roadskater.net

First, let me say, I want to hear from anyone who believes Lance rode clean for 7 TdF wins. I'd like to believe. I love believing. So let me know what you think if you like, even if you think I am totally wrong!

And don't get me wrong. That Livestrong thing is awesome. Now to begin...

Ahh. I get it. I have to say I was skeptical about Lance's testing program, but it appeared he had hired a reputation (I mean someone with a great reputation) who would administer the program scrupulously. Now, it turns out, maybe that was the problem? 

Well the Tour de France route for 2009 has come out, and there's some new old stuff, like the Team Time Trial is back. Some say this makes Lance Armstrong more likely to show up, some say less, and he seems to want some assurances from the organizers about respectful treatment or some such.

Meanwhile Contador sounded welcoming at first, but lately perhaps less so, and Vino's name has surfaced as well. Nothing solid here from me...just some impressions.

Just when you thought it was all over... 

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=3611019 

Floyd Landis is back, this time taking his case to the US courts.  The article points our that this is probably pointless, since the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) is a Swiss body...  As far as I know, our courts don't have any jurisdiction there...  Not yet, anyway...  ;-)

So apparently the Discovery Pro Cycling Team will be no more after the end of this season. But meanwhile things are looking pretty good for Slipstream, the US's newest international team.

Today promises to be a big day for announcements in pro cycling. Apparently the team to be formerly known as Discovery Channel has not found a replacement sponsor for next year. It seems Hincapie may be in magenta for T-Mobile, other USAmericans are in doubt, Slipstream may be the only USA team, and we have to wonder if they'll get an invite for the tour (anyone know about this yet?). Something more ominous than espresso seems brewing from Contador and Bruyneel regarding Operación Puerto and any connection with the footlose man Eufemiano Fuentes.

Good vibes all around from London, England and the UK from hosting the Tour de France, or so it seems. I thought it was interesting and fun, and especially since the weather was so great for those days. The English really came out to look and seemed to be enthusiastic. I'm glad they're not piling on as there are enough piles to go around already. Mo' bettah testin' throughout the ranks I say and careful living for the riders it seems. It's a job many of us would gladly take!

As timv has noted, David Millar can spin a yarn nicely in his TdF Diaries. As a doper who had done his time, he's uniquely qualified to share several perspectives. And he was there for his own "Say it ain't so, Joe" moment when Vino's non-negative was first announced. I'll leave most of the piece for you to read on the Bicycling site, but here's a brief sample of that moment:

During the rest day, I've been speed-reading through various reports and blog entries for the first nine days of this year's Tour. My favorite story so far comes from David Millar's Stage 5 diary account of rookie British sprinter Mark Cavendish on his first-ever hilly TdF stage:

Just a quick note to say that on today's stage of the Tour de France, some inline skaters made the video coverage and were even commented upon favorably by Phil Liggett (and maybe by Paul Sherwen too).

The first view was of the solo race leader with a solo skater in a low race position making good time on a road parallel to the TdF course.

The second view a few minutes later was of four skaters on the parallel road, behind the full peloton, with fields of sunflowers in the foreground and between the two roads.

For those who don't have cable television but do have high-speed internet, here are some links that may (or may not) work for you to watch some worldwide television. Currently, of course, this is of interest because of the Tour de France. Look below for some links to the live data for GPS (location), power, heartrate and more. It's amazing to watch the video as the riders pass through a town and make a turn and to see this happen on the Google map while viewing HRM data.

 I've been knocking these rather trivial, large-scale thoughts around my head for some years now and wanted to write something about them. Last night, whilst watching 20/20, was the final straw! This post might complement KJG's questions in Monotony of Training.

Floyd Landis had agreed not to tour any of France in competition this year, and it looks like he'll be making the rounds of the talk shows here in the USA and elsewhere if things go as one might expect. The book will cover Landis' whole life up to and including the results of the mid-May anti-doping hearing. Bicycling Magazine executive editor Loren Mooney will be co-author, and Amazon.com is offering up preorders. Here's an affiliate link if you want one... Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France.

Many have seen Graham Watson's great photographs of the Tour de France and other cycling events I'm sure. Sometimes he'll even be interviewed during the tour and often is an interesting guy. In the video attached to the story below, Watson talks about his switch from photographing royalty to giving cycling a go to realizing a new career in cycling photography. It's great to hear how people chose their path. Enjoy!

If for no other reason we here in the United States remember the Champs-Élysées as the scene of many yellow jerseyed moments over the last few years. But it seems the French are worried that the street has descended into megastore commercialism, losing the flavor held so long as a romantic refuge for artists and those who love them. A recent piece in the International Herald Tribune mentions skating police briefly among many other interesting facts and opinions...

Not much new here except the information that there is now a way to contribute to Floyd's defense. What would really be interesting would be if they would sell stock in the defense so that if he loses, you lose, but if he wins, you win too! Now that would really be an educational lottery!

Floyd is taking the fight online and has apparently posted a lot of information on his home page.  (www.floydlandis.com)...  I've linked to an article with a summary and it sounds like he's just putting up a lot of data to back up his claim that the French lab was either incompetent, purposely spiked the samples, or both...

Did a quick search today to see if there was any new news...

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=2580393

Good interview with Phil Liggett (OLN commentator for TDF) is available here:

Phil Liggett on the Landis affair

I won't provide a summary here now, but this article from the mercury news is a somewhat detailed summary of the court case where Armstrong was put under scrutiny to adjudicate the matter of a five million dollar bonus earned by winning a particular Tour de France. The article has many insights, and relative to the Landis matter, food and drink control seem like really important issues to cover if you want to avoid any possibility of sabotage. I don't know how easy it would be to spike a rider, but I'm interested now aplenty. The article specifically notes how upset Landis was about doped cyclists, and also points to the "blue cooler" which Armstrong says was his protected food and drink. There's a climate of fear, most definitely, and some of this is fear of Armstrong, justified or not. It's interesting, however, how many people came out to cast aspersion on Armstrong, but that the case essentially says there's no proof the bonus should not be paid. Who knows what it all means with respect to Floyd, but his reputation sure was good on this subject, for what that is worth. Here's a link to a worthwhile article if you find Lance Armstrong an interesting topic:

Floyd has responded to both the failed drug test result as well as the media coverage and the UCI's handling of the whole situation on his blog.

http://www.floydlandis.com/blog/2006/08/04/175/

Wow. Spoilers here so watch out if you don't want to know what's happening now. I'll insert a break so the preview doesn't spoil it...click to see the rest...after the replay I'll remove the break probably.

In his Tuesday journal entry, Chris Carmichael made some rather prescient remarks about Tour de France strategy:

I was watching today's stage with Lance Armstrong and several other people, and at one point during the race, Lance and I talked a bit about the difference between racing conservatively and aggressively.
 
During his reign as Tour de France champion, Lance was adamant about seizing every opportunity to gain time on his rivals. The idea was to build a cushion between Lance and his nearest competitors in case he ran into problems later on in the race. A one-minute lead can turn into a three-minute deficit in just a few kilometers, and Lance and Johan Bruyneel always said they'd rather defend a lead than fight to catch up.
 
If you're in the lead, you have two options. You can follow other riders, and as long as you stay with them you don't lose any of your lead. Your other choice is to attack and build an even bigger lead. If you get into a situation where you're behind, there's only one option. You have to attack and drop riders who somehow gained time on you already, and there's never any guarantee you'll be able to do that.
 
The one thing that's certain about the Tour de France is that anything can happen, to anyone, at any time. Having the yellow jersey and several minutes of time in hand gives a rider a margin of safety; losing one minute of a six-minute lead isn't a cause for major concern. Losing one minute of a one-and-a-half-minute lead puts the yellow jersey in a stressful position and lends encouragement to the challenger.

I guess they pretty much nailed that one. It's a fair question to ask whether Floyd actually could have put more time into his rivals last week and early this week, and whether it would have been enough to matter when the bad day did come. But they sure did see it coming.

Floyd Landis, Number Two at Tour de France, Needs Hip Replacement
Outside Online, CA -
July 9, 2006 | Floyd Landis, the American rider currently in second place in the Tour de France, will have replacement hip surgery following the Tour, reported Outside correspondent Daniel Coyle in a New York Times Magazine article that will appear on stands July 16. Landis has osteonecrosis, or bone death, a degenerative condition which causes severe pain as bone grinds against bone. But, according to the report, he plans to continue to compete after the surgery. ...

The article goes on to say that Landis's condition is the result of a hip fracture suffered in a training crash in California in 2003. This same condition, also referred to as avascular necrosis, also led football/baseball player Bo Jackson to need a hip replacement. Reportedly, Landis does expect to continue his competitive cycling career after the surgery.

Coupla fun TdF links...

These folks have combined Google Maps with GPS and heart rate data to create a live Tour de France tracker. It'll be interesting to see how it works while the race is on.

Throughout the duration of the 2006 Tour de France, the news section on the left sidebar will have a "Tour de France" subsection.

As with all the news items, members will see a blue block with a white "b" in it beside the title. Click the blue block to blog about the article. It's a pretty easy way to look at the TdF news and comment.

Here's a quick note to start us out on TdF. What a sad state sports are in, and what an awful deal for the innocent, if there are any, and I'm sure there are. I think the tdf will still be great without the top five from last year, and I have not much worry over cheaters getting punished, but there was no way to have due process in this case it seems. I don't know if it's better to let the riders ride then strip them of their prize if found guilty, or to do as the teams agreed, remove anyone under investigation. Seems that Vino got an especially bad deal, if he hasn't been doing anything, as he's not even charged but lost enough team members to not have a team, as I understand it.