I was out riding yesterday, doing the Kitchen Creek Climb, east of San Diego and someone mentioned that there was a criterium in San Diego today. That was pretty early on the ride, so I took it pretty easy the rest of the day, thinking I was going to be racing today. It’s kind of hard taking it easy with 7000 feet of climbing and lots of wind and heat, but I did pretty good. Last night I was searching for the race and didn’t find anything. Nothing but Nevada City. When I saw that I thought, perfect, I can ride Nevada City tomorrow. But I wasn’t being realistic because when I checked it out on Google Maps, Nevada City is 550 miles from San Diego.

I’d like to do Nevada City again. I haven’t ridden it in close to 30 years. I know that Lance put Nevada City back on the map in 2009 when he and Levi came and beat up on everyone. I thought that was sort of bullshit, Lance, Horner and Levis, a bunch of Pro Tour riders, flying in on a private jet to beat up on the locals. Lance was wearing a Livestrong jersey when he was racing on a Pro Tour Team for some reason. But I know when you need to race, you’ll do about anything to toe up to the start line. (It was one of his, like, 9 race starts that year before the Tour.)

Back in the 80’s, Nevada City already had it’s name. Greg Lemond had won the race 3 times in a row, as a junior, and that was enough in itself to make it important. The race has been going on since 1960 or something crazy like that. I’m not sure I can think of another race with that history.

I went to Nevada City in 1984 with Greg Demgen and Andy Hampsten. It was the day before the start of the Olympic Trials in Spokane Washington. The promoter had arranged a flight for a bunch of us so we could do the race and still make it up to Spokane. Jeff Pierce, Dale Stetina, Alexi Grewal and a few others were on the same program.

The race was unreal. You can’t imagine the number of spectators there. I remember reading the article on Lance winnng in 2009 and seeing the photo and realizing that at least twice as many people were there in 1984.

I have a million memories from the race. It was one of the best days I’ve experienced racing a bike. Andy and Greg both got off the front in a group of 5 or 6 I think. Alexi, Jeff Pierce, Dale and maybe a couple others. Andy was riding good and he was the guy we wanted up front. I was riding around in the field as it got smaller and smaller. Pretty soon there wasn’t hardly anyone left.

The break eventually came around and lapped me. By then they were pretty beat and I felt alright. I was sitting on the back of the break on the descent through town, with a few laps to go. Jeff Pierce was leading down through the bottom corner, did something wrong and fell. He took everyone else out except for Greg and me. I stopped because Andy’s was laying on the ground. I helped him up and pushed him to get him going. Alexi didn’t really fall hard, got going quickly and was a few hundred meters behind Greg.

When I went back to the corner, after pushing Andy, I couldn’t find my bike. It wasn’t there. I asked a spectators what happened to it and finally had to go under the rope and retrieve it from behind the, 10 deep, crowd. By the time I got going again, Greg was already coming around to lap me. Greg had lapped the whole field, other than the break at least once by then and most of them twice. Anyway, when Greg caught me, Alexi was only a stones throw behind him.

The climb is so steep there isn’t much you can do other than pace someone up the hill. Greg was hurting pretty badly and wasn’t that confident with Alexi charging up. I calmed him down and got him on a good tempo for the last few laps. I’m sure it completely demoralized Alexi, seeing Greg and I hook up, even though I wasn’t doing much of anything other than giving Greg some verbal advise. Whatever the reason, pretty soon, Alexi wasn’t to be seen.

So, I got to ride around the last few laps with Greg as the crowd went berserk. The photo below is of the finish. In the meantime, Alexi got so demoralized, he lost his focus and was just coasting down the hill to the finish the final time. Andy had been chasing him the whole time and put in a huge effort and blew by Alexi just before the line. Alexi didn’t even see it coming. So it was a 1-2 finish for the Raleigh Team.

I ended up getting a place, even though I was 2 laps back and I won the special prime for the fastest time in the speed trap, which was huge $$$$$. I had extra time on my hands, waiting to get lapped, so did a bunch of resting and sprinting each lap to get the fastest speed.

Greg got a really cool medal, handmade out of 24K gold. It was 2 ounces. He was having a problem accepting the fact that if he wanted to keep the medal, he needed to take it out of his split, since gold is a really the same as money. We’d made so much prize money between the 3 of us, it worked out alright. (I’m going to email him and ask him to send me a picture of the medal.) When we got up to Spokane and were doing the splits, I felt pretty badly for Roy and Thurlow who had opted to skip the race because it was just the day before the individual time trial. They both made the Olympic team for the team time trial (and finished 3rd), so it worked out best for everyone involved.

Anyway, that day was one of the reasons I still race bikes. There is no way to replicate that sort of experience without being right there in the middle of it. It wasn’t just having a team mate win the race, it was the whole experience. The return trip back to the airport, probably missing the flight until Andy got everyone organized, the crowds, everything. I wish I would have organized a little better here. I would be riding around circles this afternoon up in Northern California. I hope some of the guys doing just that, have some of their lifetime experiences today, allowing them to enjoy the next 3 decades as much as I have.

Greg and Ciny Olivarri with their two ounces of gold.

Greg looking way more composed than me late in the race.

Lance’s problems with USADA, etc. has taken some weird turns over the years. This new problem he has is not any different. It is going to take a bunch of weird turns before it eventually comes to an end, hopefully an final end.

It is hard for most of us following the media reports not to try to draw the lines between the dots.

I thought it was pretty strange to see that George (Hincapie) was announcing his retirement. It seemed even weirder considering the time frame in relation to the USADA announcement.

Then the USAC released that Levi, Dave Z. George and Christian Vande Velde all opted out of potential Olympic slots. Man, did that seem super weird and coincidental. If these withdrawals had anything to do with each other and to the Lance issue, then it doesn’t look too good for Lance and Co. But, there is no way to connect these dots without a statement from one of the 4 guys. And I’ll bet you $100, there isn’t going to be a peep out of any of them before the Tour. All these guys are planning on racing the Tour, with big aspirations, so it wouldn’t make any sense for them to make any statements if it was going to bring out “ugly” news.

Chris Horner came and spoke out for Lance. I like Chris and think he’s a great guy and rider. He usually speaks his mind, but speaking out on this wasn’t the brightest thing he could have done at this time. Especially saying quotes like – “Do we have pictures of it? Video or testing? Because without that you really don’t have anything.”

I honestly don’t know what evidence that USADA has. They say they have blood samples from 2009 and ’10 that were manipulated. If that is the case, then they do have testing, Chris. I very much doubt they have any “video” of the supposed doping infractions. But, I know they have testimony. Floyd and Tyler’s for two. And if they have the testimony of any of the above mentioned riders, then I don’t think they need the video. Floyd and Tyler have credibility problems. But, none of the 4 guys above do. It would be very damaging.

And then there is Andrew Talansky’s twitter post (that was removed late). It is below. I have no idea why anyone would put their opinion out there, voluntarily, without a personal knowledge of the evidence USADA has. He is either an idiot or just super naive. Hopefully the later. Or maybe he is a psychic and KNOWS that USAC has ZERO evidence.

I very much doubt that USAD has zero evidence, Andrew. I have to assume that the powers at USADA knew what a shit storm they were getting into when they did this whole thing. I’d hope that they are smart enough to have some kind of information to back up their charges. If they don’t, then they need to go back to square one and completely reorganize, because their organization is severely broken. But, I very much doubt that is the situation.

I’m one of the least politically correct people I know. But this is a pretty sensitive subject. And an important one. This whole thing is going to take a lot of weird twists and turns the next few weeks/months. I have to assume that we are just at the edge of the avalanche of stories that are going to be put out there addressing this and more we don’t even know yet. And I’d bet these revelations are going to be a super surprise to some out there.

I haven’t really thought of what the end ramifications to the sport of cycling in America will be if this whole thing goes South. Nearly every current “hero” the US has in European stage racing seems to be connected to the story somehow. It kind of makes me sad. But not sad enough to allow it to just disappear. Things need to be set straight, once and for all. I hope this finally does do just that. It would be the only good thing to come from this whole mess.