Friday Roundup

News
The Idaho Mountain Express is still catching up with last weekend's Leadville 100 .

CyclingNews announces that Discovery Channel's swan song will be at the inaugural Tour of Missouri in September where they will send their "A" team. In an update of today's news the person who hacked into Michael Rasmussen's email has made a partial confession to his crime.

CyclingNews also has a fresh batch of letter for August 17, one addressed to the UCI stands out:

I believe that the fans support cycle racing. We do not like the doping but we certainly understand how riders could be moved to try anything in their dedication.

I believe that the doping regulations must not only be based on science but handled fairly and indiscriminately. Doping regulations are supposed to protect the long term health of riders who can lose perspective simply because they're young and ambitious.

They are also to maintain a standard of performance based strictly on the limits of the human body and mind. Those that are dedicated train the hardest and are naturally the most gifted should be the winners and not someone with the best doctor.

But based on these standards UCI, WADA and ASO are desperately wanting.

Perhaps it is time for racing to fall back to strictly national levels.

Americans don't need European racing managed by those who are so willing to spoil their own bedding. And European cycling fans certainly don't need bias for or against their riders which has plainly been the case.

Perhaps if we simply turn our backs on UCI, ASO and their silly bickering and all of the money falls out of pro racing we can come back again in a decade and build an organization based on love of the sport and not love of who knows what?

Tom Kunich

Telluride Daily Planet tells local Daniel Murray's Leadville story.

An added challenge was the fierce field of competitors including Floyd Landis — banned from professional cycling for alleged doping in the 2006 Tour de France. With Landis on the entrant list, this year’s race included a stacked field.

“Landis set a really strong pace and everyone rode faster,” Murray said of the favorite. “He also attracted a lot of hoopla.”

This year, the Leadville race reached its capacity with 200 more riders than last year. Of the 1,000-person field, roughly 650 finished. The top three finishers, including Landis, who placed second overall, blazed through the finish line in downtown Leadville, all breaking the 10-year-old course record of 7:05:45

The WSJ.com's Daily Fix makes note of "The Outcast" in rival publication The New York Times.

UPI News Sports Track notes that Floyd Landis eats protien pudding and has gained wieght. One thinks they may have missed several other cogent points from the NYT piece "The Outcast".

Blogs
Environmental Chemistry ponders the fact that we are still waiting for a verdict to be announced from the Landis/USADA hearings held in May. Three articles have been written by the folks at EC explaining the ins and outs of chain of custody issues with the case as well as the flawed lab work done at the LNDD, yet still we wait. Sara Corbett's fine piece "The Outcast" is referenced as is Rant's almost daily writings on the subject of all things Floyd, and there is still no verdict and may be little final justice:

At this rate, once all of the appeals have been exhausted and there is every reason to believe the verdict will be appealed regardless of outcome, the final adjudicating of this case and Floyd Landis' ineligibility to compete while his case is being heard will be as long or longer than if he had just rolled over and accepted a suspension from the get go. This is not justice. Athletes should have a right to thorough, fair and speedy hearings if they decide to contest doping allegations. It should not take longer than a year simply to get through the primary arbitration process and athletes should not need to spend over two million dollars (as Floyd Landis has done) to mount a defense. If an athlete is guilty of doping, they need to be exposed and suspended from their sport with their sporting records stripped (this includes baseball by the way). Any system, however, that is designed to catch athletes who dope will on an occasion wrongly accuse innocent athletes and innocent athletes deserve the right to speedy hearings which clear their names. In the quest to rid sports of doping, innocent athletes should not have their lives destroyed by a system designed to railroad athletes or be left in purgatory for an eternity when they contest their cases.

Rant read Sara Corbett's NYT Times Magazine piece on Floyd Landis and considers it a masterpiece of sports writing.It gives a true glimpse of the person Floyd is, not just the public person, but the real person and Rant is grateful it was written.

bicycle.NET read yesterday's New West Boise article with interest, and excerpted Corbett's "Outcast"

Cycling Fans Anonymous also read "The Outcast", and calls it an all-too-true title.

[A] heart-breaking, revealing, must-read portrait of the enigma that is Floyd Landis. After reading this, my ambivalence toward him is only stronger than ever. I can't figure out what his deal is, I just can't.

Family and Twist posts excerpts from "The Outcast", but it looks like a wierd automated mashup site.

ABCDmindedness read and appreciated the thoughtful writing in the Sara Corbett piece.

Elvis Kennedy, who went way out of his way to get a signed copy, slams Positively False, citing passages he finds evasive and disingenuous. The man can hold a grudge.

Bob Mahew read Positively False, and liked it. He sees no reason to believe anything other than Floyd Landis is innocent.

Drunkcyclist ruminates over the Sara Corbett piece and thinks no matter what, Floyd Landis is well screwed. Landis will never regain what financial losses he has suffered, and who knows where he will end up?:

What’s next for our boy Floyd? Fall on you sword and sign with Vaughter’s squad? Race various ultra-endurance events around the US for a pittance? Motivational speaker? Home Depot’s tile department?

Chad's Bike and Tri Blog also references the NYT Magazine article about Floyd Landis, "The Outcast" by Sara Corbett.


Believe the Lie seems to think that "The Outcast" was a very pro Landis piece , and you knew where it was headed in the first few lines. Just as one might know where they were headed when the read the blog name "believe the lie".

Energetich20 has been following things and wants to know when they're going to let him ride again. Gives us a plug too.

UltraRob is putting up scads of more Leadville pictures. In his earlier pix post of Landis and Wiens, the comments reveal some more technical details. It appears Landis wore road shoes with Speedplay X1 pedals, and his bike was a last-minute throw-together:

Daniel said...

I built Floyd's race bike and originally he had xtr pedals but he must have switched them at the race. Some other technical nuggets for this bike are the LX front der, generic Easton aluminum stem with no grade such as ea50 or ea70 leading me to believe it is probably an ea30, and the Bontrager Select aluminum riser bar. Why did Floyd ride these parts? That was all we had in stock at the shop I work at that we could get on zero notice. Something happened to his original bike and we had to put this together and overnight it to him just a couple of days before the race.

Wonder wha' happened?



Forums
James Koh anecdotally proves you can ride better the day after a bonk, so USADA, UCI, ASO, et. al. should call off the dogs on Landis.

LA Scene says the answer is to shut pro cycling down, then praises "Be My Girl", a song by The Police in praise of an inflatable love doll. Uh, OK...

Thought for the Day

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

-Buddha-