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Sweet Sixteen

A Junior racer from South Africa has tested positive for EPO. 

Omerta!

    Lancelot says he is 'dissapointed' that the French are investigating him for doping.  As long as Lance Armstrong limits his involvement in the dialog about doping to his test results, his name will be clouded with controversy.   Quotes like "I was tested 22 times in 2004 alone. I do not use - and I have never used - doping products" are not enough anymore.  Too many of our sport's top stars test clean, until they slip up and get busted into early retirement.
    I do not condone the witch-hunt skeptics and couch-critic pundits who are so quick to vilify Lance, but I do think he needs to be more open and thorough in his discussion of drugs.  As a cancer survivor and the most recognizable racer in the world, he should be  answering tougher questions.  From what I have seen and read, he is very good at ducking out of giving complete or direct answers, content to stand on test results alone.  The cycling press appears reluctant or unwilling to ask harder questions and push for answers on the links between his disease, the medications designed to fight the disease, the makers of those drugs and the abuse of those drugs in the athletic community.  As long as the press avoids the right questions and Lance clips his answers, there will be plenty of hersay, scuttlebutt and speculation to fuel the controversy.  This is detrimental to both the racing community and the cancer community.
    Regardless of his use or disuse of doping products, LA needs to stand up and disclose in full his relationship with one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world (Bristol Myers Squibb) and explain what medications were used in the treatment of his cancer.  Even if it is proven true that he never has used any performance-enhancing products while racing, I find it impossible to believe that some of the medications widely abused in doping were not used properly by his doctors while he was battling cancer.   I spent four years watching my mother fight and then give in to the disease.  Most of the medications she was on appear on the WADA list.  Even when she was in remission, she was placed on a maintenance program of blood boosters and steroids.  How is it that Lance could survive cancer without some of these drugs?
Silence kills; Omerta.

Homer's Got A Friend In Prague

Decidedly news-of-the-weird and not normal HPT fare, this newslink was too good to pass up. 

As Mr. Simpson would say - Mmmmmmmmmmmbeer.

E.T. Roll Home

Midnight Ridazzz is an experience if you live in LA, or pass through for a visit, and have access to a bike.   Every 2nd Friday of the month they meet at 9:30pm behind the empty Pioneer Market on Sunset/Echo Park Blvd. The ride shoves off at 10pm.  Last week's map was loosely based on the movie E.T.  There was a dude on a BMX as Elliot, with a milk crate and a stuffed panda on the bars.  Another dude had a tyvex cleansuit and a respirator.  There was a full-kit BMX racer, a dude on a Stingray, lots of quirky 'city' bikes,  a bunch of fixies and one-bangers and the rest 'normal' mountain and road bikes. About sixty of us started out and looped through Downtown, Echo, Atwater and then Griffith Park.  Or we went to the bar.  Or both.  I met an unemployed dude on a K-Mart special who rides 80 miles every day, from Boyle Heights to the ocean and back,  just to keep his head straight.  Damn.  There's Cat 4/5 racers, messengers, biker grrls, professor-types, art-hacks and hipsters, all stoping traffic and mucking about in the streets. Funniest moment was when Chef from the Kitchen came up to my girl TT3's Flatbed equipped monocog and said 'now let me check out your rack.' 
Midnight Ridazzz,  it's a hoot.  Check the Bike Kitchen for more info.  Viva!

Willy's Old Ride

Well, this aughta warm your cycling heart. A 76 year-old F.W. Evans racing bike, ridden every day by a 95 year old man?  Viva!

More drivel:  Learn to wrench bikes by mail. 
Fuji tried to give rigs, Shimano is giving loot. 
These generally well trained bastards visit interesting places and post about it. 
Courier Worlds schedule - New Yo'k Cite Yo! 
Get up for Bike Summer 05 lost angles. 
Go ride the boards already! 
Wind sucks.  Blows too.  Sheldon's got a sturdy analysis on riding in the breeze. 
Some North Carolina cons are repairing bikes for the relief effort in SE Asia. 
Here's something on why effort's like Fuji's and the stool pidgeons is misplaced and indigenous cycles are the way to go.

Big Sleep's Ride

Our friend from Penn.,  The Big Sleep, he rides over on another chunk of the same hills as we do.  Sometimes he swings around over to these parts on his Eurocross, but mostly he's been riding this sweet new full boing cross country goat over on his pile of shifty dirt.  You can see his remarks in the comments on some of the recent posts, and some snaps here.  Viva Marco!

Ten By Ten Bike Freaks

Here's a blend of wise and witty, on the why's and whimsy's of riding a cycle.  Some lovely links contained within the list of quotes, brought to you by the folks at Inside Communications. 

Along The Route

There's a new photo album over there, to your right.  It's a pictorial story about the past few weeks of storms, and the impact on our local trails and access roads.  The devestation in La Conchita causes us to question the saftey of our local hills, based on live witnessing of much smaller scale but no less significant landslide activity in the park.  LA Fire Department was surveying the hillside yesterday, even as I dodged newly fallen chunks of stone on my afternoon ride.  Of course, film crews crank away on the lower slopes, taking up the ranger's time and attention while we ride, run, hike and walk dogs un-informed of the danger above.  Not to mention that the old debris has not been cleaned up, so rocks that fell two or three weeks ago in the first storm now add extra danger to collect when new sections give way, as happened yesterday afternoon.  As the winter progresses, we'll try to keep this album updated.
Viva!

pads?! we don't need no stinking pads...

Things look a wee bit grim in the stopage department after the past week's conditions.
Metal on metal is soon come mon.  Hello Kool-Stop?  Nice backwards tire, dummy.

Oh yeah - one of the Belgian's trying to keep up with Sven Nys in World Cup Cyclocross just tested poz for EPO. 

And sad news from the Arenberg Forest, due to land erosion they will no longer run the Paris - Roubaix Classic course through the famous tree-shrouded cobbles. 

Rolling Thunder

SoCal has been deluged, inundated with water from above for four days straight, preceeded by several other mean Aleutian storms.  Two of our Squadra have undertaken some recon sorties through some of the "Hazardous Areas" to file this report for you.  All links are to digisnaps.  Viva.

Today we were able to ride in some wet but open roads, closed to vehicle traffic due to Hazardous Conditions.  We'll show you more examples in the following images.

The Swift Water Rescue team started hanging around the neighborhood, training and eating in the local haunts.

It was certainly lovely between the boomcrak and the chubbyrain.

The last time it rained (two weeks ago) Sellers moved boulders with his super index shifting finger.  Steelman!

Even two weeks back, there were signsof the water's effect on the raw earth.

Hail Los Angeles!  Yes, hail.  Some hiker-dude told me it was snow. Uh, sorry buddy, that's HAIL.  Bouncing like little BB's.   Yahoo.

These BB's don't bounce nice.  More roadside attractions.

Andy Goldsworthy Jr. musta walked by before the hail shower, stacks of rocks - hoo ha.

Then it really started to move.  this is three days in to the soak.  that's around 15 feet deep and running hard.

Up in the hills, trees growing just off the roadside are snapped like twigs in the run-off.

Coyotes were moving in packs as we met the dusk.  This one didn't back down a bit.  Later we saw a much mangier one down in the middle of a sidestreet

 

Grit n grime.  Brakepads got beat today.

Nothing matches the tragedy and devastation just up the coast in Conchita, or overseas in Indoneasia, Africa, India and Iraq.  But this was a significant weather event for southern Cali, and certainly we get a unique perspective on the hills precariously looming over our city.