Grasshopper #1: Old Caz

--This weekend I went out and rode dirt again near Occidental. It was the first Grasshopper of the year. Seemed like there were about as many people there as the last one I did, probably 100-150. Basically, it's a small gran fondo. You show up, pay $20, and they give you a map. Then, they blow the whistle and you're off. Levi (@levileipheimer), a regular to the series and a local, was there, too.

The ride started out with a decent climb, a long descent, and then me trying to hang on in the paceline with a bunch of guys on cross bikes, while riding a full suspension MTB ("two banger" as a dirt guy called it). (Okay, it was the Santa Cruz Nomad with Edge wheels that Henry let me borrow. So yes, I was handicapped, but mostly by my fitness, not the 26 pounds of bliss I was riding.) After that we hit some more climbing, more descending, climbing, a river, stopped to eat like four Clif bars, memory gets hazy on this part, more climbing, me riding alone, rednecks whizzing by in 4x4 trucks bought to cover up [or magnify??] insecurities, long flat stretch, finally caught someone--a girl, albeit with a bent rear wheel--and the last climb of death.

The ride clocked in at a little over 50 miles with about 4500 ft of climbing. I was completely wasted by the end.

Oliver had finished about 15 minutes ahead of me, Bob a little before Oliver, and Billy had taken a shortcut which I can't believe I missed. We rode down to the cars, got changed and headed to the only thing that carried me through the last 25 miles, Wild Flower Bread. It's a small bakery in Sebastopol with the best bread in the world. I gave them $40, they gave me a bag full of bread, and we were on our way.

I could barely pull the bike up to my apartment when I got home.

--Good news! I'll have the Joao Correia interview up soon. I received a few questions on the last post but if you have any others please leave them in the comments section. He'll be out here in the bay area soon so we're planning a PRO/BRO ride. Let me know if you're interested.

Also, Joao is just the first in a series of interviews I'll be doing. I've got a list of guys but could always use more. Any other PROs out there want to do an interview? Shoot me an email and I promise I'll tell everyone I begged you to do it. Oh and if you know any PROs and can make introductions, I'd appreciate that as well.

--For those of you living under a rock (or only reading VeloNews), Sports Illustrated just rocked the completely desensitized world of cyclo-fan-dom with this article. I'm not even going to paraphrase. Just read the first paragraph, you'll be hooked.

Needless to say Lance wasn't too thrilled about it. When questioned, Lance asked the journalist if he was stupid. He then broke the suspense by apologizing and affirming the man was not, in fact, stupid.

Elsewhere Bill Stapleton and Brunyeel were both asked about the drugs found Popovych's house (see first paragraph of SI article). Brunyeel had no comment. Stapleton, however, apparently knew something SI didn't because he responded with "But, it's not true." Whew!

--Looks like there's another clenbuterol positive for a rider who raced in Mexico. Colo was also busted for "clen" after racing in Mexico. The only weird thing is the test was in April 2010 and the team was just now notified. Hmm.

Either way, the message is clear, racing in Mexico is now the equivalent of smoking cigarettes to cover up the smell of pot...

--McQuaid continues to impress with his apt and graceful leadership of the UCI. Last week he told cyclofans that it was unlikely Contador (whose case is still undecided) would race the Tour de France. Well, once we got him talking he just won't stop!

"I don't want to speak about the affair before it is concluded. But naturally, the fact that the Clenbuterol was found overshadows last year's Tour de France. Whether he is guilty or not, Contador has damaged us very much."

He went on to say:

"This sport is bigger than Lance Armstrong, bigger than Floyd Landis or Alberto Contador."

Seems like just months ago he was defending Lance's $25k, I mean $100k, gift to the UCI. Now he's throwing him under the bus. Then, he mentions Landis. You'd think if his goal was to stop doping in cycling, and a guy came forward with details of doping in cycling, McQuaid would want to hear from him. That's if his goal really was to prevent doping. Yes, Landis lied about doping. Yes, he could be lying now. But I'd bet you 10 Livestrong bracelets some of what he says is true. Instead, Mcquaid is busy calling Landis a liar every chance he gets.

Well, McQuaid, although you tend to change your tune with every new Sports Illustrated article, I think we're starting to hear you loud and clear. What you're saying isn't that you're commmitted to preventing doping in cycling, it's that you're committed to preventing anyone from thinking you or the UCI has any fault in doping in cycling. Got it.

--Lastly, I'll leave you with this amazing commentary on the SI article, courtesy of La Gazzetta.

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Ridin' Dirty

--Yesterday I went out and did something I hadn't done in two years: dirt. That's right, some gnar gnar. A little MTB. Last weekend I was out with some buddies riding and they asked if I wanted to ride dirt. Since I'd never ridden dirt, well anywhere in the bay area, I decided it was time.

They both had extra bikes but then I talked to Henry and he said he'd just let me use his:



Santa Cruz Nomad with Edge wheels. Unreal. Props to Henry.

I ended up riding over from SF since my car is in Half Moon Bay and since I hate driving to ride. I met the guys at Mill Valley and we headed up railroad grade. I was like the Energizer bunny I was so psyched so I took off and went to the East Peak. After I got up there I turned back and found them down at the West Point Inn.



From there we descended down to Muir Beach. I was surprised I was able to keep up with them on the descents. The bike was amazing. Can only imagine the skin I'd have lost if I was on a hard tail.

After that we climbed up near the Zen Center and then I peaced out and headed over to Tennessee Valley, then up and over to the Golden Gate. We did a decent amount of stopping because some of the guys weren't that quick but I ended up being out there for eight hours. It was an amazing day.

I definitely have the itch now for a MTB, and Henry said he's got one he wants to get rid of...

--Recently I've been chatting with João Correia and he agreed to do an interview for the blog. He's the guy who raced PRO when he was younger, stopped racing, and then ten years later quit his job and got a contract with Cervelo. Some of you may have seen the NY Times piece on him back in 2009. Velocity Nation also had a killer interview with him a while back.

I've been compiling a list of questions to ask him and I need help. What do you guys want to know about the life of a PRO? What do you want to know about João?

Leave them in the comments section and I'll do my best to get them answered!

--Jim (@jwbender) sent me this page about Jens the other day. Very funny.

--Ritte Racing really has their marketing down (NRSFW - Not really safe for work). I bagged on them at Interbike about, well my assumption that they're buying up generic frames and having them painted for a 1000% markup, just a guess! But these guys are seriously funny. I blogged one of their videos a while back. If you haven't seen them they're hilarious. One is of a guy getting a "feed" from the team car. The "feed" is a chef in the back seat mixing a salad...

--This is the coolest tech piece of the day. This guy is amazing. He's Contador's mechanic and he does a full bar wrap in 4.5 minutes. I clock in at about an hour...

Also, the lastest Ask Nick has some interesting stuff on rolling tubulars.

--Android-based cycling computers!! So cool!

--Alright, I didn't want to go from the upcoming João interview straight into a downer but looks like McQuaid is back politicking. When he's not making jabs at Landis he's off clarifying the Contador situation with statements like these:

"We could assume that it’s a possibility that [AC] will not be at the Tour de France."

and

"It is possibly correct that [AC not riding the Tour] is what will happen."

Wow, thanks Patty! That sure clears things up. I mean, I can see how you wouldn't know that much about the outcome, since you're only the President of the UCI.

I can't really say how much this guy has done for cycling since I feel like so much happens behind closed doors, but with statements like those I can't help but be reminded of ol' Bill.

--Zomegnan is already on the hunt for Giro wildcards. When asked about Team Type 1 he said, "the DNA of the new team is a good one," hinting they may get an invite to the Giro.

Is he talking about hanging onto the team cars through the Dolomites? That type of DNA? I'm all for American teams getting into the Giro, but this seems a bit of a stretch. I can't see those guys doing well there.

--In the continued tale of horrific jerseys:



I thought the old ones were pretty sick but these don't do much for me. Maybe because I don't like to do a separate load for whites. The caveat is the Twitter logo there near the top. Cool!

Liquigas has also gone white:



I thought they used to have pretty sweet kits, too.

--The Iljo Keisse saga continues...but I'm over it so all I'll say is that it's continuing.

--More info on Postal revealed.

Speaking of Postal, there's an interesting interview with Kimmage on Cyclingnews.

“I would put my hand in the fire right now and say that Floyd Landis is without question telling the truth,” Kimmage said. “How do I know that? Well I spent seven hours with him and that’s a long time and I asked him a lot of questions and the detail that he gave me about what happened on that team [US Postal] and about what happened to him in professional cycling, you cannot make that up.

“You would have to be an absolute psychopath to make up the level of detail that he was able to give me about what went on in that team.”

There you have it.

--Alright, this is dragging on so I'll wrap up by saying NetApp is coming to Cali for the Tour, with Cozza riding for them. Very cool.

--I'll leave you with a sick clip by Michael Barry:

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2011 Predictions

--It's that time of year again. The winter is halfway over and the classics are in the near future. Last year I added a cycling calendar to my Google calendar so that I wouldn't miss any races. I couldn't find one for 2011 so I just made one myself. I've inserted it at the bottom of each post (just click on the "+ Google Calendar" button in the bottom right to add it to yours). Also, if you see any races I've missed please email me.

Since the season is about to begin--the Tour Down Under starts on the 18th--I thought it would be a good time to make some predictions.

First off, Sagan is going to have an amazing year. He was strong in last year's Tour Down Under and then went on to win stages 5 and 6 of the Tour of California. He stayed strong through the end of the season and got second to Gesink in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal (right behind him was Hesjedal). That's good company to be in. Given his performance in uphill sprints I see him as someone to really challenge Gilbert in a year or two. In two or three years I think he could win Amstel Gold or Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Cavendish is going to have a great year. Since he skipped the cosmetic surgery in Paraguay this off-season he should be good to go. I don't see him winning Milan-San Remo again, though. I think that was probably a one time thing. It's not that I don't think he can, I just think the race is such a crap shoot. After all, Freire won last year...

I'm not sure what his plans are but I remember him saying he wanted to start doing well in other classics. If that's still on his radar I think he could definitely be a factor in them over the next few years.

And yes, he'll have another amazing Tour.

Speaking of the Tour, Contador is going to get the ax and have his Tour taken away. Why? Not because he doped or didn't dope, but because the UCI has already busted and suspended more than a handful others for clenbuterol. If the UCI were to let Contador off the hook, they'd have to go back and let the others off. They'd have to retry those cases. They'd have to pay them back salaries for the time they were suspended. The UCI can't afford to do this, well unless their benefactor Lance ponies up another $100k.

So there you have it. Greatest cyclist of this era and he's suspended not because he was guilty or innocent but because of the UCI has to cover itself. The kicker is Contador was already screwed by the UCI when they denied Astana entry to the Tour in 2008. C'est la vie.

The Schlecks will be there to take his spot on the Tour climbs. Looks like it'll just be them two and come down to whoever TTs better--they won't be riding against each other on the climbs so it's all about whoever has a better time before the mountains.

Ryder Hesjedal will podium at the Tour. Better yet, without Contador there, I think he's a wild card for the Tour win, and with better odds than some of the others like Sanchez and Porte (and Wiggins).

Greipel, after all his talk, will be a disappointment. He'll continue to win these small stage races without ever really cracking the big races. (Okay, I just checked his stats and he seriously won like 20 stages last year. They were all small races, though.)

Farrar is going to have a fantastic year. He was sprinting with a broken wrist through much of last year's Tour. If he can stay strong, he's definitely got a chance of winning a stage there. Last year he won two stages in both the Giro and the Vuelta. This year he'll win stages in all three. (@jwbender ran into him at a PRO shop up in Seattle. Said he's a super nice guy. I actually spoke with him once myself. Two summers ago I was in Venlo at the start of a Vuelta stage. Tyler passed on his way to sign in. I yelled "Tyler!" He replied, "Hey!" as he rode past. Good talk.)

Gilbert will have a great season and win another classic, or two.

Chavanel, after being disappointed with his 2010 season, will continue to be disappointed. He had the best season of any Frenchman in years (yellow jersey, multiple stage wins) but it still wasn't enough for him. As much as I like the guy, I don't see him having a better season than last year.

Lastly, Jack Bauer is going to kill it at the continental level. But with results like winning the New Zealand Road Championship, 23rd in the Worlds TT, and 10th in the Commonwealth Games Road Race it won't be long before he's ProTour ProTeam. Here's a pic of Jack and the guys before a race a couple summers back (he's the one with his legs crossed.)



--The new jerseys are almost all out now. Here's Greipel showing off the new Omega Pharma one:



I think it's pretty sorry. That greyish/beige background color is just awful. Leopard's kits, on the other hand, aren't bad.



They look a bit Rapha-esque but I like the clean look. I'd wear one, not for the team, but for the design.

This brings up another point, why is Leopard Management sponsoring a team at all? I tried to find something on them and all I could find was this crappy site. Really?

--Looks like the NYPD is cracking down on bikes. I'm actually in support of this, at least in some areas. Out here I tend to see them enforcing this in areas where it's unnecessary (ie the parks in SF) and not enforcing it in important places (ie the Mission). Inexperienced cyclists careening through intersections is a bad idea. But then again, so is paying police $100k a year to give tickets to people riding bikes to pay for police making $100k a year. That's an even worse idea. Just saying.

--The race radio issue has come up again. The UCI is attempting to ban it for all non-UCI races this year. I thought they had killed this idea after the 2009 Tour (there were supposed to be two days of no radios but they cancelled the second one). (Niermann protests below.)



I think this will be really cool to see. After all, Ben King won the US National Road Race without radios--he put in an amazing effort but I also think the fact they didn't have race radios helped.

--The UCI has banned Iljo Keisse from racing but he got some Belgian court to overrule their suspension [so he can ride the Rotterdam Six]. He tested positive at a six day a couple years back but was then let off by whatever Belgian court saw the case. The issue has come up numerous times since then but he's never had to serve any suspension [he's one of the biggest track stars of recent times and a national hero in Belgium]. Now, in a last resort the UCI will be "ignoring" Keisse at the upcoming Rotterdam Six. The guy was banned by the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport, the ones who do the "banning"), so I'm not sure how he can still race. I am interested to see how the "ignoring" pans out...

--A new Dutch team is on the horizon. It's called the AA Drink-Leontien.nl team and I like the looks of it.

--I haven't found many cycling podcasts I'm crazy about but here's a pretty good one I found off Velocity Nation.

--I'll leave you with an awkward pic of Renshaw. (He had Julian Dean for his last meal.)



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The Classics are Coming...

--I just went back to work after a solid ten day break. Amazing. I got in a few rides and more hours of Jersey Shore than I rode--a feat, I know. I had a few nice rides up Tunitas, here's a pic from one of them:



I have the rest from the past few days on my Tumblr.

I know the posts have slowed a bit but there's just not that much that's excited me recently. That's all about to change, though. The classics are coming!!

--Speaking of pics, I got another one on VeloNews! It's from my first Belgian cross race.



Going through all my old cycling pics has made me super nostalgic for the summer of 2009 when I took off with my bike. I'm not one to look back at the past as my "best days" since I feel my life continues to improve, but my experiences from that summer were priceless. If you ever get a chance to go over and ride around Belgium and Holland and see the races I'd highly recommend it.

--La Gazzetta just had a killer gallery up with cross pics from a superprestige race.

--The other day I left the house in my Italian national team jersey (props to my mom and sis for picking it up for me in Rome) thinking it would be dry. I was wrong. It rained while I was out and I ended up with streaks all over my jersey after I got done riding. I was pretty bummed because I really love the jersey. And then, I had an idea. I used some of the color-safe Clorox detergent. I rubbed it all over the stain--BEFORE WASHING. An hour later I pulled it out and the thing was clean as the day I got it. So there, had to put in a plug for Clorox. Regardless the enviro impact, if it keeps you clean, that's #PRO.

--Speaking of jerseys, Saxo Bank just went from solid to awful...



Guess Astana isn't the only team following the hawk.

--For those of you who've ridden Cat's Hill, Velogogo has a nice pic of Lemond doing it in '78. That hill hurt...

--A couple posts ago I mentioned a nice cycling magazine, well here's an even better one...

--Looks like Farrar's been racing six days. I think it's really cool when guys do this and I'd love to see one. Six days of track racing and techno, what's not to love??

--Apparently HTC was down at Specialized in Morgan Hill! I totally missed out on this. I would have loved to see the presentation.

--Lastly, looks like Traksel found another team. He was signed with Pegasus but then that fell through. The real story is that he thought after his win last year at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, his only real win ever, he deserved a bit more money than Vacansoleil wanted to pay. So he went hunting and found Pegasus. Well, we all know how that turned out. So now, instead of riding for Vacansoleil, a totally legit team which as of this year became ProTour ProTeam, he's riding for Landbouwkrediet-Colnago. (Yes, I can hear you all saying "Who??")

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