I don’t know what it is, but I’ve just been a little down lately. Fortunately, I know exactly how to cheer myself up. When OLN sends out a press release that announces a series of hour-long tape-delay recaps, and calls it “cycling coverage,” the Journal of Competitive Cycling owes it to the sport to express some consternation. At the very least, they could have taken a look to OLN’s webpage, which hasn’t been updated since last July, and then expressed skepticism regarding the network’s commitment keep cycling “an important part of OLN programming.” But no; when a channel that covers bike racing the way Cartoon Network covers jai alai sends you a press release, you don’t so much as raise an eyebrow. Grow some balls, already. It’s just pathetic; a million hits a month and the only thing you can seem to stand up to is me. Oh, and if you’re one of those Uncle Tom Cycling Fans, who reads this and says “Shut up, boy; we should count our blessings there’s cycling coverage at all,” it’s a damn good thing your attitude’s a recent American phenomenon – we’d still be working double shifts for 6¢/hour, being bled dry by the Stamp Act, and kissing QE2′s pinky ring.

As I consider myself a man of words, lets begin today’s post with a little vocabulary lesson:

pip (1) |pip| n.; a small, hard seed in a fruit. (2) |pip| vt. to defeat by a tantalizingly small margin, usually at the last possible second, esp. with relation to bike racing. pipping, pipped.

Scott Coady’s behind the scenes look at the 2000 Tour de France. 2004, Color, Roughly 100min.

Originality: 3. This is a fairly unique film. It starts off as the messy, off-the-cuff sort of video any cycling nut would make at the Tour, but grows into something with style and direction as Scott gets more and more “behind the scenes”. Sure, there are a couple of moments where you’re reliving “The Cutters” or “The Lance Chronicles” but for the most part, it’s an entirely new diversion.

So it’s Monday again, and I feel like pro cycling fans are just kinda twisting their heads around in confusion looking for results. And they’re not entirely absent – Ruta del Sol, the real race to the sun – is in full swing, with the Quesada Brothers slipping away late to take Stage 1, before some dweeb in a long breakaway decided to ruin it for them on Stage 2. But it just doesn’t compare to the deluge of information last week’s triple-threat of Langkawi/Tour Med/Mallorca delivered. There were such compelling storylines as riders braving bird flu, ill-tempered monkeys and over-zealous law enforcement only to be foiled by a little rain, and Erik Zabel apparently relegated to leading out neo-pros (though accounts of exactly how the finale played out differ a bit). Plus there’s a whole batch of racer reports over at Pez. Man, there was so much stuff it was like being smack dab in the middle of July!

Drug testing is a relatively simple proposition. You identify a doping agent, develop a test that detects it, then apply that test to blood or urine taken from a given athlete. Now, I know, I’m skipping several steps, here, and years of research, but what I’m trying to say is that fairly determining whether or not an athlete is on drugs is a relatively basic thing; a dope control either finds drugs or it doesn’t.

Is the Tour of Langkawi still going on? It is? Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just hard to pay attention to some Ukrainian winning a dinky 16k TT when a reigning Olympic Champion gets banned (after 15 months of appeals) for blood doping. If there’s a bright spot for Hamilton here, it’s that, thanks to his valiant legal struggle, he’s only got 8 months left on his suspension. I’m sure that if he puts on another strong Mt. Washington performance he could earn himself a discretionary selection to the US Worlds Team. Heck, after September, he could ride for any non-MonkeyTour squad he chooses, although, given that organization’s recent problems, he might just be right back with Phonak in 2007. Regardless, if I were Panaria, Agritubel, Barloworld, Unibet or any of the other top Continental sqauds, I’d be grovelling at Hamilton’s doorstep with a nice, fat contract right about now. No matter what happnes to the UCI ProTour, Hamilton is fair game to these guys come September.

Screw cycling; if VeloNews has abandoned it (does that have anything to do with bike racing?) then so will I. From now on, this is the world’s sweetest doping blog. Step One: buy the drugs. Step Two: buy some antibodies and an electrophoresis apparatus so you can refine your methods by checking your own urine in the privacy of your own home. Step Three: don’t use legitimate drugs like Sudafed, Propecia or bagels; you don’t want to get busted for something that isn’t even performance enhancing (search “poppy”), do you? Step Four: buy a hematocrit machine (search “machine”) so you can just kiss up against that 50% barrier. Step Five: be careful when you go to alitude; don’t want your first big result to be a high hemoglobin test, do you? Step Six: Watch out for those anti-doping jerks who say you’re “unfit to start”. What ever happened to the Rocky Balboa ethos? “You stop me from racing, I’ll kill ya’!” Like a hemoglobin level of 17.1 g/dl is gonna put your health at risk any more than 16.9 – especially when hematocrit, not hemoglobin, is the determinant of blood thickness. Step Seven: Be a nice dude and good competitor at all times; that way, when you get busted, people will believe you. Step Eight: Finally, if you know you’re gonna get caught, get caught with blood levels that are truly ridiculous (search “60.1″).

It has finally happened; a Grand Tour victory has been determined solely by a dope positive. Riders have been busted at controls and kicked out (and sometimes left in), declared unfit to start (scroll to Stage 21), caught with dope in the car, entire teams have been asked to leave due to overwhelming suspicion, and, depending on who you believe, this one dude even got caught seven years afterward. But never before has someone raced for three weeks, bested all comers (by quite some margin, I might add), reveled in the fruits of victory, and than had it all swept away by a positive dope test. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s fine. You cheat, you lose. If you think it isn’t fair, don’t worry, Heras will appeal. Personally, I’d be more interested to see how newly-crowned winner Denis Menchov feels; last time I checked, he wasn’t too psyched. So, since I agree with the ruling, am I willing to say that Heras sucks? No; dude is still a nice guy, still auctioned his bike for charity. The only guy who can say he sucks might be whoever won that auction, and even then, it’s just because he or she is too stupid to realize they’ve now got the cycling equivalent of Shoeless Joe’s bat.

Yeah, it’s sad. Tyler Tunes used to be one of the coolest features on VeloNews. But now, he’s been relegated to lowly RoadCycling.com. Don’t worry, Tyler, if the verdict doesn’t go your way, I’ll be more than happy to host your diary entries. Everyone already thinks I’m soft on doping, so why not, right? But can you blame me for questioning the the media and the vampires? Look at this situation (scroll down) with poor Inigo Landaluze. I mean, the story pops up in some Columbian paper, everyone jumps on it (myself included, though I question it a bit), and now? Seems like there may not be any dope case after all. But see where ProCycling ran the notice that everything is still “pending a report”? At the bottom of a page in a new potpourri story. It’s quite a contrast to the headliner that brought the so-called positive test to the fore, and difference between the two presentations might explain how cycling gets such a dirty image compared to other sports.

The United Cycling Team. It’s the big news of the day. Look at this tremendous, in-depth article. And it promises an even more in-depth-er article later in the month! I’ve never seen VeloNews so excited! But I think there’s some questions they aren’t asking. Things like, “Whose putting these ‘United’ frames together?” Will my $6,000 rig be welded by the same master craftsman who assembles Chris Wherry’s machine? Or will it be cranked out by some robot in Taiwan? And why are the carbon stays painted? You know the I-bankers that buy the high-end stuff are gonna see the one-color frame, flick the top tube, hear the dead alu ping, and buy a Livestrong Madone instead. It’s probably this Sean Tucker guy’s fault. He also thinks the team should be owned by “investors” – a term generally applied to people looking to make money. Can’t say that I see how a cycling team will generate any appreciable income, but given that Tucker’s previous business experience is from the Dot-com Boom, I can’t see why I’d expect business models to be his strong point, either.