Today’s post is late and short. I apologize, but was riding the spectacular Kingdom Trails in Northern VT today. It would have been indescribably spectacular had someone not jacked my mountain bike last night. The old gray Scott, set up for single-speed is the only mountain bike I’ve ever really enjoyed riding, and this upsets me deeply.
Anyway, Paris-Tours. It’s this weekend. Catch the fever with any of these great race previews. Of course, if the racing isn’t enough to get your attention (and I’d guess it isn’t, based on which types of news stories get the most attention), there’s always the old “it will make you a flop with chicks” trick. Apparently, cut-out saddles simply aren’t going to cut it as far as bike riding’s concerned. (Though I suspect riding around with this bad boy will make your sexual potency or lack thereof a moot point, as any woman who sees you riding it won’t give you a second look.) Of course, like most “emergency health alert” stories, this is one people were well aware of years ago; Fausto Coppi himself set a seatless hour record of 45.848 km way back when. No doubt seizing upon this new wve of “seats are bad for you” news to do some charity fundraising, 50 year-old Dutchman Maas Van Beek will be attempting to better that in the near future.
And then there’s the doping. When things get slow, it’s the old standby. L’Equipe fired out it’s latest bombshell, revisiting an old story in which a former USPS team doc claims to have been fired for not getting certain riders sauced up. This version, from VeloNews (though borrowed from AFP) is a suprisingly zesty read, with sweet quotes like “To claim that Lance and Tyler have doped, that’s just crap” (Dan Osipow, a Postal/Disco honcho, perhaps not mindful that Hamilton has already been convicted by USADA).ProCycling’s not to cool to report on it, either, though their version is much less interesting. This is all hot on the heels of yesterday’s deluge of dope cases and doping related news.