I’ve written a ton about cheating in cycling with drugs.  Now people are cheating with motors.  I wonder what these people missed growing up learning about sport and accomplishments? Anyway, yesterday I saw that the UCI has been retroactively testing previous urine samples have handed out sanctions to the riders they caught.

One guy they caught was Slovenian Jure Kocjan.  He caught my eye because he has been racing here in the US recently.  Jure was racing for Team Type 1 when he gave the sample that was positive for EPO.  He did a one year stint in Europe and then was back here racing for Smartstop.  He is currently signed with the Lupus Racing Team, a Continental US squad.

I was looking around the internet and I can’t remember where I was, but one forum poster said he wished that the UCI would pay more attention to the top end of the field and quit wasting resources on these small fish.  That bugged me.

This small fish won a stage of the Tour of Utah in 2014.  And he was 2nd in Philly.  So he isn’t such a small fish here.  And I don’t like Euro cheaters beating up on our domestic pros.   It’s one reason I hold a bigger grudge against Levi than I do Tyler Hamilton or Hincapie.  For the most part, they stayed in Europe to do their fantasy racing.  Levi didn’t even care if he beat up on MTB racers here.  It was all fair game.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Retroactive testing is a super way to discourage guys starting doping.  Or quit maybe.  Having that hanging over your head years after you did it would be pretty uncomfortable I’d think.

I applaud the UCI for this tactic.  And I hope the list of guys they catch keeps growing and growing.   I don’t care if it a Mongolian racing in Thailand.  We, as a sport, deserve to be able to believe in the results.  And this hasn’t been the case in decades.  Whatever we can do to get back to that basic level, I’m all for.

I was on a longish ride a couple days ago in California. Robin Carpenter, the Holowesko rider from behind, is the guy that finished 2nd to Jure at the stage in the Tour of Utah. Think Robin is happy now, knowing he should have won that stage? Totally different life experience for him.  That’s what these guys are doing, stealing other’s life experiences.  Shame on them.  I think Jure owes Robin an apology.

The first time I saw anyone ride with lights on during the day was when I flew out to California to ride the Donut Ride with Seth Davidson.  He was using them on his bike.  Then I started noticing lots of SoCal guys using them.

No one in Kansas, that I ride with, uses them.  My initial impression was that they seemed sort of geeky.  But, maybe that has changed.  I think as they become more mainstream that it won’t seem so extreme.  And it really isn’t extreme, it is just another thing.

My bike is already bothersome with these other things.  Charging a Garmin on a daily basis is a drag.  The power meter is just there, until it isn’t.  I guess the lights are just on your bike all the time and you just have to turn them on and off, so it really isn’t that much of a hassle.  But, they must take a ton of power, so you must have to recharge them periodically.

It is amazing how bright the daytime lights can be. Even the small ones are incredibly bright.  At dusk them seem almost too bright.  But I guess they need to be too bright at night to be seen at all during the day.

I saw the results from a couple different studies that show that the lights reduce chances of collisions with cars somewhere between 19-35%.  That seems pretty significant, but you have to realize the odds of getting hit by a car is super low, so you’re just reducing a super low chance that much more.

Lots of guys out here are using them.  I did a ride on Saturday and 2 out of 5 guys had them on.  I’m not that concerned about being seen just yet.  I think to be comfortable riding on busy roads, you need to assume that everyone coming from behind sees you.  And I don’t worry about the guys in front of me.  That is my responsibility.

Anyway, maybe soon, our whole group ride will have these things on, you never know.  I think as they become more common, they become a little less effective, but that is one of the reasons construction workers keep switching from orange to yellow to reflective vests.  Whatever keeps you safer is probably better.

Bontrager has a new line of lights this year. I’d have to draw a line on using them to race. They are too bright and would make racing less safe. When I’m racing a nightime criterium and someone has a light on, it bugs me to death.