And on the topic of doping ...

Lance Armstrong has apparently given up on having his very own doctor assigned to testing him. He had hoped to show beyond a doubt that he was a clean rider but all that testing is very expensive. And just to be clear, this was going to be in addition to the testing he undergoes by the various cycling organizations, at the races he enters and his own team's dope testers. So Lance is still being tested a lot (I think 16 times so far since he announced comeback)

A proper response to doping

I think there was a time when I was sad every time I learned that someone had cheated, but that probably ended with Floyd Landis. I've come to accept that doping is a part of sport, it has been in the past and it always will be in the future. The stakes are just too high for people to resist. But this is true in all professions. You will always have people who take shortcuts to climb to the top.

So I've decided my only response to doping revelations must be glee. Not joy for someone's failure but joy at the fact that the system is at least partly working. I'm a pretty new fan of cycling. The first Tour de France I followed was Lance Armstrong's last (well, before he unretired). I've come in as a fan of cycling at the precise moment when many others started leaving. Friends ask me how I can invest time in cycling when so many of the highlight performances in the past few years have turned out to be lies. And I always tell them the same thing. I'm a sports fan. It's that simple. Sports entertain me and I always remember they are just games.

The only time I get remotely bothered by doping any more is when people act like cycling somehow has a worse doping problem than other sports. Cycling is just ahead of the curve. When A-rod admitted taking performance enhancing drugs he spoke of a lawless culture in baseball at the time. This was true cycling for a long time, but it's my hope that that time is passing. Cycling decided to get serious about ending doping. You could argue this has really only hurt the sport in the mainstream. In cycling, guys are tested all the time. They supply drug testers with their location year-round so they can be found for random tests at any moment. When they get caught they're banned for 2 years. Now teams don't even wait to find banned substances in cyclists' blood, instead they're looking for results that show guys recovering too quickly, which might suggest they were doping. And what has all this gotten them? Little more than scorn.

Two years ago I was in the airport during the prologue of the Tour de France. I stopped by a TV showing ESPN to check the results of the race. Was the story about how more than a million people showed up in London to watch the tour? No, the story was asking the question of whether anyone even cared that the Tour de France was going on because of it's history of doping (yes, despite the million plus people at the event that day). Last year when guys got busted at the tour I read commentators calling for the entire tour to be canceled. And Olympic officials were saying maybe cycling should be kicked out of the games. Funny, I've never once heard anyone suggest that track and field be removed from the games.

On the flip side, the MLB and the NFL have a joke of a drug testing program when compared with cycling's and weak penalties for failing drug tests. For years there were no penalties at all for doping and no tests to even check whether athletes were doping. When baseball finally did add testing (only during the season and not the off season) it was a 10 game suspension for a first offense. They've bumped that up to 50 games now. To match cycling they'd have to tack on another 274 games. How about in the NFL? While they have off season testing, their penalties are 4 games, then 8 games and then a year. So a player could in theory test positive twice in a single season and still play in the playoffs. These policies treat doping like it's not that big of a deal and they want their fans to think it isn't a problem. Baseballs biggest stars have gotten caught cheating and I've yet to hear anyone suggest that they cancel the World Series. Last time I checked Shawne Merriman is still doing commercials and going to the Pro Bowl (well, not this year).

So I'm happy when cycling catches a doper, because I know the sport isn't any dirtier than other sports, it's just that they're trying a lot harder to bust these guys.

Holy crap!

Valverde, long suspected of being tied to the doping ring known as Operation Puerto, has apparently been linked to the scandal by his DNA. Wow.

Team Type 1 raising awareness

I've been raving a lot about the big names and big teams coming to the Tour of California. But a small team with a cool mission has also been invited. That team is Team Type 1. VeloNews has a nice little feature on the team and their goals going into the TOC. The team began as a way to show that people with Type 1 diabetes can still live active lives and don't have to let the disease stop them from taking on big challenges. The team also showcases some of the latest devices used to help Type 1 diabetics, as some members of the squad have Type 1 diabetes and use those devices when they race. I'll be pulling for them to get into some breaks and maybe come away with a win in California.

Cable guy is coming Wednesday

And the cable guy coming means I will be getting me some Versus. I know they won't be covering the Tour of California in its entirety, but I'm glad they'll at least have some coverage every day. I've been going back and forth on what exactly I want to write about this race. There are so many interesting story lines. I talked with one of my fellow Midnight Ramblers the other day about who I thought would win this bad boy. I think I'll spend the next few days going over the candidates. Here's my initial thoughts.

First, check out the press release from the TOC and take a minute to look at the field for this race. Wow, that's a lot of really good cyclist. I can't say it enough, this race has truly arrived. Now when trying to predict who will win any stage race you have to consider who is actually trying to win. With cycling, you can't just win every race you enter all the time all year round. Well, except for this guy. Yes, his nickname was the cannibal.

Modern cyclists have taken to targeting only a few races throughout the year at which they will actually try their hardest. One reason Lance Armstrong was so successful was because he did not care about anything but the Tour de France. He might enter other races and even win in some of them, but everything was part of a big year-long plan to arrive at the Tour de France in the exact perfect shape (or "form") needed to win the race. So while current Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre may officially be in this race, I'm skeptical that he'll be doing anything more than try to log some training miles in race conditions.

Now who wants to win this race? And who will actually be trying? Since a lot of who wins depends on who has the right "form," many teams won't come out and say who their team captain is. And more and more, these top teams are stocking up on 2, 3 and even 4 guys who can win a stage race. Teams say they'll wait until the race to see who is in the right condition to win, and then everyone shifts to work for that guy. I think that's mostly a load of crap. They know who their man is, they just don't want us to know. And the truth is, I don't know, but here are some of my best guesses.

Levi Leipheimer
The American rider for Astana has won the past two TOCs and despite finishing second at the Vuelta a Espana (like the tour de france, but for Spain!) last year and third at the Tour de France the year before, he seems to continue to move down the ranks of his own team. Just as it seemed Levi was going to be the top dog at Discovery, they brought in Ivan Basso. When Basso got suspended Levi again looked to be the team captain only to see teammate Alberto Contador out-perform him at the Tour de France. The pair moved to Astana with their team manager after Discovery folded and it looked like at least the TOC was going to be Levi's race.

But this year he's now got Lance Armstrong on his team to deal with. And the team is being all vague about who they'll pull for. Not a good sign. But! Levi is not going to have to work for anyone else. That is for sure. He's great in the time trial, he's not a pure climber but he can stay with the top 10 guys in the world in the mountains and he's probably more motivated to win this race than about any other rider on a major team. And with Armstrong and Contador set to be the focus of the tour de France and Giro d'talia (like the tour de France, but for Italy!), that leaves little else for Levi. So I think Levi knows this is his chance to shine and he'll have put in the work to give himself the best shot at winning. In my mind, I think Levi is the favorite.

Lance Armstrong
But Levi may get a challenge from his own teammate Lance. Normally I'd say Levi wouldn't really have to worry. But this is the new Lance. Since coming back he's been wishy-washy about whether he's riding in the Tour de France and has said stuff like the Gir0 d'talia is his main goal. This is very unLance. The guy with the laser focus who wanted to destroy all challengers, and even guys on his own team who looked like they were ridding a little too well in the final year of their contracts (I'm looking in your direction Floyd Landis) is now talking about how great it is just to be out riding again. I know he's also now all about his Livestrong movement and raising cancer awareness.

But still, can Lance turn the competitive juices off? The TOC didn't exist when he was riding before and I have to think part of him would love to show up, win the time trial and the whole race, grab some headlines in the United States and make a statement that he's back for real. And by part of him I mean like 90 percent of him. He's got that 10 percent that's telling him he has to be nice to Levi so the average Joe Plummer thinks he's a good teammate (it's the same 10 percent inside Kobe Bryant that tells him he needs to make awkward jokes so as not to come off as a total basketball assassin), but with guys like Lance and Kobe, that 10 percent usually loses more often than not.

Lance finished 29th at the Tour Down Under, his first stage race back from retirement. He was only 49 seconds behind the winner. The guy finishing second was 25 seconds back, so even without trying very hard Lance was very much in the mix. Lance is one of those rare guys who can kill you in the time trial and kill you in the mountains. Whether he ends up going for the win or not, this race should at least give us more of an idea of what he's got left in the tank after a three-year break. Also, Astana will have Yaroslav Popovych pulling at the front for either Lance or Levi. The Ukrainian returns to their side after a disappointing stint with Cadel Evans' team Silence Lotto. I have a feeling he's going to return to his previous form as a super domestique.

Still to come: I'll be tackling Columbia-Highroad, Garmin-Slipstream, Liquigas, OUCH, Rock Racing and Saxo Bank.

Do you bike commute or want to bike commute?

If you said yes than you should read this. My former roommate Fiscus sent me a link to Rep. Earl Blumenauer taking Republicans to task for their attempts to get money intended for bike lanes and bike paths taken out of the economic stimulus bill. We can give away $15,000 tax credits to rich people to flip houses, but we can't pay for something that would leave us with something substantive that we could use for years and years to come? Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of tax cuts and a whole lot of just about anything to get the economy going. But we're going to spend hundreds of billions and we can't find room for some bike projects that would help cut down on oil consumption, get people riding and into a healthier lifestyle and also put construction workers to work?

I live in Charlotte where a Republican mayor has worked hard to add bike lanes, create a long term bike plan and add light-rail and bus service (I don't care that he once said of Wikipedia "you can edit the computer?!"). So if he can do it, then these national Republicans should be able to see the light, right? Right? Sigh, my belief that we should use facts, common sense and generally care about each other pretty much excludes me from ever being involved in politics. Still, I can't help but be filled with rage from time to time. But Blumenauer helped with that rage a little bit by listing these cool facts and making me feel good about my choice to bike commute.

Recent transportation surveys indicate that 52% of Americans want to bike more than they do now - but don't, because of the lack of safe and connected bicycle facilities.

Think about it: More than 50% of working Americans live less than 5 miles from home, an easy bicycle commute. Already more than 490,000 Americans bike to work; in Portland, 8% of downtown workers are bicycle commuters. Individually, they are saving $1,825 in auto-related costs, reducing their carbon emissions by 128 pounds per year, saving 145 gallons of gasoline, avoiding 50 hours of being stuck in traffic, burning 9,000 calories, reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, and enjoying 14% fewer claims on their health insurance.

Nationally, if we doubled the current 1% of all trips by bike to 2%, we would collectively save more 693 million gallons of gasoline - that's more than $5 billion dollars - each year. From 2007 - 2008, bicyclists reduced the amount Americans drive by 100 million miles.

So if you care about this issue you should take five minutes to contact your senator or representative and let them know what you think.

Pro cyclists really are crazy

OK, most of us know that you need to be a little strange in the head to go into pro cycling. These guys watch their weight like college wrestlers, they spend hours making their lungs scream by riding bikes up mountains into thin air, and then they ride down those mountains going much faster than a car ever would wearing nothing but a helmet and spandex. But the story in the New York Times about Svein Tuft of Garmin Slipstream takes it to another level. This guy literally is a mountain man turned pro cyclist. For several years the guy just packed up his stuff in a trailer and rode his bike out into the wilderness. This quote pretty much sums it up.

“It was by far the most content I’ve ever been,” he said. “My bike was a piece of junk. I had nowhere to go, no place to be. Didn’t have anyone telling me what to do. If I felt like lying on the side of the road, I did.”

Follow the leader

Also over at the Garmins Tom Danielson spoke with VeloNews a few days ago about his new time trial position and how much more efficient it has made him. If these gains are legit he could really improve on his results in the stage races and at the U.S. championships. But what stuck with me was how they mentioned the results he's had in the Vuelta a Espana, finishing sixth and seventh a couple years back as well as winning the Tour de Georgia. He's been way off my radar. I'll be interested to see whether he turns out to be the captain for the Tour of California this year or whether it will be Christian Vande Velde.

Too many bikes!

I've moved to the new place and have now combined my two bikes with my girlfriend's bike to create one super bike I call the tricycle! OK, I just mean we've now got three bikes clogging up the ol' apartment. I've been thinking about getting one of those bike stands that you can stick two bikes on to save some space. I'm not sure how well they work and I've seen prices ranging from $50 to $250. I'll probably end up checking out the bike shop to see what they've got, but will their stand be a lot better than the cheap-o Target version? Or will I be paying twice the price for something that's not that much better. Whatever I end up doing I'll let you know how well it works out.

Sounds like he learned his lesson

So apparently the UCI is going to still allow Triki Beltran to race because he failed a dope test at the Tour de France, which was being run by the French doping control and not the UCI. This makes no sense at all and I'm still not sure I believe what I'm reading. Of course Beltran is the source of all of this and he may just be full of crap. Anyway, he had this to say about how terrible he was treated after ... you know... being the first guy caught cheating at the tour last year.

"It is a surprise after I have been treated so badly. But the truth is that I do not mind. I was really depressed after the show that set up around me. It's something I would not wish on anyone, and frankly, I do not know what will happen in the future," Beltrán said in the local newspaper Ideal.

"It's a complicated situation. Right now I am not optimistic, but I would like to show that my professional career is still alive. There has been a turning point in my life since July, 2008. I had a model behavior; I have been honest and I have not had any problems with the anti-doping controls, so I cannot explain why they have gone after me."

Poor saint Beltran, why is everyone so mean to you? I'm sure he would have been happy to head back to Astana and work for Lance again like in the old days if this stupid little positive doping test hadn't mused everything up.