Friday Moment of Zen

I'm sure plenty of normal people drive Smart Cars. The handful I've seen driven near my house... well, let's just say the drivers conform to a certain stereotype, based on appearance, smug bumper stickers, and shopping habits. It's funny because there are many cars that get better mileage while providing more luxurious rides, including some sweet VWs. You should be smugger in proportion to the square of your mileage, right? This makes me think that the Smart Car is the hair shirt of Cars That Are Saving The World Unlike Your Car You Gaia Abuser. Which is quite an accomplishment, since most Cars That Are Saving The World Unlike Your Car You Gaia Abuser are kind of hair shirty to begin with.

The thought that always crosses my mind as I see a Smart Car ultra mile-ing, typically holding up a long line of traffic and irritating a guy in a semi or a huge Waste Management, Inc. trashtruck - my thought is a question about what a Smart Car would look like if it got hit by one of those pissed off trucks.

So just in case you're wondering too... this is what a SmartCar looks like after it crashes into a truck.



I suspect that none of the occupants were harmed because, based on the bumper stickers I've seen on local Smarts, a thick cloud of smug moral superiority deployed years before protects the occupants from having any impact.

FWIW, I think calling a car "The Smart" is about as unctuous as it gets. Might as well put out company literature calling other cars The Dumbs. Maybe it's a selling point for people who feel they aren't quite arrogant enough as it is... kinda makes me laugh. But isn't that 60 MPG VW turbodiesel that hammers more deserving of the Smart Car moniker than the crushed breadbox in the picture above?

Don't get me wrong. If there's no parking in your neighborhood and you have a 4 mile driveable commute, it makes sense. But I live in the distant burbs, where long haul, comfortable commuters make sense, not tiny parking maven go karts. And I'm all for saving the Earth and everything, but ramping up the Smug and Self Congratulatory Quotient by 176% while you're doing so is kind of like expecting to get a Presidential Freedom Medal for coming out against premeditated murder. It isn't exactly a Brave Social Stance to do something pretty much everybody is already in favor of to one extent or another, and I'm not sure you get Chris Rock's cookie just 'cuz you drive a car that gets modestly better mileage than a fairly luxurious 4 cylinder Camry.

Although that picture makes me wonder if people who drive Smart Cars don't deserve some kind of medal for bravery. Or some other mental / psychological characteristic.

Update: alert reader Anonymous (probably a marketing intern at Smart) points me to a link indicating the car in question may actually be the tiny faux sport ute VW Crossfox, which looks equally flimsy but which sports, um, sport ute styling and a mini back seat, Tonka Truck style. I think you're nuts to drive one of them, too. Though you probably don't have as many irritating bumper stickers.

Friday Fun Time

Give credit where it's due. Stevil at HTATBL regularly hits 'em out of the park. I don't normally pull stuff from blogs you are likely to have read, but this video was so funny I couldn't help myself. When I clicked it, I started laughing hysterically, and so did 5 year-old Son of Rouleur. When that happens - Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny "What's Opera Doc," and "Slayer!" you know it's frickin' good. Check it out:



Sweet, eh? I feel that way about Glen Miller Orchestra. And when I'm walkin' down the street and see another Glen Miller fan... you just know...

Got an easy solo ride in the AM coming up, then the fearful critical power test on Saturday morning. I used to bitch about that but after spending so much of this year laid up I appreciate that I'll be able to go out Saturday and ride my ass into the ground for a half hour. It's going to hurt, and I'm going to appreciate the hell out of getting the chance to go ride and do that, and to ride at all.

That's my story, anyhow, and I'm sticking to it. Meanwhile, have some tunes.

Contrary to my usual snobbery, I actually believe music doesn't always have to be awesome. It's better if it is, but sometimes music is just a filler in the quiet spaces in our lives. If it's okay, and you listened to it during good times, it will forever be bundled with a lot of good memories in your mind. As long as it's okay musically, passable, to you that song will be a multi-platinum single and the greatest thing ever, even if your grandchildren don't listen to it. And that's okay. It doesn't need to make Dylan question why he writes songs. It's more like Bud. It's swill but if you like it, good for you. I may not like it, but that's my problem, not yours. Here's one by the Hoodoo Gurus that has a lot of meaning for me. It's probably terrible music, but I wouldn't know. The thing's got a lot of baggage on it, mostly good, some bad. I still like it, 24 years later. God I'm getting old...



Some songs in my life's soundtrack are really good though and deserve to be played after I'm gone.



A lot of bands have covered that song, with Metallica making what is perhaps the best cover, coupled to maybe the most uncomfortable to watch music video I've ever seen.

The Eagles and their members sort of fill a background music role with me. Good enough music, some of it great, and they made tons of it together. Most importantly, I had a lot of good times listening to their music, so in my mind it may be better than it was. The individual members (Glen Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh) all had fairly impressive solo careers, but I like Walsh the most of the group, perhaps because he combines a roots rock sort of guitar with a Joe Cocker-ish voice. Here's a Walsh song that I've always liked, and it's pretty much begging for a Metallica cover...

Joe Walsh - New Music - More Music Videos

And you can't have that bit of Walsh-iana without this one, really:



That music is kind of special to me, it brings back a lot of good memories - and recollections of some epic hangovers from multi-day drinking binges. But I think maybe it's better than I'm giving it credit for. Any opinions on that from the peanut gallery?

Now here's a progression for you. You may have heard this oddball Nick Cave song.



Some of you will definitely recognize it as having once been a George Thorogood staple.



Great song, huh? Really rocks, traditional rock & roll sort of lyrics. Quite a masterpiece, eh? Here's an earlier version:



Yeah, that's Johnny Cash singing it.

You know who did it first? Bob Dylan. He wrote the song one afternoon in Nashville with Johnny Cash. Dylan wrote it for him especially and Cash performed it a week later. I was looking around to try to find a video of Dylan singing it but I don't know that he ever has. And I'd kill to hear Merle Haggard sing it but I don't think he has either. But oh well.

For what it's worth, I've been thinking about what I said above about how music doesn't have to be great, it's cool so long as you like it. I need to qualify that, slightly. Some music, no matter how much you like it, is still objectively worthless. And we will mock you if we find you listening to it. Case in point:



That song is so bad it's worth listening to all the way to the end. Not as music, but as exercise. Your head shaking will certainly loosen your neck muscles. Have a nice weekend all.

Larry the Cable Monster

When I got home from camping today, an extremely impressive communication from Our Lords and Masters at V for Vendetta, a major Telecom Services Provider headquartered in Baltimore, was awaiting me. It noted,

The cost of providing your FIOS TV package has changed. Your monthly rate of $42.99 will increase to $52.99, effective on October 1, 2009. No action on your part is required to maintain your current package at the new rate after October 1st -- you'll continue to enjoy all the benefits that your current FIOS package has to offer.

Wow. My first thought - right after "**** me right in the ear," was that this was a masterpiece of marketing. They made it sound like I did something wrong, or that the skyrocketing cost of entertainment in these here boom times, was causing them, unfortunately, to raise rates by 25%. Yeah, the cost of everything in the world is cratering due to the economic implosion, but FIOS? Gold, Jerry. Gold. You mean I'll really be able to keep the same services, in a time of economic deflation, for only 25% more money? Well, praise be, and pass the blog ammunition...

My second thought was, what if they were bound to say what they were really thinking? If they were, it would read like this:

The cost of providing your FIOS TV package has not changed, but we've figured out some clever new ways to charge you a whole lot more for the 10 channels you watch, and 973 channels you wouldn't watch if we paid you and strapped you in a chair and held your eyes open like Alex in "A Clockwork Orange," including the 179 channels you've permanently locked so that your juvenile son doesn't order them up, or so that you can't when you get a buzz on. Your monthly rate of $42.99 will increase to $52.99, a passive-voice phrasing we use to make it seem like we had no involvement in this rate hike. Of course we are responsible for it, but we want you to feel like some nameless "they" did it, so your rage won't be directed at us but at the system, and you'll feel powerless and just sit there and stew and get ulcers. Please don't beat up the cable guys; they are all independent contractors, and if you feel bad about how we screw you, you should ask one of them about their benefits packet. Trust us, you won't feel as bad about your situation, and that applies even if you're homeless and living on a grate in McPherson Square. Anyhoo... the hike is effective on October 1, 2009. No action on your part is required to maintain your current package at the new rate after October 1st -- that's right, we'll continue to take your money, 25% more of it in fact, for the same overwhelmingly crapulent programming, and you'll continue to pay for it, gladly. In return, you'll continue to enjoy all the benefits that your current FIOS package has to offer - namely, mostly garbage time programming, and the high likelihood of future rate hikes, coupled with what we like to think of as state-of-the-art in horrible customer service.

Seriously. You know what I get from FIOS? Endless reruns of MTV Cribs, local network broadcast TV (which they charge for), sports channels consisting entirely of poker, 39 evangelical channels, 200 spanish language channels to help recent Hispanic immigrants avoid having to learn English, 5 British soccer and news channels provided for similar purposes but for British immigrants, the Soap Opera network, Lifetime, the gay equivalent of Lifetime (e.g. HGTV), several knockoffs of Lifetime (e.g. O, CBS in primetime), several gay equivalents of lifetime knockoffs (e.g. E, The Fashion Channel), The Military Channel (TV for Guys Who Like to Watch Other Guys Kill People and Blow Things Up), and the recently cleverly renamed 'sy fy' channel because fat 20-something guys locked in their parent's basement and eating Doritos in their underwear won't feel as isolated from society as when they called it Sci-Fi. It's like having to buy a haystack so you can get a needle to sew a button back onto your shorts.

Although the quality of the picture is generally high, the quality of the signals and the boxes comes and goes a bit but it's still way better than Comcast in my neighborhood (don't ask about our experience in that gulag consumerpeligo), and the customer service is cartoonishly bad. On top of that, their letter betrays a "screw you and the goat you rode in on" mentality, like we're dumb and will be mollified by euphemisms and tricky phrasing. We won't be! We'll be pissed, and we'll pay it, because damnitall, we just can't do without Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch, particularly DC: Season Four Highlights. But we'll still be pissed. Really, really pissed! See? Look at my impotent fist shaking! I'm pissed!

Setting the fundamental impotence of protesting cable bills aside, the letter is insultingly written at best and deserving of a screedy response. And what if you don't like the price hike? What if you want a particular channel, like Versus HD? Oh, that's easy. You can order it a la carte for $10 a month, or as part of a $12 sports channel upgrade deal that includes Seattle Kingdome Sports Network, Tiger Stadium Broadcast Network, and ESPN 86, The Ocho Cinco!, which features full time coverage of Chad Johnson. Er, I mean, Ocho Cinco.

If I sound bitter, it's because I've had a lot of absurd experiences with V for Vendetta as a phone and cable / internet vendor. I wound up having to contact their legal department over a monthly phone bill we paid at least twice, possibly three times, which the billing department kept trying to collect from my wife. We had paid it at least twice when she took notice of the problem in the billing. Solving that took some threats and shouting, probably hysterical shouting on my part, which was dumb because I could have gotten at treble damages and fees had I been smart enough to just take them to court. We also recently had an utterly insane run-in with V for Vindictive customer service on the domestic front, but I won't get into that.

I hesitate to raise this... but it's funny. The collections department at V for Vconfused contacts me via autodial about once a month to collect on the outstanding balance on my Blackberry. I've called to get the balance and apparently the outstanding balance really is outstanding, rivalling the GDP of a small (and fiscally incontintent) Latin American nation. Which is ironic because I work for a Government agency that gets phones off this enormous multi-agency contract providing hundreds of thousands of phone and Blackberry accounts to the government at large. Apparently somebody at V for Vincoherent thinks that I'm responsible for the whole goldurned government phone bill. Which is funny, except it isn't, particularly when you think about what it must cost for the Ambassador to Kazakhstan to call out for Dominos. Hey, hegemony ain't cheap, nor is democracy, and if you don't believe me, you just wait until somebody asks you to pay their phone bill.

Every so often, I call up the number the autodialer leaves for me to call. As soon as I get a human, I start getting some low level abuse from said alleged human. Y'know, because the auto dialer leaves the number for the Collection Department for The World's Worst Phone Bill Stiffs, and that's how I deserve to be treated. So then I give my official protest, hey, it's a government phone, got nothing to do with me, talk to the General Services Agency or maybe the POTUS or Secretary of the Treasury or something, then the call center person does some typing, and I suddenly hear her hang up the phone. Happens every time. Oooooh, teh embarussamints!

It's getting so that I look forward to the autodial reminders to pay the V for Vridiculous bill just so I can be mean to some call center clerk who is giving me the snotty routine. For a while I had a problem with this one bank that gave me a really bad time - their error - on my credit card account with them. What if I gave that card number to V Almighty? I'm thinking the $163 million debit would probably cause a rip in space-time... and maybe V for Vhassle would keep calling them trying to collect... but I'm not quite mean enough to do that. And besides, Uncle Sam is likely to determine that I actually paid the bill as a gift to the Nation, Anti-Deficiency Act be damned. So for now I'll just keep calling and giving the clerks a tough time. You have to laugh about this kind of stuff; it would be outrageous if it wasn't Pythonesque.

Anyhow, if anybody from V for Vprice Hikes is reading this, my stated and considered legal position is that I pay my taxes on time, so I've paid my fair share of the Leader of the Free World's bill.

And mark my words, there will be hell to pay if a $163 million dollar late fee shows up on my credit report. Mmmkay?

Oh man, this is so going to earn me a Cease and Desist letter...

Camping & Biking

The camping trip with Son of Rouleur was successful, nobody got killed, we only lost a little blood from one knee and from under a thumbnail, we saw frogs, snakes, spiders, birds, daddy long legs, and a cicada that must have been sleeping off an epic bender 'cuz he missed his window by at least a year, maybe two or three. We stayed at the Hollofield Area in Patapsco, the area on the Catonsville side North and West of the Hilton area. I'd never been there before but it was pretty sweet, with a couple trails an adult could ride, and a good campsite with a couple playgrounds. Apparently they also do kids programs on Saturday evenings. There are a hundred or so improved sites, maybe 20 improved sites with electrical, and some cabins. The frog we saw was actually in the bathhouse; Son of- spotted him climbing up the shower curtain, hunting bugs. We tried to get in a little dirt ride yesterday over at the Avalon area. We head down 40 to the Bal'mer Beltway, get off at Rt. 1, and drive into a pounding thunderstorm. I'm talking cats and dogs, cars pulling off the road, and 4 inches of standing water on the road surface. So I turn it around when I get to Rolling Road and head back toward Catonsville. I get a little ways past UMBC and the 195 Park and Ride, and all of a sudden it's a sunny day, lovely and warm out. Weird. The "camp host" at Hollofield said his in-laws live on the South side of the valley, and they are always getting hit with bad weather, while the North Side stays pristine. Anyhow, we got in a ride this morning at Avalon, stayed on the road and the multi-use "GristMill" Trail. Son of- wanted to know what the historical markers were so we stopped and read them. Interesting stuff. I took a peak up Vineyard thinking if it was good we could go a half mile up and cruise down, but it was pure muck, so the Valley must have gotten hit bloody hard in that thunderstorm. Son of- wanted to take a little detour up toward Gun Road so we headed that way just in time to see a Major League Asshole - no other word for it - ride down off of Soapstone, which isn't in great shape to begin with but especially doesn't need Major League Assholes tearing it up in the visibly soft mud. Dude was wearing a white jersey, which is a bit like if OJ was wearing a white tux when he did in his ex-wife: nothing like advertising your crimes to the world. So then we're riding along back to the Swinging Bridge and Son-of says, "you know why I'm faster than you? Because my bike has more bell." He was right... I don't have a bell on my bike. So I encouraged him to really ring it... to really explore the space.

At the end of the ride, the Son of- said it was "the best camping trip ever," and since he has four or five of them to compare it against, I'll take his word as authoritative.

The takeaways are that maybe Hollofield (and it's companion slightly to the North, McKeldin) are areas that we MTB'ers ought to take a closer look at, particularly when weather has closed off Avalon and Rockburn and maybe Hilton; it's possible they are dry when the Southern areas are wet. Also, if you are looking for a close getaway with conveniences, Hollofield is a pretty good option, with tent pads, okay bathhouse, and a lot of attractions (Catonsville! Arbutus! Ellicott City!) nearby, not to mention mountain bikin', fishin', and all the usual stuff.

Your Daily Shatnerization

I'm heading off for a short camping trip with Son of Rouleur and will be out of pocket for a couple days. You may miss my inane commentary, solipsisms, non sequiturs and typos during this difficult time.

To tide you over, here's a little Shatner.



I never thought of Palin as a poet, but that's my bad. I was comparing her to the redoubtable descriptive poet, Robert Service, the Bard of the Yukon.

Instead, I should have been comparing her to Walt Whitman, the candy magnate who also wrote mildly (to quite) homoerotic poetry about the nation and our civil war soldiers.*

I will be forever grateful to William Shatner for his creative re-interpretation of her non-farewell farewell speech. Shatner... I... thankyou... forthat.


* Ps. Yes, I know the comparison to Whitman is fatuous and that Whitman probably didn't invent Whitman's Samplers. But I do think Palin's speech was Whitmanesque, though you are free to argue, as Homer Simpson would in response to this post, "Damn you, Walt Whitman! Leaves of grass my ass!" If you want something really funny, try to imagine Homer Simpson reading that speech.

Odds & Ends

In honor of NFL Commissioner Rodger Gadell's decision to conditionally reinstate convicted dog fight promoter Michael Vick to the NFL...



Really. Could it be anything else?

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My friend Beth Mason is thinking about coming down to the D.C. area for another round of Retul bike fits, to coincide with the cyclocross clinic that Chris Mayhew is coordinating with Jeremy Powers. I can't vouch for the system but I have heard good things about it from those who have been fit using it. Beth is also a highly experienced elite cyclist, who is working on her PhD in Sports Medicine. She has a lot of value added, in other words. If you've never had a bike fit, you really should consider getting a fit, it will change how you ride and likely eliminate some uncomfortable things and some aspects of your position that may be causing you injury; and if you're considering a bike fit, you might want to drop her a line and see if she'd be a good choice for you.

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It's worth checking out Ryan's Service Course for his Tour wrap. He says about twice what I said, in 50% less space with about a million times more authoritative flava. Of course if you like uninformed ramblings, well, then you should bookmark this page, and I'll hook you up on a regular basis.

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I've said it before, I'll say it again: summer bike clothing wash is a pleasure. Seven bibs, seven jerseys, seven pairs of gloves, seven pairs of socks, and... well, that's it. Yeah, I'm skippin' our date tonight to stay home and do my bike washing. Sounds lame, unless you just spent a very long winter doing tights, light base layers, heavy base layers, knee warmers, leg warmers, wind vests, glove liners, skull caps, and scarves every week.

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So we're in the cycling Dead Zone. The TdF is passed, the racer's grand tour, the Giro is in the books, the Northern Classics are but a windy memory in our mind's eye, and even the most recent La Primavera has grown brown and dusty.

What lies ahead is the Vuelta, which, near as I can tell, is a series of bunch sprints punctuated by occasional climbs, the fall classic, The Tour of Lombardy, and Worlds. There must be some other stuff in there, but I just don't see it. The road season is essentially marching along like a zombie at the end of a Romero flick, knowing there must be some BRAINS! MMMPHH... somewhere up the road, but there's no way of knowing if any of the living survived.

When the road season turns undead, there's only one thing for the living to do...

Grab a shotgun and a cowbell, and go 'crossin!


MySpace Countdowns

TdF Wrap-up

On the balance, it’s been a mildly interesting TdF. The day-to-day racing wasn't all that dramatic because one guy owned the bunch sprints, another guy owned the hills. In between… a bunch of teams grumbled because the lack of mountaintop finishes forced them to bust their butts on Giro-style plummeting finishes that regrouped everybody for a bunch sprint every day. More on that later, but for now, consider that it’s a shame no great descender stepped up to use those finishes to animate the race with wild risk taking and lurid skids around turns… alas, where are the Colombians of yesteryear?

Despite the relative lack of drama through the middle stages, we discovered some new things about racing and about the current cast of characters. This race is more interesting in retrospect than it was while any given 60 Km flat run-in to a bunch sprint was unfolding in a ‘climbing’ stage.

First and foremost, we found out that Lance is still a world class athlete, and maybe so too are a lot of near-40 year-old endurance athletes. I’m going to leave out the elephant in the room for a second. Used to be, you were done at 32 or 33, helped along by Marlboro Reds and copious beer in the off-season. (I believe this is the model that Boonen-Ulrich Training Systems still uses). Year-round training and career-long nutritional efforts have changed this. As Lance paced Andreas Kloden up the hills, as George Hincapie and Jens Voigt (before his terrible spill) moved mountains for their teams, it was clear: old doesn’t mean dead any longer. This isn't great news for younger riders; it will be tougher for them to break into the sport with older guys holding on to the top spots for a longer period of time. But it's good for racing because the experienced guys often do smarter and more surprising things in racing. As a lot of old racers will tell you, racing isn't about being the fastest guy, it's about being the best racer...

Second, the elephant. I’m starting to suspect that the doping problem is comprised of a few dummies taking CERA, and the remainder of dopers pounding synthetic material brewed up in some black project lab by a bunch of enterprising, ethics-free biochemistry grad students. A few of the riders had amazing performances, they looked absolutely tireless, not even having a single bad day… and we know that is one of the symptoms of doping. And nobody was caught. Yet. This put me in mind of the BALCO investigation, which only got rolling when a disgruntled track athlete forwarded some of his used syringes to USADA. USADA in turn was mortified when it analyzed ‘the stuff,’ determining that there was no way to detect it short of finding dirty syringes, and even then it wasn’t clear anybody would recognize the high grade synthetic performance enhancers for what they are. You look back in retrospect at the BALCO athletes in a lot of sports and they were doing insane things, just head and shoulders above their peers, as if all those other world class athletes with their amazing genetic gifts were just Freds… But it was all a lie. I cannot get over this seed of doubt that every superhuman performance now nourishes in my mind. And I feel this way without even giving serious credence to the notion of gene therapy...

Third, we found out a few of the young stars in the sport need to grow up a bit. Cav has had an up and down Tour, alternately hugging his team then using them to gank other sprinters a bit excessively in the bunch sprints; switching between bitter indictments of Thor Hushovd, and praising him and admitting humiliation when the big fella got angry and showed the rest of us how to ride mountains. A bit of consistency in character is going to be needed if Cav wants to go from great sprinting irritating guy, to cocky but beloved sprinter/marketing powerhouse, as McEwen did. (He's HUGE in Belgium. . . .)

Fourth, for his part, Contador showed he will be a good fit on a team where he is the unquestioned leader. He's ready to be a team leader because he proved he won't be a good fit on any team where anybody might challenge him. Elephant question aside, assuming the truth of what Bruyneel and Armstrong said, Contador doesn’t believe there’s an “I” in team, but he has discovered that there is a “f*** you!” in it, at least if you can climb really well. Lance may be a dick, but Contador doesn't appear to be lagging in that competition. This would make him a good fit for one of the Spanish teams, where lesser Spanish climbers will defer to him in his role of prima ballerina on the pedals, and nobody is going to really care about whether the team ought to be able to compete in sprints as long as it gets mountaintop stage wins and can thus be somewhat competitive in the overall. The rumors that Garmin are talking with him are disappointing. I don’t think he will fit with the ‘team first’ mentality they have, and I don’t think he would like sharing domestiques with a top sprinter like Farrar, or dealing with the two or three truly surly flatland leadout men - who will probably be useless in the hills - that Farrar needs. Wiggins and VandeVelde might be willing to swallow their pride Levi-style, but I suspect they’d rather leave than deal with a guy who has demonstrated that he’ll accept loyalty but won’t necessarily give it. Either could be a number one rider on a lesser team. Contador's acquisition would also necessarily turn Garmin into a G.C. oriented team rather than an all-around team like Columbia that can do a lot of things well, and I’m not sure what that would do to strong domestiques / TT'ers like Zabriskie or Millar, or a young talent like Maaskant, who seems to have unlimited potential but who has not yet discovered his niche in the pro cycling world.

Fifth, and speaking of Garmin, The Little Team That Could is now the Little Team That Did. Proving that last year’s experience was no fluke, they nearly put a guy on the podium, and returned VandeVelde) to the Top 10. Farrar didn’t win a stage but he was either the only guy, or one of only three guys, who could stay within striking distance of Cav. Assuming they are as elephant-free as they claim, their performance is both remarkable, and good for cycling. Not only have they been given a place at the table, they’ve earned a position up near the head of it, pushing a bunch of more well-established teams (I’m looking at you, Silence-Lotto) down toward the end where one finds only half-empty food bowls, and the wine glasses never get re-filled.

Sixth, ahhh, Silence-Lotto. It’s an apt name because Cadel Evans was silent for the most part, and on the occasions he wasn’t… well, he probably should have been. Shoot, I can remember when they used to talk about him as one of this year's top contenders. I think he may get one more chance to get his act back together, but for the most part he looked like one of those castoff 40 year-old quarterbacks that an NFL team will pick up just before the season. They can play a few downs or maybe a half and do alright, but if the starter doesn't return, the day-to-day grind shows them up as the physically broken down, mentally tired athletes they frequently are. Evans claimed he had two or three really bad days during the Tour. This may be true. But you can’t have a few bad days if you want to be the supported rider and a G.C. contender. You can maybe have *a* bad day – and by “bad day” I mean you lose 30 seconds or a minute, not three minutes and change. Even then, you need to show resiliency and bounce back from that by picking up some time at an intermediate point that offers a time bonus or by nipping another GC contender at the line. If Cadel doesn't get it together soon, the only question anybody will be asking is whether he can win the domestique’s contest to see who can carry the most water bottles in a single load.

Seventh, the French teams generally had a pretty good Race. At least B-Box Bouygues Telecom had a very good race, considering that the best example of a BBox prior to stage wins by Thomas Voeckler and Pierrick Fedrigo was Scientologist/rapper Doug E. Fresh. Up through stage nine, BBox was leading the race for the purses. Ag2r had a nice race too, with former just okay/pretty good racer Rinaldo Nocentini wearing the Maillot Jaune for stages 7 through 14. The team standings after Mt. Ventoux were also interesting, with AG2R, Francaise Des Jeux and Cofidis in sixth seventh and eighth place, respectively. (BBox/Bouygues finished the team GC in 15^th but they earned their chops with 8 days in the yellow, so they get a pass here). Francais Des Jeux and Cofidis need to raise their game a bit, I think, they didn't do much and in fact got shown up by the aggressive riding of Continental Pro team Skil-Shimano. Still, none of the French teams were humiliated and for the most part they actually had a pretty good tour, which is perhaps a sign that the anti-doping measures applied generally to the peloton are catching up to the French government’s heavy-handed but apparently effective approach.

Eighth, the superbowl approach to Stage 20 delivers enormous drama. It also relegates much of the rest of the race to NBA Regular Season status. The Mont Ventoux stage was ridiculously dramatic and amazing, with Andy Schleck unable to shake Contador and unable to pull Frank Schleck away from Lance, with Bradley Wiggins and Andreas Kloden hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and young Tony Martin visibly turning himself inside out for second on the stage. Most of the prior stages… not so much. Had this been the Giro d’Italia, with crazed Italian pros attacking at all points, it would have been an awesome format. The TdF is more trench warfare than dashing sword fights, and many Giro-type stages with long run-ins to the finish following Cat 1 or HC climbs were hamstrung by defensive racing. There’s just too much to be lost in losing a podium spot or a stage win at the Tour, and this discourages flamboyant, attacking riding. I think next year the Tour needs to return to the mountaintop finishes, inserting three or four of them. If you want to break up the mountains with flat stages, fine, try that. But you can’t call it a mountain stage, no matter how hilly it is, if all the sprinters make it to the bunch sprint and the climbers get relegated. You need to give the Grimpeurs – or in flat stages the Rouleurs – a chance and an incentive to try to make a breakaway stick. They didn’t have it, for the most part, under this year’s format.

So those are the takeaways. The cool thing about the TdF is that even if you don’t get what you expected or what you were looking for, you often get something quite nice instead. That is how this year’s Tour unfolded for me – disappointment in a lot of the daily stages, rendered boring by the format, but an interesting race in retrospect with an amazingly dramatic climax on Ventoux.

Music on My Mind

I knocked out about 75 this morning. Fun times. Just steady zone two stuff, not fast. The last hour or so, I started getting ants in my pants. I couldn't keep up a steady spin, my feet started hurting, I was distracted... I think I may have been riding Business Route 7 around the outskirts of Bonkton. This was made more evident by modest consumption upon arrival at the immense Rouleur Cavern, swilling of a very low calorie recovery drink and eating a mere salad for lunch, this after a 2700 kcal effort during the morning. It was definitely a bonk; though it was 90 outside, I was freezing and had to take a hot shower to get clean. A *real* hot shower. I was movin' kinda slow all afternoon and didn't fully recover until after dinner. Super bonus recovery came when I broke out one of Brandon Miller's excellent homebrew Gueuze, which he brewed using rye malt (among other things) and my own sourdough starter, the wild yeast that Son of Rouleur and I captured last fall. In addition to making nice bread, it makes a passable gueuze, which is transformed into a nice lambic with the addition of a bit of fruit syrup. In this case, two teaspoons of sugar in a quarter cup of cherry juice mixed into a 12 ounce gueuze made a wonderful evening refresher.

Anyhow, that was my day.

I've been thinking about some of the music I like lately, and dug out a couple vids for your viewing pleasure.

You may not be aware of Band of Skulls. You should be - they have a Bowie / Hendrix / Bootsy Collins meet White Stripes kid of thing going on. It's really rocking music, but kind of funky too.



If you like that... well, how 'bout some Raconteurs? It's a collabo between a bunch of really good musicians, most notably Jack White.



Speaking of Jack White... the White Stripes made some pretty excellent music. Check out one of their more familiar ones:



The problem with a lot of these bands I highlight, especially these newer alt.rock bands, is they don't seem to have a natural home on the radio so if you're not 14 years old or a college student with a lot of time to burn, you would never discover them. I guess there's the secondary MTV channels, but the radio landscape is pretty dire. Urban contemporary / hip-hop (and not very good UC or hip-hop at that) have taken over most of the major market airwaves because that's what 13 year-old girls download, and 13 year-old girls are the music industry's center mass customer, so the rest of us don't really matter. Then there's oldies / softies stations - and this stuff is way too hard for any station that plays Elton John or Billy Joel. Seriously, in the D.C. market there's a station that bills itself as knowing more about ______ than anybody. They fill in the blank with Barry Manilow, Elton John, Michael 'no talent assclown' Bolton, you name it. Knowing those guys better than any body is considered a credential? Seriously? By whom?

So if you're going to hear new stuff, this leaves dinosaur album rock stations as they only place you'd hear it, but innovative new music usually gets exiled to odd hours, drive time seemingly taken up with oldies or second rate neo-grunge and a lot of the rest of the time with Factory Core or whatever you call the latest Metallica offering or Bon Jovi re-tread/mix. Which is cool, I suppose, if you want to listen to shit music. But really, isn't there more to life than Limp Bizkit?

Decisions, Decisions...

I'm not sure that I'm up for Liberty Jam on Saturday - I have some questions about my fitness (e.g. 'where is it?') and my foot is still a little tender where it was cut on. Mountain biking definitely takes a toll on the foot, the short rides I've taken have left it a bit sore, and that is one tough day. The other thing is that I am doing a no-shit proper basebuilding period for cross this year, riding consistently, losing some weight, and building a strong base. 4-5 hours of hard single speed riding would blow me out for probably three days afterwards - making Gros give me the sad virtual headshake and making myself wonder if I know WTF I'm doing at all. So I'm back and forth about it and considering doing a long base ride, on this route. It's got a bailout that gives you 75 miles. It'd probably satisfy my yen for doing an absorbing long ride without blowing apart my training for next week. I sure will miss the crew though... nobody is more fun to ride with than a pack of single speeders.

Hmmmm...

Fun With Friday and the Tour

I really shouldn't be griping about Astana's young climber who is a wonderful kid who just wants to race, not answer silly questions. And I shouldn't be jocking its elder statesman, who is a mildly evil philanthropist with a penchant for hot blonds, and I suspect, a secret underground lair. Instead, I should pay tribute to a guy who transformed himself, Michael Rasmussen-style, or perhaps more aptly Roberto Heras-style, from a diminutive climber, into a diminutive climber who is not only the best climber in the TdF but also the best time trialist in all of cycling. And I have to celebrate a nearly 40 year-old guy who decided to take a year off from sleeping with / breaking up with / impregnating random blond women to come back and come real close to dominating the sport he left some years back. We need to believe in these guys, and the authenticity of their achievement. Truly, words aren't good enough to express how I really feel about these men; music is what I need to express my thoughts. Try this on for size:



While I'm at it, I should pay tribute to Mark Cavendish, who is maybe the greatest sprinter of all time. If you doubt me, just ask him. I agree with him - if you don't like getting curbed by some guy who then mocks you out publicly about having done so, then you shouldn't be a sprinter. Besides, Hushovd doesn't stop right after the line and hug everybody on Team Saxo Bank when he takes a sprint, so he's no-class. Plus that stupid breakaway the other day... Cav could totally have crushed Hushovd in the hills, but only a loser takes sprint points by doing a 150 kilometer solo breakaway during the Queen Stage of the race. A real man, a true sprinter, rides off the back during such stages, gasping up mountains in the hills stages like a fish in a tanning bed, and waits for the end of flat transitional stages to show his mettle as a sprinter. So here's some music to express the undying admiration I have for Mark Chavendish:



I admire Bernard Hinault too. He can't help but stick it to people... When he raced, there were rumors of him being involved in numerous incidents of domestic... er, domestique violence. The way he turned on loyal teammate LeMond... c'est magnifique! It's le racing, beatch! Promises schmomises. And recently, for the second year in a row, he kicked the crap out of some fool who undeservedly stepped on the podium. This year, it wasn't some smelly hippy, it was some wannabe in a Francaise de Jeaux kit... or perhaps it was Yauheni Hutarovich, same thing, really. Anyheaux, viva El Bernard, who is more Texas than any other Frenchman ever, and more Texas than a lot of people who claim to be from Texas for that matter. This Bud's for you, Badger! Try not to inadvertantly hurt anybody, okay?



Then there's Cadel Evans. He's a guy who used to race bikes for a living. This year, he sort of rides a bike for fun, and waves to the bike racers as they go past. Have a 40 of Schlitz Malt Liquor on us, Cadel! And don't forget to hit the twenties on my Hummer with some Armor All.



We can't leave out Jonathan Vaughters. Not only is his team drug free, but they launch, um, whatever it is they do, with wine tastings and at swanky restaurants. They posed for GQ-like pictures. They train, race, sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom with power - I hear that Zabriskie is able to poo at 145% of threshold for nearly 15 minutes as a result, providing there is ample reading material in the outhouse. They wear funny facial hair. They ride time trials with frozen ice fins tucked down the back of their jerseys, in a spectacular homage to a famous French musician who sported noteworthy dorsal anomalies. Plus Vaughters can pull off a houndstooth jacket / checked shirt / tweed ascot combination, thanks to an intermittent soul patch which ties it all together, which he pets like a large orange cat during interviews. Or maybe that's just his chin, I don't know. Just look at this!


Sheeeit, that caucasian is crazy! This is for you, Jonathan:



And as long as I'm at it, he's not riding the Tour, but it's just not fair to leave out our friend Danilo DiLuca, who rode so well in the Giro that WADA attacked him with needles and made him bleed all over the place. Then they accused him of using EPO which is stupid - nobody would use EPO then race at the top of of the G.C. in a grand tour knowing that EPO is now detectable and people at the top of the G.C. will be getting asked to give blood or pee constantly. Nobody is that dumb. Right? Right? Hey, why are those crickets chirping?

NSFW - don't click play unless your workplace is cool w/t PG 13+ vids... Anyhow, thanks for all you've done for us, Danilo! See you at CAS!

Tour Notes II

Yesterday was a day of classy moves in the Tour.

Top of the list was Mark Chavendish's petulant trash talking, a series of immature comments that ultimately undercut him in the Green Jersey competition. Race officials had relegated him for half wheeling and allegedly shoving Hushovd into the barriers on angry Stage 14 during the bunch sprint into Besancon. Chav's maneuvers forced Hushovd to grab a handful of brake, ending his sprint. Post-race, the officials ruled that it was caused by Chav's failure to maintain a straight line in the sprint. That is the rules-oriented way of telling Chav it was a dick move, going just a little too far. The relegation that gave Hushovd the Green Jersey. It is true that Hushovd had whined about it, but it's also true that Chav was guilty as charged. So Chav told the press that the jersey was now permanently stained, and that he wondered how Hushovd could sleep at night. Hushovd, a rider with a list of palmares similar to but a lot longer than Chav's, responded by attacking out of the gate on Stage 16, and riding a solo breakaway for the first three quarters of the race over two Cat 1 climbs and some lesser (but still stiff) categorized climbs to take all sprint stages on the day. It would have been a good ride from a small, high quality climbing domestique; from a very large sprinter, it was a performance for the ages. Thor's Wild Ride gave Hushovd a 30 point lead over Chavendish in the Green Jersey competition and hopefully shut up the whiny Manxman for a while, as Hushovd demonstrated that the only stains on the jersey are those left over from when the mouth-breathing Chav was wearing it. Maybe living well really is the best revenge.

Speaking of classy moves... Johan Bruyneel, who is trying to keep his corporation together and get it the best possible sponsor deal for next year, apparently asked Contador to simply mark the Schleck brothers during stage 17, and not try to shed anybody, since the Schlecks would probably get rid of Wiggins and VandeVelde and the other pretenders to the throne. Contador responded by attacking, taking the Schlecks with him and shedding teammates Kloden and Armstrong from the lead group. Kloden probably couldn't have gone with the Schleck accellerations, but Armstrong probably could have and maintained second for himself and for Astana. Armstrong stuck to Bruyneel's script, wasn't expecting an attack, and once it went had to hold back and mark Wiggins. Bruyneel, who is trying to stay cool about Contador's move, is obviously upset that Contador has probably destroyed Astana's (formerly very good) chances for an all-Astana podium in Paris. Because Contador is almost certainly going to win anyhow, and because going away and dragging the Schlecks with him didn't help Contador in the G.C. standings, his move was either stupid or malicious. Either way it shows he isn't a team player, and could not care less about how the team fares.

Losing a few spots in the G.C. isn't a huge deal for Armstrong, who has apparently lined up sponsorship for next year, but there are 25 riders on Astana who would benefit from an all-Astana podium. Bruyneel wants this for business purposes, and Contador fails to understand that a large part of Bruyneel's plan isn't about the bike, it's about sports marketing. I'm sure Contador will enjoy riding for Euskatel or whomever next year, but to my way of thinking he's marked himself the same way Hinault is marked for crapping on LeMond - it's a flaw that we'll always have to take into account when discussing him, like Cobb's racism or Ruth's drunkeness. I'm guessing Bert's soon-to-be ex-teammates will go out of their way in future races to stick it to him.

Don't get me wrong; I'd prefer to see a podium with some Garmin and Columbia representation. I'm ambiguous about Astana and their success, and note mass marketed pharmaceuticals are not the only way to get a leg up in sports. See, e.g. Balco. Yep, I have my suspicions. But I also appreciate Astana's racers and Bruyneel's race management, and Contador's selfish riding rubs me the wrong way. It's the equivalent of a showboating NFL wide receiver. Scoring points is great but there are 53 guys on an NFL roster doing a lot of hard work, and the "me me me" routine is hoisting a middle finger at all the guys who make the showboating possible. Contador, like Terrell Owens or Chad Ocho Cinco is going to prove his point, but each time he does it his way to the detriment of the team, we're going to come to despise him a little bit more. It's not a healthy dislike of a strong rider, it's looking down your nose at him. I'd like to like Contador, but it's becoming less feasible because of the way he rides against his team.

Voigt Crashes

Aye Caramba!

No spoilers from today's stage, except to note that Jens Voigt had a frickin' hard crash on a descent. According to the team he has a fractured cheekbone, and he's in the hospital overnight for observation. He's moving and speaking fine, they claim, and they anticipate he will make a full recovery.


According to witnesses, Jens crashed out after riding into his own shadow, a dark and depressing place where most of the pro peloton is forced to ride most of the time. (You can see part of his shadow, scarily lying on the ground next to him, motionless). The team has not indicated how badly Jens' shadow was injured in the crash, and whether it will make a full recovery and return to racing. In the wake of the accidents, UCI officials are considering placing European-Union approved warning labels on Jens' shadow... providing they can find warning labels constructed of heat-resistant ceramic tiles.

No other riders went down when Jens was hurt, though dogs all throughout Switzerland began barking, a Ukranian virgin was found to have conceived a child, and Tongan astronomers reported a partial eclipse of the Sun.


Get well, Jens!

Rest Day Blues

What's there to do on a rest day? Not a lot. It's not just my rest day, but it's the Tour de France rest day too. So nothing's going on. Guess I'll just do what pro racers do, and that's sit around and bitch and whine publicly. But first...

Some years ago, I played for a good rugby club that had a hated crosstown rival, the arch-enemy. The old boys with 25 or 30 years history with the club would tell us the same thing every year:

We want you to win every game and take the championship. Bring it home to us. and do us proud. But if that doesn't happen, remember this: beat ______. In fact it doesn't matter if you lose every other game as long as you beat stinking ______.

I'm not going to name the other team because, well, they were archrivals and I still don't like those f***ers and I'm not going to do them the honor of naming them in print.

The point being that it was more important that we beat our archrivals, than we make the playoffs, win the championship, or do anything else. Ever. And that's how we played it. The games were desperate and often bloody, hard fought down to the last second, and rough; and unlike other games against other rivals, there was never really a traditional party afterwards. We were such jerks to each other that we forgot the code and boycotted each others' parties. Well, at least they boycotted ours, and they boycotted theirs if we showed up so we'd make a point of going, and drinking the keg they paid for as fast as possible. It'd take us about 30 minutes of very hard drinking to kill their keg, then we'd get the hell out of there. We hated those f***ers, and they hated us, and there's still bad blood that carries over between the guys who played then. I have a bit of grudging respect for a few of them who showed a flash of decency here or there, but most of them showed me enough of their awful character that I'd go out of my way to screw with them if I encountered them in 'real life' away from the playing field.

That's how it should be, if you care enough to send the very best. If you haven't played a sport to the level of hating somebody's guts, you just haven't lived.

And I know rivalry. I went to UNC Chapel Hill. You know how bad they and Duke hate each other? Somebody had the bright idea to have joint UNC/Duke Med outings to the basketball games. Y'know, because doctors and future doctors are the best and the brightest we have to offer. One of these culminated in a UNC Med student kicking the shit out of a Duke Med student at midnight on Franklin Street in front of Top of the Hill over the results of the just-finished basketball game. Yes, I actually saw that.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Now that's rivalry. It's an ugly side of the human character but if you can't find a rival and fight like that... well, don't worry about it. You're probably not Alpha Dog material, and it's irrelevant. There are plenty of spaces in the pack for you. If you're Alpha Dog material though, that's a signature moment.

I raise this because everybody seems baffled by Garmin's rundown of George Hincapie in Stage 14 over the weekend. Oh, how could they do it to such a lovely fellow? We're all friends here, two American teams, we're in this together, wouldn't unity be good for cycling in America, can't we all just get along?

Hah. As if.

Even Gorgeous George himself whined about it a lot, but it what happened in the race made perfect sense. If you actually watched the stage, the gap was approaching 10 minutes, which would have put Hincapie in the jersey by 5 minutes. Lance and Contador didn't mind him maybe taking the jersey, but they weren't going to let him take it by 5 minutes. Could Hincapie win the TdF with a 5 minute gap going into the Alps? Probably not, but it'd be a damn close thing and you don't want to give him the chance. They wanted him to get it, but narrowly, to force Columbia to work their butts off to try to defend on Sunday and maybe Tuesday too, keep the pace stiff, wear out the weaker teams. Astana tried to get the gap to about 7 minutes and leave it there. Had the gap remained static when Astana quit working, George would have owned the jersey by two minutes - perfect for Astana.

Subsequently, when the race got closer to the finish, Ag2r realized George was going to finish only two minutes up on Nocentini, and they had a chance to keep the jersey. They started fighting for it and drove the pace, and Astana's riders gave each other a funny look, slowed down and slipped back. This is no surprise either. For a small team, an extra day defending the Maillot Jaune is cash money and happy sponsors. They didn't have enough horsepower to fully close that big break of rouleurs, but they could work to keep it close. And that's what they did.

So that explains Astana's and Ag2r's actions. But why did Garmin come and help run down George? Why were they so mean?

It's because of the rivalry, stoopid.

Garmin is starting to get a real case of the ass with Columbia. Garmin is a nice little team with some modest successes... that Columbia clips at every opportunity. Team time trials, sprints, GC (in some of the other races, anyhow)... you name it, Columbia is lording it over the other American registered team.

The best example is Tyler Farrar, who is having what would be a breakout TdF were it not for Columbia, is getting punked constantly by Mark Cavendish and his leadouts. Cav has managed to nip Tyler Farrar *every* single time at the line. Sometimes it's real close, sometimes it's three bike lengths and Hushovd noses in there for second... but every single damn time Columbia is beating up on Garmin. Farrar finished second in a bunch sprint (or second on the stage) to Cav in stages 2, 5, 11 and two slots back on Stage 10. Earlier in the season, Cav badmouthed Farrar after press coverage hyped Farrar's one victory over Cav. Cav has beaten Farrar every other time.

In short, Columbia is drinking up Garmin's milkshake. They drink it all up, day, after day, after day, after day. They aren't being nice about it either. Mark Renshaw has physically beaten the crap out of Julian Dean and Tyler Farrar during bunch sprints, preventing an effective leadout and finishing sprint, and I saw with my own eyes that Cav intentionally half wheeled Farrar and tried to take him down or force him to almost stop in a sprint last week, which is permissible but it's still a dick move and we all know it.

So everybody is asking why Garmin would beat themselves up to help Ag2r chase down Hincapie, as if it was some huge mystery.

It's really not. If somebody kicked your ass day after day after day, if you had any self-respect you'd try to take the bastard out any way you could. You'd become a rival.

This isn't surprising. Sometimes, the worm simply turns. Even if Garmin can't take a stage, they'll settle for picking on Columbia's squad daddy and road captain, Hincapie.

The only thing that's chickenshit about the whole deal is that Jonathan Vaughters is there scratching his soul patch and pondering how weird and coincidental it just happened to be that Garmin found itself on the front hammering while Hincapie tried for the Maillot Jaune. Yeah, funny how that just happened, eh J.V.? I guess that's part of the game too.

Garmin is coming along nicely as a team and building a good list of palmares, but they won't be ready to be the Alpha Dog until Vaughters is comfortable giving a "screw you" answer along the lines of, "Well, George is a great guy, but that's racing and I am surprised that a classy guy like George would complain about getting a perfectly wonderful result, third on a stage of the TdF." Spoiling George's day was a pro move, albeit a sort of bitchy, petulant one; admitting it would be a declaration of war, which is something real pro teams sometimes do when they have a legit ax to grind.

Right now, Lance knows what happened, and so does Vaughters and I'm sure Bob Stapleton does too, and even George probably figured it out by dinner time, based on his calm and quiet reaction to discussions of The Rundown in the past couple days. That many of the rest of us haven't really gotten it yet is surprising. We shouldn't pretend Garmin's move was innocent. It wasn't. It was pure, nasty, evil sporting vindictiveness, a big bitter cup of denial that they handed Hincapie when all he wanted was a 16 ounce bottle of Accellerade. Mmmmm... tasty milkshake. At least for the fans.

What you saw there, friends, if all goes to plan, is the birth of a new rivalry. A new, nasty, vindictive, eye-for-an-eye relationship between the two American teams. It's exactly the kind of thing that can drive a team to the top. You don't have greatness without a great challenge to overcome, and frankly, Columbia is a great team right now and Garmin, beyond being "the clean team" hasn't really had a clear target to shoot for. Now they do, and George's potential yellow jersey day was the first shot Garmin put into the 10 ring.

We shouldn't worry about trying for some imaginary unity between the two American teams, which, after all, are commercial competitors for the same sponsor dollars. We should instead see the situation for what it is and celebrate it. Rivalry is very often an ugly thing, but a good side benefit is that a lot of other teams get beaten badly as a good rivalry develops. For them it's like stepping into a shootout between rival street gangs. You definitely don't want to get caught in the crossfire; but the shootout does ultimately serve a rather Darwinian purpose, of making both competitors stronger, and weeding out the weak. Bring it on, Garmin. Bring it on.

Who knew that being so bad, could be so good?

Odds & Ends

I've been a little quiet the last couple days as a result of working on the Giro di Coppi. Many thanks to the cops, McGinty's Pub in Crystal City, the race officials, the EMTs (whose services were needed), the teammates and other volunteers, and to the racers, for making a great event come together. Joaquin Salas Orono deserves huge props for stepping up as the Capo for the event - he did a great job. As usual, it was a fun race, people had their legs literally torn off (okay, maybe not literally) and everybody got all the suffering they could handle. It's even kind of a fun event to put on.

I am still tired. I don't know why. I didn't race... But it was fun.

Not that it was without tragedy. While we were sweeping the course on Friday, a line of traffic approached up the hill we were on. A large sportbike, a 900 or 1000 from the sound of it, passed the line of cars and trucks and was heading up the hill at full wail. A cat ran out of a yard about 20 meters away. You know what comes next, right? The bike hit the cat and launched up into the air. The rider did a tank slapper, straightened out the crossed up wheel and kept riding. The cat started doing the dance of death. At that point the owner walks up to one of the Coppis doing the course sweeping, stands next to the car and in full Sling Blade Voice, says, "You the bicyclist, mmmmm hmmmm? You killed mah cat." It seems his theory was that the sound of sweeping scared the cat into the road. That makes sense to me - if a vacuum cleaner scares the cats, why wouldn't a whisk broom, or other cleaning implements like a dishcloth, a bottle of shampoo, or a picture of a Zamboni scare a cat just as much? I'm sitting in the car at this point listening to the guy chew out Jon and Son of Rouleur is in the back asking what's wrong with the cat, while my other teammate Scott is trying to slip into the truck without catching Billy Bob's attention, and the Wife of Slingblade is scooping the cat off the road, dropping him on the side and simply walking away. I had to chuckle not because it was funny, it really wasn't, because it was totally surreal and was going all pear shaped. It was a pained chuckle, and I wound up explaining to Son of Rouleur, who is five, that the cat was gone for good, and that's why mommy and I are always reminding him to be careful around roads. So we drove away, grateful that Billy Bob's wife hadn't had time yet to get out of the house with a shotgun, and grateful that Son of Rouleur didn't have any more difficult questions on his mind. The cat was upside down and kicking the last of his life away as we rolled off to go sweep the next corner, amazed at that little bit of weirdness. Needless to say, I fully anticipate seeing a letter to the editor in the Post on Tuesday discussing the satan-worshipping bike racers who appeared in northern Montgomery County over the weekend, wearing all black kit and pushing an altar comprised of a slab of black marble suspended between two flame-belching demonbikes, on which they conducted human and animal sacrifices. The pile of hamburger on the road at the bottom of the finishing hill, left by some over-eager Cat IV racers, will not do anything to dispel the rumors...

Friday Music

Nice. So... good relationship, or bad?



Funk-tabulous. Consistent with this blog's policy of providing 70% more funk than other similar blogs, the following Bootsy Collins performance is provided for your pleasure.



Tannhauser Festmarch. Lovely music by a schizophrenic guy, Wagner. Not my favorite Wagner opera, but maybe my favorite single piece by him... it does an awful lot of different things in 7 minutes.




It ain't over until...

Oh, nevermind.




What, you're still here? Then check this out. It's Kirsten Flagstad, probably the greatest singer of all time. Don't think of her voice as something comprehensible; think of it as a musical instrument and check out how she hits every note square on. Most people can't do that with a properly tuned piano, much less their own voice. Google her or YouTube her and check her out singing a lot of more accessible (and sensible) pieces of music. She's flat out amazing. And check out Your Host here.



Okay, she's sung. You can go now.

66 Lines about 33 Boonens.

- This year's TdF is like seeing a police beatdown on COPS. You watch the Tour and see how the tifosi are getting beat down and you want to think that the tifosi must have done something wrong to deserve it. But you go away wondering if it is deserved at all and thinking maybe there's something wrong about how it's shaking out.

- Liberace, Jerry Lee Lewis and Beethoven together didn't have as much piano between them as this year's TdF.

- When racers are likely to try to win, it makes sense to set up stages with finishes 50km past the big mountains, to reward the likes of a Salvodelli, who will pull off insane descents and fight like hell to win the race. This works in the Giro, where the Italians can't help themselves and attack like madmen. When the racers are likely to ride defensively for three weeks, the default mode of the TdF, it's like putting the whole race in that crystal thing where Superman put Lex Luthor in suspended animation. Except Lex Luthor was never as mean to the fans as ASO is being this year with this horrendous layout.

- I thought I'd like this year's layout. I was wrong! So wrong! How can I ever make it up to you?

- Fine, fine. Let's go back to a week of sprints, a week in the Alps, and a week in the Pyrenees. I'll never criticize the layout again. Promise.

- I notice that Tom Boonen has gone down a few times on the goofily-marked French roads. But who can blame him? Seeing a bunch of white lines in front of your nose would be disorienting to anybody.

- I'd like to get hammered with Bob Roll. I would not want to experience a hangover with him, however.

- I read somewhere yesterday that somebody misses Al Trautwig. Watching the Olympics last year and idly flipping to the gymnastics, I was surprised to hear Trautwig's dulcet and disoriented tones doing color commentary for the female gymnastics. Staring at underage girls seems like a good career move for Al.

- Tony Kornheiser, who hates all bicyclists and has suggested that drivers should run us down, would make an excellent color commentator for the TdF. Sure, we'd all hate him, but I bet you all would tune in.

- Stock Frankie Andreu Interview Question: "Hey, you rode great today. What do you think about that?"

- Stock Frankie Andreu Interview Follow-up Question: "Yeah, you really did ride great. I was impressed. Are you going to ride great again tomorrow? I think you are. What do you think?"

- Stock Frankie Andreu Hard Hitting Interview Question: "Yesterday you said there are some disputes on the team. Would you say there are some disputes on the team? How much is 'some'?"

- Bob Roll's internal dialogue during the flat stages: "Man... can you believe I gave up house painting and pot smoking to sit next to Hummer? Shit. I can't believe it either. What was I thinking..."

- Breast, Prostate, Lung and Colon Cancer's thought upon seeing Lance using the race as a fund-raising and activist venue: "Cripes, testicle... I told you that you'd be nuts to screw with that guy. Now look what you've done!"

Your July Is My January

What with the endless litany of, um, interesting things that have happened to me this year, I'm in Base 1 again, scrambling to get ready for cross.

The cool thing about this is base training is "just riding around." Sure, it's a little faster than that, maybe; you keep steady pressure on the pedals on downhills and try to keep the Powertap needle in the center of the "just hard enough to start feeling it after a bit" zone. But it's just riding around and enjoying yourself, spending time on the bike.

This is cool because normally at this time of the year, my week would look like: 90 minutes recovery / 30 warmup + 5x 2 minutes all out on 5 minutes rest + 30 warmdown / 90 min recovery / 3x 20 tempo / 90 minutes recovery / 3 hours zone 1 for an hour, 2 for an hour, 3 for an hour / 2 hours zone 2.

Yeah, that's right. My summer is normally painfully fast alternating with painfully slow. Not this year though. I'm enjoying the best riding weather of the year by just riding around in it. So maybe sometimes getting an injury or a surgery, if it's the right one and you time it right, can be a blessing. I'm just enjoying riding right now and grateful I can do it.

That doesn't mean it's all cookies and cream though. The same ugly stuff still happens. I'm trying to avoid saddle sores right now, work has weighed heavily on me, and on the road...

I got buzzed twice today on narrow roads as a result of riding around the rush hour out in the bedroom community where I live.

The first guy who buzzed me managed a double. I always tell newer riders that their little mirror is cool but situational awareness is what they really need. I heard this engine really revving up a ways behind me, and the hair on my neck went up a little. I saw this tradesman pickup - white, with tool boxes down each side - coming up really fast behind me. The road was empty but his angle of approach was a little goofy. Sure enough, he buzzed me, with his right wheel six inches onto the 18 inch shoulder. I freaked just a little as I saw him approaching out of peripheral vision and bunny hopped a small ditch onto a lawn. The cyclocross skills came in handy; I just kept on pedaling and when the guy was past, bunny hopped back onto the shoulder. A bit later I came onto a long line of traffic stuck at a light - it was one of those Three-Light-Stops that takes three cycles of red and green to get through. My buddy was there, and as I whizzed up the right shoulder I wondered which of the motorists I was pissing off, perhaps fatally. The light turned, I got through with the first of the cars and settled quickly into my 95 rpm cadence, and spun up the road. A couple minutes later, just before I turned, my buddy in the tradesman pickup truck again buzzed me, this time just as I moved hard to the right into a turn lane sheltered with a curb and stakes. What a wanker!

Later on in the ride I was coming down a minimal shouldered two-lane road, and needed to turn left onto a mostly empty country road that has broad shoulders. I moved into the turn lane when there was a break in traffic, and tried to time my left hand turn so that I arrived at the turning point at a break in the oncoming traffic. A pickup truck was approaching really fast, but I had 50 or 75 yards clearance when I turned. I hit the turn doing maybe 25, zipped around it and got far over on the right hand shoulder. A moment later I heard the pickup turn - a big turbodiesel from the sound of it - and heard the driver absolutely stomp that puppy. I got as far to the right as I could, and old Joe Bob - actually a mid-20's looking bubba - gassed it by me on the shoulder, leaving me about a foot of the 8 foot wide shoulder and burying me in a cloud of diesel smoke. As a side benefit, Joe Bob rode through a bunch of broken glass that some other thoughtful person had sprayed on the side of the road. Joe Bob threw a bunch of it up in the air, and probably got some in his tires, which will play hell with them within a couple days. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

So I could have been upset about these morons, but such is my mood right now, loving life in Base 1, that I was able to laugh about it quite a bit over the last 5 miles of the ride. What kind of a loser has to use a car to act out against cyclists? I'm a pretty big dude but I'm still really tiny compared to an F-350 or a welding truck. People who drive a truck and feel like they have to lash out at cyclists, particularly cyclists who are going out of their way to stay out of the way, must suffer from some type of serious character defect. Yeah, they're dangerous, but you have to sort of laugh at them and wonder what kind of a life they must have that seeing a dude pedaling a bike makes them that angry. There are things in life that are worth getting angry about; you have to be an enormous Big L Loser to get pissed at a dude riding along on the shoulder knocking out base miles. I'm sure I have some character defects too; I'm just glad they aren't as glaring or silly as that.

TdF and Other Things

People are probably wondering why I'm not into the TdF...

Well, I was sort of into it until I realized that the dramatic mountain top finishes... are actually bunch sprints, mostly, occurring 30 to 75 kilometers after the actual climbs. Cribbing a page from the Giro, the TdF organizers tried to craft a race where flatland racers would stand a chance against the pure climbers. The problem with this approach is two-fold.

First, there are no 23% grades in the Tour. That means that not only do the weak climbing flatlanders hang on and clutter up the finish line with their laughable crashes, but the pack can't even shed the top half of the domestique ranks. Shoot, even the guys in the Laughing Group could probably catch back on in time for a finale 70km from the finish, if they tried to do so and if it wouldn't be so shameful. This has led to a series of bunch sprints by second tier classics riders / top tier domestiques, a buttload of bunch sprint crashes by people who don't bike handle well in the crit school of riding (high speed, tight corners prior to the finish) and it's given a sheaf of wins to okay classics riders, most of whom probably thought their real season was done in March and this would make great base training for Worlds. So it's cool... but not captivating.

Second, the Giro is famously combative. Unlike the Tour, where there is much to be gained and much to be lost, the financial stakes in Italy just aren't that high. This fact is reflected in the Tour's defensive trench warfare race tactics, aka Don't Lose - At All Costs! Compare that to racers in the Giro, who take fliers, launch mad attacks, and do stupid brave things to try to gain an advantage. A guy who couldn't climb but could descend like crazy won it a few years ago by being willing to slide both corners through turns! Magnifico! Heck, we even saw race leader DiLuca cover an Armstrong attack at one point, even though he had six perfectly good teammates handy! The penalty for failure in the Tour is you lose money, endorsements, huge prize money, and fame. The penalty for failure in the Giro... well, you lose a bit of money, but a really good quality sort of failure, that a real racer wouldn't be embarassed about, won't cost you anything, really. You attack hard, blow up spectacularly, crash famously descending like a lunatic (see, e.g. Il Falco), and you may lose out on prize money but you will be beloved and may not ever have to pay for your own lunch anywhere in Italy ever again. There's something to be said for that. On the other hand, if you win the Tour... you get a sweet shoe deal and bike companies approach you about doing a spinoff name marketed with your actual name on the downtub. Cool, but not AWESOME.

The bottom line is what makes the Giro unique is the racing, what the racers do, while what makes the Tour unique is the final score and the slow chess game - a contest between Directors Sportivo really - that unfolds while they get their. You rarely get an unpredicted and unpredictable winner in the TdF...

So what was starting to look like an interesting Tour, is actually devolving into something that may never quite get to be interesting to real race fans. Will it all be settled on Mt. Ventoux? Yeah, probably. The organizers set it up that way. What that means, is that everything up to that point is prologue. The bunch sprints actually provide the only bits of relevance each day. Weird.

So that's why I'm not all that interested in the Tour. Sure, I'm watching it, I just don't find it as compelling as it usually is, with the normal first week sprints, second week hills, third week hills arrangement. It's a nice re-shaping of the course, just one that maybe doesn't fit the race's personality all that well. Yep, it's a course that encourages Eddy Merckx-style attacks, but it's hosting a race culture that adores Cadel Evans-style racing-not-to-lose.

I want to love it. I really do. But I just can't this year.

If it matters any, I am finding some amusement. I am coming to really hate Alberto Contador, to think Levi is the exception that proves the rule about bald men being sexy, to firmly believe we don't get enough interviews with Dave Zabriskie, and to realize that nothing is funnier than Lance's "I can't believe I'm not winning hands down" face.

Me? Or your lyin' eyes?

Funny pictures from Reuters here:



I think it's supposed to remind you of this, just in case you were wondering. I'm reasonably certain the glances are innocent, and that the Reuters photographers are playing up a sliiiightly racial angle here. What am I saying, that our European betters might harbor some racially impure thoughts?

Um, yeah. That's what I'm sayin'. Somebody bought all those betamax old copies of Mandingo, and it sure wasn't me.

John Ashcroft got screwed by the press photogs in a similar manner. Remember the boob controversy involving the statue at the Department of Justice? I do. A buddy of mine was an AP photographer at the time. He told me how they'd wriggle around on the floor scrambling to get a photo with a boob on the statue "stuck" in Ashcroft's ear, or just over his forehead.



So it's possible the C-in-C wasn't doing anything wrong there, he was just made an ass of by the photographers. Now if you want to see a guy who likes to get his Becky on, check out Sylvio Berlusconi's cabinet ministers:


One of the ministers is Giorgia Meloni. Giorgia Meloni? Is that a stage name?

Honestly, I appreciate the aesthetic Sylvio has got going on here, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that he makes them dress in cute little cabinet minister uniforms and prance around with Sig-Steyr subcaliber submachine guns at cabinet meetings. I like Berlusconi, but I'm not sure if he's trying to be a prime minister, a Bond villain, or this guy:

Robert Palmer - New Music - More Music Videos

If you had to ask me what works better, I'd say the not-unattractive, highly professional and mostly staid looking cabinet members that we have in this country - last Administration or the current one - inspire a bit more confidence. I don't view a few gray hairs as ugly in a leader, but as evidence that they've been around a bit, and perhaps can list a few mistakes made that they intend to avoid in the future. Younger people, while prettier... well, most of their best mistakes are in front of them.

On the other hand, if I was going to be strapped to a table and cut in half by lasers while a bevy of attractive villainesses pranced around in bib short / tank top / fully auto weapon uniforms, warming up a Doomsday Device, I think we all know which way to go.

Have a nice weekend.

Friday Fun (Mostly)

Jason Whitlock, whom I tend to like because he's unafraid to speak his mind, takes the sports media to task for making a hero of Steve McNair. McNair, the former Tennessee Titans and Bal'mer Ravens quarterback, was found dead with his girlfriend over the weekend. He had four bullets in his chest and head, and she had one in her head. The police ruled it a murder/suicide, and facts dribbled out during the week. It seems McNair had recently left his wife and four kids to be with this girlfriend, and she was pretty sure he was also starting up an affair with another woman. Whitlock points out an uncomfortable fact: this is about a guy who didn't take being a good father seriously enough. Part of the problem is that guys are guys. We like chasing tail. But when you have kids - as Whitlock puts it - it's a game changer. Here's the key thing he says:

You see, this is my problem with McNair, with American men as a whole.

We shirk our responsibilities as fathers. We don't have time for it. We think it's a part- or no-time job. We think our career is more important. We think charity work is more important. We think some young tail is more important.

We foolishly believe we're unnecessary in the rearing of children. This mindset must die.

I pass no judgment on McNair kicking it with a woman 16 years his junior. I don't agree with it, but I pass no judgment on McNair "cheating" on his wife.

However, I think it's ridiculous and embarrassing that he spent so much time chasing after a Nashville waitress that he created the impression he lived with her.

Many have tried, but you can't maintain two homes, two families. If HBO has shown us anything, it's that kids are the losers when it comes to Big Love. You can't live with a waitress in a condo/apartment, take her parasailing, clubbing, to Vegas and raise a brood of boys living in a home on the other side of town.

Kids are game-changers. Kids require sacrifice. Kids are a daily and sometimes hourly responsibility. You don't properly raise them in your spare time with money, fame, gifts and glowing newspaper and magazine stories about your courage to play on Sundays despite injury and pain.

That's uncomfortable and it hits close to home. As a father, you can't help but wonder if you're doing it right, if you're giving enough. Thing is, you won't have that child forever. It's your job to raise that child right, to give all the love you can manage, your time, and your wisdom. Striking the balance between that and being a provider is tough. Anyhow, go read the whole article. You need not agree with it, but it should provoke some thought.

But enough thinking. Let's have a little music.

How 'bout some Roy Orbison? We tend to forget about him because he had just a few hits. We forget that he had a really good body of work. Nice, listenable stuff. And he had a really original American sound - the Other Man In Black. Gotta love him.

Anything You Want



Orbison reminds me of Bob Dylan, a guy you could overlook. You tend to forget how damn good he was. Even when he's going straight political agit prop, he's damn good. That's one mark of a great artist - you don't have to agree with his message to acknowledge how great his art is.

Dylan: Hurricane



Another guy like that is Tom Petty. He has a really unique voice. In fact, he probably shouldn't be doing music at all. Dude can't sing for shit. Not by technical standards anyhow. But he growls and whines along, and produces a good song somehow. I don't get it, but I like it.

Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down



Jeff Lynne is yet another guy with a funny voice, who managed to have a nice career, first with Electric Light Orchestra, then as a solo artist. Here he is performing an ELO song.

Jeff Lynne: Turn to Stone



Yeah, I like the goofy bastards. My favorite Beetle? Why, George Harrison, of course. Here's George Harrison.

George Harrison: Set on You



Of course if you put all these goofy bastards in George Harrison's garage, and had them jam for a while and drink beer and decide to record an album... you'd wind up with the Traveling Wilburys. That's pretty much exactly what happened.

The Traveling Wilburys: End of the Line



Man, that song is sad and touching knowing that George Harrison and Roy Orbison are gone - and that you all and I will be someday in the not too distant future.

Oh well. That's a big thought and I'd rather not entertain it at the moment. For now, let's just enjoy some good quality music that soothes the soul and doesn't strain the brain. Yeah, you can have the blues, but getting together with some friends and making some good music can make you feel pretty better. See you on the road this weekend.

BB King and Friends: Why I Sing The Blues

Gam Jams Reviews: Bike Computers

The only bike computer I really use is a Powertap Pro, the older wired version. It works as advertised. That's the best thing I can say about it because the ads - the reviews and everything - are full of superlatives.

Dave puts his finger on why the Powertap is nice. Other sports experience short of being a pro trainer for endurance athletes just doesn't teach you how to think about and execute training on the bike. You can get fast by riding tons, and occasionally riding very hard and then resting some... but if you have 6-8 hours per week to train, you likely won't get into really good race fitness using unstructured training. You can build a castle of sorts by just piling bricks on one another, or you can build to a plan and maybe use a lot less bricks, and perhaps wind up with a nicer building.

The Powertap, along with Tudor Bompa's work as adapted and matured in Coggan & Allen's superb Training With Power - teaches you all you need to know. Throw in the handy Training Peaks WKO+ software, and you have all you need to know to become a really good cyclist. You may never win a race but you'll be able to get fit and ride very strong. Most importantly, you'll learn how to do this riding 7-8 hours per week for a couple years.

What the Powertap provides is efficiency. At the outset - with guidance from Coggan & Allen and WKO+ - it diagnoses your strengths and weaknesses with a test for threshold power, and with the notion of critical power. It tells you when you're tired, and when you're fresh. During hard workouts, it tells you when you need to go harder, and it benchmarks your personal bests. During easy workouts, it's constantly telling you to go easier and stay below your upper limit for the day - rest after hard riding is key and it helps you rest. And, after a while, it teaches you how long you can go hard, and how much rest you need to recover, along with teaching you how fast your body tires out and recovers at any given fitness level. You will get a feel for it, and the Powertap won't be quite as necessary any more. Your legs aren't the only part of you being trained.

Best of all, the thing doesn't lie. It offers objective truth about how fit you are, how naturally talented (or untalented) you are, and what you can do.

There is a downside to it. There are days when you may want the truth, but you can't handle the truth. In races, knowing the truth can set you back; the deeper truth is sometimes you can hang on for a little bit longer or go a bit harder than you ever did in training, and you don't need to be looking at a set of numbers on the computer the way you look at a cop who pulls out just after you pass on the interstate. And yes, maybe it does suck a little bit of the fun out of riding.

But if you need to learn quickly how to train, and how to cram the most effective possible training into the shortest period of time, and to do it reasonably cost effectively, the Powertap (with supporting book and software) is the way to go. And that's the key to it - it makes your training more efficient.

But don't bother buying it if you're not going to buy Coggan & Allen, and WKO (about $112 on top of the price of the PT). Their simple book and the easy-to-use software are essential to getting the most out of your PT.

Water Bottles

Hey, did you see that Team Mapei was in the break last night? Well, actually they weren't. Nor was Garmin. Mea Culpa.

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I did my bike clothes wash tonight. After the winter and spring we had, do you know how nice it is to do a wash that has 9 bibs, 9 jerseys, 9 pairs of socks, 9 pairs of gloves and... well... that's it. The only base layer I have right now is the farmer tan where the shorts and jersey sleeves end.

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I needed a jersey for various unsanctioned mountain biking non-events that may or may not be held locally by people who may or may not organize such things. It's important not to sport the team colors, should one attend such a hypothetical event that may or may not actually exist. What kind of jersey would one need for such events, should such an event actually exist?

Why, the most comically egregious jersey one can find on a month's notice, of course.

Not that I'd wear it even if I had one, since these events are strictly hypothetical and all.

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Commuting Highlight of the Day #1. At a stoplight on a four way intersection, there are two lanes. A woman is in her car in the right lane, stopped, pointing right, signaling right. I pull up in the left lane, because I'm safe. The light turns green. I pedal out into the intersection briskly and start to move right, so the cars behind me don't run me down (because everybody in D.C. loveslovesloves their job and can't stand to be away from it for another minute). Just then, the lady peels out, zips in front of me and turns left, but gets stuck because oncoming traffic isn't as deferential as I am. I grab a big handful of brake and wait to get hit from behind. As I do, I shout, "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize the left turn signal meant you'd be turning right. She shoots me a withering look. Because, y'know, I'm the asshole who was supposed to read her mind and know that she planned to turn left all the time.

Admittedly, she had a cunning plan. It was good enough to fool me, anyhow.

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Commuting Highlight of the Day #2. Going up the Cap Crescent with a colleague from work, we're spinning through the rail tunnel. At the end of it, we see some teens playing with their BMX and mountain bikes. As we approach the end of the tunnel, the one kid with a mountain bike starts pushing it into the path. He plays with it and bounces it, then pulls it back. Just then a small paceline of three or four juniors - maybe it was the 12 year olds from Artemis on 24" road bikes - approach the tunnel from that end. The idiot with the bike pushes it back into the lane of traffic, and one of the juniors stacks it. He gets up, dusts himself off, has a couple words with the kid and rides off. About 5 seconds later I'm riding past the kid with the mountain bike, and he pushes it across my lane. In the command voice, I shout, "Get out of the road, Dumbass!" The kid jumps, and moves out. I felt a little bad about it, but got over that in about two seconds.

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Commuting Highlight of the Day #3. Just past the tunnel, a probably 50-something roller blader with really big white hair yells at me, "That was totally uncalled for!" "Bullshit," I said, rolling up on him. "That kid just made those other kids crash." Since I was with a professional colleague, I bit my tongue and didn't say the next words, which were, "you smelly hippie." For the second time in a day, I got the hairy look.

After that I felt less bad about shouting at the kids. They were displaying the privileged attitude I've come to expect from kids who grow up pampered, and Ol' Joe The Hippie Roller Blader is just the kind of busybody who pampers kids like that and enables them to grow up to be snotty and egocentric adults with a huge sense of entitlement.

If you see kids acting up, you have a duty as a grownup to tell them to straighten up. I wouldn't normally call a kid a dumbass, but under the circumstances, I'm confident it was an appropriate response. I've corrected other kids, from the little kid vandalizing the garden behind our townhouse development, to some kids who were bullying another kid on the Metro. No 'dumbass' there - just "I'm bigger than you... how would you like it if I picked on you the way you're picking on him?" and "What do you think your mothers would say if they could see what you were doing here?" That got them to stop, toute suite. There were maybe 60 people in that Metro car, all of them looking on and afraid to say a damn thing as the other three or four kids, maybe 14 or 15 years old, beat the hell out of a smaller kid.

There aren't enough cops and teachers around to do what all of us should be doing on a daily basis. Moreover, it's not just about you. Kids should play and have fun and maybe cross the line a little bit, but you are letting kids down if you just stand back while they go way too far, especially if you have a chance to step in and enforce community standards for behavior. Would you want somebody to correct your kid before he put another kid in the hospital, or caused a big bike crash on a multi-use trail? I sure would.

Don't be afraid to be grownups, people. If you don't take responsibility for policing up your community, nobody will.

WTF?

Did that just happen today?

Did Lance Armstrong get into a break with Cancellara and half of team Columbia and two thirds of Garmin/Slipstream just 25km from the end of today's flat-ish stage, and surge past Contador on the G.C.? Is Lance now the highest positioned G.C. threat, by 10 or 20 seconds?

Why yes, it did happen today. And while it's extremely early in the race, Lance is nicely positioned. And the rest of the peloton, by all accounts, is screamingly angry at Contador for refusing to work hard to chase his teammate Armstrong when the headwinds gusted up, and upset at Saxo Bank for shuttin' 'er down and refusing to chase yellow jersey holder Cancellara.

WTF?

Are Astana actually unified behind Lance and trying to generate The Most Epic Race Ever, by vaulting a 37 year-old who doesn't quite have the necessary legs, into the win? Did Lance maybe just stab Contador in the front when he went with an otherwise harmless break? Is this a huge marketing gambit for Livestrong, Johan Bruyneel and pro cycling? Did Columbia and Garmin/Slipstream, both stocked with North American riders and Friends of Lance, intentionally help Armstrong today in order to destroy Astana, or maybe because they know where their financial bread is buttered?

If Armstrong has even decent legs, this promises to be the most operatic TdF since LeMond/Hinault. The greatest of all operas, of course, is Wagner's Ring Cycle. Some afficionados and critics debate whether it's the winner of opera's Champion's League, favoring less epic opera, music and drama that don't wear on the listener like a steady blast from a firehose. But true fans know, the Ring is the greatest opera ever because it is the most impossible, ridiculous, insane, brutal, over-the-top piece of music ever made, coupled to a ridiculously implausible storyline that barely function as allegory, much less as real stories. It is on a scope that simply exceeds belief. It's four operas in one, spread out over four nights, with one night lasting nearly seven hours. It covers everything from creation, to the end of the world. There are dwarves and giants, love and betrayal. Swords and Valkyries. Everything.

We may be looking at the sporting version of the Ring Cycle this year in the Tour.

I had been a bit blase about this Tour. The Giro was superb and a fully satisfying piece of work, the quintessential Racer's Race, as it always is. Then all the usual scandals and pre-race announcements of dope test results had me feeling a bit lukewarm about the whole TdF deal. But I'm seeing a storyline developing that could really catch fire here - Lance and assorted Americans and Friends of Lance work together (surreptitiously) to get Lance a win. That would ensure another cycling and racing boomlet. We'd all be happy and making money...

But how did this little move up the G.C. happen for Armstrong? As Lance put it when discussing today's break,

"It wasn't that they didn't take advantage. It was just that they weren't there," said Armstrong. "When you see what the wind is doing and you have a turn coming up, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you have to go to the front."

Lance just happened to be there with all of Columbia, led by his old Lieutenant Hincapie, Garmin / Slipstream, DS'ed by his old pal Vaughters, and Cancellara - but no other GC threats. Maybe it was just a twist of fate that Lance was in the right place at the right time with his old buddies, and none of his threatening teammates like Levi or Alberto - just the redoubtable Popo and his buddy, Haimar Zubeldia.

[Update: Garmin wasn't in the break.] [Note to self: lay off celebratory tequila/oxycontin cocktails.]

For his part, Cancellara knows he won't hold the maillot jaune very long, but he and Saxo Bank would undoubtedly rather put Sastre up against a weaker-than-before Lance along with demoralized domestique Contador, than have to face motivated Contador and grudging super domestique Lance.

Isn't that all just a totally remarkable coincidence how that happened today? It's the kind of coincidence you find... in an utterly implausible opera storyline.

I've observed that Lance's assault on Contador started in the pre-race interviews of the first real race of the season, La Primavera. He's like a pirhana, if a pirhana was smart enough and patient enough to play chess by mail while computing differential equations. I know now that Lance may talk a good game about being a soul racer, but he's actually in it to win it, and he is going to press his small advantage over Contador until he is once again the unquestioned king of the team, and captain of the peloton - or he'll die trying. No two ways about it. Love him or hate the guy - and I'm on the Manichean fence about his character and whether to 'like like' him - he's a magnificent SOB.

Brace yourselves. There's a good chance the next 18 days will be 6 hours of opera a day. The frickin' Ring Cycle.

Let's just call it the Chainring Cycle.

I like the sound of that.

Surviving the Group Ride

Every so often, a rider may find him or herself a bit out of shape to hang with the usual group ride. For some of us, that so often comes a lot more often than we'd like.

Then it's double servings of humble pie. Your legs get blown out. You get dropped on the hills. You get shat out the back of the paceline like a double helping of salmonella-tainted Chicken Vindaloo. You are humiliated, ashamed, left gasping for air and coddling what's left of your scorched pride and punctured ego. And that's just in the first three miles.

I've been reminded of this situation recently. I've been slowly ramping up the efforts following my foot operation. This last week was the first week I've actually met my training goals, knocking out around 200 miles of zone 1/2 spinning. The foot's fine, thanks; feels like a very bad bruise now, which sounds awful but it's way better than feeling like a badly broken first metatarsal, which is how it felt just a couple weeks ago. But even the mildest group rides are still very tough at times.

Yep, it's the Rolling Group Ride Death Syndrome that I've got, and I have it bad right now.

There are only three ways around The Syndrome.

First, you can simply skip the group rides until you're in shape enough to hang. This produces a snake-eating-its-tail problem. If you don't hit the group rides, you won't get fit enough to hang on the group rides; and if you hang on the group rides and get dropped it will be really hard to get fit enough to hang on the group rides. If you're going to do this... well, I don't know what to say. It's like one of those time travel paradoxes. I just don't know how you solve it.

Second, you could turn into an utter wheelsucking jerk - the King of Sitting In. Now nobody minds it when a buddy sits in for a ride, or even a few. The problem for me right now, is that your July is my January. I'm knocking of base miles. I'm doing this partly because I want to train right for cross season (guess I'm aiming for a November peak...) and partly because I have no choice right now, having alternated month long train/rest periods for the first half of the year. This is a good approach if you always want to buy your own beer, never get invited to parties, and want to be the butt of jokes behind people's backs.

Third, you can figure out how to use social ju jitsu to control whatever pack you happen to be riding with.

That's my approach. Social ju jitsu. Here's a handy list of phrases to put you on the psychological attack and help you control the pace of any group ride you're on (aka the "you suckers should never take what I say seriously... seriously" list).

1. Hey, so-and-so is a NooB to the ride/cycling/life. Take it easy on him today, alright? It's bad form to drop NooBs. So slow it up.

2. Who's up for the easy coffee run today? I could sure use a couple shots of espresso myself. I think they have good muffins there too.

3. Take it easy. I'm having wicked trouble shifting. I think my derailer is about to go. I'd hate to break it this far out.

4. You've had a pretty epic week. Shouldn't you be spinning recovery today?

5. I have to take it easy. I'm trying to do an early season base peak Bompa taper. So I need to ride slow but if you aren't down with that, I totally get it.

6. I had foot surgery a month ago and can't push hard. So I'm riding base or at most tempo for a while. Seriously. It's true.

Any one of these phrases should suffice to slow down whatever group ride you're on. Some work by making the group feel a sense of responsibility for noobies and injured people. Some prey on ego - any comment praising somebody for their epic week of riding is sure to butter them up for the suggestion to take it easy. Some prey on the roadie's insatiable fascination with shiny things, and coffee, like the derailer and coffee run excuses. But the most important feature of all these psychological approaches is that you believe them.

Seriously. You have to believe them. Or at least convince people you believe them.

Now you may think that this has nothing to do with racing, but you couldn't be further from the truth. Your newfound skills at deception and rationalization (self-deception most of all) will put you in good stead. If you're in the break and can't pull through, you will know that you have it within you to tell a craven lie, to fake weakness and to avoid working until just past the 200m mark. If the pack is getting frisky, you will have the ability to lob in a suggestion to get some hated bastard to attack off the front - after which you will be able to convince the other front-markers to let him dangle for a while, and they will all slow up if you're convincing enough. And if it looks like you're about to get dropped, you'll know how to make plaintive clicks and sobbing noises, which will definitely distract your rivals long enough that you can recover and catch a handy wheel.

See? And you thought this was going to be about how to avoid doing work when you're riding. In fact, it's doing quite the opposite. You're working hard - it's just that they don't make an SRM to measure the kind of effort you're putting out.

Get 'em Started Young

I wonder if this is what Stevil's mom fed him in lieu of formula.


It would explain a lot.

Gam Jams Reviews: On the Bike Nutrition - Assorted

On-the-bike nutrition is a tough call. It's a very personal thing, and even with one person your tastes change over time, or even over the duration of a ride. I've found a handful of things that are just plain money though, and I'd like to share them with you. Maybe you try them and they work like they do for me, maybe not. I'll just throw the ideas out there for you to think about. I'm including several because there's no one mystery product - most people probably need a few different products in combination, particularly if they ride longer than two hours. Yeah, you may love Gu. But tell me how you like that stuff after 10 hours of popping one every 15 minutes. So here's the menu that rolls in my jersey pockets.

Drinks
I'm an Accellerade person for the most part, but rarely bring it for rides lasting up to 90 minutes. For rides up to 3-4 hours, it's money. There's a lot of protein in Accellerade, and I'm a protein-fueled carnivore, so it works fine for me. Them who like it loves it; them what don't hates it. The downside is that it gets fizzy and almost fermented tasting in really hot weather. And the protein bits goop up water bottles severely. It definitely powers me better than the straight carbo drinks, however, so the hassle is worth it. But if the ride is going for over 3 hours, out to 12... Hammer drinks are the only way to go. Heed is adequate to really good in the situations where I'd use Accellerade. For long long rides, Perpetuum is the schizzle. The weird thing about Hammer drinks is that they are almost sickly sweet tasting - not high powered white sugar sweet, but this almost syrupy sweetness. I can barely drink the stuff pre-ride, or early in a short ride. It's awful! But the longer the ride goes, the more desparately beaten my body feels, the easier it goes down. When I'm really hurting, I can guzzle gallons of the stuff without getting The Bloat. Unlike boutique flavored stuff like cinammon apple gels, Hammer products seem to be what your body craves, rather than what your palate craves. Ultimately, your screaming leg muscles shout way louder than your tongue and will win the argument over what to drink. I find I can only drink the sweeter, carby-er drinks in cold weather.

Rolling Food
Clif bars are sort of the standard go-to option here, and if the ride is a couple or three hours I may eat two of them. They have around 230 calories, and if you wash one down over an hour with a bottle of sports drink, you'll be at around 400 calories, which is pretty close to what most people's stomachs can digest in the space of an hour. The downside with Clif bars is that even the best tasting ones (e.g. Blueberry Crisp) still have a grainy texture that is hard to chew when you're hurting or breathing hard, and the texture is like they mixed the hulls of soybeans into it, which is really rough on the stomach after a few hours. Let's just say that they help clear the, um, pipes. I've been experimenting with other stuff and have stumbled into Odwalla bars and Luna bars. Both are wicked yummy, soft (hence easily chewed and gulped when you're hurting) and both come with either bits of tasty fruit and nuts, or nice yogurt glazes. Unlike Clif bars, which take a gulp of water to wash down, these go down without having to do the chew-drink-chew-drink routine. And they seem easy on the stomach. Which is nice. I used to think that you should try to really balance what you were eating but now I'm starting to think that for most rides it's more important to just get a mix of complex carbs and some protein in, and the more important thing is finding something you can eat, and which will go down and rest comfortably in your gut.

Break Food
For really long rides I'll eat just about anything. Seriously - whatever you can eat after 7-8 hours on the bike must be damn good stuff, because I get sick of everything else. Two foods are really key to my refueling on long rides - turkey sandwiches and dry roasted, full-salt peanuts. The peanuts have a ton of healthy fats, which are slow burning. They also replenish sodium which, if you're a sweathog like me, drips off you in great big chunks. When you're a bit short on salts, your body will crave them, and though it sounds like it would be hard to eat peanuts on a break or while rolling, they actually go down real easily. As for the turkey sandwiches - a nice turkey sandwich with swiss or provolone on a roll or some nice bread, maybe with a couple thick slices of tomato and some salt and pepper just tastes awesome to me. You'll notice it has a big whack of protein and fat - the slow burning stuff - and a fair bit of carbs. The lycopene in the tomato is supposed to do something good for you - I don't know what it is but I suspect it refuels your inner Italian. Italians eat tomatoes, and they ride well, so we all should eat tomatoes, right? I've also refueled successfully with a big greasy salty cheeseburger and berry pie. Like I said, whatever goes down easy. The turkey sandwich is what I'm talking about when I say it's individual. I don't get tired of eating them mid-race or on a randonee or charity century, and at an event like Baker's dozen, they fueled me pretty nicely. They weren't enough by themselves, but they formed the backbone of a decent nutritional strategy. (It wasn't nutrition that did me in at Baker's...) Other surprisingly nice break foods include chilled melon, and dill pickles. I had some pickles at Baker's and everybody who tried one reported a quick pickup afterwards. It's funny. Pre-Gatorade, coaches used to make athletes working out in hot weather drink pickle juice. Maybe those old boys knew a thing or two. Plus an ice cold dill on a hot day scratches the cool stuff itch at the same time it meets the sodium need.

Bailout Foods
Emergency foods are something we all need from time to time. About every two or three months, I'll have a ride where I get into a bit of trouble. When that happens, I need fuel fast. The bonk is rapidly approaching, and things will go bad if I don't get it together quickly. If it's not in your pockets, help is available at the nearest convenience store, thankfully. Good bike-friendly bailout foods include Gu or better yet Hammer Gel, of course. Like Bounty paper towels, they're the quicker picker upper.

If you have to hit the Sheetz, a nice fat muffin may help. A 16 ounce bottle of milk is an awesome bailout drink too - tons of calories, fast absorbtion because it's liquid, and a bit of fat so you feel good for quite a while and there's no blood sugar rush with its commensurate crash.

But the ultimate bailout food is a 16 or 20 ounce Coke, full sugar, full caffeine. I've found that if the reaper is approaching and I'm teetering on the edge of the abyss, milk and Hammer gel are willing to extend a helping hand to help me walk back from the edge but Hi-Test Coke swoops in, picks me up, and puts me right back on the road. The only downside to the Coke is it comes with a blood sugar rush and crash. A Coke buys you maybe 40 minutes or an hour to get your nutritional act together. If it's going to take a while to get home, you'd best eat something substantial after you down the Coke, or with it; otherwise the bonk will be back with vengeance.

The Main Thing
The main thing about on-the-bike nutrition though, is to do as LeMond says, eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty. In other words, don't get in a hole. Comrade Scott Gibbons reminded me of this earlier in the year; he said he'd had a bad 12 hour race last year because "once you get in a hole nutritionally, you just can't dig yourself out." Find some stuff you can eat and drink and not get sick or bloated on, then down 400 calories of it per hour with 16-24 ounces of fluid, right? That'll do the trick, even if it's Milk Bonez and near beer.