I Believe Floyd

If you follow cycling and all the related drama you are well aware of the interview that Floyd Landis recently did with Paul Kimmage. I would post the link to the entire 30,000 word un-edited transcript, but, like most things that speak ill of Lance Armstrong, it has been taken down. Or, at least I can't get to it anymore.

When I started reading it I thought there's no way anything new will be said. It'll be the same old Floyd sounding a little bit crazy, but there were parts that completely blew me away. Without access to actually quote them, I'll be paraphrasing as best I can remember so, bear with me.

First, I've always thought that Lance Armstrong doped his way to 7 Tours de France victories. I've had conversations with people as far back as 2004 where I took that exact stance. Whenever he was questioned about it he always took the exact same stance that I did when I was questioned about my fake ID at the age of 19. I would pretend to be completely outraged that anyone would question me. I would act tired of reciting my birth date and address. I would then grab the idea back from the person and insist that I would take my business elsewhere. Sound a bit familiar?

What I didn't ever say was that I blamed him for it, just like I don't blame Floyd, or any other guy who wants to race, much less win, the Tour de France. I've always taken the stance that every single one of us makes some sort of decision at work because that's what we're expected to do or even what we think we have to do to keep our jobs. For some of us those decisions are easy, for others, they are not. One could obviously make comparisons to other professions decisions that need to be made, but that's neither here nor there. For a Pro Tour level cyclist, that's the decision you have to make and I am not about to point the finger at anyone, whichever direction they decide on. So again, I've always thought that Lance doped, just like I always thought everyone else did also, but I never realized how corrupt and just how much of an asshole he is.

There were two main pieces of that interview that stunned me.

1) When Mercury stopped paying Floyd and the UCI wouldn't force the team to pay him out of the bank guarantee and Lance stepped in to tell Floyd to quite down and even apologize because down the road they'd need a favor, ie., make a positive go away like (maybe just like Lance's 1999 test), I was pretty blown away.

So that's how you do it? Wow. Tough to fault anybody for doping when you proceed under the impression that the guys who are meant to govern the sport are complicit in the act. It's one thing if everybody dopes and everybody has the same access to all the same drugs. Then, essentially the playing field is leveled. But, if only the biggest and richest stars can dope without having to worry about a positive test because it can be made to disappear, then the playing field's not really so level is it?

2) People always talk about how much of a difference the dope makes. I've always found that the people talking about this difference aren't the people on the juice and therefore don't have a first hand experience of just how effective the stuff is. The reason for this is pretty obvious; if you are juiced up you can't exactly come out and say how much better you’re riding thanks to the extra blood bag you just shot up the night before. But, in this case, we have Floyd, who has stopped pretending like he was clean and flat out said, it's helpful, but probably not 40% more helpful, which is the made up statistic that is generally thrown around.

Floyd says in the interview that the stuff helps, but you still have good days and bad days. It's no surprise that his incredible ride in stage 17 on the way to Morzine at the 2006 Tour was the day after a transfusion, but, the wattage numbers have been looked at from that day, and it wasn't exactly impressive from the standards of a guy with double the fresh red blood cells in his veins. So, who knows, maybe everybody else was just too tired to chase?

In fact, Floyd says that the guys in the peloton speak pretty openly about what they're doing and that he knew, from speaking to Oscar Pereiro (who denies all of this, obviously) that he still had half a bag of blood to transfuse before the final time trial. If you remember, Floyd ended up beating Pereiro in that time trial by enough to take the yellow jersey back and win the 2006 Tour de France. Floyd doesn't specifically say that he didn't juice more before that last day, but he does say that he knew Pereiro had the bag and that he still wasn't worried because he knew he was just a better time trialist.

Again, this is pretty useful because if the stuff is going to make you 40% better and the guy I need to beat basically has a turbo button and I don't, I'm pretty nervous about my chances. Even with knowing that Pereiro would be juiced up for the final TT, Floyd still knew he could beat him. So is the stuff effective? Of course, but it's probably not the turbo button that everybody thinks it is. Especially if you just go ahead and admit to yourself that everybody else is doing it too.

So again, I believe Floyd. Why? That'd be a good question because he did write a book that I bought that was 100% about how he didn't use drugs. But I believe him because at this point he's giving this information away. We live in a world where TMZ and all the other smut rags are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get first pictures of celebrities kids. This morning I watched another 20 minute piece on GMA about Charlie Sheen. If Floyd wanted to, he could make all of his money back by selling this information to those news outlets about how everybody's cancer hero used drugs. If the person that Floyd is essentially accusing of doping all these years wasn’t a huge celebrity, then there’d be no opportunity to sell it and, there obviously is. But that's not what he's doing. Instead, he sat down with a journalist, answered a ton of questions and then allowed the unedited transcript to be posted online for anybody who was interested to read it.

I'm not sure what implications this has for cycling in America or the world or if at all. The more of this stuff that comes out the more convinced I am that Lance Armstrong is in a ton of trouble. And I also have a feeling that Lance isn't a guy that's going to go down alone which means that all his boys from all of those postal days, which makes up most of the popular US Cyclist (Hincapie, Zabriskie, Vande Velde) probably aren’t sleeping so well either.

I do know that the more I read about all of these exceptions being made of Lance recently it adds a ton of credibility to what Floyd's saying about his power to have the higher ups make positives go away. What exceptions you might ask? When Lance came out of retirement the UCI waived his biological passport requirement so he could race the Tour Down Under. At this year's Tour of California there's another doping requirement being waived for Lance if he wants to race there. I get that race directors would be foolish not to push to have Lance at their race. Any race with Lance is bigger than without. But if the UCI and WADA and any other governing body wants the public to believe that they were and are anything but complicit in the doping issue, these would be good times to tell even Mr. Armstrong that he's not above the law. Or, maybe he is?

Losing Motivation

Back in November I decided I wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon for a really good reason. I want, and always have wanted, one of these:



When I decided to do this I convinced myself that running through the winter would be better than riding through the winter and I've got to tell you, no the weekends, it is. Going out for 10-15 miles in sub freezing temps for a run is a bit easier to do than the equivalent long ride. It's easier to stay warm and besides the occasional 20mph wind gust freezing my face off, I can generally tune out the cold and just run.

When I first started this plan I was able to run outside at lunch. Now it's gotten a bit cold for that considering that I'd have to bring tights and the whole super hero get up to work on a daily basis. The obvious solution to that was run on the treadmill and while that was ok for a while, I'm over it. I just can't seem to get motivated to run on the treadmill at all anymore. This really shouldn't be surprising since it's about the most boring thing you can do. I rode indoors on my rollers the other day and was blown away by how much easier it was to mentally get through a hard 90 minute roller session with intervals than to stay on the treadmill for even 5 minutes. As soon as I start I just want to get back off.

So, here I sit, typing this instead of running during my lunch hour. It's supposed to be close to 50 today so I was looking forward to getting the change to run outside. When I just checked the weather, it's 35 and feels like 32. Warmer than I'll probably run in this weekend, but I didn't bring the right clothes for it.

All of this for a silly jacket. Hell, I don't even care if I run 9 hours in Boston (ok, that's not completely true) but I just want to qualify once and get my jacket. And, while we're sort of talking about motivation, why is it easier to get motivated to run 15 miles in 20 degree weather than 30-45 minutes indoors on a treadmill in a temperature controlled environment? That part confuses me a bit also.

Alright, I better go run because later Jill will ask me about it and I like telling her I did it rather than making up an excuse. I want warmer weather and longer bike rides!

State of the Union and a Hail Storm

I think I need to write more. I had a paper due in one of my grad classes and the act of just getting it going was tough. That’s usually not the case when I spend just a little bit of time each day filling in the 4 relatives of mine who read this thing on what’s going on inside my brain. If you’re reading this, you realize this place is mostly used for commentary and filled with grammatical and spelling errors, but if nothing else, it helps to keep that side, whichever side it actually is, of my brain working when it’s actually needed for class.

There’s another cycling blog I frequent, http://www.theservicecourse.com/ where the guy (who happens to live just blocks from me in Alexandria but we don’t know each other, but maybe we should) ends each of his posts with a section called the “Broomwagon.” For those of you not in the know, the broomwagon is the car that follows a bike race and when riders abandon, they are swept up in the broomwagon. Or, rather, they get into the thing and generally slump down and try to stay out of direct sight of the fans who are going to try and figure out who dropped out. At the 2009 Tour of California I saw Freddy Rogriguez in the broomwagon on the last stage but he clearly didn’t care about being seen as he was waving cheerfully, probably happy to not have to climb Cole Grade outside of San Diego. But, I digress. I bring up this idea of the broomwagon simply to give myself an outlet to write about things I’m thinking about if they wouldn’t make an entire post on their own. And, with that in mind, here we go:

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I watched the State of Union last night and wasn’t entirely sure what to think. I’ve always been a big believer in the saying “Actions speak louder than words” so when politicians cut into network programming to speak, I generally take whatever they say with a grain of salt. One commentator summed up the speech by comparing it to cotton candy, it sweet but doesn’t fill you up. I think that’s probably about right, but, to be fair, what’s he supposed to say? People who listen to these speeches and then get all fired up from the promises of the president are probably the same people who get really disappointed when all of the change that Obama ran on hasn’t quite made its way into reality yet.

To me, the most telling piece of that speech had nothing to do with what Obama had to say. It was the democrats and republicans sitting with each other as opposed to across the isle. Hopefully, this is the first step to a government where cooperation and compromise start to enact change. For as long as I can remember it’s always appeared to me that the reason our government doesn’t get much accomplished is because the biggest issue isn’t the issues at all. It’s the power struggle between the democrats and republicans who instead of compromising, filibuster and sabotage any bill from the other party. Maybe America is finally sick of this behavior and government is taking note. Maybe we’ve finally elected some officials who are tired of not actually accomplishing anything in this old style. Whatever the case is, I’m encouraged for the first time in a long time, but, we’ll see what happens…

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This commuting by bike thing has been working out. Today the weather was a beautiful 36 degrees, wind chill somewhere in the high 20s with a mix of drizzle and sleet. At first it was just drizzly, which is no big deal but then about ¼ of the way to work it turned into sleet which, without sugar coating it, sucks. However, somewhere along the way I started smiling and really enjoying the ride in. My fingers were freezing off and my face but the exfoliation of the sleet on my face has got to be great for my complexion. But, the reason I started smiling is because I remember the last time I was on the Fondriest and found myself riding through upper 30 degree weather in sleet (well, that time it was actually big pieces of hail).

It was on my bike trip and I was leaving Show Low, Arizona and crossing into New Mexico heading to a tiny little town called Quemada. It had rained the entire previous day and through the night but when I woke up that morning I could see that the storm had moved off to the east in the direction I was going. The roads were damp but for the first 4 hours of that day I had completely clear skies and temps around 70. At this point my trip I was really starting to struggle with being lonely and just wanting it to be over so this clear day was turning out to be pretty great.

As I followed the storm up ahead I could sort of tell that I was catching it but I was hoping that maybe I wouldn’t. About 20 miles from Quemada it suddenly got really dark and really cold and I knew my luck had run out. This stretch of country is high desert at about 6,000’ of elevation and there were no trees or anything taller than me on a steel bicycle in sight. So, when the first bolt of lighting hit the ground I started to get a little nervous. It of course started to rain but with no place to take shelter I kept on pedaling because I figured I didn’t have any better option. As more lighting struck in places that seemed a bit too close for comfort and the thunder boomed loud enough to actually vibrate me and the bike, I peddled faster. The sudden drop in temperature wasn’t helping matters and I was starting to shiver and lose feeling in my hands. When the rain turned to hail I started to curse and even I was a little surprised I had kept in until that point. The occasional car would drive by and optimistically I would stick out my thumb. Not that any of these cars or trucks were obligated to pick up some weirdo riding through a hail storm on a bike pulling a trailer, but I would curse at their taillights all the same.

After what seemed like forever but was probably 15 minutes of surviving the hailstorm a white extended cab pickup truck pulling a trailer pulled over in front of me. As I approached the driver was already out of his truck to stop me, took my bike and trailer and put them in his trailer and told me to get in. When I got into the truck his wife handed me a quilt and I saw on their digital thermometer in the rear view mirror that it was 34 degrees. It took a while before I stopped shivering enough to actually tell them where I was going and why. They were nice enough to drive me the remaining 10 or so miles into Quemada and drop me off at a service station where I could get some coffee and call the family I was staying with. I have no idea who those people were but I wish I did so I could send them a Christmas card/thank you note every single year.

I’m sure if they hadn’t stopped I would have made it into Quemada just like I made it to work this morning but it wouldn’t have been pleasant and that’s why I was probably the only cyclist commuting to work this morning with a smile on my face. This beautiful January morning reminded me of another ride and the kindness of strangers.

BCS Championship Game Recap in 10 pts or less.

This should be quick.

Last night I watched what must have been the worst national title game I've seen. And, by the reaction to sports fans that I follow on twitter and facebook, I'm not alone in this observation.

Here's what I took away from it:

1) Dear SEC everyone, stop talking about how f'in great you are. If you were so good you would have destroyed the Oregon team from the weak Pac-10. Instead, what we saw, were two teams that were probably just about evenly matched play a pretty crappy football game. They both had a seemingly infinite amount of time to prepare for each other and were able to pretty much contain the other's offense.

2) Chip Kelly is insane with play calling, both good and bad. He goes from looking like a genius with huge balls on his 2 pt conversion and fake punt that both work, to, in my opinion, three to four terrible play calls in a row on the goal line.

3) Great athletes don't make great [name sport or position] players. Cam Newton is an incredible athlete but he's just an ok quarterback and that seemed obvious.

4) What was up with the field? It's the biggest game of the year and you have some turf down that guys are slipping and sliding all over? Good job Fiesta bowl.

5) It's easy to say retroactively that someone should have taken the points instead of getting stuffed on 4th and goal, but when you lose the game by 3, you gotta sort of wonder what Chip Kelly was thinking? I know you run a razzle dazzle offense with like 80,000 option reads and all, but you're really going to just leave points on the field because you think you can score 50 in the second half?

6) Farley, the DT for Auburn should have been the MVP.

7) Oregon's socks were ridiculous. Their helmets were worse. I sort of love that they have absolutely no desire to conform to any of the norms about a uniform. It's obviously that Nike is a big fan of that fact as well.

8) TCU would have beat either of those teams.

9) So would Wisconsin.

Floyd Landis, A Man of Many Talents.

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

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

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

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



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

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

Cyclocross Rivalries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And Johnson's at about :38 :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Cross Race, Ouch!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links to Cool Stuff You, yes You, Should See

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Winning the Tour with Seasonal Allergies

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

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

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

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

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

Lion Attack

This shouldn't take long.

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



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

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

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

Good Move by Trek

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

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

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

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

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

Garmin-Cervelo Merger

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

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

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

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

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

Figuring It Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The "Value" of Team?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bike Dreams

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

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

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

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

Outliving Your Competition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Hold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2010 Tour de France Recap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What We (I) Learned from Stage 8

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

Things that happened:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The (Bad) Decision"

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

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

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

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

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

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