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.

I’ve been out in California since last Friday. Over the weekend I went on a pretty cool ride, Kitchen Creek, East of San Diego. The majority of a 3000 foot climb is on a gated road that has no access to vehicles. It’s a little primitive, but super cool.

It is June Gloom out here with a marine layer pretty much covering the first 5 miles of the coast. It is pretty cold, never getting much above the 60’s. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people out here. And if they planned their vacations to come to the beach, by God, they are going to be at the beach. It is weird riding by, nearly wearing arm warmers, and all these families have their beach towels and tents all set up for a full day beach adventure. The State Fair is also going on in Del Mar, so there is a lot of traffic on the coast because of it.

I’ve been downloading my Garmin to Strava. The link above shows the information for the Kitchen Creek ride. I’ve never really paid much attention to rides after I do them, but these segment things are kind of interesting. I rode back up Torrey Pines climb from Del Mar to the top pretty hard a couple days ago and when I downloaded the ride, there were probably 3 different Strava segments for the climb. I wasn’t even close to going up the hill the fastest. Here is a link to the Arnie Baker Torrey Pines Strava segment. It totally cracks me up, that name. I have to assume that Arnie created the segment and named it. I’ve known Arnie for along time. If the name sounds familiar, he was deeply involved with the Floyd defense thing. Deep enough to get charged by the French authorities for computer hacking or something or the sort. I haven’t seen him since that all went down. Anyway, I didn’t go all out up the climb, but was surprised someone went 6 seconds faster. I’m not going to do it again. It would be weird getting caught up doing Strava segments while out training, all over the country. But, I know it happens everyday.

I’m flying back tomorrow for the Tour of Kansas City, which is this weekend. Then the Tour of Lawrence, link above, is the next weekend. I’m a little worried that the temperature acclamation is going to be a problem. Okay, below are a few photos from the last couple days.

Most of the gated section of the Kitchen Creek climb looked like this.

The views on the descent were pretty great.

You don't have one of these pull up during a ride in Kansas.

A guy on the ride was on this, a RB-1. Classic bike.

I ran into John Howard and Gina Poertner at the Pannikin a couple days ago.

This is an example of what the weather is like around here on the coast.

This aint' how they serve pancakes and eggs in Kansas.

Gas is a tad expensive out here.