| Feb 9 | \'Missed test\' case dismissed on a technicality, now Longo reportedly q.. I\'ve said it before, she\'s a legend and an inspiration. But let\'s hope that such a good story doesn\'t end badly. Longo\'s Husband Held After Alpe D\'Huez Home Raid | Cyclingnews.com Longo questioned after further allegations of EPO purchases Patrice C.. |
| Feb 7 | Contador, consistency and fairness Contador has just lost a lot. A whole lot. Yes, he\'s back soon, real soon, but what he has foregone (by choice, error of judgement or otherwise) would be more than enough to make a stellar pro cycling career. Just to ride a Tour de France is a caree.. |
| Feb 4 | Armstrong off the Fed\'s criminal charge hook but the allegations of do.. It looks like Lance Armstrong can breathe a sigh of relief as the criminal investigation into the supposed sporting fraud appears to have ended. But there remains the small matter of performance enhancement and the reported sworn statements of inter.. |
| Jan 25 | 19 yo French rider suspended. But what were those \"12 substances\" and .. Well the media (and most bloggers!) beat these things up and the drug testers don\'t really explain it very well, so it looks like this young club-level athlete took \"everything\". And he did take a fair bit. But to be fair what he took was probably o.. |
| Jan 14 | Performance enhancement via UV light. Or quackery that gets people int.. Unconfirmed but interesting. What exactly does the UV light do to the blood? Presumably it increases its ability to hold oxygen, or masks other agents - but whether it actually is worth the trouble - who knows? It is suggested that used in small dos.. |
| Jan 13 | 3TTT seatpost failure - a reminder 3TTT seatpost failure_0432 , a photo by gtveloce on Flickr. It\'s true - aluminium snaps! And it can be very quick (and just as you round a corner)... |
| Jan 13 | Pick the problem here Pick the problem_1644 , a photo by gtveloce on Flickr. Yep, it\'s a broken Felt F75 2009 model single-bolt seat post clamp. Ouch. And yes, it was a Central Coast pot hole - or sub-optimally completed \"road works\" if you like. Blew 2 tyres (noticed th.. |
| Dec 21 | Do you really need a $10K bike? (Short answer = no.) But if you have the money to spare, why not? A $10K bike will absolutely fly, even with me riding it. And it will look great. And it will start conversations and draw admiring glances. Well so you hope, I guess. But the law of diminishing returns app.. |
| Nov 29 | Canadian Agreda confesses EPO use before before being \'caught out\' One out, all out. Well someone got nervous anyway, or at least their conscience was pricked after teammate Papillon was caught. What\'s interesting is that this positive test - coming after the confession - was conducted at the Quebec Provincial RR c.. |
| Nov 23 | Longo case dismissed on a French legal technicality - and life goes on As I\'ve said recently, she\'s a remarkable athlete to have maintained such a high standard for so many decades. In many ways the bike lends itself to longevity, so there should be no real surprise there, although 53 would be pushing the upper limit, .. |
| Nov 20 | 63 year old US Master rider suspended for refusing out of competition .. Now you could jump to a quick conclusion here and suspect that he had something to hide - or perhaps he simply took offence at the whole idea. Which is unlikely given we all sign on the dotted line for testing when we renew a race licence... OTOH at.. |
| Nov 17 | Cinelli leather hairnet - blast from the past Cinelli leather hairnet_0144 , a photo by gtveloce on Flickr. A what? Once, long ago, this is what racing cyclists wore on their heads to ward off evil spirits (if they didn\'t wear a cap and a cabbage leaf as well, anyway). Now they wear plastic and.. |
| Nov 9 | Another astute signing - Riis signs Cantwell as leadout/sprinter The problem with riding and winning consistently in the US is that you get typecast as a \"US-based\" rider; especially so when you win crit after crit. Everyone knows you are good - but who wants a \'crit specialist\' in a WorldTour team? Well Bjarne R.. |
| Oct 21 | US-based Argentine elite cyclist pinged for anabolics and amps Just for the record... another offender, if you keep track of these things... The anabolic agents, presumably steroids, build and rebuild muscle, helping power and recovery - and the amphetamines are a pick-me-up that gets you going. Perfect for bik.. |
| Oct 21 | Interesting SBS story on Adam Hansen\'s adaptation to a new pro team Wonder what happened to Adam Hansen? Big news one day, sorta forgotten the next? Well a change of team was on the cards anyway but he jumped ship a bit earlier and perhaps paid the price. He certainly took a while to get his skill-set noticed and us.. |
| Oct 20 | Canadian U23 road champion admits EPO use This case ticks the expected boxes. Talented young athlete out to prove himself, lofty expectations, comeback after serious injury. We may not all be talented to this degree but the temptation remains to boost our performance, even more so after an .. |
| Sep 28 | Prior user Sevilla pinged 6 months for potential masking agent - and o.. Not that I\'m against it at all, doping in sport is as legitimate as breaching technical regs in any sport - or in life generally. After all it\'s as human to lie, cheat and deceive as it is to be decent, sober and honest. What you are doing is runnin.. |
| Sep 20 | Nice work by Durbridge, Hepburn, Allen at road world champs. Blurred v.. It\'s not just that they are Aussies, it\'s the style in which they have claimed their medals, too. Durbridge\'s blurred vision on lap 1 says it all. Any athlete who has pushed themselves to their limit knows the feeling. Personally I - lowly clubbie t.. |
| Sep 14 | EPO accusations: Longo, Papp, her husband, his admission and their den.. OK, so Papp has admitted selling EPO and other drugs to many, many riders. And then the amazing Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli misses a date (or 3) with the whereabouts cops. That\'s not good. And then Papp implicates Longo\'s husband - and then they both den.. |
| Aug 22 | Nice debut GT win for Sutton at Vuelta - Farrar, Boonen, Petacchi miss.. I\'ve never met Chris Sutton - but his dad (a world champ on the bike) sold me a track bike once. How\'s that for a connection? Oh, and I kept a safe riding distance from his hot-headed uncle Shane, too! (I think he\'s a bit less tense these days.) An.. |
| Aug 17 | One for the trainspotter, the film buff and the freaky bike rider Oh I think I can do maybe 1 or even 2% of what this guy can do on a bike. And I\'m not going out there now to try some of this out. It\'s a nice bit of editing in its own right. Called \"Industrial Revolutions\", starring street trials rider Danny Macask.. |
| Aug 6 | Why cycling really isn\'t a team sport A couple of weeks after Cadel Evans has won Le Tour 2011 and I can confidently assert, not for the first time, that cycling is simply, definitely not a team sport. Sure, we dress it up like it is, and we cobble together a passing representation of a .. |
| Aug 6 | Don\'t see Gerrans leading the Tour of Denmark every day, do you? Lots of Aussies in the mix in Denmark but it\'s Simon Gerrans who has taken the GC lead. (Nice stage win by Fuglsang, too.) 3 stages to go, including a TT. I suspect Gerrans will be overtaken but I\'m not sure when or how. The TT may be the real stumb.. |
| Jul 27 | Good, short summary by Millar on why Evans won Worth a read. Not mind-blowing but incisive and concise nonetheless. Robert Millar was the Scottish climber who really should have won Le Tour but fell short. Life\'s like that, try and try again as you will but sometimes there\'s nothing more you can.. |
| Jul 27 | FWIW I agree with Mia. And I reckon Cadel would, too Not that I would presume to know Cadel Evans well enough - or at all - to imagine what he\'d think. But I don\'t believe he\'d be so self-opinionated as to back the vitriol that\'s been poured on Mia Freedman just because she\'s not prepared to label spo.. |
| Jul 26 | Unsurprisingly BMC team would like Evans to win again in 2012. Nice SM.. A lot is made of Cadel\'s age but - despite many falls and broken bones - he\'s in good health and - for a cyclist especially - he\'s not especially old at 34. It\'s not swimming or gymnastics, after all. And in some ways he has also been \'saved for lat.. |
| Jul 24 | NY Times labels cycling as \'most linked\' to drugs. It\'s an opinion but.. OK, it\'s just an opinion piece - and largely a positive one about cycling cleaning up its act - but why do the authors make these sort of value judgements? Upon what research is cycling deemed to be top of the heap here? And yes, I know it gets said.. |
| Jul 13 | More blogs to check out! I\'ve been a bit slack here with my posting but there\'s been a lot more activity on my other blogs... please check \'em out! Addicted2wheels - bike racing for everyone Offline - my take on the planet and its politics Dopage - all the dope on the dopes .. |
| Jul 13 | On Ligget the Patroniser. Or Forget Le Tour, how about Nankervis winni.. If you were a newbie to cycle racing and took Phil Ligget\'s word as Gospel truth (God forbid) you could be forgiven for thinking that some - probably most - of the riders in Le Tour had \"never won a race in their lives\". Believe me I cringe every ti.. |
| Jul 8 | Peleton skills 101: ride in the middle or the edge? The back or the fr.. It\'s the little details that I like, post-race. What actually happened to Levi? Well he was back too far and on the edge, trying to take his opportunities to move forward. Now if you pick your moment this can be fine - but get it wrong and you pay. .. |
| Jul 6 | Sunderland makes good sense in his analysis of the 2011 TdF GC riders Stage 4 was clearly another short but fierce climb at the end of a punishing stage, one that would sort out the GC guys from the rest - at least by a few seconds. And as expected, Gilbert and Evans were there, their teams making it so by working tog.. |
| Jul 6 | Cross Country Olympic skier and EPO user Mika Myllyla found dead A sad passing, but a reminder also that any athlete in any sport can be tempted to use PEDs. Whilst we should not pre-judge the causes here, it should be remembered that having decided to go after athletes that we have labelled as \"cheat\" we also ne.. |
| Jul 3 | Crash splits field, GC leaders wait for Contador... uh, maybe not this.. Of course it\'s different if you drop a chain or make a clumsy, newbie gear-change, then you are expected to wait, aren\'t you? But if a spectator brings half the field down then it\'s open slather, apparently. (Armstrong proved that in \'99.) And of co.. |
| Jul 1 | The \"Sven S\" EPO accusation - or be careful who you employ part-time Your part-time and casual staff are as important as any of your full-time permanent staff members - they have to be just as well trained and just as fully integrated into your organisation. It says so in your HR policy guidelines, surely? Umm. Ahhh... |
| Jun 28 | Sudden interest in this shot of Camperdown velodrome Camperdown-velo-Sydney-1000 , a photo by gtveloce on Flickr. Why has this pic of Sydney\'s Camperdown Velodrome suddenly taken lots of hits on Flickr? Don\'t know. This is the Sydney 1000 final in 1982. It was a warm day during a dry spell. The riders.. |