Off and running

Prologue -- June 30: Liège to Liège, 6.1 km (4.0 mi)

Fabian Cancellara doing what he does best and winning a prologue. Photograph: Bettini

Thank goodness for an application such as Twitter, for without it we wouldn't realise that Fabian Cancellara actually has a personality, leaving us to understandable assume that the big Swissman is in fact a highly sophisticated cybernetic robot, sent back through time to destroy prologue courses. I mean, who really did I think I was kidding by seriously predicting anyone other than Cancellara to win today?

BUMPER EDITION TOUR DE FRANCE PREVIEW 2012

Musings from race six at the Kelso mid-week series

I definitely felt better than last week but then again it was a good 10 degrees cooler and without the humidity. I also had the Garmin back on the bike and like the slave to it that I am becoming I was able to regulate my ride better. Halfway around the final lap I was sitting somewhere around 8th overall when I was able to push harder to the finish than I otherwise might have done had I gone off to hard at the start as I am prone to do from time-to-time. By the time I reached the finish I was up to forth, just thirty seconds off the win, and had won the 30-39 class in a sprint by half-a-wheel.

Below is my race details:

A weekend of good riding

We got away up to the lake for the weekend and naturally with the sun shining, the bike came with. Two cracking days -- in particular the Saturday which couldn't have been better for cycling with temperatures in the mid-high 20's Celsius, little breeze and blue skies. The Sunday was overcast but cool enough to allow to a decent speed to be maintained without burning up.

The average speed for both days was good and good for training. On Sunday I had turned into the wind with the average sitting at 20.7mph. Determined to finish with it still over twenty, it turned into a time-trial as I pushed against the breeze while watching it tick down towards zero. A couple of short but sharp little hills right by the finish sucked a lot out of me and I might have dipped below twenty had I not rode the last five hundred yards like I was being perused by the peloton of the Tour de France. It felt good to arrive with it at 20.0 mph.

Saturday's ride:

Sunday's ride:

"It's hot for my Irish skin"

The headline were the words I spoke to one of the lads racing against me on the final lap as I offered him room to move ahead of me and off up the trail. I had cracked; or at least, I didn't have much in my legs and I was overheating and content to just get myself round to the finish. It was in the mid 30's Celsius and with humidity you could factor in another ten degrees at least.

I done all the right things pre-race. I drank lots of water, I took in eLoad, and some Hammer Gel, but that doesn't cool you down and when you go up the climb and into the trees and the breeze is only a warm one, it feels like you are riding in a steam room as the sweat lashes from your face.

I knew what I was in for after my warmup lap but there's nothing I could do about it. I forgot my Garmin so had to go on instinct as to how the heart-rate was running and I don't reckon I did a great job. Or if I did, I didn't factor in the heat. I rode steady enough the first lap but had little to push on with in the second lap as I had the week before until the final downhill when I figured the climbing was done and threw everything at it. I had gradually slipped down the order finishing somewhere in the region of 7th in the sport category after gaining one place back on that final descent. Not bad in a field of just under 90, but when you get the taste of winning -- even in a sport race in a local mid-week series -- you want more of it.

I hope it's a little cooler next week and I could certainly do with putting in a few road miles in between. Not doing anything from one Tuesday to the next was another problem.

Seven potential new tour champs that could possibly include two time winner, Jimmy Casper

 

Meet Jimmy Casper. Potential two time winner of past Tours de France and the first French winner since Bernard Hinault. Photograph: www.ispaphoto.com

With news that Lance Armstrong is set to be tried, convicted and hung by a jury of his critics from USADA for crimes against humanity, I mean, for alleged doping practices throughout his career, it seems that there is a strong chance Mr. Armstrong could lose his seven Tour de France titles earned between 1999 and 2005, though to whom he might lose them to is still up for debate.

There's a chance that they will leave the records empty for those seven years, but knowing how these things work they might well promote the seven second place men up into first which, given their names and their own history of doping, it would prove absolutely ridiculous. On that note, expect it to happen.

Yes, that would make the new champions as follows: Alex Zülle (1999), Jan Ullrich (2000, 2001, 2003), Joseba Beloki (2002), Andréas Klöden (2004) and Ivan Basso (2005). Indeed, that would be Mr. Jan 'four times winner' Ullrich, to you. The same Jan Ullrich who himself has 'admitted it all'. You see where this is going?

To me, if you want the cleanest man to win it then you'll have to go a lot further down the pile than second. Actually there's no way of knowing who was the cleanest in that era -- an era now widely accepted to be littered from top to bottom with performance enhancing drugs -- so, I propose they crown the seven Lanterne Rouge winners as champions ... not because they were clean necessarily, but because they were the worst of those that doped!

So without further ado, the 1999 to 2005 winners of the Tour de France with their teams at the time and their original time gap to Armstrong:

The web is closing in on Lance Armstrong who is charged with doping but for cycling fans, the timing is poor

Armstrong must contemplate what his next move is. Photograph: Mark Gunter | AFP

Just when Lance Armstrong thought it was safe to go outside and play again what with the US feds having dropped their case against him back in February and the Tour de France set to make all the cycling based headlines over the next month or so, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) have served the seven time winner of the Tour de France with formal doping charges spanning a period of 13-years, thus threatening to expose the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the long term, while taking away from the build-up to the Tour de France in the short term.

You all know the background to this already even though it only broke yesterday evening. The allegations against Armstrong are nothing new and he's been trying to swat them off for years now, but finally it looks as though USADA are going to present evidence along with witness testimony that could see the Texan held to account for his shady practices.

The accusations against Armstrong were sent to him in a 15-page letter that was leaked to The Washington Post. According to the newspaper, the letter alleges that Armstrong and five other former cycling team associates, including three doctors and the team manager, Johan Bruyneel, engaged in a doping conspiracy from 1998-2011. Among the witnesses are said to be more than ten cyclists.

-- Owen Slot, The Times, June 13, 2012

The letter itself can be viewed in its entirety, here and alleges the use of almost every performance enhancing drug under the sun by Armstrong. The man himself called the charges "baseless, motivated by spite and advanced through testimony bought and paid for by promises of anonymity and immunity", while maintaining his innocence to doping by stating, as ever, that he has "passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one".