Cycling: Lance's New Dope, and More
Oh deerie-deer, Lance is back on the hot seat. An article in the New York Times on Tuesday reports that two former U.S. Postal teammates of Lance, Frankie Andreu and another unidentified rider, have admitted to using EPO during the 1999 racing season. The article does note that neither of the two riders ever saw Lance use any drugs, but the implication, and the guilt by association, are readily apparent.
Needless to say, Lance was not pleased.
Most people still want to believe that Lance was clean during his superhuman run of seven straight Tour de France championships, but this isn't the first time Lance has been implicated. It's getting harder and harder to remain a believer.
Now that he's hanging with the cool kids, papa's got a brand new baggie. Photo from New York Times.
How many other Lance teammates and associates, including Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton, and of course, Floyd Landis, have been caught doping? A crapload. Almost too many to be coincidental, but Lance has been tested over 1000 times without ever registering a positive -- although, neither did Andreu in 1999, the year in which he has now admitted using EPO. And unlike Jose Canseco, Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, and others, nobody has ever actually seen Lance take performance enhancing drugs.
Sportswriter JA Adande raised an interesting theoretical point yesterday on ESPN's Around the Horn show, when he noted that if Lance's teammates used performance enhancing drugs while riding for him during his Tour victories, then regardless of whether Lance took any drugs himself, wasn't he the beneficiary of de facto performance enhancement? Indeed.
Now that Lance is retired, EPO may no longer be in his stash box, but SFist thinks we may know what has replaced it. If Lance is guilty of doing performance enhancing drugs by association with former teammates who have been caught using them, then what kind of drugs might he be doing now that he's hanging around with Paris Hilton and Matthew Mcconaughey (and George W. Bush)? We've got a thought or two on that.
Spicy Vuelta
Speaking of lighting up, La Vuelta de Espana is smoking hot this year. Not that anybody in the United States cares or even has the opportunity to care. Unlike the blessing that is OLN's daily coverage of Le Tour every year, the American market gets nary a frame of Vuelta video. Too bad, because Alexandre Vinokourov and Alejandro Valverde are really putting on a show.
Going into the final four stages of the race, it's a dead heat between these two burners, with Le Tour surprise Carlos Sastre sitting close in third place. Vino is a dynamic veteran who is nearing the end of a colorful and successful career but still has a few rabbits left in the hat. Valverde is cycling's consensus man of the future, and he's showing why this year in La Vuelta. Imagine what Le Tour would have been like this year with Vino and Valverde in the mix.
Pacifica bike park
Down in Pacifica, two-wheelers are getting out ahead of the curve. As the fate of Mori Point, Sweeney Ridge, and Rockaway Quarry lie in the balance, movers and shakers from the local cycling community, including some of the crew from The Gearhead bike shop, are pushing local officials for a dedicated bike park in Pacifica. Matt McPhail of Gearhead said the park would include freeride obstacles and mountain cross and BMX courses.
The idea for a dedicated bike park was sparked in large part by the recently opened Pacifica skate park, which is closed to bikes. Though the proposed bike park would offer nothing immediate for downhillers, cross-country riders, and road bikers, McPhail explained that proponents envision it as the hub of a larger network of interconnected bike trails and facilities stretching across Pacifica.
As part of its campaign, bike park organizers have been holding monthly meetings to discuss and refine their proposal. The next meeting is scheduled for 7:00 PM on Tuesday, September 26 at the Pacifica Community Center.
Loose Spokes
Cycling may not be a high priority for the Sporting Green, but the Chron actually does a pretty good job of providing a steady trickle of bicycle-related stories.
On Monday, Vanessa Hua wrote an interesting piece on the world of fixies, one-geared bikes with no freewheel and usually no brakes. Though relatively impractical, the bikes, which are as much about design and image as they are about transportation, are pretty cool, if not a bit poseur. Even more poseur, the people who ride them. Check out the job titles of the people Hua interviews: freelance computer animator, environmental architecture and design student, documentary film producer, music mastering engineer, computer programmer, Upper Market artist -- an image materializes. We envision retro-neo-70s wardrobe, a veritable catalog of messenger bag styles, Starbucks cups, and ample disposable income.
When asked why an unsafe bike that's a pain in the ass to ride, fixie riders say that fixies are lighter, cheaper, and more challenging. OK, sure, but we think Joel Young (computer programmer) pretty much sums it up, "It's kind of a vanity thing, if you want to be honest about." Yeah, ya' think?
There were also a couple of sensational stories this week about bicycle carnage. In Greenville, South Carolina, some poor cyclist went Eric Idle in European Vacation and got hit by a car while waiting for an ambulance after having been hit minutes earlier by a different car. That's when you know you're having a bad day. Of course, that conclusion could also come to you as you're being dragged on your bicycle underneath the wheels of a truck for 150 feet. That's what happened to an 11-year old kid in Lompoc when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike and dragged until bystanders could flag down the 80-year old driver. The kid wasn't wearing a helmet, but did survive.
Over on the SFGate Culture Blog, a local rider throws down about urban cycling. Wonder if she rides a fixie?