Just when you thought the Idiot Train had discharged all passengers – TOOT! TOOT! – guess who steps onto the platform? Why, it’s Jesper Worre, organizer of largely irrelevant Tour of Denmark, who has declared that Ivan Basso is not welcome at his race. Worre justified his decision with this cryptic remark: “The fact alone…
The Winds of Change
I feel this strange drop in temperature all of a sudden. Some might say “oh, Cosmo, you haven’t posted in so long; you must not realize that it’s December.” These people are clearly idiots and have never heard of global warming. The refreshing chill that I’m talking about is due not to cooler prevailing winds…
Politics and Polymorphisms
I was going to post this essay here, but I’d rather have someone read it. Besides, none of it is really “news” per se.
The Death of Isaac Galvez and Its Repercussions
If you’d told me last week that there’d be cycling news unrelated to the phantom stories of Operacion Puerto or the race organizer/ProTour schism, I would have told you I’d be psyched to report on it. Then, it turns out to be this. Isaac Galvez, multiple-time World Champion on the track, is now dead, following…
Leaks, Myopia, Ignorance, and Other Euro Cycling Diseases
Today’s Yahoo! Cycling headline: “Hackers Steal Data at French anti-Doping Lab”. No points for guessing which French anti-doping lab, especially if you’re Paola Pezzo or Lance Armstrong. (By the way, it just so happens the “scientist” who leaked the Armstrong case to L’Equipe participated recently in the super-secret meeting on DNA testing. I sure hope…
A Return to the News
No rants today, folks, and none for a while, I promise. Just a return to the good old fashioned news updates, primarily because my ethical indignation glands have been going full bore since July 1, and are now completely tapped out. First news item of the day is old: Operacion Puerto has been shelved. No…
Putting Down a Mad Dog
“Mad Dog”? “Foaming Rant”? Yeah, and I’m a “Young Professional” with a “Promising Career”. Patrick O’Grady, your latest tripe has got to be the most weak-kneed excuse for an editorial since Mike Imrem christened Ricky Williams the next Jacques Anquetil. In all honesty, what was the point of this Friday’s rant? That it snows in…
Oh, Jonnie, We Hardly Knew Ye
I used to like you, Jon Vaughters. You seemed like a nice guy with great references; one of the few riders everyone could believe really was clean. But then you came out saying you never saw any evidence of doping during your time at US Postal. That didn’t lessen you any in my eyes, per…
The Farce Comes Full Circle
Eurosport reports that Ivan Basso has been officially cleared to race. Note how they’ve sloppily insisted that Basso “served out a four-month suspension having been linked with the Operation Puerto doping probe”. That’s the biggest syntactic dry-hump since Super Bowl XXXVIII’s “wardrobe malfunction”. Using the verb “served” would imply that Basso’s suspension was a predetermined…
Milford Cyclocross Classic Race – Report
This report really begins a few years back, when Steve Weller was converting Amy Wallace’s old Specialized Allez to a campus single-speed (an idea popularized among the Hanoverans by yours truly). I was aghast to see that Steve had shelled out 30 bucks for a singulator (the existing – that is, free – rear derailleur…