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Friday Group Ride #52
Fabian Cancellara: RKP's man of the year, in the move of the year.
Okay, so we couldn't leave a whole week without a post. It's been a year of stories often as fascinating as they are frustrating. Robot and I have picked our five most significant (if not favorite) story lines.
1) Fabian Cancellara's Roubaix/ Flanders Double—Few riders are able to completely dominate their competition quite the way Fabian Cancellara can when he's in top form. His astonishing attack on the Muur in the Ronde, while seated mind you, is a move I will never forget. Then his turn of speed at Roubaix, with main rival Tom Boonen momentarily asleep at the switch, was thrilling. To ride off the front of a group containing Boonen, Thor Hushovd, Juan Antonio Flecha and a select crew of Classics specialists, demonstrates a power and quality we seldom see. Those two wins made Cancellara's April my top highlight of the 2010 season.
2) The Rise and Fall of Contador—The American press tried to make the 2010 Tour about the duel between Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, but Armstrong never had a chance, crashing out of contention early and then fumbling along to the finish. The real match was between Contador and Andy Schleck and that story served up all the drama and controversy of the very best Tours, with Contador standing on the top step in Paris to confirm his inheritance of the Armstrong/Indurain/Hinault/Merckx/Anquetil/Coppi legacy.
Oh, but then soaring so close to the sun, waxen wings melting in the bright light, Contador tests positive for Clenbuterol. And with this positive test, confirmed with a B sample reading, and hurled into judicial purgatory for the rest of the year, we see an abrupt end to the building legend, an end that tarnishes the futures of both the rider and the race.
3) Thor Hushovd's World Championship—Coming off a World Championship year that saw 2009 winner Cadel Evans represent the rainbow jersey with grit, bravery and aplomb, the talismanic championship seemed open to sprinters and roleurs alike. In the end, the sprintingest roleur won the race, riding a smart tactical race with a short-handed team, only flexing his considerable muscle when it mattered most. Hushovd's win was big for a hard-working rider, but also big for the jersey itself, as we are now almost guaranteed a second consecutive year of class from the world champ.
4) The First Biological Passport Suspensions—The UCI might have taken a more expeditious path to this stage of the fight against doping, but despite their missteps and the blundering press comments of president Pat McQuaid, the biological passport program finally produced some results in 2010. It remains to be seen how its parameters and administration will evolve as tools against cheaters, but with the first suspensions, we are finally seeing an adjunct program to in-race testing that seeks to catch the dopers who slip through the first net. Love it or hate it, the Passport must have dishonest riders worried that they're running out of options, and that is, unquestionably, a good thing.
5) The SaxoBank Exodus/Luxembourg Project—It is hard for me to fathom how so many riders (and managers) whose careers were built and fostered by Bjarne Riis would be so willing to jump off the SaxoBank ship to join a fledgling team, regardless of the pedigree of its component parts. That Riis can be prickly, stubborn and aloof is beyond argument, but the mutiny of nearly his entire team is an outcome I never foresaw. Heap on top that insult, the injury of Contador's doping problems, and it becomes very hard to argue that the Dane will land on his race-winning feet in 2011.
1) Cancellara's Flanders/Roubaix Double—I have to echo Robot here. Not only were Cancellara's back-to-back victories the wins of the year for me, I have to say that Cancellara's attack on the Muur de Grammont—seated and spinning the 25 while Boonen looked to be standing on a 21—was absolutely the attack of the year for me. Both rides had me standing up and cheering.
That anyone would accuse the four-time time trial World Champion of using an electric motor is like asking about Kobe Bryant's rocket boots he uses to get his jump shot. We should ignore the birthers. They'll go away faster this way. We have real problems to contend with, as evidenced by number two.
2) The Contador Doping Case—From a standpoint of rules, I don't see how Contador will escape a suspension due to his positive test for Clenbuterol. American rider Scott Moninger went to incredible lengths to demonstrate that what he tested positive for was as a result of supplements tainted by sloppy manufacturing. He purchased stock made in the same lot as the supplements he took and submitted sealed containers for testing. His defense was rigorously scientific … and he still got a one-year suspension due to strict liability. Contador's defense has been far less methodical, which makes me far less sympathetic. His claims have, for me, smacked of the 'dog ate my homework' variety.
However, the bigger question on my mind has to do with testing for plasticizers. The detection of plasticizers in Contador's sample suggests that officials may soon be able to prosecute riders more effectively for autologous blood transfusions. This seems to have been the preferred doping method for GC hopefuls for more than five years, but catching these riders has been less than successful. I don't care who the rider is, if they're transfusing, I want them caught and suspended as a result of a rigorously scientific prosecution.
3) The UCI's Technical Criteria for Bike Approval—Bike companies have been screwed like an Ikea entertainment center by the UCI's technical commission. Cinelli was nearly bankrupted due to the Spinacci fiasco. Their implementation of rules ahead of schedule sparked a seething rant from me that I ultimately deemed too angry to publish. I'm glad that a procedure to approve bicycles is in place. Unfortunately, the fee schedule to get a bike approved is expensive enough that some companies might think twice before submitting a design. Viewed within the larger expense of sponsoring a ProTeam team, it's not so bad, but for companies that stretch to sponsor a Continental team, this could be a deal killer; after all, $12k is the cost of some riders. Leave it to the UCI to create a system that would scare bike companies from sponsoring a racing team. While this story will make more waves in 2011 than it did in 2010, that the criteria were decided and announced is huge. It's an important step in the right direction.
4) The SaxoBank Exodus—Once Fabian Cancellara announced that he, too, would depart SaxoBank, I had a Sixth Sense moment. If you recall the Bruce Willis thriller, when you reach the end of the film and realize that he is the dead guy, you must reanalyze the entire picture—better yet, just watch it again. I began to wonder if all the praise riders had heaped upon Bjarne Riis was all Hollywood kiss-kiss, "Love ya, babe." Presented with a viable option every rider worth anything jumped like passengers from the Titanic. It's little surprise Richie Porte stayed behind; there's nothing like watching the heirs apparent abdicate. 'You say I'm king?! Cool!'
I can't help but wonder what skeletons rattle in Riis' closet.
5) The Fall of Lance Armstrong—Long before investigator Jeff Novitzky became interested in Tailwind Sports and Lance Armstrong, many cycling fans rebuked him like a banana republic reformer-cum-dictator. Allegations of doping swirled around him, proven sufficiently to some, while others simply saw the allegations as typical efforts to besmirch a hard-working athlete. Armstrong's return to the Tour de France seems to have been more than disenfranchised Floyd Landis could bear. My read is that Landis believes he played by the same set of rules Armstrong did, won, and got a very different result. Forgetting for a moment how Landis has conducted himself (the most conclusive thing I can say is that some of his choices seem to have been based on fuzzy logic), it doesn't seem hard to see how a man who has lost everything he worked for—wife, home, stepchild, a father-in-law, savings—decides he'll burn the rest down. History is replete with examples of figures who refuse to go down alone, people who want others in the boat with them when the gunwales swamp.
Armstrong's story has a lot of unfolding left to do. We knew the comeback would be a fresh chapter in the athlete's career, but no one expected this turn. Novitzky's reputation indicates that if he tires of his work as an investigator he could teach graduate seminars in tenacity. Armstrong is anything but convicted, but the allegations all point to a conclusion that will change the world's opinion of him, and probably his foundation. The tragedy is that if he is convicted of charges associated with doping, most casual followers of cycling will think of Armstrong as a dirty athlete in a dirty sport and simply write off cycling as a force for good. Lost will be the story of an athlete who returned from the grave, played by the standard of the day and won the Tour de France … again and again and again and again and again and again.
And so we put the question to you: What were the biggest stories of the year in your eyes?
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
State of the Cycling World
When I woke this morning, the first thought I had was, "What other bad news will be revealed today?" I'm not one to experience ennui, but this morning, I didn't have any energy to go for a ride, didn't want to look at the news and really only wanted to hang out with my family and enjoy a leisurely morning.
None of those things happened, mostly because I did look at the news. For those who aren't keeping score:
1) The Tour de France champion tested positive.
2) The president of the UCI denied that Contador was being investigated the day before he admitted the existence of said investigation.
3) The Vuelta's second place and a teammate tested positive.
4) The home of Riccardo Ricco has been raided and unless Italian police don't know what aspirin looks like, something suspicious was found in a cabinet belonging to a guy who has been convicted of doping once before.
5) Oscar Sevilla has tested positive yet again.
6) The sister of the winner of the Giro d'Italia isn't permitted to attend sporting events because of her role in the distribution of doping products.
7) Ex-Oakley employee Stephanie McIlvain put her finger in the dike against the many accusations against Lance Armstrong.
8) Allen Lim told a grand jury that he wasn't hired to help Floyd Landis dope.
9) Operacion Puerto is to be closed and all the evidence destroyed. The truth won't out.
The only good news for a jingoistic Yank rests on the shoulders of the world's third-most-popular Taylor (let's not forget Swift and Lautner), a 20-year-old who we all must hope never comes to the attention of the Eugenics movement. (If you can breed dogs, you can breed people, right?) Taylor Phinney's gold and bronze medals in the U23 World Championships aren't news, they are simply confirmations of his talent. With two more years in that category at the world championships, he could wind up the most-medaled U23 rider in history.
Let's cover this in reverse order: The blood bags are going to be destroyed and we'll never know the true depth of Fuentes' business, but it a way, it's such old news suspending a rider now based on that case seems kind of irrelevant. What's significant here is the lack of institutional will to get to the truth and clean up sport. This is going to haunt us like a drunken kiss at a New Year's Eve party.
How often does a job description reflect the job as performed? Who hasn't had additional had additional duties thrust upon them out of necessity. The subtext here is that Allen Lim may not have admitted all the ways that he assisted Landis. Lim told ESPN.com, "When I worked with Floyd, I repeatedly told him that he didn't need to dope and should not dope, and I was absolutely not hired to help him to do so." Okay, so you weren't hired to help him dope … but did you? Landis may seem kinda desperate and crazy, but no one has suggested that he's trying to slaughter innocents. Are we really to believe that Landis would screw saint? That doesn't fit the bill.
Despite the existence of an audio tape made my Greg LeMond in which Stephanie McIlvain reveals that she did hear Armstrong admit to using performance-enhancing drugs, the former Oakley employee—whose husband is Oakley's VP of sports marketing—testified to a grand jury that she had no knowledge of Armstrong's use of drugs or that she heard him admit to using them during a meeting with doctors at which Frankie and Betsy Andreu were present and which they claim she was present as well. One wonders what other questions she was asked besides those two; presumably it shouldn't take seven hours on the witness stand to say "no" twice. While McIlvain has certainly protected Oakley's (and by extension, Armstrong's) interests, investigator Jeff Novitzky has secured perjury convictions against athletes who lied to a grand jury.
Elisa Basso, sister of Giro winner Ivan Basso and wife of former pro Eddy Mazzoleni was snared along with her husband as part of Operazione Athena. Mazzoleni was given a suspended sentence for his role in the drug dealing, while Elisa received a ban that stopped just shy of saying she can't watch sports on television. Not only can she not work for CONI or any of the national governing bodies for sport in Italy, she can't attend the events or even enter a place frequented by athletes or their coaches. And competing herself? No chance.
Oscar Sevilla, who tested positive for the EPO masking agent hydroxyethyl starch (HES) has been allowed to return to racing until his B-sample analysis is returned. Technically, the product isn't banned, but its only use is to mask doping and it can only be administered by transfusion, which itself, is not permitted. Sevilla told Cyclingnews.com, "Let's say that justice is done because there is no reason to suspend me. There can be no direct doping case, as with a forbidden substance, since hydroxyethyl is not on the banned list." Even weirder, he added, "I take all the steps and face the situation. Ideally, the B sample will be negative. But if not, then the cycling federation will meet to decide on my case." Ideally? Methinks the rider protest too little.
Some 50-odd tablets of unknown composition were found by Italian police in a cabinet at the home of Riccardo Ricco. Naturally, Ricco—let us not forget Ricco's previous suspension for CERA use—claims they are nothing elicit.
Ezequiel Mosquera—the darling of the 2010 Vuelta—and his teammate David Garcia have both tested positive for HES—the same stuff Sevilla tested positive for—a substance of use exclusively to cyclists trying to hide evidence of transfusions or EPO use. Hmm, every positive for HES happens to be with a Spanish cyclist. Coincidence?
Credit or blame (depending on your outlook) that we know anything about Alberto Contador's positive test can be given to German journalist Hans Joachim Seppelt with the news organization ARD. He specializes in doping stories and learned of Contador's positive (presumably from the Cologne lab that did the testing) before the UCI had announced anything. When he approached Pat McQuaid, the UCI president denied knowing anything, yet less than 24 hours later a press release was issued. Based on what we know of the case—that clenbuterol and traces of a plastic used in transfusion bags were found in Contador's urine—there seems to be ample evidence that a suspension is in order while the case is adjudicated. The question is why two months passed since the end of the Tour de France and the public is just now finding out; even Contador knew of the test result in late August.
Of course, the big news of the week is how Alberto Contador not only tested positive at the Tour de France, but the UCI gave him time to prepare a defense. While Mosquera and Garcia found out about their positives through the media, Contador got the bro' heads-up.
Add to this the just-announced positive of Margarita Fullana for EPO. Fullana would have us believe she only used EPO this year, in which she got virtually no results, and not in previous years when she was blowing by the competition like the Road Runner going by the Coyote. Totaled, we have four positive tests announced in less than a week. Curiously, all of them are by Spanish riders. This little detail seems to suggest that Spain has a bigger problem with doping on a cultural level than any other nation in cycling. While it's impossible to say that there is a permissive attitude toward doping in Spain, that nation is the highest ranked in cycling according to the UCI with 1868 points, compared to Italy's 1071 and Belgium's 882—and that's even after points were subtracted following Alejandro Valverde's suspension.
According to a poll in the Spanish paper Marca 78.5 percent of the Spanish people believe that Alberto Contador is innocent of doping. But that figure isn't quite right. Newspaper polls are notoriously unrepresentative of the actual population; it's much safer to say that of cycling enthusiasts who read Marca 78.5 percent believe Contador is innocent. Theoretically, this group is better educated about doping and ought to feature a higher percentage who accept that it's very likely Contador received a transfusion during the Tour de France. Given the number of American cycling enthusiasts who can't even contemplate the possibility that Mr. Big Shot doped, maybe we shouldn't be too surprised by this.
Based on last week's news, I've drawn three conclusions:
1) Clenbuterol is the red herring in Contador's doping case. There's a reasonable argument to be made that Contador didn't intend to dope using clenbuterol, as well as a reasonable argument that strict liability is an absurd standard by which to judge an athlete. However, the plasticizer present in Contador's sample cannot occur from an unintended source. He got a transfusion and this, ladies and gentlemen, should not surprise us. This is how the game is played currently. I hate re-writing record books and results, but if we want a clean sport, chasing brilliant leads like this is how we'll get there.
2) McQuaid is a bigger problem than I thought and the UCI needs to clean house. Of course, that's like suggesting to a hoarder that what they should do is toss out the junk and sweep the floor. There's a fundamental problem with the UCI's mission. It is charged with governing the sport by overseeing the promotion of races. If the sport of cycling suffers as a result of poor race promotion, the responsibility is the UCI's. However, it is also charged with disciplining athletes who dope. Punishing your biggest stars is a conflict of interest if ever there was one. Clearly, WADA should have jurisdiction over informing the riders of positive tests and disciplinary proceedings should be turned over to CAS. After all, if WADA was charged with disciplining the athletes they tested, there would never be another false positive or flawed administration of a test. They would bat 1.000 against riders, which is pretty much where things stand.
3) Something's rotten in Spain. Again, it's impossible to say where the root of the problem lies, but it strikes me as cultural on some level. Writing that troubles me. I'm not a bigoted guy, but we've seen statements from the head of the Spanish federation defending Valverde, an unwillingness by the Spanish judiciary to get to the bottom of Operation Puerto, Spanish cyclists testing positive at a rate far higher than cyclists from any other country. Of course, while it's nice to have someone call out the Spanish federation, even if it is Pat McQuaid, what we need is a dog with some teeth to go after them.
And now Alberto Contador is threatening to quit the sport. Isn't that like saying you hate the movies after being grounded? Seriously, though, has he read the Wikipedia entry on Jan Ullrich? Changing nationalities and retiring didn't really end the scrutiny of his activities.
Lingering in the background of all this doping news is a thought I hadn't been willing to articulate until now. The French are the only nation of cyclists incapable of producing a rider able to stand on the podium of their national tour. I've come to the conclusion that French cycling (ranked 14th among nations) sucks because they—more than any other cycling superpower—really took to heart the whole no doping thing. Remember, we haven't seen a Frenchman on the podium of the Tour since the Festina Affair.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
Defending the Throne
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. When Lance Armstrong announced he was coming out of retirement in September of 2008, many presumed he would take up his career where he left off—winning the Tour de France.
Popular speculation was that Johan Bruyneel's protege, Alberto Contador, by dint of his young age could conceivably rack up a longer streak of wins at the Tour de France than Armstrong. And if there's anyone who hates to be beaten, it's Mellow Johnny.
Some took a more cynical view. At the point of Armstrong's retirement, Team Tailwinds, the company behind the US Postal and Discovery Channel Team was facing a fair amount of investigation related to doping. Dissolving the formation took the heat off all involved. And with the investigations into the various scandals sufficiently exhausted, Armstrong returned to the sport with a seemingly fresh start.
But 2009 wasn't 2005. Armstrong was accustomed to being boss, getting his way—and was willing to use whatever tricks it took such as intimidation or outright firing to get his way. The peloton has more than a few riders who got crossed up with Armstrong and saw their careers suffer for it. Anyone remember Chad Gerlach?
But Alberto Contador didn't step aside. With three Grand Tour victories under his belt, it's not surprising. By any reasonable standard, Contador had come of age and was within his right to believe that Armstrong had had his time and should stay retired.
History is full of examples of wars in which one side fought by conventional means while the other battled back by guerilla tactics. It's what the American colonists did during the Revolutionary War, what the Vietnamese did during the Vietnam War and what the insurgents are doing in Irag and Afghanistan. Guerilla tactics are the object lesson of the story of David and Goliath.
Armstrong always liked to portray himself as David in his matchups against Jan Ullrich, but with Alberto Contador, he was the proverbial Goliath: slow to adapt and inadequately defended. While Armstrong appreciated Contador's physical strength, he underestimated the Spaniard's force of will. Contador is certainly not the first rider to go rogue within a team in a bid to win the Tour, but he is arguably the rider who had to fight the hardest to do so and succeed.
Of course, Armstrong fans reacted to his third place with a "not bad" and waited for the 2010 Tour like a bunch of fanboys waiting for the next Spiderman film. The Lance would be back and he would whoop some 'Murkin-style ass.
What he didn't count on was that his return to the pro peloton would coincide with Floyd Landis' snub by same. The crazy math going on inside of Landis' brain believes light speed travel is totally doable and that the U.S. government was behind the fall of Troy. Most of us learned long ago not to mess with crazy. What Armstrong didn't know was that Landis was at the breaking point. How could he? And while he didn't go looking to lock horns with Landis, his return to the ProTour seems to have been read by Landis as insult to injury. It's fair to wonder if Landis' e-mail screed would have taken place if Big Tex was still banging one of the Olsen twins and surfing with Matthew McConaughey; after all, what else could have squarely placed a bullseye on Armstrong than his resumption of the very thing Landis wanted most and was being denied.
And while Landis may seem to be crazier than Amy Winehouse, bat-shit crazy doesn't preclude what he says from being true.
Running high is media speculation that Armstrong's crash-filled spring and summer is as a result of distracted riding. Conventional wisdom is that he's so preoccupied with Landis' allegations and defending himself that his mind just isn't in the game. No matter what the cause, at this Tour de France, we seem to have seen an old Armstrong, not the old Armstrong.
The latest twist in this unfolding saga is Armstrong's retention of Brian D. Daly as his defense attorney. Daly, a former federal prosecutor is an ideal choice for a vigorous defense. He is intimately familiar with the techniques and strategies used by prosecutors, and while that is certainly useful, the long list of ex-teammates who have been subpoenaed and are alleged to have agreed to cooperate with the investigation could be … well, let's just say that throwing one very good attorney at this problem could be like trying to hold back flood waters with a stop sign.
Complicating matters is Greg LeMond, who seems eager to step from the wings. What LeMond can contribute to these proceedings beyond a he said/he said mudslinging with Armstrong is unknown at best and even somewhat doubtful at worst. But it is LeMond's participation that has brought about what is one of the ugliest statements Armstrong has made.
He told France 2, "We will have the opportunity to tell the truth to the authorities, and Greg LeMond will tell the truth about 1989 I hope."
So far as I can find, this is the closest Lance Armstrong has ever come to calling another rider out as a doper. For a guy who has been notoriously mum on the activities of other riders, even those convicted of doping, it seems oddly incongruous that he would suggest that LeMond has a hidden doping past.
The moment we choose to believe a rider is clean we make a leap of faith. However, unlike the irrational leap necessary to believe in God, the demise of Greg LeMond's career coincides neatly with the rise of EPO.
LeMond's attitude toward doping has always seemed so Boy Scout, in part because his career has been marked by betrayals perpetrated due to his naivete, that considering whether or not he doped smacks of thinking Pete Townshend took up guitar just to get chicks.
LeMond's victory in the 1989 Tour de France was very likely the next-to-last Tour de France won by a clean athlete.
It's ironic that the one cyclist Armstrong would seem to suggest doped is one who could easily be accepted as clean.
Stranger still is the fact that Armstrong's comeback may ultimately do more to damage his legacy than strengthen it.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
The last ten days have surprised me for one unusual piece of news after another. I'm not normally one to write the grab-bag post, but because so many disparate pieces of news have elicited the same reaction in me, I figured the uniformity of my reaction is enough to include them in the same post.
I've followed discussions about rate of ascent (VAM) on Tour climbs with some interest. While I have found some of the numbers reported troubling, I haven't been willing to place too much faith in those numbers because it's hard to be certain of just where the climb starts and finishes are, which can throw off the math in the calculations. And even if you trust the calculations, I haven't yet seen an argument connecting the dots in a way that lead to an inarguable conclusion that normal biology can't produce a particular performance. That is, I hadn't seen one until I read this post on the Science of Sport blog. It connects the dots in a very convincing way. Because we are getting more and more information about riders as they race, in the future it will be possible to look at a rider's performance on a climb in a very objective manner and the math that Ross Tucker provides will help us sort the fiction from the clean.
Some folks I'd prefer would shut up, have been making headlines. On their own, they don't merit posts, but Michael Ball and Rudy Pevenage both elicited a "You're kidding." from me but for entirely different reasons. One wonders why Pevenage decided it was time to admit his involvement in organizing Ullrich's trips to Spain to see Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes now, yet more curious is why he thought he needed to tell us this little factoid. It's not much of a confession as most everyone was satisfied that Ullrich was involved in Operacion Puerto; who served as travel agent is inconsequential, and Pevenage's moral relativism—"It was normal"—isn't washing.
Michael Ball, ex-pricey jean entrepreneur and director of Rock Racing—the only professional cycling team to model its organization after the Bad News Bears—was served with a search warrant. Presumably, the warrant is as a result of Floyd Landis' confession, as it was filed by investigator Jeff Novitzky, who is remembered for bringing the house of BALCO down. If Novitzky smells smoke, there's a conflagration.
Ball, who briefly employed Pevenage in 2008, congratulated Landis on coming clean, telling the New York Daily News: "Floyd is in a better place. Someone needed to come clean who was on the inside, who had lived it."
However, what made my jaw drop was his crazy claim that, "I was in the sport for three years and I saw what went on. But not on my team, because I wouldn't allow it."
Really? I assume by "what went on" he means doping. Has he already forgotten about Tyler Hamilton's positive test? If there's one thing we've learned about doping it is that those closest to the riders sometimes do not know, so for Ball to suggest he knows something about the use of performance-enhancing drugs by pro riders he didn't sponsor means that he thinks we're dumber than he.
Speaking of Landis, his latest accusation, this one printed in the Wall Street Journal, is that he couldn't get an extra bike to train on because Armstrong was busy selling bikes to—gasp—buy drugs. Here's a newsflash: Teams have sold off bikes at the end of the season for ages. That Landis expects us to believe that just because he couldn't account for the presence of 60 bikes it means they were sold to pay for doping. In addition to claiming that that Johan Bruyneel admitted the bike sales were paying for drugs, he has also claimed he paid for the drugs he took. Unridden team bikes won't carry any sort of multiplier with collectors, so those bikes would have gone for roughly $5k apiece. The only bikes that carry any sort of multiplier would be those ridden by the team stars and having spoken with collectors, I can say Lance's bikes weren't going for $20k, even with the aid of photographic provenance. Even if the accusation is proven true, it really adds nothing significant to his story, which makes us wonder why he's talking.
Speaking of bike sales, a week ago Campagnolo announced it would begin offering industry deals to verified industry employees. For those of you who have never worked in the industry, I can tell you this is the single most surprising piece of news in this post. As a shop employee I remember checking with multiple distributors to see who had the best prices on Campy any time I needed—er—wanted to purchase new gear. The difference in price between different distributors could mean saving as much as five percent which was what passed for a discount for us wrenches. It has been my understanding that Campy USA wanted to do this for ages, but Italy finally listened and came to appreciate that having shop staff riding their components could make a difference in how often they wind up on a custom build. Bravo to Campy.
And while I'm still mystified that anyone would try to defend Mark Renshaw head-butting Julian Dean and then shutting the door hard on Tyler Farrar, we've continued to get other head-scratching moments every day at the Tour de France. Take Alexander Vinokourov. Let's be honest; he has a reputation for being a rogue rider, which is why his declaration that he would dedicate his effort to supporting Astana team leader, Alberto Contador was met with at least a bit of skepticism.
So what does Vino do? He goes off on a breakaway in the final kilometers of the climb to Mende. Let's be clear, if you're sole mission is to support your team leader, then you're not heading out for stage wins—that's a big, big effort and burns more than a few matches. But once gone, why not give the guy some rope, right? But Contador chases down Joaquin Rodriguez, and then proceeds to take a very strong pull.
As I'd been saying all week, I couldn't stifle myself from saying, "Really?"
Was Contador teaching Vinokourov a lesson? Or was he really that nervous about Andy Schleck that he felt compelled to gain every second he could? It's fair to wonder if Rodriguez had enough gas on his own to catch Vinokourov. At the point Contador began his chase of Rodriguez he knew that he couldn't gain all that much time, certainly not enough to gain the yellow jersey. While Vinokourov has never been my favorite rider, but Contador managed to make me feel some sympathy for the win he was denied.
Just when I thought things couldn't get weirder, Vinokourov takes off on yet another flyer. And fortunately for his efforts, he got the win in Revel. However, after taking breakaways two days in a row, does anyone—John Lelangue especially—think that Vinokourov will really have the gas necessary to work for Contador through the Pyrenees?
If he does have the reserves to provide support to Contador, it will be an impressive piece of riding. Impressive, and for this writer, suspicious. If he doesn't, then his pledge to support Contador will have been proven to be BS, and Contador's chase will be hard to criticize.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
Unipublic Snubs Radio Shack
Johan Bruyneel in the media scrum following Unipublic's announcement.
A little over a week ago I wondered aloud in a Tweet if the Amaury Sport Organization might make a preemptive move against Radio Shack and withdraw the team's invitation to the Tour de France. It would be an incredible blow to the team, but in the wake of Floyd Landis' accusations against Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Levi Leipheimer and others, were the organizers to take Landis' accusations as credible, history suggests they might just take such action.
Responses all ran the vein of 'dead wrong.' And yet now we have Team Radio Shack being denied a spot in the Vuelta a Espana. Like Garmin-Transitions, Radio Shack joined the ProTour since the 2008 agreement forged between the UCI and the organizers of the Grand Tours in which the UCI and the ProTour teams acknowledged the autonomy of the organizers to select only those teams they see fit.
Selections are not made in a vacuum. To help the organizers gauge a team's potential competitive power, each team is asked to submit a roster of riders likely to ride the event. After all, if you're Unipublic and you learn a team will send the same nine riders who rode both the Giro and Tour (not that that has ever happened), you'd be within your rights to conclude that team would be too tired to be truly competitive. Bruyneel's short list of riders he submitted was an all-star squad: Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Kloden, Chris Horner and Janez Brajkovic. Radio Shack also skipped the Giro d'Italia this year with an eye toward riding the Tour of California and just two Grand Tours.
Bruyneel says he was "speechless" when he learned of the exclusion. Representatives for Unipublic, the organizers of the Vuelta said they left Radio Shack because the team would not be competitive.
It's true that Radio Shack has been criticized for not being more competitive this year, but let's take a moment to measure them against the six teams that were invited to the Vuelta by wildcard and their ranking in the world according to the UCI:
Team Katusha: second
Cervelo Test Team: ninth
Garmin-Transitions: 15th
Sky Professional Cycling Team: 17th
Andalucia-Cajasur: unranked
Xacobeo Galicia: unranked
Radio Shack, following Brajkovic's victory at the Criterium du Dauphiné, is ranked eighth in the world. Prior to that they were ranked 14th.
In his The History of the Tour de France, Volume I, Bill McGann writes that one of the key features that makes the Tour a better race than the other two Grand Tours is that its organizers have largely avoided petty, nationalistic spats that have hurt the other races.
I'd have to say that's at work once again. In 2006, the ASO refused to allow nine riders to start the race due to their alleged involvement in Operacion Puerto. Because five of those riders were members of the Astana-Wurth team it fell below the minimum number to start the race, so some thirteen riders didn't start the Tour.
It's no secret that since the 2009 Tour Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel have been portrayed in the media as public enemy nos. 1 and 2. Whether most Spanish cycling fans feel that way is harder to say, but Marca and As have done much to foster the conflict between Contador and Bruyneel/Armstrong.
It's impossible to say what Unipublic's motivations are for the exclusion. No one would be surprised if the snub were as a result of the Landis allegations. It seems that most of Europe will concede both that he's crazy and telling the truth about his drug use and the drugs he alleges Lance Armstrong took as well. However, Unipublic took a different approach saying that Radio Shack wouldn't be competitive. I'm sorry, but you could send Chris Horner to almost any race in Europe aboard a Schwinn Varsity and he would still be competitive.
Of the six teams invited by wild card, only Team Katusha was more highly ranked in the world standings. We can objectively refute the organizer's claims that Radio Shack would not be competitive. Put another way, as good a year as Garmin-Transitions seems to be having (Tyler Farrar is having a truly breakout season), in winning both the Tour of the Basque Country and the Criterium du Dauphiné (not to mention third at the Amgen Tour of California), Radio Shack is having a better season; at least, that's what the UCI's numbers say.
Had Unipublic declared that they believe Floyd Landis and harbor too many suspicions about Armstrong, Bruyneel and the rest to allow their race to be besmirched by the presence of a team under such strong suspicion, some racers, officials and many fans would have cried foul. However, such a decision is not without precedent—think 2007 Astana—and given the number of inquiries opened up into the pasts of so many former US Postal riders, many people wouldn't have flinched at the announcement. More importantly, the decision, while presumptuous, wouldn't have smacked of the irrational.
But Unipublic didn't do that. They claimed that Radio Shack wasn't competitive enough. That's like saying Los Angeles doesn't have enough roads. Everyone knows that's crazy talk, and unfortunately the damage it does is three-fold. Radio Shack loses an opportunity to try to win a second Grand Tour in a season. Racing fans lose an opportunity to see racing influenced by what would be almost surely a dominant team, and Unipublic loses some of the respect we reserve for events whose integrity we believe helps to elevate sport beyond mere entertainment.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
Amgen Tour of California: the Afterglow
The recently concluded 2010 edition of the Amgen Tour of California was easily the most exciting edition of the race, thanks in part to two of the hardest courses the race has ever undertaken, a field arriving with a great deal more fitness than could be expected in February and a host of real contenders who rode as if the race were the only goal of their season.
Surprisingly, I've heard some criticisms of the race coming from varied quarters. The criticisms are free-range: the race takes in too much of a large state; the organizers caved to team pressure and moved a stage start from an historic, crowd friendly and scenic location (Pasadena) to a wasteland (Palmdale); the time trial was made a mockery by the presence of Floyd Landis and pre-runs of the course by corporate big wigs and triathletes; the course was either too damn hard or the judges too unforgiving, which resulted in 37 riders being ruled hors delai between stages six and eight.
At least one thing is true beyond a doubt. After the DNFs and HDs, only 37 riders finished the Amgen Tour of California. I can't recall a race that started 128 riders and finished less than a third of them. What's unfortunate about this is how perception can be shaded as subtly as the chiaroscuro on the faces of the subjects of the Dutch masters. The difficulty of next year's race course may turn on whether people (racers, directors, sponsors, fans) come to the conclusion that the race was harder than granite and cool, or harder than Rubik's cube and unreasonable.
Which conclusion people draw may rest on the officials' actions. Hors delai is a rule around which officials can exercise some discretion. Of the 80 riders that did not finish the race, 68 of them saw their race end on either stage six or stage eight. Of those, 37 didn't finish because they were outside the time limit.
As many riders finished outside the time limit as finished the race.
While I haven't checked just how deep prize money went, presumably money was left on the table due to the small number of finishers.
The DNFs were attributable to fatigue, crashes or other maladies, such as leg cramps, and claimed another 41 riders over the course of the race. Still, had 79 riders finished, more than six teams would have been listed in the final team GC. Only Garmin, Radio Shack, HTC-Columbia, United Healthcare, Team Type 1 and Bissell finished enough riders—three—to be counted on the teams classification.
The question for AEG is: How similar are 'wow, really hard race' and 'whoa, that's just stupid'? My guess is you can quantify the difference. I'd say it's about 37.
By almost any standard, the Amgen Tour of California presented race fans with an extraordinary week of racing. Despite the HDs and DNFs, we saw a more competitive field with a higher overall level of fitness than in previous years.
I feel like I learned a few things about the teams present, such as: Danielson's DNF means that once and for all, we won't see him at the Big Show and if he's released from Garmin, his next stop will be with some Continental team that needs a affordable former sorta star. Hesjedal's stage win indicates the guy is getting stronger with each passing lunar cycle. Liquigas has some serious depth given that they, like Garmin, are managing to be competitive at two races at once. Team Jelly Belly is composed of cycling's equivalent to suicide bombers. They didn't win a single stage, but they figured in almost every significant break. They give new meaning to "die trying." HTC-Columbia and BMC both must hope that their teams recover well after the Giro and Tour of California, otherwise they won't have the depth necessary to support their GC men at the Tour de France. Oh, and watch out for Saxo Bank at the Tour; Andy Schleck generally looked like he was out on training rides.
I've seen a lot of racing over the years and I can say the final stage Amgen Tour of California was some of the most thrilling racing I've seen in person. While it didn't carry the weight of a Grand Tour or Monument, it really was the next best thing. I'd hate to see it get watered down.
Friday Group Ride #23
Here in Cycletopia there is only one approved topic of conversation this week, and it's NOT whether Richie Porte is going to win the Giro d'Italia. Accordingly, we are going to take the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach to the Group Ride in an effort to get the bicycle racer formerly known as Floyd Landis out of the collective system.
As if that were possible.
Personally, I was grateful to Padraig as well as some other commentators on other sites for helping me wrap my tiny, transistor-based brain around the whole thing. The tentacles of Landis' "confession" reach in so many directions and touch so many riders/doctors/trainers/managers/teams, that I would have had a very hard time making any cogent analysis of the situation at all.
Do you come from the "what if it's true?" angle, or the "what if it's false" angle or even the "Landis is lying, but what's he's saying still might be true" angle? How do you factor out the fact that you might even like some of the riders who now stand accused, as I am doing with Dave Zabriskie, to remain impartial enough to wait for the truth? If the truth never comes, how will you retain your passion for the sport, and who's fault would it be if you couldn't?
As is usual in a situation such as this, there are more questions than answers in the beginning, and as a result, our Group Ride asks a question about asking questions, i.e. If you could ask Floyd Landis ONE question right now, what would it be?
Please limit yourselves to one question. There are plenty to go around.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
Floyd Landis Confesses
What a difference four years makes. Had Floyd Landis woken up on July 28, 2006, and called a press conference to announce to the world all the things he detailed in his e-mail to USA Cycling's Steve Johnson, we might have hailed him as a sort of fallen hero.
An Icarus of the pedals.
As fate would have it, Landis' non-negative result for was synthetic testosterone, essentially the one drug he claims, now, not to have taken in 2006. So he believed what almost anyone else would have believed—that he could beat the rap.
He didn't count on a few details. First, he didn't count on the Machiavellian nature of USADA, which pursued the case with a 'win at all cost' mentality. As I wrote in my BKW post "At All Cost," had this case been tried in the American judicial system, Landis would have won the case because the lab performing the work did such a lousy job. However, USADA's zero-tolerance policy toward doping also happens to be a zero-loss policy as well, and clearly Landis didn't understand that actual innocence didn't matter.
He also didn't count on the details of a phone conversation he had with Greg LeMond would become public. LeMond's recounting of the conversation will seem entirely more believable for anyone who previously doubted his testimony. Four years hence, one wonders if Landis comes up with a different answer to the rhetorical question he put to LeMond when urged to confess. He asked, "What would it matter?"
While we don't know the exact details of what Landis confessed to Johnson and the UCI, we have the substance in broad strokes.
1) He did drugs, lots of them, beginning in 2002.
2) Lance Armstrong did more drugs and told him who to work with.
3) George Hincapie did all the same drugs.
4) Former roommate David Zabriskie did drugs.
5) Levi Leipheimer did drugs.
6) He has no proof.
7) Those closest to him didn't know what he was up to.
8) He confessed to his mom.
We should note that Landis has only implicated American riders. One wonders why he has implicated only Americans. Could his full and complete confession be leaving something out?
After four years of his strenuous denial and seven-figure defense that was, in part, paid for by fans who believed his innocent plea, for him to come out now and say, 'Okay, now I'm telling the truth,' credulity strains. UCI President Pat McQuaid said Landis' statements were "scandalous and mischievous."
Even if we believe everything his says lock-stock-and-barrel, in this case, his truth-telling comes a little late. As a means to restore respect and reputation, his confession is a failure. Still, that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen. On this point, McQuaid has it wrong.
"These guys coming out now with things like this from the past is only damaging the sport," McQuaid told The Associated Press. "If they've any love for the sport they wouldn't do it."
Come again? We don't want dopers to confess? Please tell us you're kidding.
I've heard from several sources that Landis has been drinking heavily, heavily enough to affect his fitness and relationships. It's a tragic turn of events given what he has already experienced. It's easy to connect the drinking with the events he says he is now confessing, the truth he needs to get off his chest. In 12-Step programs, you are directed to confess your wrongs, but there follows quickly one caveat: except when to do so would hurt others.
Which brings us to the meat of his confession. Most of what he has confessed involves others. To clear his conscience, he need only to confess his own deeds. Whatever motivation he has to tell what he says Armstrong, Hincapie, Leipheimer and Zabriskie have done, it isn't his conscience; it sounds more like retribution—'If my ship is going down, I'm taking yours with me.'
Backing this up is the fact that Landis pointed out the eight-year statute of limitations, which is due to run out on some of the alleged acts, as a motivating factor to come forward.
"Now we've come to the point where the statute of limitations on the things I know is going to run out or start to run out next month," Landis said. "If I don't say something now, then it's pointless to ever say it."
He wants cases opened into the acts of Armstrong, Hincapie, Leipheimer and Zabriskie while there's still time, which means his confession is less about his acts than the acts of others. He wants to see others punished.
But he says he has no proof. Naturally, Armstrong, Hincapie, Leipheimer and Zabriskie will have to defend themselves and because Landis detailed them in e-mails, meaning they were written, not spoken, they rise from slander to libel. Because these are public figures, the odds are against any of them meeting with success in a court room following a civil suit.
Landis may have a tougher time defending himself than they do.
Federal investigator Jeff Novitzky, the man who headed the investigation into Victory Conte and the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) is one of the investigators involved in checking out Landis' claims.
One of the first questions Novitzky and other investigators will have for Lanids will be who his sources were. Where did he buy his stuff? His suppliers may have sales records. If they have sales records that can substantiate his claim that he was a customer, then it is also possible they would have sales records detailing their relationship with other clients, and it's a safe bet that if it is true Landis was taking his cues from others, then he was probably shopping at the same market, so-to-speak.
Armstrong has pulled out of the Tour of California following what sounds like a minor crash. Cynics will probably surmise that it was a strategic decision to avoid media scrutiny.
And what of Landis' actual confession? That is, what of what he claims he did? These would be new infractions worthy of their own case. While I have advocated a truth and reconciliation commission to encourage athletes to come forward and tell what they know, this case is ugly and really perverts the way you hope justice will work.
Should Landis get a slap on the wrist in exchange for his cooperation? Or should he get the proverbial book thrown at him yet again? It may be that he has already come to the conclusion that his return to the pro ranks won't be what he had hoped and that he is ready to depart.
If that's the case, then his confession is 200-proof revenge.
This case may well make it to a grand jury, which will be much more likely to result in actual justice than any action USADA takes. Getting at the real truth should be the goal, rather than just handing out punishment.
But what of Landis' original case? He was within his right to defend himself and we should never forget that. However, his defense built a sham identity that wasn't enough to escape conviction. Hopefully, that will be a sobering thought to the new generation of dopers, a la Bernard Kohl and Riccardo Ricco. However, Landis' defense turned into the most costly prosecution ever for USADA. In mounting such an expansive defense he cheated not just those who contributed to the Floyd Fairness Fund, but all those of us who follow cycling and depend on the anti-doping authorities to uncover and prosecute doping. One wonders who escaped prosecution because USADA was mired in a more than year-long case with Landis.
I have often thought that there will come a day where we look back on the EPO era with different eyes. We should never condone doping, but there may come a point when we understand that during the time when EPO use was rampant, there were no heroes and very, very few villains, that these men were flawed, like all of us, and a product of their time.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International
Joe Papp: Not Quite Finished With Dope
So Joe Papp is back in the news. This time it's for a guilty plea in connection with selling doping products. Specifically, he plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy to sell EPO and HGH over the Internet.
As much as I'd like to ignore this and hope he fades into forgettable obscurity, I don't think that will happen just yet. And because RKP has written so much about doping, we are rather obliged to give this more of a once-over than two Tweets about the subject.
Papp netted more than $80,000 between September 2006 to September 2007 selling these drugs. That's a tidy income, especially for what I suspect wasn't a lot of work. After all, he didn't have any of the traditional marketing costs associated with a sales enterprise, so people found him, 187 of them, to be precise.
The income isn't the issue. It's the time period. It was during this same time period that USADA trotted him out as a star witness at the Floyd Landis hearing. His purpose? To testify on the remarkable recovery that one can enjoy when using synthetic testosterone. That Travis Tygart (then counsel, now CEO) of USADA didn't vet Papp more thoroughly is deeply troubling.
Papp disputed VeloNews' contention that he testified against Landis. He told them, "The matter for which I publicly acknowledged my guilt today in Pittsburgh had nothing to do with my appearance at the Landis hearing. I didn't testify against Floyd Landis in that hearing," Papp noted. "My testimony was about my own personal experiences with the drug testosterone and how it is generally perceived within the peloton. That was it. I told the story of how testosterone works and can help you as a cyclist by enhancing recovery."
Papp's point splits hairs. Semantically, he may be correct, but he was an instrument in the process of convicting Landis. The problem I have with this is that he was presented as a reformed doper, someone who would be candid as a result of his changed ways. Candor is an important part of establishing credibility, and Papp presented himself as someone for whom performance enhancing drugs were strictly past tense. We have learned that was not the case.
So what should Papp's sentence be? He could be banned for life from cycling, and that ought to happen; he shouldn't be allowed to coach or advise other cyclists given his recent industry. He also stands to serve as much as five years in federal prison when he is sentenced on June 25. Hopefully, that June date gives him enough time for him to finish his graduate degree at Chatham University, where he is a student, and (we hope) not focusing on exercise physiology. No one should be forced to starve and Papp needs a good way to reinvent himself in order to stay away from the racing end of the sport.
Reclaiming Our Past
There have been entirely too many doping storylines in cycling lately. We've had the Alejandro Valverde problem, the Danilo DiLuca suspension and Ricardo Ricco's imminent return to the sport. His girlfriend, Vania Rossi, tested positive for the same drug—CERA—for which he was suspended, and he subsequently dumped her, months after she gave birth to their child. Bernard Kohl has opened a bike shop and seemingly ended his monthly interviews that teased out details of his doping regimen like bread crumbs for birds. Stefan Schumacher continues to fight his suspension.
And today we mark six years since the lonely death of Marco Pantani. Like Pantani, Jose Maria Jimenez was a once-talented climber who, according to circumstantial evidence, became addicted to cocaine and ultimately overdosed on the drug, cutting short a life that should have been full of promise, even after ending his career as a racer. It's little wonder that so many cyclists reacted with horror at the news of Tom Boonen's flirtations with the nose candy.
The constant parade of doping stories has made many cyclists weary of ProTour racing, but worse, it has changed our understanding and perception of racing in the past. We now accept Fausto Coppi's statement about always doping when he raced, rather than discount it, which is certainly what I did when I first read the statement in the 1980s.
And while many of us took Eddy Merckx at his word when he insisted he had used nothing out of the ordinary when he was ejected from the 1969 Giro d'Italia, we have come to see that event was but one of three positive tests he gave in his career. Certainly questions abound to this day about that Giro test, such as no counter-analysis and questionable chain of custody, it's easy to see the positive as a not uncommon occurrence in an era ripe with amphetamine usage. Why should Merckx be any different; after all, he ranks as the most successful cyclist of all time. Are we to think he was the only clean champion of his generation?
Looking back on riders I have admired—Greg LeMond, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Fausto Coppi, Miguel Indurain, Lance Armstrong, Andy Hampsten, Richard Virenque, Marco Pantani, Johan Museeuw, Moreno Argentin, Frank Vandenbroucke, Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Alejandro Valverde, Danilo DiLuca and plenty more, what strikes me is that only two of these names have never been broadly accused or convicted of doping—LeMond and Hampsten. Were we to take every doping allegation out there as fact (save anything Armstrong has said to or about LeMond), we might be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that Hampsten's win in the Giro was the last by a clean rider, as was LeMond's last win at the Tour.
I admit, every time a new rider comes thundering onto the scene, I have moments (roughly one for every win) when I wonder, "Is this guy clean?" Even without a single positive test to implicate the rider, I can't help but wonder if some new phenom is our next Riccardo Ricco or Bernard Kohl. To wonder such a thing is reputation assassination, even if I don't share it with anyone else.
But this youngest generation of riders, riders who came onto the scene after the EPO problem had been identified, after the test had been devised, those are the guys who scare and upset me. It's little wonder to me that any rider still in the game now who was there for the rise of EPO and the team podium sweeps of the '94 Fleche Wallonne (Gewiss-Ballan) and the '96 Paris-Roubaix (Mapie-GB) might still not be conforming to the memo. But what really troubles me are the new riders who still pursue EPO and its newer variant, CERA. Just as we think we're making progress in doping thanks to programs such as those run by Bjarne Riis and Jonathan Vaughters, some new rider gets suspended for a drug that we have come to believe is easy to catch.
As a result, many of us have turned our backs on past performances that gave us chills, left us cheering at the TV and maybe even caused us to put up a poster of the rider in our dorm room or garage. Those were the days.
Museeuw's win at Roubaix in '96 came at the end of arguably the most dominant ride by any team in the history of the Hell of the North. Now we know that it was EPO that gave their performance the appearance of a Ferrari racing a Yugo.
In comments here at RKP, we've seen how many of your have turned against not just Lance Armstrong, but other riders we know to have doped: Marco Pantani, Frank Vandebroucke, Tyler Hamilton and more.
I realized not too long ago that if I disavow every performance that involved doping, I'd be stripped of almost every race that I ever cared about. I'd even be stripped of LeMond's last-minute win at the 1990 Tour de France because the guy he beat—Claudio Chiappucci—was on EPO. Without him and that drug, LeMond's win would have been much more dominant. And don't get me started about 1991.
Despite the lies, the doping, the inability to know who was truly the best on the day, I don't want to lose the wonder and awe I felt when I saw those performances. If I turn my back on every one of those performances in bitterness, it's tantamount to saying of your ex, "I never really liked her."
Those experiences, the wonder I felt at watching Richard Virenque or Floyd Landis winning in Morzine in 2003, the jubilation I felt at Tyler Hamilton's win in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, my astonishment at Armstrong's win at the Tour in '99 or my awe at any of Johan Museeuw's wins at Paris-Roubaix were experiences of genuine and honest emotion on my part. While I have a different understanding of those performances today, and my feelings for those racers may have changed somewhat, I've decided I won't let anyone, any new revelations, change how I remember those performances.
I can't tell anyone else how to feel about those performances. The bitterness some of you feel at the betrayal of learning some win was doped is as valid an emotional experience as any jubilation I've felt for the same performance.
But for those of you who have felt frustration and confusion with each new revelation, I offer my perspective as a different way to process your feelings. I'm not suggesting we capitulate and just give in to enjoying doped riding; like each of you, I want a clean sport, full stop.
Society changes and what we tolerate changes as well. Thomas Jefferson had slaves. I can't endorse his ownership of a person, but that act shouldn't erase the work he did in establishing the United States' democracy.
I truly believe cycling is changing for the better and that doping is on the decline. It is a scourge, though, that we should not fool ourselves into thinking will ever be eradicated. We should not accept the doped performances of the past out of inevitability and resignation, but rather because they inspired us in our own riding. And if we rode with honesty and conviction, then some good came from those tarnished wins.
Image: John Pierce, Photosport International


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Back-to-School Reminder: Don't Pack on the Pounds
Students across the nation are going back to school this time of year, and 90 percent of them share one thing in common: wearing a backpack. However, UC San Diego experts say those students also share a common problem: low back pain due to overloaded backpacks. The standard set by the American Academy of Orthopedics suggests children carry a backpack weighing no more than 15 percent of their body weight.
"The pain generated from overloaded backpacks is not just in the back but also includes pressure on the skin, which causes pain similar to that tingling sensation caused when a leg or arm falls asleep," says Dr. Alan Hargens, professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
The optimal position for wearing a backpack is high on the upper-back, with straps applied equally over both shoulders. Kids who wear their backpacks in the more 'stylish' lower back position, or only use one strap, may suffer shoulder pain and posture problems.
Other backpack safety tips include:
- Purchase backpacks with wide, padded straps
- Wear backpacks above the hips and maximize contact between the backpack straps and upper body
- If the backpack has a waist-strap, use it
- Students should consider only carrying the books they need for the day or class period, versus all books at one time
- Don't bring extra items to school in backpacks (example: iPads and laptop computers)
- Use a rolling bag instead of a backpack
9 Notes/ Hide
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By Tatiana Dorochina tdorochina
Road trip around Iceland through glaciers, lakes, mountains, and green vistas.
About the Author
Publish Date November 16, 2008
Dimensions Standard Landscape 124 pgs Premium Paper, matte finish
Category Travel
Tags , iceland island reykjavik fossa dettifoss gullfoss ice green mountain travel icecap crater glacier snow lake myvatn landscape waterfall road sunset ocean view beach
gunnasteina says
Congratulation with your book. Very nice photos.
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The surprisingly rich contours of schizophrenia epidemiology
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Title | The surprisingly rich contours of schizophrenia epidemiology |
Author | McGrath, John J. |
Year Published | 2007 |
Publisher | American Medical Association |
Citation | Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 64(1), pp. 14-16 |
Peer Reviewed | Yes |
Published | Yes |
Publisher URI | http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/ |
Faculty | Faculty of Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology |
Publication Type | Journal Articles (Refereed Article) |
Please use this identifier to cite this record: http://hdl.handle.net/10072/27102
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ESPN the magazine is letting the fans vote on who should grace the cover of their NEXT issue for the next up and coming superstar.
That silhouette should have a towel over his head don't you think?
The candidates for the football category are Cam Newton, Jimmy Graham, Andrew Luck, Jadeveon Clowney, and Dre Kirkpatrick.
As of this writing it is a race between Cam and Jimmy. Cam has 36% of the vote and Jimmy has 35%.
Make your voice heard Panther fans! You can vote HERE.
Topics: Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, ESPN, ESPN The Magazine, Jimmy Graham, NEXT


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Hi ! I was experimenting with the "FINAL" subroutines (aka destructors). In the following piece of code, I create an object and it goes out-of-scope at the end of the program. I think this is when FINAL subroutine is called. But I don't see the print statement at all. ======= Begin finalize.f90 ==========
======= End finalize.f90 ========== Compiled with: ifort -g finalize.f90 && ./a.out << no output >> Am I doing something wrong ? --Satishmodule m_test_final implicit none type :: t_test_final integer :: x contains final :: delete end type t_test_final contains subroutine delete(self) type(t_test_final) :: self write(*,*) "Destructor called" end subroutine delete end module m_test_final program main use m_test_final implicit none type(t_test_final) :: test_final test_final%x = 10 end program main


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Whitey - 2:33 am on Jun 7, 2010 (gmt 0)
Spammy links from off topic sites pointing to you can take you out of the SERP's , if they are part of a 3 way link scheme or similar. I've seen sites reverse these out and be quickly re included in the SERP's , provided they are not repeat offenders.
It might be better to identify the cause first, rather than " shift the chairs around on the Titanic " ( so to speak ).


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Via The Outside Corner:
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price posted this video on his Twitter of this fantastic bit of rookie hazing before Wednesay's Rays game in Boston against the Red Sox. Tampa's rookies dressed like Jane Fonda, complete with colored leotards, headbands and wigs, and did a little dance in the outfield while "Call Me Maybe" played over the PA at Fenway Park.
Well done Rays...well done. The hazing had no effect on the team as they beat the Red Sox 4-2, stretching their winning streak to seven games and keeping the team in the AL wild-card race.
Also from The Outside Corner
Video: Is this catch the MLB play of the year?
MLB pitcher nearly ejected from anti-violence rally
Injured MLB player will get his one final at-bat
Rays' Price in line to pitch one-game wild-card playoff
Rays Rookies Forced to Don Leotards and Wigs While Singing "Call Me Maybe"
Price fans 13 as Rays beat Red Sox
Price strikes out 13 in Rays' 5-2 win at Boston
David Price Strikes Out 13, Adds Another Gem to His Cy Young Resume
Sox Lose to Rays as Price Pitches a Complete Game
Price gets 19th win as Rays win sixth straight
Series Recap: Rays sweep two games against Red Sox
Recap: Another loss
Clay Buchholz Credits Opposing Starter David Price After Red Sox Fall to Rays (Video)
Rays rookies dress like girls and sing 'Call Me Maybe' for hazing (Video)
Rays Rookies Dress Up as Women, Dance to 'Call Me Maybe' in Front of Green Monster (Video)
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Tuesday Red Sox Travesty - 9/25
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Hiv Neck Symptoms
Here's a taste of what TheBody.com has to offer on this topic:
Connect With Others
can my eye/back and neck pain be acute HIV symptom
Posted by chirags, 2 Replies
Hi;I am a 25 year male from India.In my country no one gives a proper advise about HIV/AIDS.People feel shy to talk about sex.Thats the reason I am writing to you.Doctor I had sex with a sex worker with double condom 1 month back. The condom... Read more » Stiff necks
Posted by Anonymous, 1 Reply
I read in some web sites that HIV specialists usually ask first time patients if they had stiff necks, Is this a symptom of ARS??? I got a bad stiff neck and flu like symptoms soon after. I always thought that it was just how I slept. Oh no. I...
Read more »
BUMPS on chest and NECK for 3 months-- PLZ HELP
Posted by finallyfindigout
Hi everyone, I have another post up but am driving myself crazy here regarding these small bumps that keep popping up on my chest and neck-- derm said I had scabies a month ago, which I treated for and that these bumps were post-scabetic nodules- I...
Read more »
Swollen Gland in Neck
Posted by Anonymous, 2 Replies
I have been incredibly nervous and afraid since an anal sex encounter that was unprotected (I inserted/was on top). I was wondering if you know of anyone who became infected after a one time unprotected anal sex as a top. Also, I have one swollen...
Read more »
Can anxiety cause armpit and neck pain/stinging?
Posted by ExWorryWart, 2 Replies
Has anyone experienced this?I know what anxiety and panic attack is as I have experienced it first hand but never before do I remember having this 'weird' sensation. Any worried wells here experience stinging pain in both armpits and constant dull... Read more »
Ask the Experts
Is a stiff neck a sign of acute HIV infectionHi, 3 weeks ago I received unprotected oral sex from someone i know injects drugs. A few days ago I got a itchy red rash around my genitals and anus. I also had what appeared to be a swollen gland in my neck that went away but I know have a stiff...Response from Robert J. Frascino, M.D.
The Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation
This forum is dedicated to HIV-positive folks, particularly those who have concerns related to fatigue and/or anemia. Questions related to HIV transmission, prevention, safer sex, HIV testing and risk should be sent to Dr. Bob at his "Safe Sex...
Read more »
PEP and sore neck/ars (PEP AND THE NEED FOR HIV SPECIALIST 2008)Hi Dr. BobI just finnished PEP (zodivudine, lamivudine, crixivan) a week ago. After taking PEP I had a couple side effects, tingling in the fingers, a tiny bit in the neck and toes an exhaustion. After a while I stated to have a lot of pain in...Response from Robert J. Frascino, M.D.
The Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation
Hello,As I have frequently stated in this forum, I recommend anyone who has had an HIV exposure significant enough to warrant a course of PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) be followed by an HIV specialist. (See below.) It seems the vast majority of...
Read more »
neck nodes, sore throats, exhausted, possible hiv symtoms? what test should I have done?DEAR DOC, PLEASE HELP!!! In Dec 00' I developed severe pneumonia like high fever sore throat, & dehydration for which I was treated. I was told it was a viral infection, no antibiotics were given. Jan 16th 01' I developed cervical...Response from Bruce Dezube, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
I'm glad to hear that you will get HIV tested. You need to know. Knowledge is power. You've already had lymph nodes biopsy. If not already done, you should have a chest x-ray, blood counts, liver function tests, LDH (a blood test), and...
Read more »
Neck Lymph NodeHi doctor. Is it possible for the lymph node in the neck to be painful but not swollen? And if so, is this a symptom for HIV?...Response from John A. Bartlett, M.D.
Duke University Medical Center
Lymph nodes can be painful, although usually they are also swollen. These symptoms could be consistent with HIV infection, and you should strongly consider contacting your health care provider to get tested....
Read more »
Banishing Chipmunk Cheeks and Bullfrog NeckSome people experienced facial wasting as a result of HIV treatment, others got a fat face. Nelson Vergel had the swollen glands on the side of his face that made it look bigger. Vergel, a treatment activist who started as an advocate of exercise... Read more »Medical Marijuana: Is it Safe?Many people have used medical marijuana to manage symptoms of HIV infection and side effects of therapies. Medical marijuana users assert that the drug is useful in treating nausea, increasing appetite or as a mild analgesic (to help with headaches... Read more »HIV/AIDS: Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat Is HIV/AIDS? What Are the Signs of HIV/AIDS? How Is HIV/AIDS Treated? What Happens if HIV/AIDS Isn't Treated? Do Women With HIV/AIDS Have More Chance of Getting Other Health Problems? How Do I Find Out if I Have HIV/AIDS? Can HIV/AIDS... Read more »HIV SymptomsEarly Symptoms Many people will not have any symptoms when they first become infected with HIV. They may, however, have a flu-like illness within a month or two after exposure to the virus. This illness may include Fever Headache Tiredness... Read more »Advertisement Advertisement
Guides for People With HIV


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Low Calorie Snack Recipes
Get the best low calorie snack recipes from trusted magazines, cookbooks, and more. You'll find recipe ideas complete with cooking tips, member reviews, and ratings.
Quiche Recipes Under 300 Calories
Both with and without crust, these quiche recipes feature the flavors you love from your favorite brunch dish including eggs,
cheese, fresh veggies, and meat all for less than 300 calories per serving.
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100-Calorie Snacks
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Toss those store-bought snack packs in favor of one of these delicious homemade treats that's sure to fill you up while keeping your calories in check.
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Orange-Hazelnut Snack Muffins
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Directed by: Michael Winner (The Sentinel)
Starring: Madeleine Kahn, Bruce Dern, Art Carney, Teri Garr, Phil Silvers, Ron Leibman
Indefensible as art and pretty dubious as a concept of any kind, Michael Winner's Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) is nonetheless such a good-natured mess of a movie that it's hard not to like it. It's also a prime example of my own belief that Winner's biggest problem as a filmmaker lies in his complete lack of judgment when picking properties. Watching the film for this review, I kept being reminded of Bob Hope's remark about Bing Crosby in My Favorite Brunette (1947): "Boy, he'll take any kind of part." Well, Winner seemingly will make any kind of film. The truly unfortunate thing in the case of Won Ton Ton is that it's a movie that might have flown had it been made three or four years earlier when the nostalgia boom was at its height. By 1976, however, nostalgia wasn't, as they say, what it used to be.
The story is almost exactly what the title promises: a broad spoof on Rin Tin Tin, with a paper-thin rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story. Some of it actually works, mostly thanks to the playing of Madeleine Kahn, Bruce Dern and Art Carney, who handle the silliness with some aplomb. A few of the gags work—like Dern pitching stories that are clearly Jaws and The Exorcist, both of which are shot down by studio head Carney as "uncommercial"—but just as many more don't. The film's big nostalgia hook—apart from its period-Hollywood setting—lies in the undeniably impressive array of old movie stars, character actors and personalities Winner assembled for the film. Granted, few of them are well used, and there are some who don't seem 100 percent sure why they're there or what they're doing, but the sheer size of the roster—more than 60 of them—is astonishing in itself. There's just about everyone you can name, from Robert Alda to Henny Youngman. The downside, of course, is that it's distracting trying to spot them all (look quick or you'll miss Rudy Vallee altogether). Then again, with a movie like this, being distracted isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The Hendersonville Film Society will show Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 13, in the Smoky Mountain Theater at Lake Pointe Landing Retirement Community, 333 Thompson St., Hendersonville. (From Asheville, take I-26 to U.S. 64 West, turn right at the third light onto Thompson Street. Follow to the Lake Point Landing entrance and park in the lot on the left.)
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Behringer MIC200 Tube Ultragain vacuum tube mic/line preamplifier features flexible preamp modeling including 16 preamp voicings designed for vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitars, keyboards, drums, and more. Behringer MIC200 has a 12AX7 vacuum tube with UTC technology for exceptional warmth and low noise. MIC200 also features a phase reverse switch, +48 V phantom power and 20 dB pad as well as balanced ¼" TRS inputs and outputs and gold-plated XLR connectors provide a nice finishing touch.
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As the Dodgers look to sweep the Rockies this afternoon, the thoughts turn back to last night, and the performance of Kenley Jansen. Jansen got the final four outs for his third save, retiring Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki for the last two outs to end the game. It has been an amazing journey for Jansen, who 14 months ago was a catcher with a great arm who couldn't hit and now looks like a potential dominant closer in the making.
Among Dodgers with 20 or more innings in a season, in the 127-year history of the franchise, Jansen ranks...
3rd in ERA (0.72)
- 2nd in ERA+ (544)
- 3rd in K/9 (12.96)
- 1st in H/9 (3.96)
In addition, the 102 batters Jansen has faced is the 9th most in Dodgers' history without allowing a home run since the club moved to Los Angeles.
For today's game, Carlos Monasterios gets the start, but I wouldn't expect him to last long. In his last four starts, the last coming on September 12, Monasterios has pitched a total of 12 innings, allowing a total of 36 baserunners and 13 runs. He last pitched five innings on July 30.
Today's matchup was supposed to be a battle of 22-year old pitchers, but with Clayton Kershaw shelved for the rest of the week, we will have to settle for one. Jhoulys Chacin is putting together quite a season for the Rockies. At 22, he is putting up better numbers than Ubaldo Jimenez did at age 24:
Pitcher |
Year |
Age |
Chacin |
2010 |
22 |
132.1 |
3.94 |
8.91 |
3.26 |
3.49 |
1.270 |
Jimenez |
2008 |
24 |
198.2 |
4.67 |
7.79 |
3.99 |
3.83 |
1.435 |
By scoring nine runs last night, the Dodgers are now at 649 runs on the season, assuring they will average over four runs per game this year.
UPDATE: One night after declaring Clayton Kershaw's season over, the Dodgers announced today that he will in fact start Friday night at home, giving him one more start at Dodger Stadium. Chad Billingsley will start Saturday, followed by Ted Lilly Sunday.
Game Time: 12:10 p.m.
TV: Prime Ticket


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Dr. Macasa's Background
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Dr. Macasa's Specialties
- Rheumatology
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Patients' feedback on their experience with Dr. Macasa
Likelihood of recommending Dr. Macasa to family and friends is 3.3 out of 5
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8 Facts About Patient Satisfaction Surveys
Patient satisfaction surveys provide a standardized way of reporting about healthcare experiences. But there can be more than meets the eye when reviewing scores. Here's what you should know
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This is a quick and simple vegetarian curry with lots of flavor, tons of protein, and not alot of fat. I recommend using a real flavorful, mild curry powder, or one that you've mixed yourself. My "Simple, Sweet and Mild Curry Blend" works well with this dish. However,if you do like heat, feel free to add some cayenne or crushed red pepper to suit your taste.
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Serving Size: 1 (334 g)
Servings Per Recipe: 4


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College education is very expensive and most
people cannot be able to afford it without some form of financial aid. There
are very sorry statistics from the Department of Education that indicate that
most people are denied financial aid because of inconsistencies and mistakes on
their application.
There are thousands of people out there who are in need of
financial assistance for college, meaning that a simple mistake could lock out
a worthy candidate. Knowledge on how to fill out these forms is necessary so as
to ensure that one maximizes their chances of receiving college aid.
Another thing most people do not know about
financial aid is the various types of aid available to them. Most people start
and stop at the FAFSA and assume that a loan is the only type of aid they could
get. Grants are one of the best types of aid available to the student simply
because it is free money that does not have to be repaid. A student should
therefore ask whether the colleges of their choice offer grants to students,
and they should apply for them if this is the case.
Another type of aid is scholarships, and these
are also free as the money does not have to be paid back. The student should
always ask the financial adviser at the college of their choice about
scholarships in order to determine whether they qualify for one. The student
should also have knowledge on work study opportunities available to them as
well as the different types of loans available. The FAFSA is usually filled
after January 1st, but the earlier the student completes this form, the better.
However, some institutional aid may have their deadlines before this date. It
is important for the student to mark each deadline and to ensure that they
submit the forms before this date in order to qualify for their loans. The information on financial aid is a lot, and
the entire process is very confusing and complicated.


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Coming face-to-face with an Internet troll in real life was something I didn't think would ever happen.
daisy coleman
I've seen the dark side of human nature. Now I'm going to protect my daughter with everything I've got.
Facebook became the most dysfunctional area of my life, and ending things with it proved just as difficult as ending things with a boyfriend.
I found the hairdresser conceited, oblivious to my discomfort, unprofessional and I couldn't get over all the crazy cats. My one star was for a good cut, but I would never go back.
They lied when they said that going to the principal would resolve it. It's okay, though, I turned out fine.


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Twin Cities West Metro is a group for local tennis players to connect. Join the group, then look thru the players at the right.…
5 members Latest Activity: Sep 3, 2013 Join this group to meet new people and enjoy the game of tennis!!! Located any where near 55337- Burnsville area.
© 2014 Created by Mark / The Mayor.


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The Project Study Group (PSG) is a multi-disciplinary team that will guide the development of the project. The PSG is primarily composed of individuals who represent environmental, engineering, and technical disciplines from the Illinois Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The PSG is a standing committee that may evolve depending on the phase or context of the project.
The primary objectives of the PSG include:
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(based on 6 reviews)
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(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
Bought this in spite of the bad reviews!
By Bob
from SSF CA
About Me Avid Do-It-Yourselfer
Comments about 4 Piece Quick Change Sanding Drum Set:
I saw the bad reviews, but bought this anyway, because other drum sanding sets were too expensive. This set has a good assortment of sizes.I am happy with the performance of these sanding drums after doing the following:*Throw away the sandpaper they come with.*Contact cement a thin sheet of smooth rubber (1/16") to the soft pad installed as they come. This will allow you to use Stickit sandpaper, making the paper retainer less of an issue.*Loctite both the arbor shaft and the setscrew (changing the arbor was not an issue for me, as I always use them in a drill press).With these mods I am very happy with the way these work, just need a little "sweat equity".
Comment on this review
Nice Set for the DIYer
By SOLTC
from Hicksville, NY
See all my reviews
For a reason I've forgotten, I have 6 3x3 sanding sleeves. I've been looking for large-diameter drums, but I don't need production grade.This set fills the bill. My sleeves fit the 3 x 3 Drum perfectly.
(4 of 6 customers found this review helpful)
Decent for price.
By PDXbrMasterCraft
from Undisclosed
Set works decent for the price. Only problem was allen screws stripped when tightning. In my opinion this set would do best without the rubber padding. The rubber tends to have more pressure on the soft woods when sanding parallel soft woods with hard woods. Without the padding it would probably have a flush finish.
same price as the the big stores
By matt
from Mass
The rubber backing is so soft the sandpaper will conform the the material you are sanding. Other stores have a much better product for the same price. I returned these the next day
This item is ok for a small project
By Waynester
from Columbus, Oh
Great idea of a product, but needs to be of better quality. Set screws will strip out no matter how careful you are. Rubber backing crushes during use, needs to be harder. Ok for a very small project, but not durable enough if you're looking for product to last.
Very Cheap will not hold up
By MisterRishard
from Lamar, CO
About Me Professional
I used this for a shop class, and it took about an hour for two to give out. The sand paper that comes with it is very poor quality, the "quick change aluminum pipe ripped when I tried to put better paper on. Two of them where mounted off center and vibrated very bad during use:(
Most orders will be processed and leave our warehouses within 1-2 business days from the time your order is placed. Orders placed on Saturday or Sunday will be processed on Monday.
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I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
-weird al
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
-weird al
Instant reputation points to anyone who successfully combines Helen Keller and Chuck Norris all in one quality joke
Not trying to get points or laughs, but there's already a Helen Keller/Chuck Norris Fact: Helen Kellers favorite color is Chuck Norris.
RcB Since 09-06-2011 20:55 EST, Post 49
Chuck Norris' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd; no one fools Chuck Norris.
Some kids piss their name in the snow. Chuck Norris can piss his name into concrete.
Once, while having sex in a tractor-trailer, part of Chuck Norris' sperm escaped and got into the engine. We now know this truck as Optimus Prime.
Chuck Norris owns the greatest Poker Face of all-time. It helped him win the 1983 World Series of Poker despite him holding just a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game Uno.
Lol never heard that one before, guess I shoulda known there would be one considering the Chuck Norris joke plague spread to pandemic proportionsOriginally Posted by stxnas
It is a well kown fact that Chuck Norris' tears can cure blindness,
sadly even if Helen Keller was still alive she would still be blind;
because Chuck Norris has never cried!!!!
...Pure Brilliance!!!Originally Posted by stxnas
Sinner - Helen convinced Bobo to take away the negitive rep option because every time someone was negged - it made Chuck's balls itch - badly.
Ha ha...that's pretty funny too!Originally Posted by anabolicrhino
RcB Since 09-06-2011 20:55 EST, Post 49
Originally Posted by jmh80
Well in that case, posting a dead baby jokes will result in a roundhouse to the face: the Chuck Norris equivalent to 10^100000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000003 negative reps.
Have you heard about the new Helen Keller doll? Wind it up and it walks in to walls.
Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
A Handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is based on a true story: Chuck Norris once swallowed a turtle whole, and when he crapped it out, the turtle was six feet tall and had learned karate.
How did Helen Keller's Parents Punish her?
They re-arranged the furniture.
I wanted to parallel with how Chuck Norris's parents Punished him, but no one punishes Chuck Norris unless he punishes himself.
There is no such thing as a "Theory of Evolution". There is only the creatures that Chuck Norris has allowed to survive.
Chuck Norris CAN believe it's not butter.
~ Nothing can kill the Grimace!!
Glad you liked it, I heard it on the radio a couple of weeks ago and basically laughed till I was out of breath.
~ Nothing can kill the Grimace!!
Chuck Norris has counted to infinity...twice
Chuck Norris only masturbates to pictures of Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris appeared in the "Street Fighter II" video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this "glitch," Norris replied, "That's no glitch."
i had the number 1 Mr. T joke when the joke sites like blew up i was proud of myself
this is a great thread... Subscribed.


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This is an ideal holiday home and is designed to blend in with the mountains, beaches and other areas of outstanding natural beauty.
This design is currently being worked on and will be ready at the end of March 2007. It is a two bedroom, two storey building with the option of the upstairs room being open or closed to the main living area. The house has a veranda at each end giving substantial outside entertainment space.