Today's stage of the Giro d' Italia was short, less than 70 miles short. But for what it lacked in length it made up for in vertical gain finishing with a 15k climb that was being compared to le Alp de Huez of Tour de France fame.
In predictable mountain top finish fashion all the contenders and a few super domestiques blew the peloton apart on the opening slopes of the climb. By the time they were half way up it was a very select group.
On his twitter account this morning Lance Armstrong wrote that he hoped to stay within 2 minutes of the leaders by the end of the day. Across the line he missed his goal by a minute finishing 3 minutes back on the day's winner Denis Menchov. So, what's this mean? And what's it have to do with Alberto Contador? Allow me to explain.
It's no secret that Lance is "racing" the Giro to get the extra miles in the legs for the Tour. So, on a day like today, he stays at the front, out of trouble, and then rides with the tempo for as long as he can. Once the accelerations start he's content with letting them go and riding in on his own. Lance is now a super domestique for Levi. I'm not breaking news here, it's well documented.
So, riding for Levi at the Giro means that Armstrong still isn't at top form and he's hoping the Giro, a break and probably the Dauphne will be just the ticket to arrive in Monaco like the Lance of old. But, as I'm not the only one with access to various cycling websites, I'm sure one Mr. Alberto Contador is checking in on these results daily and seeing what I see as well, that Lance is planning on coming to the Tour to win, and in Lance's style of team leader that means Alberto's fetching bottles.
I'm not Alberto Contador so I don't know exactly what motivates him, but I have seen his face grimace in pain as he refused to let off the gas after clearly dropping all opponents off his wheel on a climb. Alberto and Lance aren't so different when it comes to winning bike races. They both not only want to win, they want to destroy you both mentally and physically. Don't think for a second that Alberto is sitting at home crying over the fact that Lance is now trying to come in and steal his spot as team leader at the Tour. No. I'm sure he reads the reports just like everybody else, kits up and heads out into the mountains for some self inflicted pain that most of us can't even imagine.
I hope beyond all hope that Lance shows up to the Tour in the absolute best form of his life because an internal show down between these two would be amazing. I don't even care who wins. I just want to watch the drama!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Bikes and Traffic
As someone who spends quite a bit of time on my bike for training purposes as well as in a car for transportation purposes I am constantly doing battle with myself on how I feel about bikes on the road. When I'm on my bike, I want cars to see me, but not do anything drastic because I'm there. And, along those same lines, I do my best to ensure they don't have to. Riding in traffic can be fun but I'd be naive not to realize the insane danger of putting myself in some of those positions. However, in most cases, if the cars simply drive predictably with the flow of traffic, we'll all make it home for dinner.
I have plenty of friends who hate bikes on the road. I'm pretty sure my friend Durlak has dreams that night where he's given the right to run them over in his own arcade game style of revenge. I'm not sure what any cyclist ever actually did to Durlak, but I'm going to make a confession, I don't really blame him. Since moving to California I have encountered about a billion times more people using the bicycle as their main form of transportation. While it saves the environment, is affordable and a bunch of other pleasant things, it's actually a huge pain the ass for me as a driver and as a cyclist.
The problem with most people riding their bikes is that they have no idea how to do it and it's not really their fault. I don't know who's fault it is, but let's blame someone. While on a bike, you're supposed to act as if you're a vehicle and vehicles are supposed to act as if you're a pedestrian. This has never made any sense to me because how many pedestrians do you see walking in traffic through city streets? Well, actually, if you're in downtown San Francisco you'll see this a bunch because the crazy homeless people have long since stopped caring about cross walks or stop lights. But I digress.
Another issue with bikes in the street is that there is no uniform way that people ride them to get from point A to point B. That might not make any sense so let me try and explain. Cars use lanes in order for their to be a sense of order to the road. When someone is going to turn left, they are in the left lane, they have turn signals on their cars, traffic lights, stop signs, and general right of way rules that help things, for the most part, flow in a manner of chaotic poetry. While driving a car is a dangerous act, if you consider how many people are driving on a daily basis in an urban environment and how few accidents there actually are, I think you'll agree that the traffic system we operate under is pretty efficient. But bikes don't have this. Some people on their bikes do their best to actually follow traffic rules when riding. They'll turn left from the left hand lane. They ride in the furthest right hand lane (in most cases, even when riding fast, we're far slower than traffic) as close as they can safely get to parked cars or the shoulder allowing cars to pass us. While others ignore all of these rules they would follow if they were driving and use a mix of sidewalks, cross walks, the street and in a lot of cases, riding in the middle of the lane is something that could only be described as a wobbly line.
When I'm in my car and I see a cyclist who falls under the latter description I get just as frustrated as my friend Durlak. Not only because this person is going to cause a delay in my getting where I'm going, but also because later, when I'm on my bike, someone is going to hate me because they hate them, even though I'm not causing any of those problems.
I have defended cyclists rights to be on the road to many people and will continue to do so because I need that right for myself. Bike paths and trails are great in theory but not an effective system for actual training. This could be another post all it's own so I'll just leave it at that. Still, I completely agree that 90% of bikes on the road are a huge clog due to all of the factors I mentioned above. But what can we do? I personally wouldn't be opposed some sort of license requirement to ride a bike on the road. However, I couldn't imagine police actually being willing to enforce this as most of them are already annoyed when asked to enforce traffic violations for cars.
Since moving to San Francisco I was introduced to a weekly event that takes place every Friday called Critical Mass. Critical Mass is an organized bike ride that takes over downtown city streets during the afternoon rush hour to basically clog up traffic and get in people's way. Due to the fights that used to break out (and I don't blame anyone at all for wanting to beat the crap out of these idiots!) between the idiots on bikes (they are no cyclists) and motorists they now have a police escort which stops traffic along their route, which also changes weekly. I have only only seen critical mass once and I wanted to punch those idiots in the face. They claim their mission is to help promote cycling as a means of transportation and raise awareness but it just seems to me that they make everybody in a car hate everybody on a bike even more. It won't not make me sad if during a critical mass ride the entire group had a huge pile up, all their bikes broke, and they all sustained some freak injury that wouldn't allow them to pedal a bike every again but could go on with whatever else they do with their lives just fine. Rant Over.
I'm obviously torn as both a cyclist who needs to ride on the road and a driver who gets incredibly annoyed by the average bike rider swerving all over the place as they go grocery shopping. I guess all I can do is continue to try and not be a nuisance while I'm on my bike and avoid fulfilling Durlak's fantasy while I'm in my car.
And, just to kill it before Durlak leaves a comment on it, I've pretty much stopped running red lights. I'm not really sure what prompted it, but all of a sudden I find myself stopping at them these days and waiting with traffic. Probably, most of this is due to the $300 tickets I hear of people getting.
I have plenty of friends who hate bikes on the road. I'm pretty sure my friend Durlak has dreams that night where he's given the right to run them over in his own arcade game style of revenge. I'm not sure what any cyclist ever actually did to Durlak, but I'm going to make a confession, I don't really blame him. Since moving to California I have encountered about a billion times more people using the bicycle as their main form of transportation. While it saves the environment, is affordable and a bunch of other pleasant things, it's actually a huge pain the ass for me as a driver and as a cyclist.
The problem with most people riding their bikes is that they have no idea how to do it and it's not really their fault. I don't know who's fault it is, but let's blame someone. While on a bike, you're supposed to act as if you're a vehicle and vehicles are supposed to act as if you're a pedestrian. This has never made any sense to me because how many pedestrians do you see walking in traffic through city streets? Well, actually, if you're in downtown San Francisco you'll see this a bunch because the crazy homeless people have long since stopped caring about cross walks or stop lights. But I digress.
Another issue with bikes in the street is that there is no uniform way that people ride them to get from point A to point B. That might not make any sense so let me try and explain. Cars use lanes in order for their to be a sense of order to the road. When someone is going to turn left, they are in the left lane, they have turn signals on their cars, traffic lights, stop signs, and general right of way rules that help things, for the most part, flow in a manner of chaotic poetry. While driving a car is a dangerous act, if you consider how many people are driving on a daily basis in an urban environment and how few accidents there actually are, I think you'll agree that the traffic system we operate under is pretty efficient. But bikes don't have this. Some people on their bikes do their best to actually follow traffic rules when riding. They'll turn left from the left hand lane. They ride in the furthest right hand lane (in most cases, even when riding fast, we're far slower than traffic) as close as they can safely get to parked cars or the shoulder allowing cars to pass us. While others ignore all of these rules they would follow if they were driving and use a mix of sidewalks, cross walks, the street and in a lot of cases, riding in the middle of the lane is something that could only be described as a wobbly line.
When I'm in my car and I see a cyclist who falls under the latter description I get just as frustrated as my friend Durlak. Not only because this person is going to cause a delay in my getting where I'm going, but also because later, when I'm on my bike, someone is going to hate me because they hate them, even though I'm not causing any of those problems.
I have defended cyclists rights to be on the road to many people and will continue to do so because I need that right for myself. Bike paths and trails are great in theory but not an effective system for actual training. This could be another post all it's own so I'll just leave it at that. Still, I completely agree that 90% of bikes on the road are a huge clog due to all of the factors I mentioned above. But what can we do? I personally wouldn't be opposed some sort of license requirement to ride a bike on the road. However, I couldn't imagine police actually being willing to enforce this as most of them are already annoyed when asked to enforce traffic violations for cars.
Since moving to San Francisco I was introduced to a weekly event that takes place every Friday called Critical Mass. Critical Mass is an organized bike ride that takes over downtown city streets during the afternoon rush hour to basically clog up traffic and get in people's way. Due to the fights that used to break out (and I don't blame anyone at all for wanting to beat the crap out of these idiots!) between the idiots on bikes (they are no cyclists) and motorists they now have a police escort which stops traffic along their route, which also changes weekly. I have only only seen critical mass once and I wanted to punch those idiots in the face. They claim their mission is to help promote cycling as a means of transportation and raise awareness but it just seems to me that they make everybody in a car hate everybody on a bike even more. It won't not make me sad if during a critical mass ride the entire group had a huge pile up, all their bikes broke, and they all sustained some freak injury that wouldn't allow them to pedal a bike every again but could go on with whatever else they do with their lives just fine. Rant Over.
I'm obviously torn as both a cyclist who needs to ride on the road and a driver who gets incredibly annoyed by the average bike rider swerving all over the place as they go grocery shopping. I guess all I can do is continue to try and not be a nuisance while I'm on my bike and avoid fulfilling Durlak's fantasy while I'm in my car.
And, just to kill it before Durlak leaves a comment on it, I've pretty much stopped running red lights. I'm not really sure what prompted it, but all of a sudden I find myself stopping at them these days and waiting with traffic. Probably, most of this is due to the $300 tickets I hear of people getting.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Tom Boonen Likes Cocaine
Disclaimer: I do not promote, encourage or think that the use of recreational drugs is ok, good, or whatever. I'm pretty generally against the use of all recreational drugs.
It's been released and now well talked about that Tom Booned test positive for cocaine for the second time in an out of competition doping control. The first time he tested positive for cocaine it was determined that since cocaine being used out of competition isn't technically against any anti-doping rules and so he was suspended by his team but not whoever the governing body of cycling is. He also avoided any real criminal charges because he's basically the biggest sports star from Belgium since Eddy Merckx. Boonen's got techno songs written about him, Merckx doesn't have that so maybe he's bigger? No.
I feel the need here for a second disclaimer before I move on. I don't think Tom Boonen should be doing blow, period. However, as much as I don't think Tom should be doing blow, I think the release of this test result is a huge invasion of privacy. When one becomes a professional athlete in today's age you are also agreeing to be tested for banned substances. That's part of the job, so no athlete should have any issue with that. However, as the athlete, you're also trusting that the people doing the testing are only running tests for certain substances and anything else they find is really nobody's business.
I don't know what all shows up in these tests. Maybe the fact that you ate a steak the night before shows up? Maybe the fact that there's a lot of pollen in the air and so maybe that's floating around in your system? I have no idea how it works. However, if those two extreme examples do show up, I'm just as interested to know about them as I am about any recreational drug that isn't banned.
The part I don't understand is what the lab or doping control people hope to gain by releasing this private information about Tom Boonen. Again, I don't know all the legal ins and outs of Belgium, but I'm pretty sure here in America we just had a pretty similar drug related story. Anybody remember that picture of Michael Phelps taking a hit out of what appeared to be a bong and what we all assumed was filled with weed? Remember the outrage? The sheriff where the picture was taking saying they were going after Phelps? Remember how it ended? They couldn't prove anything because it's a picture. You can't drug test a picture! This is a similar situation. The prosecution in this case would have to somehow prove that Tom Boonen ingested cocaine knowingly because all they have from the lab report is that it's in his system. In most cases you have to prove either possession or distribution in order to prosecute for illegal drugs. In this case, they don't know either, so again, what's the lab doing reporting it? What's their agenda?
I'm really starting to get the impression that everybody that works in these labs are all failed athletes who are all angry they couldn't make it so they're out to get the current athletes. It's really the only scenario that makes a lot of these reports make any kind of sense. Maybe there's a code of obligation to report findings of this nature if you work in a lab, but I doubt it. It just seems to me this is a huge breech of privacy. If the governing body of anti-doping and cycling expects the athletes to give up their blood and hair and whatever else they decide to test at any given time, I don't see how they aren't equally obligated to only test and report on any findings that break the rules they are asked to abide by for competitive purposes.
I'm sure the only thing that will come out of this whole ordeal will be a lot of public apologizes by Tom Boonen and another Tour de France where we won't be present. Where that's probably the biggest shame. With the public rivalry that he and Cavendish have going I was really hoping for some fireworks in Tour de France finales. Throw in McEwen, Hushvold, Freirer, Farrar and Petacchi and those would have been some very rapid, star studded finishes. I guess now we'll be left to wonder how Tom's doing sitting at home?
It's been released and now well talked about that Tom Booned test positive for cocaine for the second time in an out of competition doping control. The first time he tested positive for cocaine it was determined that since cocaine being used out of competition isn't technically against any anti-doping rules and so he was suspended by his team but not whoever the governing body of cycling is. He also avoided any real criminal charges because he's basically the biggest sports star from Belgium since Eddy Merckx. Boonen's got techno songs written about him, Merckx doesn't have that so maybe he's bigger? No.
I feel the need here for a second disclaimer before I move on. I don't think Tom Boonen should be doing blow, period. However, as much as I don't think Tom should be doing blow, I think the release of this test result is a huge invasion of privacy. When one becomes a professional athlete in today's age you are also agreeing to be tested for banned substances. That's part of the job, so no athlete should have any issue with that. However, as the athlete, you're also trusting that the people doing the testing are only running tests for certain substances and anything else they find is really nobody's business.
I don't know what all shows up in these tests. Maybe the fact that you ate a steak the night before shows up? Maybe the fact that there's a lot of pollen in the air and so maybe that's floating around in your system? I have no idea how it works. However, if those two extreme examples do show up, I'm just as interested to know about them as I am about any recreational drug that isn't banned.
The part I don't understand is what the lab or doping control people hope to gain by releasing this private information about Tom Boonen. Again, I don't know all the legal ins and outs of Belgium, but I'm pretty sure here in America we just had a pretty similar drug related story. Anybody remember that picture of Michael Phelps taking a hit out of what appeared to be a bong and what we all assumed was filled with weed? Remember the outrage? The sheriff where the picture was taking saying they were going after Phelps? Remember how it ended? They couldn't prove anything because it's a picture. You can't drug test a picture! This is a similar situation. The prosecution in this case would have to somehow prove that Tom Boonen ingested cocaine knowingly because all they have from the lab report is that it's in his system. In most cases you have to prove either possession or distribution in order to prosecute for illegal drugs. In this case, they don't know either, so again, what's the lab doing reporting it? What's their agenda?
I'm really starting to get the impression that everybody that works in these labs are all failed athletes who are all angry they couldn't make it so they're out to get the current athletes. It's really the only scenario that makes a lot of these reports make any kind of sense. Maybe there's a code of obligation to report findings of this nature if you work in a lab, but I doubt it. It just seems to me this is a huge breech of privacy. If the governing body of anti-doping and cycling expects the athletes to give up their blood and hair and whatever else they decide to test at any given time, I don't see how they aren't equally obligated to only test and report on any findings that break the rules they are asked to abide by for competitive purposes.
I'm sure the only thing that will come out of this whole ordeal will be a lot of public apologizes by Tom Boonen and another Tour de France where we won't be present. Where that's probably the biggest shame. With the public rivalry that he and Cavendish have going I was really hoping for some fireworks in Tour de France finales. Throw in McEwen, Hushvold, Freirer, Farrar and Petacchi and those would have been some very rapid, star studded finishes. I guess now we'll be left to wonder how Tom's doing sitting at home?
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Moving the Tour of California
The news broke yesterday that the organizers of the Amgen Tour of California are moving the dates of the race. Since it's inception 4 years ago the ToC has been run in early February and grown, both in stages and popularity each year. The first two years the race got extremely lucky and saw nothing but sunshine and warm weather. These past two have been the exact opposite with most of the Northern California stages being cold, rainy and miserable.
The idea to move the race on the calender isn't in and of itself a bad idea. The chosen dates however are terrible! I don't know what the big picture goal is for the tour of California. I don't know if they want to create another three week grand tour down the road or if they want to keep the race somewhere in the 9 stage range which is it right now.
The dates this year of Feb. 14-22nd allowed the race to see the biggest names in cycling and teams sending grand tour caliber squads. The support of this race by teams was in direct relation with the fact that guys could come and get good hard racing in their legs before the classic season. Something they couldn't really get anywhere else in the world for this time of year. The new dates, May 16-23rd, just happen to clash with the Giro d'Italia which will be running its 100th edition starting this Saturday. What in the world are they thinking?
The ToC has been doing wonders for American bike racing by conveniently allowing our biggest names in the sport to race on US soil without having to bypass something more important else where. This year the fan turnout was insane. Trust me, I was at 6 stages including the top of a snow covered Palomar Mtn. on the last day and though it was freezing, the crowds were deafening as riders raced by. It's no secret that one of the biggest reasons for such a turn out was the return of Lance Armstrong, which, if we're honest with ourselves probably won't be the case next year even if the race was during the same week. However, there are still plenty of other great American bike racers besides Lance that will probably be skipping the ToC in order to get the grand tour miles of racing in their legs as simple preparation for the Tour de France.
Teams like Garmin-Slipstream who carry a roster full of American pros will definitely still be at the ToC next year, but don't expect to see the likes of Christian Vandevelde, Dave Zabriske, Danny Pate, Tom Danielson, Tyler Farrar or probably even Steven Cozza. Those guys will be in Italy because as much as I like the ToC, it's not the Giro and winning the overall at ToC is probably still less important in the grand scheme of cycling as winning the Team Time Trial or a single stage at the Giro.
And that's just the American riders that won't be showing up. Remember this year when Mark Cavendish and Tom Boonen were heads up for almost every sprint? You won't see that again because those guys will both be in Italy battling for stage wins and the points jersey. Remember when Thor Hushovd won that stage as a surprise? Even if he's not racing in the Giro (which he isn't this year) it's doubtful that Ceverlo would pay the money to send a full squad to the Giro (for Carlos Sastre to take a shot at the overall) and another full squad to California (for Thor to maybe win a sprint or two). Saxo Bank brought a full tour line up! Cancellara, the Schleck brothers, Jens Voight. I'm glad I got my one chance to see those guys this year. No shot their coming back.
So where should they have moved the race? They wanted nicer weather and they want to take the race into the high mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. Both great ideas in my opinion but moving the race is going to inevitably mean that it must compete with other races that are already on the calender, but it doesn't have to compete with a grand tour! Here's some alternatives that I think would have been a better choice.
June 6th-14th, The Criterium du Dauphine Libere. This is an eight stage race that takes place in France. Many, many Tour de France winners have used it as the last little bit of tune up before the tour starts just a month later. The biggest most popular aspect of the Dauphine is that it often goes over some of the same mountain passes as the Tour de France, specifically, it usually includes a mountain top finish on Mont Ventoux. This would certainly be tough to replicate but not impossible especially in the Sierras. And June isn't going to be any hotter really than May in the valley and when went over Donnar Pass in late May of 2008 on my move to California it was snowing, so I'm not sure they aren't gambling with those May dates anyway.
Don't like those? How about June 13th-21st when the Tour de Suisse is ran? Again, it's basically a tune up for some of the Tour de France contenders. Obviously the races overlap by a day so they are in direct competition with each other. I'm not sure that it'd be that tough of a sale for the Garmin guys specifically to stay stateside with their families in preparation for the Tour.
What about earlier? This might seem sort of mean, but, bike racing is still a business. The Tour of Georgia used to be a great race, however, notice the passed tense because it folded because it couldn't find a sponsor. In my opinion that leaves, late April open on the calender, specifically the 2008 version was ran from the 21st-27th. I don't know about snow fall that time of the year in the mountains and it might be too close to the Giro. However, the Tour of the Gila just wrapped up and a few big names showed up for that little show down in New Mexico. I had no idea that Georgia and the Gila were ran at the same time. The Gila sounds like a much better race in my opinion. Shows what sponsorship and marketing can do for a race. But that's another subject.
Clearly it'd be race suicide to try and compete with the Tour de France, especially if they're trying to grow the race to be included on the UCI calender in the future. And, with the Tour de France being such a main objective I feel like putting the ToC too close after the Tour would also produce a watered down field of tired guys obligated to show up. This would not be good for the race. It would also battle with the Tour of Utah which in the middle of August from the 18th-23rd. I sort of feel the same way about Utah as I do Georgia. If the ToC is going to compete, I think they should be going up against these races and not the Giro. But in general I really think August is a bad idea.
The Veulta starts in late August and runs into September and the UCI World Championships are in late September as well. I think competing with either of these is bad, but I think they should go up against the Vuelta before they do the Giro if they had to pick a grand tour to do battle with. Also, I'm not even sure this is a big deal, but the Tour of Missouri is running from Sept 7th-13th. It's in direct competition with the Vuelta, but big squads have already signed up to come. In my opinion the Vuelta doesn't get nearly enough respect, but you know, Missouri might be nice?
So, in true teamlandall fashion this much longer than intended and if you made this far you're probably my mother because only she could sit through that purely due to a sense of obligation. I think they should move it to the sometime in June. It'd be good race prep for the tour and allow the bigger teams to still send full squads to the Giro, ToC and Tour de France. Let's face it, there isn't room on the calender for another three week grand tour and going up against them to compete for teams just isn't really a good idea. But I think the Tour of California can offer plenty of good racing that it could easily compete with the Dauphine as well as the Tour de Suisse, especially for the American squads. If anybody at the race organization reads this on accident and you like my ideas, I'd be more than happy to come work for you guys. Inquire within.
The idea to move the race on the calender isn't in and of itself a bad idea. The chosen dates however are terrible! I don't know what the big picture goal is for the tour of California. I don't know if they want to create another three week grand tour down the road or if they want to keep the race somewhere in the 9 stage range which is it right now.
The dates this year of Feb. 14-22nd allowed the race to see the biggest names in cycling and teams sending grand tour caliber squads. The support of this race by teams was in direct relation with the fact that guys could come and get good hard racing in their legs before the classic season. Something they couldn't really get anywhere else in the world for this time of year. The new dates, May 16-23rd, just happen to clash with the Giro d'Italia which will be running its 100th edition starting this Saturday. What in the world are they thinking?
The ToC has been doing wonders for American bike racing by conveniently allowing our biggest names in the sport to race on US soil without having to bypass something more important else where. This year the fan turnout was insane. Trust me, I was at 6 stages including the top of a snow covered Palomar Mtn. on the last day and though it was freezing, the crowds were deafening as riders raced by. It's no secret that one of the biggest reasons for such a turn out was the return of Lance Armstrong, which, if we're honest with ourselves probably won't be the case next year even if the race was during the same week. However, there are still plenty of other great American bike racers besides Lance that will probably be skipping the ToC in order to get the grand tour miles of racing in their legs as simple preparation for the Tour de France.
Teams like Garmin-Slipstream who carry a roster full of American pros will definitely still be at the ToC next year, but don't expect to see the likes of Christian Vandevelde, Dave Zabriske, Danny Pate, Tom Danielson, Tyler Farrar or probably even Steven Cozza. Those guys will be in Italy because as much as I like the ToC, it's not the Giro and winning the overall at ToC is probably still less important in the grand scheme of cycling as winning the Team Time Trial or a single stage at the Giro.
And that's just the American riders that won't be showing up. Remember this year when Mark Cavendish and Tom Boonen were heads up for almost every sprint? You won't see that again because those guys will both be in Italy battling for stage wins and the points jersey. Remember when Thor Hushovd won that stage as a surprise? Even if he's not racing in the Giro (which he isn't this year) it's doubtful that Ceverlo would pay the money to send a full squad to the Giro (for Carlos Sastre to take a shot at the overall) and another full squad to California (for Thor to maybe win a sprint or two). Saxo Bank brought a full tour line up! Cancellara, the Schleck brothers, Jens Voight. I'm glad I got my one chance to see those guys this year. No shot their coming back.
So where should they have moved the race? They wanted nicer weather and they want to take the race into the high mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. Both great ideas in my opinion but moving the race is going to inevitably mean that it must compete with other races that are already on the calender, but it doesn't have to compete with a grand tour! Here's some alternatives that I think would have been a better choice.
June 6th-14th, The Criterium du Dauphine Libere. This is an eight stage race that takes place in France. Many, many Tour de France winners have used it as the last little bit of tune up before the tour starts just a month later. The biggest most popular aspect of the Dauphine is that it often goes over some of the same mountain passes as the Tour de France, specifically, it usually includes a mountain top finish on Mont Ventoux. This would certainly be tough to replicate but not impossible especially in the Sierras. And June isn't going to be any hotter really than May in the valley and when went over Donnar Pass in late May of 2008 on my move to California it was snowing, so I'm not sure they aren't gambling with those May dates anyway.
Don't like those? How about June 13th-21st when the Tour de Suisse is ran? Again, it's basically a tune up for some of the Tour de France contenders. Obviously the races overlap by a day so they are in direct competition with each other. I'm not sure that it'd be that tough of a sale for the Garmin guys specifically to stay stateside with their families in preparation for the Tour.
What about earlier? This might seem sort of mean, but, bike racing is still a business. The Tour of Georgia used to be a great race, however, notice the passed tense because it folded because it couldn't find a sponsor. In my opinion that leaves, late April open on the calender, specifically the 2008 version was ran from the 21st-27th. I don't know about snow fall that time of the year in the mountains and it might be too close to the Giro. However, the Tour of the Gila just wrapped up and a few big names showed up for that little show down in New Mexico. I had no idea that Georgia and the Gila were ran at the same time. The Gila sounds like a much better race in my opinion. Shows what sponsorship and marketing can do for a race. But that's another subject.
Clearly it'd be race suicide to try and compete with the Tour de France, especially if they're trying to grow the race to be included on the UCI calender in the future. And, with the Tour de France being such a main objective I feel like putting the ToC too close after the Tour would also produce a watered down field of tired guys obligated to show up. This would not be good for the race. It would also battle with the Tour of Utah which in the middle of August from the 18th-23rd. I sort of feel the same way about Utah as I do Georgia. If the ToC is going to compete, I think they should be going up against these races and not the Giro. But in general I really think August is a bad idea.
The Veulta starts in late August and runs into September and the UCI World Championships are in late September as well. I think competing with either of these is bad, but I think they should go up against the Vuelta before they do the Giro if they had to pick a grand tour to do battle with. Also, I'm not even sure this is a big deal, but the Tour of Missouri is running from Sept 7th-13th. It's in direct competition with the Vuelta, but big squads have already signed up to come. In my opinion the Vuelta doesn't get nearly enough respect, but you know, Missouri might be nice?
So, in true teamlandall fashion this much longer than intended and if you made this far you're probably my mother because only she could sit through that purely due to a sense of obligation. I think they should move it to the sometime in June. It'd be good race prep for the tour and allow the bigger teams to still send full squads to the Giro, ToC and Tour de France. Let's face it, there isn't room on the calender for another three week grand tour and going up against them to compete for teams just isn't really a good idea. But I think the Tour of California can offer plenty of good racing that it could easily compete with the Dauphine as well as the Tour de Suisse, especially for the American squads. If anybody at the race organization reads this on accident and you like my ideas, I'd be more than happy to come work for you guys. Inquire within.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Prevent Teen Pregnancy Day!
Who knew this was even a day? Anyway, I'm all for preventing teen pregnancy. Luckily for me nobody wanted to give me the opportunity to make this mistake until very late in my teens. I avoided it the lonely way. But, my own pity party is not the point.
This morning Bristol Palin was on GMA promoting abstinence and all that crap. Here's a clip of the interview. I have no idea how much of it is actually covered in this clip because I can't sit through the thing a second time!
Now, I don't want to be one of those people that picks on Bristol Palin because quite frankly it'd be impossible for me to care any less that she has a kid. However, it does annoy me that she's now the spokes person for abstinence when it clearly didn't work for her!
Abstinence. What a stupid idea! In fact, to quote the young Palin herself, "Abstinence just isn't realistic." I have never understood why these ultra conservative christian groups continue to believe that kids are going to refrain from doing it. Doing it is fun, so, people do it. Instead of trying to scare people with disease and pregnancy, which clearly is a failing tactic, why not educate people and provide condoms and other information to help people make the right choice that will be effective for them. Promise Keepers and other groups like them want to believe that if they give kids condoms it gives them the green light to go have sex. I think this is an old line of thinking that drastically needs to be reconsidered. I think more accurately, if you don't give kids access to condoms, your putting them in the position to chance it. And let's be serious, a quick search on google, wikipedia or webMD will tell you pretty quickly that the actual ovulation cycle when a women can actually get pregnant is a very small window. If you don't let me have condoms, it seems like the odds are still on my side!
When watching the above interview this morning I couldn't help but wonder why an abstinence group would want Bristol Palin as their spokesperson? She clearly didn't live their message. Not only did she have sex, she has a kid! It was suggested that she's now the example of what can happen to you and your life from having unprotected sex. You can be thrust into the spotlight and become a paid (I am assuming) endorser of something you clearly don't believe in. You can be flown all over the country to make appearances, do interviews and give talks. You can be featured in national campaign commercials to try and show other teens just how bad your life can be from having unprotected sex.
Really? Is that the message? I'm always baffled that people believe that the major of kids can be detered from having sex by these silly scare tactics. Are there risks that go along with having sex, sure there are. And I'm all for the promotion of knowing those risks and then making a decisions based upon them. Just like I'm well aware of the risks of eating donuts for breakfast with the frequency that I do. They aren't good for me. They probably raise some sort of level of something bad. They're fried, they have tons of sugar and so with each bite I'm probably increasing my chance of getting diabetes and in general getting fat. But, they taste good and I work out so I feel like I minimize that risk. Hopefully anyone reading this can easily follow that analogy.
I'll leave you with this card from someecards.com, which, while funny, could have saved everybody a lot of headache!
This morning Bristol Palin was on GMA promoting abstinence and all that crap. Here's a clip of the interview. I have no idea how much of it is actually covered in this clip because I can't sit through the thing a second time!
Now, I don't want to be one of those people that picks on Bristol Palin because quite frankly it'd be impossible for me to care any less that she has a kid. However, it does annoy me that she's now the spokes person for abstinence when it clearly didn't work for her!
Abstinence. What a stupid idea! In fact, to quote the young Palin herself, "Abstinence just isn't realistic." I have never understood why these ultra conservative christian groups continue to believe that kids are going to refrain from doing it. Doing it is fun, so, people do it. Instead of trying to scare people with disease and pregnancy, which clearly is a failing tactic, why not educate people and provide condoms and other information to help people make the right choice that will be effective for them. Promise Keepers and other groups like them want to believe that if they give kids condoms it gives them the green light to go have sex. I think this is an old line of thinking that drastically needs to be reconsidered. I think more accurately, if you don't give kids access to condoms, your putting them in the position to chance it. And let's be serious, a quick search on google, wikipedia or webMD will tell you pretty quickly that the actual ovulation cycle when a women can actually get pregnant is a very small window. If you don't let me have condoms, it seems like the odds are still on my side!
When watching the above interview this morning I couldn't help but wonder why an abstinence group would want Bristol Palin as their spokesperson? She clearly didn't live their message. Not only did she have sex, she has a kid! It was suggested that she's now the example of what can happen to you and your life from having unprotected sex. You can be thrust into the spotlight and become a paid (I am assuming) endorser of something you clearly don't believe in. You can be flown all over the country to make appearances, do interviews and give talks. You can be featured in national campaign commercials to try and show other teens just how bad your life can be from having unprotected sex.
Really? Is that the message? I'm always baffled that people believe that the major of kids can be detered from having sex by these silly scare tactics. Are there risks that go along with having sex, sure there are. And I'm all for the promotion of knowing those risks and then making a decisions based upon them. Just like I'm well aware of the risks of eating donuts for breakfast with the frequency that I do. They aren't good for me. They probably raise some sort of level of something bad. They're fried, they have tons of sugar and so with each bite I'm probably increasing my chance of getting diabetes and in general getting fat. But, they taste good and I work out so I feel like I minimize that risk. Hopefully anyone reading this can easily follow that analogy.
I'll leave you with this card from someecards.com, which, while funny, could have saved everybody a lot of headache!
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
I was right!
A bitter Simeoni returns national jersey.
If you are a regular reader of teamlandall then you will have no problem remembering a few weeks ago when I made fun of Gilbert Simeoni for being mad that his small time squad got left out of the Giro. You'll also remember that I said he'd eventually make the insinuation that he was left out because Lance Armstrong didn't want him there.
Well, guess what? I was right. In Simeoni's final chance to get any sort of media coverage before the Giro starts on Saturday he has decided that he no longer wants to wear the national champion's jersey of Italia because he feels it has been disgraced, or something like that.
This is all ridiculous and Simeoni is showing exactly why he couldn't get a contract on a bigger team and why none of the other riders in the peloton like him. Which is evident by the rider's not taking up for him when he was left off the start list at the Giro.
But, at least now America isn't the only country without a national champion to wear it's colors on the road!
If you are a regular reader of teamlandall then you will have no problem remembering a few weeks ago when I made fun of Gilbert Simeoni for being mad that his small time squad got left out of the Giro. You'll also remember that I said he'd eventually make the insinuation that he was left out because Lance Armstrong didn't want him there.
Well, guess what? I was right. In Simeoni's final chance to get any sort of media coverage before the Giro starts on Saturday he has decided that he no longer wants to wear the national champion's jersey of Italia because he feels it has been disgraced, or something like that.
This is all ridiculous and Simeoni is showing exactly why he couldn't get a contract on a bigger team and why none of the other riders in the peloton like him. Which is evident by the rider's not taking up for him when he was left off the start list at the Giro.
But, at least now America isn't the only country without a national champion to wear it's colors on the road!
Monday, May 04, 2009
Race Reports: 2 for the price of 1
I raced twice this weekend. One was planned and one was a sort of punishment. Here's what went down.
Race 1: Cat's Hill Classic
Cat's Hill is a crit down in Los Gatos that's been going on for 34 years. I guess that's why they call it a classic. It's got a cool bit of history as the past winners list includes the likes of Greg LeMond. And to maybe save some suspense, I did not add my name to that list.
It's called Cat's Hill because there's a hill. It's about a block long and it's steep, like 23% grade steep. While a hill like that is hard by itself, the rain didn't help, nor did the fact that the hill starts immediately after a left hand turn from a slight downhill approaching. One might think this would be helpful as you could hit the hill with some momentum. In theory this should be true, but in practice it created issues because you had to shift to the gear you were going to climb it in early. It also didn't help that since the roads were wet guys were grabbing hands full of brakes going into the turn to the bottom so momentum was lost there as well.
The field started at about 70 guys and apparently it was half that in two laps. I found myself fighting to stay in the front group and then somewhere I found myself in a second group with no idea where the front group went. I was starting to get frustrated with racing and wondering if all the training I put in was ever going to pay off. This was around lap 7 when at the top the hill I was riding over the "stop" that is painted on the road. Because the paint is slicker than the pavement my rear wheel spun out with two pedal strokes. Luckily I didn't crash my junk into the top tube or stem but I did lose a ton of momentum. This little mishap put me over the edge. As I looked behind me on the hill I didn't see another person so I assumed I was in last place and around 30th on the road I decided I was sick of racing for 30th and I pulled over and sat under a tree.
Much to my surprise when the groups came by next time I discovered the front group only had about 7 guys in and the group I was in was the 2nd group on the road and they had about 7 guys as well. This clearly didn't help my frustration as now I wished I was back in the race, but it doesn't really work that way. I would have finished somewhere between 10-15th had I stayed in. Lesson learned.
Race 2: Sonora County Road Race
I wasn't going to race this one for a few reasons but after the debacle at Cat's Hill I needed to redeem myself in a way. Luckily I have a very supportive and great girlfriend who was willing to give up her Sunday, wake up at 4am, drive 2.5 hours into the Sierra Nevada foot hills and sit in the car while I raced my bike. She's the best!
This course was described as rolling with a few short climbs. After racing it I'll say a better description would have been rolling with all short climbs. There wasn't a single flat stretch of road. We were either going up or down the entire time. The course was hard, somewhere around 5,000' of elevation gain in the 50 mile course.
Our field was small as this was a first time race that just got it's permits weeks before. The rain and all around crappy weather probably didn't encourage too many people to show up on the day of. I think we started with somewhere around 30 guys. We had a neutral start to the course where we went the wrong way and the flat people didn't even bother to yell at us and let us know. That was pretty funny as we passed another group on the road later who had done the same thing. Their field was 6 with 4 guys from the same team so they apparently had decided to just cruise it as they were not putting in any effort.
The first lap was pretty slow as everyone was trying to figure out the course. There were a couple sets of railroad tracks that caused a crash in the back but luckily those guys were able to get back on. Going into the second lap I learned a very valuable lesson of placing in the group. I pulled out a bar to eat and in the process of opening it up I lost 3 or for spots which is pretty normal. After taking the first bite I noticed a gap starting to open from where I was to the people who had moved in front of me. I jump around them and tried to catch back on but it was too late. I was gapped and the combination of bar in my mouth making it hard to breath and the group in the front turning the screws made it tough to get back on. I chased hard for about another 10 miles keeping the group in sight but never really able to make up ground. There were only 2 guys who tried to go with me, but neither were strong enough to help in the chase so I eventually just put my head and and went for it alone.
I basically just chased/rode tempo for the next 30-40 miles hoping to catch the other people in that front group who'd get popped. At about the end of the 2nd lap the two guys who had followed me caught up and asked that we work together. Again, every time I'd get on the front they'd just sit on for miles. Their paces up the climbs were too slow and they couldn't stay close on the other rollers or descents. For the most part these guys stayed with me for 2 laps, never doing any work, and basically just sitting on for the ride. I thought I was clearly establishing that I was the strongest in the group and figured I'd climb away at the finish if it came to that, or that my tempo would eventually just ride them off my wheel.
Because I wasn't planning on doing a 50+ mile road race this weekend I only packed smaller bottles. With 1 lap to go I was essentially out of fluids. Since it was cool and rainy I almost didn't notice and it didn't strike me as a big deal, but I learned that lesson about half way through the last lap. I towed those two guys up to another guy who had been dropped off the front group. He still seemed pretty strong and set a fast tempo up one of the longer climbs on the back side of the course. About half way up I popped. It was so sudden. Going into that climb I felt tired but ok then all of a sudden I felt about a half second from dying. The other two guys came around me and rode the rest of the way in with that guy and I was left to painful get myself to the finish alone. The last quarter of a lap was round and going up the finishing climb I was in the smallest gear I had, which I hadn't even came close to using the previous times up. I'm not sure I've ever bonked like that but it was definitely a lesson in just how important having enough fluids really is. This part is gross but I was so dehydrated that when I peed after the race it was literally brown. I've never seen pee that dark so I trying to drink whatever I could get my hands on as fast as I could.
I have no idea where I finished. I have no idea how many people that started even finished. It was a great race and a great learning experience. My legs haven't hurt like they did a few hours after since my Ironman. Getting up from being seated was a challenge. I'm really glad I went and did that race regardless of what shows up on the results sheet. It was a really tough course combined with terrible conditions and the perfect punishment for not finishing at Cat's Hill. I'm not sure what would have happened had I not gotten gapped and had to chase. I feel like I could have stayed with the front group, especially as I could have sat in the wheels through some of the faster sections instead of plowing through it on my own.
All in all, great lessons learned!
Race 1: Cat's Hill Classic
Cat's Hill is a crit down in Los Gatos that's been going on for 34 years. I guess that's why they call it a classic. It's got a cool bit of history as the past winners list includes the likes of Greg LeMond. And to maybe save some suspense, I did not add my name to that list.
It's called Cat's Hill because there's a hill. It's about a block long and it's steep, like 23% grade steep. While a hill like that is hard by itself, the rain didn't help, nor did the fact that the hill starts immediately after a left hand turn from a slight downhill approaching. One might think this would be helpful as you could hit the hill with some momentum. In theory this should be true, but in practice it created issues because you had to shift to the gear you were going to climb it in early. It also didn't help that since the roads were wet guys were grabbing hands full of brakes going into the turn to the bottom so momentum was lost there as well.
The field started at about 70 guys and apparently it was half that in two laps. I found myself fighting to stay in the front group and then somewhere I found myself in a second group with no idea where the front group went. I was starting to get frustrated with racing and wondering if all the training I put in was ever going to pay off. This was around lap 7 when at the top the hill I was riding over the "stop" that is painted on the road. Because the paint is slicker than the pavement my rear wheel spun out with two pedal strokes. Luckily I didn't crash my junk into the top tube or stem but I did lose a ton of momentum. This little mishap put me over the edge. As I looked behind me on the hill I didn't see another person so I assumed I was in last place and around 30th on the road I decided I was sick of racing for 30th and I pulled over and sat under a tree.
Much to my surprise when the groups came by next time I discovered the front group only had about 7 guys in and the group I was in was the 2nd group on the road and they had about 7 guys as well. This clearly didn't help my frustration as now I wished I was back in the race, but it doesn't really work that way. I would have finished somewhere between 10-15th had I stayed in. Lesson learned.
Race 2: Sonora County Road Race
I wasn't going to race this one for a few reasons but after the debacle at Cat's Hill I needed to redeem myself in a way. Luckily I have a very supportive and great girlfriend who was willing to give up her Sunday, wake up at 4am, drive 2.5 hours into the Sierra Nevada foot hills and sit in the car while I raced my bike. She's the best!
This course was described as rolling with a few short climbs. After racing it I'll say a better description would have been rolling with all short climbs. There wasn't a single flat stretch of road. We were either going up or down the entire time. The course was hard, somewhere around 5,000' of elevation gain in the 50 mile course.
Our field was small as this was a first time race that just got it's permits weeks before. The rain and all around crappy weather probably didn't encourage too many people to show up on the day of. I think we started with somewhere around 30 guys. We had a neutral start to the course where we went the wrong way and the flat people didn't even bother to yell at us and let us know. That was pretty funny as we passed another group on the road later who had done the same thing. Their field was 6 with 4 guys from the same team so they apparently had decided to just cruise it as they were not putting in any effort.
The first lap was pretty slow as everyone was trying to figure out the course. There were a couple sets of railroad tracks that caused a crash in the back but luckily those guys were able to get back on. Going into the second lap I learned a very valuable lesson of placing in the group. I pulled out a bar to eat and in the process of opening it up I lost 3 or for spots which is pretty normal. After taking the first bite I noticed a gap starting to open from where I was to the people who had moved in front of me. I jump around them and tried to catch back on but it was too late. I was gapped and the combination of bar in my mouth making it hard to breath and the group in the front turning the screws made it tough to get back on. I chased hard for about another 10 miles keeping the group in sight but never really able to make up ground. There were only 2 guys who tried to go with me, but neither were strong enough to help in the chase so I eventually just put my head and and went for it alone.
I basically just chased/rode tempo for the next 30-40 miles hoping to catch the other people in that front group who'd get popped. At about the end of the 2nd lap the two guys who had followed me caught up and asked that we work together. Again, every time I'd get on the front they'd just sit on for miles. Their paces up the climbs were too slow and they couldn't stay close on the other rollers or descents. For the most part these guys stayed with me for 2 laps, never doing any work, and basically just sitting on for the ride. I thought I was clearly establishing that I was the strongest in the group and figured I'd climb away at the finish if it came to that, or that my tempo would eventually just ride them off my wheel.
Because I wasn't planning on doing a 50+ mile road race this weekend I only packed smaller bottles. With 1 lap to go I was essentially out of fluids. Since it was cool and rainy I almost didn't notice and it didn't strike me as a big deal, but I learned that lesson about half way through the last lap. I towed those two guys up to another guy who had been dropped off the front group. He still seemed pretty strong and set a fast tempo up one of the longer climbs on the back side of the course. About half way up I popped. It was so sudden. Going into that climb I felt tired but ok then all of a sudden I felt about a half second from dying. The other two guys came around me and rode the rest of the way in with that guy and I was left to painful get myself to the finish alone. The last quarter of a lap was round and going up the finishing climb I was in the smallest gear I had, which I hadn't even came close to using the previous times up. I'm not sure I've ever bonked like that but it was definitely a lesson in just how important having enough fluids really is. This part is gross but I was so dehydrated that when I peed after the race it was literally brown. I've never seen pee that dark so I trying to drink whatever I could get my hands on as fast as I could.
I have no idea where I finished. I have no idea how many people that started even finished. It was a great race and a great learning experience. My legs haven't hurt like they did a few hours after since my Ironman. Getting up from being seated was a challenge. I'm really glad I went and did that race regardless of what shows up on the results sheet. It was a really tough course combined with terrible conditions and the perfect punishment for not finishing at Cat's Hill. I'm not sure what would have happened had I not gotten gapped and had to chase. I feel like I could have stayed with the front group, especially as I could have sat in the wheels through some of the faster sections instead of plowing through it on my own.
All in all, great lessons learned!
Friday, May 01, 2009
I Disagree...
How Lance Armstrong's decision to race the Gila unintentionally hurt Team BMC.
I'm starting to sound like the biggest Lance apologist on the planet but really it's not that way. I just simply don't agree with a lot of the stuff that seems to be floating through the tiny little world of domestic professional cycling.
In the above article the guy presents his theory that by the Astana boys racing at Gila they are hurting domestic cycling, specifically team BMC, rather than helping. BMC is an odd case because they fall under the category of "Pro Continental" which isn't the same as Astana who are "Pro Tour," but really the important part is essentially the "Pro." Unfortunately in professional cycling there are lots of ways to be a pro, and just as many weird quarky qualifications that go along with them. For example, I have some buddies who are professional cyclists. However, they have never applied for their "pro" licenses because as American bike racers if they stay as category 1 racers they can race in smaller, regional or local races with smaller fields and a better chance at earning prize money. On the same note they can race in the tour of the Gila if they wanted because the field is Pro/1/2. Confusing? Yeah, I know.
The problem with the professional classification of "Tour" over "Continental" is a bit larger and different than being a pro or a 1. As a continental team BMC is at the upper crust of US cycling and it allows them to gain wild card entrance into races in Europe that aren't really options for other domestic teams like a Kelly Benefits. But, because of their status, this rule that was enforced because of the even higher profile riders of Astana essentially effects BMC for the rest of the year. Is it unfortunate that five BMC riders got sent home because of this rule? Yeah, for sure. Is it Astana's and more specifically Lance's fault? Not even close!
First, I should point out, this rule is stupid! If you read the article above the guy does a good job of trying to point out what the rule is intended to do, in Europe. Unfortunately, it's a one size fits all that reaches across the pond to America, where it doesn't really fit. However, whether the rule is stupid or not, it's there and until they change it, a team in the position of BMC should be aware that this could happen and weigh the benefits of racing Paris-Roubaix and being a non factor versus having a legitimate shot at winning races domestically like the Tour of Utah, which they did last year, but might not be able to enter with a full squad now. Just because the rule was never enforced before now doesn't make it a responsible decision for team management to ignore in hopes of having their cake and eating it too.
That article wags it's finger at Lance for pushing some domestic guys out of the Gila because he wanted to come train/race. What it should have done was point the finger at both BMC team management for trying to sneak under the radar as well as the magic person with a pen who makes these rules and demand there be exceptions based on various countries where races are being held.
The part about the rule that doesn't make any sense to me is why through the enforcement the rest of the BMC guys actually went home? I'm sure there are plenty of bike shops around the country that would have gladly express mailed 3 team kits to these guys so they could race and their shop could get some face time. And, BMC has the budget to front the entrance fee, and in reality it's not like anybody is suddenly confused and forgets that Scott Nydam doesn't actually ride for "Gila Hike and Bike" but for BMC. Those guys could have raced as individuals just like the three from Astana and BMC are currently doing. Maybe they would have ended up working together, but different teams help each other out all the time. B Sample Racing would have certainly kicked in some free kits, had we known they needed them, or actually had free kits to send. They're more than welcome to wear mine, I wash them regularly enough!
I'm starting to sound like the biggest Lance apologist on the planet but really it's not that way. I just simply don't agree with a lot of the stuff that seems to be floating through the tiny little world of domestic professional cycling.
In the above article the guy presents his theory that by the Astana boys racing at Gila they are hurting domestic cycling, specifically team BMC, rather than helping. BMC is an odd case because they fall under the category of "Pro Continental" which isn't the same as Astana who are "Pro Tour," but really the important part is essentially the "Pro." Unfortunately in professional cycling there are lots of ways to be a pro, and just as many weird quarky qualifications that go along with them. For example, I have some buddies who are professional cyclists. However, they have never applied for their "pro" licenses because as American bike racers if they stay as category 1 racers they can race in smaller, regional or local races with smaller fields and a better chance at earning prize money. On the same note they can race in the tour of the Gila if they wanted because the field is Pro/1/2. Confusing? Yeah, I know.
The problem with the professional classification of "Tour" over "Continental" is a bit larger and different than being a pro or a 1. As a continental team BMC is at the upper crust of US cycling and it allows them to gain wild card entrance into races in Europe that aren't really options for other domestic teams like a Kelly Benefits. But, because of their status, this rule that was enforced because of the even higher profile riders of Astana essentially effects BMC for the rest of the year. Is it unfortunate that five BMC riders got sent home because of this rule? Yeah, for sure. Is it Astana's and more specifically Lance's fault? Not even close!
First, I should point out, this rule is stupid! If you read the article above the guy does a good job of trying to point out what the rule is intended to do, in Europe. Unfortunately, it's a one size fits all that reaches across the pond to America, where it doesn't really fit. However, whether the rule is stupid or not, it's there and until they change it, a team in the position of BMC should be aware that this could happen and weigh the benefits of racing Paris-Roubaix and being a non factor versus having a legitimate shot at winning races domestically like the Tour of Utah, which they did last year, but might not be able to enter with a full squad now. Just because the rule was never enforced before now doesn't make it a responsible decision for team management to ignore in hopes of having their cake and eating it too.
That article wags it's finger at Lance for pushing some domestic guys out of the Gila because he wanted to come train/race. What it should have done was point the finger at both BMC team management for trying to sneak under the radar as well as the magic person with a pen who makes these rules and demand there be exceptions based on various countries where races are being held.
The part about the rule that doesn't make any sense to me is why through the enforcement the rest of the BMC guys actually went home? I'm sure there are plenty of bike shops around the country that would have gladly express mailed 3 team kits to these guys so they could race and their shop could get some face time. And, BMC has the budget to front the entrance fee, and in reality it's not like anybody is suddenly confused and forgets that Scott Nydam doesn't actually ride for "Gila Hike and Bike" but for BMC. Those guys could have raced as individuals just like the three from Astana and BMC are currently doing. Maybe they would have ended up working together, but different teams help each other out all the time. B Sample Racing would have certainly kicked in some free kits, had we known they needed them, or actually had free kits to send. They're more than welcome to wear mine, I wash them regularly enough!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
1st 100 Days
I read a book once that mentioned a man who said he wasn't very interested in politics because what they did in Washington didn't seem to effect his life on a day to day basis. But what did effect his life was what happened right there in his neighborhood. So, instead of asking the local government to put in a bench at a bus stop where he always saw a little old lady waiting for the bus, he built one, and put it there himself.
This analogy really stands out to me as the media is currently making a big deal about the first 100 days of the new Obama administration. At first I was sort of surprised to realize that he's been our new president for 100 days. Sure I voted for the guy and have vivid memories of thinking that being in downtown Oakland on my bike the night of the election was probably a bad idea, but since then, I have almost forgot that we've had a chance in administration.
Now how could this be? We went from good ol' W who many consider the worst president of all time to Obama who many have already crowned the second coming of whatever christ like figure you may believe in. But for me, I can't tell the difference. My life hasn't changed one bit. Is this because I generally don't find a lot of the political hooplah interesting? Maybe it is, I don't know.
I still wake up at the same time. My pay check still arrives on time in this "shitty" economic climate. And while I read the economy is terrible and certainly my minuscule retirement account is almost microscopic at this point, but I can still buy the same things I used to buy. I just bought plane tickets to Australia in this economy and I'm pretty excited about that.
And while I hope for the greater good Mr. Obama does great things, I actually take a bit of comfort in the fact that everything for me is pretty much the same. I like that fact that whoever is in office my everyday life isn't effected. I like living my life the way I choose to. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who disagree. I remember all of my crazy republican friends claiming they were moving to Canada if Obama won. (On a side note, can we think about that for a second? Republicans want to move to ultra liberal Canada to avoid a moderately liberal America?) Of course none of them did, and I'm sure if you asked them their lives are no different than they used to be either.
I can't think of a good way to sum this all up, so, that's it. Have a nice day and I hope the current administration doesn't make any decisions that change the way you live your daily life. Unless, I guess, you want them to?
This analogy really stands out to me as the media is currently making a big deal about the first 100 days of the new Obama administration. At first I was sort of surprised to realize that he's been our new president for 100 days. Sure I voted for the guy and have vivid memories of thinking that being in downtown Oakland on my bike the night of the election was probably a bad idea, but since then, I have almost forgot that we've had a chance in administration.
Now how could this be? We went from good ol' W who many consider the worst president of all time to Obama who many have already crowned the second coming of whatever christ like figure you may believe in. But for me, I can't tell the difference. My life hasn't changed one bit. Is this because I generally don't find a lot of the political hooplah interesting? Maybe it is, I don't know.
I still wake up at the same time. My pay check still arrives on time in this "shitty" economic climate. And while I read the economy is terrible and certainly my minuscule retirement account is almost microscopic at this point, but I can still buy the same things I used to buy. I just bought plane tickets to Australia in this economy and I'm pretty excited about that.
And while I hope for the greater good Mr. Obama does great things, I actually take a bit of comfort in the fact that everything for me is pretty much the same. I like that fact that whoever is in office my everyday life isn't effected. I like living my life the way I choose to. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who disagree. I remember all of my crazy republican friends claiming they were moving to Canada if Obama won. (On a side note, can we think about that for a second? Republicans want to move to ultra liberal Canada to avoid a moderately liberal America?) Of course none of them did, and I'm sure if you asked them their lives are no different than they used to be either.
I can't think of a good way to sum this all up, so, that's it. Have a nice day and I hope the current administration doesn't make any decisions that change the way you live your daily life. Unless, I guess, you want them to?
Monday, April 27, 2009
Dumb!
Click here to read the professionally written article.
Here's the short of it because I don't feel like typing a lot. Astana was thinking of sending Levi, Lance and Chris Horner to the Tour of Gila, a pretty old US Stage Race that takes place in New Mexico, for some last minute race training for the upcoming Giro.
Apparently, somewhere in the stupid UCI rule book they've decided to enforce a rule that seems totally retarded that says these guys can't race it because they are ProTour riders, but it's a Continental race. Or some shit like that. All the different levels of professional cycling take no less than a PhD in chaos theory to actually start to understand who is what and how it works.
The part about this that bugs me is it seems like the UCI is stepping in and saying when and where these guys are allowed to earn a living. Would Lance or Levi or Chris win the Tour of Gila? Who knows. It's certainly not guaranteed, but that seems the only viable reason that the UCI would be stepping in and saying now. I read this as the UCI saying, "You guys are too good, you can't go to that race, give those guys a chance." I may be wrong on that and honestly I hope I am.
If I am a guy racing for a smaller domestic team and I get the news that those three icons of US cycling are coming to the race I'm at, you best believe I'm licking my chops at my chance to beat them. That's a story for the grand kids, even if it does take place in New Mexico.
From a simple financial standpoint the UCI is really hurting a lot of people. Look at the turn out for the Tour of California. It was huge. Sure it was CA and there were a lot of big names, but I was there, and well over 50% of those crowds were there because it was maybe their last chance to get to see Lance race in person. I know it motivated me when trying to decide whether it was worth it to drive 8 hours to watch for 20 seconds. If Lance was there that race would have fan turn out like they'd never experienced. All the little towns in New Mexico that I can only assume are struggling with the economy would have a short but much needed boost in their economy.
This race almost didn't happen this year because of the organizers inability to secure a title sponsor. Luckily, SRAM stepped up and the race can go on. You don't think sponsors in the future would like to put their name on a race that Lance did? It'd make that sales pitch a whole lot easier.
Bike racing in America has been around for a long time, but it's not a secure sport by any means. The modern day races that come to mind are struggling to stay or have already been scratched off the calender. Anybody heading to Georgia this year? Didn't think so! We don't have Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders or any of those other European classics that versus cuts down to a convenient hour. What we've got are a bunch of small, but beautiful races that maybe in 50 years can make the cut for Versus "Cyclism Sunday" or "The Epic Cycle" or whatever it is they're calling it this year.
I don't know who's in charge of the UCI or where it's located but I think this is a stupid show of brute force. It doesn't accomplish anything and does a lot more long term harm than if the final podium at Gila was all Astana. Nobody wants to win a watered down Tour. It's not Carlos Sastre's fault that it happened to him, but it did. The Tour of Gila had the opportunity to have what's already an impressive field of domestic pros be three deeper. But the UCI put a stop to that. I hope that whoever wins the Gila this year won't be remember as the guy that won the year that Levi, Lance and Chris weren't allowed to race.
Here's the short of it because I don't feel like typing a lot. Astana was thinking of sending Levi, Lance and Chris Horner to the Tour of Gila, a pretty old US Stage Race that takes place in New Mexico, for some last minute race training for the upcoming Giro.
Apparently, somewhere in the stupid UCI rule book they've decided to enforce a rule that seems totally retarded that says these guys can't race it because they are ProTour riders, but it's a Continental race. Or some shit like that. All the different levels of professional cycling take no less than a PhD in chaos theory to actually start to understand who is what and how it works.
The part about this that bugs me is it seems like the UCI is stepping in and saying when and where these guys are allowed to earn a living. Would Lance or Levi or Chris win the Tour of Gila? Who knows. It's certainly not guaranteed, but that seems the only viable reason that the UCI would be stepping in and saying now. I read this as the UCI saying, "You guys are too good, you can't go to that race, give those guys a chance." I may be wrong on that and honestly I hope I am.
If I am a guy racing for a smaller domestic team and I get the news that those three icons of US cycling are coming to the race I'm at, you best believe I'm licking my chops at my chance to beat them. That's a story for the grand kids, even if it does take place in New Mexico.
From a simple financial standpoint the UCI is really hurting a lot of people. Look at the turn out for the Tour of California. It was huge. Sure it was CA and there were a lot of big names, but I was there, and well over 50% of those crowds were there because it was maybe their last chance to get to see Lance race in person. I know it motivated me when trying to decide whether it was worth it to drive 8 hours to watch for 20 seconds. If Lance was there that race would have fan turn out like they'd never experienced. All the little towns in New Mexico that I can only assume are struggling with the economy would have a short but much needed boost in their economy.
This race almost didn't happen this year because of the organizers inability to secure a title sponsor. Luckily, SRAM stepped up and the race can go on. You don't think sponsors in the future would like to put their name on a race that Lance did? It'd make that sales pitch a whole lot easier.
Bike racing in America has been around for a long time, but it's not a secure sport by any means. The modern day races that come to mind are struggling to stay or have already been scratched off the calender. Anybody heading to Georgia this year? Didn't think so! We don't have Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders or any of those other European classics that versus cuts down to a convenient hour. What we've got are a bunch of small, but beautiful races that maybe in 50 years can make the cut for Versus "Cyclism Sunday" or "The Epic Cycle" or whatever it is they're calling it this year.
I don't know who's in charge of the UCI or where it's located but I think this is a stupid show of brute force. It doesn't accomplish anything and does a lot more long term harm than if the final podium at Gila was all Astana. Nobody wants to win a watered down Tour. It's not Carlos Sastre's fault that it happened to him, but it did. The Tour of Gila had the opportunity to have what's already an impressive field of domestic pros be three deeper. But the UCI put a stop to that. I hope that whoever wins the Gila this year won't be remember as the guy that won the year that Levi, Lance and Chris weren't allowed to race.
Friday, April 24, 2009
So Much Drama in the LBC...
Simeoni steamed at Giro snub
Probably the best headline velonews.com has ever written. I think the reason I find it so awesome is because I have an assumption in my brain that the term "steamed" isn't one used by Italians. I have no evidence to back this up, but I'm sticking by my assumption of ignorance.
This is sort of funny on another level because as an American cycling fan and more importantly a Lance Armstrong cycling fan, I'm pretty much programmed to hate this guy. Simeoni for a long time was the guy in the professional peloton who bad mouthed everybody else in the sport of doping. Anytime somebody won, Simeoni would make public statements that the guy was on the juice. Of course he made these accusations towards Lance and anybody that's seen Lance in a press conference when he's angry knows he's not always a nice guy.
There was that one little incident in I believe the 2005 Tour de France when after making more doping accusations Simeoni tried to get into a break away. After bridging up he looked over his shoulder and saw that he'd been followed by a yellow jersey. My intention here isn't to get all cycling dork on you, anymore than I already am, but if you aren't in the know, a break with the yellow jersey stands about a 0% chance of surviving. The rest of the field simply won't let the yellow jersey ride up the road. The rest of the guys in the break see Lance and all exclaim, "what the hell are you doing here?" Probably in like 10 languages and what they actually said may or may not translate in that exact way. None the less Lance calmly explains that as long as Simeoni is in the group, he was going to be there too. If Simeoni went back to the peloton, he'd happily drop back as well. They voted and Simeoni was sent back. These kinds of decisions about who can stay in a group happen all the time, it usually doesn't involve quite the display of power that Lance threw down in this particular case.
Of course later that day Simeoni was all upset and crying about how Lance was hurting his chances of making a living and that he was a big Texas bully. Lance made it clear that he was basically protecting the interest of the group. Nobody in the peloton wants the guy that constantly bashes them to win, so he was making sure he didn't.
So, back to present day and Simeoni finds himself as the current Italian national champion on a smaller tier 2 pro squad. There are so many bike teams in the world that want to come to these big races that very, very few tier 2 teams actually get an invite. Simeoni's squad was left off that list for the Giro this May and of course he's upset again. He thinks the race is disrespecting him by not having the Italian national champ in their country's grand tour. Maybe I just don't like the guy but I don't see his point. It's not the national championship race, it's the Giro, they are totally different. If he wanted to ensure his presence in the Giro maybe he should have taken a contract with a team that would be big enough to get an invite.
When Lance announced his comeback and originally said the Giro would be his main goal there were about two weeks of articles where Simeoni was asked how he felt about it and if he thought there'd be any more battles on the road. Both parties stayed pretty neutral, but I am hoping beyond hope at this point that Simeoni starts crying conspiracy theory about his exclusion.
I mean, it only makes sense that Lance would keep him out!
Probably the best headline velonews.com has ever written. I think the reason I find it so awesome is because I have an assumption in my brain that the term "steamed" isn't one used by Italians. I have no evidence to back this up, but I'm sticking by my assumption of ignorance.
This is sort of funny on another level because as an American cycling fan and more importantly a Lance Armstrong cycling fan, I'm pretty much programmed to hate this guy. Simeoni for a long time was the guy in the professional peloton who bad mouthed everybody else in the sport of doping. Anytime somebody won, Simeoni would make public statements that the guy was on the juice. Of course he made these accusations towards Lance and anybody that's seen Lance in a press conference when he's angry knows he's not always a nice guy.
There was that one little incident in I believe the 2005 Tour de France when after making more doping accusations Simeoni tried to get into a break away. After bridging up he looked over his shoulder and saw that he'd been followed by a yellow jersey. My intention here isn't to get all cycling dork on you, anymore than I already am, but if you aren't in the know, a break with the yellow jersey stands about a 0% chance of surviving. The rest of the field simply won't let the yellow jersey ride up the road. The rest of the guys in the break see Lance and all exclaim, "what the hell are you doing here?" Probably in like 10 languages and what they actually said may or may not translate in that exact way. None the less Lance calmly explains that as long as Simeoni is in the group, he was going to be there too. If Simeoni went back to the peloton, he'd happily drop back as well. They voted and Simeoni was sent back. These kinds of decisions about who can stay in a group happen all the time, it usually doesn't involve quite the display of power that Lance threw down in this particular case.
Of course later that day Simeoni was all upset and crying about how Lance was hurting his chances of making a living and that he was a big Texas bully. Lance made it clear that he was basically protecting the interest of the group. Nobody in the peloton wants the guy that constantly bashes them to win, so he was making sure he didn't.
So, back to present day and Simeoni finds himself as the current Italian national champion on a smaller tier 2 pro squad. There are so many bike teams in the world that want to come to these big races that very, very few tier 2 teams actually get an invite. Simeoni's squad was left off that list for the Giro this May and of course he's upset again. He thinks the race is disrespecting him by not having the Italian national champ in their country's grand tour. Maybe I just don't like the guy but I don't see his point. It's not the national championship race, it's the Giro, they are totally different. If he wanted to ensure his presence in the Giro maybe he should have taken a contract with a team that would be big enough to get an invite.
When Lance announced his comeback and originally said the Giro would be his main goal there were about two weeks of articles where Simeoni was asked how he felt about it and if he thought there'd be any more battles on the road. Both parties stayed pretty neutral, but I am hoping beyond hope at this point that Simeoni starts crying conspiracy theory about his exclusion.
I mean, it only makes sense that Lance would keep him out!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Back to Back Fake Holidays!
Fake Holiday #1: Earth Day.
What the heck is Earth Day besides a chance for crazy recycle nazi's to send office wide emails out to everyone to remind them it's Earth Day and then make additional suggestions about things you can do to help save the planet. If I wanted to constantly hear about how to save the polar ice caps or my carbon footprint I'd have applied to work for Al Gore.
I responded to our office wide email by saying I only observe holidays that come with a paid day off from work. That was followed up with a request not to pro-create. Which, I thought was pretty funny.
However, I did do my part. I saved water by refraining from washing my hands every time I went to the bathroom.
Fake Holiday #2: Bring your Kid to Work Day.
In my opinion, this sounds terrible. Let's face it. Unless your a fireman or a professional athlete there isn't a lot you do on a daily basis that keeps you entertained. Imagine having your kid sit there and watch you do it!
The good people at someecards.com have posted a few cards for the occasion that I think sum things up better than I can. And I clearly think I'm pretty good at summing.
What the heck is Earth Day besides a chance for crazy recycle nazi's to send office wide emails out to everyone to remind them it's Earth Day and then make additional suggestions about things you can do to help save the planet. If I wanted to constantly hear about how to save the polar ice caps or my carbon footprint I'd have applied to work for Al Gore.
I responded to our office wide email by saying I only observe holidays that come with a paid day off from work. That was followed up with a request not to pro-create. Which, I thought was pretty funny.
However, I did do my part. I saved water by refraining from washing my hands every time I went to the bathroom.
Fake Holiday #2: Bring your Kid to Work Day.
In my opinion, this sounds terrible. Let's face it. Unless your a fireman or a professional athlete there isn't a lot you do on a daily basis that keeps you entertained. Imagine having your kid sit there and watch you do it!
The good people at someecards.com have posted a few cards for the occasion that I think sum things up better than I can. And I clearly think I'm pretty good at summing.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Picture test
Jill's solution to not having a working blender but being determined to make a milkshake!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Why is there no blogger app?
I realize I have now either entered a whole new level of dork or, well that's probably the only real explanation but why is there no app or at least an iPhone optimized version of the website for me to get my blogging fix in while away from my computer? Google has all sorts if other apps that vary widely in there actual value of utility but no blogger app! WTF? Ok. That might be abut much but it does seem a bit odd. Netflix needs to get on it too!
I want this as my iphone background
so if I post the images I want on here I can access them. I realize, this isn't interesting, but maybe you will think these images are cool too?
They forgot about gambling!
I recently came across a link to the above video and of course I have some thoughts.
1) Lifehouse isn't a christian rock band. It was always my impression this song was about a girl, not Jesus. So, I did a quick bit of research. According to Wikipedia the genre's they fall under are punk, post grunge, crap like that. Not Christian. It says they started as a "Christian Band" but if they didn't stick with that because of the money then the irony of using their songs for that skit is even better.
2) If you can make it all the way through, which, really, it's tough, the guy who hands her the knife and gun totally tosses her across the stage in the battle scene.
3) Everybody knows that Jesus has a beard and long hair.
4) Everybody also knows that Jesus wore linen, not choir robes made of polyester.
5) Why does Jesus waist his energy with the fake tug-o-war thing. I mean, he's all powerful right, zap people with lightening bolts or demonstrate your league leading rebounding boxing out technique a little sooner.
6) Everybody knows that wanting to be a model and drinking beer leads to suicide. Duh!
7) I love when the people in the crowd start to cheer. As if Jesus wasn't going to win the whole time!
Friday, April 17, 2009
My Latest Bio
Whenever I'm asked to write a Bio for a company I'm working for I take it as a challenge to point out odd things that I've done that are far from important, but completely factual. This morning I was greeted by an email asking for a bio that would go in a newsletter. This is what I came up with:
From an early age I had my eye on the prize. 1988 was the first year I tasted victory when my car crushed the competition to become the overall Champion at the South Hill Boy Scouts Pine Box Derby races. Still, that wasn’t enough to satisfy my insatiable appetite for success so I went on to dominate the South Hill 1 mile youth fun run for 3 consecutive years while in third through fifth grades. Wanting to be a well rounded individual I decided to take some time and focus my life on charity. However, my competitive spirit got the best of me even while helping others. In 4th grade I was honored with the “Most Valuable Jumper” award after raising the most money for the Dupont Elementary Jump Rope for Heart. As I matured I decided it was nice to let others have a taste of victory and backed off of my accomplishments showing my humble side. In 8th grade however I needed to remind the world of my greatness. I did so by winning both the Mecklenburg County Math and Science Fair with some break through research in Statistics and Optical Illusions as well as taking gold in the Virginia FFA Meat Judging competition. Few people can say they lead all of NCAA Baseball with a perfect 1.000 batting average over several weeks, but I can. After hanging up the cleats to concentrate on my studies I was asked to use my wealth of basketball knowledge to steer the ship of the AOPi Intramural team. With my guidance those girls went on to win 3 straight All Campus Championships. It was a dynasty of domination that some people compare to the New England Patriots, but I don’t want to get carried away.
Jill says it sounds too cocky if you don't know that I'm being sarcastic. I think she's right, but I also think that's the point.
From an early age I had my eye on the prize. 1988 was the first year I tasted victory when my car crushed the competition to become the overall Champion at the South Hill Boy Scouts Pine Box Derby races. Still, that wasn’t enough to satisfy my insatiable appetite for success so I went on to dominate the South Hill 1 mile youth fun run for 3 consecutive years while in third through fifth grades. Wanting to be a well rounded individual I decided to take some time and focus my life on charity. However, my competitive spirit got the best of me even while helping others. In 4th grade I was honored with the “Most Valuable Jumper” award after raising the most money for the Dupont Elementary Jump Rope for Heart. As I matured I decided it was nice to let others have a taste of victory and backed off of my accomplishments showing my humble side. In 8th grade however I needed to remind the world of my greatness. I did so by winning both the Mecklenburg County Math and Science Fair with some break through research in Statistics and Optical Illusions as well as taking gold in the Virginia FFA Meat Judging competition. Few people can say they lead all of NCAA Baseball with a perfect 1.000 batting average over several weeks, but I can. After hanging up the cleats to concentrate on my studies I was asked to use my wealth of basketball knowledge to steer the ship of the AOPi Intramural team. With my guidance those girls went on to win 3 straight All Campus Championships. It was a dynasty of domination that some people compare to the New England Patriots, but I don’t want to get carried away.
Jill says it sounds too cocky if you don't know that I'm being sarcastic. I think she's right, but I also think that's the point.
1 Post. 3 Topics. Unlimited Awesome?
#1: Remember when Michael Rasmussen was kicked out of the 07 Tour de France, not for doping, but because he was reported to have been spotted training in "plain clothes?" At the time there were a few circulating stories of why, but Rasmussen's argument was consistently that it was the only way he could train without being hassled by cycling fans out on the road as it's clearly easy to spot and recognize these guys in their team kits. The only other people that wear full team kits are fat rich dudes and nobody's mistaking them for featherlight KOM champs.
Since Lance's comeback he has consistently been training in everything OTHER than his Astana team kit. It was said that part of his comeback bid to raise awareness for the global fight against cancer would allow him to wear LiveStrong kits in training, but Astana kits to race. Well, that made sense, especially when the pictures from the team camp showed up online and it's not like he was a hard guy to spot and the message seemed a good one.
However, recently, from his very own twitter updates I've seen multiple pictures where Lance is all kitted up, but wearing either LiveStrong or Astama team issue gear.
This puzzled me. So I took back at the old story and realized the "plain clothing" that was made such a fuss about wasn't the real issue at all. The reason Rasmussen was kicked out of the Tour was because he said he'd be in Mexico City for training, when he was actually some place in Europe. So his plain clothing was simply a means of disguise to keep his location a secret. But, he was spotted and it was reported and later his manager/trainer admitted he had been providing him with doping products. I realized the difference is the pros can train in whatever they want, as long as they are really where they say they area. And with about 10 twitter updates per day, Lance isn't trying to hide from anybody!
Why's this important? It's not.
#2 Tyler Hamilton tests positive again and will decide retire. I mean he's 38 so an 8 year ban is essentially a life timer for him. The story is reported that he quit his anti-depression meds cold turkey and resorted to some over the counter anti-depressants that included some substance that is on the banned list.
Unlike last time Hamilton says he knew it was in there and took it anyway. However, the performance enhancing properties of this supplement are clearly questionable as Hamilton finished 2nd to last in the Tour of California when he was on the stuff and with no real results coming after.
Either way, I think it's sort of a sad story and I was hoping for Tyler that he'd finish his career with the stars and stripes jersey on his back. But, it sounds like there's a bit bigger issues here than whether or not Hamilton is using doping agents for performance. I love cycling, but it's not the most important thing in the world. I wish Tyler nothing but the very best and I hope he can seek treatment for his depression.
For a professional journalist's story and not mine, click here.
#3
This morning on Good Morning America they showed a clip of these sorts of shots and asked if they were fake. Of course they aren't fake. What they aren't are first time attempts. Anybody, with an sort of athleticism can make these shots give an unlimited number of attempts. Why do you need at least a little athleticism? Because you're going to have to make adjustments based on misses. Not to mention throwing a basketball the length of the court isn't easy.
I will point out though, the kid who uses the bat to hit the ball should be careful. I got 18 stitches above my right eye in 7th grade doing that.
Have a great Friday everyone!
Since Lance's comeback he has consistently been training in everything OTHER than his Astana team kit. It was said that part of his comeback bid to raise awareness for the global fight against cancer would allow him to wear LiveStrong kits in training, but Astana kits to race. Well, that made sense, especially when the pictures from the team camp showed up online and it's not like he was a hard guy to spot and the message seemed a good one.
However, recently, from his very own twitter updates I've seen multiple pictures where Lance is all kitted up, but wearing either LiveStrong or Astama team issue gear.
This puzzled me. So I took back at the old story and realized the "plain clothing" that was made such a fuss about wasn't the real issue at all. The reason Rasmussen was kicked out of the Tour was because he said he'd be in Mexico City for training, when he was actually some place in Europe. So his plain clothing was simply a means of disguise to keep his location a secret. But, he was spotted and it was reported and later his manager/trainer admitted he had been providing him with doping products. I realized the difference is the pros can train in whatever they want, as long as they are really where they say they area. And with about 10 twitter updates per day, Lance isn't trying to hide from anybody!
Why's this important? It's not.
#2 Tyler Hamilton tests positive again and will decide retire. I mean he's 38 so an 8 year ban is essentially a life timer for him. The story is reported that he quit his anti-depression meds cold turkey and resorted to some over the counter anti-depressants that included some substance that is on the banned list.
Unlike last time Hamilton says he knew it was in there and took it anyway. However, the performance enhancing properties of this supplement are clearly questionable as Hamilton finished 2nd to last in the Tour of California when he was on the stuff and with no real results coming after.
Either way, I think it's sort of a sad story and I was hoping for Tyler that he'd finish his career with the stars and stripes jersey on his back. But, it sounds like there's a bit bigger issues here than whether or not Hamilton is using doping agents for performance. I love cycling, but it's not the most important thing in the world. I wish Tyler nothing but the very best and I hope he can seek treatment for his depression.
For a professional journalist's story and not mine, click here.
#3
This morning on Good Morning America they showed a clip of these sorts of shots and asked if they were fake. Of course they aren't fake. What they aren't are first time attempts. Anybody, with an sort of athleticism can make these shots give an unlimited number of attempts. Why do you need at least a little athleticism? Because you're going to have to make adjustments based on misses. Not to mention throwing a basketball the length of the court isn't easy.
I will point out though, the kid who uses the bat to hit the ball should be careful. I got 18 stitches above my right eye in 7th grade doing that.
Have a great Friday everyone!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Top of Palomar, 2009 ToC
Palomar Mountain, from the Mavic moto from CycleTo on Vimeo.
At :45 look on the left hand side. Tall guy, B Sample Kit, really attractive!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Myth of the Ice Bath Busted!
Back in high school whenever I had some sort of injury the first thing we did was ice it. Then, after a few days there'd be the dreaded ice bath and warm bath alternating plunges. The theory behind this process seems simple enough and even makes logical sense; the ice bath slows swelling and the contrasting warm water helps to speed up blood flow and speed recovery of damaged muscle and tissue.
I have pretty much always sworn by this treatment. I've told plenty of friends to do this for various injuries, but, to be honest, I've also always wondered why I never read anything proving it's scientific merit. I always assumed there was nothing circulating because it was such an old method that it was simply accepted as effective.
Today, upon reading this article my mind has been changed. The reason there was no scientific evidence floating around about the effectiveness of ice baths was because nobody had really done the study. As complex as our training systems can be and as much as science has told us about how the body works under loads, it's fascinating to me that there are still basic ideas being tested.
I'm not sure this article is telling us that ice in general is overrated to help with injury. But I'm also not sure if it isn't saying that either. As someone who "used" to swear by the ice/heat method I can tell you that my elbow in high school seemed to bounce back much faster while using it.
Was it mental? Did my elbow recover quicker because I expected it to? If so, is that enough to justify using an ice bath or some other form of recovery that may not be scientifically sound but sure does make you feel better? That's probably a question more for sports psychology than exercise physiology and is not what I'd like to specialize in. But, it is an interesting idea!
One things for sure, under no circumstance will you see me climbing into a bathtub filled with cold water and ice EVER again! That is a miserable experience I now have justification to avoid!
I have pretty much always sworn by this treatment. I've told plenty of friends to do this for various injuries, but, to be honest, I've also always wondered why I never read anything proving it's scientific merit. I always assumed there was nothing circulating because it was such an old method that it was simply accepted as effective.
Today, upon reading this article my mind has been changed. The reason there was no scientific evidence floating around about the effectiveness of ice baths was because nobody had really done the study. As complex as our training systems can be and as much as science has told us about how the body works under loads, it's fascinating to me that there are still basic ideas being tested.
I'm not sure this article is telling us that ice in general is overrated to help with injury. But I'm also not sure if it isn't saying that either. As someone who "used" to swear by the ice/heat method I can tell you that my elbow in high school seemed to bounce back much faster while using it.
Was it mental? Did my elbow recover quicker because I expected it to? If so, is that enough to justify using an ice bath or some other form of recovery that may not be scientifically sound but sure does make you feel better? That's probably a question more for sports psychology than exercise physiology and is not what I'd like to specialize in. But, it is an interesting idea!
One things for sure, under no circumstance will you see me climbing into a bathtub filled with cold water and ice EVER again! That is a miserable experience I now have justification to avoid!
Monday, April 13, 2009
When Animals Act Like Animals
I apologize for the non English video but I use what youtube gives.
I remember a few years ago when Gilbert Arenas wrote on his blog during shark week that it wasn't an attack if you went in the ocean. It was trespassing. If the shark knocks on your door, comes in your house while you're watching TV and bites you, then it's an attack. If you're in the ocean, you're trespassing.
I can't help but feel the same way about this video. Since this video isn't in English, and maybe you didn't see it, allow me to briefly explain in bullet format.
- Stupid women decides she wants to go "swimming."
- Stupid women climbs over the barracade to achieve this goal.
- Stupid woman jumps into Polar Bear lair.
- Stupid woman swims to rock and Polar Bear welcomes her with a high five.
- People scream and try to rescue her.
- All three Polar Bears come over to see what's up.
- One of them decides to see if she's worth eating.
- Eventually, she's rescued and thankfully, arrested.
The exception I take with the story is the same one that Gilbert took with shark week. This lady is hardly being "attacked." She went into the Polar Bear lair for a swim, and the Polar Bears decided they wanted to play. Sure that "high five" probably wasn't intended as a warm greeting and invitation for tea, but, I'm also pretty sure the Polar Bear wasn't sure what the hell was going on, and decided it needed to protect itself and it's homies.
While watching this story, my girlfriend agreed with me that it wasn't an attack, but asked what verb I would use instead. Initially, I said they should have simply described it as the woman gets polar "beared," since they were simply doing what they do. But, after some thought, maybe describing the whole scene in a manner of self defense is probably more accurate.
Either way, one thing's for sure. If you keep your dumb ass out of the Polar Bear feeding tank, your ass doesn't get confused for food.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Parking and the Urban Life
If you live in the city and are always parking on the street then in at least a bit of your daily happiness hinges on the space you find to park. I don't mean in a manic way, but when you find a spot that is right in front of your destination it definitely makes everything else that much better. At the same time, if you have to search for a spot for a half hour and then are forced to settle for a space that isn't close to where you want to be, it bums you out, at least while you're walking to and from your car.
Since moving to San Francisco I have been introduced to something that I never really noticed back east. Every single house or apartment building has a drive way and of course, you can't park in front of this drive way. At first that may make sense, but then consider the last time you were trying to park in the city and took for granted that the entire block was cars, bumper to bumper. That doesn't happen here. More often than not a city block here will accommodate about half the cars that it would back east simply due to all of the driveways. With all those extra cars left to look for less spaces, it can be quite the adventure.
As someone who likes to be independent parking in the city relies far too heavily on others than I'm really comfortable with. This may not make sense, so allow me to explain. When you have limited space available, that space is at a premium (And you never thought simple supply and demand from ECON 101 would come in handy). For parking to work most efficiently people must only take the amount of space that is necessary for their car. However, as most of you know, this is rarely the case, and this drives me insane. Since moving to the city with a car I've changed the answer to "what super power would I like to have." It is now the ability to move parked cars closer together to create space for me to park.
When I drive to work I still have to park on the street. Our office is in a shopping district and we don't have parking spaces for everybody that works here. There is a street behind our office that has open parking about 3 blocks away. However, the side streets that make those blocks have open parking on one side, but not both. Available spots on these streets is at a premium due to the fact that everybody is lazy and wants to walk as little as possible. My morning is made when I can park on the first street. It's generally the highlight of at least the first half of my day.
The last two mornings my soul has been crushed by the asshole owner of this car (see picture below) who apparently either never took or failed ECON 101. This person clearly doesn't understand how simple supply and demand relates to urban parking and is too selfish to ensure that another spot is available for another person behind them. There is also the chance that they are protecting their car by parking like this so there isn't space for someone to bump it when trying to squeeze in. If this is the case, buy a cheaper car if you're going to be parking on the street all the time. All this person would have to do is pull up to where their bumper is in line with where the red paint begins. That's it! If they did that, another spot would be available for someone to park. I'm considering drawing this person a supply and demand graph and leaving it under their windshield wiper to illustrate how their messing up the, "rotation," if you will.
As I've so carefully illustrated for you, all this person has to do is pull forward along the red arrow. If they did that, a spot of more than ample size would be available behind. With the current parking arrangement only a smart car could fit either in front or behind. And since I'm writing this post out of totally selfish annoyed reasons I'd like to point out that I don't drive a smart car.
*Using the paint brush in Microsoft Paint with the touch pad on a laptop is very hard. However, that's still sadly close to what my handwriting looks like.
Since moving to San Francisco I have been introduced to something that I never really noticed back east. Every single house or apartment building has a drive way and of course, you can't park in front of this drive way. At first that may make sense, but then consider the last time you were trying to park in the city and took for granted that the entire block was cars, bumper to bumper. That doesn't happen here. More often than not a city block here will accommodate about half the cars that it would back east simply due to all of the driveways. With all those extra cars left to look for less spaces, it can be quite the adventure.
As someone who likes to be independent parking in the city relies far too heavily on others than I'm really comfortable with. This may not make sense, so allow me to explain. When you have limited space available, that space is at a premium (And you never thought simple supply and demand from ECON 101 would come in handy). For parking to work most efficiently people must only take the amount of space that is necessary for their car. However, as most of you know, this is rarely the case, and this drives me insane. Since moving to the city with a car I've changed the answer to "what super power would I like to have." It is now the ability to move parked cars closer together to create space for me to park.
When I drive to work I still have to park on the street. Our office is in a shopping district and we don't have parking spaces for everybody that works here. There is a street behind our office that has open parking about 3 blocks away. However, the side streets that make those blocks have open parking on one side, but not both. Available spots on these streets is at a premium due to the fact that everybody is lazy and wants to walk as little as possible. My morning is made when I can park on the first street. It's generally the highlight of at least the first half of my day.
The last two mornings my soul has been crushed by the asshole owner of this car (see picture below) who apparently either never took or failed ECON 101. This person clearly doesn't understand how simple supply and demand relates to urban parking and is too selfish to ensure that another spot is available for another person behind them. There is also the chance that they are protecting their car by parking like this so there isn't space for someone to bump it when trying to squeeze in. If this is the case, buy a cheaper car if you're going to be parking on the street all the time. All this person would have to do is pull up to where their bumper is in line with where the red paint begins. That's it! If they did that, another spot would be available for someone to park. I'm considering drawing this person a supply and demand graph and leaving it under their windshield wiper to illustrate how their messing up the, "rotation," if you will.
As I've so carefully illustrated for you, all this person has to do is pull forward along the red arrow. If they did that, a spot of more than ample size would be available behind. With the current parking arrangement only a smart car could fit either in front or behind. And since I'm writing this post out of totally selfish annoyed reasons I'd like to point out that I don't drive a smart car.
*Using the paint brush in Microsoft Paint with the touch pad on a laptop is very hard. However, that's still sadly close to what my handwriting looks like.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Armstrong vs. the French, Round 47...
Here we go again. There's a new report that has hit the cycling media that says Lance violated rules at a random drug testing in Southern France. If you're interested in the latest on the story from a source other than myself, click, here.
Basically, here's the run down. Lance was met in the driveway immediately after a long training session by a guy who claimed to work for a French lab and he was there to get samples for a random drug test. Lance didn't recognize the guy, and so understandably given his relationship with all things French he decided that it'd probably be a good idea to contact the UCI, WADA and maybe even the Pope to find out if this guy was legit, or a Richard Virenque supporter looking to take home a personal souvenir. It should probably also be pointed out that this the first time that the lab itself as sent someone to collect his DNA. Usually, it's a person who works for the doping authorities.
In the initial stories that came out, a complaint was filed by the lab guy saying that Armstrong was "mean" to him(That was my interpretation anyway). According to Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, who was there as well, they asked if Lance could go in and shower while they checked this guys credentials. He apparently said that was fine, but now, that's exactly where the trouble comes in.
When I first read this story I immediately thought that getting out of the guys sight and going to shower seemed a bit suspicious. I was reminded of the movie The Program where the roid raged middle linebacker goes into the toilet stall and pulls a clean vile urine out of the toilet paper holder. Then I realized this couldn't really happen as they not only want Lance's pee, but also blood and hair. Unless there is an exact body double with Lance's DNA walking around, you're not getting someone else's blood and hair without it actually being him. Shower or not.
In my humble opinion this seems like the French taking any small opening they can to essentially try and rub Lance's name in the dirt. They can't possibly build a case on this bit of evidence, but I'm sure they'd like nothing more than to keep him out of the Tour de France this year. It's no secret they don't like him and have always assumed he was riding under the influence. I think it drives them insane that whether he was or wasn't they were never able to prove it.
I don't blame Lance one bit for not just pulling out his junk and peeing in a cup for some random French dude who shows up to his house. But, maybe next time, wait and shower after they've taken the samples. At least then the worst offense they could write in the report would be your smell. Then again, they might not notice, he was French...
Basically, here's the run down. Lance was met in the driveway immediately after a long training session by a guy who claimed to work for a French lab and he was there to get samples for a random drug test. Lance didn't recognize the guy, and so understandably given his relationship with all things French he decided that it'd probably be a good idea to contact the UCI, WADA and maybe even the Pope to find out if this guy was legit, or a Richard Virenque supporter looking to take home a personal souvenir. It should probably also be pointed out that this the first time that the lab itself as sent someone to collect his DNA. Usually, it's a person who works for the doping authorities.
In the initial stories that came out, a complaint was filed by the lab guy saying that Armstrong was "mean" to him(That was my interpretation anyway). According to Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, who was there as well, they asked if Lance could go in and shower while they checked this guys credentials. He apparently said that was fine, but now, that's exactly where the trouble comes in.
When I first read this story I immediately thought that getting out of the guys sight and going to shower seemed a bit suspicious. I was reminded of the movie The Program where the roid raged middle linebacker goes into the toilet stall and pulls a clean vile urine out of the toilet paper holder. Then I realized this couldn't really happen as they not only want Lance's pee, but also blood and hair. Unless there is an exact body double with Lance's DNA walking around, you're not getting someone else's blood and hair without it actually being him. Shower or not.
In my humble opinion this seems like the French taking any small opening they can to essentially try and rub Lance's name in the dirt. They can't possibly build a case on this bit of evidence, but I'm sure they'd like nothing more than to keep him out of the Tour de France this year. It's no secret they don't like him and have always assumed he was riding under the influence. I think it drives them insane that whether he was or wasn't they were never able to prove it.
I don't blame Lance one bit for not just pulling out his junk and peeing in a cup for some random French dude who shows up to his house. But, maybe next time, wait and shower after they've taken the samples. At least then the worst offense they could write in the report would be your smell. Then again, they might not notice, he was French...
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Blake Griffin's Going Pro?
Say it ain't so! Actually, who could possibly be surprised? And, as a loyal fan of all things Texas and hater of all things Oklahoma I say good riddance!
I am not here to make fun of Mr. Griffin. I think it's obvious that his lack of good sense to go to school in a state other than Oklahoma speaks for itself. What I am here to do is wonder why we need to have an official press conference for his to declare his intention to enter the NBA draft. This isn't a surprise. Everybody knew coming into the season that it would be his last. Then, as he dominated pretty much everyone all season it was simply a question of when would Oklahoma lose in the tourney and give him the opportunity to secure his agent. Who I am also pretty sure has been around since he was, like, 9, give or take a few years.
Here is what I predict he'll say in his press conference, which is really why he doesn't need to have one. Please keep in mind these are not direct quotes. To be honest I'm not even sure if it's taken place yet or not as I write this. I just know I read a headline that says he called a press conference. These will be the highlights:
- He'll thank god. Because, well, whether he believes in god or not, it's what you do apparently.
- He'll thank his parents. Which he should. Except he should point out that he isn't happy with how close his eyes to each other.
- He'll thank Coach Campbell for giving him the opportunity to grow as a player. Without his two years at Oklahoma and under Coach Campbell he wouldn't be the player he is today.
- He'll thank all of the Sooner Fans that supported him throughout his two years. (Which, let's be honest, probably wasn't so hard to do.)
- He'll thank the entire University of Oklahoma for giving him such a great two years. And if it weren't for the millions of dollars in endorsements that he isn't able to cash in on while playing as a Sooner, he'd totally stay.
I wish he'd quote Carmello Anthony after he single handedly won the NCAA tournament for Syracuse when he said, "I thought college was a 4 years." But, for this to happen he'd need to open with that line. And then, just like Carmello, almost immediately follow it up with his intentions to enter the draft.
I am not hating on this kid! If I were Blake Griffin or any other kid in college with a high level prospect of playing in the NBA I'd get out of college as quickly as possible! Why risk injury? There's no age limit on getting a degree and I'm sure that Oklahoma would take him back with open arms whenever he's done playing basketball. To pass up on the immediate opportunity to make a living playing basketball would simply be irresponsible.
I am a firm believer that the NBA rule requiring a year of college is total bullshit. Not only does it hurt college basketball and graduation rates of teams, but it also limits one's ability to earn a living. What if that kid who can't enter the draft right out of high school get's injured his freshman year and can never play again? His signing bonus, whatever the size could have maybe held him over while he figured out his next move. But, that's probably a whole different entry in and of itself.
So, Mr. Griffin, and the rest of the current NCAA class that will declare their intentions to enter the draft over the next few weeks, good luck! Save us all the time and have your newly acquired publicist just send out a press release instead. Oh, and be sure to thank your "tutor" while you're at it.
And, just because videos and pictures are fun, I found this highlight real on youtube. This guy is incredible! He should have gone to Mason!
I am not here to make fun of Mr. Griffin. I think it's obvious that his lack of good sense to go to school in a state other than Oklahoma speaks for itself. What I am here to do is wonder why we need to have an official press conference for his to declare his intention to enter the NBA draft. This isn't a surprise. Everybody knew coming into the season that it would be his last. Then, as he dominated pretty much everyone all season it was simply a question of when would Oklahoma lose in the tourney and give him the opportunity to secure his agent. Who I am also pretty sure has been around since he was, like, 9, give or take a few years.
Here is what I predict he'll say in his press conference, which is really why he doesn't need to have one. Please keep in mind these are not direct quotes. To be honest I'm not even sure if it's taken place yet or not as I write this. I just know I read a headline that says he called a press conference. These will be the highlights:
- He'll thank god. Because, well, whether he believes in god or not, it's what you do apparently.
- He'll thank his parents. Which he should. Except he should point out that he isn't happy with how close his eyes to each other.
- He'll thank Coach Campbell for giving him the opportunity to grow as a player. Without his two years at Oklahoma and under Coach Campbell he wouldn't be the player he is today.
- He'll thank all of the Sooner Fans that supported him throughout his two years. (Which, let's be honest, probably wasn't so hard to do.)
- He'll thank the entire University of Oklahoma for giving him such a great two years. And if it weren't for the millions of dollars in endorsements that he isn't able to cash in on while playing as a Sooner, he'd totally stay.
I wish he'd quote Carmello Anthony after he single handedly won the NCAA tournament for Syracuse when he said, "I thought college was a 4 years." But, for this to happen he'd need to open with that line. And then, just like Carmello, almost immediately follow it up with his intentions to enter the draft.
I am not hating on this kid! If I were Blake Griffin or any other kid in college with a high level prospect of playing in the NBA I'd get out of college as quickly as possible! Why risk injury? There's no age limit on getting a degree and I'm sure that Oklahoma would take him back with open arms whenever he's done playing basketball. To pass up on the immediate opportunity to make a living playing basketball would simply be irresponsible.
I am a firm believer that the NBA rule requiring a year of college is total bullshit. Not only does it hurt college basketball and graduation rates of teams, but it also limits one's ability to earn a living. What if that kid who can't enter the draft right out of high school get's injured his freshman year and can never play again? His signing bonus, whatever the size could have maybe held him over while he figured out his next move. But, that's probably a whole different entry in and of itself.
So, Mr. Griffin, and the rest of the current NCAA class that will declare their intentions to enter the draft over the next few weeks, good luck! Save us all the time and have your newly acquired publicist just send out a press release instead. Oh, and be sure to thank your "tutor" while you're at it.
And, just because videos and pictures are fun, I found this highlight real on youtube. This guy is incredible! He should have gone to Mason!
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Best April Fools Joke
An email sent out to the whole company from the CFO. I was so pissed at first, then it dawned on me after realizing this was not legal.
Hi Everyone,
I noticed this morning that there are still items in the entryway of the office that shouldn’t be there. Given that I do not want to continue to send out emails about this problem, we’ve decided to institute a new policy. If you leave something at the entryway, we’ll deduct $25 from everyone’s paycheck which will go to our general company social fund. There will be one $25 deduction applied on your next paycheck for what happened this week (this does not include the warehouse team).
While it would be great to have more money towards our social time, I think we’d probably all prefer not to have that fund, so I encourage people who have items there to clear them out.
The best part, people rushed to the front to clean it all out! Well done!
Hi Everyone,
I noticed this morning that there are still items in the entryway of the office that shouldn’t be there. Given that I do not want to continue to send out emails about this problem, we’ve decided to institute a new policy. If you leave something at the entryway, we’ll deduct $25 from everyone’s paycheck which will go to our general company social fund. There will be one $25 deduction applied on your next paycheck for what happened this week (this does not include the warehouse team).
While it would be great to have more money towards our social time, I think we’d probably all prefer not to have that fund, so I encourage people who have items there to clear them out.
The best part, people rushed to the front to clean it all out! Well done!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Race Report: Ronde van Brisbane
Ronde was a two day ominium formatted race. I did both days. Here's my recap of what happened.
Day 1, the Crit.
The course was pancake flat and there was no wind. There was a hairpin 180 degree turn that ended up being the biggest feature on the course. Speeds would slow from 28mph going into it to 5mph to go around it and then spring back up again. There were lots of people dragging pedals and clipping wheels in the hairpin. Cat 4's, we're awesome bike handlers apparently.
The other feature of the crit was that there was really only one straight section. While there were only a few actual corners, even including the hairpin, it as always turning somewhere and because we're such good bike handlers it basically means that we have to grab our brakes going into every turn and make the speeds yo-yo as much as possible.
There were two big crashes. I avoided both. The first one I almost go caught up in because the guys closest to it swerved right so hard that I had to lean into one of them to keep us both on course. I am awesome. The second happened on the corner entering the finish straight. No idea what happened but one guy's top tube looked like somebody hit repeatedly with a bat. This crash was apparently ugly as my girlfriend said she actually gasp when it happened. When this crash happened I had already given up and was just making enough effort to stay in contact. I am maybe no so awesome.
I realized about half way through that in order to move up in this race you had to basically put a negative value on all the other lives in the race due to the lack of straights and so many corners. The only way to move up was to dive into the inside line in a corner and hope that you scared the guy who's spot you were trying to take enough to grab his brakes. Maybe that's how racing is supposed to go, but I'm not really willing to cause a massive pile up and risk injurying a bunch of dudes just because I want to move up and try and win this race. Crashes happen, sure, but they don't need to be caused because of sketchy shit. With about 5 laps to go I sprinted down the start/finish to try and move up. I moved up to the top 10 and then by the time we got back to start finish I was in the back half again because of guys diving in corners and people grabbing brakes. After that, I decided I would rather not die, and just finish in the group.
Apparently a bunch of guys were shelled, which I was surprised about because while it was quick, I never felt like it was that fast. Then again, my girlfriend did question whether or not I was even trying because everybody else apparently looked like death and I just looked frustrated.
Day 2, the Circuit.
This course had 1 big downhill, 1 climb and almost no flat. On the 2nd lap two guys attacked at the bottom of the climb. They opened a little gap but not much. Nobody seemed to want to chase so I waited a bit and then went to bridge up to them. There was a lot of racing left in the day and I really didn't then we'd stay away, however, I didn't want to finish this race feeling like I just rode in circles. I wanted to at least say I tried. When I jumped a guy tried to come with me which I thought was good since we'd have 4. However, he couldn't hang on and went back to the pack. When I made it up to the first two guys we had a couple hundred meters I guess heading into the downhill portion. In my opinion we were working pretty well together considering we were doing close to 40mph and all three of us seemed to be totally spun out in our biggest gear. One guy kept yelling to work together, but I don't know what he wanted really. I took over the front and "pulled" the rest of the "descent" and then through the hard right hand turn. When I moved over to let the another guy come through I glanced over my shoulder and saw that we were pretty much all back together so we sat up.
The rest of the race was boring with a lot of moving up on the climb and giving back spots on the descent. Oh, and being marveled on each lap at the various lines guys would chose to ride through the corners on the descent. It seems to me some guys have either never watched a motorcycle race or pros. They also forget that there are at least 75 guys around them that have to adjust their lines when they choose to use 4 to get through a corner.
On the last lap I started the descent about 20 wheels off the front. I thought if I could hold that I'd be able to quickly pass about 10 guys and try and make myself a factor for the finish. Unfortunately I let way too many people pass me on the descent and stuck myself on the left side of the pack on the climb which was the side exposed to the really gusty wind. With no option to work myself to the right I burned all my matches on the bottom half of the climb trying to move up. By the time I was starting to get to where I thought I needed to be for the finishing kick a few guys jumped and I didn't really have much left to follow. I once again watched the win go up to road because I put myself in a plethora of bad spots on the last lap.
Day 1, the Crit.
The course was pancake flat and there was no wind. There was a hairpin 180 degree turn that ended up being the biggest feature on the course. Speeds would slow from 28mph going into it to 5mph to go around it and then spring back up again. There were lots of people dragging pedals and clipping wheels in the hairpin. Cat 4's, we're awesome bike handlers apparently.
The other feature of the crit was that there was really only one straight section. While there were only a few actual corners, even including the hairpin, it as always turning somewhere and because we're such good bike handlers it basically means that we have to grab our brakes going into every turn and make the speeds yo-yo as much as possible.
There were two big crashes. I avoided both. The first one I almost go caught up in because the guys closest to it swerved right so hard that I had to lean into one of them to keep us both on course. I am awesome. The second happened on the corner entering the finish straight. No idea what happened but one guy's top tube looked like somebody hit repeatedly with a bat. This crash was apparently ugly as my girlfriend said she actually gasp when it happened. When this crash happened I had already given up and was just making enough effort to stay in contact. I am maybe no so awesome.
I realized about half way through that in order to move up in this race you had to basically put a negative value on all the other lives in the race due to the lack of straights and so many corners. The only way to move up was to dive into the inside line in a corner and hope that you scared the guy who's spot you were trying to take enough to grab his brakes. Maybe that's how racing is supposed to go, but I'm not really willing to cause a massive pile up and risk injurying a bunch of dudes just because I want to move up and try and win this race. Crashes happen, sure, but they don't need to be caused because of sketchy shit. With about 5 laps to go I sprinted down the start/finish to try and move up. I moved up to the top 10 and then by the time we got back to start finish I was in the back half again because of guys diving in corners and people grabbing brakes. After that, I decided I would rather not die, and just finish in the group.
Apparently a bunch of guys were shelled, which I was surprised about because while it was quick, I never felt like it was that fast. Then again, my girlfriend did question whether or not I was even trying because everybody else apparently looked like death and I just looked frustrated.
Day 2, the Circuit.
This course had 1 big downhill, 1 climb and almost no flat. On the 2nd lap two guys attacked at the bottom of the climb. They opened a little gap but not much. Nobody seemed to want to chase so I waited a bit and then went to bridge up to them. There was a lot of racing left in the day and I really didn't then we'd stay away, however, I didn't want to finish this race feeling like I just rode in circles. I wanted to at least say I tried. When I jumped a guy tried to come with me which I thought was good since we'd have 4. However, he couldn't hang on and went back to the pack. When I made it up to the first two guys we had a couple hundred meters I guess heading into the downhill portion. In my opinion we were working pretty well together considering we were doing close to 40mph and all three of us seemed to be totally spun out in our biggest gear. One guy kept yelling to work together, but I don't know what he wanted really. I took over the front and "pulled" the rest of the "descent" and then through the hard right hand turn. When I moved over to let the another guy come through I glanced over my shoulder and saw that we were pretty much all back together so we sat up.
The rest of the race was boring with a lot of moving up on the climb and giving back spots on the descent. Oh, and being marveled on each lap at the various lines guys would chose to ride through the corners on the descent. It seems to me some guys have either never watched a motorcycle race or pros. They also forget that there are at least 75 guys around them that have to adjust their lines when they choose to use 4 to get through a corner.
On the last lap I started the descent about 20 wheels off the front. I thought if I could hold that I'd be able to quickly pass about 10 guys and try and make myself a factor for the finish. Unfortunately I let way too many people pass me on the descent and stuck myself on the left side of the pack on the climb which was the side exposed to the really gusty wind. With no option to work myself to the right I burned all my matches on the bottom half of the climb trying to move up. By the time I was starting to get to where I thought I needed to be for the finishing kick a few guys jumped and I didn't really have much left to follow. I once again watched the win go up to road because I put myself in a plethora of bad spots on the last lap.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Who Needs Journalists?
Recently I discovered Twitter. It's been out for a while but I didn't really understand how it worked, nor did I make any effort to figure it out. It was probably about the time of the Tour of California that a few cycling websites I go to regularly were using Lance Armstrong's "tweets" (I felt stupid just typing that!) as a quick way to report on his stolen time trial bike. This caught my attention and so I decided to see what this twitter thing was all about.
I've been a member now for about a month I guess and am really blown away by how much information you get from twitter faster than you get from regular news outlets. I discovered most of my favorite cyclists have accounts and while not all of them update often, it's still interesting to get their 140 character snippet of how a race went or who they're training with. General bike geek info that the normal person would find totally uninteresting. For example, Dave Zabriskie's update the other day was, "rode through a town called Bonar." Christian Vande Velde followed up a few hours later with, "Yep, rode through Bonar. It wasn't hard!" Both of these updates, while not useful bits of information, help to remind you that these are just normal guys. Normal guys that find the same things funny that any dude would find funny. Oh, well they're normal guys that ride their bikes very fast!
Shout out to DZ for finishing 3rd overall at Castilla y Leon! Could DZ win the double of both the US Road and Time Trial championships this year? How awesome would that be?
Lance probably updates more than anyone and it's been really interesting following his surgery updates on twitter from him versus what you read on yahoo!sports or other non-cycling reports. Even if they report what he said from his twitter, by checking twitter, you get the info so much faster.
There are arguments out there that the revolution of online communities and social networking is actually tearing people further apart as nobody has to actually interact face to face anymore. I don't know about all that. Nor do I really care. If people want to only exist in cyber space, that's their thing, let them. At the same time, some people see all of these things as another form of media that are driving big time papers out of business. It's unfortunate for the people who have dedicated their lives to journalism, but, I think I learned in ECON 101 that this is basically called competition and so the papers need to figure out a way to compete or, well, you know the rest.
When I first started using twitter I wasn't convinced it was really Lance Armstrong writing those updates, if nothing else because there are so many. The time frame in which an update on his broken collarbone was up after the crash made me think he pulled his iPhone out of his jersey pocket and did it while laying in the ditch. But, after reading enough of them you realize they really are from him. What a great way for him to "communicate" directly to his fans and what a great way for fans to feel connected to someone they admire so much. Without that whole camp in his front yard and wait for him to come outside sort of creepy way that I guess is the alternative.
One of Lance's updates this morning contained this link about twitter, . It's a pretty interesting article about who's really writing updates and who isn't. I think I gotta start following Shaq too!
I've been a member now for about a month I guess and am really blown away by how much information you get from twitter faster than you get from regular news outlets. I discovered most of my favorite cyclists have accounts and while not all of them update often, it's still interesting to get their 140 character snippet of how a race went or who they're training with. General bike geek info that the normal person would find totally uninteresting. For example, Dave Zabriskie's update the other day was, "rode through a town called Bonar." Christian Vande Velde followed up a few hours later with, "Yep, rode through Bonar. It wasn't hard!" Both of these updates, while not useful bits of information, help to remind you that these are just normal guys. Normal guys that find the same things funny that any dude would find funny. Oh, well they're normal guys that ride their bikes very fast!
Shout out to DZ for finishing 3rd overall at Castilla y Leon! Could DZ win the double of both the US Road and Time Trial championships this year? How awesome would that be?
Lance probably updates more than anyone and it's been really interesting following his surgery updates on twitter from him versus what you read on yahoo!sports or other non-cycling reports. Even if they report what he said from his twitter, by checking twitter, you get the info so much faster.
There are arguments out there that the revolution of online communities and social networking is actually tearing people further apart as nobody has to actually interact face to face anymore. I don't know about all that. Nor do I really care. If people want to only exist in cyber space, that's their thing, let them. At the same time, some people see all of these things as another form of media that are driving big time papers out of business. It's unfortunate for the people who have dedicated their lives to journalism, but, I think I learned in ECON 101 that this is basically called competition and so the papers need to figure out a way to compete or, well, you know the rest.
When I first started using twitter I wasn't convinced it was really Lance Armstrong writing those updates, if nothing else because there are so many. The time frame in which an update on his broken collarbone was up after the crash made me think he pulled his iPhone out of his jersey pocket and did it while laying in the ditch. But, after reading enough of them you realize they really are from him. What a great way for him to "communicate" directly to his fans and what a great way for fans to feel connected to someone they admire so much. Without that whole camp in his front yard and wait for him to come outside sort of creepy way that I guess is the alternative.
One of Lance's updates this morning contained this link about twitter, . It's a pretty interesting article about who's really writing updates and who isn't. I think I gotta start following Shaq too!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
My Biggest Critic
When I was kid I was always described as my own worst enemy. I have always been a bit of perfectionist and have always been frustrated by my lack of natural talent at basically every sport I have ever played. I have never lacked a sense of self-realization about my skills. I know I'm never the most athletic or gifted person but that doesn't make it any less frustrating for me when I'm just simply not as good as I want to be. When I was a kid all the way through most of high school, this frustration with myself would often boil over into acting out against others.
If you read this mental vomit of a blog regularly you know that on Tuesday nights I go do this really fast ride at the Port of Oakland. Recently as the weather gets a little better and more people are getting into race shape the group size grows on a weekly basis. This is both good and bad. It's good because it's really cool to see 50-75-100 people out doing this ride. It's bad because when you start adding riders not all of those riders you add should really be riding in that kind of a group. The more people the more dangerous.
It's simply a factor of the culture of cycling, but a lot of the guys who do this ride forget that it is a ride and not a race. That doesn't mean that it should be as fast as possible. But when guys are diving at other people to get them off of wheels on a Tuesday night ride at the Port of Oakland, it starts to get a bit frustrating. Add to the fact that more and more people are showing up and doing these kinds of moves and you start to wonder if the Port ride is really worth it.
Last night, very early in the ride, a guy, in my opinion, stuck me in the wind. He was coming up the inside and when the guy in front of me slowed I moved slightly to the left so not to touch my breaks and this guy immediately moved onto that wheel. This move really annoys me because I did exactly what I was supposed to do to control my speed without having to touch my brakes. Sure there was a slight opening from where he was but I wasn't falling off of the wheel. In fact, had I kept accelerating my right shifter would have hit the guy in front of me in the ass. So I wasn't swinging off opening up a gap. With him now on the wheel that I was on, I'm stuck sitting in the wind. If I had lost position vertically on the wheel, fine, no big deal, it's yours now. But I moved horizontally and so my frustration at this kind of crap happening weekly bubbled over and I yelled at the guy.
We had an "exchange" that went on for probably a minute. He saying he did nothing wrong. Me saying he did. About half way through it dawned on me that even if this guy did take that wheel when he wasn't supposed to, it was still a group ride, and why was I getting so mad about it? I was almost instantly reminded of all the times when I was a kid that my temper did nothing but set me back. I still firmly believe the guys move wasn't needed, but it wasn't worth yelling at him over. I apologized, we shook hands, and I got out of line and went to the back to float there the rest of the night.
After that I just couldn't get myself mentally back into the ride. I was too frustrated at myself for letting something so small infuriate me. I still got a good workout in by towing guys back into the ride and being on the extreme end of the yo-yo out of corners and having to do lots of sprints to catch back on. All was not lost, but it did weigh on my mind for the rest of the night. I hope that guy did genuinely accept my apology.
I guess as I get older I've come to terms with the fact that my natural athletic talent is low and that doesn't frustrate me the same way it used to. But losing my cool over something so pointless beats me up way worse than not hitting a 12' jump shot. Maybe one day I'll get control of both?
If you read this mental vomit of a blog regularly you know that on Tuesday nights I go do this really fast ride at the Port of Oakland. Recently as the weather gets a little better and more people are getting into race shape the group size grows on a weekly basis. This is both good and bad. It's good because it's really cool to see 50-75-100 people out doing this ride. It's bad because when you start adding riders not all of those riders you add should really be riding in that kind of a group. The more people the more dangerous.
It's simply a factor of the culture of cycling, but a lot of the guys who do this ride forget that it is a ride and not a race. That doesn't mean that it should be as fast as possible. But when guys are diving at other people to get them off of wheels on a Tuesday night ride at the Port of Oakland, it starts to get a bit frustrating. Add to the fact that more and more people are showing up and doing these kinds of moves and you start to wonder if the Port ride is really worth it.
Last night, very early in the ride, a guy, in my opinion, stuck me in the wind. He was coming up the inside and when the guy in front of me slowed I moved slightly to the left so not to touch my breaks and this guy immediately moved onto that wheel. This move really annoys me because I did exactly what I was supposed to do to control my speed without having to touch my brakes. Sure there was a slight opening from where he was but I wasn't falling off of the wheel. In fact, had I kept accelerating my right shifter would have hit the guy in front of me in the ass. So I wasn't swinging off opening up a gap. With him now on the wheel that I was on, I'm stuck sitting in the wind. If I had lost position vertically on the wheel, fine, no big deal, it's yours now. But I moved horizontally and so my frustration at this kind of crap happening weekly bubbled over and I yelled at the guy.
We had an "exchange" that went on for probably a minute. He saying he did nothing wrong. Me saying he did. About half way through it dawned on me that even if this guy did take that wheel when he wasn't supposed to, it was still a group ride, and why was I getting so mad about it? I was almost instantly reminded of all the times when I was a kid that my temper did nothing but set me back. I still firmly believe the guys move wasn't needed, but it wasn't worth yelling at him over. I apologized, we shook hands, and I got out of line and went to the back to float there the rest of the night.
After that I just couldn't get myself mentally back into the ride. I was too frustrated at myself for letting something so small infuriate me. I still got a good workout in by towing guys back into the ride and being on the extreme end of the yo-yo out of corners and having to do lots of sprints to catch back on. All was not lost, but it did weigh on my mind for the rest of the night. I hope that guy did genuinely accept my apology.
I guess as I get older I've come to terms with the fact that my natural athletic talent is low and that doesn't frustrate me the same way it used to. But losing my cool over something so pointless beats me up way worse than not hitting a 12' jump shot. Maybe one day I'll get control of both?
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