Monthly Archives: April 2015

“Astana is a symbol of clean and honest sport” – Vincenzo Nibali

This entry was posted in Comments about Cycling on by .

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 "dope testing free" area.

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.

Where is Chris Horner?

This entry was posted in Comments about Cycling on by .

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.

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