George Hincapie’s Confession

This week’s big news was hearing that George Hincapie, Lance Armstrong’s bestest best buddy, had ratted him out to the feds.

The first reaction from many people was, “George never fell under a cloud of suspicion!”

Really? Have you all been high for the past 12 years?

I get that George is well liked, that he works his ass off, that he’s always been selfless in his riding. I get that he’s admired by a lot of cycling fans.

But did any of you REALLY believe he was clean or that he wasn’t protecting Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Hein Verbruggen, UCI and professional cycling’s mafioso culture of doping?

You believed in your heart of hearts that the entire U.S. Postal team was dirty . . . except Big George?

Are you daft?

The second reaction to Hincapie’s testimony before the Grand Jury was, “He’s doing the right thing.”

If by, “the right thing” you mean, “He’s avoiding going to prison on perjury charges.”, then, yes, he did the right thing.

But his betrayal of Lance Armstrong and his confession of his own use of PEDs had no element of altruism to it. He was just saving his own neck.

If it was left to George, he’d have gone to his grave protecting his own reputation and Lance Armstrong.

Hincapie has no problem at all with omerta, nor with continuing to protect cycling’s systemic but hidden culture of doping and those like Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong who would gleefully perpetuate its existence.

Hincapie will not lift one finger, waste one breath, excrete one drop of sweat in an effort to rid the sport of its doping vermin.

He just doesnt’ give a shit, and I get the sense that he actually feels disdain, even disgust toward those who do give a shit.

Hincapie is not cycling’s White Knight. He’s no one’s savior but his own.

The List

For not strictly being cycling journalists, the guys at L’Equipe dig up a lot of really big stuff. Unfortunately that “really big stuff” almost always focuses on doping and is almost always an embarrassment to the sport on some level.

They recently published a secret UCI list (henceforth known simply as The List) intended for use in targeting the most suspect riders found through use of the biological passport.

The problem is that UCI seems to be turning a blind eye on almost all of them.

According to the article:

“Those in categories six and above (6-10) showed “overwhelming” evidence of some kind of doping, due to “recurring anomalies”, “enormous variations” in parameters, and even the “identification of doping products or methods””

The riders in categories 6-10, again as pointed out in the article, number 42. That’s approximately 1/4 of the total Tour de France starting field of 198 riders.

So far “targeted” riders have responded by basically saying the list is a bunch of hooey.

Garmin – Cervelo’s David Millar was recently interviewed by Bicycling magazine’s Bill Strickland. Millar is a “4” according to the list.

Millar claims that since his suspension for doping that his entire perspective on his career has changed, that now he rides simply for the joy of it.

This is a a link to the related video of the Millar statements about The List.

He and Garmin team owner, Jonathan Vaughters, both explain his “4” rating as a response to his past indiscretions.

Garmin’s Tyler Farrar ranks “3” and this is explained to me by Vaughters:

” . . . remember, its performance and blood value based. Tyler has never doped and never will.”

Those may be true and valid points. But AIGCP’s public response (remembering that AIGCP, the team’s “union”, is also lead by Vaughters) is so defensive that it makes many fans think they (AIGCP) have something to hide.

It may not be fair and it may not be true, but once you view things in that light the next logical step is to wonder if there is collusion between UCI and AIGCP in the protection of doped, or apparently doped, riders.

During the upcoming AMGEN EPO Tour of California the USADA was supposed to take over doping controls from UCI.

USADA in fact did run a three month long pre-race anti-doping program and, based upon that data, came up with a list similar in nature to the secret list published by L’Equipe.

Based on that list, USADA intended a targeted anti-doping program to be performed by them during the Tour of Cali.

UCI refused to target the most suspect riders based on its own list during the 2010 Tour de France. In order to prevent the targeting of the most suspect riders found in the USADA’s pre Tour of Cali testing program, UCI has ousted USADA from the in race testing. UCI will instead run that testing program themselves, again avoiding the most suspicious riders, just like they did during the 2010 Tour.

The Vaughters/ AIGCP response condemning that action, is at least reassuring.

Here is the “Index of Suspicion” from L’Equipe, breaking down the ratings by teams and countries.

CAS president John Coates says that the “Suspicion Index” doesn’t indicate suspicion of any rider.

Which must make The List utterly useless, explaining why a list created for the sole purpose of targeting the most suspicious riders isn’t actually used to target those riders for testing.

So what IS The List used for? Obviously it’s most useful purpose is in formulating exactly how much each rider should have to pay McQuaid for burying the inconsistencies and excessively high values of their biological passports.

I feel a little irritation with Vaughters and other team managers and owners for getting angry over this leak. Because many of them have their own histories in and around professional cycling’s culture of doping, yet they’ve always refused to reveal what they know and expose those involved.

Why was The List leaked to begin with? Because someone on the inside finally got sick of UCI’s cover ups, their favoritism of certain riders, their accepting of bribes to bury results, their lies about the absence of team run and sponsored doping programs, their collusion in the entire corrupt mafioso system.

If UCI had not been protecting suspected riders, there would have been no need for the leak. Leaking The List is someone’s response to being sick and tired of UCI corruption and protection of doping riders and the doping culture.

If guys like Vaughters, Bjarne Riis, Johan Bruyneel, Jim Ochowicz, John LeLangue and their peers would have stepped forward over the years and opened up to the authorities (even if they chose to keep the press out of it) regarding names, places, times, days and dates, doping would already be in its final death throws. It’s at least partially because of them and people like them that Pat McQuaid and UCI are even able to run their perpetual anti-doping bait and switch.

It’s hard to accept that the very guys with the most power to expose and destroy doping, can be the same guys complaining about the problems created by doping, including the leaking of The List.

Vaughters rightly points out that leaking a list like this could give offenders a heads up. But a heads up is only meaningful if there’s a serious potential for prosecution. It’s obvious from The List that such potential does not exist, so exposing The List and UCI’s refusal to pursue suspensions is just and right.

A Conversation With Bill Strickland: Part 2: Writer / Reader Relationship

Part 1, Emma O’Reilly’s Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland’s NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

Bill objects to making a defense of his writing and thinks that it is good and right that any reader should interpret his writing either in a manner that brings him praise or in a manner that damns him.

And of course, readers who feel either way tend to believe that most or all readers surely feel as they do.

Here’s are some of his thoughts from our conversation, discussing his philosophy regarding the writer / reader relationship.

Bill Strickland:

“I have come to found a big part of my understanding of writing on the belief that the compact between writer and reader is simple: The writer puts the words together, then shows it to the public, and from then on the story belongs to the reader, who individually and without obligation to the writer or to the writer’s intent (or the story’s intent), can think anything about it he wants, can perceive in it what he wants, can absorb or discard the parts of it he wants. To me, anything the reader comes up with is fair enough.

I mean, who’s to say that readers don’t finally know what a story is about better than the writer does? For me, at least, putting a story together is a mysterious and uncertain process, and readers — at least the ones who tell you what the story is about — seem to interpret with much more certainty than I create.

I’m interested in all the various opinions and ideas a story generates in readers (so keep those cards and letters coming, folks — Bikezilla). I like to hear them, and think about their substance, try to figure out what it is in the writing that led to that specific opinion.

I try to understand how, for instance, X in writing generates Y in a reader, and if X is somehow useful to me as a technique or if it was accidental and won’t work that way again. I try to figure out if an opinion was created because the reader reacted to Z or missed Z, and why some readers miss Z while others react to it so strongly that as soon as they read it they cannot fully absorb the rest of the paragraph.

This kind of input is extremely valuable to me from a technical point of view. It makes me better — or at least I use it to try to become a better writer.”

— Here’s an interview that Bill Strickland did with Podium Cafe.

Throughout the remainder of this series I’ll be presenting occasional quotes from that PC interview. But I need to make a confession, first.

That Podium Cafe interview if far more in depth than what I’m doing with this series. Though I quote it several times, some of them long, I’ve only taken the passages or portions of passages that mesh with the discussion that I had with Bill Strickland myself.

If you have serious favorable or unfavorable interest in Bill Strickland and his writing, you should read the full Podium Cafe piece.

I have not intentionally altered the intent or meaning of any quote, but I have not quoted completely.

All emphasis is mine.

On the sport of cycling:

Bill Strickland:

“Maybe I’m romanticizing the sport. I am horribly prone to that as well.”

That particular quote should be kept in mind as you read through later portions of this series.

On why his book with Johan Bruyneel, “We Might as Well Win” barely mentioned doping, and didn’t even touch on the topic of Michele Ferrari and Manolo Saiz.

Bill Strickland:

“Johan’s choice – it’s his book. I mean, that’s rich material for sure but not even close to the point of what he wanted to accomplish with the book.

He took some unfair hits for not addressing that, but the whole idea was to create a collection of the lessons he’d learned through racing and directing. If he’d set out to write a complete biography, or a reputed tell-all, and not even mentioned them, then I think the criticism would be warranted (and I don’t think I’d have stayed on to help him).

As a storyteller, looking at the structure, in that particular book those subjects were not omitted but simply didn’t fit.”

Is that an adequate explanation? Is it a believable explanation? Or is it merely a shield for both Bruyneel and Strickland?

On Lance Armstrong’s peronsality:

You can see from the Podium Cafe interview that there’s a lot more to the Bill Strickland story than just his relationship with Lance Armstrong. But Lance Armstrong and doping are the parts that really irk most cycling fans, whether they worship Lance or loathe him.

Bill has a perspective on this that you will either find to be reasonable and fair, or obstructionist and frustrating. In fact, you’re likely to see most of what I present here, entirely in one light or the other.

From the Podium Cafe interview:

“I’ve concluded that he derives nearly equal energy from the time that, say, his sixth-grade teacher teased him and the time L’Equipe accused him of doping.

It’s kind of binary for him: either you’re in his way or you’re not, you harmed him or you didn’t, you believe him or you don’t. He seems not to care much about the nuances, if the barrier in front of him is a single brick or a wall forty bricks high and forty bricks deep: he’s going through it if he can.

(I think of it as the kind of determination or drive that, existing in people with different sorts of skills and gifts, ends up giving us Steve Jobs, or maybe Winston Churchill, or Mother Teresa, or Bernie Madoff or Atilla the Hun.)”

From Tour de Lance, p. 230-231:

“He’s not a naturally funny person. Even his close friends say his humor tends to be corny and repetitive. He’s best described not as clever or smart but as cunning.

And for as moneyed and as cultured as he has become, he is still in essence, as I was told by a person who was employed by one of Armstrong’s sponsoring companies and worked closely on him with several projects, ‘the kind of guy who would be happy putting his car in a ditch every weekend.’ . . . He became exposed to the idea of appreciating art (and architecture) during his first trips to Europe in his pre-cancer era . . .today, he likes to reference artists in his Twitter posts . . . [and] the walls of his home have displayed Michael Gregory, Bettie Ward, Barry McGee, Tony Berlant . . . It’s an impressive collection, yet there’s a dissonantly competitive spirit to Armstrong’s pursuit of it all, as if when he understood that art was something sophisticated people should enjoy, he set out to be the best at enjoying it.

Someone who worked with him on an extended commercial project told me that ‘When Lance found out I was a visual person, he took me around his house to see his art collection, and we had to stand before each one and dutifully appreciate it. And we couldn’t move on until he felt he’d accomplished the appreciation.”

How should those descriptions be taken? As evidence that Strickland in fact has a sober view of what Armstrong is really like? They aren’t flattering, but they aren’t damning, either. Are they too little, too mild, to ho-hum in relation to Strickland’s long delayed admission or realization that Armstrong was (is?) a career doper?

—-

This series will be at least 5 parts long, maybe as long as 7.

Part 3 should be up in 2 – 3 days, again.

Response to Reader: Doping Witch Hunts

After reading Riccardo Riccò, Floyd Landis, and Auto-Tranfusions, The Biking Chick, aka Leiann Samuell asked via Twitter:

“What about steroid use / doping use in other sport? Is it just out there in cycling? Have other sports ended it?”

And:

“Are we going to see a cycling witch hunt a la the MLB?”

As I’ve said before, the subject of doping is a non-cycling cycling story. I generally avoid it, so I’m no expert. When you go outside of cycling I know even less.

I’m not gonna touch the “cycling vs every other sport” thing.

But MLB and the related “witch hunt”? That’s some sweet shiite.

That witch hunt was necessary and just maybe something similar is needed in cycling.

MLB had no desire to eliminate or even curb doping. Doping was berry berry good to baseball.

Baseball was a dying sport. Doping added excitement that was impossible to introduce in any other way.

Dude, a 50 year old, untouchable home run record was broken, rebroken, rerebroken, then Hank Aaron’s record fell. All to dopers, all because of doping.

MLB neeeeeeeeeeeeded doping in a big, big way and doping totally delivered the goods, bringing fans back by the bandwagon load.

So MLB pretended to hate doping while being complicit in it.

Complicit? Like, um, UCI?

Does cycling need doping like MLB did?

Is it more exciting to see an impossible, yet emotional and inspirational ascent up a savage mountain face?

On one hand, sure. But on the other hand, cycling fans are more savvy to doping, more adept at recognizing that a truly unbelievable performance is just that, truly unbelievable.

For instance, during the ’10 Vuelta, Ezequiel Mosquera’s performance.

His riding, his climbing, his performance, my God, magnificent.

But after his Stage 17 time trial performance, where he improved (if I remember correctly) 40 or so places over his average TT finish of 63rd to 20th (and conveniently enough, took over 2nd place in the GC), I and others quietly wondered if he could have doped.

I was more crushed over finding out that Mosquera had doped than that Alberto Contador had, but both really hurt. A lot of other fans, people who passionately love the sport, felt just as hurt and let down.

MLB, it’s management, team owners and players, escalated their lies and cover-ups until trying to end doping the nice way, the calm way, the reasonable way, was a stupidly fruitless endeavor.

They forced the course of events to run the “witch hunt” route. It became the only sane and sensible course of action.

MLB represented one extreme. The Witch Hunters represented the other.

UCI and guys like Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel are pushing cycling in the same direction.

They’ll keep treating fans and media as if we’re all too stupid to figure out what’s what, until finally someone with some kind of serious power shouts, “ENOUGH!” and the witch hunt is on.

Was MLB any cleaner after it’s witch hunt? I can only say that, with the exception of Barry Bonds, it seems so.

The witch hunt seemed to force MLB to outgrow its dope induced sensationalism far sooner than any other motivation would have.

MLB needed one extreme to blast full speed into another.

Does cycling need the same?

Floyd Landis / Paul Kimmage Full Transcript

First, my thanks to NY Velocity for publishing the godawful long transcript of the interview that Paul Kimmage did with Floyd Landis, which was the basis for the Sunday Times article.

Second, this article is written with the assumption that you’ve read the full transcript. So to get full value out of this, please read that.

Is it really a coincidence that within hours of the transcript going up, that the NY Velocity servers suffered “issues” that kept them down for a good fifteen hours? I’m thinking that just perhaps, the long, malicious arm of Lance Armstrong and his insistence that any negative word about him must be buried was at work.

But that’s just me, sitting here in my tinfoil hat, hiding from space aliens and government mind control rays.

I think it’s clear from that transcript that this was not actually an interview. The interviews occurred over the six months prior to this face to face meeting, while background information was investigated and the timeline and details plotted.

No, this was more of a guided conversation, with Kimmage guiding and Landis narrating.

The pair knew exactly where they were headed and what route they’d take to get there.

Which makes the preparation that lead up to it all, no less impressive.

The first thing that I really liked was seeing Landis naming cycling as a drug, one used to escape reality. I liked it because I know that cycling has performed that function for me, granting me freedom, distraction and a touch of sanity toward the end of my marriage. It’s something that I never forget and a memory of time on my bike that I’ll always cherish.

But the first real “wow” moment for me, and something that it seems no one else either noticed or cared about, was his comparison of the doping culture within professional cycling to the Mafia, even pointing out some of the system’s “made men” in Lance Armstrong, Bill Stapleton, Hein Verbruggen, Jim Ochowicz, Pat McQuaid, Johan Bruyneel, Michele Ferrari. Wouldn’t Jonathan Vaughters have to be on that list, now?

And Floyd isn’t at all shy about admitting that he’d dope all over again if he could achieve the same things. He’d just, uh, be more honest about it. Um . . . ok.

I keep beating on that “The UCI is an unchecked power which has run amok and it needs breaking.” drum. When we hear about UCI’s reaction to Floyd’s insistence on being paid the remainder of the monies due from his Mercury contract, via the stipulations of UCI’s own rules, I think that point is completely driven home:

“Hein Verbruggen (the UCI president) stating that ‘This is not the United States, this is Switzerland’ and that ‘threatening to sue us is going to get the wrong reaction and I’m going to advise all of my people to deal with you accordingly.’

It was basically ‘Fuck off, you’re not getting the money.’

It took two years to get the money, and every time we would try to contact them they would just tell us to fuck off basically and ‘sue us’ and ‘we don’t care’ and it was just one thing after another. So then, as that was happening, and I was still trying to get it (the money) I got hired by the Postal service.”

Floyd tells us that it took two years, but the wait wasn’t enough. Made Man Hein Verbruggen required that Landis also be humiliated prior to paying him money that was technically and legally already his.

Floyd said, “Verbruggen called Lance and had him come to me and say that I had to retract my statement and apologise in Cyclingnews”

And don’t you wonder why Cycling News is Verbruggen’s and UCI’s chosen vehicle? What’s their link to or role in the whole UCI, professional cycling, doping “Mafia” setup?

So it went down like this:

I had started to talk to Lance about doping and he was giving me advice about things we were doing and explaining how Ferrari worked, and the rides that he and I were doing together.

This came up during that time, so one of the conversations was ‘Look Floyd, you have got to do what this guy says because we’re going to need a favour from him at some point. It’s happened in the past. I had a positive test in 2001 at the Tour of Swiss and I had to go to these guys.’

He said ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not.’ He said ‘I don’t doubt it, I’m sure you’re telling the truth, I’m sure they didn’t follow the rules but it doesn’t matter. That’s not one of your choices. You have to apologise.’

So I said ‘Okay, I didn’t know that’s how it worked but fair enough. This is the first time I’ve heard of someone being paid-off to make a test go away but that’s all I need to hear. If that’s the kind of favours I need, I’m not going to insult that guy.’

He said “Here’s what I’ll have you to do. I’ll call Jim Ochowicz (the president of USA cycling) and he’ll arrange a phone call with Verbruggen and you will apologise to him and tell him you’re sorry.’

Jim Ochowicz is also one of Lance’s staunchest personal friends and supporters.

Throughout the transcript Floyd mentions his dissatisfaction with the Stage 17 testosterone pos, not because he wasn’t doping, but because he hadn’t used testosterone during the Tour that year and because of all the errors and issues with the testing itself.

Some take that to mean that he’s using the “bad” pos as a justification and a statement that he didn’t deserve to be caught at all.

I don’t take it that way. I think he’s genuinely pissed off (and always was) about the “too bad, screw you” attitude and the fact that the arbitrators seemed to have been told what to think and say and how to react well in advance. I think he’s pissed that the evidence of incompetence or intentional wrong-doing or errors in judgement were apparent and should have mattered, but again, the judgement was in before any statement was made or evidence was presented.

I think he’s pissed that UCI doesn’t follow its own rules unless following the rules fits their current needs and that they are, as I’ve mentioned before, unassailable and untouchable.

I believe he’s accepted guilt, but not the treatment he received.

Now for your reading enjoyment, a few of Floyd’s gems about Lance Armstrong’s character (or complete lack of it):

“I had heard rumours about what he was like and that he wasn’t really as nice a guy as the book tried to make him out, so I wasn’t caught completely off guard but it was confirmation”

“The more people there were, the more paranoid he became that he couldn’t control the situation in his own mind at least.”

“I started copying more people because I started to get paranoid; I started to get scared because I knew once Lance found out about this, he was going to do whatever he had to do to stop it.”

“he gets all his satisfaction out of preventing other people from winning.” (like lowly, bloggers who don’t sing his praises loudly enough?)

“when I left the team he took it personally – and he sort of does that anyway –

but I think in his mind he justified it as ‘The only reason this guy has anything is because we helped him. He should have a bit of loyalty.’

And because we are a little but alike in certain ways, I was offended because I knew that I did the best job I could possibly have done for $60,000 a year. I was better than the guys making $800,000 a year! How could they hold it against me and say that I owed them something?

I mean – and this is not unique to cycling – but its always business when you want something and friendship when they want something and that’s the way they ended up making it.

And I tried to manage it a little bit but he is so controlling and so adamant that I decided it wasn’t worth managing and I didn’t really care that much about being his friend because by this time I had learned that you couldn’t be his friend, so I said ‘Fuck it. I’m just not going to talk to him anymore.’ I could have been a bit more astute in the way the politics work and thought ‘Maybe I shouldn’t make him my enemy’ and I don’t know that that’s why I am here but…”

As you learn about the true nature and power and control of Lance Armstrong, plus the shady details of the testing, doesn’t it seem ever more likely that Floyd’s pos for testosterone was entirely set up?

Here’s an example of what I mean:

KIMMAGE: “Okay, given your ambition to win the Tour; and given what you know about Lance and his power within the UCI; and given that you had been working with Ferrari and a doping programme: Was there no element of you thinking ‘How do I do this if I step out of that programme? If I break those ties and provoke them, how will I succeed?’ Did you think that through at all?”

LANDIS: “I did, absolutely, and I was worried about…not how I was going to do it myself, but I was worried they were going to prevent me from doing it.

Because by this time I had figured out that all I really needed was blood transfusions and a little bit of anabolic (steroids) over time. I knew I could recover well enough on my own, and could train well enough without other crazy things.

Because that’s all I did up to 2004, and I was extremely good in 2004, I was about as good as I have ever been. And I knew that if I just improved a little bit from there I’d be good enough to win.

So I didn’t really need Ferrari’s advice any more because I didn’t really use his training programmes anyway because I had all his other information.

My main concern was: ‘Is the UCI going to be told to manipulate something or do something against me?’ And when it didn’t happen in 2005 I didn’t worry about it too much any more because by then I was thinking that my career wasn’t going to last too long anyway because of my hip”

And they did manipulate, because while he openly admits to using testosterone he insists that he never used it IN competition for the ’06 Tour de France, only prior to the Tour that year.

So if he had not used testosterone prior to Stage 17 of the ’06 Tour, and failed none of his previous controls during that Tour, then what answer is left? UCI manipulated his samples on Armstrong’s orders and payment? In the context of the entire transcript it seems not only plausible but likely.

Was that a conclusion Kimmage wanted to guide us to, without having the guts to say it himself?

Ya know how Lance keeps saying that he “was just another employee”? Doesn’t it seem odd that “just another employee’s” personal agent calls Floyd Landis just to check up on his intentions on resigning with the team and, how does Stapleton have the authority to tell Floyd what offers will and won’t be made or accepted? Doesn’t sound much like “just another employee” to me.

Floyd Landis spends a lot of time talking about “justifying things in his head” and the burden that lying was on his conscience and that it was the dishonesty of the past few years that really bothered him the most.

But that’s not how I read it.

So Floyd, as is his right in an appeals process that really needs the word “appeals” in finger quotes, exercises his fullest rights.

UCI, just to show their power, tacks on an extra six months to the suspension, punishing Landis for following the farcical “appeal” system to its furthest conclusion.

So he serves his suspension, and upon its completion he finds that he has been left adrift and that while there are potential rescuers within site and only just barely out of reach, they’ve been forbidden from helping him in anyway. Each time he approaches one, his hands desperately outstretched, seeking help, begging for it, they look directly into his eyes and maneuver away from him, sometimes laughing, waiting for him to drown.

The real nudge that sent Floyd into his tell-all journey was not a need to feel the freedom of “truth” it was the two “last straws” of 1. denying floyd a team or the potential for a team and 2. removing him involuntarily from the “out of competition testing list”, effectively ending his opportunity to compete for the next six months.

If UCI had given an ounce of the grace they’d given Lance Armstrong to Floyd Landis, the burden on his conscience would have been entirely bearable. If Lance Armstrong had been less petty and pointlessly vengeful, if he’d said, “I’ve made him suffer enough.” and had offered Floyd a hand up out of the pit he’d sunken into, Floyd would easily have “justified” all the years of lying that so tormented his soul and silently gone on about his rejuvenated career.

The difference between Lance and Floyd, is that Lance doesn’t wall off the negative “what ifs”. Lance considers and prepares for them, he has his answers, his tactics and his attacks planned for their eventuality.

Lance is not a spur of the moment thinker. When he jumps Kimmage or Lemond in a public forum, he’s had his little speech prepared well in advance. It’s another reason he has to have the exchange end one-sidedly and without a return volley being fired or having to carry on a real, intellectual debate / exchange; he’s got no follow up. His mind is just not that quick in a real, unscripted, face to face throw-down.

Here are a few concerns with this “interview”. These things make it seem like openness and honesty weren’t really goals at all, but the telling of a specific story and the making of specific points to fit Floyd and Paul’s agendas.

Why didn’t Kimmage even touch on things like, “Who gave you that first testosterone patch?”, “How did you find out when and where you’d get your next patch, your next shot or pill, your next blood draw or transfusion?”, “Who and how was all of this paid for?”

Why wasn’t the issue of the testing lab’s computers being hacked even mentioned?

Why did Kimmage never so much as hint at Floyd’s mocking of Greg Lemond’s sexual abuse and his (Floyd’s) friend’s / manager’s call to humiliate Greg? Why did they completely ignore Floyd’s attempt to blackmail Greg into silence by threatening to expose the sexual abuse to the world media?

Possibly most puzzling of all, why did Kimmage not once even brush up against discussing Phonak’s involvement in doping? What did they know? What did they contribute? What were the roles of Andy Rihs and John Lelangue.

I mean Rihs, for being well-liked, has a history with doping riders that has to leave him stinking and slimy. Does anyone believe he’s really just an innocent in all of this? Yet Kimmage doesn’t give him so much as a sniff. Why, Paul?

And what about Jonathan Vaughters? The article makes it clear that he had and continues to have an intimate knowledge of professional cycling’s mafioso doping culture.

Yet he pretends to council Landis to give up names, dates, places and times to the feds, while refusing to do the same. Is Jonathan’s reinterpretation of his advice to Landis really believable?

He was fully aware of doping and it’s systemic nature within Johna Bruyneel’s and Lance Armstrong’s teams, and found it amusing. I don’t see how that kind of joviality and frivolity could indicate anything other than his active participation in same, making all the harder to buy into his “Team Clean” claims.

Jonathan Vaughters, Mr Anti-doping Crusader, still seems quite big on protecting those he KNOWS have doped and continue to dope. If this is our great champion against the evils of doping within the ranks of professional cycling, then we have no hope at all.

More Thoughts on Stuff

Since my first snow ride last week (or was it the week before) I’m actually excited about cold weather riding.

I was up for another today (sans snow after two days of rain and higher temps) and I was totally cool with the 26F temp. But the matching 26 MPH winds? Thankee, but no. I sissied out and set my sights on tomorrow.

But since today is Tuesday it doesn’t matter in the least (totally gratuitous and pointless, except to me, Willy Wonka quote).

For those of you who want to start snow riding, but can’t afford to change your tires to something with a more appropriate tread, here’s a simple but brilliant solution: zip ties!

Love it.

— The great Eddie Merckx has a man crush on Phillipe Gilbert, and says, “liar, liar pants on fire” to Alberto Contador.

— Is it just me or does Richie Porte whine (ha, port wine, I made a funny) just the way Cav does??

He had a good season, sure, but hardly one for the record books. If that’s the best he could come up with, being pumped full of EPO and such, he might oughta quit.

Hence, I say he’s clean.

— Johan Bruyneel gets told to piss off by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

His two months suspension and 10,000 Swiss franc fine is barely a slap on the wrist for him. But his guys are each fined 2,500 Swiss francs.

Ouch, and ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! They all thought they were being slick with that post stage jersey switch. How you like dem apples, boys?

— Garmin – Cervelo (mostly) abandons their gay-ass argyle kit.

Thank you, God!

— I still wonder, did Riis increase of the Schlecks, Jens Voigt and Fabian Cancellara’s success? Or was it the other way around?

Who needed who more?

Over the next few years we’ll figure that out.

My money is on (former doping sucking, TdF winning scumbag, but now upstanding world citizen) Riis.

— And finally, another bike related music video.

http://www.youtube.com/v/xsDxOx7PUP0?version=3

Even More Thoughts on Stuff

— Another cyclist victimized in a hit and run on-purpose.

This guy wasn’t Kornheisered, he wasn’t just “tapped” or “popped”, he was Learyed.

Jurgen Ankenbrand must have been Hamilton Beach, California’s “number one quality of life threat”. So some socially astute guardian of the public trust and welfare took his Toyota 4 Runner and hammered the 67 year old raging cyclopath straight to Hell.

And Denis Leary gives another cheer

But, really, isn’t it nice to finally see the “angry” in Angry Asian?

— Robbie “Head-Butt” McEwen and Robbie Hunter sign on to the RadioSkank Slave Squad.

Couple’a points.

1. Robbie Hunter? Not really a sprinter, not even at his best and strongest. So quit fookin’ sayin’ he is! Dammit.

Is he a good guy? Sure. Is he a reliable domestique? Yes. But he’s only gonna win a sprint if all the real sprinters break their legs and are forced to ride 25 year old steal frame commuters.

2. Going to RadioSkank as a sprinter (are you listening, Head-Butt?) is like going into the salt flats as a climber.

As Johan Bruyneel admits, Robbie and Robbie can expect exactly ZERO by way of team support. The first race is yet to be rid and he’s already saying, “Yer on yer own, fellas.”.

Johan, oh by the way, would the the King Mega Boogie of All Douche Bags if not for being topped by Lance Armstrong.

Head-Butt, for his part, took full advantage of the official UCI Boonen Exemption and took a few healthy drags on his crack pipe, saying:

“Johan Bruyneel offered me the environment I was looking for. I am happy and grateful. I still know and believe that I am one of the fastest sprinters in the world. The young guys like Cavendish, Farrar or Greipel are tough to beat but I know that I am still amongst that group of elite sprinters.”

Ummmmmmmm, right. Just what the rest of us were thinking. Or not.

Head-Butt then passed the pipe to Hunter, who finished it off and said:

“Team RadioShack suits me very well. I’ve proved in the past that I have no problem sacrificing my chances for another rider as I did last year for Tylar Farrar. Also in 2011 the Team can count on me and I know that they will give me the opportunity to do my own sprints, too.”

Right, you weren’t supporting Tyler Farrar because he’s the second best sprinter in the world and you’re a schlub, you were supporting Tyler because you valiantly sacrificed your own glory, which you easily could have snatched away from the snot nosed upstart had you not been such a swell team player.

And, yes, you will be allowed to do your own sprints. For instance, if you want to ace the sprint at your family picnic, BAM, totally yours. You wanna win the final sprint at the Tour of Bumfuktistan, POOF, you got it, buddy.

Come on, guys, really? Radioskank is a desperation move.

When McEwen was just a baby Head-Butt he was Cav before there was a Cav, and a whole lot nastier. I think guys were actually afraid of Head-Butt back in the day, both as a sprinter and as a flat-out, flaming sociopath.

Sadly, as he’s gotten older and slower he’s also gotten more civilized.

To that I say, “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The best thing that will come out of this deal is that Head-Butt will be mentoring guys like Ben King (yes, the American one). Because of McEwen, you’ll see a more aggressive bunch of younger guys and they’ll learn to read a course better and more quickly than they would without him.

Head-Butt has a lot more to offer The Skank than The Skank has to offer him.

— $10,400 to “test” a bike and give a manufacturer a role of stickers that says it is “UCI approved”?

I call bullshiite.

— I actually agree with UCI on this one.

And, yes, saying that did cause a lil blood vessel in my eye to burst.

But the whole Pegasus thing seemed to be done in a totally halfazzed manner.

Chris White has been a fookin’ wolverine and when Pegasus eventually makes it to the elites it’ll be largely thanks to his refusal to roll over and die.

But, dude, organization does NOT appear to be your forte (pronounced FORT, for all you retards who doubly miss pronounce it forTAY).

A free one year subscription to Bikezilla if you can name my pet peeve.

— Campagnolo reintroduces an electronic groupo.

Just as Shimano is rumored to releasing its Ultegra Di2 set in 2012.

Campagnolo has a lot to live up to considering that Shimano’s Dura Ace Di2 groupo has a reputation for flawless performance under any conditions.

SRAM says they’re sticking with purely mechanical group sets because they’re less expensive and are affordable to a larger group of riders.

Again, I call bullshiite.

Their business model doesn’t allow them to create a groupo to compete with the quality and performance of Dura Ace Di2, which will be the standard until someone can unseat it.

When Shimano’s cheap stuff fails, it usually just grossly under-performs, bends, stretches, refuses to hold adjustment.

All bad stuff, which has caused me to really have an intense disliking for Shimano and the way they shiite all over their lower income customers.

But . . .

When SRAM’s cheap stuff fails, it usually BREAKS, sometimes dangerously.

— And for your viewing and listening pleasure, another bike related music video.

Submitted by the temporarily resurrected Ophelia. Poor lil zombie Ophelia. Thank you.

Thoughts on Stuff (Part Who the Hell Knows)

— I’d love to have a copy of Chasing Legends. But $35? Have you lost yer fookin’ mind?

Why is anything related to professional cycling so stupidly expensive?

It’s like they WANT to chase away middle class and lower income fans.

::sigh::

— Thank you UCI for finally acknowledging that despite having the greatest number of riders in the professional peloton, by a wide margin, that French teams simply suck.

Though UCI still bowed to their ASO masters and gave the nod to Ag2r (who actually ranked lower than Cofidis).

Can’t we just have a first division with zero French teams JUST ONCE?! If there was a God or any justice in the Universe, this would be so.

Here’s the full list.

— How much do your favorite pro cyclists make?

It’s an interesting article, but what stuck out for me as that female cyclists, even at the elite level, have NO salarly minimum.

Women racers get screwed on too many levels and I think it’s fookin’ nonsense.

Until there’s a professional cyclists’ union you aren’t going to see any kind of fairness in this.

Um, Johan Bruyneel, you vowed to make the organizing of riders and teams your life’s mission. Was it all hot air? Was it just bullshiite, like so much of what comes out of your mouth?

— MTB?

I’m stealing a second article and third link from Cycling Tips for this one.

Here’s three tips for we not-so-experienced MTB riders; cornereing, up hill, down hill.

— Here’s a sweet lil “cycling” video to entertain you.

You’re welcome.

— And for the not-so-experienced winter cyclist.

Is this me this year? I haven’t decided, yet.

And my thanks to @BicycleWithMe on Twitter, who has no life and does not eat or sleep, but who does find mad cycling links like a fiend.

— And what of we not-so-experienced road cyclists / commuters?

Using the lanes “properly” and being a “savvy cyclist” is counter-intuitive and takes some real nerve, but overall is probably a MUCH safer way to ride. The problem is the anti-cyclist / cyclist-hater and the roadrage freak, and the likelihood that they’ll be more inspired to Kornheiser or Erzinger you. Of course, they’ll probably do that anyway, so . . .

Again thanks to @BicycleWithMe on Twitter.

— If you’re rich enough, you can find all manner of excuses backed up by the “professional” opinions of other rich people.

— Is Denis Leary, @DenisLeary on Twitter, a Martin Joel Erzinger fan?

T’would seem so.

— If you aren’t a fan of Taylor Phinney, you should be.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/17089341

Anatomy of a Time Trial (Phinney’s Road to Gold) from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.