Friday Ramblings: The Revolving Door

This winter and spring one of my teammates that I logged countless miles with was Jason Hartz. He raced religiously throughout the first half of the season, but is now moving to Alaska. Though he and I actually did not race together much this year, his sometimes-futile tenacity in bike races made racing exciting, something I cannot say I do to my own races enough. Riding, racing, and enjoying the occasional beer was pretty darn fun. I wish my pal well as he starts the Alaskan chapter of NCVC.

On the flipside, two of my now-former riding pals are coming back to DC for muggy summer internships. Seth O. and D-Wis are both doing their law internships in the district. Seth is up and coming in the Cat 5 and cross ranks. D-Wis, well, most readers of my blog have heard of D-Wis (aka Drew W, Drew2, big Drew, etc.).

If you frequent Hains point and ever have the chance feel the wrath of my suicidal flyers, well, my #1 leadout man is back, suckers! Feel the wrath of D-Wis!

[/arrogance]

- - - -

In an effort to get rid of the inner crit racer, I skipped last weekend's races to ride longer miles. That worked, and then I did an hour of tough tempo to "spin the legs out" on Monday. I never ride on Mondays, so my legs were already tired last night. I did the V-Day/NCVC "hill ride" in Arlington, and followed it up with some more tempo on the GW/NCVC night ride. Yeah, heavy legs after that.

Tonight in the sprints group I was flying mostly solo with my sluggish legs, except for one particularly ruthless leadout from The Professor of NCVC Cat 4s, Chris Chap. We rode near each other for a few laps and he didn't budge until later than I would want.

On one lap, though, he finally asked his legs to cooperate and drove us hard, out-of-the-saddle, in a perfect lead-out speed where you barely want to hold your own man's wheel. Dennis happened to be on my wheel, which was sweet too. Nice 1-2 punch, thanks to good timing from Chap.

Folks seem to be a bit lazy on the non-sprint side at Hains these days. Each lap, for me, there are a few guaranteed occurrences:

- SuperDave and/or Mrs. SuperDave chase a car or triathlete.
- Artemis chases while the rest of the peloton watches.
- Two or three random riders chase Artemis. One gets dropped immediately.
- Siggy gets to the front to get things moving, slowly but surely.
- Peloton talks about the weather.
- Siggy finds himself off the front, sits up.
- Danny from V-Day attacks.
- Siggy looks back to find Drake on his wheel, and we finally ramp it up.

The rest of the lap gets a bit less rigid in agenda, but here are some possibilities:

- SuperDave hits mach 2.0 and is never seen again.
- A tour bus interrupts the chase to the "breakaway."
- Siggy wastes energy pulling the break back.
- After taking a pull, Siggy finds a slot near the front, wheelsucks, and attacks after the double sewers.
- The entire peloton chases a dude in aero-bars at 34 mph.
- Gaps ensue; only three people hang on. Cyclists are scattered throughout Southwest DC.

Each of those happened at least once tonight, though I am obviously discounting a plug for all of the familiar faces that joined us tonight. Noteable events not included in the previous lists include "Siggy gets schooled by DJ Brew" and "Cliff pips [insert your name here] at the line." There was also one instance of "Siggy shamelessly wheelsucks a Harley dude."

Fun stuff, no? Here's the Garmin data for tonight. (You can tell which sprint was Chapel's lead-out, hitting 37.2 mph). According to multiple sources, Hains was also the one part of the metropolitan area that did not get stormed on. Win.


- - Now for something completely different... - -

Baseball and cycling could not be more different as sports. One focuses on hand-eye coordination, the other on pure physical endurance. One is the American pastime, the other and ignored, red-headed stepchild in American athletics.

I am not sure if it is an unfortunate, then, that I have read so many comparisons between the two sports in a short time frame. Yet none of the articles have much to say about athletics. Instead, they ask, "Is Floyd Landis the Jose Canseco of cycling?" You tell me by clicking here, here, and here.

What baffles me most about Landis' allegations against Armstrong & co. is actually the response of Armstrong's team, Radioshack. Most teams whose riders fall under suspicion of doping protect themselves before they protect the individual. They would insist they had nothing to do with it, and prevent the rider from racing.

During Operacion Puerto, entire teams stopped racing because of a scandal involving a few names. Now a team may be implicated, and they're turning a cold shoulder. I was under the impression that all of the ProTour teams had an agreement that no rider under investigation was supposed to race. (Not an official rule of the UCI, just an agreement between the ProTour teams.)

Perhaps Armstrong and Radioshack are not yet officially under investigation, and perhaps the constant doping accusations that Armstrong has combated for the past decade make this deny, deny, deny approach the appropriate and predictable response. There are rumors of a possible federal investigation on Armstrong and Tailwind Sports, the company that owns the Radioshack team. Yet the investigation seems likely to be searching to penalize fraud and conspiracy, not doping.

Surely Radioshack has a unique circumstance, the team pretty much is Armstrong, but it is not just Armstrong who is being accused of misbehavior this time. The entire management is being hung to dry with the Boss. Radioshack vehemently denied Landis' allegations, of course, but with federal investigations looming, I found this to be a suspiciously defensive, if not a disrespectfully indifferent direction. Their response is also a sharp contrast to the statement by Garmin-Transitions which asks for only the truth and transparency. (Say it ain't so: Could Dave Z. surprise us with a confession?)

To me, the realization that something is afoul smacked me across the face when I saw replays from the 2001 Tour de France on Versus. On every mountain finish, the racers tempo, the tactics, and the attacks were an order of power more so than they are even today. (Contador does not even attack and drop everyone with that many kilometers to go!)

I entered the sport in the heyday of US Postal and Lance Armstrong. As an obsessive fanatic for everything pro cycling now, I have no shame in thinking I was duped. It will be hard to continue to believe what I was seeing, whether or not the house of grand tour contenders in the ProTour as we know it burns to the ground.

- - - -

Landis, Heras, Vinokourov, Basso, Schumacher, Piepoli & Ricco, Ullrich, others and even Armstrong: They were once the heroes of a sport we love. Now, even though some are still contenders, they impress me as much as the hot chicks in high school that got fat during college.

We've moved on and are underwhelmed. Their heyday is over; there is no reason to swoon any longer. There are now better names to watch for. Here's to the up-and-comers:



Hopefully they're clean.


- - Back to your usual programming... - -

I think all of us Hains Point regulars need a friendly reminder. Here is one of my favorite-ever Hains Point posts, from Le Amateur Domestique.

Have a good weekend. Skip the barbecues and get some riding in.