I saw a short article yesterday at Cyclingnews saying that Jeannie Longo was going to be racing this weekend in the French National Championships. I guess she has won 59 French title in her career. Anyway, I’m sort of surprised about this. I wrote this post a year and a half ago about hoping the whole thing was bogus. It wasn’t.

Like I wrote in the original post, I’ve known Jeannie for a long time. Back over 30 years. She was riding incredibly good before EPO and such came around. But, her husband confessing to purchasing EPO is more than enough in this day and age of the sport to condemn her and her results. Her husband knew what the repercussions of buying EPO would be on Jeannie’s career, and he went ahead and purchased them. So, there is a real problem there.

Jeannie probably should have won the MTB World Championships in 1993. It might have been the first time she rode a MTB, it wouldn’t surprise me. She lost the race because she got chain suck on the last lap, while in the lead, and didn’t know how to fix the problem. At the time, I thought that she didn’t deserve to win the Worlds if she can’t fix chain suck. She didn’t pay her dues. She was that talented. But, the drug issue thing still over rides all of her past results.

I’m afraid that I’d have to vote no that Jeannie decided to return to racing. It is wrong. She should have just stayed retired and disappeared into the history books. She wasn’t directly “caught” using drugs, but it was the next best thing. Her husband was caught and the guy that sold the drugs said that he was buying them for his wife, Jeannie. Pretty damning evidence.

I don’t understand why there isn’t an on going case going against her. I guess in France they don’t like to destroy their sporting stars as much as we do here in the US. But, we do value fair play. At least some of us do. Jeannie should note what happened to greedy Lance when he wanted to come back and play. It didn’t work out very well for him and I doubt it will work out better for Jeannie.

I’m pretty sure Jeannie isn’t taking into consideration the risk she is exposing herself to get her 60th French National Gold medal.

I had a great ride yesterday up in Vista California. The riding there is pretty much the same it was 40 miles South, in Rancho Santa, 30 years ago. Lots of beautiful roads with hardly any traffic. It’s too bad it is 50 miles from here just to get to the start of the ride.

I’m riding like shit. I’m not sure why that is. I guess I still am blaming allergies, but I’d hoped that a change of pollen would at least change it somewhat. When I get like this I just go out and ride easy, for 2 to 4 hours. That sometimes resets my body and I can then start training again. But, that isn’t working. It is funny that as an athlete, you usually tend to dwell on your weakest link, even though that problem might only be temporary. I’ve got a hamstring pull, that is kind of tugging on my pedal stroke on and off, plus my arm is just mediocre. I talked to a couple guys at a party last night that had rotator cuff surgery and they didn’t give me much confidence. One guy was 3 years out and said his arm is just permanently jacked. I didn’t really want to hear that.

How about the conclusion of the Dutch Investigation into doping that 80-95% of the professional riders were doping in “the EPO era”. I think that is a little low, but what do I know. I think some of the guys that are saying that they never saw much of it, like Jens Voight, might want to rethink that answer. If you in a sport where nearly 100% of the participates are taking drugs to compete, it would have to be nearly a miracle to be able to participate at any level without indulging. That is just a fact. But, each and everyone has their own story and spin on doping, so to each their own.

Velonews had a title of an article about the “lost art” of criterium racing. I was thinking it was going to be an article about how bad the races are and how shitty the bike handling is. Instead it was an article about why the pro teams are sending full squads to the NCC races. What a let down. The professional cycling scene in the US is cash poor. Most of the teams are just pretty much domestic elite squads that decided to pay the UCI a fee to have professional licenses. So, don’t expect to see a bunch of teams fielding full squads for weekend criterium races. It’s not going to happen.

I’m going to suit up and go ride around North County now. I have a couple days to do that. I’m flying out tomorrow night, to Denver, for the Garmin physiological testing deal, then back to Kansas on Wednesday night. It’s hard to believe it is the middle of June already.

Pretty extreme temperatures the next week out here.

Riding out in Vista in Couser Canyon was awesome yesterday.

After the ride we went over to Corky and Patti Ewing’s house. They have an little compound, complete with a professional beach volleyball setup.

And a horse barn, with horses.

I don’t think they have moved this trailer in a while.

I saw this on the road and couldn’t help to stop and look. This is the most elaborate shrine I’ve ever seen. This guy must of been loved.

Don and Sue’s dog out on the porch this morning. They have the life.

Yesterday was a busy day. For some reason it seems like there is never enough time to do everything in one day out here. I’m not sure why that is. I really didn’t have that much to do and the time disappeared.

I met Jen See, who is doing some free-lance work on the first MTB Nationals, at Aron Olson’s coffee shop, The Handlebar. It is funny I’ve never run into her before. She is an avid surfer, has a doctorate, and write articles about bike racing. Super interesting and really fun to talk to.

Aaron was there. I really never spent much time with him racing. He was super busy, says the shop is going great. He came over and sat for a bit and we talked a little about bike racing. He rode two years in Europe, did the Giro, so he has his credentials. It was a good experience all around.

After, Sue and I just got dressed and rode Gilbralter. It was already afternoon and the marine layer had sort of left, so it was hot. Gilbralter is only a 10 mile climb, but pretty steep the whole way. Most the time between 7 and 15%. There are hardly any houses on it and the road is questionable at best. But, the views are unreal. I like climbs where you can actually see where you came from. Gilbralter is like that. You can pretty much see Santa Barbara nearly all the time you’re riding. We just went over the top and down Painted Cave. It’s only 30 something miles, but slow miles. Up and down. Painted Cave is super steep and doesn’t flow well. It is cool though. After finishing Painted Cave, you cross a highway and there is Old San Marcos. That descent flows much better and takes you all the way down. I was passed by two guys riding super tricked out street motorcycles and I ended up descending a couples miles with them. It was pretty hard keeping up, which kind of surprised me. Normally a bicycle can descent with a motorcycle one on one, but these guys were pretty good.

Anyway, I have to decide whether I want to go do a criterium tomorrow inland from Laguna Beach, in Ladera Ranch. I’d have to tone down the riding today, which I’m not sure I want to do. Two good days of training, might be better than racing right now. I’m not feeling all that great on my bike, so maybe going around in circles fast isn’t what the doctor ordered. I might feel better today though, I never know nowadays.

This is Jen See. Very fun girl and nice person to know.

And Aaron Olson. He owns the Handlebar Coffeeshop.

The Mission in Santa Barbara.

Which bike do you think is more expensive?

At the base of Gilbralter.

This guy was going pretty good up the climb. It took a while to pass him. He said he was 72 years old. Seems like he ride the climb, shirtless, pretty much everyday.

The views are great.

The turn to Painted Cave.

This is Sue taking one of the super steep descent corners on Painted Cave. This has to be 25% or more at least.

There are a lot of these purple bushes here in Santa Barbara. I don’t know what they are, but they sure are pretty.