The first snowfall serves as a nasty reminder. Not that winter is here, that I need to get the snow tires on the car, or that the winter coat will take pride of place in the closet for the foreseeable future, but that winter training is now, finally, upon me.
I’ve spent the past three months being pathetically lazy, falling into that trap, or should I say catching that bug known as bone-idleness. Following my final mountain bike race of the year which marked possibly the fittest I had been in some years after a solid couple of months worth of riding, I went out just once in September after moving to our new house. Various things got in the way and the time moved fast as it always does now, but mostly it was just that bone-idle bug.
A few weeks ago I got myself a turbo trainer. Actually it was a Christmas present, one that I demanded be opened before Christmas so I could maximize its use before the spring arrived. So it would do a great disservice to those that got it for me if I continued to sit around doing nothing. And I must say, I’ve made a good go of doing just that in the two weeks since buying it, setting it up and getting the bike ready to go. I like to blame it on being ill for a few days, on spending time getting the Christmas tree up, the outside lights done, but the fact is that a major side effect of the bone-idleness disease is the wish to come home after a long day at work and plonk yourself onto the couch for the remainder of the evening -- or at least for as much as a twenty month old daughter will allow. And, for honesty sake, not even being busy with a child is a complete excuse (though it is on quite a few days, if I’m totally fair to myself), because there’s still time to do something after she has fallen asleep rather than opening a beer, eating some junk food and watching another hockey game on the tele.
The turbo might as well be wrapped up under the tree as things stand.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Thoughts on Truth and Reconciliation
Last week two cyclists -– one a former drug cheat, the other a current day pro believed to be as clean as they come -– were speaking out for and against the idea of a Truth and Reconciliation (T&R) process for the sport of cycling. To think about it immediately you would imagine the drug cheat would be the one against it with the clean cut modern day pro desperate for the cheats that came before him to announce themselves so his generation could move on with their careers. But it isn’t so simple. Lance Armstrong is the retired/banned cheat; Mark Cavendish is the current pro.
To Cavendish it is the egos of the cheats that will ensure they don’t come clean and it’ll only open the door further on cycling’s skeletons, something that he and his fellow professionals will be left to deal with. He no doubt fears that sponsors and TV networks could walk away if more and more scandals are unveiled and further bad press heaped upon the sport. In Armstrong’s view the sport needs a T&R to move forward. He believes that to throw the door open on the said skeletons would be to clear it out once and for all and save the problems coming out in drips and drabs for the next decade, something that would be worse for cycling and its sponsors and TV networks.
I suppose it is safe to say that both have a point and the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, as ever.
To Cavendish it is the egos of the cheats that will ensure they don’t come clean and it’ll only open the door further on cycling’s skeletons, something that he and his fellow professionals will be left to deal with. He no doubt fears that sponsors and TV networks could walk away if more and more scandals are unveiled and further bad press heaped upon the sport. In Armstrong’s view the sport needs a T&R to move forward. He believes that to throw the door open on the said skeletons would be to clear it out once and for all and save the problems coming out in drips and drabs for the next decade, something that would be worse for cycling and its sponsors and TV networks.
I suppose it is safe to say that both have a point and the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, as ever.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Hesjedal also used drugs ... years ago
It’s been over a week now since the Ryder Hesjedal used performance enhancing drugs bombshell dropped on the cycling community and upon the Canadian sports landscape. At the time I remember being surprised, but hardly shocked. Surprised that it could be this good Canadian boy who we know has rode for the Garmin team this past five years, but not shocked because this is a rider who did, after all, ride in ‘the era’.
The revelations that Hesjedal may have used Performance Enhancing Drugs came by way of the latest disgraced former cyclist turned tell-all-athor, Machael Rasmussen, who claimed that he showed Hesjedal how to use EPO. He confirmed that he never saw Hesjedal use the drug and so it left the door open for Hesjedal to use that famous cyclist-caught-in the-headlights tactic and to deny, deny, deny. But full credit to the Canadian. He didn’t try hide from it, he didn’t threaten legal action against Rasmussen, but instead came out later the same day and held his hands up. He admitted that in 2003 he used EPO but has not used it since … certainly not during his run at winning the 2012 Giro d’Italia.
The revelations that Hesjedal may have used Performance Enhancing Drugs came by way of the latest disgraced former cyclist turned tell-all-athor, Machael Rasmussen, who claimed that he showed Hesjedal how to use EPO. He confirmed that he never saw Hesjedal use the drug and so it left the door open for Hesjedal to use that famous cyclist-caught-in the-headlights tactic and to deny, deny, deny. But full credit to the Canadian. He didn’t try hide from it, he didn’t threaten legal action against Rasmussen, but instead came out later the same day and held his hands up. He admitted that in 2003 he used EPO but has not used it since … certainly not during his run at winning the 2012 Giro d’Italia.