Nope, not so much. January hits the door running, taking our blue skies with it — so this Monday, what we have is gray with a side of snow.
Oh, well. Mondays are supposed to suck, right? And it ain’t like there isn’t any work that needs doing. I wrapped up my review of the Voodoo Nakisi for Adventure Cyclist magazine — look for it in the April edition, I believe — and more bikes are en route to the Caramillo Street Beacon of the Revolution Bicycle Examination Collective & Proving Ground as we speak, including a Soma Saga and a Raleigh Port Townsend.
But before they get here and the fun stuff resumes, VeloNews needs a cartoon, Bicycle Retailer wants ’toons and columns, and VeloNews.com has requested the honor of my presence in the virtual barrel a few extra days in February while Management attends the Tour of Qatar.
And given the weather, it looks like the only bike I’ll be examining is the one bolted to the Cateye CS-1000 in the office.
So, yeah. Monday. There’s always a little blue in there if you know where to look. A professional can always find that dark cloud surrounding the silver lining.
Speaking of dark clouds, check out Paul Kimmage’s interview with Floyd Landis, posted at nyvelocity.com. Good read, but a sad story. Makes a guy feel like a low-level mafioso for writing up pro bike races for fun and profit.
Mad Blog Media 
So your Monday has come up much like mine over here in NC. Yesterday was awesome…highs near 70 and massive sunshine. We got out for 3 and a half hours and the arm warmers were a little too much until it started to get dark.
Now today is cold and gray with plenty of suck on tap for the next 3 days. As you oft say…Fat City.
Will be looking forward to the Saga review. Next bike will either be built on another cross frame or a loaded touring rig.
Snowing sideways here in frozen Iowa which gave me time to read most of the Kimmage/Landis interview. The corruption issue is to me more troubling than the cheating itself. When the highest level of the body entrusted with enforcing the rules seems this corrupt, I agree with Landis that the only way to change things is to blow it all up and start over. If BigTex goes down he might take it all with him….not by admitting anything (I think the guy will deny everything for the rest of his life, even if jailed) but by the feds connecting the crooked dots via perjury charges. Once the ’99 peepee samples from BigTex are retested and found to contain EPO (assuming they do, of course) his claim of tampering will be laughed at like Il Pistolero’s tainted beef story. Once they prove there’s EPO in ’em, the perjury charges will be pretty easy to make, especially when some of the other cheating is corroborated by the various team mates, despite BigTex’s denials. Maybe, just maybe, that will be enough to blow up pro cycling to the point where they can start over again with new people running the sanctioning bodies. The IOC might have enough evidence and clout to make the UCI/USA Cycling clean up its act or risk having cycling tossed out of the Games. I was told “dream on” a few years back when I wondered if ol’ Floyd would ever hit rock bottom and rat everyone out….that wish came true…why not this one too?
Larry – I think you have it pretty much right. I just wish Landis had hit rock bottom and grown a pair five years ago.
Jeff – after reading the Kimmage story it was pretty easy for me to understand why Landis kept the omerta going for as long as he did. He wanted to get back into cycling and thought he (like so many others) could beat the rap. His so-called “fairness fund” was in large part funded by attorneys hoping to destroy the anti-doping sanctioning procedure. Landis was like a used band-aid to a lot of folks, when he was soiled and no longer useful, he was simply tossed aside.
Snow isn’t quite horizontal here, but wind chill is -11 deg F. Not quite what I was used to growing up near Buffalo, but close enough for government work.
I think if pro cycling is reinvented, someone will reinvent new ways to dope. When you combine big money with high tech ways to get an edge on the competition, cheating is as much a part of the sport as shaved legs. The folks who make the dough know this and support it.
Interestingly enough, it was the big corporations who worked to clean up the Olympic Games and were instrumental in getting the WADA started. They didn’t want their brands associated with the continuing scandals and when it seemed the scandals just kept coming (certainly it was cheaper to keep covering them up but that wasn’t too working well) they told the IOC unless things were cleaned up they would not be putting up the big wads of dough to be involved with the Games.
Certainly a much better job can (and should) be done getting the crooked docs and scientists out of it as well as the doped competitors, but a fresh, new start seems to me to be the only way any real change can be made. New management at UCI and perhaps a “truth and reconciliation” program for the rest where they can confess all their sins and rid our sport of the doping wizards. I still hope when/if BigTex goes down, a strong message will echo through pro cycling that even the biggest and most powerful cheaters eventually get caught — so why risk it?
religion really sucks
I agree, Larry, that a mass confessional followed by a new start is a good idea. It can’t be good to be a sponsor and be dragged into this spectacle (unless you are a sponsor for the WWF).
But what I can’t figure out is why the crooked doctors and scientists can stay one step ahead of their regulators unless someone is funding the stuff. Experiments on how to dope without being discovered can’t be done on the cheap. I had to laugh when folks in my world started throwing the mass spectrometers at these guys.
I read an interesting book about this subject. The guy noted a huge, refrigerated warehouse on the island of Cyprus was burglarized some years ago. Guess what was stolen? Boxes of EPO, a LOT of them. So many the cops said the crooks must have shown up with a fleet of refrigerated trucks to haul it all away. He went on to note that despite the huge loss of this life-saving drug there was lack of availablity reported by any hospitals or pharmacies afterwards. Why was there even a huge warehouse full of EPO on the island of Cyprus to be burglarized? It seems the same scientists who create this life-saving drugs might also be (or have colleagues) involved in uses other than those stated on the labels…and some big profits are the result.
Which brings me to a question for the folks who dismiss the claims of everyone who’s alleged BigTex has been involved in doping. WHY would all these folks participate in this vast conspiracy to “frame” the cancer-fighting hero? What’s in it for them? Most of them have made these claims at great risk to their own careers and reputations, some have paid a heavy price for what they’ve said, a lot of it under oath. And even if BigTex goes down, is there some wager they’ll collect on if he’s proven to have cheated? Are Kimmage and Walsh somehow masterminding this incredibly complicated conspiracy — and to what end? I have a tough time seeing any realistic motive for all these folks to tell these tales of cheating by BigTex if they’re not true — the ones given by BigTex and his apologists sound pretty lame so far.
OOOPS – there’s a typo in the above post, it should read NO LACK of availability (of EPO after the warehouse heist) sorry.
Patrick, the Camirillo Beacon of the Revolution Bicycle etcetera etcetera sounds like a Monty Python skit or perhaps the title of your new novel. A novel that will be a hit with the bookclubs and will necessitate a Reading Group Guide.
One of the local public radio stations is having a fund drive. The hosts are threatening to sing Frank Zappa’s “The Pajama Song”. Not sure if this a threat or meant to entice. It’s approaching 10 PM and the phones are silent. I pledged for their show earlier tonight.
Thanks for posting the link for the Landis interview. The corruption of the UCI is so disturbing and explains alot of Floyd’s story.