I vowed to limit my Olympics viewing to a bare minimum. 1. because I watched the whole TdF from beginning to end. I even watched some stages more than once. That's just a crazy amount of time spent in front of the TV. and 2. the commercial aspect of the games generally turns me off.

However, the HD coverage sucked me in, and I've been bouncing from event to event, and have been enthralled by some sports I was only dimly aware of.

For example, I'm hooked on handball--lots of action and speed and some mild violence.

How about you? Any sports that are "new to you" that are stealing the hours away from your life?

On the flip side, there are some events that don't seem to belong in the olympics. Air rifle? If that's an olympic sport, I hope darts is too.

From Xinhuanet:

Former Chinese Olympian race walker Song Hongjuan was busted for EPO.

According to the Chinese Athletic Association's website, the 24-year-old race walker, who placed 14th in the women's 20 kilometers walk at the Athens Olympic Games four years ago, tested positive for erythropoietin at a competition here in February.

Apparently, according to CNBC, some Russian race walkers have been banned, too.

If race walkers are doping, can there be any hope for clean sports? The short answer is no.

To The Producers of the Tour de France on Versus, and to Phil, Paul, Bob, and Craig,

Thank you for the beautiful coverage of the Tour de France again this year. For Americans, Versus is our pipeline to this great event.

The live coverage is incredible. This is the first year that I've had the free time to watch from the rollout of the first stage through the podium presentation on the Champs. There is no other event like this, and no other sports show that comes close to the epic scope of your Tour production.

I can only imagine the logistical difficulty of following the Tour around France for a month, while being away from friends and family.

I hope Versus continues to cover the Tour in the years to come, and that you're able to broaden and deepen your coverage of this spectacle.

Thanks again,

Kevin

George Hincapie's crash in the 2006 Paris-Roubaix was something straight out of most cyclist's nightmares. Sudden failure of a critical component. A sudden loss of control. Nothing to do but crash.

This is my third season racing my Litespeed Sienna. It's got about 10,000 miles on it and has been through 30-40 races. I planned to replace the fork, stem, and bars sometime this season, but didn't think it too urgent.

I'm sure you can guess where this is going. I was racing today. I got up out of the saddle to crest a little rolling hill and the bars (Mantis ITM) snapped in half and down I went one instant later. Luckily it was a low speed crash and I am only a little bruised and banged up.

Consider this a PSA. If you're wondering about the age of some vital components on your bike, replace them!

Also, this was another instance where my helmet saved my brains from any damage. The rear of my helmet is bashed up and scuffed, but my head is fine.

This is the last of the kneehab diaries. I'm writing this up for other unlucky cyclists who break their patella. Unfortunately, it will probably be pretty useful! Broken kneecaps seem to be a common cycling injury.

A short recap (long version here): I was in a car accident in early January. I broke several ribs and fractured vertebrae, and my kneecap broke into three pieces. It was surgically repaired immediately after the accident. I've been in physical therapy since late January, and just started riding on the road again (the first road ride of the season was March 13, 2008).

Continue reading this post »

Disclaimer

No medical professionals contributed to this article. If this article provokes questions about your injury or treatment, ask your doctor.

I had a car accident about three months ago. I broke several ribs, fractured some vertebrae, and shattered my kneecap. One of the first things I did after getting home from the hospital 2 days later was to Google for "cycling after a knee injury". I found some useful information, but it wasn't as specific as I'd hoped.

So I started taking detailed notes during my recovery, and am writing them up here to give other poor folks who end up in the same situation a better idea of what to expect.

Continue reading this post »

From June 07, 2007 Cycling News:

Alejandro Valverde "took the same stuff that they gave me," said his former Kelme teammate Jesus Manzano. He gave a concrete example in an interview with the German magazine Stern, saying "I remember an evening after one of the Vuelta stages in 2002. Valverde came to dinner with a testosterone plaster on. After an hour he ripped it off, otherwise he would have been tested positive."

According to the cycling news blurb, Ettore Torri interviewed Manzano about Operation Puerto. It's been about two years (May 2006) since OP broke. The wheels of doping justice are slow to roll. Will Valverde get nabbed by an Italian prosecutor?

Cue the fanfare music... Dim the stadium lights. Ok, ok, launch the doves, LAUNCH THE DOVES! Cue the interpretive dancers... Bring out the elderly 15th duchess of Craptenstein. The IOC has an announcement to make.

From: Linky here

In a series of guidelines, the IOC said blogging would be allowed during the Beijing 2008 Olympics as long as individuals writing the journals keep within the IOC format.

"The IOC considers blogging... as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism," the IOC said.

Blogging is only "personal expression", which can be squashed to stroke corporate overlords, and placate communist dictators.

[editor's note, by chris] Anyone going to Beijing? The Cafe is HUGE in China. Also, contact me and I'll help find some anti-CCP websites you should be sure to access while on premises.

Update [2008-2-17 12:16:58 by chris]: Does anyone else think this is a ploy by the locals to control content? "Here, use our T1 line. Oh, and if the cursor starts moving when you're not touching anything, don't worry, it's nothing."

VideoLAN (aka VLC) is the open source (free) swiss army knife of media streaming and transcoding. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's indespensible for a media starved cycling fan. If you can watch it or listen to it, VideoLAN can encode it to a file, decode it from a file or serve it up on a network in dozens of formats.

You can use VLC to encode live audio from a microphone that's plugged into your PC or laptop into an mp3 stream. If you aren't satisfied with the commentary for the ToC, you can provide your own to the world!

The "how to" follows below:

Continue reading this post »

I like Barack Obama's statements about transportation policy. From: http://obama.3cdn.net/4465b108758abf7a42_a3jmvyfa5.pdf

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities: Over the longer term, we know that the amount of fuel we will use is directly related to our land use decisions and development patterns, much of which have been organized around the principle of cheap gasoline. Barack Obama believes that we must move beyond our simple fixation of investing so many of our transportation dollars in serving drivers and that we must make more investments that make it easier for us to walk, bicycle and access
other transportation alternatives.

Sounds reasonable to me.

What does your favorite candidate say?

Long story short, the driver in the left lane drove into the front of my car. I had zero time to react. I was only able to slam on the brakes before the impact, and some part of the dashboard cut through my right kneecap, and I broke a few other bones.

It was a lot like a crash in a bike race, one instant you're rolling along, then you're on the ground. You don't really feel the impact. It's more like a flashbulb going off all over your body. I didn't even think any bones were broken until I tried to move my leg and it didn't work. I reached down to see what was going on and felt a distinct lack of patella.

Of course, one of my first thoughts was, "shit, this is really going to set my training back this season."

The accident was three weeks or so ago. I'm starting to feel relatively good and am itching to get back on the bike. Hopefully I'll start physical therapy pretty soon. I think it will probably be a couple of weeks (at least) before I am able to ride the trainer.

The questions that I have:

• Will my surgically repaired knee work for riding?
  
• How much fitness will I lose with no riding for 4 to 8 weeks?

If you haven't seen it, take a look! Note, there were no serious injuries, just cuts and bruises.

I just got my spring classics DVDs from WCP and plopped down on the couch to watch Paris Roubaix and was quite pleasantly surprised.

I believe prior years' DVDs were produced from SD quality source material, the 2007 edition appears to be derived from HD source material. The picture is not HD, but it is as clear as any widescreen DVD I've seen.

The color of the peloton pops. It's a great visual feast compared to the fuzzy images presented by Versus and cycling.tv.

I think I'll give myself a mountain bike this christmas.

For years it was pointless to own one in my area--trail access was really limited. I haven't owned one for a looong time, and know nothing about the latest and greatest components.

I thought I'd tap the vast knowledge of PdC contributors to get oriented.

Am I better off building or buying?
What brands currently rule? My LBS stocks Felt.
What are must-have features--disc brakes? full suspension?

We're in the process of forming a cycling club.

The club I rode with in 2007 had a local company produce our uniforms. The unis were reasonable quality, but we had to purchase everything at the start of the season to achieve the minimum quantities that were required.

That's probably not going to work for us. I'd like to be able to purchase kit through the year as we add more riders.

I'm wondering if anyone out there in Podium Cafe land has experience with club kit purchases.

If you were wringing your hands about ~:>'s summary expulsion from the Tour, you can breathe easy now:

from: laykeep

[editor's note, by chris] See also Eurosport

This Sunday I raced in the first race of the local 2007 'cross series. I've raced three cross seasons. One season on a mountain bike, the second season, I rode a Kona "Jake the Snake" cyclocross bike and this year I built a bike based on a Redline Conquest Team frameset and a hodge-podge of components. I wanted to solve problems I had with the Kona (namely too heavy!), and build a bike that could stand up to my 220 pound body, and I think I've managed to do that.

Continue reading this post »

I was on my way home from doing a couple of my favorite climbs when someone shouted an insult at me from a car across the intersection. The only part I heard, was "use the sidewalk, dick!"

I was on my way to ignore it when the light changed at exactly the right time, and I turned the burners on and chased the car down.

I've been insulted countless times while out on my bike, usually I just ignore it, or can't even make out what the dweeb says. And really, drivers around here are much better about cyclists now than they were ten years ago.

This time, I read the young punk the riot act. He seemed embarassed that I actually caught up to him and called him out. I was hoping he would step out of the car and take a swing, but it didn't happen, and we went our separate ways with a appropriate venom hurled both directions.

I dislike getting worked up about anything to this degree--though I'm impressed with my turn of speed to chase him down! I probably vented my year's supply of anger in this incident.

If it were you, what would you do?

[editor's note, by chris] Although I haven't promoted these kinds of stories which aren't about Cycling, I think there's a valid point here, and anyway it's a slow news day.

I'm watching ESPN and just about gagging.

Michael Vick plead guilty to participating in a dog fighting ring that tortured dogs to death.

Every commentator spent his time talking about how quickly Vick can get back to playing football, and wondering if he'll be in shape after he gets out of prison. What planet are these people from? I think there are some more pressing issues to discuss about this case--I guess it's a shock when the former "face of the NFL" turns out to be deeply involved in something so horrible:

According to the indictment, people betting on the fights established purses as high as $26,000, while dog owners and spectators made side bets. The fights lasted until a dog was killed or it surrendered. Losing dogs, along with those deemed unsuitable for fighting, were sometimes killed by drowning, hanging, beating, shooting or electrocution, the indictment said.

from: Bloomberg

I can wrap my brain around PED use, or recreational drug use, the random DUI, or reckless driving charge. I just can't get my head around this.

Peace summary of facts
Phillips summary of facts

As the cycling season wanes, it's time to look back and decide what your best and worst cycling gear purchases were. What designer and engineer deserves a medal, and which company deserves a cock punch? Did you experiment with something, and live to regret it?

My best buy: Specialized Body Geometry Road Shoes. $275, and worth every penny. No more hot foot!

My Worst buy: Easton Aluminum Wing handlebars. The flats are the exact wrong shape for my hand. They're probably great for some riders, but not me, and mine are destined to be a coat rack or something.

Despite bad science, French lab tech incompetence, and conspiracies against foreign riders, Patrick Sinkewitz has apparently said "ya got me":

Former T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz, who was among riders in this year's Tour de France to test positive for drugs, has decided not to have a second urine sample analyzed, the German Cycling Federation said on Tuesday.

"Patrik Sinkewitz's lawyer, Michael Lehner, has informed us by fax that his client is foregoing the opening of the B sample," the Federation (BDR) said. "Mr Lehner said that a public announcement would be made today."

source: VN

The German rider will now likely be suspended for two years, although there is some speculation that he will become a key witness, like Jörg Jaksche. Depending on how much he tells this could mean a reduced sentence under UCI rules.

I'm encouraged by the way the anti-doping measures in the Tour are working out. Cheaters are caught, and expelled mid-race, and whole teams are being expelled on the spot. And now, Rasmussen has been ejected by his team once the whispering suspicions became a sustained scream.

This approach is long overdue. I hope features of it are incorporated into the future ProTour. The spirit of the doping law does not have much of a role in the process: note that Rasmussen was booted by his sponsor and journalists, not the anti-doping system.

My take on the doping system is that it's a byzantine tangle of rules and judicial processes. Floyd Landis' case is the latest showcase of its flaws. Guilty or innocent, it just shouldn't be possible to spend several man years and $2M to argue about what stuff is in a man's pee so he can go ride a bike. Also, it seems that the quasi-judicial framework encourages doping. It creates a system that the dope docs can game. Remember Rasmussen didn't fail a doping test! He just avoided them.

If calls for a new cycling league actually come to fruition, I hope it includes some improvements to the anti-doping system. The anti-doping system can be simplified and streamlined, because the outcome of it is not that important in the cosmic sense. Riders who are busted  don't go to jail, they just can't race as a pro for some period of time.

I hope an executive power is incorporated into the system. The actions of the sponsors and the teams in the Tour this year show how effective it can be, although these actions came too late to avoid mussing the results of the race.

Really, "executive" is just a fancy way of saying that cycling needs a president that actually has power. So if a rider trains with Dr Evil, for example, and Dr. Evil is under suspicion; investigate, warn the rider, then suspend the rider. If the rider persists. Fire him and ban him. Again, it's not like you're throwing the dude in jail. You're forcing him into another line of work. If a rider wants to train with Dr. Evil for fun and personal gratification, go for it! He just can't race in the ProTour of the future. No big deal. The executive power needs some check and balance system so it can't be corrupted by bribes or nationalism, sex, candy, crack or whatever.

In exchange for making the system more arbitrary, reduce the penalties that riders face for first time, minor offenses, but stiffen the penalties for habitual offenders, or those who engage in egregious practices--such as a medical program.

If dopers want to race, they can form their own "top fuel" cage match league.

I saw the link over at the CFA.

Here's the whole cow blood story.

What a mess.

Richards has decided to tell the UCI and the DCU about his experience with Rasmussen in March 2002. He is due to speak with the UCI this week.

Some back of the envelope calculations follow. Valverde might rue the day he didn't work with Moreau. The days of yellow for the chicken might be numbered, and he might finish a few rungs beneath Menchov in the GC.

If you flip back through prior TT performances, like last year's TdF, you'll find that the patterns from this year's prologue are no fluke. Evans gave up 3 minutes to Klodi in the second 57 km ITT.

The race of truth? We will see...

Continue reading this post »

Hot off the wire!

Eurosport | Mon, Jul 16, 15:48
Astana manager Marc Biver insists team leader Alexandre Vinokourov will return to his best form after the first rest day of the Tour de France. "We have limited the damage. Tomorrow you will quickly understand that Vino has fully recovered," he said.

I'm sure there are those in the audience who add mental quotation marks around several terms in Biver's statement. But maybe, just maybe, the Khazakh children's choir sang to Vino over the phone, and his spirits are lifted. Or, repeated viewings of Borat have restored the plucky Khazakh's will to rage.

If others riders aren't similarly "recovered" they might need to lookout tomorrow.

I just heard, Floyd Landis will be on the NPR show Talk of the Nation. I don't know if we'll hear anything new, but I will give a listen.

[editor's note, by chris] It started innocently enough as a diary by Kevin...

In honor of the most anticipated prologue of all time, I plan to ride a flat 7.9 km (4.9 mi) as fast as I can. (The distance of the london prologue)

The question, can I finish inside the cutoff time?

The ultimate challenge, can I avoid a last place finish?

I plan to do it this week. If you have a chance, and feel up to it, post your time/average speed here!

As reference points last year: 51.429 kmh (31.88 mph)

Last place: 176 Ruben Lobato (Spa) Saunier Duval - Prodir 45.079 kmh (27.94 mph)

[editor's note, by chris] As you can see from the comments below, this has evolved into a challenge: can you ride 7.9 flat kilometers fast enough to beat the Tour de France elimination time? [OK, it's possible the Tour doesn't do eliminations in the Prologue.] We will use the standard of the winner's time plus 25%. This will NOT be an easy time to make, but it's worth a try. Do your best to find a comparable course, and blast out 4.9 miles, then send in your time. If anyone makes it over the cutoff, well, we'll try to come up with some sort of prize. Good luck!

Update [2007-7-3 16:43:8 by chris]: We have a prize! Luis at ProCycleGear.com has offered up one replica pro jersey from their inventory, which I assume means one of the current pro teams and no unusual sizings. Extreme honor system time now, folks. And I want a photo of your ride! Also, the contest closes when the Tour reaches the flamme rouge in Paris and the results become official.

[editor's note, by chris] This is comprehensive coverage of the Walsh book, including links to various responsive articles in the comments. Nice work Kevin!

David Walsh's book is a history of the mingling of European cycling culture (doping) and American cycling culture from the 1990s on. It weaves the story through the testimony and documentation provided by four doping cases. The book is well written, unfortunately, primary source material is not presented in footnotes or end-notes, and the breezy narrative format doesn't match the gravity of the information presented. In spite of that, this book will spark some discussions that might be useful in moving the sport forward.

Continue reading this post »

From CN

Italian newspaper Corriere Dello Sport is reporting that Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas), Eddy Mazzoleni (Astana), Gilberto Simoni and Riccardo Riccò (both Saunier Duval - Prodir) are being scrutinized by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) for what are being called 'abnormally low' hormone levels.

The newspaper characterized the results as 'extremely bizarre' saying that they were returned from blood and urine tests given after the stage to Monte Zoncolan on May 30th.

...

However, decreased levels of testosterone have been demonstrated during a study of riders in the 1999 Vuelta a España published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (in 2001).