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Posts Tagged ‘UCI’

‘I don’t like to lose.’

December 9, 2020

The UCI Cycling Esports World Championships sponsored by Zwift are to be held today, and mirabile dictu, the virtual cops will be on the lookout for the actual outlaws.

This dude is ready for his comeback.

It seems that digital “doping,” like actual doping, is a thing in these dark days. The same miscreants who will hitch a ride on a team car, hide tiny motors in their bicycles, and hotrod themselves with the drug du jour will manipulate the data like cadet James T. Kirk queering the Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet Academy.

Tech blogger Ray Maker, speaking to The New York Times, suggested that Zwift is rife with the sort of shameless corner-cutting one used to see when bike races were still held outdoors, in the real world, where there are actual corners to cut.

“There’s so much cheating in Zwift that I think a lot of people would like to see more accountability,” said Maker, who writes the endurance sports technology blog DC Rainmaker.

A spokesman for Zwift, meanwhile, expressed confidence in the company’s ability “to catch cheaters and to police the races.”

Ho, ho, etc. Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.

Tags:2020 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships, Doping, esports, Star Trek, UCI, Zwift
Posted in Bike stuff, Cops and robbers, Technology | 4 Comments »

Zomby woof

December 6, 2014

Don’t mess with the Zomby Woof.

Mister Boo’s recovery continues nicely, thanks to some timely musical therapy from that Over-Nite Sensation Frank Zappa on this, day three of Zappadan 2014.

The cone comes off more often now, and a neighbor who saw him motoring along like the happy little guy he is proclaimed that The Boo was “walking tall.”

Don’t mess with the Zomby Woof, y’all.

Do, however, feel free to mess with the UCI for this hash of a press release. Jesus H. Christ, it takes talent to say less than fuck-all while using 714 words to do it.

I remember discussing a semantic analysis of the Budweiser jingle during my college days. What it boils down to, the professor explained, is a list of the various Anheuser-Busch trademarks for Budweiser that says absolutely nothing about the quality of the beer. A masterpiece of obfuscation that remained unsurpassed until the UCI came on the scene. Well done.

Tags:Budweiser, Mister Boo, UCI, Zappadan, Zomby Woof
Posted in Arts & letters, Bicycle racing, Bullshit, Dogs, Music that doesn't suck, Zappadan | 15 Comments »

Paddy whacked

September 28, 2013

There was a hint of fall color in the trees as I cycled across the creek toward Palmer Park.

I rarely applaud the thumping of a Mick by a Limey, but I was happy to make an exception in the case of Brian Cookson vs. Pat McQuaid.

Fat Paddy pulled every dirty trick he could find from his size-5 cap during his frantic campaign to retain the UCI presidency. But when Cookson finally said, “All right, we’ve had enough of this,” and moved that the UCI Congress proceed to a vote, that august body handed said hat back to the blubbering bog-trotter and showed him the door.

Now, I rarely pay close attention to the racing side of our sport unless some silly person is cutting me a check. So I have no idea whether Cookson will be able or even willing to make all the changes that even a casual look-around deems necessary.

But at this point it seems to me that electing a blow-up plastic sex doll would be preferable to another term for Fat Paddy, unless that term were to be served in the H-Block.

Thus I celebrated the omadhaun‘s ouster with a short ride on a cyclo-cross bike with UCI-illegal tires. Póg mo thóin, Paddy, go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat!

Tags:Brian Cookson, Fat Paddy, UCI
Posted in Bicycle racing, Cyclo-cross, Fat bastards, Feckin' eejits, Good news, Mad Dogs & Irishmen, Small hat sizes, Things that don't suck | 12 Comments »

Another storm a-brewing

April 10, 2013

Patrick O’Brien notes in comments that Team Sho-Air-Cannondale plans to race Arizona’s Whisky Off-Road despite the threat of fines or suspensions for any UCI-licensed riders who dare take part in events that lack the blessing of that august body and its enforcers at USA Cycling.

Good on Sho-Air president Scott Tedro and his team for having a go here. The issue has been simmering for quite a while now, even getting the attention of the mainstream media, and I’m curious to see whether more licensees will join Sho-Air in taking a stand.

UCI and USAC are spreading the usual fertilizer about growing the sport and professional standards, hinting none too suavely that anyone racing an unsanctioned event is practically begging to get flogged by dopers or hung out to dry by substandard insurance.

But it smells like the same old monopolistic, might-makes-right, fuck-you-we’re-in-charge-here bullshit that led to the American Cycling Association, the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association and other groups going their own way back in the day.

I don’t personally have a dog in this fight. My last race was 10 years ago, when the ACA was still the Rebellion to USA Cycling’s Empire. Today it’s once again a client state of the Empire, reclaiming its old name of the Bicycle Racing Association of Colorado, and I have no interest in repatriating in order to spend my weekends getting shelled at parking-lot crits in Denver while USAC and the UCI pass the time hunting new ways to piss off everyone in the sport.

That said, I’m happy to see someone with skin in the game taking a stand against this ridiculous rule. If unsanctioned events pose any threat at all it’s to the governing bodies’ bottom lines. They claim to be offering a superior product. Fine. Let them prove it in the marketplace instead with the rulebook.

Tags:Scott Tedro, Sho-Air-Cannondale, UCI, USA Cycling
Posted in Bicycle racing | 24 Comments »

Up the rebels!

November 1, 2012

The famous Bog Trotters jersey, which sold about as well as Frankenhein’s fantasies about Big Tex once the deal went down.

It beats me how a guy with no job can have so little free time.

Today’s simple two-hour chore turned into a seven-hour slog, and tomorrow could be worse. Friday is traditionally a day under which PR types hope to bury unpleasant stories, and there are still a few of them shambling around out there post-Halloween, Lycra zombies badly in need of a hotloaded .44 Magnum round to the brain.

Today’s tidings brought a smile to my face, however. It seems that Paul Kimmage has filed a complaint against Fat Paddy and Frankenhein, the first for being a Guinness-soaked mouth attached to a prolapsed asshole with a reverse flow and no filtering apparatus in between, and the second for being a shameless striapach whose teeth fold back at the flip of a wooden nickel.

I considered it a delightful riposte to these spalpeens for having brought a similar action against the crusading Irish journo’ for merely calling them what they are. And so today, in Kimmage’s honor, I wore my Bog Trotters jersey on the daily ride, with a green headrag under the old brain bucket.

Some days previous I also kicked in a smallish sum to Kimmage’s defense fund, managed by the merry band of misfits at Cyclismas. It’s some of the best money I’ve ever spent outside a pub, especially considering that Fat Paddy and Frankenhein get to enjoy the hangover.

Tags:Fat Paddy, Frankenhein, Paul Kimmage, UCI
Posted in Agitprop, Journalism, Mad Dogs & Irishmen | 11 Comments »

Tick, tock

October 19, 2012

The yellow leaves are fading fast and falling to earth. There’s a metaphor here somewhere; I’m sure of it.

Now we wait. The UCI has announced that it intends to disclose its course of action in USADA v. TCWSNBN on Monday, but tonight the object of their intention is addressing a gala hoedown marking the 15th-anniversary of Livestrong, once known as the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which remains its official title.

This means that ink-stained and pixel-pocked wretches worldwide must postpone the drinking of lunch, dinner or breakfast until Big Tex either (a) says, “It’s a fair cop, but society is to blame,” or (2) re-enacts the Hitler-in-the-bunker scene, but this time in first-person Texican instead of German and without the postage-stamp ‘stache. Either way, the poor bastards will have to file something, which will only make them bilious and vengeful come Monday.

I already did my little bit of business this morning, fielding a few e-mails from editors and watching a vanity not get installed in the downstairs bathroom (see “Return of the Shit Monsoon“). So I left the revelation watch to others and took the All-City Space Horse out for a pleasant 90-minute ride, which seems to be just about my speed lately,

I had been prepared to be critical of the bike, because I had noticed some knee discomfort while riding it that didn’t occur while astride anything else. The pedal-shoe interface seemed without fault, as I have Shimano SPDs on several other bikes.

Finally I broke out the tape measure and checked saddle height against two other bikes that weren’t bugging me and lo and behold: The Space Horse was way off. I’d sack that mechanic if he didn’t know me so well. Dude reads my mail and knows all my passwords and is wearing my pants as we speak. So much for my chops as a fount of velo-wisdom.

Now I’m back at the ranch and enjoying a delicious glass of dinner because I’m not the guy who has to write the story, when and if there is one. And my knees don’t hurt, either.

• Late update: A standing o’ for The Boss and no fresh revelations. A third option (iii) that I hadn’t even considered (see “fount of velo-wisdom,” above). Still, it’s good news for me. The last time I lost a bet on a Big Tex story I had to dress up as Betsy Andreu for a week.

Tags:Big Tex, Space Horse, TCWSNBN, The Shit Monsoon, UCI
Posted in Bad news, Bike stuff, Boozing, Journalism | 15 Comments »