outside of the Law your luck will run out fast

Just finished Tyler Hamilton's (with Daniel Coyle) book, The Secret Race. Hell no I didn't pay money for it- library, fool! It is worth a read if your interests lie in that direction. If you're not already completely overloaded on the fiasco that was PRO road racing in the late '90s and 2000s. I'd have a beer with Floyd Landis. The UCI has really got to go. Lance Armstrong truly is a butthole. Etc.

Who is rallying for this weekend's Full Moon Bicycle Freakout? It promises to be a real fine time...

showing ghosts everywhere and of every colour

Whoa.

Doucheblog Cycling working the heavy bag...

Hey.

you can fool some people sometimes

Have you heard the Good News? No news is Good News. No news is Good News.

So you and I are among those left behind. This is really getting awkward! The Number of the Beast is revealed to be mistakenly translated; it should read 616 (nobody tell the gays, lest they start ruining marriage for the rest of us). The tsunamis in Japan, et al, may just be natural disasters (though helped very much by our energy-use-caused and escalating climate change). Peak Oil is reached (? Learning to bowhunt is fast becoming a real inneresting idea). Lance's spoonful of sugar is going down (in the most painful way-Tyler is a slow tic trainwreck).


I try to keep it light. Try to keep everbody focused on what we have here in common. Is that right?



We went to Tulsa, OK, to party at my brother's wedding instead of waiting around for the hypocralypse...but Bible-thumping relatives dragged ol' JC into it anyways. I just kept quiet, because it's not worth disturbing the party-in spite of those folks themselves oughtening to know better. In their very own writings straight from God but delivered via human hands (so you know it's True, to say nothing of accurate) it says nobody knows the day or hour...so I say let's party instead of pray. I mostly keep quiet on the doping-in-cycling issues because it's a downer that has been the elephant in the peloton since the 1930's (at minimum) and, frankly, what good does fixating on PRO sports do any of us out here in the gutters and on the trails? About as much as forecasting the End of The Party. I say: let's party Smarter in order to Party Longer.

Rode a swell loop up there in Santa Cruz today...all shady dirt with swooping singletrack and tight Redwoods.

Who's up for a Ride tomorrow? No sky cake, but I hear there's Free Beer.

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.