Since I was actually watching the Cyclocross Nationals in person, I didn’t really get a chance to see a lot of what was going on around the whole course. The course was great to ride, but not so good for overall spectating. I only saw snippets of the race. And since I am a student of the sport, I decided to go onto the internet and watch a rerun of the event.

There isn’t much to it. Jeremy Powers was just better than everyone. I loved the way he rode all out from the gun. That is how cyclocross “used” to be. Always at Nationals for sure. European cyclocross is more tactical at the front. But if Sven, or whoever, put the hammer down from the gun, it would look much like the Nationals in Boulder did last Sunday. Everyone was on the rivet from the start. That is the reason that there weren’t more groups riding around.

The course made it hard to ride close and get a draft. It was rock hard and bumpy. Following someone too closely created errors. Plus, the cornering and descending was technical enough that it was rare that two riders with the same handling skills and power would be riding together. You can see early on how smooth Powers was riding compared to Trebon. He was well within himself the whole day.

Anyway, if you didn’t have a chance to watch the Elite race and have some time, now or later, you should. It can only make you a better cross racer.

This is pretty unbelievable, it is Cody Kaiser, defining gravity, riding the stairs. Notice how he doesn’t pedal once.

I saw this article about Alessandro Ballan finally getting a 2 year suspension for blood doping. Man, it is about time. I don’t understand why when these guys get pretty much caught red handed, they don’t just fess up and take the penalty. Instead, they drag it on and sound like idiots. His side, ozone therapy to treat cytomegalovirus, whatever that means.

It is way too slow of a process for my liking. I really don’t know when they, the Italians, are going to address the rest of the guys listed on the Mantova doping inquiry. Two, of them still work for Lampre, Ballan’s team at the time of the infusion. That is Damiano Cunego and Giuseppe Saronni. I sort of wonder if Chris Horner is just a smidgen late now. His name has been associated with riding for Lampre and it sounds like Giuseppe has the final say. I’d think that he would be a little preoccupied with his future fate and not so interested on who’s going to be riding for Lampre. But, you never know.

Talking about corrosion, how about the photo below of my brand new brake rotors I put on my van right before Christmas? Wow. I can’t believe how rusted they are. I drove it up to Chicago, where they use a ton of salt, then to Cable, Wisconsin, more salt and finally back to Kansas, where there was a lot of salt on the roads. I didn’t wash the under body before I went to Boulder because the roads were still sloppy, thus salty. Mistake. Take it from me, if you want to keep your car around for long, and live anywhere near a place they use salt, you have to wash the underside of your car during the winter quite often. Forget the paint, get the salt off everything underneath.

Anyway, all this doping in the sport is just like corrosion and rust. It slowly eats away at the sport. Removing the rust is the only way for the sport to prosper. The Mantova deal is just another small step on removing some more rust, but, like rust, I’m afraid it is just going to come back again.

On the wall, during the Morgul-Bismark, with Giuseppe Soronni.

Picture from less than a month ago.

Photo of my “new” rotors yesterday.