I hate being a total copycat, but I can’t think of a better title of this post than the exact same title that an article at Velonews  today.

According the article, Vincenzo sent his own personal letter to the UCI to voice his opinion, and support, of his team.

In the letter, he says, “The team must continue to participate in all competitions. It is in the best interests of cycling, of sport and of justice.”

Of sport and of justice?  Well then, by all means, let’s welcome them with open arms and forget the past.  Bygones should be bygones.

Maybe Vincenzo should have sent them his earlier opinion.  In December, 2014, he said, “The problems in this team are also in many others. I don’t think our team is the worst because in other teams there are worse people than there are here, I won’t name names.”

I guess things changed in the last 3 months.  Problems of last December have cleared, and now, “Astana is a symbol of clean and honest sport”.

Maybe Vincenzo should have testified to CIRC and named names.  Seems he thinks he knows names.  At least he implied that in December.

Nibali also wrote about the Padua investigation dossier that states that Astana was working with Dr. Ferrari for two years.  Not the whole team, just the team director, Alexandre Vinokourov, plus 17 of their riders.

About this, he says, “The dossier can’t be used.  The documents still have not been presented in the court, and so can’t be considered credible.”

I’m sure that the prosecutors that did this investigation probably just made up the 550 pages they gathered and that they really did no work and are just picking on Astana because they are Kazakh team, messin‘ around in their sport, bicycle racing.  Bicycle racing is an Italian sport, not an Eastern European sport.  They stole our rising star, so we’ll get back at them and make up a bunch of shit so they can’t race.  Makes total sense to me.  Completely not credible.

Vincenzo is sitting in Tenerife now, a very credible place to train, according to CIRC and Chris Froome.  It is the same place that Alexandre Vinokourov and Maxim Iglinskiy used to train for their respective wins at Liège–Bastogne–Liège.  Too bad Maxim and his brother both tested positive for EPO last season, while racing for Astana.

I don’t really appreciate, Vincenzo Nibali, supposedly a model rider and spokesman for “clean sport“, to spew silliness for his own benefit.  If Vincenzo is truly interested in competing  in a clean and fair sport, he needs to acknowledge and confirm what he knows to be truth and then behave accordingly.  If he decided to race for a team, such as Astana, then he needs to understand the potential pitfalls that decision had.

And one, which seems imminent, is that his team won’t be racing as a PRO Tour team.  Only seems right.

This is probably the UCI dope control that is sitting at the summit of the 3,718 meter volcano on Tennerife. I’m sure Vincenzo is being tested on a daily basis, even though it has been shown to be a “drug testing free” area.

I was riding back and forth from Topeka to Lawrence last week and was thinking about Redlands and, specifically, Chris Horner.  For so long, Chris was dominate at the race.  He wasn’t dominate in a boring-ass way, he was dominate in an aggressive way.  When he rode for Webcor, he took a bunch of “no-name” riders and made them into a force to be reckoned with.

It was fun racing Redlands, even when Chris was killing the field, because the racing was still really hard, aggressive, and not that predictable.

Anyway, Redland’s starts in a few days and I was thinking about if I thought it seemed early in the season or late, or what.  Sometimes before Redlands I’ve already raced 10-20 races.  This year, zero.

Then two days ago, I saw this article at Velonews that said that Chris and he new domestic Pro team, Safeway-Airgas, are starting the season at Azerbaidjan.  Man, what a start to the season.  May before racing once.  That seemed really strange since I remember seeing an interview with Chris, after his team had been denied entry into Tour of California and he said that he was planning on killing it at Redlands and the NRC.

So I looked back and found an article at Cyclingnews.  Here is a quote from that article –

I own Redlands. Everybody knows that. I’ve won it four times. That’s my race. Basically they should just call it Redlands-Horner (laughs). OK, so I know it’s not the same profile. It used to be seven-eight days when I was winning it. You’d do the hillclimb up Oak Glen and all that stuff. I grew up sharpening my teeth there at Redlands, so I’d like to go back there and win it. That’s a big objective. For me, I think I can ride there 100 percent. The course isn’t as hard as it used to be, it’s fewer days, but they put in a good deal of good climbs.

The NRC is big. I’ve won it four times in my career. I won it in ’96, then I came back and won it multiple times in the early 2000s. It really sets the precedent of which rider in the US is the best domestically or whatever you want to call it. So that’s a big objective.

And honestly, there are only six or seven events, so you only need to focus on six or seven. When I won it back in the day it was from February to October, and all the events in that calendar were part of the NRC. Now it’s more specific and streamlined. So it’s not as difficult to focus. I don’t have to be good for the whole season.

I got curious and thought, Chris really likes to race, why would he skip Redlands and start racing in May, when he already said that he is going to win Redlands.  And when he says he is going to win, he usually does.

So, I found an article about the field at Redlands and low and behold, Chris Horner is racing.  So, I guess the Velonews article titled Horner to start 2015 season in Azerbaidjan  didn’t think that Redland’s counted or maybe they just made a mistake.

Whatever the reason, he is planning on racing Redlands.  I wish I was racing.  It would be interesting seeing how the racing there goes.  I’m sure that Chris and his team are going to dictate the pace of the race.

The finish at Oak Glenn, a 6 mile climb, has returned, which should open the race up some.  You can’t go and rest on your laurels after the time trial in Big Bear.

It is funny how domestic racing has really disappeared off the media’s radar screen.  Tour of Flanders is tomorrow.  The Paris-Roubaix.  But Redlands, is just another local race.  Seems wrong.

Anyway, this really isn’t going anywhere.  I was just curious about where Chris Horner was and what he’s been up to.  He career has really been odd since he won the Tour of Spain.  I’m not so sure that worked out so well for him.  He is a bike racer and it seems that win just restricted that.   I wonder if he had a do-over, whether he might play that a little different a second time around?

It’s interesting that the presenting sponsor for this year’s Redlands Classis is a Indian casino.

I wrote this post a couple years ago and watching the Basque Country race this morning, I was noticing the different socks the teams were wearing.  The sock height is a tad shorter than it was in 2013, but it is still much higher than when I started racing.  Fashion trends in cycling usually have a functional purpose.  The number of different materials in jerseys is mind boogling.  But, the amount of material in socks is perplexing.  Having a bunch of skin covered on you legs, in the summer heat, makes no sense.  And having a bunch of material down by your ankles when it rains, makes for a bunch of water weight rotating 10000’s times during a race.  It does make a difference.  Anyway, here is my sock post from 2013 –

I was watching the Tour of California on the Internet yesterday and Paul Sherwin said something about Philip Gilbert dropping back and changing his socks during the race. I didn’t see it, but that seemed super strange to me. I’ve never even thought about doing something like that. Paul said something about maybe Philp was putting on some special “ice socks” or something. I’ve never heard of ice socks. Socks with pockets for ice. I couldn’t imagine wanting to cool my body enough to ride with wet feet. Then Paul said something like, “Maybe as the reining world champion, he just wants to look good?” Right Paul, that is it.

Anyway, I was looking through my sock draw yesterday, looking for some light socks to wear at 94 degrees (not with slots of ice) and found the original pair of DeFeet socks that I got from Jacque Boyer. I believe he gave them to me at Sea Otter, somewhere in the 90’s. I have worn this very pair of socks, 100’s of times and they still don’t have a hole in the toes. I don’t quite understand that. Either, DeFeet made the socks much higher quality, or…. well, I don’t have another explanation.

Cycling socks are so interesting to a racing cyclist. They are an easy way for a “real racer” to identify a novice. Over the years, it is strange how the style or trends have changed.

Back when I first went to Europe, back in the 80’s, all the Pros and Western Europeans worn wool socks from Italy. I only had a couple pairs. I mainly wore super thin nylon socks I got at K Mart, which cost about 1/10 the price. It was sort of a status symbol by then having a bunch of Italian wool socks, at least to a poor kid like me. I remember going up to LaCrosse, Wis., to stay with Mark Frise before the Tour de l’Abitibi, a prestigious junior stage race. We were getting dressed to ride the first day and Mark opened a draw that was just stuffed with Italian wool socks. It dumb struck me. I was so jealous. Mark went on to be the first American to win the race.

When all the Pros were wearing short wool socks, the Russians would be wearing these mid calf socks made in Russia, I guess. It looked so weird. All the Eastern Europeans wore the same mid calf socks. We could never understand why they couldn’t get with the program and dress stylish.

When I was riding for Levis, we hired Jiri Manus, newly to the US, via Czechoslovakia, to help coach our team. Jiri had a stellar resume. He was on the podium in the Olympics and World Championships. He won the British Milk Race and the Peace Race, the two best amateur races in the world. But, he hadn’t westernized enough for our team. Roy (Knickman), kept trying to help Jiri catch up with modern ways. Jiri would pour a bunch of oil into a pan and fry bacon in the morning. Then he would crack a few eggs into the pool of grease and dump it all over toast. We, as cyclists, were avoiding most fat completely. Plus, Jiri would only wear, mid calf, white socks. That was the deal breaker. Jiri was let go. He went on to be the National Coaching Director for USAC for the next 20 years, so it was probably for the best.

When I started racing MTB, every good rider wore road cycling socks. All good riders except Dave Wiens. Dave would wear hightop black socks. Man, did it seem so out of place at the time. He took a lot of flak over the years, but he was the “inventor” of mid calf black socks for MTB racing.

Socks were short, now mid calf. It is sort of like watching the shorts that basketball players wear. Watching Magic Johnson and Co. back in the day, it seems that they are wearing hot pants compared to the knee length shorts the current generation likes.

DeFeet was the company that changed the cycling sock industry. Socks with logos. Man, was that a game changer. Socks that matched the kits. It was nearly as big a change for cycling as t-shirts with words on them were, in the 70’s, for the general public. We never looked back after that. Soon, there were a lot of copy cat companies of DeFeet, but they were the original custom sock people. Shane Cooper is the founder of DeFeet. He is a eclectic guy. His business card says something like chief sockologist on it. Pretty great title. Greg Demgen, a team mate of mine forever, worked with Shane at DeFeet for a long while. I’m sure that there were plenty of young riders jealous of my collection of socks at that time.

My original pair of DeFeet socks from Boyer.

Toes of kevlar or something.

This is my sock drawer. I’d bet there are way over 100 pair in there. It’s nearly impossible to close.

Soukho winning the Olympic Games in 1980,with his high socks of the time.

Dave is still at it, with his trend setting, black socks.