If there’s one thing our current administration does better than anybody - better than Nixon, better than J. Edgar Hoover, better than the Stasi- it’s spying on people. The NSA is just going crazy, sucking cell phone and land line conversations out of the ether from anyplace on the planet. Now, call me old-fashioned, but I think antiquated documents such as the Constitution still apply. Spy on anybody you like, just get a warrant first.

But the upside of this perfidious conduct is the juicy conversations acquired amidst our world-wide eavesdropping net. File yourself a FOIA request and you, too, can hear casual conversations from just about anybody. Like what transpired between Alejandro Valverde and Oscar Freire moments after the conclusion of the recent Salzburg world road championships. Who knew Mr. Freire was such a fiesty little bugger.

Enjoy!

No, not our riders, (I trust that any Americans selected for a world championship position have enough decorum and respect to represent our country properly), but our clothes. Just look what Bjarne Riis thought about the 2006 Team USA kit sported in Salzburg…

And on a somewhat tangentally related note, if you want to delve into the world of someone whose life’s passion is “the obsessive study of athletics aesthetics”, check out Uni Watch. A recent read through the site reminded me of the unflattering kits worn by Americans at the road and mountain bike world championships.

Just who is Frankie Andreu’s anonymous partner in crime? Here’s US Postal’s 1999 TdF lineup:

It really seems odd that one of Andreu’s 8 teammates is trying to keep his identity a secret

“because he said he did not want to jeopardize his job in cycling”

Did Mr. X really think that nobody would do a 10 second Google query to see who else was on the 1999 US Postal TdF squad in addition to Andreu? The person in question has to be either Jonathan Vaughters or Kevin Livingston, and my money’s on Livingston. Vaughters has too much at stake with his TIAA-CREF squad to risk the bad press, and he’s already made a statement within a signed affadavit attesting to no personal knowledge of drug use at US Postal. Livingston indeed does still have a job in cycling, and one only has to wonder if some strange car accident, bankruptcy, or stern “lecture” from hired-goons will soon befall Kevin.

This “I took EPO while preparing for the 1999 TdF” revelation of Frankie Andreu certainly has curious timing, coming not-too-long after his sudden dismissal from DS of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling squad. If that rather perplexing termination was a none-too-subtle long distance jujitsu strike to the gut orchestrated by a certain Lance Armstrong because of the Andreus’ (Mr. and Mrs.) testimony, then this public tell-all is Andreu’s bitch slap of Armstrong. I think this may only get uglier…

A photo essay…

This is a true story. When I lived in northern NJ as a wee youngster, I spent several summers immersed in the world of Little League baseball. Before I knew what professional cycling was, I had (ever so brief) illusions of playing for the NY Mets. From the highest point in South Orange, one could see the NYC skyline and for a summer or two I thought that, just maybe, my life’s path would involve playing a handful of miles away in Shea Stadium.

Well, it didn’t take too many trips to the plate before it became stunningly evident that the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball is a skill I do not possess. The skill I did possess was crowding the plate so I could get beaned and mosie along to first. Then the fun started - I could start stealing bases. We had a green light to steal if the catcher made mistakes mishandling pitches, but otherwise we were under strict orders to wait for our coach’s signal to steal. And straight out of Bad News Bears, the signal to steal was when the coach lit up a new cigarette. No joke. One can only imagine how much smoke our bench inhaled per game, but orders are orders and I don’t think anybody intercepted our SIGINT…

Photo ©: Mark Zalewski/Cyclingnews.com (URL)

Fast forward to yesterday’s USPRO crit championships in Downers Grove, IL. TIAA-CREF DS Jonathan Vaughters is providing late-race instructions to Brad Huff and company, guidance which will soon result in a US championship for the uber-talented Huff. This is the covert sign which says, “Make sure Huff gets to the last turn in the top 2, but be well aware of carrying too much heat - those barriers are a bitch.”

Not exactly something one learns in “Director Sportif 101″, but Vaughters certainly believes in doing things his own way. At least Vaughters is still rail-thin. Be glad he’s not flaunting the physique of a Manolo Saiz. Now that Vaughters’ unconventional communications have been compromised, one can only wonder what he’ll have to come up with to direct his bevy of young talent in the upcoming USPRO road race in Greenville. I’ll be there, camera in hand, to chronicle his next move.

“Toby” belts out a tune on NBC’s Rockstar Supernova	Henk Vogels on the mic - January, 2006
Photo ©: Danny Moloshok / Blue Pixel	Photo ©: John Flynn/Cyclingnews.com

Word-or most likely baseless, unfounded rumors-on the Internets is that 2006 US pro peloton powerhouse Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team is short on cash and on the verge of not completing their inaugural season. Soon after the appearance of this speculative chatter, however, a bombshell announcement hits the ususal cycling sites: none other than Aussie hardguy Henk Vogels will once again base himself stateside and race for Toyota-United in 2007.

Huh.

Has anyone seen Vogels racing lately? Because I think he’s trying to diversify his income portfolio by auditioning for the frontman spot of made - for - tv - over- the - hill - rocker -gotta - pay - the - rent - somehow - cause - we - got -screwed - out - of - a - lifetime - of - royalties - and - now - beg - for - crumbs - on - NBC - peddling -Supernova lameness. Like I’ve mentioned before when discussing Johnny Green’s book about le Tour, there’s not much of a difference between the life of a pro cyclist and that of a rock musician. Except for those pesky drug tests. Let’s see if there’s a burning the candle at both ends rocker-racer life for Vogels next season, surely a ticket to shaving some years off one’s expected lifespan…And I realize I’m ripe for mockery for actually having viewed multiple episodes of Rockstar Supernova.

What’s going on over at CSC? Completing the Grand Tour triple header within a single calendar year has always been an occasional freakish anomaly, aside for a single round of popularity back in the 1991 glory days of EPO. But CSC seems hellbent on bringing “The Triple” back into style. 2005 saw old-man Giovanni Lombardi complete all 3 Grand Tours, and then just for good measure he kept on going in 2006 completing the Giro and nearly completing le Tour. 4.5 consecutive Tours…not bad. Not to be outdone, Carlos Sastre is embarking on his 3rd Grand Tour of 2006 with the soon-to-commence Vuelta (having started a streak of consecutive Grand Tours with the 2005 Tour de France). And upping the ante over Lombardi, Sastre is actually trying to win them. Nevertheless, Sastre can only hope to tie for 6th on the Triple Crown GC tabulator…

Let’s review the upper echelon of the GC freaks of yore, courtesy of cycling4all.com:

Sastre has a 43rd in the Giro, a 4th (maybe upgraded to 3rd?) in the Tour, and a victory in the Vuelta will give him a GC total score of 48, tied for 6th with Lejaretta. As long as Sastre doesn’t whip out his kid’s pacifier again if he wins a stage, I’ll be pulling for him.

Greenville USPRO…I’ll be making the drive down I-85 to check out the road race on September 3rd. I’m real curious to see what kind of turnout the race generates. If anyone wants to grab a beer (or beers) I’ll be in the race hotel Hilton Greenville Saturday and Sunday nights. I don’t know what kind of bars are around, but I’m sure I’ll figure that out once I’m there.

“The Jan” siting: I spent nearly a week at a conference in Washington, DC, hunkered down for long days of sessions, round tables, panel discussions, and plenary addresses in the Hilton near Dupont Circle. Thankfully, unlike many of my professional colleagues, I was not staying in the host hotel. I enjoyed the approximately 1 mile stroll between my hotel and the conference digs each morning and evening which provided the opportunity to soak up some of the DC ambience, architecture, and street life. One can’t help but notice the abundance of bike messengers making their way through DC streets each day, and I’d frequently walk past battle-weary track bikes locked to parking meters and street signs while their owners were inside a nearby building making deliveries.

On one particular morning, awash in the delirium of too much Guinness ingestion the prior evening and a lack of caffeine this a.m. (I had yet to reach the coffee shop near the hotel), I took a slightly different sequence of streets to reach my destination. And as I’m wont to do, at frequent intervals throughout the day, I was thinking about cycling. And just as Todd Wells frequently poses the question “I wonder what Gully’s doing right now”, for no particular reason the thought “I wonder what Jan Ullrich’s doing right now” popped into my brain. Still training hard? Plotting his defense strategy? Watching 1997 Tour de France videos? On vacation someplace far from Europe where nobody knows who he is? Well, I think a certain Mr. Ullrich tried to make his way as a DC bike messenger. Because no sooner than I started contemplating Jan’s fate, I came across a bike locked to a sign sporting this on the top tube:

Unfortunately, Jan’s run into a bit of bad luck regarding the rest of his ride…

Such a sad, after-school special-esque saga…from ProTour uberman to destitute, beaten down DC bike messenger in the span of several weeks.

Cyclists do not work at the Smithsonian: One of the perks of our convention meeting in Washington, DC was having the run of the entire Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for a private party this past Friday evening. I was mostly concerned with the free food and drinking enough beer to cover the $10 flat fee I had to pay for the privilege of imbibing booze. Having already done some sightseeing in DC, I was falling under the spell of museum fatigue and didn’t overly concern myself with the cultural heritage treasures around me. The original Star Spangled Banner? Mr. Rogers’ sweater? Howdy Doody? Dorothy’s ruby slippers? Whatever…That is, until I happened to see a white Trek encased off in the distance while I lingered with North Carolina colleagues on the 3rd floor. And right away something seemed really strange, which I confirmed with a closer look:

Maybe it was just the Rolling Rock fuelling my indignation, or the indignation of having Rolling Rock as the highest quality beer at the bar, but I was horrified to see how the handlebars were not properly positioned. Whoever set up the bike for the exhibit (and I’m assuming it’s somebody within the Smithsonian) used the STI levers as a levelling cue, rather than the flats of the drops. Hence, the end of the drops were tilted upwards. Whoever set this bike up is not aware of how Armstrong, and damn near the rest of the Euro peloton, has his bars positioned. Or maybe the museum tech person in charge of the display took it out for one last spin around the National Mall, careened into a major pothole, and thought nobody would notice the wonky bar position when he sealed it away behind plexiglass. Either way, I felt like I was looking at a bike displayed in Wal-Mart. And in the grand scheme of things this is pretty minor, but one would hope that the nation’s flagship history musueum would dot their “i”s and cross their “t”s. I happened to have an allen wrench in my messenger bag, and I was tempted to breach the display case and do a quick loosening/tightening of the stem bolts to rotate the bars upwards to their proper position. The horror…

And then another funny thing happened. I was attending a national convention of archivists and librarians, professions which are largely populated with people who are, putting it delicately, not athletically inclined. While I was soaking in Armstrong’s Trek, some other convention goers came up to the display and started talking amongst themselves about Armstrong. I soon found myself answering their questions about Lance, the Tour de France, his bike, how I knew what year he rode it, etc. since the exhibit offered precious little contextual information. Within moments, a larger crowd gathered around and I found myself fielding questions about Floyd Landis and doping in cycling. If I had my wits about me, I would have got them all chanting, “Rotate the bars! Rotate the bars!” and marched them to the curator’s office to make a scene. I guess I’ll just have to resort to a one-man letter writing campaign to the Smithsonian instead.

Perry Metzler redux: And on a somber note, I re-visited the Vietnam Memorial as I had approximately 1 1/2 years ago when I paid my repects to Perry Metzler. There’s a minor addition to that entry, as this time around I was able to photograph his name with my digital camera.

Image source: http://laboiteaimages.hautetfort.com/archive/2005/01/16/nighthawks.html

Edward Hopper frittered away gratuitous amounts of time watching six-day races in Madison Square Garden in search of inspiration. Undoubtedly, the recently concluded Tour de France has attracted his attention whilst floating around the ether. I’ve been possessed by the caustic spirit of Edward Hopper today, and a 2006 version of Nighthawks has been channelled through me via Photoshop. Click on the image to start the sequence of panels…

Graham Watson photo

Because you just can’t make this stuff up…

“He’s in every aspect the toughest man, ever,” Amber says seriously. “Physically tough, mentally tough, he’s just one tough bitch.” — Amber Landis

After Floyd Landis regained the lead of the Tour de France at the top of L’Alpe d’Huez he decided that he wanted a beer to celebrate the moment. On the road down to his hotel, his team car pulled over and the American traded a yellow jersey for a six-pack of beer with a spectator. — OLN

“He told me he was going to go out in the morning and do something big,” Amber Landis told me as she watched her husband begin the final descent of the Col de Joux-Plane. “He doesn’t say that very often, but when he does, he always goes out and does it.” — Amber Landis talking to journalist Martin Dugard

As he told his trainer, Allen Lim, the morning after tumbling from first to eleventh place, “I’m going to go apeshit on them.” — Journalist Austin Murphy

Somehow, word got out in the peloton that the Phonaks were going to try something preposterous. By doing so, they would be inflicting suffering on the rest of a Tour-weary bunch. Which explains why a number of riders coasted up to Landis before the first mountain, imploring him not to attempt something so foolhardy. As Landis would later recall, “I just told ‘em, Go drink some Coke, ’cause we’re leaving on the first climb if you want to come along.’” — Journalist Austin Murphy

“Get me to the bottom of the first climb,” Floyd Landis told his pretofore listless Phonak teammates, “and then I’ll see you later.” — Journalist Martin Dugard

When the peloton reached the first foothills Floyd put the hammer down. He went way too fast for so early in the stage. Although his competition initially reacted, one by one they seemed to satisfy themselves that he’d gone mad. Landis shot them a few well-placed, wild-eyed glares over the shoulder to cement the impression. — Writer Dave Shields

If you had a chance to watch the stage on television, you might have seen Landis catch up with a small group that had launched an earlier breakaway. He lingered awhile, talking one-by-one with the riders. What you saw there was simple horse-trading. Landis was asking for volunteers, riders who might be interested in working with him to make the attack a success. He was willing to pay for that help, roughly $5,000 dollars from some reports. But nobody took him up on the offer, because the race is so wide open that Landis has few friends in the peloton. So he shot away as if suddenly bored, destined to ride alone all day, come what may. — Journalist Martin Dugard

“When Floyd went, I just thought ‘what the hell is he doing?’,” the Australian told Cyclingnews. It tactically didn’t seem like a sensible thing to do, but I didn’t know he had the legs like that… nobody did!” — Cadel Evans

“At T-Mobile, we had no tactics today. We just tried to hang on as long as possible. We thought the last climb would be the decisive one. Klöden had problems from the start; me too. We both struggled today. We never expected Landis to do so well today.” — Michael Rogers

“They didn’t let him go, but he was just so strong in the beginning,” said Schleck. “We didn’t think that he could make it too the end. But he made it to the end, so he’s a fucking strong rider. Chapeau for Landis!” — Frank Schleck

“That has never happened in the Tour, and it’s never happened in any other race I’ve done before - and it never will,” Horner said. “It was an epic scenario, which I’ve never seen in my entire career.” — Chris Horner

• 5 hours 23 minutes and 36 seconds.
• Covering 200.5 kilometers (130 km alone in the wind).
• At a speed of 37.175 km/hr.
• Averaging 281 watts when moving for the whole ride and 318 watts over the last two hours.
• Averaging 324 watts while pedaling for the whole ride and 364 watts over the last 2 hours.
• At an average cadence of 89 rpm.
• Transferring 5,456 Kjoules of energy to his Cycleops PowerTap.
• Taking, no joke, a total of 70 water bottles (480 ml each) from the car to keep himself cool and hydrated.
• Attacking about a quarter of the way up the Col des Saisies for 30 seconds at 544 watts, which settled into a 5-minute peak of 451 watts, which continued for 10 minutes at an average of power of 431 watts, and left everyone in his dust after 30 minutes at an average power of 401 watts.
• Spending 13.2% of his time or 43 minutes coasting like a rocket on the descents and another 60% between 4 to 7 watts per kilogram of body weight (aka, the pain cave).
• Holding onto 373 watts over the Col de Joux-Plane.
• Hitting a max speed of 83.7 km/hr (51.9 mph) and flying like a Phoenix on his way to the most incredible moment in sports I have ever witnessed.

— Allen Lim

What Floyd Landis did today was the sporting equivalent of lifting a wrecked car off of a loved one. And he did for hours on end, in front of a worldwide audience of millions.

Everyone could see the anger coursing through Landis at the finish. He didn’t smile, he didn’t cry, he raged. He tossed his bike to a helper and barked some orders. If someone had thrust a bunny into his arms Landis probably would have devoured it alive.

The incredible thing is that Landis sustained that force of will through the better part of five hours of racing. We are used to seeing sprinters with their killer face on, in the last meters of a race. Or opportunists like Erik Dekker in 2000; winning three stages, each in a different manner, but always with that rage. It was a state of mind the old Norse called “berserkr” that gave Floyd Landis the edge. The rage that comes from battle frenzy, when you know you have to win.

— Writer Craig Cook

“It wouldn’t be any fun if I told you what was going to happen next.” — Floyd Landis

AFP Photo as seen on cyclingnews.com

There’s a local band with the name Olympic Ass-Kicking Team, which for some reason never ceases to make me chuckle when I see it in print. I think the band needs to transfer the rights to their name to a certain Floyd Landis.

I was all set to witness Oscar Pereiro do his best Roger Walkowiak impression, and then Floyd Landis went berserk…And not just mildly, but a full fledged episode of “Circus Berserk-us”.

I’m sure every cycling publication on the planet - whether it’s print, online, video, blog, whatever - has weighed in on what went down July 20, 2006 in the Tour de France. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in my lifetime. Sure, I remember hearing about Greg Lemond’s miracle 1989 TT while I was riding in a dizzying amount of circles during the final stage of Superweek (Fond du Lac? Manitowoc? I can’t recall), I remember seeing Claudio Chiappucci’s 1992 ride into Sestriere in the 1992 TdF, I remember watching Alexi Grewal inexplicably outsprint Steve Bauer in the 1984 L.A. Olympics, but I don’t think anything can compare to what Floyd Landis did today in the Tour de France. After Miguel Martin Perdiguero set him up with a killer leadout (and then quit the Tour) at the base of the day’s first climb, the Col des Saisies, Landis rode the 125 km TT of his life. His whole team was left for dead, all finishing 52+ minutes behind. Absolutely unbelievable.

So here’s what needs to happen…

1. I need to hop on a plane to Paris, buy about a gallon of Duvel, and douse Mr. Landis when he crosses the finish line on Sunday resplendent in yellow.

2. July 20th will forever be known as “Floyd Landis Ass-Kicking Day”.

3. The United States will annex the 200.5 km of road between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Morzine and post plaques every kilometer with the play by play from cyclingnews.com in print for everyone to read.

4. Floyd needs to ride a wheelie from the flame rouge to the finish line.

5. Hopefully he can avoid this until after the finish line.

6. The bum hip of Floyd Landis could fetch 7 figures on eBay, should he be so inclined. Or maybe he could auction off rice granule-sized pieces like the parquet floor of the legendary Boston Garden.