Wombling

Trying again....

Video

Thought about racing last weekend, but its too early in the season.  Instead, 6 hours of ripping up the Womble.  Then Sunday was for road bicycling.  I rode to Lake Perry and watched a little road racing action.  Some corner marshall gave me a hard time for not racing, he couldnt understand why a person would ride for 3 or 4 hours by himself when he could race in circles for an hour.  I didnt feel like explaining myself, especially after he asked me if there were any mountain bike races where the trail was not bumpy or rocky.

Mountains of Mayhem, errr.

I found this online last week. Almost made me drive to Lawton.

It used to be that the 12 miles of Hell in Lawton, OK was the first big race in the midwest.  The year I did it, there were over 700 starters and the likes of Steve Tilford, Will Black, and Cameron Chambers were there. 
The course starts up a long climb and I remember thinking I was going pretty well in 3rd when some crazy guy on a singlespeed comes sprinting by like im standing still.  This would go on most of the race and Id finish 4th and be very happy about it.  Then it became the Hills of Hell and the field shrunk dramatically and the caliber of riders decreased. Last year I understand the race was terrible.  This year it was called the Mountains of Mayhem.  For a brief minute I thought about driving the 5 hours south for it as the weather was supposed to be nice.  Letra, where the race is held is a pretty cool place for a bike race.  Its pretty trecherous terrain and the course uses a lot of tank trails where the army practices blowing things up.  As it turns out, the race might have been a little better than last year, but whenever there are "three or four" places where riders got off course because it wasnt well marked means it still needs a little work.  Oh well, its too early to be racing anyways.

Bike Magazines

Magazines in general seem to be going out of business.  Internet is killing them.  I used to get a bunch of magazines in the mail every month but I dont any more.  I have been getting Bicycling Magazine for the past 6 months for free, with every issue saying its my last one.  Today was the buyers guide.  I skimmed through it in about 10 minutes.  They employ a bunch of writers that dont know anything about bikes.  Their mtb part of the buyer guide was a joke.  They had like 12 bikes in there.  Only 29ers.  I spent more time reading a old BMX Action from 1990 the other day.  Borders down the street from our house is going out of business so we stopped in a used a gift card I had.  I ended up getting a few magazines.  ProCycling and RockyMtnNews.  I only wanted the ProCycling to read about Jan Ulrich.  RockyMtn news for an article on Dakota Five-0.  Spent 10 bucks for really two articles.

When we were at the Tour a few years ago were hanging out by a hotel when Jan, Vino, and Kloden came out.  TV had always talked about how big Jan was and how he pushed huge gears.  It was funny to see how small he was in person.  If I had seen him and not know who it was, I would have just thought he was some skinny little guy.  I always liked him because he got 2nd like 5 times at the Tour.  He is one of those guys that had his greatest success at the beginning of his career and then spent the remainder trying to live up to that.

I got registered for Iceman today.  Its the biggest xc race in the nation.  3700 people registered in a few minutes, sort of.  Their registration site crashed in the first minute.  Two hours later it was back up and wasnt really working right still.  I almost decided it wasnt worth my time and I emailed the promoter.  I think his quote was something like, "nobody has gotten registered yet, what a cluster."  The same thing happened to them last year, so I would think its time to find a new registration company.  Iceman is in October, that is a long ways off.

Camp Alexander Mtb

Put it on your calender for May. Camp Alexander MTB.

Its all messed up.

That stem has messed my bike position up.  I had it leftover from last years bike so I put it on the hardtail.  That bike fit perfectly last year but I wanted the cool carbon stem on it.  Its 7deg rise and 100mm long.  Last years stem was 6deg rise and 100mm long.  Using some Sine/Cosine geometry I found that my bars are 2mm higher now because of the stem.  It feels terrible but there is no way I can feel 2mm??  So back to the trusty ritchey stem I go and it instantly feels better. The only other factor I can think is that the Fox fork is longer than the Magura from last year and the combination of the two makes it noticable.

Its crazy how the smallest changes make such a big difference.  I have been battling the position of my cleats on my new shoes as well.  This is all a good lesson of, if its not broke, dont fix it.

Drug stories are everywhere.

I guess Contador didnt dope, he accidently ate meat that had illegal drugs in it.  Ricco pretty much killed himself by a botched do it yourself blood transfusion only weeks after completing his previous 2 year ban.  I dont know what the point is, except to make money.  These guys obviously dont care about finding out how good they can be without drugs.

You have probably already seen this list on Tilfords blog, where I stole it from, but its pretty crazy think about how many of these guys have been busted for doping. 

Here’s a list of how the podium of the Tour de France would have looked during Lance’s reign to Floyd’s problem. Anyone that was ever positive for doping was left out of the results.  The actual results from when the race finished in Paris are in parenthesis.  This doesnt mean they were necessarily caught at the Tour, just caught at some time in their careers.  Its pretty obvious you have to get some kind of extra help to compete at that level at that time.


1999

1. Lance Armstrong (1)
Alex Zulle (2)
2. Fernando Escartin (3)
Laurent Dufaux (4)
3. Angel Casero (5)

2000

1. Armstrong (1)
Jan Ullrich (2)
Joseba Beloki (3)
Christophe Moreau (4)
Roberto Heras (5)
Richard Virenque (6)
Santiago Botero (7)
2. Fernando Escartin (8)
Franciso Mancebo (9)
3. Daniele Nardello (10)

2001
1. Armstrong (1)
Ullrich (2)
Beloki (3)
2. Andrei Kivilev (4)
Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (5)
3. Francois Simon (6)

2002
1. Armstrong (1)
Beloki (2)
Raimondas Rumsas (3)
Botero (4)
Galdeano (5)
2. Jose Azevedo (6)
Mancebo (7)
Levi Leipheimer (8)
Roberto Heras (9)
3. Carlos Sastre (10)

2003
1. Armstrong (1)
Ullrich (2)
Alexander Vinokourov (3)
Tyler Hamilton (4)
2. Haimar Zubeldia (5)
Iban Mayo (6)
Ivan Basso (7)
Moreau (8)
3. Sastre (9)

2004
1. Armstrong (1)
Andreas Kloden (2)
Basso (3)
Ullrich (4)
2. Azevedo (5)
Mancebo (6)
3. Georg Totschnig (7)

2005
1. Armstrong (1)
Basso (2)
Ullrich (3)
Mancebo (4)
Vinokourov (5)
Leipheimer (6)
Michael Rasmussen (7)
2. Cadel Evans (8)
Floyd Landis (9)
3. Oscar Pereiro (10)

2006
Landis (1)
1. Pereiro (2)
Kloden (3)
2. Sastre (4)
3. Evans (5)