Review - PowerTap SL

So I got the PowerTap in April.

I had a Cycle Ops electronic trainer (measures power etc) before the PowerTap (PT) - made by the folks who make PT. I liked training with power and heart rate - it seemed the right way to ride. I found it both motivating and revealing. For example, sometimes I wasn't going as hard as I thought - other times, the opposite. I found that loud music was worth something like 50-75+ steady state watts, that being awake and motivated probably 50+ watts as well.

Yes, this means that I sometimes train at 90 or 100 watts average since I rarely hold 200 watts average for 30 minutes or more.

When the electronic trainer burnt up (it started smoking and wires melted and stuff) I decided I wanted a "portable" power meter. Having power on the trainer was fun but I couldn't relate it to real world performances. I selected the PT after a lot of thinking, a lot of budgeting, and finally a quick swipe of the credit card.

So does it help? Does knowing power help?

I suppose the answer really depends on what you want from it.

Yes it tells you power. It downloads easily onto a USB equipped computer. It graphs your speed, heart rate, torque, and power. You can select a period of time simply by clicking at the beginning and end of it and the program will tell you your stats for just that interval. Power readings are available as peak, 5 second best, 30 second best, 1 minute, 5 minute, 30 minute, and 120 minute bests.

I haven't taken advantage of it as a tool though. For me it's more like a gadget.

I don't train that much - my PT, which I got in April and which I've ridden both indoors and out, has 850 miles or so on the odometer - and that includes about 60-70% trainer rides. I do use the PT all the time except when I've ridden my tandem (maybe 50 miles on the latter).

But I don't use the PT to figure out my next interval or how much power to put out on the next hill. I've never set out with a wattage goal in mind - it's usually a heart rate target and I check to see if I'm going well or not based on the power relative to my heart rate.

I have used it to gauge how I'm doing in races and during hard efforts. My best 1 minute efforts on the electronic trainer were about 400 watts. In races, I found I could do 450 watts for a minute, once 500. A few days ago, after writing the start of this post and thinking about it, I realized I hadn't done a one minute effort in a long time - a couple years. I did two and managed to maintain 500+ watts for both.

I found this pretty cool since in races I haven't been able to hit such sustained 60 second power levels. So now I know that the races I did earlier this year weren't as much work as what I did last night, at least for a minute.

Without a power meter, there's no way I would have known this.

Speed and cadence data is hard to interpret - there are too many variables to be able to extrapolate data from these numbers. Wind, gearing, incline, and perhaps elevation all affect your speed and cadence.

Many people use heart rate monitors and heart rate is a bit more telling. However, in my big efforts, a heart rate monitor really wouldn't have helped at all. When I did my two 500+ watt one minute efforts, my heart rate never went over 163. I blow at 170-173 or so. It shows that although I may not feel like I'm fit, I have some fitness. Or, more realistically, that my efforts were too short to get my heart rate up. Either way, a heart rate monitor would have told me "nice try but no cigar".

The reality was that I went harder for that minute than I have in any race I've done with the PowerTap.

In that sense, a power meter is good.

It's obvious too that if the power meter doesn't work then it's not really useful. In that respect the PT is very good. I used it in during a thunderstorm that was pretty bad - bad enough to "red flag" a Pro/1/2/3 race - and had no problems with the hub or the head unit. I've used it in pretty cold weather too although no sand or snow or salt. And I've banged around my bike in my trunk, the basement, and on the trainer. No data drops that I know of, no problems with the head or the hub.

Setting up the thing wasn't that quick but it was reasonable. The odd thing are the zip ties - if the bike gets really hot they don't stay tied. I got my bike out of my car one day (I left it in there during a really hot day) and virtually all the ties were loose - and I used a lot of zip ties. It was sort of odd. It looked like some of those magical shoemaker elves undid all my zip ties overnight or something. I used pliers to re-zip them and they've been fine since.

I'd like to get another PT wheel so that I have one for training, one for racing. A whole setup is not that much so I'd buy a second unit. I'd use the second "head" on a different bike or put it on my fiancee's bike. The second hub would be a 24 hole so that I can lace a 24 hole deep dish rim on it. I'd revert my first PT hub back to a non-tubular training wheel once the second wheel is built.

Of course this gets the price of the PT up there, almost into the SRM category. Almost. I'd have to buy a third PT to hit SRM levels. If I'd gotten an SRM to start with, I wouldn't have had to rebuild any wheels or anything. I still think the PT is easier to handle financially since you really only have to get one wheel. And a lot of folks apparently train with the PT but race on "race" wheels.

The one time you can't use a PT is if you want to use a real disk wheel. Since I don't time trial a disk wheel is not an issue. If you're a TT god you'd need an Ergomo or SRM to be able to ride a disk while getting power output.

Overall I like the PT a lot. If you're thinking of getting a power measuring unit, the PT is pretty foolproof, compatible with both Shimano and Campy cassettes, build-able like a normal wheel, and sets up similarly to a cyclo computer with cadence and rear wheel speed pickup.

I like it. I guess there's not much more to say than that.

Letters - Sprinting

This letter first appeared in cyclingnews.com. I decided to republish it as it's been quoted in full on a different site and I think it helps describe why I like sprinting. I wrote this letter in response to someone who claimed there's more to life than just sprinting.

There's More to Life than Sprinting

I couldn't stay away from this one. I suppose I'm the antithesis of a climber so I figured I'd give the other point of view. With all due respect, by the way - I've learned the hard way how much hurt a climber can put on someone when things go uphill. And then they attack. Egads.

Climbing focuses on a combination of power to weight ratio and a high aerobic capacity. I liken this to being a triathlete or a runner - being very fit is critical to performing well for these athletes. Sprinting emphasizes tactical astuteness and fast-twitch muscles - it's hard to sprint well without those two traits. Well that and a bit of the need for adrenaline. Although the pro sprinters have to be fit, in the real world of Cat 4's and 3's, sprinters do not have to be as fit - they just need enough fitness to get to the finish.

I tend not to be fit and I have a decent jump. I absolutely love strategy and tactics (bikes, cars, games, whatever). Being a sprinter is a natural outlet for this combination. Given the choice between a long climb in a road race and close quarters, elbow to kneecap, skewer to pedal riding in a crit, I'll always take the latter. I can't climb to save my life - I've tried and failed miserably at that (ditto time trialing).

My two favorite training rides are based on sprinting. One now-defunct ride was the SUNY Purchase Tuesday night sprints. Imagine doing a sprint per lap on a 2 mile circuit for two and a half hours (!). Cat 1's to Cat 4's (there were no 5's back then) would show up in a field of 100 or more. Teams would practice leadouts and on the "nice wind" days, speeds would exceed 45 mph (75 kph) in the sprint. The other ride is one that we sometimes unofficially have, the Summer Street Thursday Night Sprints in somewhere in Connecticut. We'd ride at some odd time, like 10 or 11 PM, and do a couple hours of laps on a (coincidentally) 2 mile loop. With all one way streets (or two ways with medians), you never have to worry about oncoming traffic. And with a 35 mph speed limit, you can use cars, trucks, or even police cars as leadout men (the latter judiciously).

But in the end, it's all to go sprinting at a race. There is nothing like the last lap of a crit where the field is together - it is one of the most intense experiences one of us regular racers can have in a bike race. Everything about the race is to be decided - it's not just a formality. The actual selection is about to happen. So there's that building of anticipation as the laps wind down, where (as a sprinter) you pray that all breaks fail. Then, as your prayers are answered, you're in a gruppo compacto at the clanging bell, with the cheering crowd, friend screaming at you to "move up! move up!", the unique sound of chains and tires humming along, noise and confusion inundating your senses. There's the frantic fighting for position, the nudges, the racers diving suicidally into non-existent gaps. The rat-at-at of skewers and spokes (and the pause where everyone waits for the crash, but when it doesn't happen, everything just keeps on going). The occasional politeness ("sorry 'bout that" or non-verbal "let me in that gap" look). The desperate 100% attacks followed by eager opportunists, teams trying to line up leadouts, sprinters hollering at their leadout men, the field snaking across the road as leadout men respond to final attacks and other leadout train surges.

And all the mistakes that everyone makes tactically, it's incredible. Racers go too early, too late, let gaps open up - lack of commitment is a big weakness in close quarters racing. The zen-like instant decisions - Follow my leadout man? Will he blow? What about that leadout train? Where is that big blue sprinter guy? How did I get here? Blasting through the last couple corners, feeling the tires digging in and sliding just that bit, feeling the pedals just touching the pavement, racers yelling, the burnt rubber smell as someone miscalculates and locks up a tire, chains just slamming into gears as people shift under 100% load. There is that incredible speed that racers find in their legs when a few minutes ago they were struggling to hang on - just how did they find 36 mph (60 kph) in their legs?!

Then finally the first jump goes, a huge jump, the one that is supposed to gap a surprised field right away, immediately followed by all the counters (by non-surprised racers waiting for it) fighting to get onto this last (now suicidal) leadout's wheel. The momentary pause tactically as everyone goes all out after this upstart. Then the surges on the sides as the field quickly goes from strung-out to curb-to-curb then squeezing and expanding as racers try and close doors all over the place. The quick calculations - should I go again now? Wait? Why can't I shift up - am I already in my 12? Can I fit through that gap? Squeeze a bit to the right to shut down the guy there. Jam the brakes as someone does the same to you. Jump again, swearing so much to yourself that Howard Stern would censor you, thinking to yourself that you'll never be that careless again. Duck under that elbow as you pass a behemoth on a bike. Scoot past that shoulder (of a blown leadout guy) coming towards you so fast he might as well have hit a wall. And then, when you are ready, you commit yourself and totally punch it, almost lifting the bike off the ground you're pulling up so hard on the bars, trying to keep the back wheel on the ground, Conti's scrabbling for traction. It always comes up in slow motion, everyone's positions around you burned into your memory like a watercolor, the sprint taking longer and longer, time slowing down. Legs just don't seem to turn any faster no matter what you try to do to them. Then finally the last few meters goes by and you're throwing the bike at the line no matter what because your mentor told you to never ever take a sprint for granted and then time accelerates and you're 200 meters past the line breathing hard and replaying everything over and over, planning what you'll do the next time you're here.

Jeez my heartrate is kinda high just thinking about all this.

Monday, March 8, 2004

Pictures - Reference

Just a place for me to upload pictures so I can link to them from other sites. Yes there are stories behind each one. I'll get to them eventually.

Training - Long Hot Ride and a Whopper of a Sprint

So this morning I rode with a long time friend and long time ago teammate. We did a somewhat standard route for this area, looping up and around a big resevoir, returning on the misnamed Poverty Hollow Road (replete with horse farms and such), and then a quick run down the fast Route 136. His goal is to prepare for a possible race coming up, a flat crit, and he wanted to gauge his fitness level and pinpoint any weak spots.

In preparation for the ride I degreased and washed my bike. The drivetrain was pretty messy and it irritated me to look down and not see gleaming chainrings. About 20 minutes of work with a bucket of water, citrus degreaser, and a car polishing spray, and voila, instant clean bike.

So satisfying.

I brought two small and one large bottle at the urging of the future missus - she knows how much I suffer in the heat, and with temps around 80 when we started, it wasn't going to be cool. The large bottle I took out of the freezer - one 32 ounce block of ice. Great for the first hour or so, then it quickly gets lukewarm like the other bottles.

We talked about a flat race's need for speed. It's critical to be able to go fast in those races since, to a certain extent, low weight and climbing fitness doesn't do much when you're trucking along at 35 mph on the flats.

We went out at a medium pace but on the first rises my friend went pretty hard. I simply couldn't follow and dropped back a bit. This happened on any rise over 100 meters long. In between the little climbs we chatted about the upcoming race and this need for speed.

I pointed out that going hard up the climbs doesn't really work on speed. It works on power and it makes you mentally tough but it doesn't really work on speed. Climbing and working hard is great but it doesn't simulate sitting in the field at high speeds.

My friend, whose schedule only allows him to ride on his own or with one other rider, asked the natural question, "Well then how do you work on speed?"

I told him to use terrain and wind to get that "sitting in" effect. In other words you go hard when the wind isn't in your face and the road is either flat or slight downhill.

I did a couple efforts to demonstrate. On a slight rise followed by a pretty fast descent I did a pull. It was a bit harder than I anticipated as the slight rise went for about 200 meters more than I remembered. But the downhill was good - we hit over 40 mph and my friend got a taste of "going fast without a field".

He stayed on my wheel but had to work unusually hard.

Shortly after I did the same thing on another section of road.

My friend, on this one, had problems staying on my wheel.

As he realized, once the pace hotted up over 32-33 mph, he found himself in difficulty.

We analyzed this, both of us being that sort of people. First we agreed that we both got from point A to point B in the same amount of time - after all, we were still riding together after 45 minutes or so. He pointed out that he climbs faster but that I was making up all the time on the flats and descents. He felt that being ahead on the climbs seemed preferable to chasing afterwards.

This is true, I countered. But the crit you're doing is flat. And in a flat crit, climbing well doesn't matter. Speed does.

He agreed.

My lack of fitness started to reveal itself around this time and although I managed to do a big uphill sprint, I was cooked for the next hour as I tried to recover and get my body temperature down a bit. My friend obliged and pulled us along for a while.

I decided to dig a bit more as I didn't want to hold him up too much. We were going up these annoying little climbs, one after another, short, irritating things. I shifted to keep my cadence pretty steady, held the tops, and grimly hung on. Except for one more effort, my heart rate was as high as it would get during the whole ride - I was really hurting. I had decided to ignore the PowerTap and work a lot harder than I thought prudent, see what happens. That's what training rides are for after all.

Of course that's when my friend eased up, dropped back next to me, and asked me if the PowerTap made me set limits simply based on the readings, without relying on instinct.

Good question, that. Remember when everyone learned about heart rate zones? You'd be on a ride and people would suddenly sit up - "I can't go harder, I have to stay in Zone 2." Or whatever Zone.

I never learned about Zones. I just rode, noted what my heart rate was, and decided I was good (or bad) depending on how my heart rate related to my speed.

Essentially my friend was asking if I had turned into one of these Zone riders.

I was a bit cooked after a lot of upper limit race pace effort but I tried to explain that the PowerTap was new enough that I didn't take its readings as gospel. I have to admit though that, on this day, every time I felt pressure, I was at 157-158 bpm. Every time I felt like I was going to blow I was at 163-164. And the three or four minutes before he eased to ask me that question, I was pegged at 170.

I tried to tell him that I've been learning about myself using this thing. Based on numbers I've seen (and heard), I figured my sprint would be anything over about 600-800 watts. I guessed that 300+ would be climbing short hills, 250+ would be any prolonged effort, and 100-150 easy/normal.

But in one race where I never jumped, I was over 1000 watts and I never even sprinted! This was a revelation for me - if I have any reserves, my sprint doesn't start till I'm over 1000 watts.

So I told my friend that, no, I don't allow it to limit me. I do note unusual readings or unexpected things (like that 1000 watt non-sprint).

We started rolling back down the fast Route 136 but I didn't have much left. I could do a short pull but nothing significant. My efforts, the rising temperatures, and my lack of long rides really started to tell. (As an aside I was having problems pulling at 400 watts.)

Just before we split up to head our separate ways we came to a favorite section of mine. Perversely it's a stretch of road next to a cemetery. It was a slight downhill (imperceptible but it has to be since I always feel good on it), it is a 30 or so mph road, and there's always some traffic.

On this day there was a little bonus - a police speed trailer.

You have to understand that I love these things. If I see one on a good stretch of road (i.e. sprintable road, sprintable direction), I'll actually sprint past it to try and get it to read over 40. And then turn around and try again. I remember one training ride where I got all of 20 minutes away from my house and then spent about 20 minutes killing myself to break 40 mph. I never did (unideal sprint conditions) but it was a really fun ride.

Anyway the light before the stretch had just turned green and I had a couple ideal leadout vehicles in mind. The first, an SUV, got going before I could get ready. The second, a full size pick up truck with sheets of plywood in the back angled like a big ramp (i.e. a perfect drafting vehicle), went by too. I hesitated, thinking the next car was just behind. But the car backed off, presented with two riders riding single file on the shoulder.

I looked, saw the car slow, and jumped about as hard as I could. I think I was in a 15, did a crazy hard effort to get to speed, double shifted into the 13, stomped on the pedals again, and then popped it into the 12. I tried but simply could not get to the pickup truck. As I approached the speed trailer I veered to the very edge of the road, trying to hit the radar beam as straight on as possible (if you hit it at an angle it reads low - tip for speeders).

I waited for the truck to go by, desperately trying to extract more speed out of the bike. The speedometer read 38 as the truck approached it. I waited... and waited. And finally the truck went by.

37.

Arg. Crushing. Oh agonizing. I so wanted it to go the other way. I almost stopped pedaling but instead tried one more feeble dig. I had nothing left and sat up.

Well, I'll give myself this - I had been riding over two hours in temperatures from about 80 to perhaps 85-88 degrees. I was overheated enough to have some chills.

My friend and I split and I soft pedaled, trying to get my body to recover from what it perceived to be a totally stupid effort in the uncomfortably hot conditions. It screamed at me enough that I totally eased.

I fiddled with the PowerTap - I had to hit close to 1400 watts and wanted to see what I actually did. I had made a monster effort and my best sprint ever on the PowerTap was around 1480 watts. I scrolled through the menu, selected Max Watt.

1531 watts.

Woo-hoo. Or as my friend and colleague says, "Boo-yah!"

Another PowerTap revelation.

I struggled home, barely able to break 200 watts, my heart rate refusing to go over 160. My body was completely overheated, my legs exhausted.

I was totally cooked. Well done. Poke me with a fork.

But man was I happy.

Story - Paul Ruhlman Memorial Criterium, Meriden, CT

In an earlier post I allude to the Paul Ruhlman Memorial Criterium in Meriden, CT. This was a classic downtown criterium course, around an odd shaped block containing a shopping center. The course started on a wide road which curved to the left. A right turn took the field onto a narrower two lane road, nothing bad, which led to the second right turn. This dumped the field out onto a massive road resembling an aircraft runway. A firehouse halfway down the straight meant that, every now and then, a race would be neutralized for a lap while the firemen responded to an emergency call. The race left the wide backstretch by turning right onto another narrower, two lane road. A short time later they'd take another right, this time into a very narrow turning lane, only one lane wide. With curbs on both sides, this was the trickiest part of the course.

The wide, left curving mainstraight hinted at massive field sprints but this rarely happened. Instead, due to the bottleneck in the fourth and last turn, the sprints were typically strung out affairs contested by half a dozen racers.

Many of the racers were actually won by breakaways, that fourth turn making it harder for a field to keep a head of steam.

On probably the last day I raced there I showed up fresh from my first true team races. I had my first leadout man and we'd worked well together in both training and in a couple races. Mike and I seemed to mesh well together, his very astute pack riding skills much better than mine. After doing some training at SUNY Purchase he gave up going for field sprints and instead set about imitating the best leadout men of the current professional sprint team of Panasonic.

At our first race where we actually showed up with a plan, we did some really good racing, controlling the tempo of the race from 5 laps till the finish. We didn't do any sort of massive 5 mile leadout train - we weren't that strong. Instead, we sent off team members on breaks, knew they'd get caught, and used the chasing field as a massive substitute team.

Prior to the final laps we also practiced our leadout on a prime. I won the prime by about 50 meters - the field apparently gave up after my 40 mph leadout - and we felt like we could win.

We literally dominated the last five laps of the race - if one of our guys wasn't off the front, we were either attacking the field or sprinting for the finish. As the designated sprinter, I frantically followed my leadout man through holes I didn't even know existed. I brushed more than a few riders in the last couple laps as Mike squeezed through holes barely there, trusting me to somehow get through before the tiny holes closed.

Someone tried to get Mike's wheel at about one to go, his skewer ripping spokes from my front wheel, pulling one spoke clear through the hub. I thought the wheel might collapse but since it didn't I sprinted. My legs were blown though and I couldn't repeat my dominating prime sprint.

All I could manage was a third or fifth or something. I don't remember the place but it wasn't first. Any other place, that day, was a crushing disappointment.

We left the race with mixed emotions. The hard work by the team worked wonders but we didn't win. We felt that it was possible to win though and that was inspiring.

With this race in mind we came to Meriden. We didn't have the same full team but we had a lot of the key players. Mike and I were the 2 lap to go crew, we had a guy for 4 or 5 to go, and a couple to do work during the race.

Apparently our teamwork at the earlier races had started to garner some interest. Now, when racers came up to me during the warm-up, they weren't asking if I'd been training or if I was feeling good. Instead they asked a simple question.

"So who's here with you today?"

Yeah baby!

The weather wasn't very cooperative - a sudden downpour soaked everyone a couple races earlier and created two big puddles, each about 4 or 5 inches deep - one on the inside of Turn 1, the other on the inside of Turn 4. When the 3s started racing the puddles were still there. Initially everyone avoided them but as the race went on, we rode through them, the water a welcome distraction from the heat and the hot pace.

We lost all our team guys - I simply remember everyone was either out or hanging on for dear life. Only Mike, myself, and a third guy remained. The third guy chased things, tried to string things out at 5 to go, but the field was too anxious and he ended up pulling out, blown, and disappointed for not being able to do any more.

This forced Mike to the front a lap earlier than we wanted. With two to go he had to make a big effort to keep things together. We hit the bell with Mike stomping the pedals at the front, me on his wheel, and a whole field of hungry racers strung out behind me.

We flew through the first turn, then the second. Then Mike, his elbows out, his head hanging, suddenly pulled off.

"Sorry Aki I'm dead"

He was totally fried, his face red, his worried look indicative of what lay behind me. I struggled to comprehend how Mike, an all conquering super powerful leadout guy, could blow up. But he did. And I had to deal with it.

I didn't know what to do so kept some pace - I remember keeping the pace below 28 mph as I didn't want to go too fast and burn myself out. At the same time I didn't want to slow below 25 mph and invite swarms of racers to fly around me.

I could feel two racers by my side, my arch rivals during the early training series races, friendly competitors during the bigger summer races. Tom and Brian. Both dwarfed me as they were over six feet tall. They had more a Cipollini sprint - go from far out and go really fast. Mine was more an Abdu sprint - short, viscious. The three of us respected each others' finishing speed and they knew I was antsy to do well at this race. They didn't want to pass me so they'd sort of flared out next to me to try and make the front as wide as possible. I guess others were doing the same thing because no one wanted to pass me riding up the long backstretch to the third turn.

You ever go by a cop on the highway and you're doing 67 in a 55? You slow a bit (not too much else the cop will get suspicious), act innocent, and pray that the cop doesn't move.

I was in that "pray" stage during the 200 meters leading to the third turn. I was just praying that the field wouldn't swarm around me. A rider or two attacking was fine - that would be my new leadout - but 30 guys going up the outside would be bad.

My nerves wouldn't allow me to stay below 28 mph so I started to accelerate as I approached that third turn. I was sitting farther and farther forward on my saddle, ready to respond to any attack, to any jump. I was hyper-aware of the tires thrumming just to my sides, painfully aware that I was the point man, the sacrificial racer, the one that would lead but not win.

With my adrenaline building I cruised through the third turn, only the short straight before the last turn. I was out of the saddle, rocking the bike, trying to make it even wider than its 41 cm bars. Brian and Tom obliged and moved out just a touch - the three of us probably took 10 feet of road.

I remember looking down to see if any of the wheels looked like they were about to attack. It seemed okay.

We approached the last turn, a puddle still covering half of the one lane. I knew that someone would make a suicidal bid by sprinting into the turn, hoping to catch everyone off guard, and fly out of the turn for a spectacular win.

On the other hand, I preferred a sprint which starts with a big jump. If I'm not being led out at 40 mph, I want to start sprinting at 18 mph. My jump, my acceleration, is my strength. A jump doesn't help if you're already going sprint speed.

My internal alarm bells, already ringing since the backstretch, were now doubling in strength. I felt numb with adrenaline.

Something had to happen.

I debated within myself on the best tactics for this moment. Scenarios went roaring through my head and I thought of each new idea quickly, discarding them as quickly as I thought about them. I literally had only seconds to think, I was getting scared that we'd be swarmed, but my frantic mind always came back to one tactic. It was the only thing to do. So I did it.

I slowed.

I actually slowed to about 18 or 20 mph. I coasted first, then lightly touched the brakes. Sort of a pretend "I'm afraid of the deep water in the corner" kind of slow.

As I slowed I could hear somewhere sort of far behind me tires swooshing on the pavement. That someone was out of the saddle and sprinting like mad.

I quickly looked left and right - no gaps to the curbs, Tom and Brian and a couple others effectively took up all the room now. No one could get through.

I kept my pedestrian pace.

Suddenly brakes. Yelling. Metal crashing. And a huge stack up behind me somewhere. That sprinting racer, the suicidal attacker, just detonated into the back of a whole lot of racers.

I jumped like my life depended on it.

I had to get a gap so that I could use my multi-jump sprint. I knew I could jump, draw out a couple guys, and then jump again. But if the whole field was on my wheel it might be hard to pull it off. I had to isolate perhaps 10 or so racers. I got up to speed pretty quickly, shifting a couple times to my 14, and looked down. Two front wheels there. I sprinted while still looking down, knowing that if I eased a hair they'd start to come around.

I eased a hair, keeping it in the 14. My trusty bar end shifter allowed me to shift when everyone else had to sit to shift. My slowdown tactic was a direct result of this knowledge and I hoped that it would make a difference.

They started to come around.

I jumped again. Hard. Popped it into the 13.

The wheels moved back behind me.

I eased a hair, still going hard, moving back to the 14, my favorite "from speed" jump gear.

They started to come around.

And I jumped again. As hard as I could. Bam. 13. Bam. 12.

Kept sprinting, kept accelerating. I was starting to fade hard, my whole body rigid with effort, flinging my bike side to side a la Abdujaporov, the line was coming up quickly.

I threw my bike, the two guys next to me doing the same. I'd beaten one by a half wheel, the other by perhaps a wheel.

An incredible victory.

Both Tom and Brian, good guys to a fault, congratulated me on the sprint, patting me on the back, rounding the first turn. I tried to respond but could barely breathe and just nodded. They were actually going faster than I was at the line but I happened to be in front of them.

A perfectly timed sprint.

Then someone yelled out, "Great second place!"

Second place?

Apparently some joker had almost lapped the field. I remembered him attacking but thought he came back. I guess not.

My smile crumbled.

Well at least I got second. And man was it an awesome sprint.

We waited for the results and after a few minutes the announcer's voice came over the PA.

"Second place is Tom... Third place is Brian..."

"... and fourth is Aki..."

Fourth?!

I went to the officials.

Apparently there were three finish lines from the three different years they used the road. The bright finish line wasn't the finish line. It was a more faded one about 20 feet away.

I'd sprinted to the wrong line.

But with a jumble of city type road markings (the finish line was in the middle of an intersection with crosswalks, stop lines, and various utility work markings), inconsistent pavement patches (some dark, some light, and cracks everywhere), and wet and dry bits coloring even identical patches of pavement differently, I didn't see it.

The announcer, a Cat 2 racer, actually argued with the officials.

He yelled across the street at them, "If you ask me, he won the sprint!"

But rules are rules, right? Sometimes the rules really bite. This time was one of them. If they scored on one finish line and I sprinted to a different one, well, I lose.

I was so frustrated I didn't know what to do. I actually sat down and cried. I shoved my bike across the parking lot, the poor thing bouncing off a curb and crashing onto the pavement.

Tom looked like he didn't know what to do. I could see him, his eyes sympathetic, but really, there was nothing to do. He came over and told me he thought I won the sprint, that in his mind I did.

Brian came over too. Obviously I was distraught but he also told me that he considered me the winner of the field sprint. He generously offered to exchange prize money but I said it was okay, it wasn't necessary.

After I gathered myself I went to the announcer to pick up my prize money. I figured I might as well collect it and get out of there. The annoucer's a good guy, a good sprinter, and we had some terrific battles at SUNY Purchase. My fastest sprints were against him or another guy and we'd always be so close we'd have to throw our bikes and then argue who won.

"You won."
"No, you won."
"No, I really think you won."

A good guy.

He gave me an envelope and told me quietly that he thought I won and that I'd done a great sprint to beat the whole field after leading them out.

I looked in the envelope. I think there was $40, maybe $45 in it. I looked at him and asked him if there really was a Paul Ruhlman Fund. He replied there was.

"Here, put this money to that fund." I held out the envelope.
"Are you sure? You earned this."
"It's okay. Paul helped me when I started racing."

I walked away.

I had no idea if he'd just pocket the money. But at some level I didn't care. I knew, deep down inside, that I'd ridden one of my best sprints ever.

I was back at my car, sat inside, sullen, moping.

An older couple walked up to the car. They didn't look like bike racers. I wondered briefly if they were lost.

They asked if I was the one that gave the prize money to the Paul Ruhlman Fund.

I replied that I did.

They introduced themselves.

"You don't know who we are but we are Paul's parents."

I stood up. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn't know what to say.

"(The announcer) told us where you were. We really appreciate your donation. It's a wonderful thing you did."

I guess there really was a Fund. And the announcer guy really did give it to them.

They asked me how I knew him and I told them that I really didn't, that he just helped me a few times. And that when I heard about the accident I was shocked. I didn't understand death back then, and in some ways, I still don't. All I knew at that time was that it was permanent. In some way that I hope never to understand, it wasn't a good permanent for these parents.

I think the mother was crying a bit. That's understandable. I don't remember if the father did, and I don't remember if I was. But after they left I felt a lot better about my sprint.

It still ranks as one of my best ever race sprints.

But now it meant just that much more.

Doping - Here and Now

Unfortunately, the 2007 Tour de France will be remembered for the relentless reports of positive doping tests. Despite internal team controls, more frequent out of competition testing, and an array of more sophisticated tests, racers still think they can get away with doping.

Confronted with facts, they admit, either in action or in words, that they've doped. The two positive testosterone racers both declined to have their B sample tested. In other words, they say that the second sample will simply confirm the first. They know they doped and they're admitting as much.

The analogous blood doping test (i.e. transfusing someone else's blood) racer denies transfusing blood even after the second test came out positive. Sounds familiar, right? It's not like home where the truth is whatever the people are told - like the president winning by garnering over 90% of the vote. This is the real world, with a certain amount of free press, public announcements not controlled by a sponsoring government, and denying things really doesn't work.

Imagine if someone challenged Kim Jong-II to golf? Meaning in a public arena with cameras and such?

I wonder if he'd shoot a 38.

Back to doping, as opposed to dopes.

The pro peloton consists of literally the best racers in the world. We know this because the racers performed well at an amateur level, usually did a stint as a stagiaire (sort of a pro cycling internship), and, after doing some good work there, finally landed a pro contract.

The key here is the "amateur" part.

Pro cyclists are recruited out of the amateur leagues.

Back in the normal doping days, amateurs had access to minor drugs which didn't significantly increase performance. I don't mean drugs don't work - they do, else there wouldn't be a doping problem. But 20 years ago the drugs used were either extremely obvious (steroids and their masking agents) or not too effective (pseudoephedrine, once banned, is now considered so tame it's totally legal). The "old" drugs would let you buy a short stint of energy but your overall performance, your overall composition as a rider, that didn't change.

In other words you couldn't turn a regular rider into a champion one.

No one appeared out of nowhere, won the Tour or some other insanely prestigious race, and disappeared forever. Well, maybe the odd racer here and there, but back then it was usually a bit of politics, not superb riding.

Then, as EPO and perhaps Human Growth Hormone (HGH) appeared, doping took on a different meaning.

Now, instead of simply extending a racer's ability plateau a little further to the side (i.e. buy another 20 minutes of effort), drugs could actually radically change the shape of the plateau. The new generation of drugs actually changed the shape of the plateau, raising it up as well as over.

Suddenly you had these racers emerge from deep within the rankings as one of those who could time trial and climb with the best of them.

Sprinters, I should note, never got anywhere with stage races except winning more sprints - Sean Kelly and Laurent Jalabert never got higher than fourth in the Tour - but other sprinters like Johan Museeuw, who won the Champs-Elysee stage of the Tour, went on to become great one day racers.

But when a Pantani time trials like an Ullrich... well, something is a bit fishy.

So this new generation of drugs is available to pros and has been for something like the last 15 years.

But with the Internet, economic globalization, and world wide next day shipping, these potent drugs are now available, and appearing at, the races you do.

There are two particularly depressing sites for those who compete for fun, who train to better themselves, and do it all without taking banned substances.

One I'll call the Knife Site. They sell the standard protein and amino acid pills and shakes - nothing more than focused pork chops along with a standard amino acid stack (a combination of different ones) which combines three amino acids not found in diets but which are crucial to building muscle.

Note that these are not illegal for any of us to use, whether from a legal point of view (i.e. using cocaine is illegal, amino acids are not) or from a racing point of view (EPO is illegal both from a legal and racing point of view, amino acids are not).

If you ingest too much amino acid your body flushes out any excess. Your body uses what you can use, you toss the rest. If you ate a lot of steak, well, you'll be flushing some expensive waste down the toilet. Ditto water soluble vitamins and amino acids.

So from that point of view, the Knife Site isn't doing much harm.

However, the Knife Site also sells, for "research purposes", some more interesting substances.

In particular they sell IGF-2, Insulin like Growth Factor. I don't know the exact mechanism but this is basically Human Growth Hormone. The most significant effect is that it can actually cause you to gain more muscle cells. Steroids and testosterone simply help you recover from damage done during exercise and get what muscle cells you have to grow.

IGF-2 gives you more cells.

That's the holy grail of most steroid users.

A hint that maybe this isn't the greatest stuff for you is that it is available only in injectionable form.

Conveniently, the Knife Site also has application kits - syringes and whatnot. That's a different part of the site from the research bit.

All this is yours, tomorrow, if you supply a credit card number and a mailing address.

Another site, I'll call it EPO For Dopes (EFD), publicized itself by posting a pdf scan of a manually translated LA Confidential, the book never released in English. You could read one of the four sections but you had to register to read the others.

I, of course, registered. Devoured the banned book. And started getting emails from the site.

EFD, it appears, sells EPO, HGH, and other banned substances.

From what I understand, there are two ways of taking EPO. One is to take relatively big doses a couple times a week and then monitor your blood thickness and dose accordingly. The problem is that the big doses show up in tests.

The other way is to micro-dose - take a little bit every day. This gets the blood thicker but allegedly avoids hitting the dinger when doing a pee test.

For $900 you can buy 40 microdoses, perhaps a month and a half of EPO. They come prepackaged with syringes and all that. Subcutaneous (under the skin). You barely feel it.

I had two subcutaneous injections at the dermatologist earlier this year. I hate needles, I mean I really, really hate needles. So I cringed and waited and waited and asked when they were going to use the needles.

They were actually done and already cut off the two suspicious moles (the injections were for anesthetics). The "wet wipes" were actually them wiping the blood off my skin, not the iodine preparing the skin for the injection.

Alright so you can buy dope. No biggie right? I mean all the doping articles talk about how easy it was to buy steroids online or whatever.

So who buys this stuff?

Well, that's where EFD and the Knife Site surprised me.

They have forums where customers and curious folk can post questions. They answer some of the questions themselves but they also get responses from other customers. And this is where it gets sort of disheartening.

There are guys you race against that dope. And you could be a Cat 4, a Cat 3, a Masters. Not even 2s or 1s. We're talking the bread and butter of the racing population.

One of the Knife Site posts happily states that Masters Nationals were not tested. They also refer to a track racer site where the Masters did better than the Pros - and then all hell broke loose because of the Masters defending themselves. One poster admitted he was "tackled up" but still didn't win.

Another post describes usage of HGH - debating between 2 and 8 iu HGH per day. Apparently HGH makes your body retain water, making your hands a bit bloated, and making it harder to feel things. One joke was that one racer, known for his "offs" on descents, was crashing because he couldn't feel his handlebars due to the HGH-induced swollen hands. But, as others posted, on a more serious note, they recommend 2-3 iu for road racers and up to 8 iu for track racers.

EFD apparently is the Amazon of EPO. Wide selection, good customer service (they even fought about it on the Knife Site with many long time posters coming out to defend EFD), and guaranteed shipping.

As a "registered user", I can access their full menu of goodies - injectable iron, EPO, HGH, and various other potions and solutions.

These sites, the traffic on them, and the posts themselves all indicate that doping is not a ProTour problem. It's not even a "Pro" problem. It's a problem that's permeated the whole system, from top to bottom.

Alright, I'll give the Cat 5s the benefit of doubt. And I think any Cat 4 that's doping is doping for other reasons - like to be big or whatever. But the 3s and up? Masters? I have to believe it's there.

To get rid of doping, we need to test everywhere. We can't allow a racer to come up the ranks thinking everyone dopes. The evidence shows that a significant minority dope using serious and powerful drugs.

What it comes down to is that these guys who dope should not be racing.

So what can be done to fix this?

Well, first off, make doping a harshly punished offense. A fine perhaps, but that may not be easy to collect. But time... I'd say a 10 or more years ban. If you ban a Masters racer for a couple years it's not a big deal - they'd probably race cross country skis or run or something. And come back a bit more cautious and do it again.

Second, start paying for random tests as outlined in one of my earlier posts. Of course they'd hit all the bigger races. An easy way to figure it out would be if the results are in cyclingnews.com's site without going to "regional results". However the test would also be conducted all various spring training races, some of each region's road races, and at sporadic cyclocross races.

Track racing, it seems, already have some testing in place, but a random test at T-Town's Friday night race might make things interesting.

The tests should make it harder to mask. Posters on the Knife Site openly worry about the 4:1 testosterone ratio test - and others post that now some tests skip that and go straight to the carbon isotope test, the one that detects exogenous testosterone (i.e. external origin testosterone). Run these carbon isotope tests as some of the better covered races, get a lot of racers tested (20 or 30) and I think there'd be some interesting news in a few weeks.

The one concession I'd make is the level of "cheating". Over the counter drugs would be categorized as one type of positive. There's virtually nothing available over the counter which would radically change a racer's ability. Therefore taking, say, cold medicine should be a lessor offense as compared to, say, using EPO or testosterone.

Prescription drugs would be a completely different story. For example clenbuterol, a substance used to treat asthma in Europe, is not sold as an ingredient in any drug in the US. If someone tests positive for it, they had to have made some effort to get it. Ditto EPO or testosterone.

Publicize the results. I've seen "ban" lists from USA Cycling - racers not allowed to race for various reasons. The lists only contain names, license numbers, and hometowns. No reason for the ban.

Reviewing one list, I noticed a racer that I knew had tested positive as a pro and was banned for a couple years. The list didn't say that though. And it's easy to be banned if, say, you lied about having a license or you didn't pay a no-helmet fee. But those, to me, are different offenses than a positive test for steroids. We should differentiate positives from other infractions.

Another disconcerting thing - Joe Papp testing positive. I heard rumors of him having a locked box in the fridge but I figured it was just heresay. But apparently there was some truth to it. However, after his stint as a cyclingnews diarist, he simply dropped out of sight. No one publicized that he'd tested positive. Until he testified at Floyd's trial, I held him in somewhat high esteem. I watched him race, thought he raced hard, seemed like a smart enough guy, and I wished him luck.

Then I find out he was doping all along.

That just sucked.

So these are my proposals:
1. Test nationwide at Cat 1-3, Masters 1-4, Women 1-3. Use harder to beat tests like the carbon isotope test.
2. Ban guilty racers for a long time, perhaps a decade.
3. Publicize the ban to make sure the racer doesn't slip through the cracks.

And maybe, just maybe, we'll have a Tour where the racing makes the headlines, not the doping.

Training - Another Break

The last couple weeks have been good for the bike. I've been riding pretty frequently - I get out for a nice ride the mornings I feel fresh (or it's dry). The tired days I skip riding and play games (BF2 is my rediscovered new favorite game) or write or read or look at house stuff online.

The last bit, the house stuff, will be absorbing a lot of time and energy in the next month. A young couple whose wife visited the house really like it and gave us an offer that we accepted. They got an appraisal done as well as an inspection. The latter went well as the inspector could find virtually nothing wrong with the house - just a couple cracks in the concrete around the top of the chimney. So now they have to do some other stuff - title search, the actual mortgage, I don't know what else - and then we can close on the house at the end of the month.

One problem.

We don't have a place to move to at the end of the month.

With that in mind, we went house hunting Saturday, praying that the third trip up north (fourth if you count an open house we attended) would let us find something. We hope we can make something work out but we're also preparing to rent a small apartment for a short time - 6 months or something - enough to give us some time to look at every house out there. You know, drive our agent nuts.

Fiscally I'd call us conservative. Actually I'd call us aggressively conservative. We're looking for a house that's much lower than what we are supposed to be able to afford. It's more important for us to live in a slightly less extravagant house which would still let us do "fun" things. "Fun" things would include, say, bike racing (!), doing bike stuff (tandem riding, trips, etc.), car stuff, house stuff, and things like buying quirky t-shirts when I see one. The future missus also has her things and we don't want to forgo too much of that.

However this means that any chance of buying an SRM will go flying out the proverbial window. Or a third set of deep carbon wheels. Or that Ultra Torque Record crankset I've been eying. My TT bike will be my spare bike with TT bars on it and TriSpokes under it, if I ever get my TT bars, not some aero tubed TT specific killer frameset. And thoughts of a swoopy custom carbon frame, well, that's on hold until further notice.

But I hope that our move will pay some dividends other than the actual house and the fact that the future missus will commute 22 miles a day, not 170.

First off we'll be moving close to the Tokeneke Road Race course. It has something like a three mile climb on it - maybe not as steep as that one at the base of Palomar Mountain but it's still a three mile climb. I'll have more time to ride. And I'll be in a great riding area. There's a good training race in the area as well as a lot of group rides. They don't have Thursday Night Downtown Sprints but perhaps for the future...

Regardless, I figure though that if I have good miles, the sprinting will follow.

For now though, except for an interruption for helping promote the CT Coast Criterium, I'll be focusing on the whole House Thing.

Right after the house thing will be another Big Thing, the whole Wedding Thing.

All these Things means that in the next two months I'll have less time and energy for riding and related activities. This is okay - it'll be my typical end of summer rest period. Then I'll start training for 2008. Heck, I might even check out a 'cross race.

Oh wait, I don't have a 'cross bike.

Never mind.

And yes, this means the blog might quiet down a bit. I have a lot of ideas simmering and even a few entries virtually done but you won't see too many race reports or an entry on my new set of wheels. More editorials, maybe a how-to or three, and a couple of my favorite stories.

I hope to be able to offer the readers a treat or two so that keeps it fun for me.

Now for a trainer session while the future missus is at class.

The Bike Race vs. The Life Race

I sometimes pine for the times where I rode a lot, trained a lot, raced a lot. The times where I could annihilate others instead of getting annihilated.

(Me looking fit, weighing about 105 lbs, and leading a Laurel rider in Middletown, CT)

Driving home from a race this year (where I got shelled) I told the future missus there are two races at the races. One is the "how good a racer am I" race. The results are posted by officials. You can compare how you're doing just by looking at the sheet. It's publicized on the internet, people talk about good results, and if you do really well you'll even get feedback from your peers.

The other race, that one is not as easy to grade. The other race is the "what sort of life am I living" race. There are no results posted. It's not a public thing. No one can see if you're doing well or not. It's not as much a race as an illumination on one's life. It doesn't even have set parameters - there are no solid marks on how good you are. Officially it's either a pass or a fail. Unofficially there are many grades to a "pass".

When I raced a lot I realized some interesting things. I have a picture of my bike on a rack on my car from the late 80's. The car wasn't worth much. The town appraised it as being worth something like $200 (I technically paid $1 for it but someone gave it to me). I paid $2.34 in property taxes on it one year. The roof rack, at wholesale, cost me $520. I was really proud of it but as one ex- told me her first thought when she saw it was, "Who is this geek?". My bike was considerably more than either of the two items under it, perhaps $1200 at that point. And that was wholesale.

(Note the USCF sticker in the window.)

Although perhaps a bit ahead of the time, I also had a 100 watt amp with a pair of 15" subwoofers in an unfinished homemade box in the back seat. It wasn't anchored down or anything so it would slide around when I went around turns. The car wouldn't take more than half a tank of gas (the rest would slowly leak out), it struggled to go 65 mph, and it didn't handle too well.

I'd go to races and see "old" guys pull up in a new Mercedes with some exotic handmade (or imported Italian) frames with full Campy, beautiful stuff, 50th anniversay groups, engraved stems and chainrings. I couldn't believe guys were racing such expensive equipment. I'd comment to my friends that these old guys, they work really hard to make money but they simply can't race. I mean check out the bellies and how fast they get dropped.

You know, I told them, they might as well stay at home.

Little did I know.

Here's a picture of me racing when I wasn't very skinny a few years ago.

Yeah.

Not that skinny.

In fact, I weighed about 80 pounds more than I did in that top picture. But, if you scroll down a bit on that page, I did place, and in an uphill sprint no less!

But hey, I have a much nicer car now (although, to be frank, I pine for that Fairmont). Actually I even have a second car. A house. Things like that. It's true that I spend a lot of time working (or driving to/from work). I don't train as much. My race results reflect this.

But it's okay.

I realized a while back that although it's nice to be a really good bike racer, it's not the end all, not for me. Living the way I did to get to racing fitness, not eating that much because I didn't have the money to buy food, well, that's not really the way I want to live.

There are some things that pop out when I think about my lean years (figuratively and literally).

For a couple years I relied on a local bagel store for handouts - they'd gather all the unsold food for the day, put them in paper shopping bags, and put them on the sidewalk in front of the store. A shelter would pick them up and use it to feed the homeless. When I figured this out, I'd go to the bagel store just before they closed, buy a (by then) day old bagel for 50 cents, and the old lady behind the counter would look around furtively and give me one of the shopping bags full of bagels and muffins. It would sustain me for a week or so.

I'd ride in the late evenings so I wouldn't be as hungry (riding suppresses my appetite). This way I could avoid having to figure out what to eat at night. There were times where I'd scrounge my cabinets for any food I might have overlooked - a can of corn, soup, maybe a treat like Beefaroni. When I had an extra $10, I'd buy such food and stash it away for those empty stomach nights. The standby was the boxes of Ramen, plain spaghetti (sauce cost too much but some salt and pepper worked fine), and maybe a PowerBar.

I stayed lean, true. But it really isn't the ideal way to be fit.

I went to a stage race one year and someone mentioned that this Cat 1 which I've admired from Day One was running a bit late. Apparently his car wouldn't go faster than 50 or 55 mph so it was taking him a bit longer to get up to the race. When he arrived I was both happy and shocked to see the car. Happy because it was an old Dodge Dart. Shocked because it was as old or older than me. He'd bought it for $500 - all he could afford.

The racer, always in his element when pedaling a bike, was less so when off of it. He slept at friends' houses and worked odd jobs.

The kicker? He was 30 years old. Ten years earlier, his single minded dedication to racing seemed admirable.

Now I felt sorry for him.

I can't say I know him at all. A few grunted greetings and a nod of the head really doesn't count as "knowing" someone.

But in a way I felt like I understood him. The aching empty stomach. The training to ward off hunger pangs. Wondering how you'll pay your next entry fee.

It's acceptable when you think your life will improve (or you're supported and your family is there to help out whenever things get tough). It's another thing when you can't see the end of the tunnel, when you don't know what tomorrow has in store for you.

If I had pro aspirations, it would be different. Andy Hampsten at one point has $16 in his bank account and nothing coming in. He was desperate for a break into the pro cycling scene. He had a contract with Levis-Raleigh, got a month advance, and made it to the Coors Classic. There he beat Bernard Hinault in a time trial. Hinault simply could not believe this skinny American with no continental experience could beat him - and his team asked for TV tapes to verify he wasn't motorpacing.

When they realized Hampsten hadn't cheated they promptly signed him.

He'd go on the next year to take fourth in his inaugural Tour, behind his team leader Hinault and his second placed American teammate Greg Lemond.

A guy like him, he actually has potential for great racing. He knew that he could time trial at 28-29 mph. He knew he could outclimb anyone around him, and he was in the cycling mecca of the country, Colorado. So he stayed his course and turned his racing into a successful career.

What of a Cat 3 who does reasonably well in easier crits but gets shelled everywhere else?

It's not reasonable to continue with such a lifestyle.

So I did what I could to look for a job where I actually made money. Found one. Joined the "fat guys who can't race well" club. And I feel all the better for it.

Just don't ask me to verify this right after I get dropped.

Velonews - Prologue Winner

Last week I posted that I won something. Of course, nothing is for certain until it shows up at your house (or in my case, the office). Well, today I received a package from Velonews. It was a bit bigger than what a cyclocomputer ought to be and since the last I knew people weren't trying to make cyclocomputer bigger, I was curious as to what was in it.

Well, it was a lot more than I expected.

Fine, I pulled out a nice Cateye Tour de France Edition Strada Wireless computer. The body is Tour de France yellow, making it stand out a bit more than the normal grey or black.

I saw other things in the box too. Two waterbottles (one Cateye and one Velonews), a Velonews cap, and some paperwork. Bonus! I can always use waterbottles (although my fiancee might disagree) and I recently discovered caps as a head accessory - so now I'll have a cool cap to wear backwards on my head.

And paperwork. Whatever.

It was only after I had returned back to work for a bit that I looked at the "paperwork".

It was in fact a congratulations card written and signed by Andy Pemberton, Publisher, Velonews.

Now I can't profess I would know Andy if I bumped into him at a bike shop. But with all the various things that he must be busy doing (it's peak Velonews season and it's a real humdinger of a Tour so far), he really didn't need to write something out. I actually expected an invoice with zero charges on it, not a nice handwritten note and a business card.

So for all of us that's tired of the doping, tired of the lying, and tired of all the suspicion surrounding cycling, there are still people involved with the sport who do good things. With very little fanfare they're giving away these cool little Cateye computers, they give some schwag as well, and to top it off, they actually write a note saying congrats.

That's cool.

And here's the stuff all laid out with our cat Tiger sitting guard over it all:

Doping - It's My Sandbox

In the doping world there are the dope positives and the dope negatives, i.e. those who do and those who don't. The two don't seem to mix well. There are teams (and this is partially speculation on the my part) where some teams are sort of dirty and some are not.

The riders from the dirty teams seem to subscribe to a certain moral (non-) standard - and when an anti-doping movement hits the team, the "dirty" riders flee like rats off a sinking ship.

For example of this, take a look at T-Mobile. Last year, under its old world leadership, T-Mobile was a doping fiasco. The team leader, the (in)famous Jan Ullrich, retired under a DNA-linked blood bag cloud. Another racer, Oscar Sevilla, also found his way into the unemployment lines.

In response to this flurry of negative publicity the team staff were shuffled and the leadership replaced.

Suddenly their top remaining racer, one that vocalized support for the beleaguered Ullrich, quit his leadership role to move to another team (Astana) as a super-domestique, a non-leader. He was followed by a Tour stage winning German, a revelation from the 2006 Tour.

Two other 2006 revelations chose to stay with the team in the "cleansing" 2007 year. One, a dual stage winner in the 2006 Tour, ended up fired after blood tests revealed "abnormalities". Another tested positive for testosterone during a team training camp (Note: the team didn't test for testosterone or other drugs in their internal tests - just blood volume type tests). He is fighting for his job but it seems like he'll be let go too.

It didn't stop there. A lot of the support staff stayed on between 2006 and 2007 but as former team racers admitted to doping and receiving help from team personnel, the two doctors aligned with the team confessed their past doping activities and were let go from the team.

Even the team director confessed to doping for much of his career. However, in an unusual step, team management kept him, saying that he was so respected by his peers that they couldn't let him go.

It seems that the old school T-Mobile team was indeed strife with dopers. The reborn T-Mobile team is cleaning house, slowly perhaps, but definitely steadily. It's like getting rid of a cold - you get rid of the actual cold but it takes a while to cough up the phlegm.

There really aren't many people in the 2007 T-Mobile team left from the supercharged 2006 team. But then again, it's like sticking a big magnet in the middle of a bunch of magnetized steel. In this case it was a big anti-doping magnet. Some of the team members stuck and stayed. A whole bunch of other metal got pushed away.

Given the perceived level of doping in the peloton, it's actually amazing that not all the racers were kicked off the team. It gives hope to those that are so skeptical of the possibility of any clean riders (or as Jorg Jaske said, "the 3% that don't dope").

So where do those repelled doped riders end up?

There are teams out there that place victory over morality. Cheating, playing with a stacked deck, that's okay for those teams. Their sponsors demand victory at all costs. And they seem to welcome sketchy racers if there is a possibility of a win.

It's like the kid that shows up at the sandbox with a bunch of cool toys - but ignores all the sandbox rules. Kind of interesting when they show up but the game gets really old when you realize they're not playing by the rules.

One such team appears to be the Astana team. Their magnet is perhaps oppositely polarized to the T-Mobile one. Created from the wreckage of the much aligned Liberty Seguros team (which has the dubious distinction of having the first Grand Tour winner disqualified due to EPO), it grew a bit weed-like and chaotically into its current state. Now essentially the Khazakstan national pro team, the team is led by a movie character soldier with piercing blue eyes and shocking blonde hair. He's joined by Ullrich's former lieutenant (and a vocal Ullrich supporter). Others include a teammate at the pink team who won that stage in the 2006 Tour.

That last racer, the 2006 Tour stage winner, tested for testosterone in a surprise out-of-competition test during the spring. No chance for any masking agents, powder for the pee, just do it and pray they mix up the samples. Per official team policy, he was fired. He's German so not a threat to Khazakstan's national pride.

The lieutenant has been dogged by doping allegations from the old world Telekom/T-Mobile team. He's come out clean so far though. And he's German too, so not too much concern there.

The movie star leader? He just tested positive for blood doping - transfusing someone else's blood in order to gain a competitive advantage.

An interesting problem. He's Khazakstan. A soldier for his country. The Prime Minister is among his fans. In a country filled with strife, he's a hero that they look to for inspiration (or perhaps to escape their reality).

He got caught out by a new test, one not regularly used, and it was done after the competition (not the next morning). The kicker was that it was a blood test. This meant that all the normal procedures to mask one's urine's drug traces were useless. The movie star walked into the doping van expecting to pee into a cup and instead looked at a doctor holding a big syringe.

What a shock that must have been.

His teammate was able to escape for a bit (although I don't know what you'd do to escape a blood transfusion test - there's no "masking agents" for flourescent blood markers). But the leader, faced with the needle, he must have known the game was up. The next day he performed poorly, losing almost 30 minutes to the front runners. The following day, perhaps in a show of defiance, he set off in a day-long break and won a spectacular stage.

Too spectacular as it turns out.

Apparently he's pulled out of the Tour. And taken his whole team with him. I guess it's like those sandbox bullies.

If they can't play their way, they're leaving the sandbox. And taking all their friends with them.

Well, good riddance.

It'll be more fun in the sandbox now.