I’m gonna ride today. I saw the Ortho doctor in Kansas City yesterday and he was great. His name is Lance Synder and he used to play football for KU. A lineman. He didn’t seem anywhere nearly big enough, but said he had lost over 70 lbs. He rode bikes, has a Trek Madone, and was a great guy. He said I had a pretty big separation, but if he were me, he’d just wait it out and see how it heals. He said he can always put it back together at any time. That sounded pretty good to me, so that is what I’m going to do. He put a cortisone shot into it and said I could do just about anything I wanted to now. That was as long as the pain allowed it, which is about nothing right now.

So, I figure I can go out and ride an hour or two. I can’t really imagine doing it at this moment, but I think I can work up enough energy in a couple hours.

I think the biggest problem to riding is going to be my neck. It is super stiff, nearly locked in place. I hate it when I have a hard time glancing over my shoulder looking for cars, etc. But, this is the way it is going to be for a while.

I had a few hours to blow yesterday in Kansas City before I had to pick Trudi up at the airport, so I went by the County Club Plaza and hung. Bromont and I went for a walk by the creek and then I went by the Apple Store to get my phone looked at. There were so many people in there, I thought there was a class being held, but one of the employees said it was just a normal Monday afternoon. I have Apple stock. And it’s increased in price dramactically the last few months. And I’m not usually someone that tells others what to do with their money, but Apple is firing on all cylinders right now. Producing products that virtually everyone in the world wants. They are rewriting the books on stock valuation. I know it seems expensive at $600 per share, but that is just a number. Look at it as 10, $60 shares. Stop by an Apple store and see how they do business. I can’t imagine what could change in the short term that would derail the upward movement of the stock, other than a World incident that puts jitters into all financial investments. Okay, enough of that.

So, I picked Trudi up. She’s pretty happy to be back. She got jacked on luggage fees flying home from Switzerland. She is a Premier United member and should have gotten two free bags, but they said that they changed the program within the last month and she only got 1. So she had to pay for two extra bags coming back. She won’t tell me what the charge was, so it has to be humongous. Man, airlines aren’t our friends anymore.

We stopped at Freestate in Lawrence and had dinner, then walked Bromont around downtown Lawrence. He likes that street. It didn’t seem like that many KU students were out and about.

I am still pretty sleepy all day, so I must of hit my head harder than I thought. (Okay I said it.) I am not sleeping the best, so that too could also have something to do with it. I’m feeling pretty optimistic about the recovery right now obviously. I don’t know what that is, but I don’t see any downside to it. I’ll see how the ride goes today.

Dr. Synder. He is my kind of orthopedic doctor.

He has jerseys hanging all over his office from KU players, Royals, etc. I think he needs a cycling jersey hung up, so I'm going to send him a signed Worlds jersey.

This was the Apple store at the plaza at 3 Monday afternoon. Crazy.

This is a photo I took walking with Bromont down by Brush Creek.

Clover machine, that makes individual cups of high end coffee. I have to admit, it was pretty good.

Bromont was very happy to see Trudi at the airport.

Bromonts favorite driving slot with his favorite human.

It seems weird to me that people are doing interviews with riders about whether they would/will be a “credible” Tour winner, if they happened to win in July. Cyclingnews had an article a couple days ago with Bradley Wiggins where he talks about it would be better to win after Cadel than after some other rider that has turned up positive recently.

I had/have no idea what the guy is talking about. Why would it matter who you follow winning the Tour? Doping in sport is bad news for everyone. And especially in cycling, which has obviously had more than its share of problems. But to imply it is better to win the Tour after Cadel than after Contador or Floyd or whoever is silly. If that is true, then Cadel is probably bummed he won the race after Alberto? I don’t think so.

If you want to be credible, maybe you should try to make your actions mimic what you’re saying. In my opinion, in this case, maybe he should start skipping his every other month visit to Tenerife. Yes, he’s doing a two week training stint at high altitude in Tenerife before the Critérium du Dauphiné, which is a 5 week break from racing. These huge gaps in racing are as screwy as thinking he might get some benefit of sitting at altitude for 2 weeks. I think not.

It is the same as Vinokourov praising his Astana team mate Maxim Iglinskiy after he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In his explanation to why Iglinskiy didn’t start winning classics until he was 31 he said that Maxim had gone to altitude training camps here and there and he’s motivated again. A few high altitude training camps before April in Europe? Wonder where that could have been? And I guess he wasn’t motivated for the first 10 years of his career, took him until turning 31 to get some motivation.

Last year Vino himself got grilled after his Liège-Bastogne-Liège win. From Cyclingnews- But his latest streak of form — winning at Lìège only two days after he took the mountainous, four-day Giro del Trentino — came as a result of an intense period of altitude training on the massive Mount Teide on the Spanish island of Tenerife. One French sportswriter asked Vinokourov whether he went to Tenerife to be with the infamous Operación Puerto blood-doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes (who lives there) or Italian trainer Michele Ferrari. It seems training in Tenerife has more to do with winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège than anything else?

Just type Tenerife into google, along with doping/cycling. You’ll have a never ending supply of reading material. The Spanish authorities busted up another doping ring, on that perfect training island, that was involved in selling clenbuterol. Guess that drug is rampant in Spain.

Anyway, if you’re a professional cyclist, and want to be credible, you need to skip the every other month visit to Tenerife. Especially if your a track rider that goes from a best finish of 109th at a Grand Tour to 4th at the ripe age of 29 years old and credits weight loss and special road training as the reasons. The word to describe that would be incredible.

Tenerife, cycling’s own natural EPO producing training spot.