Brief diatribe on cycling politics

Preface:

I'm not a professional cyclist nor do I know any personally. I could be completely full of crap. Please feel free to leave a comment even if you disagree with me.

If you follow professional cycling at all, you may tend to look forward to certain races and keeping tabs on certain riders and their teams. I've really been looking forward to this year's Tour de France as I'd like to see Levi Leipheimer improve his 3rd place finish from last year. I also wanted to see his Astana teammate and fellow American, Chris Horner ride another TdF. Last week, the ASO, organizer of the Tour and a bunch of other classic bike races in France declared that Astana would not be invited to any of their events this year. You could debate this issue at length, and it is a deep and convoluted one involving past interactions between the ASO, the UCI and other entities, but since this is my blog I'm going to state that some of these organizing bodies really suck. No transparency, no due process. They break their own rules when it pleases them.

I've come to the conclusion that professional cycling would be better off without the existing organizing bodies. I think the situation would be improved if cyclists disassociated themselves from the UCI, the IOC, WADA and its national bodies. I'd like to see them all gone, flushed goodbye. Let cyclists organize and manage their sport to their liking. Government Of, By and For the Cyclists.

If cyclists worked with parties interested in organizing events for the benefit of cyclists, they wouldn't be at the mercy of organizations like the ASO, or the ASO would have to learn to serve the needs of cyclists first. No sporting group owns the roads. If the ASO won't throw a good party, organize a better one yourselves. If pro cycling teams don't learn to play hard ball with ASO, RCS and Unipublic, more will find themselves in the same position as Unibet and Astana. All dressed up with no place to go and soon out of sponsorship. Kind of ironic that the teams had the chance to put collective pressure on ASO last year prior to Paris - Nice, and they declined. When the UCI subsequently backed down, they all handed the reins to the independent organizers who are now dictating terms to the rest of the cycling world. Of course, RCS followed suit and Unibet couldn't find a big race to attend, and they had to fold. Anybody else wondering how long Astana will last? You could write a cheap novel about Russian (or Kazakh) gangsters getting ready to hunt down Christian Prudhomme and shoving a bike frame up his ass before strangling him with a blue and yellow jersey.

Maybe I'm naive, but the case of Floyd Landis is one where a guy gets screwed over by a bureaucracy that's chasing its own agenda instead of serving the truth. I believe Floyd is clean. I have years of experience dealing with sampling and analytical issues and I wouldn't trust the French lab to find the bottom of an empty coffee cup. And the ass backward "hearing" that was able to rule against Landis' defense is an example of a process that serves an agenda, not the truth. Sorry, I know I'm shifting my vitriol between both sides of the issue. I see ASO/RCS/Unipublic as the other side of the coin as the UCI/IOC/WADA. Different side of the same screwed up relationship, each group as fundamentally fucked up and wrong as the other. When people say cycling is dirty, they're right but they're overlooking the worst offenders.

Please consider supporting Levi and Astana's cause by visiting LetLeviRide.com. Sign the petition, email the ASO and voice your displeasure. Hey it won't do jack but it can't hurt to speak up.


Ride safely out there.

Dismal cycling results

To make a long story short, my performance on the bike has sucked. My power numbers have declined steadily since 1/29. I tried resting a bit but my power tonight was horrible and my legs started burning less than 15 minutes into my workout. Maybe the effort I've put in fencing and playing lacrosse is preventing me from pushing harder. I'm fairly concerned about this but not sure whether I should be resting, pushing, seeking medical advice or ignoring the numbers. I'm waiting to see what things are going to feel like on the road in a few weeks.

Fencing went pretty well this week. We bouted all night on Thursday using the electric gear, then had an extra practice Friday. Saturday we fenced in a non-sanctioned team tournament. We got housed but we had fun and our coach took 1st in team epee with two of his old buddies.

Last night's lacrosse game was a blast. We were a little short handed so we played 5 on 5 full field with 1 sub each. Running full field wore me down a lot faster but my recovery wasn't bad. Had a lot of trouble catching the ball. No in game injuries though and my joints feel pretty decent today.