Either Ricco and Piepoli are confused simpletons or there is some very bad reporting of their doping cases.  First, Ricco is caught using CERA and swears upon the head of his mother that he was not doping.  Piepoli apparently felt a rush of guilt and reportedly went to team management with the admission that he was using the same stuff that Ricco.  That got both guys fired.

Skip forward to Laurel and Hardy's appearances before CONI the past few days.  Ricco seemingly has the rush of guilt after Piepoli admitted to doping and admits to doping during the Tour, but not the Giro.  More on that in a minute.  That brings us to today's meeting with CONI by Piepoli and he claims complete innocence.  Can these two numbskulls ever get there stories straight?

Who is buying Ricco's story of not doping during the Giro?  Let's see if we can follow this logic.  Ricco did not dope before or during the race that he was wanting to win.  But, he did dope before/during the race that he was only wanting to win white jersey and did not decide to participate in until a week or two before the race. 

His story is almost as bad as Basso's claim that he did not use any Puerto blood.  That it was only to be used in case it was needed during the Tour.  Why he suddenly felt the need to have a backup plan after crushing all the competition at the Giro was not explained.  The difference between Basso and Ricco is that Basso was always a respectful rider, kept his mouth shut and rode his bike.  Ricco, on the other hand, was entertaining with his outrageous quotes but once he became exposed there was nothing left but a lying, self-promoting punk.

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I knew I was forgetting something about the Nekkid Bike Ride I wrote about in the last entry.  The P-D did a story about the ride and they quoted me... sort of.  They quoted a few comments from a local message board and "stole" my comment about the riders not needing SPF protection in the sensitive areas since the ride starts at 9pm. 
 
And, another thing.  The writer used the word cycler to refer to someone that rides a bike.  Is cycler a word?  We are cyclists, not cyclers, not bikers, not dorks on two wheels.  Okay, maybe we are dorks on two wheels but we shouldn't be referred to that way.

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Last week the realization came that the CX season cannot come soon enough.  Well, not too soon.  I have no desire for 100 degree cross races.  My road season has been a worthwhile pile of bleep and I need something new to focus on.  While I won't completely skip the remaining races, my training focus is shifting toward getting ready for the 'cross season.  Then, last night, Jay calls me and says he bought a cross bike and is looking to practice a couple nights a week at local parks.  That works out beautifully.

Prior to yesterday I had not realized the State Crit Championship is this weekend.  For a variety of reasons I did not ride at all last week.  Even though I started riding again on Tuesday, I seriously question how wise it would be to bother racing this weekend.  Add the fact that the forecast is for 100 degree temps in Jeff City and my chances of racing are less than 50%.  Jimmy Schneider once said "Don't race unless you plan to win".  I am probably paraphrasing the actual quote but it was very similar.  I'm not ready to race/win right now so why waste the time and money?

And speaking of money, I had my car in the shop Friday, Saturday and Tuesday thanks to a failed emissions test.  My wallet is significantly lighter now.  After the initial failed test, the guy told me to drive the car for about 100 miles, after having repairs done, before having the test redone. 
 
The car went in for repairs on Tuesday afternoon and I took a day off work on Wednesday in case the repairs were not complete on Tuesday.  They were completed and I was told to bring the car back Saturday after driving it for a few days and have the emissions test redone.  That made sense and seemed to be what the original Mr. Emissions Tester told me. 
 
Since I had Wednesday off, I decided to go exploring roads with the possibility doing something different than the Ste Gen ride this year.  So, off I went on my magical drive of unknown roads.  After 4 hrs, 150 miles and 20 dollars of wasted gas, I stopped to have my car's emissions tested again.  That's when I was told that distance isn't what is needed.  Instead what is needed is 10 full driving cycles.  Great!  Thanks for telling me that the day before.  Oh well, it was a fun drive.

But, what could be more fun than the World Naked Bike Ride even that is scheduled for this fair city on August 2nd?  What better way to protest oil dependance and promote comfortable body image.  I never will understand the connection between oil dependance and body image and when I ask have never have gotten an explanation.  Personally, I dont think they give rat's arse about body image and instead use the naked aspect of the ride as an attention getter.  Whatever.  Let the do-gooders have their useless ride.

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I watched portions of today's stage to Alpe d'Huez stage at work today. I tuned in briefly as they rode up the Galibier but knew nothing terribly exciting was going to happen that early in the stage. From that point on I watched the climbs and didn't bother watching the descents. Work was busy enough that I could not afford to be a total slug and watch constantly.

Since the completion of the stage, I haven't seen any news reports or reactions to today's events. Here are of my unfiltered reactions.

• Congratulations to Cadel Evans on winning the '08 Tour.
• Very nice ride by Sastre to win by 2 minutes.
• It would have been interesting to be able to read Frank Schleck's mind as Sastre rode away. There he sat, in the yellow jersey, and he could do nothing but be a faithful teammate and let his jersey, and the chance to win the Tour, be figuratively ripped from away him.
• Sastre, Evans and all the other contenders should be grateful that Andy Schleck had that bad day on Hautacam. If not, they all would have been chasing or working for Andy. He looked SO good in the Alps. It would have been fun to see him have free rein and not work for his teammates.

Friday evening I put the finishing touches on the eternal bike build. My TT bike was finally complete after cabling the rear and front derailleurs. The process was time consuming, but satisfying, as it finally clicked through all the gears smoothly. I trimmed the cables and was mighty proud of my handiwork. It was then that I realized my attempts to cleverly run the cables resulted in handledbars that could not be turned. What an idiot I can be! With no other cables on hand I called it a night.

Saturday, I might Giuseppe in Columbia for our regular ride. With plans to do the State TT on Sunday still intact, I didn't want to go terribly hard. We kept it on the flats and put in a few hard efforts into the headwind on the trip down to Harrisonville. On the return trip I dosed my workload and didn't work much. The warm, humid air still took some energy out of me.

I bought another set of cables on the way home from the ride. After showering and eating, a bad headache set in for the remainder of the night. Combined with the realization that I would have to wait about three hours to race after registering on Sunday, not to mention the two hour drive to Jeff City, I chose to skip the TT and just do our usual ride on Sunday.

Sunday was scheduled to be the hottest day of the year. What did Patrice and Giuseppe want to do? Ride to the covered bridge, of course. By the time we got to High Ridge our bodies were already wilting and the creaking bottom bracket on my bike was as bad as it has been. We pushed onward along Rock Creek with the intent to ride down to Four Ridge at least before turning back. My bike was really noisy on any incline and I didn't want to be tackling the along Old Lemay with a bike that obviously needs some work done to it. I peeled off and headed home, not one bit sad about cutting the ride short on such a hot day.
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What a great finish to Stage 15. Alot of the pre-race reports of the climb to Prato Nevoso were that it was not a terribly hard climb so I did not have big hopes for much of a shakeup in GC. If that wasn't a difficult climb I credit the riders for making it so. The leaders sent one attack after another. Between Sanchez, A. Schleck, Menchov, Kohl and Sastre, who looked bad for half the climb, it was one surge after another that put Evans on the defensive all the way until he finally cracked. I will give Evans credit for fighting hard but he looked very vulnerable for the next couple days if the others continue ride in the same way.

I'm curious how much effort will be put into tomorrow's two big mountains. There is such a long descent to the finish, it might blunt the efforts of the contenders. The contenders still need time on Evans to protect against his TT ability. I'm not sure they can put all their eggs in the last, brutal mountain stage that ends on Alpe d'Huez Wednesday.

Triple Giro stage winner Emanuele Sella has decided not to start the Trofeo Matteotti at the last minute. He claims tendoninitis after a run-in with a car... hmmmmmm?????? Maybe he did have an accident, but, it looks suspicious coming shortly after the news that labs can now detect the new CERA drug that got Beltran and Ricco busted.

"The best thing for me to do is not to see [Dueñas] or I may get assault charges against me," - Chris Froome

"Beltran is an imbecile" - Jerome Pineau

"I have Italian friends who told me that, when they rode with him [Ricco] when he was 15, he used to show off about his doping antics and he even showed them how he took it." - Jerome Pineau Comment - why the hell doesn't at least one person speak up when they hear that?

"When you're up to the neck in it like him [Ricco], at least you could have the decency not to act like he did, especially when he was right in the eye of the cyclone. He strutted around like a star, he provoked us. You know, I'm really happy that he's sleeping behind bars tonight." - Jerome Pineau

Piepoli turned out to be a dope but I give him credit admitting to the team that he was doing the same as Ricco. At his age, he didn't have much to lose but at least he stood up like a man and didn't go on with the protests of innocence. Makes Ricco's claims of innocence ridiculous when a teammate says he was doping "just like Ricco".

"He [Ricco] needs to be punched in the nose for his arrogance... "The worst part is that Italian TV was almost sympathizing with this idiot saying 'shame, he is only 25, and it's possible to make mistakes'. But when anybody else goes positive they massacre him. Wake up you fools - he is a cheat and should be treated like one."" - Robbie Hunter

You figured it was coming.  The Tour vampires had been going after Ricco hard with at least 5 blood tests in the first week and a half.  They finally caught their man with a positive.  And it appears we have a new abbreviation to learn.  A new version of EPO, CERA.
 
Also disturbing is that they were going after Cancellara early in the race with four blood tests.  They apparently came up empty so either CSC is clean or very clever.  Choose your outlook on life (glass half full or half empty) about which of those scenarios is true.

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I was really tired for the last couple hours of work and didn't feel much better after getting.  Giving a pass to the Tuesday Worlds crossed my mind more than a few times.  Getting a little food in my stomach helped some but it still took a concerted effort to leave for the race.  A couple weeks ago I would not have bothered. 
 
Once I arrived at the park, I pulled out the bike and set out to do a few warmup laps.  The bike felt really bizarre with my arms and legs awkwardly stretched forward.  I reached under the saddle and noticed that it somehow had slid as far back as possible.  During the last part of RAIN it felt like I was sitting further back but I paid no attention because I had been trying to sit further back in the saddle to provide more support for the sit bones.  I wonder how much effect this odd position had on me dropping off the pace of the lead group?  Anyway, I put the saddle in a normal position before we started and once the race got going I felt okay.  I didn't do much of anything except sit in the pack and never felt terribly stressed by the pace.  If nothing else, the race got my blood flowing and woke me up a little.

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Some words about my weekend are in order. Okay, a lot of words. A group of teammates entered RAIN, the Ride Across Indiana. This was my first attempt at the jaunt across the state from the Illinois/Indiana border to Richmond, IN on the eastern side of the state.

Because of work obligations, I was going to have to leave EARLY Saturday morning to be there by 5am St Louis time. Adding to the fun was getting an early wake up call from work early Friday morning, that resulted in 4 hrs of sleep that night. Friday night I went to bed at about 7pm so that I could get something close to 6hrs of sleep before getting up at 1:45am. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly hit the pillow and fall asleep. I would guess that I didn't get any sleep until 8pm. Again, I got a call from work. This time at 12:30. Two nights in a row of about four hours sleep followed by a three hour drive in the dark. Perfect!

The drive went okay but I did start feeling a little drowsy toward the end. The whole drive there was one burst of lightning after another illuminating the cloudy skies. It was an ominous scene and one you don't look forward to when you will be straddling a metal bike for many hours. Despite the threatening skies, there was never a drop of rain. Once I reached Terre Haute I grabbed a quick cup of coffee for a caffeine boost and drove to the hotel to meet the others.

We drove a couple miles down the road, unloaded the bikes, and put in a few miles warmup as we rode to the start. A light rain began to fall during the ride to the start. We arrived a few minutes before the beginning of the ride. There was a big crowd of about 1,100 crowding the entire road. Since we came from the opposite direction, we reached the start line and had nowhere to go so we put ourselves right at the front of the pack. That worked out nicely.

So, we set off on our 160 mile trek on wet roads, with a very light rain and lots of spray from the wheels of others. It was not all that bad really. People behaved themselves and were not doing anything crazy. After all, it is a ride and not a race. Still, there was a brisk tempo. Maybe it was a little more nuts if you started about 800 people back.

The organizers had four(?) feeding stations along the route. What became obvious about the people that started up front is that a large number of them completely ignored these rest stops. Our group of five fit that description. We had two people doing handups so we could avoid having to stop for food and drink. The attempts at feedings proved to a be mix of comedy and horror at the same time as riders used all sorts of "musettes". Some were using real musettes. Plastic shopping were a less than ideal but cheap and popular choice.

The most humorous sight I saw was the infamous mesh bag. As we entered a feed zone, I glanced to my right and saw this black mesh bag being held by the support person. The bag seemed to be about 2.5-3 feet long and was weighed down with a massive quantity of food and liquid. That was funny enough but then the rider grabbed the bag. Not only was the bag insanely long to start but it was stretchy. When the bag was grabbed, even at a slow speed, the bag stretched even more and looked like something Santa would carry. How the guy didn't crash I do not know.

The horror began in the first zone when some guy in a red kit got tangled up with his bag and took a clumsy endo into the pavement. Beyond that one crash, everyone stayed upright but people really need to practice grabbing bottles. I can't count how many bottles went bouncing along the ground as the result of a bad handup.

Handups from moving vehicles were specifically mentioned as not being allowed. That, of course, does not stop some fools thinking they are Wim Vansevanant and can grab bottles from their "team car" with 400 other people around them. Some folks are just stupid.

Slowly, but surely, the lead group of riders got smaller and smaller and people stopped or got tired. The weather cleared up as we got past Indianapolis. The sun came out, the temperatures rose and it became really nice day. While it wasn't a race, we did get into some paceline situations when field whittled down to 40 or so riders. We were even echeloned all the way across US40 as the winds blew from the south. Probably not the safest thing to do but it was going on.

Of course, I had no odometer and had no idea where I was or how far we had traveled until I saw a sign saying 34 miles to Richmond. On one hand I was glad to see the sign and equated it with being not much less than a ride to Prairie du Rocher. When I saw that, I knew I would finish if I had to limp to the finish. A while later I saw a second sign that said 31 miles to Richmond. That was not good because those three miles felt like they took a long time.

Between getting stuck in the gutter in the echelon, the slow passing of miles, and maybe a little lack of food I had to let go of the lead group after about 130 miles. I set my own pace from then on. One that would get me to the finish. I still managed to catch a few others who popped off a little later than me. They mostly sat on my wheel as I pulled them along. We then caught David from the team. He was cramping but was fighting and still was willing to take a few turns at the front.

Those final 30 miles seemed to take forever but we eventually reached the finish at Earlham College. Not counting the tandem riders that finished ahead of everyone, I was the 28th or 29th guy across the line in 7hr 17min. David finished with me while Trent stuck with the lead group and finished in 7:06. Mike and Bert had a couple flats and came in about an hour after me.

All in all, it was a pretty nice ride. It got better as the riders thinned out and the section that was not on US40 was the nicest. US40 was not bad, though. I didn't like the way we took over the road at times and it made me uncomfortable. For the most part we were behaved, though. That is a long ride, though. RAIN is not something that I always wanted to do but I am glad I did. It was an achievement of sorts that I can look back on at some point.

Stage 10 thoughts:
- Gee, who would have predicted Valverde having an awful day in the mountains and falling out of contention.

- Evans crash on Sunday may have had an effect but he looked very beatable on Hautacam. He reminds me a lot of Leipheimer in the sense that really quick accelerations put him trouble. Often, he paces himself back up, and will make an occasional surge himself. But, as I watched today, he seemed defenseless as guys kept surging. Evans gets a good deal of criticism for being a wheel sucker. Sometimes, the criticism is warranted. Not so at other times. He was forced work today but that big black 1 stuck to his jersey seemed like a figurative anchor as others seemed to play off his favored status. He often seemed to be looking around for help and found it lacking. He grabbed the yellow jersey by one second but the race is wide open right now. Evans' saving grace is his ability to time trial better than most of those chasing him.

- Yaroslav Popovych has been disappointing in support of Evans. He was gone early on the Tourmalet and is hardly performing like the star domestique that he was hired to be.

- Speaking of disappointing, what is up with Haimar Zubeldia?

- Vande Velde is having a heck of a race.

- Good move by Cobo letting Piepoli take the win

CSC looks like it is trying to set something up for Sastre or the Schlecks.

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My man Remy D. is going to light up the escape group when it hits the Tourmalet!!!

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The Tourmalet and Hautacam will be the undoing of Kim Kirchen today.

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Thoughts on Stage 9 to Bagneres de Bigorre...
Bonehead of the day: I'm still wondering what Schumacher's plan today? He has a teammate riding solo a couple minutes ahead of the group. Schumacher is not good enough in the mountains to ride away from the true climbers. Yet, he decides to accelerate and ultimately animated a whole series of attacks up the mountain and doom any chance of Lang topping the Aspin in the lead and having a chance at victory.

Kudos of the day: Ricco was given some freedom because he was down on GC but you can always count on him to liven up a race if it goes uphill. He is entertaining to watch and he will usually follow it up with some entertaining, though not always tactful, quotes.

Watching the stage this morning reminded what a nice mountain the Col d'Aspin is. The Aspin is not stunning in its scenery. It is very green with lots of trees on the lower half and some good views across the valleys. It is not exceedingly long. Twelve km's is a happy medium for a mountain. If you get much longer, at least for me, they start drag on. It is not crazy steep. It is just a nice, steady climb that I did in my 39x21 except for the last km or so.

I logged another 2 hrs on the trainer last night.  Me feeling strong, like bull.  Slow, like tortoise, but strong like bull.  The legs are little tired this morning.  My whole body is tired though, thanks to a 2am wake-up call from work.  After working on the computer for an hour it was hard to catch much shuteye in the remaining hour or so before the alarm goes off.

Target stores are on my black list.  I had gotten in the habit of purchasing the large containers of powdered Powerbar drink at Target.  They seem to have stopped carrying the big containers unfortunately and now only have the stupid little 8oz serving packets.  That yields a whopping 2.5 bottles of drink for about $3.50.  What a joke.

Tour thoughts:
Over the past couple years I have really come to appreciate Leonardo Piepoli for his strong, but selfless, work as a teammate in the mountains.  He did it again yesterday with his good attack up to Super-Besse along with Vandevelde in the hopes of softening up Caisse d'Epargne.  The two of them were caught by the charging pack but he stayed strong and finished with the leaders.
 
Shame on Cunego for losing 32" on a Cat 2 finishing climb.  That performance does not bode well for the high mountains to come.
 
Ricco seems to be a target of the vampires.  I can understand being a target yesterday, since he won the stage.  That is normal.  This quote from the Guardian newspaper is interesting
"Like Pantani, the Pirate, he has coined his own nickname, the Cobra, for the way he watches and then strikes. Yesterday there was venom as well as total commitment in his finish sprint in a stage he had targeted. He rode a poor time-trial on Tuesday and is unlikely to challenge for the overall title, and there are other question marks, at least so far as the drug testers are concerned: he has been tested four times in the past five days."

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My humble return to the Tues Nite Worlds went reasonably well.  After hearing reports of very hard races in the last couple weeks, I started with low expectations.  My hope was to not get dropped and, if possible, work on sitting further up in the pack.  Thankfully, this weeks race started at a moderate pace and I plopped myself near the front and stayed toward the front for much of the race.  Half an hour into the race, the dark storm clouds began to roll in.  I gave two seconds thought to launching an attack in the hope that a deluge would hit while I was in front and the race would be cancelled with me in front.  Then I came to my senses that I am completely incapable of staying off the front for even a lap.  As the race wound down, I started getting lazy and drifting backward and, after two pretty hard laps, I nearly got dropped 43 minutes into the race.  The pace eased and caught back on.  By the last lap, I was running low on energy and just let the pack ride away instead of killing myself trying to hang on.  All things considered, I was satisfied.
 
A few raindrops fell on the last lap and the wind began to blow hard.  It was obvious we were going to get hit by a big storm.  I wasted no time in getting to the car and loading up the bike.  As I drove away, the rain began to pour down.  We were very lucky to squeeze the race in.

Last night I did a couple hours on the trainer in a desperate attempt to get some good rides in before setting off for 160 miles on Saturday.

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This podium girl seems to be very experienced at handling large sausages. Notice how she grasps the massive meat with a firm grip at its base while calmly resting it on her shoulder with a devil-may-care attitude.

After some chiding from Ryan I buckled down this evening and figured out who I could and could not choose for my Tour picks. Getting right to the point, here is who I choose in no particular order:
Andy Schleck - he always seems unflappable. Even if you don't notice him, he always seems to come away with a solid finish.
Damiano Cunego - he skipped the Giro to focus on the Tour so he better do good
Roman Kreuziger - I have a bad feeling Liquigas will not let him do the full race because of his age, so this is a bit of a reach.
If I were to pick an alternate in case Kreuziger drops, I would like to see Lovkvist confirm some of his potential. I still have some doubts about his ability in the mountains though.

Ryan also requested my picks without the top 10 restrictions that I impose on myself. My picks would have been Evans, Valverde and Sastre.

Today's time trial, though, yielded some interesting results. Valverde didn't TT nearly as well as he did in the Dauphine. I can't help but wonder if he is pulling a Mayo and peaked too early. I doubt he will have the typical Mayo Tour meltdown but he may be a little off his peak. I also thought Cunego, Sastre and Nibali all put in very respectable rides

The holidays brought a visit from out of town family and a long time off the bike. Today is day #8 without ride. My fitness has likely taken a hit but the time away felt good with no self-imposed pressure to ride and a week away from work. I just hung out, relaxed, put on a few pounds and cleared my mind. When Friday or Saturday rolled around I began looking forward to the next ride and, right now, I actually want to race Tuesday.

Being so busy last week with other things, I haven't been able research who I can and cannot pick for the Tour. One rider I know that will be in my picks is Andy Schleck, so I only need to pick two more.

Did you see chunk of skin that is missing from the left knee on one of Pez's Daily Distraction? This had to hurt when it happened.

Speaking of seeing things... Is this Team Columbia's (nee HighRoad) new jersey?

Paul Kimmage had an interesting interview with Jonathan Vaughters. Kimmage raced professionally for 4 yrs but probably gained more notoriety for his book 'Rough Ride' which detailed his life as a pro and included stories of drug use in the peloton. He now writes for the London Times.

Vaughters does not come out and implicate US Postal as being guilty of doping but Vaughters rode for very few teams and he does not speak badly of his times racing in the US or with the Santa Clara or Credit Agricole teams. As he says "read between the lines".

Below, I have exerpted key points of the story.

Jonathan Vaughters is telling me a story about the pivotal moment of his life as a professional cyclist. It happened on a sunny Tuesday morning in the city of Pau, as he prepared for the start of the 14th stage of the 2001 Tour de France. Spirits were high in the peloton that morning; the last of the high mountain peaks had been crossed two days before and there were just six stages to race before the chequered flag in Paris.

Vaughters had never made it to Paris. In 1999, his Tour debut, he had been brought down in a spectacular pile-up on the second stage. A year later, he crashed out again, overshooting a corner at speed on a descent in the Pyrenees. His third appearance in the race had been the best to date. He had experienced the thrill of winning (his team, Credit Agricole, had the team-time trial), survived the Alps and Pyrenees, and was nailed-on to make his first Tour finish.

And then, incredibly, the curse had struck again.

The previous afternoon, while out on a leisurely ride with his teammates during the rest day in Pau, a wasp had become entrapped in his sunglasses and stung him in the eye. Vaughters was allergic to wasp stings and by the time he had returned to the team hotel, his eye was the size of a golf ball. The pain was only beginning.

“The only thing that’s going to reduce that swelling is a cortisone injection which, as you know, is proscribed,” the team doctor announced. “Take it and you’ll test positive.”

Vaughters was distraught. “But that’s ridiculous . . . I can’t see! I can’t ride my bike! How will I finish the race?”

“I’m sorry Jonathan,” the doctor replied. “I can give you the injection but you will have to abandon the race. There are no exemptions for allergies. We have to do this by the book.”

“I understand,” Vaughters conceded, “but I’m not going to abandon. We’ll see how it is in the morning.”

Sleep did not come easily that night to the 29-year-old American. Here he was, trying to compete clean against rocket machines, juiced on (undetectable) EPO, growth hormone and testosterone and he was the guy at risk of being exposed as a cheat! The irony was sickening.

The morning brought no respite. He ate breakfast with his teammates, changed into his racing kit and stepped off the team coach in Pau looking like the Elephant Man. His Tour was effectively over but as a gesture to highlight the absurdity of the doping laws he had decided to sign-on as normal, line-up for the start, and climb off his bike as soon as the flag dropped.

As he made his way to the start line, aching with disappointment, he crossed the path of a chap he describes as “a famous rider”. Most of the other racers had greeted him with sympathy that morning but this particular rider didn’t do sympathy. No, his speciality was contempt.

“Poor Jonathan and his stupid little team,” he spat. “What the f*** are you like? If you were on my team this would have been taken care of, but now you are not going to finish the Tour de France because of a wasp sting.”

Vaughters was gutted.

“I thought, ‘F***! Here I am, on this team that is really trying to stick by the books and this guy is making fun of us for playing by the rules’,” he says. “My heart just left me after that. It just made me sad, just irrevocably sad. I raced [the following year] in 2002 but that was the moment that effectively ended my career. Phew! [sighs] I was done. I didn’t want to race any more. It just didn’t seem to matter to me after that.”
....

IT IS often said that before you judge a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes. I have walked that mile with Jonathan Vaughters; I have spent four days in his shoes but don’t ask me to judge him. And I definitely can’t explain him. We have returned to the pivotal moment of his career — the exchange with the famous rider in 2001 — and I’ve been wrestling with the word he used to describe how he felt.

“You used the word ‘sad’,” I observe.

“Yeah,” he replies.

“Not anger?”

“No.”

“There was no element of anger at all?”

“I’m not saying there was no element of anger but it was definitely more sad . . . yeah, I will stick to that.”

“No resentment?” I press.

He sighs.

“ . . . At the injustice of it all?”

“There was some, of course,” he replies, dispassionately. “The wasp sting really brought to a head a lot of the conflict I had going on inside of me. It really brought home the fact that, ‘Okay, maybe there just isn’t justice’.”

He crosses his legs and awaits the next question. The chime of a carriage clock fills the void. His calm is unnerving. What does it take, I wonder, to get Jonathan Vaughters mad?

I’m trying my best. The interview has entered its fifth hour and the discussion has turned to his experiences of doping.

“Did you have any first-hand experience of doping in the States?” I ask.

“No, not in the US,” he replies.

“Not at all?”

“No, racing in the States is much less . . . I mean half the guys you are racing against have full-time jobs. You know? It is much, much less demanding.”

“What about when you joined the US Postal Service team in 1998?”

“In ’98? Why do you need to know that?” he laughs.

“I need to know when you witnessed it first-hand,” I explain. “I’m asking whether it was in ’98 that you witnessed it first-hand.”

“I know,” he laughs. “And I am asking you: Why do you need to know that?”

“I would have thought it was a logical extension of what we have been talking about.”

“Well, no,” he disagrees. “Essentially, you are leading me down a path where I end up having to answer questions that I can’t back out of.”

“I’m not leading you down any path,” I counter. “I’m trying to explain how you founded Team Clean. I am asking you about your experiences of doping in cycling.”

“No, that’s totally understandable,” he concedes.

“I’m not asking you anything I didn’t ask Greg LeMond.”

“No, of course, and I wouldn’t expect that. I guess I would just say that my time at US Postal Service was . . . I kind of almost have to leave that as a ‘No comment’. And you can take that however you would like.”

“Okay, fine. You are painting me a picture and I’m reading between the lines.”

“And you’re welcome to read between the lines,” he says. “I’m completely okay with that.”

“My perception is that you doped.”

“You’re an intelligent person,” he smiles. “So your perception is . . . [laughs]”

“I want a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.”

“I know you want a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.”

“I want to know: Did you dope? I want to know: Why did you dope? And I want to know how you felt about doping?”

“And what I will tell you is that people are free to make the judgments they want out of my cycling career,” he insists.

“Jonathan, I don’t understand what your problem is here,” I reply, exasperated. “It’s a valid question. I’m not going to walk away from it.”

“I’m not asking you to walk away from it,” he says. “I can see that you are trying to establish a background and that’s fine but what I’m saying is that I’m just not going to talk about it and that’s it. You can take that however you want.”
......

By 1997, even Nunes had lost faith; Santa Clara went to the wall; Vaughters secured a contract with a small team in the US and rediscovered the joy of winning. “The racing domestically was just a thousand times easier. I won everything that year . . . the national time trial championship . . . the national racing calendar points series . . . I was the star rider of the domestic racing scene.”

A year later, he spent the first of two seasons with the US Postal team. He raced solidly in the first season and brilliantly in the second, delivering a stand-out performance to win the Mont Ventoux of the Dauphine race, a month before the Tour de France.

“That was a massive performance,” I suggest.

“Yes,” he replies.

“Did it feel massive? Did you feel happy?”

“I felt okay. I wasn’t ecstatic.”

“That doesn’t make sense?”

“Well, for sure, it was the best form of my life as a bike rider, but I wasn’t . . . I was just sort of . . . I will leave it at this; I wasn’t overly pleased with that victory. It was interesting to me. It answered a lot of questions. But it wasn’t the most ecstatic moment of my life by any means.”

In 2000, he left the US Postal service team for the French team, Credit Agricole. For the first time in six years, Vaughters had found his natural home. He liked the manager, Roger Legeay, and his way of doing business. The 18 months that followed were the happiest of his career . . . until the sting in the tale at Pau.

If you have not seen the article yet, you can find the full story here

It has become a broken record but, except for an hour spin on Thursday, I successfully sat on my bum for all of last week. The less I ride, the more bummed out I get about not riding. The more bummed out I get, the less I want to ride. Thus begins the death spiral of fitness.

Saturday's ride was not exactly a lift to the spirits. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Patrice must have slapped a testosterone patch on his chamois before putting on his shorts. We crossed Hwy 3, turned onto Main St. That quarter mile warm up must have seemed sufficient and Patrice began drilling the pace through town.

Winds were out of the west and that only seemed to encourage the hard riding as we made full use of the tailwind on the ride to Smithton. Patrice may have started the activities but Giuseppe was the main protagonist with long, hard pulls that no one dared to try and come around. Along the way I sucked about a half dozen eggs, which was easy since I was desperately gasping for air.

The strong headwind on the way back to Columbia seemed to settle things down a little, thank goodness. Still, the last hill on the D Rd was one too many and I limped home the last couple miles.

Sunday, I rode out to our Kirkwood ride. I got a good early start because I didn't know how I would feel. What a day! Sunny, not a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the 60's. Not your typical late June morning in St Lou.

Apparently, the great weather made one of the neighborhood walkers blissfully ignorant of her surroundings. She was listening to her Ipod, clad in a yellowish top and long black tights, walking down the very middle of the freakin' street. Listen babe, it was mildly entertaining watching you walk but are you an idiot? Move over before you get killed!!!

The rest of the trip to Meramec seemed like a constant headwind. Since I left early, I arrived well before 8:30 and circled around the parking lot. As I half expected, the claims of 'bad legs' were being made from the moment we gathered. Frankly, I wasn't buying it, because I was the only one with bad legs the day before and I felt okay.

Despite the professed bad sensations, we mustered the willpower to ride further. The decision was to do our 'flat' Jeffco ride. Aside from floodwater lapping at the edges of Marshall Rd, the ride out to Haute Arrete was fairly brisk but nothing special. We goaded Patrice into continuing the ride. He stopped after a mile or so to get something out of his shoe and decided to turn at that point. Frankly, I think he just wanted to be sure he would be back in time for Euro 2008.

Giuseppe and I pushed onward through Ressorts de Maison and Colline de Cedre. The clouds grew thicker and finally dropped a few drops on our return trip. While at the gas station in Ressorts de Maison I was struck by how pretty the surrounding hills were in that spot if you looked past the shopping center and electrical lines and other trappings of civilization.

It turned into a very nice ride. Cramps started to grab my legs toward the end but not in a bad way. The ride was 72 miles that I really needed. My brother's family is coming into town this week so squeezing in a ride may be tough but it will be needed. I am scheduled to ride RAIN on 7/12 and am completely unprepared. Aww heck, it's only 160 miles.