Irregular Report 47

Here and There
VeloNews (quoted by Bike World News) posts the OUCH team roster for the 2009 competitive season. Oddly, Floyd Landis is listed as new AND returning, go figure.

The roster:

"returning" Heath Net riders:
Rory Sutherland
John Murphy
Tim Johnson
Karl Menzies
Roman Kilun
Floyd Landis

"new" riders:
Floyd Landis
Cameron Evans
Andrew Pinfold
Bradley White
Bobby Lea
Jonathan Chodroff


Pez also talks about team OUCH:

The core group remains essentially the same with top riders Rory Sutherland, Karl Menzies, Roman Kilun, Tim Johnson, and the ever improving future star, John Murphy.

Incoming for 2009? The #1 big name is of course Floyd Landis. Behind him, two excellent pick-ups from Symmetrics in Cameron Evans and Andrew Pinfold, as well as the immensely powerful Bradley White (watch that name). Bobby Lea and Jonathan Chodroff round out the rest as two more high-quality names that will further add to the always dominant HealthNet, er, OUCH boys.

VelocityNation has an interview with new OUCH teammate and US Cyclocross champ Tim Johnson, who says,

"I've known Floyd since we were both racing mtn bikes in the mid-nineties. He was pretty exceptional as a junior and young pro before he started to run out of steam but he was already legendary in the NorthEast. He's obviously a seriously talented athlete and now that his body and hip is back in good shape, I think we'll be seeing him wearing a leaders jersey or three this season."

Nashville Cyclist says OUCH and Rock are the US teams to watch in '09, and looks forward to interesting matchups we're likely to see this year, especially between Rock Racing and OUCH -- like Landis/Hamilton battles. But what about Astana and Columbia, or won't they be doing enough of the domestic calendar to count?

Bicycle.Net posts USACycling's 13 UCI continental teams for 2009. OUCH is, of course, among them.

Danish TV2 reports the settlement as "Landis have given up".

Potholes and Road Apples at Lancaster Online notes Landis' return and our demise, a win-win if ever there was.

Dutch "Journalism and Doping" blog puzzles why Landis is always referred to as a Mennonite, when he long ago renounced the faith. Why isn't Armstrong "the cancer survivor Agnostic"?

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CyclingNews reports that Columbia and Garmin will be using Don Catlin's Anti-Doping Sciences Institute (ADSI) for their internal testing program in replacement of the now defunct ACE.

Michele Ferrari himself offers some skepticism about the norms assumed with the biological passport; CyclingFansAnonymous thinks Ferrari's motivations are transparent, calling his article part of

his ridiculous crusade to attempt to discredit each and every anti-doping method known to mankind. He is so obvious, it is almost funny.

VeloNews' Explainer runs down the differences between US Major League sports and cycling doping control, identifying the distinctions between real unions and what Cycling has, and the resulting policies vs. WADA World.

Velonews reports Stefan Schumacher is threatening to sue the AFLD for defamation over his reported positives for CERA. Good luck with that.

George Vargas saw Floyd at the shop today and passed along some very familiar sentiments that many of us share. The photo below comes from "George's Epic Adventures".

Floyd at the shop with ,we assume, George.

The Fine Grind finally got around to reading Positively False (available at Amazon for $6.99, eligible for super saver shipping), and liked it right up to about the end of July 2006, when he started snoozing. That's when we came in.

An emailer points us to DOUBLEbikeMATCH, which is doing a challenge-match thing to help World Bicycle Relief. It's a good cause at the giving time of year.

Valedictory Dept.
Velo Vortmax offers his retrospective of the Landis case.

Makes no sense now, either. After two and a half years of blogging and arguing with people on cycling forums; study of testosterone metabolism, and WADA code, the Court of Arbitration of Sport conclusions make no sense at all! Floyd Landis was cheated by a corrupt system that presumes "guilt until proven guilty" with a healthy dose of trial by media, character assassination, leaks to the press, propaganda, outright lies, incompetent lab tests, and biased analyses of scientific data.

Podium Cafe's Ursula bids TBV a much appreciated fond farewell:

With the last court case over and Floyd due to ride again it makes sense that TbV was due to close shop. I do have a wild hope that Floyd would send one more message, a message of appreciation. As for the rest of us, if you've been a frequent reader of the site now or in the past, go on over and say thank you. Thanks, TbV and Mrs. TbV. Thanks strbuk and Judge Bill Hue. Thanks Marc and Ali. And thanks to all the contributors and fellow bloggers who took such a special interest in the case: Rant, Pommi, syi and many more. You folks have enriched our lives and when we next hear from you in relation to Floyd or in some other context our lives will be better for it.

SBS Cycling Central, written by old friend Spinopsys Phil, also bids TBV "adieu":

Whatever you might think of Floyd Landis you have to admit that lack of determination is not one of his character flaws. Now that his doping suspension is complete and all the lawsuits are out of the way, Landis will be rightly returning to the bitumen but his return also heralds a retirement of sorts for another determined mob, that of the blog Trust but Verify, which from day one of the Landis affair became the first stop for all the inside dope (pun intended) on anything related to that case. From there, over the lifetime of the Landis saga, TBV segued to all things doping, unflinchingly delving into the legal and scientific minutiae. Their team of experts and amateurs showed what new media can do in this digital age. There was a lot I didn't understand but I know I always came away better informed.

Omnibus Department
Lawjobs presents a good explanation of a metaphor we've never heard put so clearly.

[B]e careful or you will be "thrown under the bus."

Maybe this expression is foreign to you. Some people refer to this as being "hung out to dry" or "taking the fall." Let me explain. Being "thrown under the bus" is the workplace equivalent of being involuntarily thrown in front of an oncoming bus in order to slow the bus down and divert injury from the person who threw you in front of said bus.

Being thrown under the bus by a co-worker or superior is not just being called out for your failures. It is being blamed solely for something that is not necessarily, or entirely, your fault.

Too Late, Dept.
HuffPost reports:

"[W]e are expanding the Pulitzers to include many text-based newspapers and news organizations that publish only on the Internet." They are "stressing" that all entered material should come from news outlets that publish material at least weekly, "are primarily dedicated to original news reporting, are dedicated to coverage of ongoing stories and that adhere to the highest journalistic principles.

And finally, way down here in the buried lede dept., we will be folding shop at the end of the year, leaving the site up as a monument to numerous kinds of human folly. If people would like to make suggestions for valedictory stories, feel free to drop comments. We'll take them as hints, but no promises. We have one final project in the works.