Sycamore->Welsh->Barry/Holt/Eleanor
Today’s goal, given the meager 10 miles of distance, was to ride these hills as hard as possible without falling over or throwing up. It should be noted that Eleanor is really quite hard. On Sunday I really need to hit four or five hills, then do Eleanor and Flowers/Tesla to at least partially simulate the pain I’ll feel on the actual Dirty Dozen ride. I imagine that they will hurt. A lot.
Posted on October 10th, 2008
Leonardo Piepoli and Stefan Schumacher have tested positive for CERA. If you followed the Tour de France, Piepoli was sacked by his team and kicked out of the Tour thanks to Riccardo Ricco’s positive test during the Tour. Piepoli quickly admitted to doping, then denied in front of the Italian Olympic Committee. Schumacher won both individual time trials during the Tour, and wore the yellow jersey. He’s been caught up in doping issues before, and he is proclaiming his innocence. As a side note, it’s too bad QuickStep forced out Paolo Bettini (who decided to retire) to make room for Schumacher. Anybody think Bettini might get a call that might make him re-evaluate his future?
More good news: Frank Schleck has been tied, at least financially, to dope doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. He is taking a page from the Ivan Basso legal play book by admitting, yes, he sent money, but no, he didn’t actually dope.
And, saving the best for last, Alexander Vinokourov has said he intends to come back (having served his one year suspension), and, wait for it, race for Astana (Vino, remember, started the team when Liberty Seguros folded). He still must tangle with the UCI, who suspended their proceedings against Vino when he retired. Pat McQuaid has already indicated the UCI would bring their case to the CAS and forced the Kazakh rider to serve another year. I suspect Johan Bruyneel isn’t sleeping well at the moment, given that he already he has a power struggle on his hands thanks to Lance Armstrong’s comeback. Should Vino avoid another year’s suspension, it’s hard to imagine the Kazakh rider being denied a spot on the team, given that the team is funded, in part, by Kazakhstan. This move would likely get Astana excluded from each of the Grand Tours and an events controlled by the ASO (who run the Tour de France).
And…the IOC has called out the UCI as a failure in the fight against doping. I am sympathetic to the UCI in this case, as track and field and weightlifting remain in the Games despite a long, well-documented history of systematic doping.
Posted on October 7th, 2008
Dirty Dozen hills:
Sycamore->Canton->Boustead->Welsh
Canton, with 34×26 gearing isn’t so bad, given you stay to the right, out of the, umm, grass growing between the cobbles. It is still silly steep, though, and I imagine doing it in a crowd of people is challenging. A good link-up to assess my condition for the ride would be Center->Ravine->Berryhill->High->Logan->Suffolk->Sycamore->Berry/Holt/Eleanor.
Oh, and an observation: the southern hills feel significantly more bike-unfriendly than the northern ones, due to narrower streets and more traffic.
Posted on October 5th, 2008
A group of old timers went to Coopers yesterday for a fine day of bouldering.
Andrew on Wave Rider:
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| From Coopers Rock 4 Oct 2008 |
Jen on Wave Rider:
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| From Coopers Rock 4 Oct 2008 |
Jason off Wave Rider:
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| From Coopers Rock 4 Oct 2008 |
Stuart on Special Needs:
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| From Coopers Rock 4 Oct 2008 |
Posted on October 4th, 2008
Dirty dozen “training:”
High/Seavey->Logan->Suffolk/Hazelton/Burgess->Sycamore->Barry/Holt/Eleanor
I would have done Welsh, but I couldn’t remember where it is. I didn’t quite know where Berry was, either, but I managed to find it, as I knew it was off Josephine. Aside from feeling horrible on the hills themselves, I felt good, and would have liked to do Welsh (or another hill) just to do six. The roads were wet in spots, and I spun my rear wheel on both Logan and Sycamore.
Posted on September 27th, 2008
So a certain Texan is going to return to PRO cycling. Bully for him. He wants to win another Tour de France, ostensibly for cancer research, but more likely because he’s watched a handful of riders who he routinely crushed win in his absence. I don’t have particularly strong feelings about Armstrong. Maybe he doped, maybe he didn’t. Yes, he was a great rider in the Tour de France. But I am much more impressed with Greg Lemond’s palmares–top five finishes in the Spring Classics, podium finishes at the Giro d’Italia (the same year he won the Tour!), and two world championships. But Armstrong came of age in an era of specialists (beginning with Indurain–though, in his defense, he took two Giro/Tour doubles), and he was the greatest among them.
The fuss now is for whom Armstrong will ride. Astana, led by his favored DS Johan Bruyneel, is a popular choice. But this is problematic. First, Astana was excluded from the Tour this year (because of past indiscretions) and is no lock to receive an invitation next season. Second, Astana is already loaded, with Alberto Contador (he of the recent “triple crown” of Tour, Vuelta, and Giro wins) and two other Grand Tour podium winners, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden. Kloden seems to have accepted his fate as a super domestique, but Levi is clearly not content winning North American stage races. He pushed hard in the Vuelta to take second place, and took back a fair chunk of time in the final time trial, to finish only 40 seconds back. Contador wasn’t pleased:
Contador also had some pointed remarks about teammate Levi Leipheimer, who finished 46 seconds back in second place.
“I will only say that it’s not normal that someone that is supposed to be working for you finishes less than one minute back in the GC,” Contador said. “If Navacerrada had been 20km more, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Two things worth noting here:
1. It seems like Levi may be racing elsewhere next season.
2. Contador is tacitly admitting he wasn’t the strongest on the team, simply the chosen leader.
What’s more, it appears that Contador would fly, too, if Astana took Armstrong:
“It would be quite complicated. I think I’ve earned the right to be the leader of a team without having to fight for it,” he said in the interview published Tuesday. “And with Armstrong, there could be difficult situations in which the team would put him first and that would harm me.”
I’d like to see one of two things come of all this:
1. Bruyneel gets Armstrong, then tells the quartet that the team will deliver them, with the peleton appropriately shredded, to the base of every major climb. From there, they can sort out who’s the best.
2. Leipheimer goes to CSC (who is without a true GC threat without Sastre–and give Schleck the Younger a few more years). Armstrong goes to Astana. Contador goes to a team that will worship him.
No doubt that Contador doesn’t want Armstrong to rain his reign as the new stage race patron. I can’t imagine Levi sticking with Astana in any situation. Contador likely believes he can win all three Grand Tours next year, and that leaves Levi to win the Tour of California (or, maybe not, since Lance wants to race there) or the Tour of Missouri. He is obviously fit enough to challenge for a win, but he won’t get that chance at Astana, especially if Armstrong returns.
Any which way this all shakes out, it will make for interesting (and entertaining) reading for the next few months.
Posted on September 23rd, 2008
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| From Bikes |
I installed the Origin8 flared drops on the Redline (since I purchased a set of Tektro levers that would work with the V-brakes) today. There it is. Note the various other high tech bits:
The shakedown went well. I started by tooling around a bit on the flatter bits of single track, then climbed up to the Blue Slide park/Meadows and went down Iron Grate. It took but a moment to get used to handling the bike in the drops. In fact, within a few minutes, the bike seemed to handle better with the drops–perhaps because I was a bit lower when in the drops, or perhaps because I felt like I could really drive the front end a bit more because of my hand position. Braking was easy, as the Tektro levers are comfy and didn’t require more than a finger to lock the wheel. The only things that felt a bit odd were getting the front end over big obstacles and getting a bit of air on a few of the bumps. Better to keep the bike on the ground, methinks. At one point, coming down Iron Grate, my rear wheel hit a rock and a root in quick succession, and I cannot believe that I didn’t flat or, given the noise, completely bust the rear wheel. Let’s hear it for high volume tires. There are also a number of ticks being emitted from various areas of the bike–the front end sounds like the wheel is completely loose in the fork when I go over anything, and something (saddle rails, maybe) was clicking. The chain sounds horrible, too. Given the nice surface coating of rust, I think I should probably replace it sooner rather than later.
I have a few more changes I’d like to make to Redline, too. Ideally, I’ll get some mechanical discs, if only because those V-brakes has been thoroughly abused. I’d also like to futz with the gearing a bit more, perhaps downsize the freewheel to 18 teeth, and get a 16 teeth TomiCog for cruising to the park. Spinning 32×20 on city streets is kinda silly.
Posted on September 19th, 2008
Hills.
Center->Ravine->Berryhill.
Humid and rainy. There was, umm, moss growing on Berryhill, so that was interesting.
Posted on September 13th, 2008
This is the way the racing season ends….
The last race at the Oval was canceled due to a lack of riders. I will say the crowd that gathered put us right on the cusp, numbers-wise, but honestly, I’m glad we didn’t race. The group included the full spectrum of abilities, and I sensed that as it was, the race might be a bit on the slow side, and not terribly interesting. On the bright side, the road racing season ended on a high note with a good finish at Strongland.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s hard to see this season as anything but a success. I progressed from a punter who was lucky to stay in the group for a few laps, to a rider who could sit in and maybe score a top ten finish, to someone who was active during the race at the front. Certainly I would have liked to score more points during the season, but seven was seven more than I thought I’d score. And even more surprising, I’ve been invited to join a team for next season (this is crazy). Steel City Endurance will be fielding a men’s squad, and I’m one of three or four riders picked from the C race. This should make season a bit more interesting, and fun, given that there were only two or three teams (at most) in any given C race, so there was very little in the way of tactics.
As for next season, the biggest goal is performing better outside of the Oval. Strongland was a good start, but the competition wasn’t as hard as, say, Mingo Creek. I’d like to be able to walk away from Mingo or Fort Cherry with a top fifteen finish. I don’t really have much of a training plan, besides “ride lots,” so we’ll see where that gets me.
Only six months to Mingo!
Posted on September 9th, 2008
Posted on September 9th, 2008