Steve Tilford

I’ve only had the “pleasure” to write the name Maxim Iglinskiy down on one occasion. And it wasn’t when he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2012. It was in a post I wrote back in May of 2012 about Bradley Wiggins training in Tenerife and how the Astana team director, Alexander Vinokourov gushed praise upon Iglinskiy for finally getting his shit together, at age 31, and having his breakthrough moment. I implied that having two high altitude training camps in Tenerife, before the classics, seemed more than just a little screwy.

Now the Iglinskiy brothers, Maxim and Valentin, both who have been riding for the MPCC clean team, Astana, have both provisionally tested positive for EPO usage. Man, what a surprise?

This whole things stinks. Maxim helped his team mate, Vincenzo Nibali secure his win in the 2014 Tour de France. Neal Rogers wrote a great piece at Velonews.com, explaining a lot of the past history of Maxim and Astana and the implications for the Astana Team, since they are members of MPCC.

These guys have been riding for Astana for pretty much their whole careers. Winning races and getting paid a ton. They can now sit back and enjoy the fruits of their “labors”. Those labors, that once again, robbed honest sportsmen of their true victories.

Isn’t it just about time that the sanctions step up to the crimes. I never want to see either of these guys racing bikes again. For that matter, I don’t want to see anyone in an Astana jersey racing bikes again.

In my humble opinion, Vinokourov’s win at the London OIympic Games made a huge joke of the sport of cycling. It might be the low point of the sport, in the current age of anti-doping efforts. Worse than Lance winning 7 Tours? Probably. Yes, The Olympic Games are special and the gold medals need to be worn by the pure, worn by true sportsman. Nothing these guys do fall into that category.

The beat just keeps going on.

Here’s a nice photo to be charished, from Robb Nixon’s fickr account, of Robb, Maxim and Vino hanging together at a start $$$ race in Chihuahua, Mexico.

I am flying back to Cable from San Diego today. I’m sitting in the Phoenix airport right now, waiting for the flight to Minneapolis. Yesterday, I was riding around Rancho Santa Fe at temperatures approaching 100 and tonight the low in Cable might dip into the 20’s. That is a big change.

I posted that I was pretty hot riding at 90 degrees and someone left a comment about me not being acclimated to the Midwest heat this year. That is for sure. I’ve missed most of the hot weather this year, either being up in Wisconsin or out in the Colorado mountains. Now it is October, which means I pretty much missed summer heat all summer.

Tomorrow, my friends Pat Lemieux and Gwen Jorgensen are getting married at the Rivers Eatery in Cable. My friend Dennis is marrying them. Tonight there is an early reception at the Sawmill Saloon in Seeley. I’m getting back to Minneapolis at 2 something and am going to rent a car to do the 3 hour drive up to Seeley. Pat’s sister is flying in for the wedding and is going to return the car for me on Sunday.

It should be a pretty great weekend. Lots of friends are coming up to Cable for the wedding and it is going to be a pretty low-key event. Just a gathering of friends and family, really not formal.

The guy next to me on the flight from San Diego to Phoenix told me he always pays $40 at the gate to board early. I find it strange how people will pay for choice and comfort, I guess. I’m flying Southwest, so it isn’t like there is an extra leg room or anything.

Anyway, modern travel still amazes me. Being able to travel so far, so fast, sometimes seems nearly impossible. I never fail to appreciate it.