Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Goldenfiddle imagines what the conversation that lead up to the above scene must have sounded like. Lance is partying with Hollywood types and Livin’ Strong now that he is retired. Matthew Mcconaughey seems to be a mentor or coach to Lance Armstrong as he switches to the monk like existence of a Pro Cyclist to a the lifestyle of a Hollywood raconteur. The only guy missing from this bunch is Jake Gyllenhaul who is set to portray Lance in an upcoming move titled “Brokeback L’Alpe D’Huez”.

FADE IN:

INT. A BEACH HOUSE BATHROOM, MALIBU, CALIFORNIA. NIGHT Matthew Mcconaughey and Lance Armstrong shower, shave, wax, pluck, gel, and get dressed before for a big night at Sky Bar in Los Angeles.

LANCE: Hey, Matt.

MATT: What can I do you for, LA?

LANCE: You gonna wear the linen shirt tonight?

MATT: That’s right.

LANCE: Yeah, me too. Hey, Matt.

MATT: What now, amigo?

LANCE: How many buttons you gonna leave unbuttoned?

read more on Matt and Lance…

That Head On commercial has already acheived cult status, now comes the spoofs. What better combo than Floyd Landis and the Head On product?

(pic from Eurosport)

The Deustchland Tour or Tour of Germany or the D Tour looked to be a chance at redemption for the flayling performance in the Tour for Levi Leipheimer. After a victory in stage 5 Leipheimer looked to be paving the way for another win to honor his German sponsor Gerolsteiner. Jens Voigt had other ideas as he pulled out two consecutive stage wins to dominate the last half of the D Tour.

Voigt has been know to be a tireless worker, a breakaway junkie who was crushed that he lost theaward for most combative rider in the Tour de France to De La Fuentes. Voigt went into oxygen debt to claim a dramatic win in Stage 6 and then win the time-trial in stage 7. That makes three stage wins for the Jens “The Monster” Voigt in what he described as the last chance he could take overall victory in his home Tour. Maybe it was the fact that the course was not too monstrous since a few hard climbs were removed due to inclement weather in stage 5 allowing Voigt to stay within reach. The last twoo stage wins were uncharacteric of Voigt as he beat Leipheimer on a climbing stage and won a time-trial.

This win marks the second mini stage race win of the month with Fabian Cancellara taking the Tour of Denmark that was totally dominated by CSC in their home race. When Jens Voigt won stage 2 in the D Tour it marked a first three race in one day win by CSC. The team is showing that they can get by without Basso if they need to as the Giro champ will go to court at the end of the month to talk to the Judges about Operation Puerto. If Basso goes from Champ to Chump, then Carlos Sastre has not problem being the main man since he is ready to go back to work at the Vuelta. This marks the third Grand Tour of the year which is very uncommon in this age of concentrated road racing. Sastre could also benefit from the Landis situation and find himself on the podium on the Tour after moving up to second in the Vuelta 2005 after Heras’ expulsion. Overall a nice set of tresults for CSC.

I finally have something to write about in the Weekend Warrior section as I completed the Concrete Crit and Circut Race in Rome, NY today. While Giuliano Figueras won the Giro de Lazio on the outskirts of Rome, Italy I was racing in the outskirts of Rome, NY around the former Griffis Air Force Base now a technology park with heavy miliatry presence.

The Concrete races are a low key event. Not a huge turnout for a day that had several other bike related races going on all over upstate New York. The flat natureof the course tempted me to come out and stretch my legs. I have not raced at all in the month of July. The last race was the Rochester Twilight Crit way back on June 24th. The low key nature of the event was a perfect place to test out the legs and see how the fitness has improved.

The Team:
Noel Bonk, Matt Howey and Andy Ross were some of the other Colavita guys present for the races. Rob Walters came by later for the Crit with great results.

Race Options:
The choice of which race to compete in was interesting as the races were broken down to the A race which contained Cats 1 through 4. The B race which contained Cats 4 and 5, the C Race, Master men 45 + and women and fnally the D race which contains Cat 5 citizens. As I’m still a Cat 5 the first thought would be the D group, but the distances were very small and competition not so challenging. So I signed up for the B races.
That race was probably the largest field of the whole event with 18 riders, half of them were from one team, the Schuss Ski team who are local to Rome and the Mohawk valley. A few Dick Sonnes guys were sympathetic to the cause too. Noel and I were the lone Colavitas as Matt and Andy raced the A race with five other guys.

The Circuit Race:
Race started off slow, much like a club ride. I took to the front expecting the pack to turn up the pace around me, but nobody was anxious to go. The slow speed made me want to take a flyer, but I decided to wait a bit. After a corner a Schuss guy took off and I immediately got on his wheel. Racing finally started and I felt good. Noel and I were mixing up attacks in the first lap to shake up the field. We quckly noticed that since Schuss had almost hal the field, they pretty much controlled the pack and raced defensively most of the time. Noel and I would either attack to get a break going or if a break going, but did not get much room as we were marked by the Schuss guys. A few breaks went up the road and got a few seconds, but Noel and I had to chase them back down since Schuss was riding a very defensive race. During one chase I found myself out front for too long, as I tried to pull to the side to let someone else chase I found that it was only Schuss guys behind me and they did not get off my wheel. I had to zig zag across the road to try and shake them off. This was so frustrating that I said to one of the Schuss guys “Hey, anybody got some Draino? We need to loosen this clog” Not the wittiest comment, but I was frustrated.

Eventually on lap 2 of 3 I decided that I am using too much energy and tried to cool off for a bit. That was tough since if a break went with a Schuss guy, then the pack slowed down and Noel and I were the only ones able to get a chase going.

All of this chasing of breaks made it difficult to mount a counter attack since we were tired from the chasing. On lap three two break were up the road. We caught the second one, but the first group of two were able to get enough daylight. I was pulverised from all of the attacks and chasing and eventually blew when I was caught between a few accelarations. I limped home near the back.

The race finished in about an hour with around 25 miles completed. That was at 11am. The Crit did not start until 2pm, so there was some waiting around.

The Crit:
The.6 mile crit was basicaly a rectangular course with a cross wind making it tough. Pancake flat with some sand in the corners.

Crit result
Rob Walter took the win in the Crit which was raced with a combined A and B group. Colavita had five guys in the group. Schuss only had five since half the team went home. The race started OK. I jetted up to the front to get in the front group. My legs were feeling a bit tired and I felt a slight cramping in my right hamstring just before the race started. As the paced kicked up I was slowly drifting back through the group as I could not keep up the accelarations in the corners. I was too pooped from the morning’s effort. Eventually I was able to establish a good rythm going at about 22 mph.BTW, I was way off the back. Eventually I got pulled. The pace was pretty high for most riders and the field broke up and quite a few others either ditched or got pulled.

Luckily I was able to videotape the last few laps and capture Rob Walters great sprint victory.

Overall I am glad that the team got a win. Andy Ross and Matt Howey did a great job of blocking in the crit to help the break keep its advantage.

My fitness is better since I was able to animate the Circuit Race instead of simply surviving. Two more races underm y belt and two steps closer to upgrading to Cat 4. Most of my training and racing is now with an eye to next year, but I will get a few other races in during August. Some possible races are Owsego’s Tour de Loop which has some short hills. Chris Thater a huge Criterim in Binghamton, NY and possibly the Ascenson Crit next Sunday in Buffalo.

Abs Diet:
The Abs diet os going well. The results have not been as dramatic as originally expected, but my belly fat is going down. I am getting compliments from folks saying I look thinner and my parents think I am just thin enough. I still want to lose about 10 to 20 lbs, but I think if I do this gradually it will stay off.
There were a few photographers on the course today. I will have to see what I looked like on the course compared to the earlier pic from the Syracuse Race Weekend that prompted me to get more aggressive with losing the belly fat.

Greg Lemond has no shortage of ego. Whether he is sending out a hasty plea to Landis to tell the truth about doping before all the facts are clear or constantly dissing Armstrong. The three time Tour champ never fails to sucker punch long time fans in the stomach with incendiary comments about today’s cycling stars.

OLN’s Fearless feature on Lemond has the three time champ lamenting on what could have been had he not been shot. Lemond thinks that he could have won many more Tours de France. Plus, he makes more excuses about the 1991 Tour saying that drugs started coming into the sport and that he had a mitochondrial disease that kept his performance down. These excuses remind me of Al Bundy or Uncle Rico (Napolean Dynamite) thinking back to their High School football days and still thinking they have a shot. They just can’t let go of the old glory days.

That is why I have to post this funny article I just received in my email. Not sure to whom to credit this, but this sums up what most fans of Lemond must be feeling.

Note: looking at the 1985/1986 Tour retrospectives I have decided that Lemond was not cheated out of a Tour win in 1985. Plus, I don’t think anyone could blame Hinault for trying for a sixth win. The past protrayls of Hinault as a double crosser may have been a stretch.

Minneapolis, MN — Greg Lemond today released a statement that said he has, reluctantly and with great sadness, been forced to add the 2006 Tour de France to the long list of tours that he should have won. Lemond initially believed, and was even quoted in an earlier interview as saying, that this was the first clean Tour de France in many years. However, in light of the recent positive doping test of tour winner Floyd Landis, Lemond has concluded that, in all likelihood, he himself should have won the tour this year.

This brings the total number of Tours de France That Lemond Should Have Won (TDFTLSHW) to 167. Lemond first won the tour in 1986. However, as he has explained many times over the years since, he should have won the Tour in 1985, but was lied to by Bernard Hinault and cheated out of the race victory. Lemond next should have won the Tour in 1987 and 1988, but was incapacitated by a shotgun blast from his brother-in-law. While the incident was ruled an accident by the police, Lemond believes that his brother-in-law was working with Hinault and a young Texan by the name of Lance Armstrong to remove him from the sport.

Lemond came back to win the Tour in 1989 and 1990, but lost in 1991 due to the fact that, as incredible as it may sound, every other rider in the Tour de France besides Lemond was taking performance enhancing drugs. Lemond believes these drugs were supplied by Bernard Hinault, who realized that if nothing were done, Lemond would continue to win the Tour for the next 50 years. The drug-tainted Tour would continue through 2005, including the reign of Lance Armstrong. In the absence of doping, Lemond clearly would have won the Tour from 1991 to 2005, bringing the total number of TDFTLSHW to 21.

Going back before 1985, Lemond believes that in all likelihood, he would have won the Tour de France each year since his birth in 1961 if a) he had known about it and b) he had not had the small stature and limited leg length common to children between the ages of 0 and 10. As Lemond explains, clearly it would be unfair to him to discount the Tour wins he should have achieved were he only able to reach the pedals of his bicycle. This brings the TDFTLSHW to 45.

While Lemond concedes that some may believe him to be “stretching it” by including in his TDFTLSHW years from Tours before his birth, he claims that if one is to think about it logically, the only possible conclusion is that the greatest bike rider in the history of the Tour would absolutely have won the Tour since its inception in 1903, if only he had been alive at that time. It was not Greg Lemond’s fault that his parents were not alive and able to conceive him in time to ride the initial Tour in 1903; thus, it would be unfair to strip him of the Tour wins that he rightly should have been awarded.

Note that there have been 11 years since its creation in 1903 that the Tour de France was not held due to the two World Wars. Clearly, stopping the Tour due to worldwide war would have been unfair to Greg Lemond, had he been alive, and would have in all likelihood, been a move orchestrated by Bernard Hinault, had he himself been alive, to keep Lemond from winning the tour. Thus, Lemond believes that these years should also be included in the TDFTLSHW, giving him a total of 103 wins.

Finally, Lemond explains that he has included the years between the invention of the bicycle to the first Tour de France (1839 to 1903) in the TDFTLSHW. Had the French had the foresight to create the Tour de France in a more timely manner, Lemond would have definitely won it each and every year, again assuming he had been alive (see above). Obviously Lemond cannot be blaimed for the shortsightedness and general ineptitude of the French, and therefore the victory from the Tours de France that should have been held in these years must be credited to Lemond, bringing the final tally of TDFTLSHW to 167.

Note that while Lemond has not yet been able to rationalize including years before the invention of the bicycle in the TDFTLSHW, he has created a company to pursue such an effort. The company is hard at work on a rationalization and hopes to produce one for him within the year.

Today the news came out that Floyd Landis’ A sample contained traces of exogenos testosterone. This means that testosertone in his system is not his and was either administered or injested somehow. This type of test does not need to be retested since the results look at the composition of the testosterone in the urine and cannot be contaminated (from what I read). This is not good news since this makes it very difficult to explain why Landis has exogenous testosterone even if the B sample comes up negative.

As you can see, they also mention that his original T/E ratio was 11. A good argument could be made that a T/E ratio of 5ish is still within normal variation and could be a false positive. For T/E ratio of 11, a good argument can’t really be made. (There is a bell curve for the natural values at the bottom of my earlier post.) Add this to the observation that the testosterone is synthetic, and I think we have ourselves testosterone user. They mention in the article that there is still some retesting to do with other samples, but I can’t concieve of a way that those samples would produce differing results. — Pure Pedantry

Pure Pedantry is a medical science blog that has been analysing the Landis case and is coming up with some medical explainations of the doping tests. PP writes that testosterone does not actually aid in muscle recovery as quickly as many believe. The actual benefit would be to muscles over the period of 10 weeks. So an overnight injection or six hours with the testosterone patch may not be effective enough for muscle recovery.

What actually still puzzles me is why he would use it? We have been have a debate in the earlier post about whether it testosterone would have been effective for helping him win the race. I tend to fall on the side of No, primarily testosterone is not as a stimulant. Also, though some people mentioned the use of testosterone to aid muscle recovery, even then the time course for the action of steroids is not overnight — it is weeks to months. I find it difficult to believe that one injection the night before would matter.

There is a very legitimate question related to the timing of the positive test. Floyd Landis tested positive on day 17 of the Tour de France — right before he made a miraculous comeback to retake the lead. Some people may speculate that testosterone may have helped him do this. This is unlikely to be the case. Testosterone is used during training periods to gain muscle mass. It is not a stimulant like amphetamines. It is not likely that testosterone would improve performance on such a short time scale, nor has it ever been shown to have that effect.

Another interestin note is that Landis’ hip condition Osteonecrosis is associated with abuse of steroids.

For reasons still unclear, people who take steroids — including anabolic steroids — appear to have a greater chance of coming down with the condition….

All steroid use leading to or exacerbating osteonecrosis is a “well proven cause and effect,” said Dr. Mark D. Miller, an orthopedic surgery professor at the University of Virginia, who said that it’s possible Landis’ condition may have been caused or worsened by anabolic steroid use. Dr. Lewis Maharam, a New York sports medicine specialist, echoed that sentiment, but emphasized that osteonecrosis is just as likely to be caused by an injury.

While the Osteonecrosis may not be caused by steroid use, the crash and hip break may be enought to explain the condition.

So now the question is did Landis take a testosterone injection of wear a patch under the assumption that it would aid in his recovery? Did a staff member give a “magic bean” to Landis unknowingly? Could it have been in a steak that he ate? Or did Landis do something dumb and decided to go for a testosterone patch out of desparation?

One interesting fact is that during the epic break Landis was towing Sinkewitz the enitre way until he fell off the pace on the Joux Plane. Landis was also looking for assistance from the large breakaway group that would ahead early in the stage. The usual protocol is that the rider with GC ambitions rewarda breakaway companion with the stage win. If Landis had Sinkewitz stay with him to the finish, Sinkewitz would get the stage win while Periero would keep the Yellow Jersey. Landis would then not be tested unless he came up as one of the random six which would be unlikely. Anyway, another example of rampant speculation.

NY Times Article on Exogenous Testosterone

Floyd Landis is Busted