Dad winning some race somewhere

I’ve been called by various people the joker of the cycling industry, described as “someone who loves the sport enough to laugh at it” and I often enjoy a joke at my own expense. I’ve also been known to get into fights, yell at people, drink more than what is socially acceptable and be too competitive. For good or bad all of these traits I get from my Irish dad. He was the original, “Shit my dad says” saying the most outrageous things to get a rise out of people. My British mom passed on more sensible genes and better ears than the ones dad has protruding from his head.

Last month, just before I was about to go live on my Versus Tour de France chat, my mom called. She immediately got to the point, “Your dad has terminal lung cancer and has months to live.” Needless to say I was a little shocked.

Dad had some health issues earlier this year but nothing that suggested cancer. He is a non-smoker and an ex-pro bike racer. Now he is sitting in a chair with cancer that has taken over his lung, kidney, and liver. It has also worked it’s way into his bones causing a lot of pain and he’s taking the most morphine that you can legally have. My younger brother and sister are in England now and I join them tomorrow to help out as much as I can. As the time nears for the trip the harder it is to realize that this will be the last time I will see him alive.

My mom said dad is drawing some strength from America’s seven time Tour de France champion saying, “Lance Armstrong beat this so I can too.” He is as comfortable as he can be watching past editions of the Tour de France on the DVD player. “He’ll enjoy watching them with you.”

Right now I have no great insight into what is going on – just trying to remember all the times we had together. He told great stories of bike racing, fights and other random stories. I’ve put together a photo album for him showing him Greenville, South Carolina. One regret I do have is that he’ll never see Greenville – I think he would have liked it.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be off the radar but I’ll continue to post when or if the mood strikes.

George trying to get to the start

My G’ville buddies made the hop across the pond to Belgium, the home of the Classics, witnessing the Tour of Flanders first hand. And when your connections include Rich Hincapie of Hincapie Sportswear, clothing sponsor of BMC, you know they got hooked up. Randy Owens had his trigger finger on the camera and shot some cool photos from Flanders. Check them out here.

I'm going pro blogger with VS next week

I’ve had a busy time lately. Launched a new web site that is focused on cycling in the Southeast – www.CarolinaCyclingNews.com. This came about because I had the hardest time finding information that was accurate, up to date and in one location. It was scattered all over like Waffle House hash browns. That’s how I like my breakfast, but not my racing information. So if you live/race or are going to race in the Southeast take a look at the site. It’s still in its infancy and more changes/updates will be coming. Everyone should be tuned in during the US Pro when we’ll be featuring extra coverage of the race.

On top of that I got some really cool news the other day. Out of the blue my cell phone rings – it’s from Versus. Naturally I assumed it was about the alleged pirate cable box I hacked or the crank calls to Liggett of which I’m also accused. Turns out they read my blog, like it and asked me if I could write for them! So starting next week look for a weekly blog from yours truly. Now I need to come up with a catchy title for this literary masterpiece. If anyone out there has an idea for a title drop me a comment. And I’m not offering any prizes because you can’t put a price on the satisfaction of knowing you contributed.

However, with all this stuff going on I’m still going to take a “mental heath day” this Sunday and watching Tour of Flanders. To optimize my viewing pleasure and because I was getting lazy about dragging my laptop out and connecting it to my TV, I bought a small desktop computer to tether to my forty-two inches of television goodness. So all I need to do is turn on my TV, press the on button for the computer and boom, I’m on line and viewing Euro race coverage. If there’s no English speaking broadcasts or that Scottish guy is doing commentary I’ll be Twittering translations throughout the race.

I still gotta watch that damn Netflix movie

I have a favorite but I don’t want to jinx it, so I’m keeping it to myself. Some riders are saying it’s going to be a smaller group and others point to the change in the course that will keep things interesting. Either way you slice it I’ll be eating waffles with Nutella spread, drinking strong Euro coffee and yelling like a crazed tifosi.

Speaking of interesting – Pozzato, a favorite at Flanders, was struck by a stomach problem. I wonder if he has kids or is doing charity work for children?

Armstrong and Landis united by the same disease - an upset stomach

Like most people this past weekend I was expecting a great showdown at the Criterium International between the two current titans of cycling: Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador. The media built the hype like it was the shootout at the O.K. Corral. However as we know, it was all blanks. Contador said he suffering from allergies and Armstrong in a post-stage 1 interview said that his lack of form was stemming from an absence of racing and a bout of gastroenteritis he contracted. “When you have four kids you manage to pick up what they have.”

Stateside I was looking forward to Floyd Landis’ debut in the Bahati Foundation colors at the Redlands Classic. However Landis did not start the final stage on Sunday. A Twitter post from the team’s director said that Landis had not been feeling well the days prior and he had decided to not start stage 3. Upon further investigation and using my many sources I discovered that Landis was suffering from a stomach virus. Now this is where it gets interesting.

Seven-time Tour de France winner is felled by a virus he contracted from his own kids and now Landis, riding for a team that supports kids, is also knocked out of competition by the same virus.

Coincidence – I think not. What does this mean – I have no idea. Will I be following up on this story – I doubt it.

Tour of Missouri rolls out for stage 1 - will it be the last time?

RadioShack Giro update at bottom of post

Every morning for quite a while I have woken up and connected my laptop to watch streaming video of a European race. Sunday, out of habit, I started to hook up my laptop to my big screen when I realized there wasn’t anything to watch. However a Facebook update from Sean Weide, press liaison for BMC, said that he was monitoring a race. If Weide is montoring something, it has to be worth watching. Next thing you know I’m watching Eneco Ronde van het Groene Hart. Admittedly I’m not too familiar with this race but it looked like the steepest hill was a freeway overpass. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. In the end Vacansoleil’s Jens Mouris broke away and soled in to win. That kind of victory is always cool to watch. I’m going to try that one day. Thanks for the heads up Sean and another victory for social media.

I have always been pleasantly surprised about how popularity of the Tour of Missouri. Fans packed both the start and finishing areas of all the stages. When the peloton rolled through the towns it seemed like everyone poured out to line the road and watch. Last year, by the skin of its teeth, the Tour of Missouri survived. This year, it isn’t looking so good. Unfortunately the race has become a political football between the governor and the lieutenant governor of Missouri. A grassroots effort was started with a Facebook Page supporting the race. Racers are chiming as well trying to sway the powers to be that this race is a good investment. For crying out loud, Jens Voigt came back from his awful Tour de France crash at this race and gave it big praise (WWJD – What Would Jens Do?). For that reason alone this race must continue! To show your support go to the Tour of Missouri website. The organization has listed ten things you can do to help save this race. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping it doesn’t go the way of the Tour de Georgia.

More recently Milan-Sanremo was the race that caught all our attention. It was going to be the big showdown between Boonen, Petacchi, Boasson Hagen, Freire, and last year winner’s Mark Cavendish. As we all know poor Cav has had some teeth issues and hasn’t been up to form. At best he was a very outside chance for victory. What was interesting was the HTC-Columbia put their full support behind the rider from the Isle of Mann and kept off the roster a rider who has already won ten times this year – Andre “The Hulk” Greipel. On Sunday, with Cavendish coming in over six minutes back, he let his frustrations known about being excluded. Who wants to bet me that Greipel won’t be riding for the boys in yellow next season. Interesting thought – jump ship and go to The Shack. Boom – you got a guy with the instant ability to win Classics. You’re welcome. Okay, you might have to hire on some leadout guys as well.

Speaking of the Shack things got a little testy on the Twittersphere. It was reported that RCS Sport, the owners of the Giro, left RadioShack off from the list of invited teams. Johan Bruyneel responded with a Tweet and then later in his blog saying that they had in fact sent a letter to RCS stating that the Shack wouldn’t be participating and that Cyclingnews should check their facts. Well I checked around in past emails and press releases and I couldn’t find anything about the team declining to race in Italy and had instead decided to focus on the Tour of California. Understandable – American team with American sponsors. But why not release this information to the media in January so you can control it the way you want to?

Will this pissing match continue? Will RadioShack be flicked from other RCS events like the Giro di Lombardia? Perhaps the team will want to race the Giro in 2011 – will they be invited? Oh, the drama. I recommend sending a Vermont Teddy Bear with the message “Sorry we couldn’t make it to your race this year ” to RCS.  Those bears have always gotten me out of a bind.

I’m loving that at least the other American teams are racing in Italy which means my boys in red Team BMC. It looks like an on-form Cadel Evans will be there. I’m wondering if this is prep for the Tour or is he going for the overall? George will be racing the Tour of California where he could snag a stage win. Team BMC has the depth to pull off wins on both continents. I’m looking forward to May. Fortunately April is right around the corner which is cycling’s version of March Madness.  Starting next month I’m just going to leave my laptop tethered to my t.v.
UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE
So I did some more poking around concerning RadioShack not contesting the Giro d’ Italia. While on the RadioShack team web site there is no press release stating that the Giro wasn’t in the big picture for the Shack, however Johan Bruyneel’s Facebook page has the proposed 2010 racing calendar and glaringly obvious by omission is the Giro.

Now I know an official Facebook page probably isn’t the most efficient way to disseminate information ( you have to belong to Facebook as well as check the site and filter through the thousands of random messages). But none the less there it was – no Giro on the RadioShack race schedule. Actually way back in December Joe Lindsey brought this to our attention but hey, it was a long holiday and we forgot. However the question remains, why not just issue a press release in January confirming the race schedule posted on the Facebook page? This is where it gets complicated.

There is a bit of wheeling and dealing that goes on when you are trying to invite teams to your race. What I know about how teams get invited to the Tour of California is interesting and a blog post to follow soon. It’s not always about what team is the strongest. Anyways I’ll save that one for later…

What I’m thinking is Bruyneel was keeping his cards close to his chest and by posting the schedule on his Facebook page he playing poker with RCS, “Due to sponsorship obligations the RadioShack team is not participating in the Giro…blah, blah, blah…” This gives the Giro’s race director Angelo Zomegnan an opportunity to offer something to entice the team to Italy. Instead it looked like Zomegnan retaliated by snubbing the team and not inviting them to Tirreno-Adriatico – an RCS event. There also might be some lingering polemics when Armstrong was the ringleader of rider protests during stage 9 of  last year’s Giro.

Either way you slice it, this whole hubbub could have been avoided by just issuing a press release saying, “Suck it, we’re racing in Cali!” Those are my words, not Bruyneel’s.

Bobbie scores himself some ass

That was an interesting weekend. The Belgians got flicked from the two classics that had their name all over it.

Of the past ten editions of Omloop Het Nieuwsbladand, six have been won by Belgians. Out of the abysmal weather conditions came Spaniard Juan Antonio Fleche. He’s been known as the guy who comes close, but doesn’t seal the deal. I think he got the extra speed knowing that the Sky super-bus with individually warmed captain chairs were waiting for him.

The real kick to the junk was the following day at Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne. As you know weather conditions were the factor in that day’s race. And out of these miserable conditions another surprise winner – Bobbie Traksel. Unlike Fleche, Traksel rides for the Vacansoleil squad whose budget isn’t quite on par with Sky. Traksel played it smart and saved his effort for the right moment, about 150 meters from the line.

“I still can not believe but I am proud of the donkey that I got a late winner. Every year I was jealous of the winner who went home with that ass,” said an elated Traksel. That’s a quote I like to hear!

"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

Hometown hero George Hincapie is still suffering from the effects of a cold and didn’t have a good weekend. I spoke to his brother Sunday afternoon and he said that George told him the conditions were horrible. If George says they were bad, than they were bad.

Speaking of asses I think I was a little too much over the top at this weekend’s races. I purposely swerved at the race photographer during Saturday’s race. She was crouched on the side of the country road snapping away. I had confidence in my mad swerving skillz, but apparently she wasn’t amused and slugged me the following day.

Then Sunday after our race I shocked my teammate by whipping out my Sport Kilt and getting disrobed under the team tent.

“Are you wearing anything under that?” said my obviously confused teammate.
“No. It feels good.”
I think I’m now “that odd guy from SoCal.”

As anyone who has seen me at the CBR races back in SoCal knows I enjoy the cool breeze that wearing a Sport Kilt can offer. And I’m not alone in that. I’m saying that back in SoCal everyone is wearing a Sport Kilt as usual post-race wear, but I never stood out from the group for making that fashion choice. And lets be real, after a couple of hours in a chamois it’s nice to feel the breeze.

I meant to write something about this earlier but I’m glad to see that the Twitter war of words between Jonathan Vaughters and Lance Armstrong is back on. I don’t know why I like to see this 140-character drama being played out in front of millions, but I just do.

The Twitter battle started a couple of weeks ago when Johnathan Vaughters in an interview with the TimesOnLine.com was quoted as saying, “In 2009, the tactics worked in his favor [Wiggins] and Astana were soft-pedaling a bit to not embarrass Lance [Armstrong].” Armstrong responded on Twitter with, “I won’t be forgetting this comment anytime soon. #whatatool” Vaughters clarified his remark on Versus.com and it seemed like the pissing match was over. But was it?

Last week or so Vaughters put out an innocuous Twitter post, “I taught my son the word “shart” today about 4 hrs after eating at Wendys. Ah, the joys of fatherhood.” Did anyone think for a second to contact Child Welfare Services in concern for his son? Of course not.

Armstrong retwittered Vaughters’ “shart” post with the additional comment added, “Classy”. Looks like the Twitter war was back on! I can’t wait till the moment Armstrong rides past Vaughters in the caravan and gives him, “The Look”™.

It’s been a full week for me and I’ve been pulled in numerous directions. Of course we have the Olympics in full swing, which has kept me captivated during prime time, the Team Type 1 training camp and banging out interviews with their riders, the Volta Algarve showing how well everyone’s off-season training is progressing, Landis on Larry King with his “exclusive” interview, and finally the event we were all waiting for – Tiger Woods’ apology. So with all that going on I’ve barely had time to write or even train. C’est la vie.

"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

I took a quick trip south to Gainesville, Georgia to check in with the Team Type 1 boys. The local Holiday Inn was the site for their training camp and they took over the place. The exercise room was piled high with bike boxes and the mechanics building up the team issue Colnagos with full 7900 Dura-Ace. There are plenty of great bikes out there, but you really can’t go wrong with a Colnago. I sat down with the principle riders on the team, but I also spoke to Englishman, James Stout, a rider on the Team Type 1 development squad. He has an interesting background: Oxford graduate, PhD student in Spanish studies, teaching history at the University of San Diego, professional cat 3 racer, part-time model and possible terrorist. Hopefully soon I’ll transcribe the interview and post it. I honestly had a good time talking to him.

I was invited to ride with the team during the camp and I was prepared until the day’s route was outlined. It included several climbs that the Tour de Georgia featured. Also, the team would be riding “full gas” with hill-top primes. I did a gut check but still thought I’d tag along. Then when I woke up for the morning ride the outside temperature was about 26 degrees. Screw that! I hit the snooze button and went back to sleep.

Not all was lost as I banged out interviews when the riders returned and ran up the team’s bar tab in the hotel. Pretty standard stuff.

While I was there I was also in the middle of trying to post my “exclusive” interview with Floyd Landis. His name popped up in the international press as the French issued a failure to appear summons against him. This resulted in a media storm that amazed both Landis and myself. He still can’t believe that during the Olympics his computer hacking story was, at times, the lead! If you missed his Larry King interview it’s posted here.

Finally, the Volta Algarve must be sending tremors through the peloton. Contador takes today’s mountain stage with Leipheimer in third. Sure, the terrain is nothing compared to what Contador will face in July, but the mental games have begun.

After taking the leader’s jersey Contador said, “I am thrilled by the work that has been done by the team. Everything has gone perfect. I was able to finish the job, but victory is primarily because of my teammates.” While his individual performance was strong, I’m holding off judgment on the depth of the Astana Tour squad.

From race reports it looked like he had a lead-out to the bottom of the climb and he lit it up from there. The Cyclocosm blog pointed out an interesting quote from Armstrong back in 2004. I wonder how many sit-ups Platinum Fitness is making him bust out right now?

Wish me luck on this weekend’s racing. I’ll be toeing the line at the Greenville Spring Series and flying the flag for the Hincapie Development team. Tomorrow morning before my race I’m a guest once again on The FredCast podcast. I’ll try to be enlightening.

This week I put on my coaching hat and conducted three back to back anaerobic threshold tests in the basement of Hincapie Sports. Getting this number will help them calculate their training zones and fine tune their training efforts. Now I hope they actually train within the prescribed heart rate zones. When I talk to other coaches we always discuss how easy it is to get riders to train hard. The challenge is to get them to ride in the easier zones when necessary. It’s not always “full gas”.

"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

It’s good to see the Hincapie Development guys fired up about the upcoming season and particularly for the Greenville Spring Series races. I did a recon ride of the River Falls road race course and I like it. It has an uphill finish that starts off a little steep and then the gradient decreases a few degrees to the line. The one challenge I see in that course is the run-up to the climb. It is flat and straight and I can already tell there will be a lot of nervous riders trying to get to the front at the beginning of that climb. I think I’m going to do well there or blow up spectacularly on the hill. I can’t wait for that race.

I’m a big fan of new tech or new applications, but I’m still figuring out the worth of Google’s Buzz. It’s like Twitter in that you have followers and you can follow people as well. However, Buzz isn’t limited by 140 characters like Twitter so you can use it to send documents and videos. However, I’m not sure why I would use this. It reminds me of Wave email that Google came out with a few months ago. Everyone was so excited about it and were begging to get invites to Beta test it. I have it, tried to use it and didn’t know what the hell to use it for. And like Buzz, no one I know uses it. For now I’ll stick to tried and true email and Twitter to disseminate all of my socially critical messages.

Stage 6 - a buzz kill

Speaking of buzz, I was pumped when the Tour of California announced that stage 6 was going to end in a mountaintop finish in Big Bear. Finally, a stage that could do some real damage and shake up the GC! Today they rolled out the details of this Queen stage and I’m wondering if AEG heard the collective groans of disappointment from journalists and Levi Leipheimer. While the stage climbs up Big Bear, there is a six-mile flat run-in to the finale. Talk about a buzz kill! The Tour of Utah does it right with a real climb up Snow Bird and actually finishing on an incline.

While on the subject of cool things in Utah I can’t wait to see Burke Swindlehurst start racing. I’m still excited about him going solo and bucking the system. I’m wishing him a lot of luck this year. Make sure you follow him on Twitter as well as Facebook. And someone needs to start a Swindlehurst Fan Page for crying out loud!

While Burke is going solo one of my favorite Australians, Rory Sutherland, is on one of the biggest American cycling teams, United HealthCare p/b Maxxis, and he’s filming behind the scenes footage from their training camp in Arizona. Here Rory shows off the new team bus. I wonder who will be the first to blow up the RV’s bathroom. I’m guessing it would be Menzies.

Well it looks like the Twitter war is over before it even got started. Vaughters has clarified his “soft-pedaling” comment on the Versus site, much to my disappointment. I was hoping that it was going to elevate to some real back and forth, possibly dragging Wiggins into the fight creating a virtual Twitter “death-match” – three fighters enter the octagon and only one will survive! This sport needs some shit talking to spice things up. I’m not saying that every interview or press conference should be a chair-tossing, expletive filled tirade of Bobby Knight proportions, but every once in a while something like that would be good. It gets tiring to read the same quotes of, “It was all because of my teammates” or “I got to hand it to my competitors. They were really strong today, but I had a little extra….” More off the cuff comments would get the sport mentioned on the nightly news and, dare to dream, bump off rodeo from Versus. I’m not sure exactly why I have this deep-seated need to see conflict. I blame my parents for not raising me correctly.

"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

You know who has balls of Godzilla like proportions? RadioShack’s Fumy Beppu and I’ll tell you why. He has one year left on a two-year contract with Skil-Shimano and says, hell with that, I’m bouncing over to the Shack. He works a deal with RadioShack and Skil-Shimano finds out he’s racing on SRAM via the internet. Perhaps Beppu simply consulted The Art of War and made his decision to leave Skil-Shimano based on one of Sun Tzu’s tenants. “Every general has heard of these five things. Those who know them prevail, those who do not know them do not prevail. Therefore, use these assessments for comparison, to find out what the conditions are. That is to say, which political leadership has the Way? Which general has ability? Who has the better climate and terrain? Whose discipline is effective? Whose troops are the stronger? Whose officers and soldiers are the better trained? Whose system of rewards and punishments is clearer? This is how you can know who will win.” Clearly the answer is RadioShack. Enjoy the complimentary remote control car and free batteries Beppu.

Browne Eye Media is taking another step forward in total internet domination by now offering an Android Browne Eye app. Since I don’t have an Android phone I would appreciate it that someone show it to me on the next ride.

I told you that there would be crashes with broken collar bones at the Tour of Qatar. Vaughters twittered that Cozza broke his collar bone and Sky’s Kurt Arvesen also went down in the neutral roll-out. And with the cross and side winds being part of the race you can expect more of the same.

"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

Speaking of Twitter I gotta hand it to Vaughters for poking the bear this weekend with this quote on TimesOnLine.com, “In 2009, the tactics worked in his favor [Wiggins] and Astana were soft-pedaling a bit to not embarrass Lance [Armstrong].” Armstrong’s Twitter response, “I won’t be forgetting this comment anytime soon. #whatatool” Oh snap, it’s on now! I’m waiting for Vaughters to reply with a “Your mama” joke.

As you might have noticed Floyd Landis continues to give me the exclusive on what’s he doing and why he’s doing it. As always, when I get something interesting from the Land of Landis I’ll post it. I’ve been promised more videos, so keep your fingers crossed.

Locally the Greenville Spring Series is right around the corner and I’m feeling like I got some snap to the legs. We’ll see soon enough if that’s just delusional thinking due to a good ride yesterday. I’m anxious to race and see what kind of bite this old dog has left in him…