I saw this article at Velonews that quotes the guy from Sky, Tim Kerrison, that is training Chris Froome, plus he was Bradley Wiggins coach too, and he says that clean riders can perform better than the doping riders of the past.  I find this statement insulting to all athletes.  Clean or doped.   I think he is full of shit.

It is insulting to clean riders because it implies that they aren’t training correctly and thus, performing at a subpar level.  It is insulting to the doped riders, saying that even though they might have a 20% unnatural advantage, they aren’t good enough to beat a properly trained clean rider.

Here’s my observation from years of athletics.  Sports in general, advance at a snail’s pace. Times, abilities and such improve slowly in established sports.  Obviously, in new sports like snowboarding and jumping on bicycles are advancing much faster because those sports are in their infancy.

And sports that involve technique have the opportunity to do a huge advancements, through  major changes of that, technique.  The Fosbury Flop in high jump comes to mind.  Also Bill Koch with his skating technique in nordic skiing or the dolphin kick in swimming.  Aero bars in time trialing in cycling is another example.

But endurance sports, that have been going on forever, like over 100 years, the improvements are relatively slow.  When there are gigantic athletic improvements in running, cycling and such, it throws up huge red flags.

When a coach that has the success of training 3 out of the last 4 Tour de France winners says that it is possible for clean riders to perform better than the doped riders of the past, well, that is just stupid in this day and age.

It is way too close to the time when virtually  every single race was won by a doped rider, to be saying stupid stuff like this.  If the guy’s timeframe is in decades or centuries, not in months or years, then maybe, just maybe, it might eventually happen.  But implying that current riders can perform on par with doped riders of the recent past is nuts.  Maybe he was comparing clean riders to doping way, way past, like when they used to use strychnine or guinea pig sperm?

Forget the performance bump these guys are getting in competition.  I’d like him to explain what a clean riders can do to recover instantaneously like the guys that took the oxygen vector and steroids.  I’d like to see a clean Chris Froome sit at the front of the field of the Tour de France and set tempo for three weeks, day after day.

Maybe he didn’t follow the sport when sprinters turned into climbers and climbers turned into time trialists.  That is a trick I’d like to see him duplicate.

He also said that Lance “cheated to race not to train”.  So when Lance was doing the whole Tour the month before the Tour, or when he was doing repeats up L’Alpe d’ Huez, Ventoux or whatever,  for training, Tim doesn’t think wasn’t doping for that?

Meldonium, the drug that Maria Sharapova was caught using in tennis, is relatively unknown to most of us.   But, according to WADA, 98 other athletes have tested positive for it since January 1st of this year.  Speedskaters, the Tokyo Marathon winner, cyclists, obviously a lot of guys.

These drugs do make athletes way better.  Not just incremental improvements in performance.
The article says that Tim has implemented a completely new training regiment for Team Sky this year.  I’m pretty big on changing up a recipe that has been smearing guys in grand tours for the last few years.  That isn’t how I do it.  I try to experiment with small things, see if they work, then work them into the general training regiment.

But that is the training from a guy that has limited himself with disbelief.

Tucker is usually adorable when he sleeps.

Yesterday it was kind of an iffy day.  It was unseasonable warm once again, but super cloudy and breezy.  And there were isolated showers moving through continually.

I’m not a fair weather bike rider.  I’ll pretty much ride in anything.  But here in Kansas, you can usually, if you have the time, just wait out the storm, and eventually it will clear and you can go about your business.

I don’t think I was thinking very clearly yesterday or something, because I dressed for the current temperature, which was in the mid 60’s and got on my bike with just a sleeveless jersey on with a sleeveless wind jacket in my pocket.

I’d sealed up some tires and was going to ride my gravel/cross bike over to Lawrence on gravel. I figured I could miss some of the wind and it would be a little warmer riding slower, and harder, on the gravel, thus the sleeveless jersey at 65.

The wind was coming from the west at about 30, so I had a pretty good tailwind riding east to Lawrence.  My bad luck was the weather was coming from the southwest, thus behind me and I couldn’t see it.

When I got to Lawrence, these big rain drops starting falling right when I got to the coffee shop.  I didn’t get very wet, but when I looked back to where I needed to return, the sky was black.

I went in and got a cup of coffee and checked out the radar.  It was ugly.  I was under dressed and had to ride directly back into a storm.

I make it a point to not get picked up while on rides. I ride home.  I think I’ve been picked up while on a ride maybe twice in my life.  And both those times was when my bicycle physically couldn’t progress any further.

I sat there a bit and saw a small gap in the storms on the radar, so headed out.  The temperatures had dropped into the lower 50’s and it was wet, but not pouring.  I was still in Lawrence when the thunder and lightning started.  I was a little spooked, but intellectually figured that hardly anyone gets hit by lightning and it wouldn’t really matter, because if you do, you a pretty instantly dead, so I wouldn’t even know it.

I rode out of the lightning storm pretty quickly and started west.  It wasn’t really raining hard, but I was cold, the temperatures dropping into the 40’s.  When I got to the gravel, I thought I should just stick to the pavement.  But the gravel didn’t look all that wet and it is sheltered from the wind.

So, I creeped back west.  I had a 21.5 mph average over there and was riding back pretty hard at 16.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought.  I was listening to music and then your ears are blocked, the wind seems less for some reason.

The sky back over Topeka was clear.  I got hit with one big downpour, but other than that, I was good.

I was pretty destroyed when I got home.  I kept the average speed over 19 mph for the 70 miles, but was pretty hurt.  I think it was mainly from the cold.  Since I still have his lingering chest thing going on, I’ve supersensitive about exposing myself to extreme conditions.  But, like I said above, I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly when I left.

Anyway, I like trying to avoid the weather.  I love going on rides, with no particular direction planned and riding around thunderstorms.  I think it is great riding onto wet pavement, knowing that you just missed getting poured on.  Or just getting back to the house as the skies open up, that is great too.

It is super rewarding outfoxing the weather.  Didn’t do it this time. Obviously, it doesn’t take much to entertain me, or make me happy riding.  I like pretty much all aspects of the sport, even when the weather isn’t cooperating.

The radar wasn’t good for the ride home.

I bought a oatmeal cookie at Starbucks and the girl asked me if I wanted it warmed up with whipcream. I said sure, figuring I needed all the calories I could get for the ride back.

Sunday we missed the weather, so I’m 50/50 this year avoiding rain.

Tucker gets along pretty great with all the cats now.