Okay, this is going to be a short one. Last night around 10, I convinced only Bill to drive over to Jefferson City and do the Missouri State Criterium Championships with me today. I’m a little tired from riding 3 1/2 hours yesterday, but need the speed work. The course is around the Missouri State Capitol and has some elevation change. Nothing like the race last weekend in Des Moines, but it is a more technical course with a climb in it. We’re gonna race both the Master’s race and Pro 1/2 race again, so a little over 2 hours of criterium racing is in store. It’s supposed to be near 90 this afternoon.
Yesterday, my team mate, Brian Jensen, had a pretty good ride in the Leadville 100. He finished 12th, which was pretty stellar considering. He self admittedly said that he figured he lost close to 30 minutes to the guys in front of him on the descents. He was nearly an hour behind the Christoph Sauser and only lost 2 1/2 minutes to him on Columbine according to the Strava Challenge. Anyway, not bad for a “flat lander”. And how about Sally Bingham winning the women’s race. She finished 26th overall, right ahead of my buddy Nick Frey, Mr. Boo Cycles. Scroll down here to check it out.
Chris Horner backed up his talk with a victory yesterday at the Tour of Utah. I guess all he has to do is stay with Tom Danielson and make sure Tom doesn’t win and he has the race wrapped up today. Not bad for not racing for 5 months. Tom must be feeling silly doing all those race days of the Giro and the Tour. Good motivation for Chris for The Tour of Spain I’d guess.
Alright, that’s about all the time I have. Better pack up the van and go get Bill.
Michelle, Brian’s wife, feeding him at the last feed zone yesterday.
And she is still going.
The podium from yesterday’s Tour of Utah with Chris Horner at the top.
Brian and his Leadville belt buckle.
As I sat watching the stage yesterday, I can’t help but to wonder about clean the race is. Not saying that it isn’t but, this is a guy who apparently never saw a thing at Discovery/Astana/Radio Shack. Additionally he has raced in months and yet he wins the hardest stage in Utah? Oh, BTW, he is about 40 years old and beating the “kids”? Hmmm.
Guy rest for 5 months and then puts out 6.5-7 watts per kilogram?
Pretty sure Chris Horner’s never been associated/implicated with any doping at any point in his career.
Great job, Brian! I am entering the lottery this year… we shall see.
Good luck to you and Bill today, Steve!
I’m pretty sure Horner did more than just rest, for those 5 months. He also didn’t just say he saw nothing, he refused to implicate anyone. He told Tygart to take a flying leap, when Tygart threatened him. Just as I would have done. The rest of those guys that testified, were a bunch of pussies. Almost everyone in the peloton doped, and what they did to Lance, certainly didn’t help our sport. Everybody should have done what the guys in Europe did, and just shut their effing mouths. Cycling was already getting cleaner, and Tygart had shit to do with it. He’s an idiot. As for Chris Horner, he didn’t really race in Europe, until 2005, and that was with Saunier Duval. He was on domestic teams, while Lance was winning all those TDF titles. Maybe he really didn’t see any of it. He had some good results in Europe, but he didn’t get there until it was starting to get cleaner. His first big win, wasn’t until 2010 ( Vuelta al Pais Vasco). Not exactly a grand tour either. He only has one top ten in a grand tour. If you look at his lifetime results, they look legitimate. And nobody has ever said one word, about him using PED’s. No accusations at all.
@roberto you’re a moron. Horner raced for FDJ from 97-99. He then raced for Mercury, Prime Alliance and Saturn when there was plenty of speculation about doping. Then he eventually ends up with Lance but he and Jens are the only two on the team who never saw anything and just happen to be two guys who are racing well beyond conventional wisdom into their 40s. Now he trains for a few weeks and goes and beats up guys who are race sharp? Yep. Totally believable.
That buckle is very cool!
@Chris this blog’s comment section is similar to inrng.com, there’s generally no name calling or flaming. You might want to visit the cyclingnews.com forums for that kind of thing.
Here are pictures from the Missouri State Criterium Championships. They are mostly from the Men’s Cat 4/5, Masters 30+/35+ and the Women’s open races.
http://danielrussell.zenfolio.com/p864275008
Chris, when he raced for FDJ, he didn’t do a single meaningful race in Europe. He mostly raced 2nd and 3rd tier races, and was sort of on their development team. When he came back and signed with those American teams, he only raced in the U.S. 2005 was the first time he did a real schedule in Europe. All through history, you see some athletes, able to compete at an older age than you would expect. Jim Braddock was pretty old, when he won the heavyweight title. How old was Jimmy Connors, when he was still beating top pro’s. Unless i’m mistaken, Jim Brown went to an NFL training camp, at 50 years old. He wasn’t good enough to make the team, but he didn’t suck either. Just because he’s doing well, doesn’t mean he’s cheating. I really doubt if he only trained for a couple of weeks. You don’t know what he actually did for the last 5 months. So stop judging him.
Roberto,
Stop listening to Lance, everyone in the Euro peloton did not use PEDs. In the 90’s or the 00’s. Horner may or may not use PEDs but I would be very surprised if he did not. Horner’s results are not believable to me.
Roberto,
Okay, okay, you’re being wrong about Horner couldn’t make you a moron on its own. I’d have to know you a little better to make a full assessment. 🙂
I will have to disagree with you some though. I talked to Horner prior to the ’99 Ghent Wevelgam and I am pretty sure that he did Flanders that year too, but I can’t recall for sure. So, he was in the mix some while he raced for FDJ. Granted his experiences were less than stellar during that stint, When he came back though, he raced with and around plenty of guys who were either implicated in doping on the domestic front (Levi), rumored (Klasna) or simply admitted to doping without any pressure to do so (Decanio). Then after racing for Radio Shack and having everyone there admit to doping, his response is that he never saw any doping and he thought Lance won clean? None of us (Steve excluded) have ever raced at that level and pretty much any amateur racer knew that Lance was racing dirty, so it flies in the face of common sense that someone immersed in the scene wouldn’t be suspicious. In light of Levi’s employment difficulties, keeping his mouth shut may have been the best thing for his career, but just because he denies having ever doped, and in light of his associations, doesn’t mean that he is innocent. In fact, in my mind, he is guilty until proven innocent. It’s not fair by any means, but it’s the way it is. I like Horner as a racer, I just don’t believe that he never doped. This is the result of the cesspool that professional cycling has become. Some of these performances are going to have to become much more believable before I start believing in the Wizard of Oz again…
I had already left Europe by the time he got there. But I have friends that knew him, and said they thought he acted a bit like an alter boy. Maybe everyone was afraid to let him see anything. I don’t know for sure, and nobody but Chris probably does. Addressing the guy that said stop listening to Lance, the whole peloton didn’t dope. I don’t like Lance as a person, and don’t have to listen to anything he says. I was there from 84-96, and by the time I left Europe, almost all of the peloton was doing something illegal. Those are the facts, and I saw it first hand.