I was on Vuelta podium...for like a week. / Rafael Uñach, cc-nd-nc

20% unemployment. Massive cutbacks in public funding. A looming credit downgrade. There’s no question that “La Crisis” marks a major threat to the fortunes of the Spanish peloton. But if recent history is any indication, the increasing internationalization of cycling will force a near-total collapse of the Spanish peloton in the next few years, if the nation can’t take the management of its doping cases more seriously.

Let’s start in Germany in 2010: after some 14 years at the forefront of the sport—reference Erik Zabel’s 6 green jerseys, Team Telekom’s two Tour wins, and the perpetual candidacy of Jan Ullrich—the most powerful nation in Europe found itself without a single top-level squad. There are plenty of fingers to point, but the German economy, having recovered smartly from the Crisis of ’08, seems an unlikely culprit.

Let’s go back a few years further, across the Atlantic to the United States, where an inflated housing sector and over-leveraged credit markets were plunging the nation into the worst financial crisis in 80 years. Surrounded by this economic wailing and gnashing of teeth, Bob Stapleton reinvented the old T-Mobile squad, bringing it to the US with new objectives and sponsors, while Jon Vaughters floated an even more improbable proposition—an American-based, American-populated team dedicated to the idea that bike races could be won without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.

Returning to 2012, we find a Germany economically strong enough to essentially carry a continent, yet that still lacks a single top-tier squad. Meanwhile, while recovery has continued to be frustratingly slow in the US, the nation’s collection of international cycling teams continues to blossom, refuting the notion that economic conditions are a reliable predictor of ProTour presence. Indeed, the management of high-profile doping cases seems a much more reliable bellwether of a country’s ability to support WorldTour cycling squads.

The collapse of Germany’s cycling teams was brought about by a two-fold crunch—the bubble initially opened by Ullrich’s win in 1997 began to deflate just as a new generation of German cyclists and teams came up and found themselves immersed in doping scandals, while promising new talents like Gerard Ciolek and Linus Gerdemann failed to deliver big wins. Compounding the issue, those caught up in doping either admitted their charges outright by saying that cycling was impossible without doping, or dodged prosecution by dancing between national federations or paying a simple fine.

In the US, anti-doping authorities have proven far less ham-handed. While the White Whale still eludes them, they’ve been sensationally effective at putting a harpoon through nearly any drug cheat unfortunate enough to drift their way. Forget Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis—cereal box names like Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin, and Barry Bonds are now notches on the USADA bedpost. Meanwhile, neither USATF nor MLB have put together anything close to the “it’s ok not to win so long as we don’t cheat” operation run by Slipstream Sports.

While I’ve found the specific efforts at transparency occasionally disappointing, there’s a general air of openness with the post-Lance generation of American cyclists. Fully illustrated, long-form blog posts, occasionally embarrassing honesty on Twitter, and a generally open stance toward fans and the press are all refreshing changes from the boilerplate patter proffered by the pharmaceutically-prepared generation. Combine this with the stubborn (if wrong-headed) meme that Lance Armstrong has “never failed a drug test”—and you’ve got an atmosphere in which American companies take some cautious comfort in the cleanliness of the riders they sponsor.

To sum it up, German cycling came out of the 00′s on a deflating bubble, with good riders that were dirty, clean riders that couldn’t win, and supporting infrastructure that utterly failed to convince fans and sponsors that they could wait out the trend. At the same time, the sport in the US had a boom of interest generated by Lance, a slew of successful, high-profile dope prosecutions, and new teams and riders willing to cater to the concerns of dope-weary fans and supporters. It’s the salability of the product, not the prevailing economic winds, that are the biggest factor in getting sponsors to sign.

So where does that put Spain in 2012? Nationally, there’s no shortage of success—in the past five years, Spanish riders have notched nine Grand Tour wins. The audience and homefront support is certainly there as well—the Contador Saga has given a podium for every even remotely significant Spaniard to pronounce him either completely innocent, or getting a raw deal.

But there’s a saying that when your cousin and your brother-in-law start climbing onto the bandwagon, it’s time for you to hop off. I have no doubt that the vast majority of Spanish fans (if not Spanish teams and governing bodies) would be happy to glibly play along as dosed-up Spaniards roll to victory after victory. But Spanish companies, I feel, have already realized that a Spanish cycling jersey is a very dangerous place to print a logo.

As cycling’s focus becomes more and more international—and as Spain’s public funding crisis makes Spanish races fewer and farther between—much of the advertising reward reaped from cycling Spanish teams will have to come from outside of Spain. And, call me cynical, but in the shoes of an event organizer, I just couldn’t get exciting about tossing a Spanish wildcard or two into my event knowing how business gets done on the Iberian peninsula.

Indeed, Team Geox’s sponsorship failure this past winter may have been pre-ordained in large part by its inability to land invites to major international events—the Tour and Giro, most notably—despite a star studded roster. Is it any wonder then that Oscar Freire and Juan-Antonio Flecha—two of the most “credible” Spaniards in recent memory—have raced on foreign teams for the bulk of their careers?

While the (hopefully) final outcome of the Contador case may provide the nation with some much-needed motivation later this month, if Spain can’t create at least a facade of transparency and enforcement, its squads will slowly find themselves going the way of Gerolsteiner and Milram, with their rides and staff unable to find work.

Related posts:

1. Pro Cycling News – Rogers Takes World TT Title
2. Pro Cycling News – Ullrich takes Stage, Ferrar takes USPRO
3. The Brad Wiggins Bubble

“[T]hey wouldn’t even do that to a criminal. None of what they did was legal”
-Alejandro Valverde

It’s tough to imagine a doping scandal more fraught with irony than Operacion Puerto. Even before it had a name, the fantastic contradictions were there; Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes ran a doping ring where he saw his job as ensuring “that riders could put up with the physical demands being made of them”, but a client alleging his health had been ruined by the treatments was what finally blew the lid.

Two years later, when the scandal finally broke, the investigation proved itself an embarrassment to nearly everyone involved—Fuentes, who could have better concealed his clients’ names with a cereal box decoder ring; the Guardia Civil, who revealed their investigative skills outstripped in ineptitude only by their inability to prevent leaks; the riders themselves, caught red-handed; and the Spanish courts and anti-doping officials, for being unable to drive home a slam-dunk case.

Is that 50,000 EUR in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? / pd, wikimedia commons

Most embarrassed of all were the ASO, organizers of the Tour de France, who now had to host a race where everyone even remotely considered a favorite had run on the front page of every sport daily from Lisbon to Kiev in a photo collage of blood bags and syringes.

The Tour’s response to Operacion Puerto was blunt and idiotic: cajole any TdF teams with riders implicated in the scandal to voluntarily withdraw them before the race. I’ve scattered ample pixels already on the inequity of this—let’s just say I found it wonderfully poetic when Floyd Landis’ late-race urine sample came up positive a few days after the Tour finish, giving the ASO the very “Tour Winner Was Actually On Drugs” headlines their pre-race purges had been conducted to avoid.

Strangely enough, Valverde could have saved the Tour organization from this embarrassment. While no one can say for certain what would have happend if the Spaniard hadn’t broken his collarbone in a mundane crash on Stage 3, Valverde had long gotten the better of Landis in the mountains, and his 5th place finish in the dead flat ’06 prologue was as brilliant as it was suspicious. It’s the opinion of this humble commentator that the 2006 Tour was Valverde’s race to lose.

Still, I hesitate to call Valverde’s crash “bad luck”. While Puerto left entire teams fluttering in the wind, Valverde healed up and battled gamely for the Vuelta title—holding the leaders jersey and taking a stage win in the process—before making the podium at the World Championships later that year. Puerto fallout continued into 2007, as investigations pinned Ullrich to hijo rudico and retirement, while Basso, accorded no other option by investigations in Italy, made the ludicrous claim that he didn’t inhale—but Valverde kept right on riding.

In fact, from the day some Spanish cop found a bag labelled “val.(piti)” to 2009, Valverde’s right-to-ride encountered only one major challenge: the Germans attempting to keep him from riding at the ’07 Worlds in Stuttgart, a prohibition summarily overturned by the CAS. When you’re riding dirty, it sure doesn’t hurt to have your national cycling federation, and indeed, your country’s entire judicial system willing to bend the rules on your behalf

For all of McQuaid’s flack about “mafia nations” it was the Italians who finally clipped Valverde’s wings, matching DNA taken from a rest day sample at the 2008 Tour to DNA in the EPO-laced Bag 18 seized at Operation Puerto. After another year of trial and appeal, the CAS concurred with the Italians, and slapped a two year ban on Valverde, backdated to the beginning of 2010.

To recap: Valverde, for a bag of blood that showed he’d been cheating in 2006, got 18 months off racing, a few results scratched from the records books, and four years of otherwise unencumbered competition, during which he amassed palmares including—but hardly limited to—a Vuelta, a Liege-Bastogne-Liege, a San Sebastien, and two Tour stages. And somehow, this is his idea of rough justice.

There have been a few interesting reactions to Valverde’s unrepentant stance. Joe Lindsey respects the blunt, twisted honesty of it, while @inrng sees holding the Armstrong line as a media management mistake and a bad example. But for me, the biggest problem of Valverde’s response is the delusional excoriation of the very system whose assumptions of innocence let him continue to ride.

Valverde’s sanction wasn’t the result of nefarious forces arrayed against him—it was the product of being extended the benefit of every doubt available. For anyone who missed Tyler Hamilton’s appearance on 60 Minutes, Valverde’s continued sense of persecution might be the best example of the insidious self-deception that is so often the byproduct of an artificially high hematocrit.

Related posts:

1. Pro Cycling News – Boonen Loses at Qatar, Valverde Quicker, Bode Cheats?
2. Not Earning His Billables
3. Basso “Confessed”, Valverde Accused, Dekker Victorious

Now that allegations have surfaced that Vino’ may have bought the win, I’ve gotten a few messages asking me how I feel about it. And after re-watching the video, I don’t feel all that different. Certainly, as far as the racing goes, I stand by everything I said—especially the parts about Vino’ intentionally waiting up for Kolobnev, and about how Vino’s final separation from the Russian seemed “downright pedestrian”.

In cycling, the realities of the sport make the occasional negotiated outcome a near-inevitability. Grand Tours simply wouldn’t be possible if every so often, the pack didn’t roll in at a snail’s pace behind a small breakaway—and you’re crazy if you think the makeup of that lucky group isn’t the result of some pretty intense discussion within the pack and between team cars. And it’s almost expected that stage race leaders will “gift” stages to teammates and competitors alike, once their position at the head of the GC is secure.

While the UCI’s rules set out that collusion is explicitly illegal, this sort of “acceptable collusion” makes the unacceptable kind very difficult to define. Compounding the problem, groups of riders in every race collude to give one of their number a disproportionate chance of winning—they’re called “teammates”. Even between teams, there’s a tremendous ebb and flow of politicking, posturing, support and payment.

For example, if Team A takes the promise of future support from Team B to help chase down a breakaway, have they cheated? What if Team A agrees to help for a share of the prize money if Team B wins? What if Team B wires them a bank transfer mid-race? What if there’s no payment, but some Team A gains some advantage that Team B is unaware of? In all four cases, the outcome is the same—the only ethical distinctions between the cases lie in what motivates Team A’s efforts.

Granted, the ethics of the Vino’/Kolobnev case are a bit more cut and dry, but there’s still the question of proving that any illicit cooperation took place. If it weren’t for the enterprising muckrakers at l’Illustre we might not be having this discussion. For an insider’s view of payment and cooperation, you’re not likely to better than Mike Creed—though I suspect that in the highest level of the sport, the money, prestige, potential damage to reputation, and future income stemming from a major win outweigh the offer to lie down.

If anything, the biggest question here isn’t how could this happen, but how could Kolobnev sell so cheap? Joe Lindsey has a great breakdown of the longer-term costs to Kolobnev, but even in the short term, the deal didn’t make a lot of sense for the Russian. Sure, 100,000 Euros is a lot of money—especially when a win is only 20,000, split eight ways—but keep in mind, too, that in all likelihood, the bribe was only roughly equal to a year’s pay.

After winning Liege in 2003, Tyler Hamilton was rumored to have landed a contract with Phonak for over 800,000 euros. Though the American brought a GC threat that Kolobnev simply doesn’t have, it seems more than probable that Kolobnev could have garnered a salary boost well beyond the 100,000 EUR of Vino’s payoff.

And Kolobnev and Vino’ aren’t exactly strangers. In the recently-published emails, Kolobnev claims that Vino’s nationality (non-Belgian) and the bad press surrounding the Kazakh’s doping affair (apparently it was a raw deal) made his offer of collusion slightly more palatable.

So Kolobnev must have also known that Vinokourov is a very well-known man in an very corrupt country—honorary colonel in the army, Peoples’ Hero First Class, aspiring politician, and pasta spokesman. If Vino’ wanted to buy a bike race—Liege, of all things!—Kolobnev should known to bleed him for retirement money.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that Kolobnev’s legs must have been pretty well fried. If I were in Kolobnev’s pedals, and was as confident in my sprint as the Russian seems to have been, even Vino’ probably couldn’t have named me a price high enough—especially given the potential difficulty in collecting on the offer. But if I were on the rivet and clinging to my last reserves of strength, it’d be like getting paid 100k to lose a race I would have lost anyway. And where’s the fraud in that?

If there’s anything I feel bad about about in this affair, it’s the fortunes of Alexandr Kolobnev. His recent doping positive—and the soon-to-be-overturned slap on the wrist his national federation handed out—not withstanding, I found both his aggressive riding style and tenuous grasp of written English refreshing and entertaining. Even if he never seemed to have it in him to win the biggest races, it was always fun to watch him try.

But reading through the recently published emails between the two, I find him a startlingly sympathetic character. He clearly had a lot to gain from a win, and his emails reveal a recurring internal conflict, ineffectively placated by promises from Vinokourov. Before, Kolobnev was waiting for his bronze medal, now, having sought out seedier means of compensation, he’s waiting for his 100,000 euros. Thankfully, it hasn’t seemed to impact the quality of his tweets.

Vino’, of course, has been his usual, inscrutable self. First panning the “gutter press”, then claiming that it’s his personal life and he loans money to people all the time, and then—like Bettini before him—launching the inevitable lawsuit. The UCI has addressed that the case exists with its usual gibberish, though with Vino’ finally retiring after 2012, and Kolobnev facing the CAS, any resolution that comes for the alleged crimes in this case is likely to be purely symbolic.

Related posts:

1. How The Race Was Won – 2010 Tour de France, Stage 11
2. “This Is Not A Mickey Mouse Race”
3. No More-Ov Vinokourov

As someone who’s watched a lot of road sprints, it seemed like a pretty obvious case of Nys closing the gate on Pauwels—and I certainly wasn’t the only one who thought so. On the road, Nys would have been relegated to second at best, and likely full-on disqualified, but after a protest and some deliberation (“a sprint that will be talked about” was how Nys’ Sporza interviewer styled it in English) the result was left unchanged.

The UCI’s official explanation of the decision—that Pauwels wouldn’t have been strong enough to get by—is…well, the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from the UCI over the years. Aside from the fact that it’s essentially impossible to assess exactly how strong a blocked rider might be, it also makes the counterproductive implication that it’s totally OK to cut people off, so long as they wouldn’t have beaten you anyway.

But as nonsensical as the “official” announcements of race directors can be, they also tend to reveal certain implied rules of the sport. When Mark Renshaw was kicked out of the 2010 Tour for headbutting (generally just a relegation) it wasn’t his actions that got him bounced—it was the fact that his teammate, Mark Cavendish, went on to win the stage. The officials couldn’t punish Cavendish–he’d done nothing wrong—but relegating the Australian would be essentially no punishment, since he hadn’t been riding for a result anyway. The message: don’t use dodgy riding to give your teammate an advantage.

So assuming the UCI officials aren’t crazy—or, as Mario De Clerq gamely suggests, swayed by Sven Nys’ position as one of the greatest ‘cross racers of all time, and a member of the UCI cyclocross commission to boot—what’s the major difference between road and cyclocross sprinting that sees Nys keep his result while, say, Giuseppe Calcaterra gets relegated?

First of all, the final sprint in cyclocross just an entirely different animal than what we’ve become accustomed to seeing from the modern road peloton. In flat stages at the Tour de France, the final kilometers are the battle ground of some dozen sprinters who’ve been keeping themselves rested and fresh all day long, before slingshotting off megawatt trains of domestiques to top speed for a final, all-out, all-or-nothing burst.

Behind them, nearly 200 others, often exhausted and essentially blind, cling desperately to the wheels in front of them just hoping to make it to the next day of racing without losing time. The bunches are huge, the speeds are incredible, and the collateral damage from a split-second mistake can be enormous.

A cyclocross sprint, on the other hand, comes following an hour-long, non-stop, full-on effort, punctuated by dozens of unsustainable surges as riders try to put daylight behind their rear wheel or draw back their rivals. Technical course features open gaps, and it’s rare to see more than a handful of riders contest a final charge. When they do, it’s a low-speed, nearly-cooked effort, on a short, straight-line finishing stretch. There’s room to manoever, plenty of road for everyone, and in the event that disaster does strike, the fallout is limited.

But I think it’s the very reality of a cyclocross race, rather than any consideration for safety, that plays the largest role in sustaining a result like yesterday’s. While position and line selection is important in road racing, in cyclocross it’s a constant consideration—as soon as you exit one corner, you’ve got to be mentally assembling your approach to the next.

The focus on where you’re putting your bike is relentless—it is as important as wattage in preserving your position, closing the gap to the riders ahead of you, and—most relevantly—denying the riders behind you an opportunity to pass. To suddenly apply the stricter (if somewhat more capriciously enforced) rules of the road sprint to cyclocross would be to suddenly alter this equation, turning the tables away from the very unique set of skills that are the essence of ‘cross.

In his post-race interview (or at least the English portion of it) Nys was unambiguous about saying he’d gone to the opposite of the road specifically to get in Pauwels’ way. What made it legal, Nys contends, is that Pauwels wasn’t yet alongside him.

The implication seems to be that Pauwels’ attempt to ride though a not-quite-wide-enough opening along the barriers was the Sunweb rider’s own poorly-calculated decision, same as if he’d tried to dive for the inside line through a corner earlier on the course, and gotten stuffed by riders ahead of him who’d set up more sensibly.

Of course, Pauwels had a different story, claiming that Nys’s knee banged into his front wheel and handlebars as the Landbouwkredit rider drove him from one side of the road to the other, before pinning him against the barrier. And if that’s true, by Nys’ own admission, he ought to be punished.

Sadly, without the all-determining helicopter camera shot, there’s no way to determine exactly how the barrier-to-barrier dance between Nys and Pauwels went down. Pauwels’ body English certainly suggests contact, but there isn’t anything definitive in the photos and videos I’ve seen. If nothing else, the last few seconds of the race are a great example of how, in cyclocross, leading out a sprint early can actually play to your advantage.

Related posts:

1. Pro Cycling News – Worlds ’05: To Sprint or Not to Sprint
2. The First Sprint Stage
3. How The Race Was Won – Rules of the Group Sprint

Don't worry, Nibs—plenty of bubbly left / Jacinto Vidarte, nc-by-sa

Seventeen months after testing positive for clenbuterol during the 2010 Tour de France, Alberto Contador—or rather, those who seek to have him punished—will finally have their day in court. After a provisional suspension, a one-year suspension recommendation, a surprising clearing of all charges, and more delays than I care to Google, the sport will get a final answer on whether or not all the wins Contador has collected since last July will actually count.

Previous CAS decisions strongly suggest the outcome will not be favorable for Contador. Alessandro Petacchi had been cleared to compete by his national federation when the CAS restored a one-year sentence agaisnt him for turning up too much of a substance for which he already had a TUE. Even more forebodingly, the panel actually extended a suspension against Danilo Hondo when he appealed a one-year national federation sentence.

Despite the looming gallows, fan opinion and professional punditry seems to be that regardless of the outcome, the case has been a mess, and a black eye for the sport. “Cycling has already lost” Cycling Weekly’s Nigel Wynn declared last week. Even the generally cool-headed John Leicester admits that “A satisfying ending that ties up the loose ends looks unlikely”.

I hate to speak for the establishment here, but “satisfying endings” are not and should not be the end goal of the anti-doping efforts. The system exists to create an environment where athletes can compete fairly; by definition, such a system should protect against capricious enforcers as readily as unscrupulous competitors.

Sadly, drug testing in cycling has a long history of being inconsistent and outright unfair. In 1977, Joop Zoetemelk received a 10 minute penalty for a positive dope test; the next year, Michael Pollentier was ejected and suspended for 2 months trying to evade a similar control. In the 1979 edition, Zoetemelk tested positive again and indeed, admitted the offense—but was still allowed to keep his stage win and second place overall finish.

In more recent memory, the 2006 Tour saw riders “voluntarily” withdrawn from the TDF on rumors of involvement in a drug scandal. This extrajudicial exclusion had the deliciously poetic conclusion of seeing Floyd Landis become only the second rider in a century of Tours to be stripped of his title post-race. While Michael Rasmussen’s expulsion the following year for whereabouts violations was at least in passing accord with previously-agreed-upon rules, its sudden, rumor-fueled emergence two weeks into the event smacked of a witch hunt.

Contador’s case, on the other hand, has proceeded with the mind-numbing plod of bureaucratic pedantry. This isn’t to say that the sport’s governing bodies have been meticulous in discharging their duties—the UCI was woefully slow in reporting the test results to Contador, and it allegedly took the threat of reporters breaking the (not-legally-relevant) plasticizers case to put the story public.

But the layers of appeal and recourse laid about before both Contador and his accusers like so many red carpets is a refreshing sight in contrast with that autocracy of years past. This otherwise even-handed treatment of the case highlights the current system’s more ludicrous elements—foremost among them, leaving nation sport federations (as opposed to nation anti-doping organizations) with final responsibility over athlete sanctions.

It may be frustrating to watch suspected riders continue to tear up the opposition as their cases progress, but it’s a lot easier to strike a name out of the record books than to pencil one back in. Returning to the example of 2006, Oscar Pereiro did eventually receive his trophy, but I still don’t see any mention of Allan Davis contending for wins on that year’s sprint stages. And while Alejandro Valverde’s denials may have won him a few seasons of freedom following Operacion Puerto, he found out last year that the sport has developed a rather long memory both for sanctioning dopers and annulling their results.

Indeed, for all the past (and current) ineptitude of those running it, cycling should be credited for allowing its false champions to be unmasked (and unpaid) in the lab. While parallels to professional baseball’s steroid era have abounded over the past decade, most of the discussion in MLB now revolves around asterisks in record books, not vacating World Series titles.

There was a time not so long ago when this impressive judicial leeway sent clean riders into panic attacks at the mere appearance of mail from the UCI. If 18 months of appeal and proper deference to preceding judgements is what it takes to make due process as important as punishing the offenders, then it’s a wait that I’m more than willing to endure.

Related posts:

1. Tour de France ’07 – Contador and The Chicken Fly The Coop
2. Arekeev fools Eisel; Contador Wins at P-N; Silly Law Tricks
3. Contador, Criteriums, and Clenbuterol

This is the real tragedy of tubeless cyclocross set-ups: when they work, they’re awesome. The problem is that for racers, they don’t reliably work. There are plenty of instructions out there, and lots of positive stories. Unfortunately, I can’t say this is one of them.

From the Beginning

In 2009, I had a pretty miserable run of it on clinchers. Some bad luck, some bad riding habits, and some unwillingness to suffer a jarring, high-psi ride left me as a DNF in one out of every five events I started. So after flatting out of a grassy practice race at the beginning of 2010, and being unable to afford the expense and hassle of tubulars at that time, I decided to give tubeless tires a shot.

I ordered a Stan’s Conversion Kit for the Easton Ascent II wheelset I had from road racing. It was with much trepidation that I drilled out the inner wall valve hole to 7/16″, but the wheelset (running standard road clinchers) held up just fine through the 2011 road reason—impressive considering its age, let alone the enlarged hole. I will say that the rims are on the “tighter” side of 700c, and I couldn’t mount any tires with the conversion kit and the factory rim strip in place. Even with just the Stan’s rubber strip on the bare metal, it was a tight squeeze.

The tires I chose—Hutchinson’s tubeless-ready Bulldog CX’s—only made it on to the rim with a tremendous amount of effort and a few broken Pedro’s levers. Once I’d wrestled the tires on, I’d expected my lack of compressor would be a liability, but the front tire, with some soap, a half-cup of Stan’s, and a floor pump, actually inflated pretty handily with the valve core removed (others have had similar experiences). Once I’d set the bead, inflating with the valve core in was no problem.

The rear proved more difficult. No matter how much Stan’s/suds I used, air stubbornly kept slipping out faster than I could put it in. Even at the local garage, the (max 85psi) air pump couldn’t keep up with the leaking. Only after I gave up and removed the tire did I notice that the left-side bead had snapped, leaving a flaccid indentation that refused to hold the rim, even when mounted with a tube.

Eff This, I Wanna Ride

The thing is, a freshly-mounted tire really makes you want to ride. Especially when, pry as you might, you can’t get it to slurp even the tiniest bit of air as you manually wrench it back and forth at 29psi. So I grabbed an older Michelin Mud2, a cup of Stan’s, and another bucket of suds, and within a few minutes, had a second tubeless tire mounted—to the Reservoir!

That puts us back at the beginning of this story—tear-assing like a boss through trails that I had no business riding on a ‘cross bike, to the point that the hard bottom-outs were beginning to bang-up my a-little-light-for-this rims. Even on the faster, more-CX-like sections, the compliant ride and tear-the-grass-out cornering grip were just amazing; everything I’d wanted but never gotten on the clinchers I’d been suffering with for years.

There was still the matter of the broken bead, of course—I’d purchased through an online retailer and the warranty process was going to take weeks, since I had to send it to them, and they had to send it to Hutchinson, and then the process had to reverse. But the Mud2 seemed to be getting the job done.

Some Cracks in the Armor

After a few more vigorous shred sessions at the Res, I’d only found one situation where I encountered the dreaded burp—remounting. Now, my remounts have never been graceful, and last fall they were particularly bad, but only on the ugliest, most awkward landings—overjumping by seven or eight inches and slamming onto the saddle as much sideways as down—did a small bit of air scoot out of my rear tire. It was, according to my mini-pump, less than 5psi on the first burp, and generally, 2 or 3 were survivable before things got sloppy enough that I needed to re-inflate.

Because of the burp-out issue, I had to run the rear tire at a higher pressure (35+ psi) at last year’s Cycle-Smart International, which kinda defeated the purpose—namely, to pedal, rather than bounce, across a notoriously rooty section at that race. I also found myself reverting to step-’n-hop mounts to prevent burping, which cost me additional time. While I had no qualms about driving the 30psi front tire through corners, as the grassy, hard-grabbing corners wore on, I definitely felt my rear tire getting floppier—not enough to physically slow me, but certainly enough to sap some confidence.

A day or two before Putney, the sidewall on the several-years-old Michelin Mud2 finally broke, rendering it more or less useless for tubeless. I picked up a Maxxis Raze at the local shop, which turned out to be a mistake. By the time of the B race, most of the course had sticky, hard-packed mud ruts—fairly easy to ride, but they also pulled hard at tire bead on every corner. I went about a lap and a half before totally deflation and tire loss. Not cool.

(The Raze also rolled at Ice Weasels, running with a tube. As a race tire, the Raze sucks.)

A Side-by-Side Test

Warranty hassle rolled inexorably onward with the Hutchinson Bulldog. The online retailer I’d bought through couldn’t get in touch with the company, so I went through a back channel, and finally got the case addressed—though my tire would not be in before the end of the season. So I bought a Michelin Mud2 at the local shop, and restored the tubeless set-up I’d run at Cycle-Smart, without too many issues.

Last year’s Baystate Cyclocross provided some slick conditions and a truly infernal course—great for testing the efficacy of different cross setups. To sweeten the deal, Colin Reuter lent me a pair of FMB tubulars on the second day, so I had something more or less resembling a side-by-side test.

It wasn’t perfect; Colin, being insecure about his baldness, took a swipe at my weight by not letting me run 28psi in his tires, and there was a not-insignificant difference in tire width (31ish on the FMBs and 34 on the Hutchinsons). That said, while I had a pretty dismal showing in both races, the tubeless setup easily matched the bite and cushiness of their $150 European counterparts.

While I doubt I could have dared the 22psi employed by tubular aficionados in the loosest of muck (and I still had to half-ass remounts and deal with the slow-seep from the rear) the results showed that tubeless was closely competitive with more traditional setups, in addition to fixing many of the problems endemic to clincher racing.

Things Fall Apart

As the numerous Stan’s torture videos will tell you, tubeless is great at resealing itself. But at a Waffle ‘Cross ride in Boston a few days after Baystate, I caught a piece of glass that made a relatively normal puncture in my rear tire. I’d seen Stan’s take care of some pretty gnarly things (tree branches, barbed wire) on MTB tires, but for whatever reason, the cut just wouldn’t seal up, leaving me floundering around on a flat tire until some Good Samaritan passed me a tube. While not a race incident, it sure was “deflating” (tee-hee) to see tubeless fail in the very situation where it was touted as invincible.

In the interval between Waffle ‘Cross and Ice Weasels, things really started to wear out. My rear Stan’s rubber strip failed around the valve hole—or more precisely, the valve ripped free of the rest of the strip. I was able to create a usable seal by reinserting a valve stem cut from a flatted tube through the inside of the hole left in the strip, and bolting it against the rim. However, there rest of the conversion strip hardly seemed in better shape, as it had small cuts and deformations due to the spoke holes.

So I set up what the Internet glibly refers to as the “ghetto rimstrip”—essentially, half an innertube split open and laid down inside the rim bed. This would prove to be a bad decision. While it worked reliably on the trails, on the hard packed corners at Ice Weasels, it slowly leaked air on every hard bend. The demise was slower than Putney, and I managed to get to the pit before total failure, but the tube just isn’t thick enough to seal off the tire under racing forces and pressures.

During the winter, Hutchinson finally came through with the warranty tire, and I was like “effing finally”. After all, running a tubeless-ready Hutchinson with an intact Stan’s rim strip had been great on the front tire all season long. I’d never managed to test it against the arguably more tubeless-unfriendly forces on the rear tire, but there was reason for optimism. That was, until the bead snapped (again) during installation.

It might seem a little defeatist to give up on tubeless, having never simultaneously run tubeless-ready tires without a proper conversion strip on both wheels. But the fact is that the only tire that seemed to be able hold air to the forces of for-real cross racing—the Hutchinson Bulldog—broke before I could set it up almost every time.

To their credit, Hutchinson has backed-up their product, sending me replacements and alternative tires, but [SPOILER ALERT], they’ve given up on producing tubeless-ready rubber for 2012 because their solution, the low-flex carbon bead, can’t stand up to the forces of installation across the variety of rim diameters out there.

We Must Never Forget That There Is Hope

My own relatively frustrating experience doesn’t mean I think everyone out there having a blast on tubeless tires is a liar. For shredding trails on a CX bike—which is awesome, by the way—tubeless was never a hassle for me. And if you’re a for-fun racer with clean remounts who doesn’t mind backing off in the corners a bit, I think you could even get away with doing some less crowded (so you can pick a clean line) CX events on a tubeless setup.

I think there’s also something to be said for rim choice. Both Shimano and Stan’s make what I’m told are very legit tubeless rims. Unfortunately, unless you already own them, it means you’d need to go out and buy a new set of wheels, and the ability to re-use an existing road wheelset is one of the major reasons people race ‘cross on clinchers (and thus inevitably look to tubeless because clinchers aren’t competitive).

Shimano and Stan’s also ship these tubeless rims/wheels at a prices well above Williams’ much-heralded entry-level tubular wheelset. If money is a concern, tubulars (mindbogglingly, considering how much most tubular tires cost) remain the cheaper option.

Mavic’s Ksyrium and Ksyrium-like wheels, which are certainly more broadly distributed within the peloton than either Stan’s or Shimano’s tubeless offerings, might also provide some hope. The rims are free of air-leaking, rim-strip-slicing spoke holes, and as a co-developer of the UST standard, you’d think they’d have the most respect for a solid tire-rim interface. While the company has stepped away from an “official” road tubeless wheelset in recent years (because weight weenies ruin everything), I’m not the only one who thinks it might secretly already exist.

A Note On Tubulars

A lot of people seem to think I view tubeless as some sort of evolutionary replacement for tubulars. I don’t. If you don’t mind dealing with tubular setups (or can afford to pay some other bastard to deal with them), I see no reason to ever switch over to tubeless. Tubies are indeed a complicated, outdated, dirty, resource-intesive, brute-force solution, but they have one singlar, massively compelling argument in their favor—they work.

But viewing the state of tubulars on the road, I think the appeal of a tubeless cyclocross wheelset becomes clear. While pro cyclists with pro mechanics and free gear still use tubulars, most broke-ass racers who purchase and maintain their own equipment don’t. While I’ll stop short of saying there’s no difference between a $180 Tufo and a $60 Michelin on the road, I will say that you’re not going to lose a race because the guy next to you had tubulars and you didn’t.

A viable tubeless CX option would make that competitive parity between tubular and non-tubular a reality in cyclocross as well, and that—from the standpoint of both racers and manufactures—should be where the real allure of tubeless cyclocross lies.

Related posts:

1. On “Cyclocross” Clinchers
2. Milford Cyclocross Classic Race – Report
3. BCA Cyclocross – Report

It’s Not All Bad, I Guess

I should be specific here: most cyclocross-branded clinchers work well enough—so long as you have no plans to actually race. And in and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. For decades, a loud and long-bearded contingent of Internet cycling personalities has bemoaned the popularity of race-inspired equipment that is ill-suited to the needs of the casual cyclist.

For rough pavement or all-weather commuting, fire roads, and light trail use, a fatter, slightly knobby tire road tire running a 60+ psi is a great choice, and even the least sophsticated CX-branded rubber is a quantum leap beyond the 800g Cheng Shin monstrosities that spread like an STI in shops and box stores alike during the hybrid boom of the 1990s.

Racing on a Crummy Clincher

In terms of actual cyclocross racing—with high-speed cornering on mixed terrain, there are a lot of clinchers out there that simply aren’t competitive. Sure, if you’re willing to endure a masochistic enough pressure, you can hack your way through a race, and maybe even feel like you’re going pretty fast.

But if you’re really tight-roping the ragged edge of traction, hard tires don’t hold on washy, off-camber bends. Hard tires spin out as you try to apply power at the slightest suggestion of mud or loose terrain. And most importantly, hard tires don’t conform to obstacles, subjecting your body, your bike, and your most fickle components (derailleurs, spokes, seatposts clamps, headset bolts) to hammer blow after hammer blow.

There was a time when I thought this lack of suspension could be overcome by vigilant mechanical work and pure physical toughness. But after a few seasons, it’s become clear that the jarring and abuse is a secondary issue. The facts are that you can’t steer or apply power using tire that’s actively careening off the very surface obstacles that make cyclocross awesome.

Go Ahead. Lower the Pressure. See What Happens.

The obvious solution to these problems is to lower your tire pressure, but it’s a bitterly double-edged sword. With every psi you drop, your odds of catching a pinch flat increase, and the bumpier the course gets, and the more you have to gain from compliant, lower-pressure tires, the less safe it is to go for the low-psi advantage.

In my experience (at a not-particularly-nimble 165lbs) 40psi is about as low as you can go with a reasonable expectation of not flatting—and at that pressure, you’re giving away speed. You can still be competitive against tubulars on anything that’s not too muddy/bouncy, but be mentally and physically prepared to close a lot of gaps—rattling ass-in-the-air over washboard hardpack while your rivals pedal away is a psychological disadvantage that gets worse with every lap.

If We Have to Name Names

That said, cheaper and less experienced riders are more or less stuck with the clincher—even $2,600 race-branded machines ship with them. In a perfect world, I’d have bought every clincher I could get my hands on, and I’d let you know which ones suck and which ones rule. Alas, my masochism has limits—having found a handful of tires that don’t work, and a single one that does, I’m disinclined to further study.

My clincher of choice—for 100% of race conditions—is the Michelin Mud2. It has fantastic traction in almost anything, and supple (if somewhat fragile) sidewalls that make it feel tubular-awesome starting around 34psi (if you’re willing to risk a pinch). Sure, it’s a little knobby for hard-packed terrain, but rolling resistance caused by tread pattern (as opposed to say, pressure) is almost meaningless. Unless your ‘cross races are decided by paved, downhill coasting sections, it’s not something I’d bother worrying about.

As far as bad ‘cross tires go, it’s really hard to pick any one offender. There’s the Maxxis Raze that I managed to roll in the SS race of last year’s Ice Weasels. There’s the Vittoria XG that measured 2.5mm narrower than listed and slid six inches sideways every time I tired to pedal it through downhill corners at Green Mountain. And of course, there’s the old “tubeless-ready” Hutchinson Bulldogs that were actually pretty nice, except that their beads broke every other time I tried to mount them.

As always, your mileage may vary. Feel free to comment if you’ve had a good or bad experience with a particular clincher—and be specific about how you’ve used it. I’ve heard good things about a one or two other models, but as I said earlier, there are so many bad tires, and my experiences with them have been so awful, that I really don’t have the stomach for looking anymore.

Suggestions and Practical Advice

If you’re looking for a rule of thumb on what’s awful and what’s not, minimum recommended pressure has been a pretty good indicator for me. Numbers well outside the realm of what’s reasonable for CX—50 on the Raze and 60 on the Vittoria—have always turned out poorly. I’d long considered pressure indications were the result of much legal hang-wringing, but my experience seems to be suggesting that the Mud2 really has been engineered to effectively hold the rim and the dirt all the way down to its 29psi lower limit.

So it seems to me that a great solution this problem would be a little more truth in advertising—namely, not presenting tires with a 60psi minimum recommended inflation as cyclocross race equipment. I understand the marketing imperative of covering the CX niche, but let’s be honest: there are a whole lot more people out there commuting and pleasure riding on 23mm tires who’d be having a whole lot more fun and a lot fewer flats on my Vittoria XGs. Don’t insult consumers and batter your brand by pretending anything knobby is a CX tire because you feel like it needs to exist.

Industry publications could also help the alleviate some of the problem by keeping reader expectations a little more reasonable. While I’ve never been the biggest fan of Matt Pacochia, I give him credit for prefacing this article on CX clinchers by saying (essentially) “tubulars are better” (and also for only including three models, all of which I assume to be race-viable). The cycling press could still maintain its uncomfortably cozy relationship with manufacturers by ranking tires that don’t cut it in actual CX racing under a separate set of criteria to keep the scores inflated (so to speak).

Related posts:

1. BCA Cyclocross – Report
2. Catamount Cyclocross Weekend – Report
3. Pro Cycling News – There’s No Crying in Cyclocross

But with decent footage of every ascent to Plateau de Beille, including two by a yellow-clad Tommy Voeckler, and with the second big mountain-top finish of the year bringing another unexpected result, the opening to take an incisive look at the times is just too tempting.

The “start” at Plateau de Beille is kind of a hard thing to nail down. While the finishes on each of the videos I used looked the same, the heads-up KM-to-go displays varied pretty widely. Even Phil and Paul were inconsistent between years, citing both a sharp left-hand bend in the town of Les Cabannes and a 16km to go KOM banner as official climb starts—of course, as Ted King will tell you, trust the roadside banners at your own peril.

There also seems to be some dispute about the length of the thing. VS coverage seemed to suggest 15k, Strava says 15.2km, The Sport Scientists say 15.8km, and honestly, with the switchbacks, they all might be right. Considering how much climbing there seems to be within Les Cabannes itself—and the fact that there are hundreds of kilometers of racing beforehand—the ambiguity is understandable.

But if we want to maintain some semblance of precision in all this, we have to draw a line somewhere. If were Emperor of Bike Racing, I would declare this intersection the start, since it seems to mark a transition between village roads an unmistakeable, Euro-style climbing. But alas, that quaint sign is almost impossible to pick out behind the fans, on video filmed from the back of a motorbike, and this prominent 150m sign next to a caravans advertisement a few hundred meters earlier will have to suffice. Screenshots for the incredulous:

You’ll note that there are only four years represented here. Unfortunately, I can’t find uncut video of Pantani’s apparently record-setting ascent from 1998. It’s a great watch if you do get the chance, with Ullrich sprinting back on au bloc after a puncture in Les Cabannes, before Pantani storms away in the drops, but the performance would have required some correction factor anyway, since the ’98 course is reported to have finished at a lower elevation than later ascents.

Because I set my own line for the start, I also had to pin down my own elevation and length numbers. Ideally, I’d be able to head out there and ride it on a sunny day with a barometric altimeter, holding a path roughly equidistant between the center line and shoulder. Sadly, that’s not an option for me, so I’ll have to trust that Strava user Alex Palmer didn’t do too much Paper Boy on his way up. Here’s the “official” segment I’ll be using, from the aforementioned sign to the final curve of the ski-area turnaround: 15.6km, 1214m, 7.8%.

So, numbers-wise, what does that give us? Here are the PdB Stage Winner and “Tommy Voeckler group” (he finished alone in ’04) figures, ordered fastest-to-slowest, measured against the best performance (excluding Pantani for reasons noted above):

The first thing I notice is that, compared to Luz Ardiden, the difference between this year’s times and historical performances isn’t nearly as sharp, especially if you’re looking at Armstrong (’02, ’04). Of course, considering the GC situation in ’03, its no stretch to imagine that the ’03 Luz climb represented a removal of all the stops, both in terms of tactics and in terms of biochemical enhancement. Still, while the gaps weren’t as large, a significant, across-the-board decline for the 2011 numbers remained.

The second thing that catches my eye is Voeckler’s improvement between 2004 and last Saturday (he did race PdB in ’07, but having no GC position to consider, finished 42 minutes down in the autobus). I’d noted that on Thursday, the winner was as far behind Armstrong’s time as Voeckler used to be, but now that we’ve got some direct comparisons, you can see that his presence at the head of affairs isn’t merely the top end of the field slowing down.

There’s always the spectre of doping, I guess, but one likes to think that a rider who revels in his aggressive, opportunistic style wouldn’t feel compelled to dose up in pursuit of a title he doesn’t think he can win. Voeckler is slimmer—he’s lost some of the round-faced, cherubic appeal he had in 2004, he won a very hilly “classic” last fall, and was a presence on the bergs this spring. He’s also got team support, something Brioche la Boulangere just couldn’t offer. In ’04, Voeckler had also been dropped at least once before even arriving the foot of Plateau de Beille, suggesting he might have been having a rougher day—or suffering from a more intense pace.

Which brings me to one last note—the speeds leading up to the foot of Plateau de Beille on Saturday were uncharacteristically slow, and the peloton experienced minimal breakup over the previous climbs. That’s a pretty sharp contrast to 2004, when a group of just 22 (including 7 Posties) crested the penultimate climb, or to 2007, when Contador brought home the 200km, 3-climb stage in 22.5 mph. That’s all the more noteworthy when you consider that Saturday’s stage was over 30km shorter than the previous two ascents.

Related posts:

1. A Tale of Two Luz Ardidens – 2003 and 2011
2. Danes Ban Suspects, The LA Times Pounds Pound
3. The Enigma of Damiano Cunego

So I obtained digital copies of WCP’s ostensibly unedited DVD from 2003′s Stage 15, and a screencap of yesterday’s live, commercial-free finale on VS, and rolled them each back to a recognizable start point—the moment each heads of state group exits the Pont Napoleon. Since it’s where the riders removed their helmets back in 2003, I think it’s a solid choice for the official climb start.

I realize there are conspiracy theorists among you who will seize on the different angles and road surfaces, but I assure you, it’s the same bridge. You can see the same monument in the approach to it each year.

I likewise stopped the tape as each stage winner and heads of state group crossed the line at the top of the hill, put both figures into a spreadsheet, and began calculating elapsed times. The twisting approach and short finishing straight appear to be identical between the two ascents, so assuming that nothing funky happened in encoding either of the videos, the numbers are about as accurate and verifiable as any you’ll find.

However, Sammy Sanchez, as he is wont to do, decided to make things complicated. He escaped on the descent leading into Luz Ardiden, and crossed the bridge just ahead of the other leaders. You can’t really see him as he exits, because the camera cuts back to the chase, so I used the moment of the cut as the timestamp for his crossing.

So, what did the numbers look like?

Before I begin drawing any conclusions, let me just say that I’m well aware yesterday’s finish (despite a very similar profile) came at the end of 212km, compared to 160km in 2003. I also know that the lead group was much smaller in ’03, and that today’s finish had a decent tailwind, and that Armstrong’s 2003 time includes a number of historic mishaps. These, and the innumerable other things that make each new bike race interesting, are the reasons I generally think comparing times between ascents is stupid.

But the differences here are enormous, to the point that they negate almost any imaginable interference. The 10% drop in VAM (calculated, along with watts-per-kilo, from Strava’s figures of 982m and 7.5%) is insane. It basically says that after 5.5 hours in the saddle, a Cat 1 climb, and the Tourmalet, the top pros slowed down enough that even I can (very briefly and while fresh) reach a similar ascent speed.

Because Sammy Sanchez started ahead of the rest, it’s possible that Frank Schleck had a faster time it was actually Frank Schleck who had the fastest climb on the day—38:39, VAM of 1524, W/Kg of 5.54. But the fact that there aren’t any glaring differences in performance between the winner and the other heads of state is another striking change. In 2003, Carlos Sastre finished three minutes down on Armstrong and was 11th. That same margin on today’s stage barely put you in the top 25.

So what’s the cause? I’m sure many of you will go on in the comments section about people marking a sub-par Contador, or fewer GC riders around to kick up the tempo, or an overall race un-impacted by time-trials, or the flogging Leopard-Trek doled out over the Tourmalet, or any other of the innumerable, pleasant reasons why yesterday’s finish cannot possibly be compared to anything, and that I’m a fool for even trying.

So I’ll just direct you to this fact: the difference between Lance Armstrong’s ’03 time and Sanchez’ mark yesterday is almost identical to the amount of time one Thomas Voeckler lost to Armstrong in the Frenchman’s first day of high mountain maillot jaune defense, way back in 2004.

A peloton at two speeds? C’est possible.

Related posts:

1. It’s Good Not To Be The King
2. A Tale of Two Podiums
3. A Tale Of The Tune-Ups

After all, so much attention has gone to crashes this year because so many GC riders have been taken out. But is there really an increase in overall riders down? It’s rare that more than a passing nod is given to a tumble that takes out a few domestiques, but as far as overall safety is concerned, I think one rider’s abandon is as good (or bad) as any other’s.

So I’ve compiled some data for all the Tours de France since 1997 (cyclingnews.com doesn’t go back any further), looking at the percentage of riders who’ve gone home after nine stages. Obviously, it’s not a comprehensive study—early climbs and drug scandals have also played a role in thinning the pack, and not all crashes result in abandons—but I think it’s a decent ballpark metric.

Avg Attrition: 8.13%*
Avg Attrition w/198: 11.11%*
Avg Attrition w/180: 5.67%
Std Dv: 3.10%*
+1 Std Dv: 11.23%* (higher rates in red)
-1 Std Dv: 5.04%* (lower rates in green)

The numbers say some interesting things. The first is larger fields definitely increase the number of abandons—the rate of attrition by the 9th stage in a 198-rider field is almost a full standard deviation above the average since 1997, while 180-rider fields fall almost a full standard deviation below it.

As much as I’d like to see as many teams as possible contesting the sport’s biggest prize, it might just make for a better race if a few more people stayed home. Perhaps the 8-rider-teams solution floated by Craig Lewis might be a good way to get as many sponsors involved in the Tour while maximizing rider safety.

The second big takeaway is that this years race hasn’t been as brutal as you might expect in terms of sending riders home. Through nine stages, 2011 is just a touch above the 15-year-average, and well below what you’d expect for such a full field. Certainly the GC contenders have been overrepresented in the early departures, but that higher visibility doesn’t necessarily reflect a more destructive event.

The third thing that stands out to me is that—and I readily confess to falling back on the TREND(); function here—there is a slight trend toward lower attrition rates over the past 15 years (through nine stages, not correcting for field size*):

While I wouldn’t say that the ASO has ever been a tremendous advocate for rider safety, I believe this trend reflects the increasing level of sanity they’ve applied to routing each year’s Grand Boucle. Continuing in a direction that began with the end of split stages, organizers have promoted shorter routes as a way to stave off doping, while extending the “safe” zones at the end of flat stages to preserve the campaigns of GC riders caught behind crashes.

The end result of these changes has been—statistically speaking, anyway—a less destructive race, and 2011, for all the carnage we’ve seen out on the roads thus far, has been yet another step in that trend. It’s certainly felt like a more dangerous race, and viewer reactions (mine included) have helped foster that sense. But looking at the numbers, it’s pretty clear that reaction is not reflective of a greater number of crashes, but more a result of a greater public awareness of and affection for the athletes involved.

This post initially misreported the number of starters at the 2007 Tour as 198. Dossards 1-9 were omitted that year, making for only 189 starters, despite dossard 219 being the highest awarded. Numbers and figures marked (*) have been corrected from their initially reported values; the conclusions of the post remain largely unchanged.

Related posts:

1. Tour de France ’07 – Soler Solos, Vino’ Sours
2. Tour de France ’07 – First Rest Day and Still No GC Picture
3. 2010 Tour de France Versus Media Call