doping...

Things are not looking good for Floyd. It came out that his 'A' sample showed a ratio of 11:1, the limit is 4:1, DOH! It also showed the presence of "non-natural" testosterone, DOH! Spanish Ex-Pro cyclist, Jesus Manzano, spilled the beans on how testosterone could be used by pro-cyclists, and it seemed to fit with Floyd's "wonder stage", DOH!

Now, it leads me to wonder what good the uci is doing by publicly putting a cycling through such a scandal. It certainly is not going to attract any new sponsors! Well maybe drug companies... hmm, tour of California Actually there are probably a bunch of drug companies that sponsor cycling. So, maybe keeping doping center stage in the media is attracting sponsors and doing good for the sport?

However, I think if the uci handled it with a lot more discretion it wouldn't be such a black-eye for cycling. Think about it. If the uci privately contacted Floyd and his team, and everything was kept on the down-low until the "b" sample was tested. If the B sample was positive, then do the press releases, hang to guilty party, yadda, yadda. Instead we have weeks of cycling and doping in the mainstream media... great for the sport, thanks uci!

Sophie's first meal.

She had rice cereal and she really seemed to like it.
Wouldn't you know it? After "dinner", she slept through the night!

Holy Floyd!

Well that has to be one of the greatest Tour's ever... Floyd is the man!

I didn't do very well on my predictions:

Top Ten: (In no order) Levi Lephimer, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Cadel Evans, Michael Rogers, Andereas Kloden, David Moncoutie, Alejando Valverde, Sandy Casar, Christophe Moreau
5 out of 10 in the top ten.

1st: Levi Lephimer (Gerolsteiner)
2nd: Michael Rogers (Telekom)
3rd: George Hincapie (Discovery)
0 out 3 for top three.

Polka Dot Jersey: Jose Rujano (Quick Step)
Nope, I don't even think he finished. Apparently his big toe was bothering him.

Green Jersey: Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto)
I got this one right.

All in all pretty pitiful prognostication.

UPDATES:

I haven't updated in a while. So, here we go:

Fourth of July we headed down to NC to visit family down there:
- Kids traveled very well on the way down. We were worried, but they did great!
- Stayed with my cousin in Raleigh. (Thanks April!)
- Took Jacob to see Cars the movie. I thought it was really good. Jacob seemed to enjoy it as well. We had to tell him to be quiet a few times. Anytime a new character was on screen he would yell the name. It was very cute.
- The movie theater was in a "New urbanism" style mall, very cool.
- Went and saw Doug, Becky and kids for a little bit. (Doug's restaurant is in the "above" mall.
- Had a bbq on the fourth. Wayne and his family came out for the bbq. Seems like Wayne and family are adjusting well to life in North Carolina.
- Jacob and Addicus had their first taste of bubble gum (not approved by the parents)
- Aunt Ruthie and Uncle John brought up some pork bbq (yummy, actually took the leftovers home!) They also brought blackberries from their farm... I forgot to have any...oops!
- Kids traveled well on the way home, maybe we'll start to travel a little bit more?
- All in all we had a great visit! (Thanks again April!)

I've been training. I started my training program I used 4 years ago. Watch out! I think I figured out how I can get the riding in. I've been getting up at 5:00 am to ride everyday. Which is a big deal for me, I love my sleep. I haven't been drinking beer after work either. OK, so I've only done 3 days of training in the am. I started with the "easy" week and it is putting me into some difficulty. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do the "hard" weeks...

The other night I was watching the Tour, fixing my rear wheel, it needed some TLC, and Kristen says, "You're doing that without drinking a beer?!?" Apparently, I usually work on my bike and watch the Tour while drinking a beer...

Mom called at lunch yesterday to tell me she has found her new house for our farm (Its been a pipe dream of mine to buy a farm and let my parents build a house on it). Anyway, her new house is pretty cool. Brent would love it, the floors are concrete!

I think that is about it for now. I've been meaning to do this blog update all week, but my lunches have been consumed by this:

Le Tour Predictions

OVERALL:

Top Ten: (In no order) Levi Lephimer, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Cadel Evans, Michael Rogers, Andereas Kloden, David Moncoutie, Alejando Valverde, Sandy Casar, Christophe Moreau

1st: Levi Lephimer (Gerolsteiner)
2nd: Michael Rogers (Telekom)
3rd: George Hincapie (Discovery)

Polka Dot Jersey: Jose Rujano (Quick Step)
Green Jersey: Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto)

I had to get my picks in before the tour started. So, there they are. I think it is going to be a great Tour, if nobody else gets kicked out....

Le Tour...

Wow, the top 5 riders from last year are out! Their names were all associated with a doping ring in Spain. So far nothing has been proven for certain but it sure seems like they were all doping. I think all the riders not allowed to start Le Tour were guilty because if they were innocent couldn't they prove otherwise with a simple test? I'm talking about a dna test. Ulrich and others could have said, "This is complete bullshit, I am not involved. Here is a dna sample, match it to the bags of blood with my name on it." I read somewhere that it is a relatively simple test and could be done quickly, but none of the accused did it? Another thing that needs to be remembered is this is the only one Doctor that got busted. What about the doctors for all of the other riders, what about all of Discovery's doctors? I for one have to believe that 95% of the riders are doping to some degree. Yes, even Lance.

On the bright side of all of these riders getting the boot is we should have a closer more exciting tour. If you look at results from last years tour there was only 1 minute and 18 seconds separating 6th through 10th. Compared to 11 minutes and 1 second between 1st and 5th. For that matter, there were 8 riders within 11 minutes of 5th place. After those 8 riders you start seeing riders that were working for others. I'm telling you, this could be one of the most exciting Tours in years, unless of course they bust a doping ring in say, Italy?

OOPS...

Sunday afternoon, I figured I'd go for a ride, even though it was raining. I told my parent's I'd be back in two hours. I was planning on following the green arrows for the covered bridge ride. The CB is held in the fall and they have a 100k and a 50k, or so I thought. I figured I could do the 50k and be back in about two hours. It turns out the CB has a 100k and a 50 mile. About 1.5 hours in I noticed that I am on roads that I used to ride when I was living Plumsteadville. Crap, I must only be about half way. This is also about the time my rear wheel really starts "creaking". I couldn't put a lot of pressure on the pedals without the wheel creaking horribly. I guess Monday's ride in the rain had an effect on the wheel?

I think the organizers of the CB ride decided to put most of the climbing in the first section. This is probably good if your starting the ride from the beginning. For me, most of the climbing was at the end of the ride. So, I ended up climbing with a creaky wheel and creaky legs, ugh. I finally figured out I was about 30 minutes from home 3:15 into the ride. So much for a 2 hour ride in the rain. I ended up with 3:45 in the rain, and the longest road ride of the year!

I got home just in time for dinner, ok I was about 2 hours late. Mom made some salmon for dinner and it was yummy! A big thank you to my parents for understanding! They have really been helping out a lot by watching the kids, I think they know how much getting out on the bike means to my sanity. Thanks again Mom and Dad!

Busy Saturday...

Saturday morning after pancakes, my parents came over to babysit while Kris and I went car shopping. Yep, we need a new car. The jeep has something like 209,000 miles but still runs pretty good. I know the jeep could die at any moment and I'm not too thrilled having Kris and the kids driving around in it. We'll see what we end up with. Anyone want to buy a Jeep? Cheap?

We got back to the house and celebrated Dad's birthday. Jeb even made birthday cake (yeah, my mom helped) I got my dad a book about the behind the scenes of the final four. Everytime I give my dad a book as a gift he always does the same thing, glasses up and nose in the book:


Some things you can always count on from your parents!

After cake we loaded up in the mazda, the jeep's AC is broken, and headed out to my B-I-L's work. He works for a construction equipment rental place, that's the best I can describe it. We got a tour of the facility and Jeb got to ride on some of the equipment, he loved it! I even got to drive a "power roller".

After the "tour" we headed over to their house for pizza. We ended up getting home around 10:00, long day out and about.

ZERO LAPS... BUT A DAY WITH THOMAS

I didn't go to the crit again, so much for consistency. Instead we to Jeb to a "Day with Thomas the Tank engine". It was pretty cool, lots of stuff for Thomas fans to do. Jeb seemed to really enjoy himself.


There were a ton of kids there and every now and then you heard a kid having a melt down! We were lucky enough that neither Jeb or Sophie had a melt down. We made the comment that Disney World would probably be like that except on a much larger scale... we think we'll wait a while before we go to Disney World.

Ride with Cheff

Cheffery and I met at the Allamuchy school last night for a road ride around Great Meadows. "Great Meadows" is a fertile valley with sod farms throughout, there are some nice views from the ridges. I pull up to the school and there is Cheff slumped over his steering wheel sleeping, ok I exaggerated a bit. He says there is a storm coming and asks whether we should wait it out. I say I don't have time to wait it out. Besides, I'm bringing my rain cape, it rarely rains when I bring it, mostly when I forget it. So, I got the "rain cape mojo" working for me. We roll out and Cheff comments out trying out his new equipment, a new Pearl Izumi "rain" coat/vest. It seems like he is always trying out new equipment. We went hiking a couple of years ago and he tried out his "water-resistant" North Face shirt. It wasn't water-resistant but maybe water absorbent.

Knowing there is a storm coming I altered the route a bit. I decided to shorten it, we rode down the "near" side of the valley and around the ridge to the climbs. We get to the end of the valley and are heading towards the climbs and Cheff takes his vest off and says, "It looks like we are going to miss the storm. I guess I'll try this vest another time." Now we are jinxed! This is the guy that commented on our hookey day about Derek flatting and two seconds later Derek flats, his mojo is strong. I'm not sure my "rain-cape mojo" can compete with a Cheffery jinx! This could get ugly...

As we're climbing up the first climb we start to hear thunder and see lightning. The skys don't look too bad going up. Maybe we won't get caught out in the rain? We make it to the top and the skys open up and it starts to dump on us! Just in time for the descent! Talk about a "blinding" descent! It was so blinding that I made a wrong turn down a hill and we had to climb back up! At least it wasn't really dumping on us like it was. We get to the last climb and it looks like a steep one from the maps, and it was a doosey, not that long but STEEP.

All in all it was a great ride. I'm going to do the loop again. Hopefully without the rain. I guess my "rain-cape mojo" can't compete with the Cheffery jinx! At least he didn't say anything about a flat tire!