Comments about Cycling | Steve Tilford

I just read an interview with Alberto Contador over at Cyclingnews.com. The title of the interview was Contador: Without a doubt I have won nine Gran Tours. He says that the 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro titles are his, even thou officially he was kicked out of those races for doping infractions.

Then he goes on and says –“With the system of anti-doping control we now have and the quantity of those tests for the top riders it is impossible to cheat. If you do it’s like a suicide. I’ve no doubt this is why it’s clean at the very highest level.”

Here’s the deal with his views. If Alberto is so clean, never raced doped, was robbed of his Gran Tour titles by WADA and the UCI, why is he so knowledgable of doping? Knowledgable enough to publicly make this statement.

If he has never taken or participated in doping in cycling, then why would he have any knowledge of if it is possible or impossible to cheat in cycling. Since he is at the top level at the sport result-wise, does he think that he has a better knowledge of how to dope in sports than say, me or you? Why would he? He has never doped and really is uninterested in it, since in cycling, “it’s clean at the very highest level”.

I wonder if he’s read anything about Russian track and field last week? I wonder if he thinks those guys thought it was impossible to cheat. The track and field world governing body voted 22-1 to suspend all Russian athletes from competition. This is how polluted that sport was.

But, in cycling, it is impossible to cheat and it would be “like a suicide” to do so. Personally, I think it takes some pretty bad luck to get caught. Like in , Luca Paolini‘s case at the Tour this year, where he had to snort a nose full of cocaine to offset his Ambient haze, only to get caught in a random drug test when he finished. I wonder if Alberto thinks this was unfair. I wonder, like I do, if Alberto thinks about where Luca got cocaine to snort that day? Was he carrying it around with him, just in cause something like this happened? Luca did win the 2015 Gent–Wevelgem this year. I wonder if Alberto thinks that race was won clean?

If Alberto know nothing about doping in cycling, he should hold his tongue because he is a bike racer and isn’t knowledgable enough to make a comment. If he knows a ton about doping in cycling, then he would realize that it is possible to dope in sports and that he is just lying. Either way, he should keep his mouth shut and not claim Gran Tour titles that are officially not his.

2009 Tour podium. Enough said.

This week went pretty well so far. The only problem is that I’m pretty beat. I did take a day off the bike, Tuesday, which isn’t normal for me. But I’ve been doing pretty hard manual labor for 6-8 hours a day, then jumping on my bike and training pretty hard, so I’ve been almost too tired to sleep.

Today I woke and just would have just liked to stay in bed. I hate being exhausted for race weekends. But no, I’m driving to Tulsa in a couple hours to race cyclocross down there tomorrow and Sunday, if I choose. Right now, I’m only committing to Saturday, but I hate passing up on a 2nd race day. Just depends how I feel after tomorrow.

I can’t seem to convince anyone else to go down with me today. Joseph is driving down tomorrow. Catherine is flying in from Seattle late this afternoon and says she is going to drive down in the morning, but I’d give that less than a 50% chance. Her work weeks are as strenuous mentally as mine was physically. She quit her job there and getting her old Topeka job back at the end of the year, so lots of ends to tie up and personality issues.

Yesterday was clearing brush for a few hours when I looked at my phone and there was a text from Joseph saying he was riding towards Topeka on gravel. It was 30 minutes old. I texted him back I was cleaning up and jumping on my bike. It is a strange thing when you are dragging mentally, and physically, then all of a sudden, when something that comes up that you want to do, your mind and body are instantly in a better place and you rally. I wonder what the human body is doing to switch speeds so quickly?

A cold front came through the midwest and it dropped down below freezing last night. The high tomorrow in Tulsa is supposed to be in the mid 40’s. I’ve raced down there this time of the year and it was in the 90’s. 40 over 90 anytime for cyclocross.

I’m taking my computer to the Apple Store in Tulsa tonight to get it looked at. I think there is a recall on the video card, so they are going to have to ship it somewhere to fix it, but we’ll see. Posting here has been a drag this past week.

Okay, I should go out and see how my tire gluing did last night. I bought a bunch of Vittoria cross tires and they are hugely defective. They blow out at the valve stem by just pumping them up. I found this out after gluing two on. So far, 3 out of 4 have catastrophically failed at the valve stem. I can’t believe they would even put these things on the market. I bought them from Steep and Cheap, which is Backcountry out of Utah. Too good to be true. So, don’t buy these. We’ll see how the return goes.

I have a bunch of good tires, FMB’s etc., but am saving them for later in the season when I’m a little better and more serious. Right now I’m just paying my dues. Plus, racing cross in Oklahoma has been a recipe for flatting. I can’t count how many great tires I’ve flatted racing there. Mainly on goatheads. I sure hope that isn’t an issue tomorrow. Most the guys down there run tubeless tires with sealant. I don’t have any that aren’t clincher. I’m taking those just in case.

Okay, I need to unhook the trailer, clean out the tools and reload it for bike racing. It is around 30 and super windy. Seems like fall/winter came in instantly. Yesterday I rode in short. Kansas weather.