Local Shenanigans
Some local hooligan desecrated our beloved bike path. No doubt the work of a rival BMX gang or someone from the Pend Oreille Pedalers bike club……no not the pedalers, they aren’t creative enough. Had to be that rival BMX gang.
Rasmussen Suspended Two Years
Michael Rasmussen was suspended today for 2 years because of this stunt……
Rasmussen, AKA “The Chicken,” was suspended for missing 3 or more doping tests prior to the 2007 Tour de France. The suspension was backdated to the date that he was pulled from the race last year. That essentially means that his Tour de France career is over. He will be 36 years old before he can start another Tour. It is not impossible for a return, but it is highly improbable. Bye Bye Chicken.
Tour de France Podcasts and Websites
The Tour de France is almost here, and my blood is pumping with anticipation. July is my favorite month of the year. I will admit that I am much less productive during Tour time because I spend most of the day listening to podcasts, interviews, and reading Tour updates online. Here is a list (in order of awesomeness) of places to get your Tour de France info:
- ITV Tour de France Podcast - Get this through iTunes (just search the podcast section for ITV Tour de France). It is about 10 minutes of heaven every day during the Tour. Chris Boardman and Matt Rendell along with roving reporters will fill you in on what went down.
- World Cycling Productions- This is some overlap from the ITV podcast, but it has video of the ITV interviews and it has daily audio recordings and blogs from Paul Sherwen, Phil Ligget, and Graham Watson. A definite must-visit on a daily basis.
- Saris- Yep…the bicycle rack maker. Saris also makes some of the best trainers on the market and they are the maker of the Powertap hub used by many of the pros in the big race. Saris has updates from Allen Lim, Jesse Bartholomew, and Robbie Ventura. I got turned onto these guys during the 2006 Tour de France when they were working with Team Phonak and reporting daily recaps through the SimplyStu Podcast. Allen Lim is a genius sports physiologist that works for Team Slipstream. He has some awesome insights into the tour and individual performances. In 2007 Saris also had daily giveaways. Definitely check them out. I am hoping that Allen Lim’s recipes will be back this year.
If these aren’t enough to keep you busy, just re-listen/re-watch/re-read multiple times until you can’t stay awake any longer. Vive Le Tour!
Floyd Loses Appeal
100 weeks after Floyd Landis tested positive for exogenous testosterone, he has his final verdict. CAS, the high court of sports, has upheld his conviction that was handed down last summer. Floyd has exhausted his options for clearing his name through the courts. Adding to Floyd’s bad news, the court ordered Landis to pay $100,000 to the United States Anti Doping Agency to help cover their court costs. It has been widely reported that one method of revenge that Floyd was employing was to financially drain USADA through expensive trials and appeals. The $100,000, however is not anywhere close to the $millions that the trial actually cost, so his plan did work to some extent.
The Court’s findings were sometimes very harsh on Floyd’s team. I found the following statement in response to Floyd’s accusations of fraud to be especially harsh:
“The Panel has found no evidence at all to sustain any of these serious allegations. Moreover, the panel is surprised that such serious allegations should be pursued in the closing brief when it must have been clear at the end of the hearing that there was no evidential basis from expert testimony or otherwise to support them.”
There is no telling what will come next in the Floyd saga. There might be civil suits from Floyd or directed at Floyd. His suspension runs through the end of this coming January. Will he race again? Will any race organizer let him race again? Will US Cycling try to ban him for an extended period of time because he has participated in mountain bike racing or because he was rumored to be consulting pro-cycling team Rock Racing? What will the website TrustButVerify report on now that Floyd’s hearings are over? Many questions and not alot of answers right now.
TDF Countdown: 9 Days
A little video to get you in the mood:
Bonk Breaker Bars - A Review
In an attempt to break out of the repetitive habits I have formed along the way, I decided to go on a search for an alternative to the old stand-by energy bar of choice. As far back as I can remember, I have always chosen Clif Bar for my energy bar. Clif is tasty, goes down easily, digests easily, and they are easy to open on the fly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Clif Bars…..or is there? I have eaten the same flavor of Clif Bar for so long, I really didn’t know what the competition was offering. After quite a bit of searching through nutritional labels and company websites, I found a bar that looked interesting. The bar is called Bonk Breaker. It’s a good name…who wants to bonk? But a good name and a nice looking nutritional label only go so far. The bar has to taste good, and it has to sit well in the stomach.
So, I got a hold of some bars, and tried them out. My favorite flavor was PB&J, but I also tried Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip (also quite tasty). The first thing I noticed was that the packaging. It is very simple and easy to open. This goes a long way if you are looking for a bar to eat while riding. Inside the wrapper, is the more important part. The bars are very easy to bite into….no powerbar-like brick here. The bars are have a fantastic taste and they sit well in the stomach. I think the reason that they don’t upset the stomach is that they are all natural. Bonk Breaker does not use any preservatives in the production of the bars. Also, no wheat or dairy is used. I don’t know what to say, other than, I am a big fan of these bars.
Compared to Clif Bar (my old favorite), these bars are as good or better. They both have the identical calorie count of 250. The Bonk Breaker bar has quite a bit more fat, but the portion of the fat that is saturated fat is dramatically lower than Clif Bar.
My overall impression is very good. Bonk Breaker makes a great product that is worthy of use by any fitness minded person. It met all my criteria that I was looking for. Price is about average for a nutritional bar at $2.00 a bar. They are easy to find as more and more retailers are taking note. REI caries them at their stores and on-line. Many other retailers also stock them. For an up to date list of where to find them look here: Bonk Breaker Retailers.
Two Thumbs Up, Five Yellow Jersey’s, Five Chainrings…whatever the measure…I give these bars the top score. I have already gone to REI to stock up for the rest of the season.
Mic Rogers Will Not Ride Tour de France
Team High Road soon to be Team Columbia revealed today that its Tour team leader Michael Rogers will not be in form to ride the Tour de France. Mic has been suffering from the effects of Epstein Barr Virus. The virus is the cause of Mononucleosis (Mono) and chronic fatigue syndrome. Rogers has had a tough time of it. Last year, he had to abandon the Tour de France while in contention. I for one am sad to see another contender missing from the starting line this year. It may just come down to attrition. Last contender standing wins the whole thing. By the way, I am sticking by my prediction that Cadel Evans will win convincingly. Nobody has given me a good reason why he won’t.
Eleven Is The New Ten
I just got back from Europe where I found out that pink will replace black as the new pink for 2009. I also found out that Campagnolo is introducing 11 speed grouppos for 2009. Yep, eleven is officially the new ten. So, go get some pink bar tape and a 2009 Super Record grouppo, and you will be hip as ever.
Here are the main points people will be complaining about in the next few months because of this new “standard.”
- Who needs 11 speeds?
- The chains will be too narrow and will wear out too fast.
- The rear cluster is too close together, which will make it hard to shift just one gear at a time.
- This will cause a marketing nightmare for bike shops.
- What is wrong with 10 speeds?
- They just want to make my new bike obsolete.
- 11 gears in the same spacing as 10 means that the sprockets will be thinner, and they will be more apt to wear out or break.
- Bikes already have the same combination of gears with 10 speed if you just know how to shift into it.
These are all the reasons that I heard when 7 became 8 and 8 became 9 and 9 became 10. Guess what, you all moved to 10 speed when it came out, even after telling me all the same reasons listed above why you wouldn’t. You will all move from 10 to 11 sooner or later, so stop making up dumb excuses to make yourself feel better about owning last year’s stuff.
“So then the next movie moves to the top of the queue. So No. 5 becomes No. 4. No. 6 becomes No. 5. No. 3 becomes No. 2, etc., etc. And lets just say that I just sent back ‘Love, Actually’ — which was awesome — and they sent me ‘Uptown Girls’ – which was also awesome. But guess what? Now I want to see ‘Love, Actually’ again, but it’s at the bottom of the queue. ‘Oh, no, what do I do?’ What I do is this: I go online. I go click, click, click, and I change the order of the queue so that I can see ‘Love, Actually’ as soon as I want to. It’s so easy, Ryan. Do you really not know how Netflix works?” -Kelly Kapoor
Yep, That Will Work
I guess the UCI has run out of things to do, and they are feeling a little bored. They have threatened penalties for riding in non-UCI sanctioned events, but they have no power to actually follow through. So, out of boredom from lack of duties they decided to suspend the French cycling federation for the rest of 2008. This basically means that French riders are not sanctioned by the UCI, and that the UCI does not recognize any races organized under the French Federations sanctioning process. To all this I say, way to go. You gave France more freedom from your control. The UCI is a powerless, crybaby organization that can’t believe that they have lost control. I hope that the UCI is right when they say that ASO is trying to start their own rival cycling federation. Maybe ASO can get SRAM Rival as a sponsor. It could be called the SRAM Rival Tour of Real Races.
Million Dollar Bike
This report shows the bike that cost over $1 million to develop for Dutch cyclist Theo Bos’s bid for Olympic gold.
