Last weekend I went to the World Cycling League event in Carson, CA.  I don’t usually attend bicycle races to watch, but I don’t really race on the track, so I didn’t have that feeling like I think I should be racing.

Track racing is exciting.  The structure is that the league is divided up into 6 teams, with pretty equal rider strength distribution.  The races go off one after another.  Most of the races are pretty standard, but they do throw in twists which make the events more exciting.

I saw a ton of people I knew.  All the track guys from around here, Nelson Vails, Shawn Wallace, Dave Letteri, etc.  Wayne Stetina from Shimano was there, along with his wife, Barb.  Lots of people from my past.

The funny part of the evening was when I was pulling into Dominguez Hills, it was a traffic jam.  People were directing all the cars to a far away parking lot.  There were tons of cars.  Everyone was walking back towards the venue.  I was thinking this was going to be the most well attended bicycle race in decades.  Little did I realize that the LA Galaxy was playing across the way and nearly all the people were going there.  I felt silly.

But, the people that watched the Galaxy could have been easily enjoying the track racing.  It was super excity.

Upon entering the velodrome, I immediately recognized a familiar voice, that of Brian Drebber. I couldn’t come close to counting how many races I’ve done that Brian has announced, 100’s.  I missed the voice and knowledge behind it.  After the race, Wayne and I went over and said a quick hi to Brian.  He is a great guy.

The Pennsylvania team coached by Gibby Hatton won the competition.  I didn’t know many of the riders, other than Dave Chauner’s son, Michael, who was racing.  All the guys and girls looked like they knew what they were doing.  It was exciting bike racing.

I’m not sure where the next event is going to be held.  Hopefully this will get some traction and it will be a circuit.  Everyone involved seems dedicated to the success.  I hope it works out for them.  Here’s a link to all the results from the weekend.

Trinidad’s Kwesi Browne of the winning PA Lightning outsprints Britain’s Matthew Rotherham of Connecticut Nor’Easter in the 500 meter sprint of Saturday night’s World Cycling League launch.

Brian Drebber taking a second from announcing to say hi. Wayne Stetina below.

Shelly Versus. She has more energy than anyone I’ve ever met.

A photo my friend, Jack Funk, took of Tucker, last weekend at the Perry Road Race.

The stories of the drug cheat, turned drug dealer, that surfaced last week is surely going to be an ongoing topic of conversation.  We have to assume that there are names of guys floating around out there that purchased items, other than clothing, from Nicolas Brandt-Sorensen.

I saw that Eric Marcotte was the rider that Nick had beaten at the Master’s Nationals in 2011. The same Eric Marcotte that went on to win the Professional Nationals Road Champions and the Professional National Criterium Championships.  I’ve raced against Eric lots and lots and if this guy beat Eric in a sprint, then red flags should have been up instantly.

Anyway, I saw an article over at Cyclingtips that really delves deeper into the whole background of Thorfinn-Sassquatch.  It is pretty good journalism, nothing like you get here.  Read it here.

It shows two sides of this dude.  I guess it is just up to an individual which side you choose to attribute as his real personality.  He is obviously a very mixed up individual.

This Strava thing is kind of a quandary.  Some people take Strava KOM’s very seriously.  I’m assuming that there are many people in Los Angeles that base a fair amount of the emphasis on Strava.  Having this doped dude destroy iconic LA climbs and hold the KOM’s seems wrong. But cheating in Strava is like cheating in Zwift or  maybe even in cycling in general.  It is very hard to get caught and there really no punishment if caught.  This guy is obviously caught, but his 800+ KOM’s are going to be there for a long while.

I have to agree with Lee Rodgers about his assessment of Bob Roll’s take on the story.  You can see Bob’s video a couple posts ago.  Cheating in cycling isn’t justified by money.  You can see Lee’s post here at PEZ Cycling News.

Anyway, it is thought provoking.  I thought I was done with it, but it isn’t the normal case of doping in sports.  It is way more complex.

Thorfinn has moved onto Strava KOM’s on fatbike descents now. You don’t have to stay so lean for this.

Tucker plays with just about anything. He really hasn’t chewed anything of real importance up yet.