Cause they's a fat man in the snowbank

I said Lance...What are you up to?

So, I saw on DC how this yellow devil attempted to upstage the show...

and it did not work out.
I love the smiles in the peloton. I am happy for everyone in these photos for various reasons.

Stage 2....in which ___________gets his oughts

We took some time out for fun. Are we not men?



What a bunch of degenerates.







A Good Time was had by all at the Santa Cruz stage. Somebody won it, I'm sure. It was chaos from where I stood. All's I know is, I had a firme grip on my youngest as the cars/peloton zipped by.


Another thing I know is: the way in which Lance Armstrong is portrayed in the hype surrounding the ATOC is disturbing to me. The terms "Immortality" and "Redemption" are loaded as hell. And not in the Good (stagger around and compliment all your friends on their fine life choices) way. Lookit this box of chalkhanded out by the LAF before the race. Are you kidding me? As much as the sheep need a shepherd Lance is no Jesus. While acknowledging that he has never been convicted of doping despite numerous tests, I must admit that I personally think he is on some future space meds that maybe 1.6 cancer research scientists even know about. However you feel about Armstrong's culpability in regard to doping it's got to be apparent that he is comfortable holding up cancer as a catch-all with which to deflect criticism. Nope, I can't be ________, I had cancer! Witness the exchange with Paul Kimmage making it's way around the web.

Heroes can only stay HEROES if they stay perfectly still. The giants of the past all took whatever was available at the time. Look at Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx. Why does the modern dope seem so much uglier?

I truly love the history and pageantry and epic scope of road racing. It means alot to watch those feckless hardmen leave it out there on the pave, knowing in my own bones how hard that must be- we've all given some fraction of that suffering a go. That suffering speaks to us. What it tells me these days is that the Glory and Power are not worthy. The admiration for winners solely because they win is tepid and dissatisfactory. Admiration bordering on worship is sickening.

For whatever reason we are how we are as cyclists, and it is a sport that elevates suffering as a Virtue. I'll take my suffering personally, thank you. Meted out in bike sized doses alone or with fellow penitents, voluntary suffering somehow offsets the little defeats of the everyday. I don't require a scapegoat or a master. What seems valuable to me is the ride.

Kiss of Death for Fredo and Tyler, too

I don't normally read pro cycling news sites. In these days of drug-addled (and not the good kind) false hard men, they don't speak to me. But I'd been directed by people who know to see Brian Vernor's (of bike movie fame?) article on the Tour d'Afrique on Velonews' site. And while there, I looked at the videos section and saw the interview with Rock Racing's Oscar Sevilla, Santiago Botero, and (yes) Tyler Hamilton. Or perhaps it was his chimerical twin, it was hard to tell with the stupid hat on. (I can't link it, so if you're innerested in seeing it, go there yerself. )
The reason I mention it is because I learned that the jackasses I referenced several posts ago weren't in fact solely corporate posers blocking traffic pretending to race, they were also "ex"doped up racers unable to participate. And the reason I'm bitter about the whole thing is that Tyler was my Golden Boy.
Everbody knew Lance was doing something, but Tyler held out the promise of the plucky underdog suffering through by grit and intestinal fortitude. In spite of his relationship with Risse. The busted collarbone in the cold and wet? I'm not ashamed to say I still have that poster up. I am confused and amazed at my own capacity for self delusion, but not ashamed of the awe and admiration with which I look at that little man squint and climb and hurt. But the lies and the unborn doppleganger speak just cheapen the pain. If the drugs they're taking aren't hindering them by making them unsteady and a little silly, then I just can't get behind them. That's not recreational drug use, that's...medication. And now there's synthetic blood that aspirates out of your illegally oxygenated circulatory system in hours? WTF? I don't wanna watch androids. Eff those guys.
I want effing Hampsten on the Gavia. I want those scrawny pro mutha _uckas to hurt beyond the capacity of the rest of us. To show us what the real capacity for suffering is. To push the edge a little further out. Riding a little further out is different from marching into Bioengineered Super Soldier Land. And yes, I realize it's thin black ice I'm coasting along on here. Anquetil hisself said the Tour was not won on mineral water alone. I get it, but I don't want to. This worship of the heroes of the Old School and denial of the new skool is unrealistic. It's disturbingly similar to the the general acceptance of Established Religions and the ridicule of upstart cults (viz. Mormonism). In each case, the old guard gets a pass because they've became enshrined in Time. No questioning them now, is there? But the new kids are playing the same con, it's just herandnow so we're able to peak behind the curtain.

So what are you gonna do? Me, I'm gonna pull the wool over my own eyes and find a Church with a curtain we can all fit behind. Safety first and all.

Big Sur Racing & Camping Blowout

Stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California, bitches. J__ came down from Santa Cruz to join me and the kids. We scrambled to swap cars and get food/ice/beer/gas/water out the door by 9:30am. Last year we watched the start in Seaside (in the pouring rain), and the year before that, watched along the Big Sur coastline. Lesson learned, and this year we headed down the coast again. Here's us prepared...



Click that and see what N wrote for Homeboy Taylor Tolleson. Partially unreadable: "GO Taylor YOU ROCK Beat them senseless with your awesome power! YAAA!!!" She's insane.

J and J__ waiting for the peloton...(notice J's raincoat hood paperclipped to his down jacket hood, and recognize)


Lead group. Maybe 18 second gap...
and there they go.

Main body...Astana controlling the front
Closer...I tried to hand up a beer. No takers. A CSC rider (is Jens Voigt riding for them now?) looked at me like I had 3 heads. Satisfaction. [later...yes, he is, and that was him. Even sweeter.]

And there they go.






Somebody with a mechanical.
Wheel swap?



So that was quick. We hung out there roadside for a while. Long enough to actually have a taker on the beer handup- some tourer (fully loaded) was stoked to hit the feed zone. Which reminds me, on the way down there was a group of maybe 7 guys in full Rock&Republic kits sandwiched between 2 team Escalades (yes, blocking front and rear) followed by a blacked out Bentley holding up traffic down HWY 1 at 25 miles an hour max. SO LAME. All the regular motorists were clearly confused as to whether these guys were in the race, and wouldn't pass. Neither would these (I can only assume:) rich _uckheads using the opportunity to play pro at everyone else's expense pull over. I began a campaign of extended honking, and finally the 2 cars between these jackasses and myself wised up and passed. Just another blackmark for that team in my book.


We'd planned on camping, so we parted ways from J__, and drove further South. Roughly 3,000 feet above the coastline, we pulled up to the spot, and set up the tent. As you've seen, it was drizzling on and off (mostly on) throughout the day, but there was blue sky to be seen, so we hoped for the best. Nothing ventured and all that. N found a salamander right away. I've been up there many times, and never seen one, so that was neat...


The weather worsens...
It kept getting wetter and windier, until the kids were soured completely. When I wrecked my hand trying to launch D's kite (the wind whipped the kite up and the spinning reel hurt when I stupidly tried to grab it and stop the runaway kite with my cold hand), I was soured completely as well. D and N both slipped in the mud on the way back downhill to the campsite and were covered from the waist down with tan clay. We broke the tent down in the cold rain amidst lots of lame yelling (me), and pouty exaggerated helplessness (them). Then N and D stood on their coats and stripped out of their wet and muddy clothes for the ride back. It was for the best that we left. On the way down ( low 4wd) we exited the cloud. This is looking up and East where we'd camped, and you can see the cloud...(that's my collar blown up/into the picture)


This is lower down the road looking North along the coastline...

And then we limped home with me rolling down my window every few minutes to get cold enough to stay awake...

Success?

[later...happy to see some of the riders thought it was the worst day on a bike ever]

TWIN PEAKS

Because who doesn't love a damn good cup of coffee?

Dianne, the weather is putting me in the mood for a Twin Peaks Marathon. If only we hadn't loaned our 1st tape in the series out...oh, well. We can start with the 2nd episode. If you haven't seen this show, you are living in a fool's paradise. I'll say this one more time: If you don't like David Lynch, you're wrong. You actually do. Stop kidding yourself and git to watching.
Twin peaks was on television for only 2 seasons during 1990 and 1991. It's amazing the show made it on air at all, with it's risque-for-the-time subject matter (the drug and sex related murder of a small town prom queen) and it's truly bizarre characters: Stiff, black coffee drinking pie-addicted FBI agents; mill town oddballs; scheming teens; log wielding spinsters; visionary supernatural beings...

The show is so evocative...and there's lots of plaid wool. You know we love that. Even Cookie Monster loves this show. Folks can get obsessive with David Lynch material, and I can understand that. Even (bikes) though (bikes) we're (bikes) not (bikes) obsessed with (bikes) anything (bikes), are (bikes) we(bikes)? (Freemasons secretly rule our country, fnord.) You could take a quiz about it here. I turned out to be Agent Cooper, but I must admit the questions were so leading, I was pretty sure where it'd end up...And I completely forgot : I worked as an overnight security guard at the Peaks hotel in Telluride Co, for several (glorious ski bum) years. Kyle Mclachlan stayed there and while delivering the NYT faxes at 3am, I wrote a note on his addressed to Agent Coop, thanking him for the show. I hope it unsettled him a little. It should have; if any show were to spawn legions of psycho-stalker-fans, it is Twin Peaks. L and I had grand plans to establish the "First Church of Twin Peaks, Leland Palmer accepted savior", and have services by watching episodes with communions of coffee and pie. In point of fact, this very holy order we are part of today, the fabled Church of the Sweet Ride itself, is a spin off of that church- which regrettably never made it off the ground. We were subsequently married in another spin off, headed by our roommate, the very Rebbi R__ W________ TransZionist Movement of somethingIforgot...he was dressed in a pleather feathered bird cape- but that's another story. And all of these churches are spun from the earlier days of the Church of the SubGenius Foundation which was then truly absurd and not so bitter as it seems now. "Pull the wool over your own eyes" is the best advice ever.

We're off to yell at people faster than us along Sierra Road. Look for the yahoos in plaid on yer live interweeb coverage. We'll be looking for local boy made good, Taylor Tolleson. Git em, Taylor!
Last year's Best Young Rider.This year all around good guy, and ?

Thursday's stage through Big Sur offers real fine viewing opportunities...who's with us?