Not Floydtosterone

Floydtosterone, you heard it here first remember...

Here is a nice photo of a sand wheelchair that is begging to be modified into a 4 wheel Sand Dune derby car:


Seen in monterey alongside a rack of rental bikes that were pretty much rusted solid from persistent salty sea air.

Manzano Speaks and driveling on doping

Jesus manzano is my doping hero. If you believe him, he was more or less a guinea pig for lots of cutting edge doping practices in cycling a few years back. He spoke unabashedly after being fired from the Kelme team. See a interview with him followed by an extensive list of links at cyclingnews here.
Why my hero? Because he done told all. (pay attention cyclist who rhymes with Byler Bamilton, i still loves you, but would love ya more if.. well you know.)

Notably, from cyclingnews article here Jesus Manzano details blood doping by a doctor named Emiliano Fuentes, the very same doctor in the center of operation puerto scandal that threatens to wipe the sport clean of Ulrich, Basso and other cycling heros of late.

In the same article they summarize a list of products, in addition to blood doping, that manzano said he took as a pro rider, here it is:

Actovegin (extract of calves blood which supposedly improves oxygen carrying capacity)
Albumina H. (protein in blood plasma)
Androgel (testosterone)
Aranesp (Darbepoetin alfa = super EPO)
Celestote (corticosteroid)
Eprex (EPO)
Genotorm (growth hormone)
Hemoce (plasma)
Deca durabolin (anabolic steroid)
Humatrope (growth hormone)
IgF1 (insulin growth factor 1)
Neofertinon (hormone to stimulate ovulation and estrogen production)
Neorecormon (hormone that regulates red blood cell production)
Norditropin (growth hormone)
Nuvacten (corticosteroid)
Trigon (asthma drug)
Urbason (corticosteroid)
Ventolin (bronchial dilator)
Oxandrolona (anabolic agent)
Vitamin B12 (essential B vitamin)
Triamcinolona (corticosteroid)
Testoviron (testosterone)
Aspirina (analgesic, anti-inflammatory)
Oxyglobin (artificial haemoglobin intended for anaemic dogs)
Hemopure (artificial haemoglobin)
Ferlixit (iron)
Caffeine (stimulant)
Hemassist (artificial haemoglobin)
Prozac (antidepressant)


Why am I telling you this?

1: Despite being completely written off as a crank, his allegations against Fuentes have proven accurate with respect to blood doping, and we are in the midst of the fallout of the investigation. I think this pretty much vinidcates him showing he is no crank.
2: In a velonews article over the weekend (here) Manzano is quoted as saying of Testosterone: Its effects are felt almost immediately, It gives you a lot of force and produces a sort of euphoria." He goes on to detail how riders use testosterone for immediate, short term and long term effects.

So what does that mean for Floyd? Despite lots of conventional wisdom saying that Landis would not have been able to gain any benefit from application of testosterone the day of his miraculous breakaway,it seems that at least one experienced doper thinks that it may have been exactly what one would need for a 130 mile tt in the alps. If you want to feel good about Floyd, read my previous post here, or surf on over to cyclingnews or velonews to see the wellspring of "couldn't be Floyd, he is such a good guy" testimony.

On the off chance anyone is still reading, I recommend checking out Breaking the Chain by Willie Voet or A Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage for two insiders views on doping in the peleton. Kimmage, much like Manzano today, was widely regarded as a crank. The practices detailed in these books are childsplay compared to the impressive pharmacutical assault described by Jesus Manzano, but it is interesting to see doping practices of the 80's and nineties.

I think if the UCI offered some sort of limited amnesty in exchange for detailing doping practices at the level of manzano, we would be able to clean the sport of Fuentes like organized doping practices via criminal investigation. I am much more impressed with Manzano who told all as opposed to David Millar who lied repeatedly when confronted with allegations of his doping and then finally came clean in the face of overwhelming evidence. Millar is now regarded as a clean cycling hero. Which is fine, but I would love to have seen him roll over on his network of suppliers and supervising doctors in exchange for a 1 year ban.

Other interesting things that come up when people admit all in exchange for some leniency is when Laurent Roux spilled his guts to try to avoid criminal sentence in france. Read about it here in an article by the always excellent Samuel Abt. He used and sold "Pot Belge" which is a stimulant with at least 20 years of use in the peleton, consisting of a spectacularly insane mixture of amphetamines, caffeine, cocaine and heroin. Significantly he admitted using EPO, growth hormone and cortisoids, but not synthetic haemoglobin and blood transfusions because they were too expensive for his meagre salary. So are the French a victim of a two speed peleton, with foreign dopers vs. clean french cyclists as they claim? Or are they the victim of a two speed peleton with rich foreign dopers vs. poor french half assed dopers?

Woo, the good news is that it is almost cross season where the races are short and the Belgies are doped to the gills. Go Franken-Nijs!

Finally if anyone is still enjoying this doping reporting let me know via comment or email (tsaleh at rocketmail dot com). Readership is way up lately, and I assume it is not because of cat vomit stories. I spend a fair bit of time and an unreasonable amount of brain space storing cycle racing and doping stories in my brain and would love to hear from all of you in e-net land if it is worth summarizing it as conditions develop. I will continue with riding and cat stories for the rest of you. Lots of stuff to post when I get around to it.



More Doping musings:

Blah blah blah floyd landis... On the initial stages of the Floydtosterone scandal.

Tour predictions, immediately pre 2006 tour

best tour ever

Liberty Seguros Quits cycling

dopingpalooza on the beginning of the Saiz/Seguros scandal

Tyler, Doping and baseball

On the IGF-1

Tyler riding in a race

Huge post on Tyler getting suspended with lots of doping links

Early post on the dealy

Blah blah blah floyd landis...

I guess since I wrote so much about doping before I should talk about floyd landis a bit. I have no idea if he is a doper or not. I will wait for the B sample and see what comes out about the test and how he failed it. Cyclingnews, as usual, has a nice summary of previous positives for this test. Some other notes at knowledgebase here with a link to a summary article on the T/E (testosterone/epitestosterone) statistics used for doping tests here. The short story is that rumors are flying about that Floyd's E of the T/E was low giving a high ratio, but a meaningless performance enhancement. The Epitestosterone level can be lowered by things like alcohol and cortisoids, both of which landis is documented as taking, one to drown his sorrows after cracking on stage 16 and one to drown the pain of the osteonecrosis in his hip. As deadspin pointed out, Floyd landis would be the ultimate in cool for getting busted for drinking beer during the tour. He also could be the ultimate idiot for failing a drug test in a tour that was initially marred by most of the top contenders getting kicked out for doping. Like I says, lets wait for the B test and see what the ratios were.


More 2006 tour:

Old tour prediction

A novel with eerie parallels to this years tour

Drink a beer for floyd night

On cracking

Nice bike race in france

More Doping musings:

Tour predictions, immediately pre 2006 tour

best tour ever

Liberty Seguros Quits cycling

dopingpalooza on the beginning of the Saiz/Seguros scandal

Tyler, Doping and baseball

On the IGF-1

Tyler riding in a race

Huge post on Tyler getting suspended with lots of doping links

Early post on the dealy

Road Find of the Day

Dear fate is helping me slowly transition toward South Western US fashion victim. Found a few days back during a time trial, rescued on a twilight mission a few days later. A handy map was found near by so it did not sully my mussette.


click for big

Not an elk or buffalo skull, but not too shabby for a road find. A bit of bleaching and it will be perfect.

Old Tour Prediction

Ha! I found my old tour prediction from Febuary this year, here. Not too shabby really. Too much faith in big george, but otherwise not too terrible. The Yellow Jersey was a good guide to the race this year.

When the hummer is not quite big enough

click for big

I guess the yakima tow hitch rack fits in the giant diesel hauler just fine...

First harvest

Cilantro,peppers and a big ass squash from the garden. We had enough rain in the last month that we should be up to our armpits in peppers and squashes shortly.
I made them into an omlette.

Eerie Parallel Book Review

Woo, now that the TT is done (no spoilers here), there is no danger of the book being completely predictive, so I can go ahead and talk about it.

With the possible exception of Tim Krabbe's The Rider, my favorite work of cycling fiction remains Ralph Hurne's The Yellow Jersey.



It is a rollicking tale of a washed up rider in his last tour unexpectedly finding himself in yellow after a long breakaway combined with a number of drug suspensions. With the drug suspensions, heroic defense of the yellow, epic breakaways and leg shattering cracks, the book is prescient of this years wild Tour.

The book is a bit dated, but pretty exciting and the perfect antidote to withdrawl from this years tour. Go get it at your local bookstore or amazon.

Drink a Beer for Floyd night

Tour spoilers below




click for source


Welp thanks to epic heroism following the epic crack, Floyd is poised to snatch the tour in the final time trial, provided he is as strong as he was in the first, and his slower opponents ahead of him remain so. What could result in such a turnaround? Well a bonk is a bonk and once you are gone there is not a whole lot to do about it, and as I pointed out earlier it was not even the most impressive bonk of a grand tour leader in the last 5 years. So how can you recover like that. Well, I agree with ogrady and others, it was the beer.

Grand tour riders live a monklike life before and during the tours. They eat alot, but not extra. They do not drink, they don't like to walk around. They ride their bikes, eat and rest. But Floyd had a beer the night after his epic crack. This was his secret weapon. Maybe all the other riders are dangerously low on chromium, but floyd was all topped up due to his beer consumption?

Who knows, but if you are rooting for floyd, and I think it would be hard not to at this point, drink a beer for him tonight, its his version of the livestrong bracelet, and maybe spill a little on the ground for Levi and Menchov who both have been attacking relentlessly hoping for a Floydlike resurgence in the GC, but keep
cracking and falling short.

Crust Jesus

The winner for the best unintentionally hilarious bumpersticker, seen last night riding home from work. It was a "Trust Jesus" decal written in old english style font with the bar on the "T" broken off rendering it a "C". I am completely down with "crust jesus" though. The only thing better would be to see a Tupac wannabe with a "Hug Life" tatoo on the abs.

Crack

Tour spoilers below the pic.


click for source

My favorite grand tour moment of recent history was in the ought two Giro when Cadel Evans cracked like a little egg and lost 17 minutes in the last 10km while wearing the pink jersey. It was a race of suffering. Hamilton was riding his first grand tour with a broken collarbone, grinding his teeth into nubs as he rode to a second place finish, bless his little blood doped heart. Evans went from race leader to 14 minutes in arrears in one stage. It was horrible to watch, exacerbated by the ingeneously awful pink jersey/shorts and mapei jellocube outfit. But man what a stage.

Was todays stage in the tour any better? Well landis popped like a baloon on the last climb and merely lost 10 minutes on the day while in yellow. Well done. But the real story, to me at least, is the fact that EVERYBODY cracked. Well almost everyone, but Rasmussen in his epic victorious effort was pedalling squares for the last two kilometers and looked even more spectral than usual, especially as he struck the jesus on the finish line. Sastre's brilliant attack was tempered by his bonk on the last few km's, limiting his gains to a mere 10-15 seconds over the three that did not crack. Kloden, Perrero and Evans were clearly in the best shape, although none of them sorted themselves out as a leader. Previous epic cracker Evans was suffering but held on. Kloden looked unperturbed, but he never really attacked, maybe he has the Ulrich diesel installed. What of Perrero? He had the luxury of a 2 minute lead over everyone, never needed to work and was the only one who was energized at the finish.

Liepheimer made his bid for the podium from a long way out. He looked great until the last climb where he imploded. Menchov too attacked repeatedly on the final climb and paid for it in minutes at the end.

What a great stage. No one is in control of the tour. With Leipheimer, Menchov and Landis with little to loose suicidal attacks in search of stage wins could be the theme of tomorrow's stage. I predict another crack festival in stage 17 and nothing sorted until the final TT.

If you decided to not watch the tour this year, you are making a mistake. Go skinny men, race for them sammiches.

Feline Projectile Vomit

Sitting atop the 6 foot tall carpeted cat tree, Osmium decides to vomit, which is presaged with 30 seconds of epically metallic retching. I have no time to remove him and am not looking foward to cleaning cat vomit out of the carpeted kitty tree. Fortunately for me he manages to project two very large hairballs out a foot or two outwards before gravity takes hold and they splat to the floor hilariously. Thanks pal, for the good laugh and the easy cleanup.

More about bikes soon.

By the sea shore

An unprecedented amount of vacation and business travel has kept blogging light, but has allowed me to swim in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans over the last month and a half.

Blogging will return after a fashion, in the meantime see Jon's Ridiculously Stupid Snowy Movie. If you are not smiling like a dork then try harder.



click for big kelp float somewhere in Northern California

Ch-ch-cha changes

When two other blogs I read on the same day have the same title, well, then three's company.

So for today's changes, I put two blogs on the blogs I read part. My pal JonTod in knoxville is blogging at jonlivengood.blogspot.com/ and it looks good so far. Go visit his nice blog, he comes in peace.

Also see a flower called nowhere blog. Stacey is a bike nut like me, but took a much different path. I really enjoy his blog, good stuff.

Finally, speaking of Bowie, anyone else think that Jurgen Klinsmann and his ass't coach for germany are the new incarnation of the Glimmer Twins? Ziggy Stardust to Thin White Duke to Assistant coach of the German national team?



Corking match today, well done germany. Is Bastian Schweirnsteiger German for Cap't Link Hogsthrob? Alas I will be travelling tomrrow, I hope to catch the finals enroute somewhere.

And that tour thingy, woo, boy is it up in the air, keep your eyes open this week, it will should be silly.

Not much funnier than baboons

Somewhere obvious on Mass Ave and the super trendifying cambridgeport region.

Wicked Bumma

A wicked bummer on Newberry St in Boston.

nice bike race in france

Welp,
allsorts of juicy doping gossip, UCI seeking long bans for implicated riders including a lifetime ban for squeaky clean Tyler etc. I even wrote some reactions, but I am not all that interested in further analysing things as I noticed skinny little men are racing bikes in france, and it is pretty gripping. So just go watch that. Or if you are discouraged, go watch the World cup. Spent a nice morning watching the tour, drinking espressos and watching the World Cup. Ahhhhh. Skinny tiny men going fast on bikes. Go tiny men, if you do well maybe the director will let you have a sammich.

Newyork Newyork Newyork

In honor of yet another Hincapesque performance by Hincapie, a pic from somewhere west of Union Square from a NYC trip a week or so back.



click for full streetscape spectacular or here for a grafitti besmirched closeup of the panasonic advert.




NY is overrun by fixies and it is nice. There are the omnipresent neuvo hipster fixie riders that plague all urban areas these days, but the eternal west indian looking fixie messengers insouciantly gliding through cross traffic are still out in force. My fixie introduction at the age of 11 or so was in NYC asking a dreadlocked messenger how he stopped a bike with no brakes, "with my feet, mon" was the reply, expanding my bicycling world by leaps and bounds.

I was a bit lazy with the camera, but I saw some beautiful steel fixies that were incrementally decaying due to constant locking and unlocking and the salty sea air. I saw some nice forever chinese bikes floating around as well up by the MOMA. Finally, for the locals, drop into the anthropologeee store in Rockefeller center for some really really beautiful french cyclotourist tandems and some other old bikes used as a display. Don't shop there though as they would not let me take any pictures as they did not want me to steal their store decoration schemes. After they saw me try to take a photo, they kinda kept an eye on me. Paranoid culture appropriating bastages.