May | 2013 | Steve Tilford

Levi Leiphemimer announced on the last day of the Tour of California Sunday, that he was officially retired.

Just forget about the doping stuff for a second. With his statement that he “sort of” misses the racing, he picked, as if he picked it, but whatever the reasons, the time was right and he shouldn’t be racing if he doesn’t yearn for it.

Levi never really interested me as a bicycle racer. He was positive for doping back in his amateur days. It was completely obvious to everyone in the sport, at least anyone racing against him, that he doped seriously, very early on. Winning the National time trial in 1999 and then finishing 3rd in the Tour of Spain a couple years later, Levi fast tracked his way to the top of a polluted field. Levi, who admitted using drugs, was a boring guy to watch race. A follower on the climb and then just time trialed. That makes him even less interesting. I know that sounds weird, but is one of the reasons that Marco Pantani is so deary worshiped and missed.

I guess Dave Towle, a great announcer and friend of mine, called Leipheimer to the announcing stage Sunday morning in Santa Rosa, calling Levi “The King of the Amgen Tour of California.” which he won three times. Dave finished with “A huge, huge thank you for all you have done.” I know Dave has to fill time, but this wasn’t the way.

All his results are suspect and should have been thrown in the trash. Oh, I forgot, he admitted doping from June of 1999 to July of 2006, then won an Olympic Bronze medal clean, then the Tour of California clean in 2007, only to go back to his old ways of doping in July of 2007. His more proud moments of his career. I’m sure another one is when he smashed the Leadville 100 record set by Lance, stealing a super result from JHK.

When Floyd Landis called Levi out, Levi responded by denying it and say it was “jealousy,” “bitterness” and a “vendetta.” More truthfulness there.

Here’s a link to the article from his local newspaper.

Toward the end of the article above, Levi says he’s going to concentrate on his GrandFondo. He says he doesn’t have to be a professional cyclist for that. “It’s not about professional cycling, it’s about sharing the love of the bike.” “That’s what it’s always been about.” he said.

He sure had a perverted way of showing that. He must of never heard the phrase, Action speak louder than words.

The last couple days Bromont has been breathing really badly when he gets hot running. He’s been breathing rather loudly over the whole winter, but he is turning 10 pretty soon, so I thought he was get getting older. But, the last week, it hasn’t been normal. So, I took a video of him breathing after walking and sent it off to Dr. Ken Harkin, the same veterinarian that took such good care of George. Ken emailed me back instantly and said that we should bring him in as soon as possible.

Even though Trudi only got back from The Tour of California late Monday, she got into the car and drove him over to Manhattan to see Ken. The surgeon looked at him and said that he most likely has laryngeal paralysis, but maybe laryngeal neoplasia. He needs his larynx to be scoped to see exactly what the issue is. Either way, he needs surgery to help alleviate some of the problem. He has to be at the Vet School for 4 days. She decided to bring him home and do the surgery next week. She has to go to Chattanooga for National Professional Road Championships this weekend, while I’m taking Bromont up to Quad Cities with me. She wanted to be around when he got released, which makes sense.

It has to be done. He can’t run or be in heat until it gets fixed.

Yesterday wasn’t that great a day for me. I felt okay, just though, riding on Monday. We did 2 couple hours at a pretty good clip the last 30 minutes. But, yesterday I was beat. I think it is allergies, but maybe it isn’t. I was allergic to 17 out of 45 things I was exposed to last Friday at the doctor’s office and most of those are extremely high in Kansas right now.

Anyway, yesterday it was pretty windy from the West. So I decided to ride the Landon Bike Trail out Southeast to stay sheltered some. It is an old rail trail that isn’t close to complete, pretty primitive in places. Anyway, the thunderstorms had blown a bunch of trees over the trail. I had to dismount and walk over two or three. I was heading out towards Berryton, wearing headphones listening to Pandora, when all of a sudden I’m falling off the back of my bike. A tree branch had gotten blown out of a tree and fell on me right when I was under it. It hit me right in the face. I must of just released my bars, because I just fell off the back of my bike and landed on my side/ass. I had no idea what happened for a second. I reached up and my glasses were gone and I felt a bump on my forehead. Then I saw the branch. It wasn’t that big, maybe 2 or 3 inches in diameter and 10 feet long.

I sat there for a little bit, did a little systems check and got going. Man, what are the changes of that happening? I remember Tejay getting hit by a limb or something last season in a stage race and I thought that was really odd too. So, that was the highlight of the ride. I got worse and worse all ride. My surgery shoulder started aching after an hour, so I just turned back and crawled home. It was the worst ride I’ve had this year. 16 mph average for 2 hours. Now my shoulder is aching more. I told my doctor, Stacie, that I never fall out training and now I’ve fallen twice in two weeks. Neither time it should have happened. Weird season so far.

We walked Bromont over to the Dairy Queen last night at 10 pm. He can walk on a leash, but not run free. It’s a couple miles each way. Bromont loves DQ vanilla cones. It’s his favorite treat. I eat the first half,maybe more, and he gets the whole cone full of ice cream. My legs were pretty done when I got back. I’ve been very on and off the last few days.
Pretty frustrating, but it is what it is.

I have to put a road bike together. I raced my Eriksen cross bike last weekend in Arkansas. My arm is working so badly, it takes a pretty long time to do the mechanical work. But, I need to do it. I guess that is the project for this afternoon. It is only mid-May, so it’s about time.