rkwaki

Speaking of, has anyone seen Movie 43?

rkwaki

Still a crappy lover though...

JohnKScott

hammy56

does this make you feel better?

revchuck 

Bummer about the Open Pro's demise. I guess it's just you and me who will admit to racing on them...and your results are far better than mine.

SpeshulEd 

One word review: meh.

Homebrew01

If your wife asks you to not work late one day, it's possible it's your anniversary and she wants to go out to dinner.
What to do with the kids ? Easy, encourage them to go into town and sneak into the free concert that was "sold out".

carpediemracing 

Junior is coughing hard enough to get sick (I just changed shirts) so we moved him into our room so we can hear him better. He's such a great kid, just love him to pieces. I'm super lucky to be able to spend so much time with him. I try to give the Missus time with him when she's at home but I have him M-F all day except for two half days (about 1-5 PM). Over the weekend we're 50-50 or so, and in the evenings ditto (he usually falls asleep around 7:30-8:00 PM, wakes up 5:30-7:00 AM). When he's sick it's all on me though since I don't have to go to work and function at a higher level.

Obligatory picture of Junior from a couple days ago:


In other news I have the 4th edition of a clip done and if it passes muster I'll upload it. I have 2 recent ones in the queue, not too keen on them so they may sit there for a while. I have a few from last year as well but have various reasons for not finishing, revising them, or uploading them.

All this means not much riding though, but on the plus side my appetite has been for naught so I'm down a few pounds. 10-12 more pounds and I'll be at 2010 levels, which is my goal for early 2014 (I have no 2013 calendar year goals for 2013).

dnuzzomueller

Sorry to hear about Junior being sick I do have to say he win's a couple of adorable kid awards in my book.

I am just glad that we got some much needed heavy pounding rain yesterday. Maybe roads will be cleaner.

rkwaki

Ahh those were the days, soft, tender and loving...

rkwaki

Agreed. After the scene with the 'poop' and car it went downhill fast, but that was still one of the funniest movie scenes I have ever seen.

SpeshulEd 

I have no idea how they got everyone to be in it...all star cast in one of the most ridiculous movies ever.

rkwaki

Agreed. It's like they agreed to be in it without reading the script.
Not one of Farelley's best that's for sure...

MDcatV

i like sports and follow allot of them. i dont follow baseball that closely anymore, but it's interesting as a cycling fan who has seen lots of doping tests, excuses, handling/mishandling, etc. to hear discussions regarding the admitted PED use by someone named ryan braun and what should be done about it.

my advice, dont follow cycling's lead, this sport has continually cut off its nose to spite its face on the doping issue, and continues to do so with todays "revelations" of test results from 1998 samples.

point being, in any sport or other life activity, there will always be someone looking for an edge. in sports that edge is often PED use, it's always been there and always will be regardless of what testing or penalties are in place. the rewards are too big and the downside is too small. as a governing body, try to regulate sport as best can be done and always keep looking forward. looking backward is too slippery of a slope.

merlinextraligh

I think you've got a much better chance of getting PED's out of baseball than cycling. In the EPO era in cycling, the advantage was too big for non doped riders to overcome, making doping at the top level virtually required to compete. Given the thin margins between winning and losing in cycling, anything that gives an aerobic advantage may always be like that.

In baseball, steroids help, but they're not essential. A non doped Barry Bonds was still an excellent baseball player. I'm pretty certain it's possible to compete clean in baseball.

But the incentive to cheat in baseball is still there. Steroids apparently can take a journeyman baseball player with warning track power, and take him up a notch to significant guaranteed contract. Or an excellent player to all time great (Bonds). 50 games and keep your guaranteed contract is a joke. Go to the Olympic model, 2years, first offense, lifetime second offense, and you lose your guaranteed contract, doping in baseball would drop dramatically.

gsteinb

I don't think that's true. Given that Sky and Froome have both assured us he's clean, he's proven he can put historically significant rides up major tour climbs as well as win TTs.

johnybutts

I walk-jogged 3 miles this morning before work. took my dog. He gets tired faster than I do. Lazy mutt.

Creakyknees

fify?

merlinextraligh

In the time frame where EPO was available and there was no test for it, do you think anyone could have won a Grand Tour clean? It certainly appears that no one actually did.

Racer Ex 

Cleave

Where's the sinker?

carpediemracing 

I'm with you here.

It was interesting to see a few of the "favorites from five years ago" falter so badly. My wild ass guess theory is that their "programs" have been severely curtailed. With even placebo potential cut very hard (no IVs for any reason - and Willy Voet tells of a time when a racer went super hard because he believe he got something "good" when in fact it was just a standard replenishment type IV or shot or drug or something) it's hard to give someone that mental crutch that they're going to do well.

I was a bit disappointed in the lack of challenges to Froome until I realized that in the pre-EPO days riders would fall by the wayside and the couple actually talented racers would end up at the front. I'm specifically thinking of the Hinault/Lemond/Fignon days as those are the ones I think were the last ones before EPO became widely used. I think some of the lessor riders used lessor drugs (heck, even Sean Kelly got popped) but overall those drugs didn't change the way the racers performed over a 3 week Tour. In one of the recent drug books a clean rider says that the dopers would do well in the classics because the amphetamines and such worked well in cooler weather in one day races. In hot weather, in a grand tour, those drugs weren't as effective so the ones left were actually strong.

So if things are actually a bit cleaner then we'll see more dominant performances from very few riders. That's how genetics works - one or two really good riders per generation of racers.

At the same time I'm suspicious of one particular team (not Sky). To me they performed too well compared to the other teams, too consistent, and they have a not-so-good history. I wondered out loud if we'd hear about them in a year or two in the doping section of the news.

carpediemracing 

In other news the NY local association had some tests done at some race in NYC recently. Top 3 plus one random.

globecanvas

Speaking of the placebo effect, I just read Tim Krabbe's "The Rider" at Grumpy McTrumpy's recommendation. It is a spectacular book, very well written, economical, and exciting.

In asides, the author describes several examples of the placebo effect. My favorite is how a multiple TDF winner would always move his water bottle from the frame cage to his jersey pocket when beginning a climb, in order to make the bike lighter. He writes (paraphrasing) "Anquetil would never have won if moving his bottle had been forbidden."

gsteinb

incorrect