Bike-Y Christmas Edition

Good morning all!

Now I tried, really tried to find some cool christmas-themed bike pictures, but for some reason, most of the images I found of people, bikes, and decorations were very adult-themed, so for the sake of our corporate email accounts I have decided to omit them….

Okay, where were we? Oh yeah, last week, Mr Vinokourov retired. This week, it's another cyclist who finished top 3 at the TDF 3 times! Who is this lucky loser? Joseba Beloki, who no one actually remembers finishing the TDF since all we remember is this…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RtZhG2kWVLY&feature=related Oh yeah, Beloki broke his femur in two places, plus his wrist and his elbow during this crash...

So it's kinda sad that he goes out with that kind of legacy, despite finishing 2nd in 02, and 3rd in 00 and 01. Oh yeah, I guess I should add that he hasn't really raced since 2006 because of his involvement with Operation Puerto. Whoops.
http://velonews.com/news/fea/13823.0.html

Moving on, our favorite (sort of) anti-doper crusader is not going away quietly. Dick Pound said yesterday that he recalls slow-motion film of late American sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner racing 100 metres at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and he says: "She had muscles in places where most people don't have places, and she had a mustache that would have made an RCMP sergeant proud." Sweet quote…he also quotes that baseball players don’t get bigger from eating "mom's oatmeal porridge" . That guy is classic. He'll be missed. He'll sure be a lot of fun at the old folks home, spewing accusations at every athlete on the tv. Here's the rest of his interview (worth reading).
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=189935

Now here is something that surprised me. On ESPN's US homepage yesterday, there was a story about an Italian cyclist banned for drugs. Why is that a big deal? Only because I haven't heard of him! Marco Fertonani got a 2-year suspension. I was surprised because A) normally cycling news outside of Armstrong or Landis doesn’t make the home page and B) the Mitchell report on baseball and cheating just got released. Are the powers that be trying to downplay the baseball story (ie. Cycling does it too?) or are they trying to make a better effort to show the public that cheating is not tolerated?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=cycling&id=3163402

One funny story to end on - for those of us who have our dogs destroy some of our possessions. Let's just say, it's not a replacable item this time.
The baseball from the final out of the 2007 World Series is at Jonathan Paperlbon's home in Hattiesburg, Miss. Well, part of it is. The rest? You should ask the Boss.
If he could talk, he might say it was delicious. But the most he'll say is "woof."
Boss is Papelbon's dog. Boss likes to play with baseballs. And Boss found the baseball that Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek gave the closer after he struck out the Rockies' Seth Smith to clinch Boston's second World Series title in four years, the newspaper reported.
And Papelbon was left with a common excuse for not doing one's homework to explain what happened to a historic baseball artifact.
"My dog ate it," Papelbon told the newspaper. "He plays with baseballs like they are his toys. His name is Boss. He jumped up one day on the counter and snatched it. He likes rawhide. He tore that thing to pieces.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3163105

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

Bike-Y Friday...Very Short Mobile Edition

The pre-XMAS layoff is over (okay, my computer was being upgraded and my vast selection of saved links was inaccessible for the last 7 days. But we're back, and talking about all our fave topics of cycling, including doping and riding (sadly, in that order).
Here's an unreal story. Right after the 06 TDF prologue, it appears the T-mobile team decided to drop by the blood doping lab on the way to the hotel.
http://velonews.com/mobile/html/detail13772.html

How does this happen? It was freakin two years ago! The arrogance of the cheaters is unreal. None of this black-jersey/i-was-in-mexico-no -wait-i-was-in-italy stuff. This is right during the race. Wow.

On a more sombre note, one of my fave riders of all time called it a career. The Kazakh Devil, Alexander Vinokourov, has called it a career.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/article3015552.ece

Now the cynical Trevor would see thru this retirement as a thinly veiled attempt to avoid a more lengthy suspension from the UCI. You see, his one-year ban is from Kazakh Cycling, which would make him eligible to come back (or un-retire)
Regardless, cheater or non-cheater, retired or not, this guy brought it every race, and has attacked the leade group more than anyone in recent memory. Plus, he attacks and stays away. His win on the last stage of the TDF a couple of years ago when he outsmarted the sprinters and their teams with a brilliant getaway to triumph was a classic Vinokourov move.

Anyhow, my flight is leaving, so the rest will be pushed back to next time.

Stay bike-y,