Back from the Brink - Boonen, Bikes, Beer, and Alliteration

Despite what the title may suggest, I fear there won't be much beer in this post. What there will be is a recap of the weekend that was.

Like most cycling fans (I assume), I was a huge fan of the Grand Tours and didn't care too much for the classics when I first began following the pro peloton. As I've gotten older, and perhaps matured a bit (or perhaps not), I've become a bigger fan of the classics. I have not given up on the Grand Tours and I still really enjoy the story lines they create (especially the Giro), but the classics are definitely on equal footing for me now. This weekend provided us cycling fans with two great races - though E3 Harelbeke isn't considered a classic.

On Saturday, Fabian Cancellara, known as Spartacus, attacked a lead group at the 18KM mark and ended up winning going away - by almost a minute!

Your are watching Fabian Cancellara destroy the peloton indeed.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Spartacus had already crossed the finish line when he rested his hands on his hips. Of course, he could have ridden like that for the last two kilometers and still won handily. So who finished second? A rider from Omega Pharma Lotto:

Must have been Gilbert or Greipel right?

What!?

Oh yeah, neither of them raced. Greipel did race on Sunday in Gent-Wevelgem. Unfortunately for him and his compatriots on OPL, once again there was at least one other rider to cross the line before him. After what seemed like forever, Tom Boonen has won another cobbled classic:

It's not the greatest quality picture, but trust me, it's Tommeke. What did he do to celebrate his victory? The only thing any real hipster would do, enjoy a PBR in the can:

Upon further inspection that can looks more like a Fanta than a PBR. I guess my opening statement concerning a lack of beer in today's post was correct. But wait! Perhaps two photographers at the finish line might have been a little tipsy when they decided to stand in the middle of the road, causing two riders to crash:


In their defense, the photographers who caused the crash were the first ones on the scene, but not to provided first aid:

Scooped ya, bitch! Now that I think about it, those photographers probably work for Cyclingnews. I guess the lag between races starts as soon as the winner crosses the line and news sources need to go out and create stories.

Speaking of creating stories, ESPN's Sport Science decided they needed to look into what makes Baylor star Brittany Griner able to dunk and block shots:

I'll tell you the science behind it - she's 6'8" tall! Solved, Galileo.

Getting back to bikes, I watched a video over at AHTBM of some young gentlemen performing tricks on their BMX bikes. I quickly spotted what I considered to be a weird sight:

I'll tell you, that young man never has to worry about rolling up his right pant leg in order to keep in clean. Interestingly, "the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork" also seems to have the same drive train set up. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps the "curator" of BSNYC and the "artist" behind AHTBM are one in the same. The facts:

1. You never see them at the same place and the same time.
2. AHTBM featured a video from BSNYC this past weekend.
3. During the same week both featured media (picture and video) of bikes with their drive trains on the left side.

With that conspiracy theory simmering in your head, I must apologize for the lack of posting over the past two weeks. While I have no real excuse, I did have family in town (including a 2-year old), to which I was happy to move my focus from this endeavor. Since you're now in the forgiving mood, I will also not be posting on Wednesday as I will be in south Kansas attempting to pilot an aircraft from the ground, around the air, and safely back to the ground. We shall meet again on Friday. Who knows, there might even be some beer involved.

The Freedom in the Freedom of Speech

Last Wednesday I wrote about athletes threatening to retire. It seems that every week another athlete, and by athlete I'm specifically referring to cyclists, joins the Facebook fanpage (as a non-Facebooker I'm not sure if fanpage is the correct term or of they even exist) of "I'm going to retire because I'm being treated (according to me) unfairly." The newest member of the gang is Riccardo Riccò, who has been taking English lessons from Fränk:

"I don’t want to race anymore, no chance. I’ve turned the page, I’m fed up with the cycling world, it makes me want to vomit. I’m fed up with everyone in cycling. They already wanted me to stop when I came back but now enough’s enough, Riccò is no more."

Riccardo clearly has mastered the third person reference. What he hasn't mastered is admitting when he has broken the rules. It also seems that he falls a bit short in the financial knowledge it takes to make a living. Maybe his tournament bracket will pan out.

In the end, RR has the right to pronounce his retirement, just like fellow positive-testing cyclist Toni Colom, has to use the phrase "positive test" to refer to what turned his life upside down. I'm sure that getting caught with EPO in his system did turn his life upside down, but I'm also sure that his positive test was only made possible with an earlier decision to dope.

Enough of the retiring; let's move on the news from the professional racing scene. With what must have been one of the strongest lead-out trains ever,

Former World Champion Cadel Evans won the fifth and penultimate stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico, or the Race of the Two Seas:

After crossing the finish line, Cadel salutes the crowd in recognition of his perfectly timed attack on the last climb. Shortly after the effort was clearly seen on his face:

Cadel postponed the start of his 2011 season in order to be more fresh for the TdF, and so far it seems that he has some pretty fresh legs. We'll just have to wait and see if his plan works out and he performs well during the Tour. If not I guess he can always retire.

Good Wins For the Weekend

I'm off early this morning, heading south to fly again. With that I don't have much to say here.

What I will say today is congratulations to UConn for their big win over Pitt and congratulations to Tyler Fair-ah for his stage win and becoming the overnight leader at Tirreno-Adriatico:

Biological Makeup and the Making of a DB

We all remember AC's and James Harrison's threats to retire over the last few months. The newest athlete to jump on the "I've done something that the rules of my sport prohibit and now that I've been caught I will attempt to scare the sport into reducing my punishment by threatening to retire" bandwagon is last year's (now stripped) TdF King of the Mountain Champion Franco Pellizotti. The UCI's biological passport system was validated by CAS in an expedited ruling at the request of Pellizotti's legal team. It is the request for a quick ruling that makes Franco's statement that he's quitting (or retiring, it's all semantics), "Not because of my age or for the time, even though it's two years, it's because I am tired." If he is tired why did he request to have a quick turn-around on his appeal?

I don't know that Pellizotti doped or not, so he may have a better argument for retiring than both AC and Harrison since they clearly violated their sports' rules. Another person, though no athlete, who violated his sport's rules is OSU Football Coach Jim Tressel. What Coach Tressel did was not share information he knew of that implicated some of his players (stars including starting QB Terrell Pryor) in a federal drug-trafficking case as well as selling memorabilia. What makes him a bigger DB than he was when he failed to pass on that information to anyone was his attempt at an apology/excuse:

"Obviously I'm disappointed that this happened at all. I take my responsibility for what we do at Ohio State tremendously seriously and for the game of football. I plan to grow from this. I'm sincerely saddened by the fact that I let some people down and didn't do things as well as I possibly could have."

Of course he's disappointed it happened, if he never got caught what would he have to be disappointed about? Secondly, I love the classic, "saddened by the fact that I let some people down." Really? How about deeply saddened that you failed in your obligation as an authority figure who is responsible for the development of the athletes on your team (including the minute percentage that will make a living out of playing the sport after college) or deeply saddened because you not only gave OSU a black eye, but the entire NCAA? It's like the apology where you tell someone that you're sorry they feel mad/upset/sad about some action of yours; thereby making it seem like it was their fault for getting mad/upset/sad in the first place. And what does he get for all this - a two game suspension and a fine of $250,000. I'm not going to argue that a quarter-million dollar fine is anything to laugh at, but a two game suspension? The players got five.

I guess all this rambling leads me to the point that despite the fact that I want to believe otherwise, history and experience has taught me that all sports are a business and the bottom line isn't necessarily winning, but keeping your paycheck flowing in.

Late to the Line: My First Race, et al.

In what has been a wild two weeks, I must apologize for my lack of posting. Of course, you could argue that this post was meant to be for today, therefore making it right on time. Heck, if this post was scheduled for Wednesday than it's two days early.

On the 27th of February, a bunch of us traveled east to Columbia, MO to participate in the Froze Toes Road Race. Being my first race I wasn't expecting too much in the way of results - and that's exactly what I got. I finished 30th out of 39 racers after getting dropped at the 15 kilometer point (Yup, kilometers. Like everything else cycling, race distances must be measured the European way, which means the metric system).

Another participant in the race (though not in the Cat 5 race, so I didn't have the honor of getting dropped by him) was the Indiana state champion. I was unable to get a picture of him though because he was fast, at everything. Another champion rider was there, despite rumors that he was avoiding races outside Spain:

Clearly AC knew that a flat, 50-kilometer course in Missouri was a perfect training race for Murcia. That, or the owner of this bike is some DB who probably also owns a UCI World Champion Jersey.

Yesterday I raced in the Perry Road Race, which consisted of four laps around a five-mile, hilly course. Again, I finished better than nine people, this time placing 40th out of 49. There seems to be a pretty clear pattern emerging. All I have to do is find a race where there are only ten of us racing and I'm set for a win.

In the world of professional cycling, the Race to the Sun (Paris-Nice) is on now. A three-man break, including the animal that is Jens Voigt, stayed away (barely) for the final 35 kilometers. The recipient of all their hard work was Belgian De Gendt. Today's stage saw a more traditional field sprint that was won by Sky's Greg Henderson. If you missed it, Versus is showing each stage at 4 pm. To catch up on all the professional cycling results that I have missed over the last few weeks you can go here or here, but not here.

So what have I been doing over the last few weeks that has precluded me from putting horribly written sentences down at this site? Just a little flying:

That is a Cessna 177 Cardinal. I don't have a lot of time yet, but that will come over the next few weeks as I work towards my private pilot's certification. It is a pretty cool feeling to fly, but there is still some fear when the plane's stall warning goes off even though I'm with my instructor who has plenty of hours flying as well as instructing. Flying is so much better when you are in control and you know what is going on, though I do enjoy sleeping on larger airplanes and not worrying about a thing. Soon I'll have my pilot's certification, a scary thought for some I'm sure:

While at Washburn Law's recent admitted students day, I saw a way to combine my love for cycling and flying:

Needless to say I was already late to the reception when I stopped to take that picture. In the end though, what's more important, being on time (or placing at a race) or enjoying yourself?

Mama Might Have Mentioned Something About Days Like This

Before we get into the world of professional cycling, let's discuss my recent woes. My Garmin Edge 305's mode key was broken, so I contacted Garmin and returned it for repair. I thought I was going to get it back quickly because of the time of year as well as the fact that the repair facility is about 20 miles away. Yesterday I called Garmin to ask where my computer was (I shipped it on the 31st of January and was told I would get it back in 7-10 days) and was told that they hadn't received it yet, almost three weeks after I sent it. So I went down to the post office to ask where my Garmin may be as well as ask about filing a claim on the insurance I purchased for it. Before asking I knew I would get the response I ended up getting, "That package was delivered in the first of February." Sweet. So now I'm in a he said, she said thing with Garmin. We'll see how that turns out.

To make matters worse, I got a call from the bike shop letting me know that my rear derailer is bent and needs to be replaced. Awesome. Hopefully the bad days end now and the good days begin. I'm sure the beer tasting (read: beer party with a large range of beer types) I'm attending (read: crashing) this weekend will help bring about those good days.

In the now wide-spread Landis/Kimmage interview, Floyd talks about how even with drugs, cyclists have good days and bad days:

"You still have good days and bad days and all the other variables - you didn’t sleep well, you didn’t eat well, you have a good day and a bad day. Anytime you add the drug card they always attribute everything that happened to the drug but they will happen anyway. It just changes how fast you go relative to how fast you would have gone."

I think many people believe that just because a cyclist (or any athlete for that matter) is doping, everything is easy for them. Clearly, based on Floyd's words, that just isn't true. I'm not going to argue whether or not LA doped, but either way he certainly was suffering here in 2003 (during a time when he was accused of doping):

Again, I'm not saying he was or wasn't, but if he was the drugs clearly didn't make racing in the 2003 Tour easy for LA. If he was doping in 2003, those drugs surely had no effect on how much he suffered during his 2005 SCA deposition:

The quick background story for these videos is summed up best in the NY Velocity write-up, "Tailwind Sports had taken out an insurance policy with SCA Promotions to cover a $5 million performance bonus for Armstrong winning the 2004 Tour. However, when David Walsh and Pierre Ballester's book L.A. Confidentiel came out, SCA refused to pay, claiming that Armstrong voided the contract by doping to win." In the end the decision went the way of LA, who was awarded his bonus because the contract had no stipulations concerning doping.

As I mentioned in Wednesday's post, AC is back to racing. Here he is signing in at the Tour of Algarve:

Everything looks to be back to normal; the champ is once again mounted on his carbon steed ready to take down his adversaries with his hand gun. But wait, what is this:

Seriously AC, what's with the cycling cap? His poor choice of accessories notwithstanding, it would appear that AC has taken the Specialized marketing claim of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" to heart by riding for Saxobank Sungard. Unfortunately, Specialized's poster boy defected to the Trek camp for this season:

Of course, I think Cancellara could be riding the Specialized that his image is used to sell and he would still be competitive in the peloton:

I'm not sure if those training wheels are UCI compliant or not, but I'm sure that even with them Cancellara will still have bad days and good days like he does on his normal ride.

Computer Issues and The Man: Keeping a Brother Down

As you may be able to tell from the post title, my computer has been giving me some trouble over the last few days. After turning it in to get it worked on, it came back and the power cable didn't work. The trials and tribulations I face are unspeakable.

Returning from the world of no internet (ie. books and people), I was amazed to see what is clearly the biggest story so far this year in the world of cycling. When I first saw the headlines I immediately thought to myself, "this is ludicrous." Not to be confused with Ludacris; though on second thought I'm not sure which one is more unbelievable. You all know what I'm talking about - a star cyclist, a western European country's government, perhaps some unfair treatment:

This kind of treatment makes Iran look like a Sandals Resort. When asked about the "colorway", Schleck showed his fondness for American sports figures such as LeBron James who refer to themselves in the third person (though Schleck takes it a step farther and uses a pet name):

“We can see the bands of the Luxembourg champion, but this jersey also has the advantage of respecting the design of our team. Fränkly, I liked wearing the other jersey, but I am very, very happy to wear this one now.”

While he hasn't mastered the use of referring to yourself in the third person just yet, it's only a matter on time.

In other, lesser news on the cycling front, AC has been cleared of all doping charges, much to the amazement of many people. It remains to be seen if the UCI will appeal the decision, but AC raced yesterday at the Tour of Algarve. So while one Tour champ returns to the racing scene another announces his second, and most likely final, retirement. Like him or not, LA has been American cycling for the last dozen or so years. Who knows, maybe Obama will tweet Novitsky and tell him to back off his investigation.

After snowboarding and skiing at Breckenridge, Snowbird, and Park City in one month, I came back to reality and spent a day at the local "resort", Snowcreek:

All 300 some odd feet of vertical elevation change in view right here.

Going from the Rockies to a hillside in Missouri has to be like the transition from a wearing a LEOPARD-TREK/Luxembourg Champion jersey to wearing a jersey that highlights the Luxembourg flag more than three stripes across a 27" chest does. I know how Fränk Schleck must be feeling.