Friday Roundup

At Amazon, Positively False is the #1 sports biography, and #4 in sports books, with "It's not about the Bike" at #24 (#6 sports biography) and Walsh is #25.

News
Lancaster Online says Amber Landis was in an accident trying to turn into Green Mountain Cyclery at 6:00pm. She was was making a left turn, run into from behind, pushed into the oncoming lane, and then hit by oncoming traffic. There was an unnamed passenger with Amber, and both declined treatment. Three others, not identified by police, were transported to Ephrata Community Hospital. Knock wood they are all really OK. This must have been pretty distracting at the 7:00pm book signing. Mr. Gorilla, below, seems even more so in context.

The Kansas City Star writing about the upcoming Tour of Missouri notes that Lance Armstrong made cycling popular, and Floyd Landis, among others, drove the sponsors away.

FOXSports article from a few days ago that we'd missed runs down the Armstrong - Walsh - Doping - Landis controversy, and Landis isn't painted in a flattering light. The author of the piece spoke to TBV, didn't get the quotes he was clearly looking for, and went elsewhere. He slams the June issue of Bicycling because it didn't trumpet story author Loren Mooney being the co-author of Positively False, getting the author of a Bonds book and Paul Kimmage to support the thesis it was a sham story. It claims the book violates the gag, which despite many headlines is not clear to us, and earlier contrasts Landis statement in the book there is no culture of doping in cycling with citations from Voet's book about Festina, and Kimmage's long-standing position.

We thought Landis' "no culture" comment was calculated and intended to shock and cause controversy, and it's certainly a claim that can be argued. Absent further explanation from Landis what he meant by the statement and inclusion, I mark it up as another of those "why did he say it that way" comments that have gotten him roasted plenty of times before, and hope he isn't meaning it the way it's been interpreted by the sharks who have lunged for it.


Blogs
Bicycling's Boulder Report looks at recent news. While expressing general approval about reporters asking questions, he's wondering if it's good for the sport, and if the tide change has brought it's own smell:

As welcome as it is to see mainstream reporters finally abandoning the starstruck approach, their sudden reportorial rigor comes with no small hint of huffily indignant superiority.

We are shocked, shocked to see such behavior in the press.

Velo-club.net (FR) takes a Reuters report to read Landis is gearing for the 2008 Tour. We don't think that's news -- if he's allowed to participate, I think everyone assumed he would.

Dugard talks about Jaksche, then wonders if Landis is going to pop in somewhere:

I was saying the other day that Floyd Landis would be somewhere between Washington and Illinois when the Tour starts. Actually, he's got a pretty big gap in his book tour schedule. Plenty of time to fly to London after his July 3 appearance in D.C. and then hightail it back to Illinois in time for his July 9 in... what is it, Wheaton? Back when Big Will was running the show, that bit of guerilla marketing was all the talk. D.C., London, and Chicago are all United hubs. That's a pretty easy ticket.

Ordinary Bo is not entirely convinced that Floyd Landis is innocent of the doping allegations he is fighting, but he IS convinced that the LNDD is completely incompetent.

MediaPost thinks the Versus Network is back to square one with coverage of the Tour because of you-know-what and the absence of Lance. The only silver lining is that the race is wide open.

More Palaver reads Walsh's book and thinks it makes a compelling circumstantial case that Armstrong doped, and thinks one chapter skewers Hamilton, and the last "puts a fork" in Landis.

The Stranger notes the existence of Positively False, and writes:

Lanids claims he was screwed, and that even though he won the race legit the “unchecked governing bodies of cycling” are determined to talk shit about his pretty sunset. We’ll probably never know the real story. Or at least I won’t: I’m not going to read this book. The only thing more boring than watching dudes ride bikes for a month is reading about it.

Now this is Tragic comments on the Wiki Defense:

[O]ne person who's benefited from the site's open-use policies is beleaguered Tour de France winner-turned alleged doper Floyd Landis.

Landis invoked the "Wiki Defense," actually posting his entire defense online in the hopes that experts in the fields of chemistry, law, statistics, etc., would come to his side -- and they did. Prior to his Wiki Defense, Floyd was a guilty long before the world understood the difference between and A and B sample; now he seems to have genuine hope that his name will be cleared.

Potholes and Roadapples conducts a Floyd Watch in Lancaster, running down the schedule for the day.

The Road Bike looks at Armstrong's document release and unfavorably compares it to Landis' efforts.

Taking the Long Way went on a ride with Landis, and rescued Amber in distress wrenching for Floyd.

The 800 lb Gorilla went to the book signing at Barnes and Noble tonight. He found lying about his press affiliations did not ingratiate him with the folks, and he doesn't seem to have shared much love with cycling or Landis going in. Was there really no open TGIF or bowling alley nearby?

Johnny Baseball/Finger Food talked with Landis today, for future use on CSN, and had this impression:

Meanwhile, I’ll give my knee-jerk impression of Floyd… if charm and class are part of his defense then he wins. He’s definitely a top-notch dude all the way. Having had the chance to talk to hundreds of professional athletes over the past decade, Floyd is at the top of the list as far as interesting and engaging guys. He very definitely could have mailed it in with me after going through thousands of questions and other crap over the past year, but he was intent on having a real conversation and taking me seriously.

It’s too bad he doesn’t play for the Phillies.

I’d definitely put Floyd up there with Scott Rolen, Doug Glanville, Randy Wolf and Mark Grace as far as the absolute best guys to talk to… a top-notch and classy dude all the way.

He also points us to the Lancaster Online story about an accident involving Amber, above.

Forums
At DPF, a Chat interview with Walsh is quoted:

DAVID WALSH
I don't believe the testing facilities are shadowy. I do believe in the Landis case, they did make some mistakes. But I don't believe the lab acted in bad faith. I believe because of the volume of the work they do during the Tour de France, they get stretched. But I do believe that Landis did produce a positive test for testosterone last year. Yes, the lab didn't do its work in the most professional manner, but I do believe that he tested positive.

I wonder how he explains the failure to identify peaks in the IRMS.

Podcasts
Bicycle.net points us to The Fredcast 75 talk with Paul Strauss of the Agency for Cycling Ethics. We haven't heard it yet.