Wannabe Bike Girl

After watching the Tour for five years and being a fan of Sylvain for as many, this is what it’s all about. I’ll have a more coherent post later, after I’ve watched the stage with sound (I was watching it online, thanks to the generosity of my supervisor at work). I will eventually download the stage and probably burn it to a DVD.

For me, this is what makes it all worth while. Not just that he won a stage of the Tour, but because he’s never given up. He’s never let his detractors hold him back. He is, in every way, what I love about the sport. And even though he will never know who I am, that’s just fine. Because this win meant so much to me as a fan.

No one tells you that when your favorite cyclist wins, it’s almost like you’ve won too. He will never know how proud of him I am, but that’s fine. It won’t stop me from being proud and so damn happy. Because I am.

Thank you, Sylvain.

So, okay. We can’t go two days without a doping story. Want to know a secret? I am totally fine with that. No, really, I am. The only way I would be upset is if it was a rider I liked, or someone from Garmin or Columbia. Otherwise, eh, this is cycling. Which sounds kind of flippant, but like I said elsewhere, they are KICKING OUT DOPERS.

Sorry for the capslock there, but this is starting to get on my nerves. People are acting surprised (no, not everyone, but still) that 1) it was Ricco (uh, how is that a surprise?) and 2) he was (probably) taking some sort of EPO (again, it’s worked in the past, why stop now). Now, I grant that it was stupid — really fucking stupid, for him to be doping. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to do it.

I know that there’s a lot of talk going on about how athletes, especially American football (and basketball) ones aren’t very smart. Maybe this is also true of some cyclists. I mean, Nevado supposedly had his drugs in his room and apparently didn’t have a roommate (how is that not suspicious?) — definitely not the sharpest tool in the box. As for Beltran? He was of the old school, the Ullrich/Armstrong/Vino era, so not a surprise. That was probably the most disappointing so far, but definitely not a surprise.

What about Ricco, you ask. Well, a lot of us (re: myself and people over at Podium Cafe and the guy at Cycling Fans Anonymous) have always had our suspicions. And this Tour is no exception. He was never up and down on the stages, just mostly up. He won two stages strongly and while that doesn’t actually prove anything, he never really looked like he was suffering (and that doesn’t prove anything either, but it’s definitely not encouraging). Plus, it’s always nice to see an arrogant asshole (and not arrogant in the good way like Mark Cavendish) put in his plus.

Do I feel bad for him? Not really. If you’re going to dope, you run the risk of getting caught. And, in the end, you get what’s coming to you.

What I would like, though, is for people to stop freaking out. This is not the end of the world. Ricco was never really going to be a tour contender this year and best this get sorted out before he has a chance to get the yellow and then turn out to be doping. But moving on from that, it’s not like this can be a surprise to anyone (unless your head was buried in the sand). People have, apparently even in the peloton, been suspicious of him for awhile now.

So, they caught him, he’s going to pay the consequences and we’re going to move on. Right? Don’t give up on the tour, don’t stop watching and embrace the teams that are fighting against doping. If the fans don’t support those teams, then what’s the point? And, like I said to someone in another blog when she voiced fear that Cavendish wasn’t clean: he’s been testing left right and cent and six millions ways from Sunday. If he’s not clean, then probably the whole damn peloton isn’t clean and there’s no reason for cycling to go.

And, in my opinion, that is highly unlikely to be the case.

My mom actually sent me this link. Even though I’m not that big a fan of Michael Barry, I think that his article is fantastic and paints a good picture of cycling and why fans and cyclists stick around, even through all the doping and other scandals.

Big Tour, Little Tour, Everything in Between

VIENNA — At the start line, children in team caps and jerseys waved promotional flags as they crowded around the steps to our team bus. They were looking for autographs, a team water bottle, a free team cap, a handshake or a snapshot. They knew our names, had our team cards and had watched us on television through the week as we raced through their countryside. We have been in Austria, racing the Tour of Austria, and the Tour de France has seemed very secondary.

Things I am ignoring: this and this. Ignoring for now, not as in forever. What this post is actually about is Sylvain Chavanel.

Over at Podium Cafe this morning, I spent an inordinate amount of commenting time defending Sylvain. Which really got me thinking. Not so much why I like him, but about what it means to support a cyclist or team. I think, perhaps, my idea of being a fan is different from most people’s. I feel that I take things far too seriously (perhaps not as seriously as the athletes themselves, of course, but differently), but at the same time, it’s my duty as a fan to support these teams/riders/what have you, throughout.

I don’t know what I’d do if one of them (Sylvain, Philippe, or Kjell) tested positive for drugs, but I do know that when a rider I like is accused, I get defensive (Jurgen van Goolen, for example). Of course, there’s accusations that are stupid (van Goolen’s) and then ones using a bit more truth. Luckily for me, none of my favorite have tested positive. Perhaps it’s good that Christian Werner left cycling when he did, because he was on the T-Mobile team that has recently come under fire because of all the doping. I think I was lucky.

But doping isn’t the point of this post. The point is that people kept talking about how Sylvain was down 12 or 13 minutes, how he was losing the King of the Mountains jersey and so on. And so I did what I felt I had to do as a fan of Sylvain’s — defend him. I’d just finished reading his most recent diary (on cyclingnews) where he talks about what he’d like to happen at the tour and how he’ll be racing. So, to me, it was kind of irritating and amusing that people would worry so much about Sylvain. I said before, long before I’d read that post of his, that Sylvain’s goal probably wasn’t to win the tour.

Turns out I was right. He’s there to ride hard and to try to win stages and maybe wear the KOM jersey for a couple of days. But he also said he wasn’t going to try to keep it, and that’s exactly what happened. What’s the point of this? Well, it’s good for him because it shows that he knows what his limits are. And it’s good for me as a fan, because I know what my favorite rider is capable of doing. And it allows me the ability to defend him based on facts instead of idle speculation.

None of this, of course, is important in the scheme of things. It matters to me because Sylvain matters to me and because cycling matters to me, nothing more and nothing less. And as a fan, I feel it’s my duty to stick up for the athletes I love.

One last, unrelated note. Matthew Wilson (remember him), won a stage of the Cascade Cycling Classic today. Cyclingnews has a nice little recap of the stage win here. Matt dedicated his stage win to Ben Brooks, who was in a coma after a violent crash on Wednesday.

So, I’ve been thinking about cycling and doping (because, hello) and my mom asked me an interesting question this evening. We were talking about the stage and dopers and then somehow we got to talking about Armstrong. We both agreed that we believe that pre-Tcancer, Armstrong was definitely doping (remember, we have no actual evidence for this). We’ve both read It’s Not About the Bike and in it, my mom thinks (and I tend to agree) that there are certain parts where it seems like Armstrong’s hinting about doping before he got sick. We’re probably reading into things, but there you go.

And then I asked about post-cancer. She firmly believes that he didn’t dope after, I am not so sure. There is too much circumstantial public-eye evidence (former teammates, former doctors, former enemies on the bike, etc) for me to be as certain as she is. But then you look at George Hincapie. To me, he always seemed to be the closest to Armstrong, until the end of his career that is. Now, who knows. But Hincapie is now on Team Columbia, one of the two teams who are doing the most to combat doping. And I am sure they wouldn’t sign Hincapie if he was doping (I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am). Of course, Armstrong could have been and with Hincapie being non the wiser.

I wish, though, that I could share my mother’s certainty and optimism. I don’t, but at the same time, I harbor a little bit of hope. And, since we’ll never know, I’m mostly okay with that. Why was I thinking about all of this, though? Because I was watching the replay of today’s stage (yes, after I’d watched my tape) and saw the newest commercial that I had somehow missed. It basically sums up a lot of why I watch cycling. Anyway, here it is.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when commentators get things wrong. I’m not talking about mistaking one rider for another in the peloton, that’s a common error everyone who watches cycling makes. But getting Voeckler’s age wrong three times in one broadcast is not my idea of good reporting. But we’ve reached a whole new (though I am pretty sure this isn’t the first time this has happened) level.

Yesterday, one of the Saunier Duval-Scott riders crashed. Eventually it was determined that the rider who crashed was a Spanish rider named Ángel Gómez Gómez. And I have twice heard people call him Ángel Gómez Marchante, which hello, not the same!

I don’t know why they do this and I swear cyclingnews made the same mistake earlier, but I can’t find the entry. I think it’s hilarious (though not in a good way) and ridiculous that these ‘professionals’ would make that kind of mistake.

Ángel Gómez Gómez is not José Ángel Gómez Marchante, only part of their names are similar, not even the whole thing. I can see how it would be easy to make the mistake, but ugh. Please, commentators, try a little harder before jumping to conclusions.

ETA: Both Eurosport and Velonews have called Ángel Gómez Gómez by the wrong name:

Eurosport: Angel Gomez Marchante (Saunier Duval) was the only rider hurt in the crash, but general classification contenders Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Riccardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) were dropped into a second bunch.

And.

Velonews: Five kilometers later a pileup disrupted the chase — this time it was Danish national champ Nicki Sorensen (CSC), Angel Gomez Marchante (Saunier Duval-Scott) and a Bouygues Telecom rider hitting the deck, splitting the peloton in two. Marchante later abandoned the race.

Just to prove that I’m not crazy.

The International Herald Tribune has a really good article summarizing events from today’s stage of the tour. There’s a great little piece about Arsenal defender William Gallas (Arsenal being my favorite football/soccer team in Europe) being a cycling fan. Apparently he’s going to ride in Cofidis’ car behind Sylvain during the ITT. I think it’s pretty awesome. But the most interesting bit is something I talked about over on my post about today’s stage over at my TDF Diary.

NO REWARD: French cyclist Sylvain Chavanel felt shortchanged after a huge effort in Sunday’s second stage.

The Cofidis team leader rode out ahead in a small group for most of Sunday’s 164.5-kilometer (102.2-mile) trek from Auray to Saint-Brieuc but was overtaken by the chasing pack near the end.

“We didn’t get our reward,” Chavanel said. “I was in the first breakaway, a strong group, and then I got things going again. I stayed (in front) for the whole day for practically nothing. But that’s cycling.”

Chavanel, who finished the stage in 88th place, hopes for better luck in Tuesday’s time trial.

“I have a whole day ahead of me to recover for the time trial,” Chavanel said. “I am here to make an impression and win a stage on the Tour de France.”

In case anyone wanted to know why I love Sylvain Chavanel so much, the last sentence basically sums it up. Like I said over at Podium Cafe today, he never gives up. And it’s nice to see that not only am I right, but he doesn’t plant to give up just yet (not that I thought he would, but today was pretty frustrating for him and for me as a fan).

This second link I got from cycling fans anonymous. It’s excellent and I highly recommend you read it as soon as possible.

The doper’s redemption

David Millar appeared to have it all, until a poor Tour led him to sign up to the Brotherhood of the Needle and he found himself locked up in a French jail

Every single year that I’ve watched the tour, I’ve complained about the coverage. Usually it’s about mistakes that the commentators make or it’s about the way they talk about one rider more than another. But this time it’s something different. It’s about the coverage itself.

What do I mean? Versus is the only station covering the tour in the United States. This means that alternative stations are basically restricted to what I can find online (and those are limited). Eurosport appears to be the best, plus I’ve always liked their commentators best. But.

Why am I complaining about Versus? Because the spend twice as much time showing commercials as they show the actual race programming. Notice that I didn’t say ‘race’ just the program. Why is this? Because they aren’t showing a lot of racing, at least not in the first couple hours that they’re on air. Instead, they are showing these little irritating features. I suppose that I shouldn’t complain, because the casual cycling fan doesn’t know about the “new” teams … Like Slipstream becoming Garmin Chipotle and High Road becoming Columbia.

But that’s not it. They take time away to show interviews (can’t you just have those on your website) that took place before the stage or … In a studio before the race even started. It takes away time from showing the actual race. It’s annoying and in poor taste.

Please, Versus, shape up. You’re really ruining my ability to watch the race.

Hey, it’s started! Looking for my TDF Diary? You’ll find it over here. It moved because I wanted to customize it more and I wasn’t ready to use wordpress yet. Anyway, enjoy and hopefully I will, too.