where'd that week go

Shoe-fly pie and apple butter is stretching the definition of luxury in the phrase luxury box. And hey Barnstormers, you didn't throw me out cause I was leaving already !

You tell me.

0:18 - Armstrong attacking with Sastre on his wheel with the Leipheimer group falling behind

1:33 - You can see Sastre already with the leaders

1:51 - Armstrong out of the saddle clearly attempting to get onto that group and finally makes contact

2:10 - Sastre looks over and sees Armstrong and attacks to group to get rid of him.

2:26 - Armstrong tries to stay with the group and cracks

2:43 - Armstrong looks back as if to be waiting for Levi.

UN-real

If you read the reports, they say Lance dropped back and helped pace Levi up the final climb on Monday's stage. That's NOT TRUE.

If you watched the coverage you would have seen the following

The leaders, including Basso, Deluca, and Menchov were about a hundred meters ahead of a disintegrating field. With Sastre on his wheel Lance attacked out of his group, which included Leipheimer. At some point Sastre countered Lance and got across to the Menchov group solo. Lance kept chasing and 15 seconds or so later got onto the group himself. As soon as Lance got on Sastre made another accelereation and Lance GOT DROPPED.

After he got dropped he looked back to see where the next group on the road was. He then eased up, collected himself, and spent the remainder of the stage pacing Levi.

The problem is that Lance has made it known that if you challenge him or question him, he's going to blackball you. That goes for team directors, riders, race organizers and the press. The writers are so afraid of being lumped in with Kimmage and Walsh, that they'll print anything to put Darth Armstrong in a positive light. Leipheimer, playing the role as the abused wife in denial, is happy to go along offering quotes of "thanks" ?!.

Its really sickening.

last night was great honey

you gotta read these reviews

I'd suggest you scroll and start at the bottom..

Three Wolf Moon T-shirt

When i feel sad or lonely I use the shirt as a pillow case, and snuggle up with Timber, Snake Eyes, and Gus. Thats what I named my Wolves. They are like family. buy one now!!!!! its well worth it. Even if it doesn't have lightening bolts on it.

fluffer

wait for it

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1148879129036&ref=mf

John Gorka sounds like

the Barenaked Ladies. But that's a good thing.

Interesting to see Lance "the messiah" Armstong have another amazing reincarnation the day after a rest day. How does he do it ?!

Oh yeah, that's right.

An instant message between Frankie Andreu (FDREU) and Jonathan Vaughters (Cyclevaughters) the morning of July 26, 2005.

Cyclevaughters: frankie - hey - thanks for talking the other day

FDREU: no problem, where are you

Cyclevaughters: back in CO

FDREU: nice, I just got home, isnt' it like 5AM

Cyclevaughters: sometimes i think i'm going to go nuts

Cyclevaughters: yeah

Cyclevaughters: it's 5am

FDREU: I agree, I came home and the air conditioning is broken

Cyclevaughters: ouch

FDREU: did your kid grow twice it's size in the two weeks you were gone

Cyclevaughters: yeah, his feet look bigger for some eason

FDREU: funny

Cyclevaughters: anyhow, i never can quite figure out why i don't just play along with the lance crowd - i mean shit it would make my life easier, eh? it's not like i never played with hotsauce, eh?

FDREU: I know, but in the end i don't think it comes back to bite you

FDREU: I play along, my wife does not, and Lance hates us both

FDREU: it's a no win situation, you know how he is. Once you leave the team or do soemthing wrong you forever banned

Cyclevaughters: i suppose - you know he tried to hire me back in 2001... he was nice to me... i just couldn't deal with that whole world

FDREU: I did not know that

FDREU: look at why everyone leaves, it's way to controlling

Cyclevaughters: once I went to CA and saw that now all the teams got 25 injections every day

Cyclevaughters: hell, CA was ZERO

FDREU: you mean all the riders

Cyclevaughters: Credit Agricole

FDREU: it's crazy

Cyclevaughters: So, I realized lance was full of shit when he'd say everyone was doing it

FDREU: You may read stuff that i say to radio or press, praising the Tour and lance but it's just playing the game

Cyclevaughters: believe me, as carzy as it sounds - Moreau was on nothing. Hct of 39%

FDREU: when in 2000-2001

Cyclevaughters: so, that's when you start thinking... hell, kevin was telling me that after 2000 Ullrich never raced over 42%--- yeah moreau in 2000-2001

Cyclevaughters: anyhow - whtever

FDREU: After 1999, you know many things changed. lance did not

FDREU: I believe that's part of whey kevin left, he was tired of the stuff

Cyclevaughters: yeah, i could explain the whole way lance dupes everyone

FDREU: what abut GH climbing the mountains better than azevedo and the entire group

Cyclevaughters: from how floyd described it, i know exactly the methos

FDREU: explain that, classics to climber

FDREU: when did you talk with floyd

Cyclevaughters: i don't know - i want to trust George

Cyclevaughters: but the thing is on that team, you think it's normal

Cyclevaughters: or at least i did

FDREU: i guess. anything with blodd is not normal

Cyclevaughters: yeah, it's very complex how the avoid all the controls now, but it's not any new drug or anything, just the resources and planning to pull of a well devised plan

Cyclevaughters: it's why they all got dropped on stage 9 - no refill yet - then on the rest day - boom 800ml of packed cells

FDREU: they have it mastered. good point

Cyclevaughters: they draw the blood right after the dauphine

FDREU: how do they sneak it in, or keep it until needed

FDREU: i'm sure it's not with the truck in the frig

Cyclevaughters: motorcycle - refridgerated panniers

Cyclevaughters: on the rest day

Cyclevaughters: floyd has a photo of the thing

FDREU: crazy! it' just keep going to new levels

Cyclevaughters: yeah, it's complicated, but with enough money you can do it

FDREU: they have enough money. Floyd was so pissed at them this entire tour

Cyclevaughters: anyhow - i just feel sorry for floyd and some of the other guys

Cyclevaughters: why would lance keep doing the shit when he clearly has nothing to prove - it's weird

FDREU: I know. me to. they all get ripped into for no reason

FDREU: he's done now, thank god. but they will prove next year for Johan's sake that they are the greatest

Cyclevaughters: and then lance says " this guy and that guys are pussies"

FDREU: they won't stop

FDREU: I agree


I'm sorry. I punched the kid who told me there was no Santa Claus in the face when I was 8, so I understand.


Anyway, here's Gorka

A call out.....

....to my Lancaster homies.

I'm looking to hire a part time employee. Either a high school/college kid or a retired person looking for a couple of bucks.

The work is as easy as pie. Pretty much you just need to lock and unlock a door. Sad as it is, I haven't been able to find anyone competent enough to do that.

If you read this blog, then you should be able to figure out how to get in touch with me.

i am beat up

whatever little virus I caught is kicking the crap out of me. Everything is sore and I haven't been able to train all week. Two day to go and no refund policy. Fantastic.

be honest

Am I too square to pull THIS off ?

lube

I have a triathlon coming up and a friend lent me his wetsuit with the instructions, " its tight, get some Pam cooking spray or Body Glide for your wrists and ankles".

So yesterday when my wife was heading up to CVS to pick up a presecription I went with her. She went back to the pharmacy while I wandered around.

A college aged employee approached me, " Can I help you find something sir ?"

" Yeah, I'm looking for Body Glide"

" I'm not sure I know what that is."

"Well", I explained, " What I need is something slick, but it can't be Vasoline. It has to be non-petroleum based."

" Hmmm, hang on", then he grabbed a young woman who was stocking shelves, " Hey Lisa, this gentleman is looking for some non-petroleum based lubricants."

She stopped what she was doing, turned around, gave him the once over then gave me the once over. It was then that it occurred to me that this was not as it appeared to be. Before I could say anything she said, " Aisle 3", and the guy started walking off.

Aisle 3 of course was filled with your standard Aisle 3 fare....condoms, birth control tests, and a vast array of lubricants. Our CVS man gestured toward the stack and said, " Here you are, anything in particular your looking for ?"

Thats when unsuspecting wife walked up, " OH hey great you found it ! No, no, no.." she started weeding her way through all the flavored lubes, " No, this is no good, this work work " Out of the corner of my eye I could see the college kid perk up as he watched my wife select her lube of choice.

" Ahhh this will be perfect, exactly what you're looking for !", she said.

That's all I could take. " This is NOT what it looks like !" I tried to explain to the kid, " You see I have this wetsuit...." I implored.

" Whatever you say sir", as he smiled a very smug smile and wandered off with a wave.

I diiiiiii-ed

in Penn Station tonight !!!!!!

http://www.myspace.com/thefelicebrothers

marriage

I heard a bit on NPR this morning interviewing Californians regarding gay marriage.

One gay woman was lamenting the fact that its likely that the gay marriage ban was going to be unheld, but that existing marriages would continue to be recognized. Her main concern was the being stuck in the middle like that was going to, " perhaps make thing a little awkward with other people and make her feel like she was a little different."

Do you think she knows she's a lesbian ?

The whole gay marriage thing always reminds me of Tom Sawyer's friends all fighting over the chance to paint his fence.

BTW, the Church didn't even recognize marriage until 1545 and "the state" didn't start recognizing it until 1753. In both cases, the purpose of getting involved with marriage was soley for generating new taxation. As with most things the whole matter is silly.

My weekend went old skool. I drank a lot, stayed out late, exercised a lot, and determined, finally, that there's no way to hold that pace past 40. Yesterday was a nice retreat to domestic bliss, hanging out with the family, doing some yard work, going for a ride and swim, and pampering Mom. Apparently Big Bad Bill really is Sweet William now.

Oh, and the boy got me twice this weekend. One in two-bounce and once in a chipping contest. He's got the jar right now and its getting kinda full.

dammit

The knucklehead who ran into me at Turkey Hill bent my rear wheel.

Dig it

Amazon just sent me an email offering me Marvin Gaye's Number 1 hits for $5.

$5 ?! Its in the bag.

I mean I gotta be at least $7 funkier for owning even if I never listen to it.

Your helpful hint for today involves planting a tree. If the little instructional tag on the limb* reads "DO NOT REMOVE THE BURLAP SACK" and you remove the burlap sack, then you'll no longer have a tree. You'll have a pile of dirt, and a stick.

*Tip #2 - apparently trees come with little instructional tags on the limbs.

YIKES - the most frumpy asexual person in my office just walked in while I was typing this and grooving to my new downloaded version of "Sexual Healing". She might have to go wash herself in holy water.

Thankfully I resisted the urge to address her has " Hey Baaaaby".

Tour of Italy (TM)

I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised of the Giro's decision to allow Lance Capone to decide who is allowed in the race and who isn't.

I mean we're talking about the Tour's idiot cousin, you know the one that's always asking you to invest in his moronic scam at Thanksgiving dinner.

This is the same event in which Franceso Moser was allowed to have a helicopter provide him a tailwind in the time trial so he beat Fignon.

The same race in which Roche was assaulted because he dare challenge an Italian, Visentini, for the win.

Its an event that adds and cancels staged based on the abilities of the highest placed Italian on any given day.

In short, its the cycling equivalent of preseason football.

Given the fact that the Lance Capone will be at the Tour of California next May, at least I can take some comfort in the fact that the event will continue to slip into oblivion.

living proof

I almost skipped my ride because of the rain - but I didn't.

I almost went too hard for no good reason - but I didn't.

And the first things I did when I got home was to dry off my bike and put newspaper in my shoes.

You see, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Lance Armstrong is an evil asshole

"It is a media stunt," Zomegnan told Rai Sport. "Chances were given to Simeoni: he was invited to Tirreno-Adriatico, where he was up to 30 minutes behind and did not finish the race, while at Milano-Sanremo he had seven hours to meet Armstrong and clarify the 2004 incident. This is not the way to live together in a civilised manner."

WTF does that mean ?!?!?!?!??!?!

What it means is Simeoni, a clean rider and the reigning Italian national champion was left out of the Tour of Italy because, according to the race director, HE didn't go to Armstong and "clarify" the 2004 incident.

I'm beside myself.

I wont watch one second of the Giro until the race director quits or dies. I'll spend all the time I would have spent following the race sticking pins in my Lance doll and hoping his piece of shit Trek breaks on a descent and he goes over a cliff and snaps one of his legs off.

The buck stops here

Hype, press releases, speculation, twitter, blah blah blah.....

Any time you want the objective cold hard facts, you have to go to a bookie. They have no emotion and they're rarely wrong.

GIRO ODDS to win to show

Basso, I 2.65 1.30
Leipheimer, L 5.50 2.05
Cunego, D 9.00 2.65
Menchov, D 11.00 3.25
Armstrong, L 11.00 3.25



Tour de Frane odds Win (1-3)
Contador Velasco, A 1.80 1.18
Armstrong, L 4.00 1.70
Schleck, A 10.00 2.85
Evans, C 13.00 3.00
Leipheimer, L 20.00 4.75
Valverde, A 20.00 4.75
Menchov, D 22.00

Maybe wearing the polka dot jersey will make up for Lance Romance having to stand one step over to the left. Maybe not.

my apologies to triathletes

When I first moved to Lancaster I met a guy who invited me over to his house to watch the Tour De France as I didn't yet have cable. When I got there I was appalled that the house was in disarray, his kids were running screaming, and at one point his 18 month old son was sitting on the coach next to me shoving his weiner inside into his body then watching it pop back out and giggling madly. As I ran out of there I swore that when I had kids, it would NEVER be like that. This blog is a testament to how nieve I was.

Similarly, for years I've mocked triathletes for not being particularly good cyclists, or for that matter, runners. Sirs...maddams....I apologize. Now I understand.

My weekend started early as I took Friday off. That night ended at a kids birthday party. Imagine if Chuck E Cheese went on a crystal meth bender and moved into a house made of sugar and fire alarms. That's the place my son had his birthday party. So me and my belly full of sweedish meatballs and birthday cake went home and tried to sleep. That didn't work. Finally I went down and snuck one of my wife's sleeping pills. Ahhh the pleasures of modern medicine.

At 6 am the alarm went off and discovered that nothing comes without a price. Not only was I groggy, but I came to find out that my wife's medicine is engineered to protect people from forgetting if they've already taken their medicine. They do this by filling your mouth with the taste of monkey anus ( or at least what I imagine monkey anus tastes like).

So without coffee or breakfast I grabbed my backpack and headed in to the Turkey Hill Country Classic.

The first event for me was the 5 Km run. For 12 years I have been telling people that it was a reatively flat course. I can't believe in a dozen years nobody crossed the finish line then punched me square in the face. Basically the course goes uphill for 3 miles and then downhill for the last couple of hundred yards.

The plan was to try and break 22:30 by running 7:30 miles as steady as I could.

mile 1 - 6:45. I got caught up in the first mile rush, but didn't get too nutty.

mile 2 - was the hardest mile. I got to the 2 mile mark and someone yelled to me 14:15. Oh ok, 14:15 minus the 6:45 I already ran...and I need to run in 22:30 subtracting the 14:15 and carrying the 2...and sure all I need to do is run the last mile in like 725 minutes. Wait, what ?

mile 3 - I was coming down the only downhill portion of the course and trying to NOT crap in my pants. I looked up with about 200 yards to go and saw 21:xx and got excited...yahoo I'm going to beat my goal. Then I realized that the x x was 5 9 when the number flipped over to 22:00. UH-OH. I looked at the clock...looked at the road....looked at the clock....looked at the road....the math wasn't working out too well. I lowered my head and started sprinting.

The result...22:27...and for anyone with a camera, a neat picture of a man dragging a 15 foot long line of snot across a church parking lot.


Second event of the day was the category 4 bike race.

Now I don't profess to ever being a good cyclist, but at the least I was a capable cyclist. In fact about six years ago I got 4th in the cat 3 race at Turkey Hill. So to have to bypass the 3/4 race and the 40+ race to do the category 4 race is eating a big hunk of humble pie. But I have some set goals for this season and in this case that means doing the races where I think I can cover the distance and be competative. Whatever reservations I had about doing the 4 race, I figured I could make up by just winning the 4 race.

Those ideas when right out the window a half mile in.

I was bad. Real bad. I could cruise in the field without a problem, but I had no acceleration at all. Zero. And the only thing worse than being in the cat 4 race is being in the back of the 4 race. After couple of corners, I though that I could make up for the lack of acceleration by leaving a gap and then not breaking in the corners. Unfortunately every time I left a gap, three guys would zip around me, fill the gap, then realize they were going into a corner and slam on their brakes. ( don't get me wrong I don't blame them. If I want to ride with experienced cyclist, I had my chance). Anyway in about 3 turns I found myself sitting on the back of the field and resigning myself to the fact that I was going to be having a very short day.

On the second lap we turned off the river with me in the very back of the field. I sprinted for what seemed to be a very slow eternity and then started the climb. Up we went with me trailing off the back and trying to make my way past the riders getting dropped. On the descent I caught back on. Up the next climb, the same thing....around dropped riders, then caught back on the descent. Finally, I started to come off on the third little roller and BAM. Someone who got dropped was sprinting with his head down trying to catch up and slammed right into the back of me. The guy yelped, flailed around a bit, then fell on top of me and my back wheel.

Thankfully I didn't go down, but it took whatever life I had left. I mean lets face it, I was getting dropped either way, this guy did me a favor and just got it over with. I looked back and he was rolling across the road. I stopped, did a u-turn and went back to see if he was ok. By the time I got to him he had stood up and had picked up his bike. When I got near him he did a rather magestic piroette and hurled his bike into the farm field. I did another U-turn and left him to battle his own demons.

I rode to the finished to suffer the HORD ( humiliatin of riders dropped). I ate a hot dog and ice cream and tried to be greatful for the fact that my mouth no longer tasted like monkey anus.

So anyway....what I learned today is that despite losing weight and getting "fit", I don't seem to be getting particularly any good at anything. Well at least not running or cycling. I can't run enough or do enough intervals to get under a 7 minute mile. I can't ride enough or do enough racing to even finish a cat 4 race.

And the only thing I can say about the swimming is that I haven't drowned...yet.

So I soaked my sorrows in a few beers and a dozen wings and I'll start all over again tomorrow.