I think it is more than a little strange that the UCI always waits until the Tour to start releasing the positive doping tests that have been going on for years. It seems like they are trying to let all the media attention from the Tour, hopefully, hide the bad publicity of doping positives for cycling.

Today they released the doping positive of Sky rider Jonathan Tiernan-Locke. A British rider that was wined and dined by both Sky and Garmin. Here is a guy that has a blood profile screwy enough to be suspended, and the two “clean” teams of the Pro peleton are fighting over him. It goes to show you that these teams don’t do shit for testing or checking out the guys that they hire. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

Just last week, the UCI published another list of doping positives and buried on the bottom of the list, Dennis Menchov’s name was listed, and he was suspended for two years for adverse biological passport findings. That guy had been associated with doping his whole career and they snag him for a messed up biological passport for the previous 5 years, after he retired. Great. Plus, they leave him win the 2009 Giro win, even though they boot him out of the 2009 Tour. Go figure that.

Three other guys were on the July 10th release, Leonardo Bertagnoli, Carlos Barredo and Leif Hoste. They disappeared with little fanfare it seems.

How about the poll of past Tour riders that said that 12 of the past 25 Tour de France winners say that Lance should keep his 7 Tour titles? It is very suprising because you’d think that it would be politically incorrect to state that publicly. The most interesting yes, in my opinion, was Andy Schleck. Man, that guy is an idiot. At least Contador and Eddy Merckx are bright enough to not answer the question.

I know that Lance thinks that he “deserves” his titles. I understand his argument. My problem with it is that he knew, at the time he was doping, that if he was caught, he would be stripped of the wins. That was part of the deal. And he was “caught”, so disqualifying him from the race seems natural. His argument about a lifetime ban seems much more valid than the Tour title question.

It’s very hard not to think that every past Tour winner that says Lance should keep his titles was not doping themselves to win the race. I have to assume that is true. I can’t think of another reason to have that view. Cycling has always been polluted this way.

Levi racing last weekend got a lot of people riled. I had a lot of comments on my post, but over at his Strava page of the race, there is a lot of banter. A couple Pro riders, including Jamey Driscoll, who finished 2nd to Levi on Saturday, in the Crusher in the Tushar, pipes in. You know my views, I hate the guy is racing still. Here is a answer that Levi himself addressed after a comment about him racing – I actually agree with your sentiment and it wouldn’t make sense for me to show up to national level races and compete. But please understand that the Crusher is a timed, mass-participation event with all ages and levels of ability, and it’s all about pushing yourself in a spirit of fun. It’s an event unlike the races that Jamie, for example, gets paid to do.

I’m not sure what 1st place was, but I read it was $2500. Maybe it was only $1000. Plus he won $250 for “winning” the KOM. So he might of won $2750. Even if he donates his prize money to charity, the prize money didn’t go to Jamey Driscoll. Let me tell you, in this day and age of sucky prize money, $2750 is nothing to sneeze over. Maybe to Levi it is a race to “push yourself in the spirit of fun”, but to a lot of the other guys, it was a straight on bike race.

I got a email from another Pro rider who decided to talk to Levi about his feeling – Hey Steve, I read your post on Levi and thought I would share a story with you. Last year at a local race I told Levi that I am angry at him and that I wanted to bury the hatchet because I did not think it was fair to single him out. His response was “Why are you angry?” When I told him that he acted unfairly and cheated he flatly denied that he cheated anyone and went on to say that he never doped for the domestic races that he won. Either this man is disillusional or stupider than he looks. All I wanted was a little apology or “I can see how you feel that way.” Fuck him

These guys don’t have remorse. These are pissed they were caught and that is the only thing that bothers them. They think that everyone was doing it and it was just business as usual. I was racing this whole time and I can categorically state that no, everyone wasn’t doing it. Guys that Lance and Levi beat up at Leadville weren’t doing it. Guys that Lance, Levi and Chris Horner pounded at Nevada City weren’t doping. But, according them, they weren’t doping during that time either, or according to Levi, at any domestic races. I guess he forgot he was disqualified from the Criterium Nationals back in 1996. That race seems pretty domestic to me. But, maybe he was just riding it in the “spirit of fun”.

I clipped this photo from Facebook. Here Levis is leading a line of riders. I guess the guy at 2nd isn’t happy with Levi’s weekend fun ride pace. What a great photo.

Yesterday was a weird day. First, my van started driving like shit. It has 360,000 miles on it, but I’ve kept it in pretty good shape. Plus, it is diesel. But yesterday, when I started it, I think the EGR valve is stuck and it would barely get up to speed. I’m going to mess with it today and see if I can fix it some.

I decided it was about time to try to ride again. I hadn’t ridden in two days and my hip was feeling alright, so I decided to go out and do the 6 o’clock club ride. They were riding out to the start of the Kansas State Games Time Trial, in Auburn, which is a 30 mile ride. I started out and pretty instantly, my rear tire was flat. So, I turned around and went back to the house to fix it. It is tubeless and there was latex spraying out the sidewall, so I just took a small amount of the bead off, used some brake clean to get the latex off the rubber and patched the tire. It took a total of maybe 4 minutes.

So, I was behind. I didn’t mind because I didn’t have any idea what speed I was going to be able to ride. Especially uphill. I didn’t feel that bad. It was headwind heading south and I was riding alright. The transitions between sitting and standing is pretty painful, but I’m not going with pain now. I’m just doing it. I am 7 weeks out and the bone is supposed to be pretty healed at 8 weeks, so that is close enough.

I was maybe only 20 minutes from my house and all of a sudden, it felt like someone grabbed my hair. It was so strange. I whipped my neck around and saw nothing. I stopped and looked around. The only thing I saw was a bird up on a wire. He seemed too far away to be the culprit, but there wasn’t another explanation. So, I turned around to see the bird. All of a sudden the bird took off and dived bombed me again, grabbing at my head, then back to the telephone wire.

I took out my phone and put it on camera, to try to get a picture of the bird. It looked sort of like a owl, at least it had an owl’s face, but it didn’t have owl ears. The rest of the bird was sort of gray/blue. The beak was definitely hooked like a Predatorial bird. Anyway, I rode back and forth three or four more times and each time, when I least expected it, the bird would dive and grab at me. I took some burst pictures on my camera, but never got a great one of the bird right there. The bird was very mean. Like scary mean.

I eventually, after about 10 minutes, thought I should get going. It was super interesting playing with the bird, but I wanted to get to the time trial before it was all done.

I rode out there and it was finished. The official said something about me not wearing a helmet. I told him the bird story and it never would have happened if I were wearing a helmet. See, there are some other upsides of going helmet-less, attracting birds to attack you.

Steve Watke, a local that does the club rides, won the race. I didn’t feel like hanging out there much, so left pretty quick. Bill, who’d met at my house, rode back with me. By the time I was half way back, my leg was pretty done. Actually, I was done. I was finally able to go hard enough to be winded. And I was, winded. Climbing was a challenge. My weighted wattage was 219, so it wasn’t that bad.It is amazing how quickly any type of form leaves when I takes so long to attain.

It did feel pretty great getting on a road bike. So much quicker and lighter than my MTB bike. I couldn’t have leaned over enough before, so it was the right time to switch over. I’m happy to feel the wind again.

My legs were wasted, so I used a new foam roller that just showed up in the mail when I got home. It is from Christian Hon, he invented it. It’s called a Muscle Knead and it worked super well on my IT band. It has handles so I didn’t have to roll on the floor on it. Plus it had different surfaces, so I could pick how aggressive I wanted to be. I rarely get surprises in the mail and this was a good one. Here’s a link to their website.

I’m going to try to ride again today on the road. I woke up this morning pretty sore, but I have pretty much for the last 7 weeks, so that is nothing new. I was more cycling sore though, which is a good thing. It’s gonna be baby steps for a while.

The bird attacking me.

Best photo I got of it. You can click to enlarge. Any idea what kind?

The Muscle Knead roller.

Jeff Unruh, the promoter of all Kansas State Games Cycling events in Kansas, doing his thing.