Chariot racing?

Looks like more than just the Bicycle Chain shoprats are in on the action:

[Found at PictureIsUnrelated]

Looks like we've got some competition Brian. Better saddle up the old steed.

Durham Cycle Center (RIP) chariot, circa July 4th, 2005.

portland

I just got back from a trip to Portland, Oregon where I was visiting my family. Portland, if you haven't heard, is now heralded as bicycling's holy land, making it both a place of reverence and devotion, as well as the source of conflict for many opposing parties. In other words, the only thing that appears to be more prominent than enlightened Portlanders out on the streets on bicycles are blogposts and articles about the enlightened consciousness of Portland's bicycle culture. And, the only thing more prominent than blogposts and articles about the enlightened consciousness of Portland's bicycle culture are blogposts and articles about how ridiculously overblown Portland's bicycle culture is. (Both the pro-Portland cyclists and the anti-Portland blogposts appear to emanate primarily from the east coast.) Since I haven't ridden a bike in Portland in years, I really don't feel prepared to weigh in on this important subject other than to say that there are a ton of people riding bikes out there. The bikes, and the people, run the gamut from very fit to very cheap. Other bloggers will write better-written volumes about this subject, which will undoubtedly culminate in an East Coast/West Coast cycling war where the cycling communities' Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac will each get shot and the cyclist manifestation of Puff Daddy host a memorial criterium in a business park.

In any event, while there, I did want to take part in the action. And without a bike, that meant going to the Downtown Portland Twilight Criterium. I love downtown crits because they usually draw spectators that are not relatives of the participants. Turnout was quite good, with spectators at least 3 or 4 people deep around the half-mile loop. As previously noted, my photographic documentary skills are weak (too weak to even qualify for a "skillz"), but here's a photo to prove I was there.

I'm still a little jetlagged but things I noticed about the crit:

* The field was mostly local/regional teams, but one or two Bissell guys were out.

* Rock Racing was not present, but the most tricked-out entourage was the Range Rover team which had a bunch of new and vintage Rovers parked next to the course.

* Rock Racing was not present, but there was a fat guy in a Rock Racing t-shirt. I wanted to take a picture, but he probably would have tried to punch/sue me.

* There were a lot of crashes. I saw at least 5 from this corner. I suspect this means that either these guys had spent too much time at the beer garden or spent too much time at the espresso garden.

* It didn't rain in Portland. It usually doesn't rain much in the summertime, which is nice. But that also makes the number of crashes seem strange. Perhaps Northwest racers only know how to corner on wet pavement.

* Local team, the Gentle Lovers, featured prominently in the race. I like this team because the like unicorns and are fast.

* Local cycling star Molly Cameron led out the first lap and made it into what ended up being the winning break, but got taken down in a wreck. To her credit, as well as the credit of several other folks involved in crashes, she got up and back into the race. Sometimes I scoff at Pro-1-2 riders who drop out of races about half way through, but getting back into a crit after a wreck is pretty badass.

* Lots of metal rims, not many carbon rims. Maybe the roads were bad. Maybe they're poor. Maybe they know something others don't.

* Lots of spectators wearing cycling caps. About the same ratio of cycling-capped heads to non-cycling-capped heads as at a race in a non-hip, non-urban area where all of the spectators are also racing.

* Lots of tattoos. Both on spectator and riders. Portlanders better watch out. If this race was any indication of how frequently they crash, they're likely to ruin a lot of skin art. Maybe the tattoos are used to cover up old scar tissue. Otherwise, maybe they spent their carbon wheel money on tattoos.

We later went for a hike at Mt. St. Helens. It's a National Monument area and is apparently open to mountain bikers. The trails looked smooth, but were mostly loose ash. That's right, ash. Mt. St. Helens is still an active volcano that last erupted in 1980 and occasionally will kick up some smoke. I was sad I didn't get the chance to ride it, but hopefully I'll make it back out there soon. In the mean time, I guess the closest I'll get to shredding a lava flow is shredding the Harris Lake trails during a meltdown.

Even better: A Shack Attack!

(Or "Shaq Attack": I'm not sure how we'll be spelling it.)

It looks like it's official: Radio Shack is going to use their racing team as a central part of rebranding their company. Here's a quote from Radio Shack's chief marketing officer about the role that Lance and company will play in the rehabilitation of their image: "Having Lance on our team will no doubt accelerate our brand’s evolution" (from the VeloNews article).

Hum. I suppose. Hell, what do I know about marketing?

Still I think they should bring back this campaign:

Ah, yes, the TRS-80: like the Commodore 64, except actually useful. (Meaning that you could do things other than play Ghostbusters or Spyhunter on it.)

If we're looking to compare, that means that Isaac Asimov : Lance Armstrong :: Tandy : _____. Cell phones? I dunno. Put that in your GRE testbook and smoke it.

Either way I hope it means that Lance is going to grow some supafly sideburns.

That will be 'The Shack,' thank you very much!

So first Radio Shack forms a team, grabs LA as their team leader, then the company changes its name from "Radio Shack" to "The Shack." Dunno what this means for the team, as their website indicates no name change, but it does mean that you'll now be buying your electronic doodads from a place named after a domicile most often noted for lacking electricity. No entiendo.

Here's the list of the riders that TRS -- er, 'Team Shack' -- has signed so far:

• Johan Bruyneel, director sportif
• Lance Armstrong
• Jani Brajkovic
• Levi Leipheimer
• Jesus Hernandez
• Chris Horner
• Yaroslav Popovych
• Gregory Rast

The story also reports that Andy Schleck won't jump the Shack -- er, to the Shack -- and that there are rumors that Lance might try to tempt Cavendish to join him as well. This last news is particularly interesting, as it's hard for me to imagine a team led by Bruyneel and Armstrong contesting sprints as well as going for a GC win in one of the Grand Tours. Not to say that they couldn't do it, but I don't remember them ever having done so in the past.

Who else will join them? Hincapie? Floyd? B-Swad? Guess we'll have to wait a few months to find out. May the silly season commence!

Popped! (confirmed)

Ok, so it wasn't a Tour rider, but it looks like Di Luca's doping has been confirmed. That took what, three months? Looks like there's still a chance that the five of you who think that Contador will turn up a positive sample might still be right.

It looks like Di Luca had samples from two different days come up as positive for a new-generation of EPO, which seems to make it seem even more likely that he's a habitual user. I can't say that I'm shocked, but I am a little surprised that he's evidently been caught so easily, while no one from the Tour has raised any red flags. I hope that this is because the Tour was truly clean, but I'm afraid that it's more likely that the labs aren't as good at testing for the new generation of EPO. Then again, I imagine Di Luca can afford the good stuff, and he got caught, so who knows?

On another front, Hollywood is refusing to give blood to anyone for anything, and is taking bids from teams who want to sign a Di Luca stand-in before the bidding war heats up.

[pic stolen from CyclingNews.com]

Radio Shack Uniform Preview

Per Request......Drum Roll Please.....

https://twitter.com/BullCityCycling

Now we are even more dorkier.....

4ever?

Who's a jerk? This guy.

meanwhile, on the other side of town...

...bulldozers awaken in the Bull City's Central Park.

Stay tuned.

evidence

Riding my cx bike on Duke Forest trails this weekend, I was forced to slow-up after a tree branch of reasonable size fell about 20 feet in front of me. It was probably about 3" in diameter at the largest point and maybe 7 or 8 feet long--not so big that it would have crushed me, but big enough that it probably would have caused me to crash. Which got me to thinkin', if I had been riding slightly faster I could have been struck. On the other hand, if I had been going slower, I may not have even noticed it (although I could have been attacked by a rabid turtle). This kind of pontification about fate and foliage is really an exercise in futility (especially I spend most of my days fixated on thinking about trees), so I decided to forget about it.

The other thing that occurred to me is that I should have taken a picture of it, so I could share this experience with others. But thinking about all of the pictures I should be taking, and all of the pictures I've missed taking, is another exercise in futility. It reminded me of this documentary photography class I took in college in which I wandered looking for events to document photographically. The problem, though, was this led me to always think about pictures I should be taking and feeling regret about not having a camera. It got to the point where I felt that I was unable to enjoy things I saw because I was missing out on photographing them. I soon abandoned my ambitions of becoming yet another famous documentary photographer and regained my ability to enjoy things "in the moment", which sounds like another cliche, but is probably fairly accurate.

In any event, the tree branch incident was followed up with a snake encounter on a road ride with Ali yesterday. So this snake was plesantly chillin' in the middle of the lane on Plesant Green Road. I slowed down because I wasn't sure if it was going to dart off into the grass, dart under my tire, remain perfectly still, or springforth and snakebite my tire or face. In the end, it kinda wiggled around, but didn't really get out of the way so we were forced to swerve around it. I immediately regretted the fact that I did not try to bunnyhop it (a feat that would have become all the more legendary if it had been photographed). However, much as Fonzie's jumping of the shark signaled the ultimate demise of "Happy Days", an attempt to "jump the snake" would have probably led to my immediate demise because the snake would have totally wiggled around and I'd try to make some ill-fated mid-air adjustment, crash, get bitten by the snake, and finally get laughed at by dudes passing in a pickup truck. This disaster would be followed up by Ali photographically documenting my wreck, posting it up on this blog, and coining the term "jump the snake". So, in the end, my regret was replaced by reassurance. Besides, I don't want to be one of those guys who spends their life thinking back and regretting all of the things he should have bunnyhopped.

Upon returning to town, the West Duke building was happy to see me. But don't just take my word for it, here's the photographic documentation:

Kaboom

This past weekend Canadian Geoff Kabush won the UCI Mountain Bike XC race in Mt. Saint Anne, Quebec, against a full field stacked with Olympic champ Julien Absolan, World Champ Christophe Sauser, and the other fast European riders that have dominated the series for the last decade. During that period several North American riders have been touted as the one who might break a winning-drought that reaches back to Ned Overend and John Tomac. Several have come close, but until now, until Kabush's ride this weekend, the "W" has eluded North American riders (Note: I love how the US cycling publications have shifted to the more "inclusive" coverage of North American riders as its become clear that the chances for success ran higher north of the 49th parallel. I guess I'm in that group, too. I also recognize I might be among the few who actually still follow this series with any regularity). It's not entirely clear how to explain this new success. Maybe there are fewer dopers now than in the past. Maybe North Americans are training harder and seeing the results. Whatever it is, it's a new day.

get inspired

Last week, the big boys climbed the Ventoux, which inspired me to dig through my old photos (.jpgs) from my 2004 trip to France. Here's a picture I took after the classic climb and before an even more pulse-quickening descent.

Few other sports allow us to play on the same field as the pros. Sure, you can hop the fence and run around the old Durham Bulls stadium and pretend you're Susan Sarandon. But getting to climb the Ventoux and Alpe d'Huez is something I feel very lucky to have done and must recommend if ever you have the chance. And if you never make it out to France, at least try to head out to somewhere like Boone and climb someplace like Beech Mountain. And while you're at it, why not pay a friend to put a sign with your name on the front of their car and follow you. I reckon the German tourists should automatically show up and cheer.