LeMond v Trek/Armstrong

So it's time to get back on my soapbox and shout (write?) to no one in particular. w00t!

Last night I started building bikes at the Bike Lane in Burke. Why?? Pro-deals baby!! It's been 4 years since the bike quiver has seen any real action beyond the addition of the Fixie, so its time for some needless upgrades. Why Bike Lane?? Esp. since they are definitively out of the way for me. Because these guys do the most for the biking community at large. They host their own events, they lead rides, they help sponsor teams, in short they do all the stuff a good LBS is supposed to. All the stuff. Most of the others in the area do contribute, but not to the extent that The Bike Lane does, here to be known as TBL. Either way, a slow start for me. 3 bikes in 4 hours. There was some time wasted, and I'm really rusty. It'll get faster.

What kind of upgrades?? Like it or not Mrs. Culimerc will be getting a new bike. Hopefully something under the 27lb tank she's riding now. Yours truely will be getting a new road bike (moots or merlin hmmmmm), and a new mountain bike, because you know I spend sooooo much time on the one I have now. The Jamis will be sold, in favor of a 29'er probably. And a pair of SIDI's just cause. and all the stupid schwag I'll pick up in the mean time.

Now for something that actually matters. Greg LeMond is finally getting his wish, He and Trek will be parting ways. after years of trying half heartedly to get away from Trek, Greg finally pissed Trek off enough and they are counter suing to terminate the contract that was going to keep LeMond with Trek til 2010. Apparently Trek got tired of Greg accusing Lance of doping, and all the related news making he was making. Greg admittedly sounds like a bitter old man, puts at the same time much of what he has been accusing people of has come to pass. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for Lance to fess up tho. You can read more about the Lemond/Trek thing here. Essentially, it boils down to LeMond sells 12,000 bike for 15 million a year, and he was bad mouthing the company's biggest image in Lance Armstrong.

Alexi Grewal wrote an amazing brave open editorial in Velonews. For those of you who may not know; Alexi was one of Americas premiere cyclists back in the early 80's. About the same time as LeMond or even just a little earlier.

Here's a cool article on doping and game theory written by smart guys

I would talk about the Democratic Primary, but it's taken it's toll and I'm just kind of done with it at this point. Hillery just seems to be hanging on for I dont know why.

Hey here's something I heard on left wing radio. The Saudi's are actually holding telethons on TV trying to raise money for insurgents in Iraq! Then again the biggest source of cash right now for militias in Iraq is the US. .oO("Here's $10, now stop shooting at me"). Pay offs are one of the oldest tactics of occupiers of foreign soil. Guess we're kickin it ol' skool.

285 more days

Astana is out (so far)

So, did anyone really *not* see the chances of this coming??? ASO which owns the Tour De France and most of the other important races in France has banned or rather summarily not invited Astana to any of their parties this year. Its a huge blow. Especially in light of the fact that other teams who have also been naughty in years not so far past, have been invited to at least the first of the major ASO races, Paris Nice.

I think a good part of ASO shutting out Astana is political as much as anything else. The major tour operators have been battling with the UCI for a couple of years now over invitation lists and wild cards in their events. UCI wants to dictate that the organizers have to have the 20 UCI Pro-tour teams. While the 3 different tour organizers want to have more control over who races in their events.

Dont get me wrong, Astana has alot going against it. It was born out of scandal. When Operation Puerto broke just days before the '06 tour, Liberty Seguros had 4 riders eliminated, leaving just 5 and not enough to start as a team. Alexander Vinokorov went to his homeland and drummed up enough support to buy the Liberty Seguros license and started Astana. Since then no fewer than 4 of Astana's biggest names have been busted for doping, most notoriously Vino himself during last years tour, after proclaiming that all the cheats left with the previous management team.

This year they hire John Bruyneel of Postal/Discovery team fame. Johan is not the most outspoken critic of doping. Some might say that he is actually a bit cavalier in his attitude towards doping as a matter of fact. Tho to his credit he has developed a team policy and policing practice that is certainly as thorough as anybody else's at this point. But history being what it is; and the cries of "but were different now", doesnt helps things any.

So, Astana is out. Partially due to history, partially due to politics. And for all those conspiracy freaks out there, saying that the French are just doing this so they can actually win their own tour; I point out that of the highest placed French rider from last year was Michael Boogard in 12th.

Now enough but bike racing. I've written on it almost exclusively for a while now. Sorry. I didnt intend for this to become a bike racing blog only.

I've started at a gym for really the first time. A bunch of years ago I tried for about 2 months and quit. This time has a better chance of taking. Mostly because both Mrs Culimerc and I have friends to work out with. Makes the whole thing a bunch different. So hopefully, I'll turn my flabby, pasty, white butt into a tone, pasty white butt. Good luck to Me.

We're having a wine tasting here this weekend. Should be a good time, its kind of like a tupperware party with alcohol. We'll see how it goes. My brother had no last week (that he didnt invited me to crash.....hmmm). He said it was a good time, s much because it was an adult party as much as anything else. Not having chosen a life of servitude to children, all our parties are adult parties. Take your diaper talk somewhere else breeder. Anyway, should be fun, wine, cheese, pate and all that other good stuff. (read bad for your heart).

Go Slipstream

340 days and counting.

John Doe and Slipstream to the Giro

So, its been a week now and guess who's in the news again!! That's right, our boys over at Rock Racing.

So here's the deal; a couple of days ago a story comes out that a rider identified as "John Doe" is suing the USADA in order to stop the test of a "B" sample, after the "A" sample came back clean. Everybody's first question is "why" and the second question is of course "who is John Doe". Now why is the USADA testing a sample that has already been deemed negative. That's a fair question, especially when taken with the fact that teams need to submit their rider list to the Tour of California by Mon. and one of the new rules is no riders allowed who are even under investigation. Could this second test be viewed as an investigation?? And how many times should a rider have to pass screening with the same sample?? Are they testing for different agents?? Then again, if you've already passed the screen and you havent been doping, because we all know that cycling is all cleaned up now with the new attitude going around and all the testing being done, what are you afraid of?? So that is Thursday's news.

Friday's news?? Rock Racing's Kayle Leogrande is John Doe. Shocker Huh?? Kayle is probably literally the most colorful man in the peleton. He owns a tattoo parlor and is completely covered neck down in tats'. Dont get me wrong I like tattoo, I've got a couple and will be getting more and I think we need more people out there with tattoo so it ceases being some sort of discriminative choice. But between that and Michael Ball's antagonistic tirades you gotta know something like this is gonna happen. I do really hope the guy is clean. He's fun to watch, and I'm not ready for Rock Racing to implode quite yet.

In other happier news; Slipstream got an invite to the Giro in May!! Yay!! Go Slipstream!! And today was the start of the Tour of Qatar. An 8k team time trial was used as a prologue. I like team TT's and I wish ASO would put them back in the TdF. Anyway, Slipstream was holding on to the top spot with only one team to go. Quickstep, last years Tour of Qatar ended up finishing with the day's best time by just 2 seconds. But Big Maggie and David Millar drove the team to quite the impressive first showing. Beating 15 other teams including 7 pro tour teams. Way to go guys. Oh yeah, who runs the tour of Qatar?? ASO. Who was in the stands?? Tour Boss Christin Prudhomme. And while Mr Prudhomme hasnt actually said the Slipstream will be invited, he has said that he wants an American team there and that Slipstream's doping policy's and controls are in line with what he wants to see at the tour this summer. The ASO are really tired of scandal and are hoping for a comparatively quiet July.

Go Slipstream!!

Oh yeah and I got to haul my fat ass out for a ride today. 39 miles and my legs were starting to soften. Its gonna be a long early season at this rate.

End Of an Era

Its the end of an era in Cycling. Team T-Mobile is done; stick a folk in 'em its over. Too bad really, I've got fond memories of watching big german guys dressed up in pink riding rough shod over everybody else in the mid 90's. They came from almost no where. At the end of the 80's there no german cycling teams at all. By '95 not only was there a solid team, that team had chalked up a big pile of race wins including multiple green jerseys (courtesy of Eric Zabel) and the first of two tour de france yellow jerseys. Thank You Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich.

Ullrich had the unfortunate timing to run directly up against Lance Armstrong. Jan finished second to Lance 4 times, and second to Riis in '95. Quite possibly the most bittersweet palmere in the history of cycling.

Either way starting in 2005 and coming to a head in June '06 with the firing of Ullrich, T-Mobile was plagued by doping allegations dating back to the good ol' days. Most of the major players from that time have coped to doping and the German press has been quite happy to hammer away at them for it. Dont get me wrong DOPERS SUCK.

In 2006, after the firing of Ullrich and Godfroote (team director since 92) the now T-Mobile hired American Bill Stapleton as team director. Bill made significant changes. He fired the team doctors, who both later ended up being charged by the german authorities for distributing doping products. He hired a bunch of new young talent, and he did pretty well this year. Some good solid wins, inc. a mountain top finish at the tour thanks to the baby faced Linus Gerdemann.

But there were more doping convictions, Patrick Sinkewitz being the final straw. Even tho T-Mobile reaffirmed their support for the team in Aug. The new CEO Hamid Akhavan could continue to risk negative exposure and terminated T-Mobile's sponsorship effective immediately. Such is life

Bob Stapleton has promised that the team will continue without its title sponsor under the name of "Team High Road".

Thank You Bob Stapleton!! Good Luck Team High Road!!

I'll still be rooting for Slipstream this year.

Dopers Suck.

Fall Riding

So I went out for a ride on my usual "hilly" loop. It's not all that long, but its never really flat either, so you get a good bang for your buck, training wise.

When I started it was in the hi 40's and the wind was blowing around. I was sitting on the couch watchin tube, knowing I should go out. Knowin' that it wasnt *that* cold. Why is always so hard to get rolling once the weather changes?? All I want to do is sit on the couch, drink beer, eat something hot and starchy, and watch movies I've already seen a dozen times. I had a good time once I got warmed up. And I considered stretching it out a bit. Another 5-10 miles or so. Oh well. Beer is good.

In other news;

Chris Horner, Chechu Rubiera and Vladimir Gusev have all signed with Astana for next year. Rumor is that they'll be riding Treks. Ahhh, the new look Disco boys. Will they actually have *any* Kazakh riders on this team or what. In a solid move to improve the image of both Bruyneel and Astana, they have hired the Doctor (Rasmus Damsgaard) that ran CSC's drug testing program last year. Last year 28 CSC riders subjected themselves to over 600 doping tests. Lets see any major league team of any sport live up to that. Good luck Astana; you've got a HUGE hole to dig yourself out of, but at least your trying.

GO Slipstream!!

F U Barry Bonds.