Car:Driver::Barrel:Fish. Not being mistaken for this guy is reason enough to minimize your time behind the wheel:

Short Schrift: My Secret Shame

Ah, the old “cyclists are ruffians” argument. What color was that pot again?

If it were possible to cheat the rules on the road in a car the way it is on a bike, drivers would be at least as egregious in their actions as cyclists . Come to think of it, they already are; when was the last time you saw a car make a complete stop at a vacant intersection? Obey the speed limit to the letter? Stop before a right on red? Blow through a crosswalk? Park illegally? Fail to signal? Or commit a less obvious offense, like driving without a license or registration, or with an expired inspection sticker?

But look: I’ve never taken the moral high ground for my cycling based on the rule of law. I take it because no matter how you slice it, a driver is more destructive and puts far more burden on society than a cyclist. And the author of this piece knows it—the longest paragraph in his poorly-reasoned rant covers the problems. Yet all he can come up with is that a bike rider’s carbon footprint is “2/10ths of a nose hair” smaller? How much more thoroughly could this guy discredit himself?

Honestly, it bugs me, too, when people complain about about “close calls” they had while cycling. A car swerving into the bike lane three feet away from you is not a close call. Cyclists can’t consider bike lanes magical alleys of safety any more than drivers can treat them like a second set of shoulder lines. When a car slides by my with a foot and a half to spare, it doesn’t make me angry; it makes me thankful that at least *one* driver out there has a decent idea where his right bumper is.

The author of this piece concludes—rightly—that cyclists are as willing to break the law as anyone else. What he doesn’t realize is that when a cyclist breaks the law, it’s one neck and 20 pounds of metal on the line. Recklessly (and not-so-recklessly) driven cars destroy property, wear down roads, block thoroughfares, harm the economy, waste resources, pollute the environment, deafen the ears, and cripple, maim, and kill thousands of innocent people a year. Anyone with an ounce of objectivity can see where the real menace on the road lies.

This guy needs to get real about his issue with cyclists. Which do you think he’d rather hear coming up behind him: a friendly “on your left” or the bloodcurdling wail of a fast-approaching horn?

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Sometimes, I find myself faced with crises of purpose. What am I doing here? Why can’t I figure out what I want to do with my life? Will I ever find something that satisfies me? It’s enough to really get me down sometimes. It’s a good thing I’ve got the boneheadedness of the bicycle industry to set me right again.

I suppose it was only a matter of time until some high-watt decided to apply the word “carbon” to drivetrains, and it’s a good thing the folks at Carbon Drive Systems did just that - otherwise I would have mistaken their “innovation” for a glorified fan belt. Anyway, it’s about time someone beefed up those flimsy polyurethane straps - they last a mere 60,000 miles while running in my car. With the glut of other unsuccessful belt-drive bicycles out there, it’s clear to see the addition of carbon fiber must do something to make this product newsworthy - perhaps by making it laterally stiff yet vertically compliant!

And really, isn’t a revamping of the single-speed drivetrain long overdue? I mean, it’s just so hard to maintain that single cog, single chain ring and chain. Sure, when it gives you 20, or even 30 gearing options, a chain drive is worth the painstaking process of applying a coat of lubricant, turning the crank a couple times, then wiping it clean. But when you’ve only got one gear, the reliability, adaptability and near-perfect efficiency of a chain drive simply can’t make up for the extra weight and apparent mud shedding issues.

One of the nice things about attending a college with an engineering school is that you get to dissuade people from pursuing a lot of really silly ideas. Occasionally, you you get to see something cool (though that’s not really how bike balance works) but for the most part, you just shoot down bad ideas. Overlooking than the general sensation of pedaling through sand, the belt-driven protoype I rode slipped under power at low revs, and derailed entirely at the cog around 100 RPM. Good thing none of these will ever be an issue on a singlespeed MTB…

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Argument number one billion to revise the UCI ProTour: the sport’s “minor leagues” end up stacked to the brim with tainted athletes. Unconvicted doping pariah du jour Michael Rasmussen is currently in talks to ride with Acqua-Sapone for the rest of the season, and believe me, he’s not their first liaison. The Italian squad even went so far as hire Michele Scarponi this spring, before the rider finally owned up to his offenses.

And it’s not like Acqua is the only offender. The rosters of Relax-GAM and Tinkoff Credit Systems form a dramatis personae from every doping show of the past half-decade. While some ProTour teams (Astana, Disco) have done their part dodging the rules to recycle suspected riders, without the paranoia and home-bred nepotism of the TdF selection committee, it might be more difficult to name a “clean” Continental Squad than a “dirty” one. And trust me, this isn’t the Continental Tour’s fault.

While the additional two years faced by ProTour dopers might seem like a tough stance, whose samples do you think underwent more scrutiny this summer: Alberto Contador’s or Santiago Botero’s? ProTour riders not only have to pass the UCI’s ever-increasing test load, but also face progressively tougher team-imposed monitoring as well. Rasmussen found himself temporarily unemployed long before the sport’s recent crises, and Serguy Honchar was unceremoniously dumped from T-Mobile this spring, before racing at a single marquee event.

Most people seem to have notions of trimming down the size of the ProTour peloton, or eliminating less storied races altogether. Perhaps in time - first, the UCI needs to shore up its current ethical charter. The doping revelations since its inception have blown holes in its role as a deterrent, and as Jon Vaughters points out, it’s in the sport’s best interest to keep the old dopers away from the neo-pros for as long as possible. The best way to do that is to keep the cheats - and their outmoded mindset - where the anti-doping heat is hottest: the UCI ProTour.

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Man, I feel really sore all of a sudden. I’m thinking maybe this had something to do with it? I mean, this is a new era in cycling. I was jonesing hard for that “I’m about to get busted” confession. I suppose with old Johan looking over his shoulder, we should have never expected anything else out of Contador, but in cycling’s current atmosphere, the unflappable “I swear on the grave of my dog” announcement carries about as much weight as a subprime mortgage investment. In today’s era, clean or not, Contador’s name will always be shaded with tints of dope.

Possibly the clearest indication of this change in attitude was the announced dissolution today of the Tailwind Sports juggernaut. With quite possibly the most convoluted logic I’ve ever heard, the team management explained themselves, saying, essentially, “yeah, we could have gotten a sponsor, but it just wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.” Excuse me? Since when has a gang of ubercapitalists ever had qualms about securing an investment? A lawsuit is the only thing that I could see inspiring that sort of scruple. And what, exactly, could make a cycling sponsor sue a team? Oh, I dunno…

Furthermore, I think we all remember 2004, when a certain Lance Armstrong hunted down Filippo Simeoni during a Tour de France stage, to prevent the Italian from even riding in a break. Ole’ One-Nut’s explanation for the move was, literally, “I was protecting the interests of the peloton” from a guy who “says bad things…about the group in general.” So who’s going to drag you back to the field, you simple-minded hypocrite? Could you possibly have sent a more destructive message about cycling than “It’s too dangerous to put money into the sport now?” Every time I see you stump for more cancer research, I find myself further hoping that you’ll relapse.

But enough negativity, supposition and intrigue! We’re off to what may now be the cleanest land in all of cycling - Germany. The Deutchlandtour’s first stage was taken by Robert Forster, who’s really been making a case to have his name listed among the top echelon of sprinters this season. Team CSC struck back in the Second Stage TTT, and returned 2006 winner Jens Voigt to the leaders’ jersey. The attentive fan will note that Team CSC has been a very committed sponsor, even instituting and releasing intra-team blood tests. Forster’s Gerolsteiner squad is also no slouch in supporting clean cycling.

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Say what you will about doping; I think today’s finish was the saddest and most unfair of the entire ‘07 Tour. Not that three-time runner up Sandy Casar was an undeserving winner - he bounced back from an early spill, made his turns in the break, and played his speed edge perfectly in the finale. But poor Michael Boogerd; after two weeks of flogging himself to exhaustion, over the most heinous mountains in the world, in his final Tour de France, all for cheatin’ teammate he didn’t much care for, if there were any justice in this world, today’s stage would have been Boogie’s.

Not that anyone else out there thinks that. Ask people who don’t know what they’re talking about and the consensus is clear - all bike riders everywhere are on drugs. It’s kinda funny, really - cops make a drug bust, and it’s great press. Cleaning up the streets, they’d say. Cycling makes a drug bust, and it’s a sport “mired in scandal”. What a bunch of crotchless journo hacks. When Shawne Merriman gets a two year suspension, plus two seasons playing to empty seats in Utah, then you can talk to me about clean sport. Besides, it’s not like the doping bothers cycling fans that much. As The Simpsons so perfectly allegorized (in an episode about drug dependence, no less), fans of a sport will blind themselves to the most heinous of its flaws.

Which brings us to this - what if the Chicken really is telling the truth? Granted, if this is the case, it should be pretty easy to prove (well, prove convcingly) that he was in Mexico, not Italy, for his pre-Tour training. But with lawsuits flying, organizers dis-inviting, governing bodies using the the dope stories for political leverage and calling for summits, maybe Rabobank figured the advertising dollars weren’t worth the cost and cut the Dane free - even while still giving the riders their Tour winning bonus. Certainly, an ejection of an unpopular and probably-dosed-up rider isn’t something fans will think too deeply about.

And then there are those news stories that no one wants to hear. Greg Lemond, for example, turning the spotlight of suspicion onto Alberto Contador. While one would like to think the youngster is clean, for someone with the future of the Tour on his shoulders, he has something of a checkered past. And does it strain credulity that, stage after stage, Disco could put three riders against an isolated Rasmussen and Evans? Should we maybe inquire to see if these guys are on the UCI’s watch list - or would we rather just sit back and watch them sock a few dingers?

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, with all the savagery and suddenness of a Great White, word of another positive test. Can I call it, or what? Kinda gives new meaning to Bobby Julich’s nickname for the about-to-be-disgraced Kazakh, doesn’t it? Throughout my outrage at the suspensions last July, I continually used Vino’ as a rallying point, noting how, while most of his team was connected the Fuentes’ doping ring, he’d never been implicated, yet was still compelled not to race. I feel really stupid about that now.

But can you imagine being Andreas Kloden? The poor guy gets signed to a team built by Kazakhs for a Kazakh, outperforms said Kazakh on nearly every occasion, but still can’t get his other Kazakh teammates to ride for him. Finally, after two stage wins, Vino’ says “I am now all for Kloden” but immediate gets ejected from the Tour, and - insult to injury - takes the rest of the team down with him (granted, after Kessler and Mazzoleni, the whole team’s a bit suspect). The German fans must love that. When Kloden was sitting there in front of his contract last August, about sign, I wonder if any of this passed through his head?

And where, exactly, does this leave the sport of cycling? I like to hope that Jon Vaughters is right, and that it’s a small percent of very driven, very unscrupulous riders who dope. This seems to be supported by the fact that only big names seem to get caught (Sinkewitz and Kessler, though not superstars, were certainly upper-tier). There seems to be a consensus feeling that this Tour has been cleaner, and I think the general drop in “amazing”, or even “gutsy” rides (“like a bunch of amateurs”, you might say) supports this - if you’ve spend the last decade dosed up to your eyeballs, you’ll feel like sitting on a lot more once you’re clean.

Yes, in the end, I think Vino’s positive is good for cycling. David Millar’s reaction pretty much summed up my own; shock and dismay, followed by the realization that there’s now one less doper. With every rider that gets caught, and with every case that gets pursued fairly, the viability of doping is eroded. Even Michael Rasmussen, who, as Rabobank’s lawyer is quick to note, hasn’t broken any rules, finds himself increasingly isolated as the evidence against him mounts. While German politicians might make speeches to the contrary, the exposure of new dopers will not kill cycling; in the end, it only makes it stronger.

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I am not a happy camper. Cyclingnews was sold last night, to an evil publishing conglomerate - an evil publishing conglomerate that already owns, among 150 or so other publications, ProCycling, Cycling Plus, MBUK and What Mountain Bike. Since the Podium Cafe seems to have taken the mature, cautious response to this development, I’ll spend a moment to tell you what’s actually going on.

Future just launched this humpish atrocity called BikeRadar.com, and wants it to become the online source for all things bike. Since ProCycling’s webpage has never been much more than an infomercial for their print publication, and since Cyclingnews is the 500-pound gorilla of the industry, Future decided to kill two birds with one stone - ala Charles Foster Kane buying the editorial staff of the New York Chronicle. “Really, Charles, what will people think…” “What I tell them to think!” Truer words were never spoken, and the loss today for internet-savvy cycling fans is immeasurable.

And as if it weren’t bad enough that cycling’s largest independent news source just got swallowed, cycling’s fastest sprinter, Alessandro Petacchi, looks to have scored a one year mandatory vacation for overusing his asthma inhaler. Yeah, awesome. Way to fight doping. You know why caffeine was removed from the banned list? Because it doesn’t help you win races. And if the cannisters of asthma meds my friends used to drain before the mile run in middle school gym are any indication, neither does salbutamol. No word yet on whether The Man will be forcing Petacchi to give up his 2007 salary or leave the ProTour for an additional two years.

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Ah, there’s nothing like struggling with the eccentricities of your local shop, assembling a new bike, changing banks, attempting to file a warranty claim with a defunct company, sending in ludicrous hard-copy forms after filing taxes on-line, correcting addresses (since the benefits and payroll offices at my “real” job can’t seem to compare records…) and doing boring, mind-numbing work to put you in a good mood, is there? Well, actually, there is - watching the anti-dope authorities attempt to prosecute offenders.

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Not that I ever liked Patrick Lefevere, but man, I really don’t like him now. The Quick.Step director is reportedly “encouraging” each member of his 30-man team to sue a Belgian newspaper that that accused him of a generation’s worth of doping. With pupils like Johan Museeuw, Richard Virenque, Frank Vandenbroucke, most would see the dope claim as at least worthy of an investigation, but Lefevere isn’t encouraging the suits for legal reasons - he just wants to find out which of his riders is the rat. Hercule Poirot, he ain’t.

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Reason #426 I’m looking forward to to Het Volk: it’s neither a ProTour event, nor owned by Grand-Tour organizers ASO, RCS or Unipublic (henceforth referred to on Cyclocosm as The Cartel), and thus provides a much needed reprieve deLaclosian squabble raging between those two camps. After months of posturing, threats and fruitless negotiation, the fact remains that no one has any clue exactly what’s going on.

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