That's what I think we learned from Stage 8. Stage 9 saw Andy and Alberto work together to stretch their lead even more. Barring a crash, it's definitely a race between those two. Sanchez is riding out of his mind and can't help but watch them go up the road. That's got to be frustrating!

"The (Bad) Decision"

Watching the news this morning made it pretty clear that the only people who are currently fans of LeBron James are, his entourage and anyone living in Miami. I didn't watch "The Decision" because I was in class. Well, that's not entirely true, I wouldn't have watched it anyway, but one thing is most certainly true, the method in which LeBron James used his free agency did not help his image and I would assume that he's actually running a net loss on fans, despite acquiring all of Miami-W(D)ade county.

I realize that all of the hype certainly wasn't LeBron James' fault. In today's media circus nobody could afford to be the network not giving you ridiculous predictions and updates on how many times he said anything that could be seen as a clue. I also realize that the cities/teams that put together recruiting campaigns were nothing of his doing. It's not LeBron's responsibility to call New York, Chicago or any of the private groups and say "hey guys, don't take a billboard asking me to come there." LeBron James didn't buy a billboard or ask actors and celebrities to make a video begging him to come. I think it's also pretty obvious that while these were probably seen as nice gestures, they had absolutely no impact on his decision to play in Miami.

It was pretty obvious that this free agency market was a unique situation for both players and teams. Other huge names, not just LeBron were hitting the free agency market and teams saw the opportunity to put together a "big 3" like we've seen in Boston the last few years and immediately started opening up cap space. Again, it's not LeBron's or any other free agents fault that their contracts all ended during the same off season. And it's certainly just good business to try and take advantage of those opportunities from both a player and management prospective.

I've always thought one of the things that made LeBron so unique is that even with his immense talent he tried to win in the town he was from. When he was drafted by Cleveland he didn't moan about how bad they were, instead, he put his head down and tried to win basketball games. For the last two to three years LeBron James was essentially the 3rd or 4th best team in the NBA and I can say that pretty confidently because he's never been surrounded by any other marquee players in their prime. Since being drafted LeBron James was the Cleveland Cavaliers, period.

But, even the people of Cleveland couldn't be too upset with LeBron's decision to go play somewhere else, somewhere with a legit shot at winning rings. Obviously there'd be some negative press but I think in a pretty short period of time people would realize that he really gave it a go. He tried the best he could to win with the team that Cleveland was willing to give him. It didn't work out, so he had to go else where. I think deep down the people of Cleveland saw the writing on the wall and the crucifixion of LeBron James would have been quiet and short lived had he held a press conference saying that he and the Miami Heat had reached an agreement. He'd thank the city of Cleveland for 7 years that helped him grow and shape him as an NBA player. He'd talk about what a privileged it was to play in essentially his hometown in front of friends and family on a nightly basis. He'd then say, it was time to move on. But, as we all know, that's not what happened.

No, instead, LeBron James revealed himself as one of the most self indulgent people on the planet. Anybody who creates an hour long special to announce the team they'll go play for has fallen a bit too in love with the lime light. I know he said the proceeds from the special would go to charity, but, that doesn't change my opinion. You just received a max contract and it's not as if you were begging for change before that. If you're so altruistic that you're just dying to donate some money, pull out the check book, you don't have to foster the spectacle that was already created. This incident, "the Decision," honestly changed the way I perceive LeBron James, and like I said, I don't think I'm the only one. The team player, hometown, grounded, image that he built for himself for those years in Cleveland all crumbled with this snafu of a PR disaster. I don't blame LeBron James for leaving Cleveland. If he had stayed I'd have questioned his sanity. But I think the last piece of goodwill he could have done for that city was to walk away as quietly and as respectfully as he could. But instead the show was produced, the decision was announced and angry fans in multiple cities burned LeBron James jerseys in the streets. I'm no expert, but I wouldn't exactly consider that outcome a success.

Just thoughts of little value

See title for description of what's to follow.

- Yesterday I witnessed the most bogus ticketing of all time. At the intersection of Rock Creek Park and Ohio Drive, continuing on Ohio Drive, the light was 2/3s out, meaning that only the red light was operational. As I waited at the intersection and cars went by I noticed that the light was out and there was a cop standing there with a whistle in his mouth. I assumed that because the light was out he was there to direct traffic as needed. Incorrect assumption! As cars went through the light changed from nothing to red with no usual yellow light warning as it was apparently out as well. The cop immediately stepped off the curb in front of the last car in line, blew his whistle, pulled them over and wrote them a ticket for running the red light. So let me get this straight, as a driver you're expected to predict the turning of the light to red so you don't get ticketed, but the city isn't obligated to immediately fix the light once it's out? Way to go DC! You just saved money on a few light bulbs and increased revenue at the same time. What a f'in joke. No way I'd pay that ticket.

- Before witnessing the ridiculous ticketing incident I apparently offended a shirtless, kmart mtb rider who confused his "bike" for one of those toys you rode as a ride that required a side to side motion for forward momentum. After essentially coming to a stop, saying "on your left" three times and then shouting so that he could hear me over his iPod, he got angry and sprinted after me for a slow moving confrontation. Apparently the explanation to his question, "why do you need to pass me?" was found sufficient when I said, "because I was going faster than you." He then apologized for cutting me off. For a second I really thought this guy was going to try and fight me or something. He seemed pretty angry. You never can tell what you're going to get from topless toy bike riders on your afternoon commute.

- This morning on the news some political expert was talking about Sarah Palin and was asked if she's running for president. He of course gave the same answer everybody does, which is no answer at all. Why the hell don't all of these people just say what's obvious, "nobody is currently 'running' for president since it's not an election cycle. However, it seems like she's doing her best to stay relevant when that time comes." 1st, why is that statement not an appropriate response? 2nd, who the f cares if Sarah Palin does anything? I would make some statement about no chance she'd ever get elected, but I'd only have to be reminded of the double term W administration to realize that dumb people vote in mass.

- The Tour de France is well under way and so far it's either been "epic" or boring depending on who you ask. I'm torn somewhere in between. Looks like Hushovd has already wrapped up the green points jersey. He has about a million point lead which I think is good. Since I don't have cable I thought I might be able to avoid the made up Lance vs. Alberto drama but no, even the websites I go to love to talk about some made up shit.

Check out this picture! Looks like they're BFFs to me. Of course Lance says he hasn't spoke to Alberto all race and has no recollection of this exchange. When questioned about whether he'd recall talking to his biggest rival as something that might stand out, he took his usual stance of threatening the journalist's life, calling him scum, calling his work ridiculous and the paper he writes for toilet paper. Apparently, everybody likes it when Lance does this because everybody seems to just nod in agreement. Must be good to be the king.

I found it pretty funny that after stage 3 when Lance lost the most time and Alberto rode on the cobbles great that most journalist just decided to leave the story alone instead of saying, "yeah, well, we really botched the prediction on that one." I was never really sure why everybody thought that Contador was going to have such a tough time on the cobbles anyway. I mean the guys a good bike racer, knows he needs to be at the front in critical parts of a stage. It's not as if because he's from Spain the cobbles are some sort of weird kryptonite that repeal anyone totting a fake gun. His ride on stage 3 was exactly what I thought it would be, smart. I really didn't think that stage was going to immediately ruin the hopes of any of the GC guys. The stage was less than 10% cobbled, but you'd have assumed that there were going to be tigers let loose on the side of the road by the way people were talking about it.

- Speaking of Kings, does anybody give a shit about where LeBron ends up? And who on his PR team thought that a 1 hour special was a good idea. I can't speak for the world but I'm pretty sure this free agency extravaganza has hurt his image. For example, this guy has 9,200 followers on twitter and posted this, I think it's a good indicator.

I know MJ only played for one team and Kobe's only played for one team, but none of this is good for LeBron James. Most people don't like to think about how much more money professional athletes make than they do for playing a game. So to make such a big hype over how much richer this already insanely rich person is going to get, just doesn't sit that well with normal folks. We all realize that athletes are a well paid bunch and that's fine, hold a press conference, put on the hat of your new team, and then report to practice. We don't need all of this hype.

- The World Cup has basically cemented for me the reasons why I can never be a soccer fan. The rules of soccer just don't make any sense and the understood rules and tactics are even worse. I've always disliked the fake flopping and crap that goes on, but this world cup seems to be even thicker with it. If your strategy to win is to simply lay on the ground and play dead, then you don't deserve to be there. I'm not talking specifically about Ghana. This happens in every game as soon as the time starts rolling. I understand that controlling possession is a good strategy in any sport, but in basketball there's a shot clock and if you foul someone the clock stops. In soccer, even if you foul the guy, he gets to take as much time as he wants to start the action again, meanwhile, clock runs. An arbitrary amount of stoppage time gets added on, unless you're in stoppage time, then it seems to be ignored. It's not a "beautiful game" as it's often described when theatrics are more important than skills.

I think that's it. I'm hungry and going to eat my 2 daily PBJs.

BAM!

1 class down, 11 to go. Off to a good start!

Tour de France, Predictions

As another blog I read, The Service Course, pointed out, the weeks after the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France leave a lot of not much going on in the world of cycling. National Championship races and such, but I, and most people, don't really care who emerges as the top road racers in the Slovenia. What does that leave me and others who feel the need to share their views with tens of readers who have bookmarked their blog? Easy, time to make predictions. Like my dad used to, and probably still does say, "excuses are like assholes, everybody's got one and they usually stink." Predictions are the same. They don't mean anything. Nothing I say from here to the end of this post will affect a single outcome on the roads of the Tour de France. If I get all of these predictions wrong I will reference the previous sentence. If I get just one right, you better believe I will proclaim myself a prophet.

The Tour de France has four major competitions within the race itself. The Overall, or Yellow Jersey competition. The Points, or Green Jersey. King of the Mountains, the god awful, ugly polka dot jersey. The Best Young Rider (Under 26), or White Jersey. There are other competitions, like the team competition, which nobody cares about and is only vocalized as a "big goal" after nobody on the team ended up on the podium but 3 or 4 guys ended up placing high and so by default they win the team competition. Also, there's a most aggressive rider award given out daily and that person gets red race numbers the following day. I actually think this is really cool and I'd want to win it for a day if I were to race in the Tour de France, but it couldn't be more subjective and meaningless. (A quick tangent. It's only slightly more meaningless than the blue jersey they give out at the Tour of California which symbolizes the "bravest" rider from the previous day. They should change it to the most "popular rider" because it only goes to guys like Hincapie and other big names and is used a marketing tool for sponsors. Which is fine, but who are you fooling?)

On to predictions. I'm only going to pick the winner, except for the overall, in which I'll pick the podium.

Best young rider competition.

I always find this to be a bit of a trivial competition. Outside of Andy Schleck I'm not sure it's done a lot to predict future tour success. I also feel like this competition is often won by a young rider who happens to ride for a relatively weak squad which is why he's in the race to begin with. For example, if Tejay van Garderen were racing the tour, I'd pick him, but he's not. Since Jani Brajkovic is a couple months too old I guess the obvious choice now is Peter Sagan who somehow managed to win a bunch sprint and the Big Bear stage in the Tour of California. He also won a U23 silver medal at the cyclocross world champs a few years ago. He's either really talented or has a really good doctor, if you know what I mean. Either way, he'll win it, as long as his doctor doesn't screw things up.

King of the Mountains.

Am I the only one that misses Richard Virenque? A guy who seemingly got out of ever being suspended for doping by simply ignoring the charges. Am I also the only one confused as to why the winningest man in KOM competition history is shown time trialing in his wikipedia picture*? The TT is why he couldn't win the Tour. Weird.

Anyway, this competition is really hard to predict and is sometimes won by someone who finishes on the podium, or sometimes by a guy who gets into every break that happens to have a categorized climb and makes deals with his break companions for points. It's a tough one to predict because of that factor alone, but what you really need is someone who's a good climber, but who isn't on a team that stands much of a chance of winning the overall because they'll be free to chase points instead of setting pace.

Carlos Sastre keeps jumping out at me. He has no shot at winning the overall as Cervelo is clearly coming to the tour hedging every bet possible. Bet hedgers don't win the tour de france, they win stages, or, KOM jerseys, but, Sastre is confused and thinks he's the best rider in the world even when he's been dropped by everybody. For this reason, he likes to whine and cry about shit so once he's out of the GC he won't care about chasing KOM points. He'll blame his team and the secret flu he had going into the mountains and hell try and win one day. If he wins one day, he'll finish all the rest of the climbs in the grupetto next to Cavendish. How's that for a prediction?

I'm going to step out on a limb and go with Linus Gerdemann. He's got some tour experience and can climb really, really well. But I think he also realizes he's on a team that can't support him for the overall and probably isn't going to try to. Get yourself into some key breaks kid and bring home some points. My prophet like status is on the line here!

Points (not sprinter) Competition:

Just because a sprinter wins the green jersey every year doesn't necessarily make it the sprinter competition. True, the most points are on the finish line, but last year showed that you can win just one stage and win the green jersey. Thor Hushovd did just that, but also dragged his gigantic UFC fighter look a like frame over a few climbs to collect some points to build a cushion as well. (And, he may or may not have won because Cavendish was relegated on one stage and posted a goose egg for points, but that just depends on who you ask.) Even though it's not the sprinters jersey, a sprinter will win it, so let's talk sprinters.

Tom Boonen's won the green jersey a bunch of times. He seems slower than usual but if he starts the Tour, which is questionable, he's got to be motivated for it. If he's not, he may as well stay home because he won't make an impact otherwise.

Last year's winner Thor will be there, but, I don't know, he seems like the 5th fastest sprinter in a bunch of the good ones, and probably the 2nd fastest on his team after Heinrich Haussler. But I refuse to cheer for a guy with that hair cut and who is always wearing those stupid Ed Hardy hats. (Take a look at the URL this image was taken from "reallydope.com" enough said!)

As some one pointed out the other day Mark Cavendish has yet to finish even a week long tour yet this year. And even though he was clearly going to win before he decided to DDT Haussler in Switzerland, I'm not convinced he's in good enough form to make it over even the smallest of bumps before the finish line. He might be, what the hell do I know? But, his tooth does hurt, so there's that.

Nobody is going to be more surprised by this prediction than me, but I think of all years, this is the best shot Tyler Farrar has at a green jersey. I think Farrar is typically the 3rd or 4th fastest guy but he's won a few big races this year and took a nice little break and won some small race that not even locals have heard of last week. If he can get himself over the climbs, which, I mean, who knows, he's got as good of a shot as any.

Honorable mentions, Oscar Freire and Robbie McEwen. Both men have won the green jersey before and both are capable of winning bunch gallops without any sort of personal lead out train. It doesn't seem like that long ago that McEwen was absolutely untouchable in bunch sprints. Maybe the lack of Fast Freddy is the problem. I'm pretty sure Katusha can afford him. And Freire has already shown this year he's still got some decent top end speed by winning Milan San-Remo.

I'm still going with Farrar, but I hope it's McEwen.

That brings us to the big boy, the overall, the yellow jersey.

Of all the competitions, this one is the easiest to predict, at least the top step. It should come as no surprise that I'm picking Alberto Contador. I could care less about any of the preseason races. When it matters, he goes with the move that counts and then punishes everyone around him for thinking they deserve to be in the same bike race. If all the other teams conspired against him and worked together with their best climbers I'm still not sure anybody can beat him. Barring a crash or something like that, it seems pretty obvious that it's a race for second.

I think the race for 2nd could be interesting. I'm hoping the race for the top step is interesting, but I just don't know. Andy Schleck just won national TT championship in Luxemburg. I'm not sure that really means he rode very fast, comparative to beating the former Spanish TT champ, Contador. The problem with Andy's chances of beating Contador is pretty simple. He's never beaten him up a climb or in a TT. That basically means you lose right? If Andy can drop Contador by a lot, and by a lot I mean by minutes, he might be able to limit enough losses in the TT to hang on and win. But, that just seems like a best case scenario, and I'm not sure probably. Contador seems to falter in races that don't matter or at least that aren't long enough for him to make back up the bad day he had.

So anyway, I'm picking Ivan Basso for 2nd. Without much of an explanation than if he comes into the tour recovered from the Giro, he's a tough tough man and I sort of like the story line of him winning the Giro-Tour double since the last guy that won it was a doped up Pantani. You may or may not believe that the current Basso is doped up, but if he can pull the double, the comparisons would be fun to read!

Third, I'll go with Andy Schleck. I think Andy's got the best shot of beating Contador, but I think he'll kill himself trying and would leave enough room for someone else to slip in and steal away his chance to repeat on the 2nd step. I wouldn't be too surprised if this tour ends with some big gaps from the podium to 4th place.

Uh oh American bike race fans, otherwise known as Lance Armstrong lovers, guess who doesn't make my podium. That's right Lance. I don't see Lance finishing in the top 5. I think he's the 3rd or 4th strongest guy on his team. And while he'll absolutely finish higher than everybody else on RadioShack because they all know who's writing the pay checks, it doesn't mean it's right. I mean Jani won the Dauphine and Horner won the Tour of Basque country and they're going to usher Lance who's last win was at the Nevada City Classic in 2009. I know it's more valuable to sponsors and all that crap and I know Lance won 7 tours but this Lance ain't that Lance and it'll be nothing short of a miracle to see him end up on the podium, much less in the top 5. I see him getting beat by Cadel Evans and Bradley Wiggins, who I think is a total wanker. As you know I'm not a fan of Cadel's follow the wheels style but all I've seen of Lance is the former tour champ doing his best Cadel impression this year. Even if the wheels are following are fast ones, he's not beating anyone. I think Cadel will finish in all the same groups as Lance and TT better.

To recap, in case you got lost in the rambling, my overall is:

1: Alberto Contador
2: Ivan Basso
3: Andy Schleck

Young Rider: Peter Sagan

KOM: Linus Gerdemann

Points: Tyler Farrar, but really Robbie McEwen.

Viva le tour!

*After further copy/pasting of wikipedia pages for links I noticed that almost none of the pictures are relevant to what these guys are famous for. Who's posting those pictures?

People Like Soccer, Every 4 Years Anyway

I'm no huge fan of soccer. I follow what I feel like is a pretty typical cycle for Americans where I pretend like soccer doesn't exist until it's World Cup time. And then, I only passively pay attention to what is going on. Yesterday, the good old USofA beat Algeria in stoppage time, whatever that is, to advance out of it's group, or bracket, or whatever they call it. Even if you're like me, and had no interest in watching the actual game, the reactions of people who did watch the game are pretty incredible. I'll concede the point that there aren't many other times, not even in the Olympics, when an "entire" nation erupts in this fashion over a game.

Check out some videos that have been compiled here. It's well worth taking a look.

The Crash Heard Round the (Cycling) World

Much has been made about the crash the other day at the Tour de Suisse (that's Tour of Switzerland for those not in the know). The riders protested Cavendish the next day for about two minutes, which, I think is more like a tribute, but, what do I know? I'm not a super duper fan of Cavendish but I also don't hate the guy for winning which seems like the norm if you read the comments below any article about the guy on VeloNews.

I looked at the video (below) and the picture. and I find it hard to totally blame Cavendish for the crash. Watch at about 25 seconds and it's pretty obvious that Cav and Haussler have both come around the guy in blue on opposite sides. They both move to the middle of the road at about the same time. I've always been taught in bike racing that the wheel in front has the right of way. Take another look at the picture and the crash video. Maybe Cav impedes on Haussler but they were both moving off their lines to get to the center. Cav was in front, Cav has claim over this new line.

Now, it's important to note that the "rule" I just cited isn't written down, it's just understood. It's also understood that you don't talk bad about guys in the peloton because the next day you have to come back to the same office they do. If everybody in the group is pissed at Cavendish it can't be just because he's a cocky SOB. Every sprinter is a cocky SOB. That's how it works. Obviously in a sport where the cameras can't catch everything Cavendish's antics in the group have finally struck a nerve with enough people and his colleagues are reacting.

Like I said, I think the crash was just as much Haussler's fault as Cav's. I think crashes like this happen all the time in bunch sprints. The crash was simply the event the group needed to make a public statement. When it comes to sprinters I'm not sure if it matters if people like them or not. I'm inclined to think it doesn't. They all fight for position in the sprint anyway and nobody other than teammates are politely giving them room. The Tour will be telling...

Sorry, Not a Perfect Game

By now you've certainly seen this highlight and heard the story. Two days later I'm going to weigh in on a part of the story that I think is now a bigger story than the blown call. People everywhere are calling for Bud Selig, Commissioner of MLB, to officially change the call and award Armando Gallaraga the perfect game. Jennifer Granholm, Governor of Michigan, has officially issued him a perfect game, whatever that's worth. Selig isn't doing so, and I think it's the right call.

It doesn't take more than one look at the video to clearly see that the guy was out and Jim Joyce missed it. In any game the officiating crew has a small window of opportunity to huddle up and collectively change a call. When they didn't do that, it was too late, the perfect game was done. You can't go back, retroactively and award this kid the perfect game. If you had instant replay Jim Leland could have tossed a red flag instead of his hat and maybe something could be done, but we don't, so it wasn't.

When I saw the video for the first time I was totally blown away that Joyce missed such an easy call. For someone who spent most of his life playing baseball the thing that shocked me was that the unspoken rules didn't automatically kick in for Joyce. What are some unspoken rules? For one, a tag almost never actually as to be made in a non-force out situation. The umps obviously need you to swipe at the guy but if the ball beat the guy and the tag accidentally misses a body part, 99.9% of the time, you're still out. Ever noticed how first basemen always seem to be moving forward be the time the ball gets to them? If you watched hours of film you'd find that the first baseman is hardly ever still touching the base when he actually catches the ball. Tagging up on a fly ball? It's almost impossible to watch both the ball and the runner. So as long as you aren't obviously way too early, nobody's going to say anything. These are the kinds of things that are simply accepted in baseball. So when there's a tough ground ball for the last out of a potential perfect game and the first baseman busts his ass to get there and the pitcher busts his ass to cover first and the play is even remotely close (which this wasn't) you call the guy out. No one from the other team is going to come out and argue with you that their guy was safe and screw up the celebration of a perfect game by the other team. It's baseball after all. It's a gentleman's sport and their are gentlemanly understandings that just accepted.

So why can't the call be reversed and the perfect game be awarded retroactively? Because like them or hate them, the umpires hold the game together. There's a reason that close calls aren't made a best two out of three rock, paper, scissor show down at home plate. As a kid growing up you hate the umpires because at any level below professional baseball, they aren't very good. But as I've gotten older I've come to realize just how good the professional guys are at their jobs. I'm amazed by how many close calls that with 30 views of playback show that the ump on the field only needed to see it once in real time. That's amazing. Do they get every single call right? Obviously not. But the umpires are an integral part of the game and their job is 98% objective, 2% subjective and that's just the way it is. You're asking a human being to see something happening at a speed that most of us can't relate to and within less than a second make a decision on what they've just witnessed. Occasionally, the subjective nature takes over and they blow one. Unless you want cameras suspended from all different angles and a guy in the press box controlling the cameras and making the call, an occasional blown call, be it big or small, is what you'll get when your officials are people. Say you do go back and change the call giving the guy a perfect game, what happens to the next at bat? Does it get erased and we pretend like it never happened? Does some take an eraser to Gallaraga's pitch count? These are small things, but in baseball, they matter.

Gallaraga seems to be handling the whole thing with a lot of class. Even as the call was made he just sort of smirked. Me, I'd have been nose to nose with the guy in seconds. Gallaraga handled it correctly. The Tigers celebrated in the clubhouse after the game and treated Gallaraga as if he had just tossed a perfect game, not a 1 hitter. I think that might mean more for that organization and that young man than if he would have thrown the perfect game. When your teammates want to celebrate your accomplishment even though it didn't actually happen, that means something!

To be honest, I'd never heard of this kid before this story. And the controversy over this call has thrust him into the limelight more than if the call had been made correctly. Not that the time GMA spends talking about it really matters, but it does, in a way. In today's baseball record books there are cases where people want to see astrix put beside a guys name and there are accomplishments made that some people who probably rather not be remembered for. I think this is a situation where he'll be remembered for something he won't get credit for doing. I guarantee at the end of the season Gallaraga's 1 hitter will be mentioned in the same breath as the A's pitcher's (already forgot his name) perfect game. It's basically a technicality, but in baseball, there are plenty of those.