"It never gets any easier. You just go faster." ---Greg Lemond
"Don't buy upgrades. Ride up grades." --- Eddy Merckx
"You drive like shit." ---The Car Whisperer

28.5.10

Hellbent for brick, corn, and chickenwire!

And we're off for Iowa tonight: Snake Alley tomorrow, Melon Cities on Sunday (speed bump and all), and then Quad Cities - The Cagematch turns 45 this year! - on Memorial Day. It will be a battle.




Holy shit, 15 laps in the belly of the beast with the Category 3s. Ready or not, this is gonna be painful test of the will.



Melon is going to be fun. That speedbump is some stupid shit, but it is my type of race, and I just need to summon the confidence to go 110% when it's time. I do and that hill is mine.

Quad Cities was my breakout race last year. Technical and fast, it's not gonna be the same as the Cat 4, and will be dicey in the corners unless it stays strung out and breaks up early. I'll probably register for the Master's as well just prior to the 3s, and complete half of that for a warm-up and race-pace course recon.

27.5.10

Thursday Hate: the week's sauce

Streetsweepers.

Niles.

A haircut so bad he must be developmentally disabled. But not.

Phantom bike noises.

If I ask you a question to which everyone else CC'd on the email needs the answer, fucking hit "reply all" please. (And no Michael, this is not just you. For some reason, five people made my life more difficult doing this this week.)

The number of ingredients in a McDonald's apple danish.

Las Vegas real estate agents that follow me on Twitter. Then I know you personally and follow you on twitter, but you don't refollow. Maybe I post a lot, but isn't that the point?

Wrong: "The Tour de France." "Tour de [American City]" Right: "Le" and "of". On est français. The other is English.

Barak Obama?! Are you still fucking here? You've been Katrina-ed. Jesus Christ...George fucking BUSH would've nuked the goddamn thing two weeks ago.

Oh, yeah. And people who "boycott" BP. Especially those of you sittin - ALONE - in your SUV for six light cycles to get through one intersection. You don't realize that BP sells much of their oil to other refiners, do you? You want to reduce the likelihood of catastrophes like this from happening again? USE LESS. (Apologies to @stevevance)

20.5.10

Thursday Hate: I'm with Floyd

A comment posted in response to Adam Myerson's brilliant blog/essay today on Floyd Landis' stunning (to some) confession that he did indeed use performance-enhancing drugs:

Landis is a sucker - cool if he wants to call himself out but naming names is b.s. - a snitch. He better have some serious proof too if he’s going to start this. My guess is that he’s run out of $$$...again and is looking for another book deal. Chump.

I'm sorry, but are you mad because you bought his book or donated to his Fairness Fund thinking that he was actually innocent? Are you mad because he's implicating your other heroes, George and Levi?

If so, it ain't Floyd that's the chump.

Firstly, it was called the Floyd Fairness Fund. Not the Floyd Innocence Fund. And was aptly named. Landis was being made the scapegoat. This commenter would be just as pissy and indignant if Floyd had named names when he was busted in 2006. It has nothing to do with his timing. It's that he's blowing the whistle at all.

As a friend of mine pointed out, Jose Canseco had little credibility, as well. Everyone said he was full of it, that he was all sour grapes, that he should keep his mouth shut because he had no proof. It literally required an act of Congress (which had much better things to do) but everything he said about drugs in baseball was all true.

Anyone who’s ever ridden under Bruyneel and Armstrong are immediately suspect. When Vaughters bolted, anyone who stayed on was doping in my book. If you believe that Bruyneel is the Grand Moff Tarkin and Armstrong the Darth Vadar of doping, I don’t see how the hell you can think anyone who raced was them was clean during that time.

What would you have done? After having reaching the absolute pinnacle of your chosen profession, only to see it all stripped away only because of doing what everybody else was doing? Could you look your mom in the eye and tell her the truth? How can you even fucking answer that question? None of us can even imagine how tough the choice would be to walk away from cycling once introduced to the truth of how the pros really do it, after sacrificing everything to get to that point.

Because at that point, choosing to dope is just one small link in a much longer chain. And until that day, which thankfully will never come for nearly all of us, I’ll reserve my judgment of whether dopers are bad people or not.

Yes, we can point to Vaughters, Pate, or Millar as beacons amid this darkness. Doping sucks, but as long as you're watching the races, and cheering on your heroes, and patronizing the sponsors who want winners, sponsors who look the other way, along with race officials who take bribes...you all are complicit in it, and you shouldn't act so fucking shocked.

So finally, after everybody else who's as guilty as Floyd turned their backs on him with magnanimous proclamations of their hope for his innocence, Floyd has finally decided to come clean, because why should he continue to cover for them?

I for one applaud it. Others, not so much, apparently.

A “snitch?” Really? We all love to take a stand and to say we want doping gone. But when it comes time to do the requisite dirty work - overturning rocks and naming names - we hang those that dare - the whistle blowers - out to dry.

We all want the truth. Until that truth hurts us.

6.5.10

Thursday Hate: everybody poops (except you)

People who are embarrassed to poop when someone else is in the restroom.

If you are afraid of making pooping noises in the stall, and therefore are going to sit in there and not make a sound the entire time anyone else is in the men's room, such as when I spent approximately nine minutes changing into my cycling clothes today ...why do you attempt to poop at work in the first place??

So I'm thinking in a high traffic restroom, you've gotta be in there for, what...three, four hours a day? Waiting for whoever else is in there to just leave already so you can free a hostage before the next person walks in? And then wait another 10 minutes to take care of the fart that didn't make it out? God knows when you'll have time to wipe!

"Ewwwwww, gross!!! Someone is shitting and wiping their shitty ass...in the MEN'S ROOM! Oh, my GAWD somebody call Human Resources!"

Do you have low-pooping self-esteem? Do you think you are the grossest pooper ever? As if no one else makes disgusting noises when taking a shit? God I hope not, for your sake. And if you are the grossest pooper ever, then...forget I said anything and I thank you for your prudence.

(Do women do this, too?)