Why isn't there a song about....oh wait..

I have returned from my journey. It was not a physical journey; at least, not one out of my ordinary travels (and trust me, my travels these days are quite ordinary, in the positive sense.) Nor was it a much-fabled, journey into sound.

My travels were of the more trite and personal kind, during which, I ventured to utilize the system-checking software of my own soul. While it sounds a bit like fingering things out, you'll have to trust me that it wasn't. If you're about to embark on your own journey of that sort, I wish you godspeed.

In any case, my soul-searching proved fruitless, as I'm still searching for the part of me that qualifies as soulful. During the last recession, I thought I was making a wise investment, in trading my soul for a new pair of shoes, and well, I'm sure I don't need to tell the rest of that story. I quickly transitioned my search mechanism into information gathering mode, instead.

As such, I learned a few things. I learned that I absorb information through my eyes very well. I can only guess that the frog-like surface of the eyes is one of their best evolutionary features. On the contrary, I discovered that I absorb information through my face rather poorly. If you've ever fallen asleep on a Kindle, and received the pixelated imprint of the John Steinbeck screen saver on your forehead, you know what I'm talking about. (Disclosure: I still haven't read 'Bike Snob'--though I did buy it and you should too--as I consume all my preferred reading material in Kindle-form now. I'm hoping that someday, I'll get an endorsement for this blog from Kindle, in which case I would happily disclose such a relationship. At this time, I am not. Maybe, if I mention Kindle again, Amazon's webcrawler's might find me, though. I'm also hoping that Chronicle offers a mobi-edition soon.)

Luckily, I didn't limit the scope of my info acquisition to that of facial demarcation alone. Which is a good thing given the amount of big things happening in the world of sport in recent weeks. The Tour of California anointed a new winner, and the Giro d'Italia did, indeed, select a winner of the maglia zesty. Also in cycling, the Dauphine de Liberacci (yes, I have no idea what the proper spelling is, so I let spellcheck decide), and the Tour de Suisse (not to be confused with the Tour de Cancellara, taking place in nothing-better-to-do-so-let's-speculate news right now,) have tickled the foothills of the Tour de France, resulting in winners (or will soon) that only matter in the rarefied air of Neptune.

Not to be outdone, the NHL presented the best beards of the year, and oddly enough, the MVP was unable to cultivate much more than fuzzy-seeming lamb chops. Sadly, upon winning, the Chicago Blackhawks promptly shaved.

The NBA is, supposedly, having their 'Finals' right now, but I can't know for sure, as I'm still protesting the NBA, over the whole 'Sonicsgate' Scandal. In still more sporting news, The French Open seems to have occurred in the meantime, and proved that the Spanish have indeed made the French, their metaphorical bitch. Vegas odds on Astana in July went up three points, though odds for news of a doping scandal, remained steady at 1:1.

While we are now in the euphoric, international fever of another World Cup competition, (only during a World Cup, can the US rally excitedly when our boys produce a tie, as though it were an actual win.) As such, you may have missed another major event in the world of sport, the World Sauna Championships in Finland. I am in the process of writing a formal letter of complaint to my local cable provider for failing to icon-message me that this televised event was taking place. Granted, it's not the failure of biblical proportions that was the lack of usage of the Emergency Broadcast Network on 9/11, but it's a close second. The Tour de France is often called the toughest event in all of sport, but at least, you don't have to worry about your skin boiling off in large chunks, while you're still alive to tell about it.

Speaking of human challenges, I want to take a moment for finger-wagging and remind everyone to start making plans for the upcoming, Father's Day holiday, next weekend. I will be posting again on that day, now that I've returned to my assumed regular schedule, but if you wait until next weekend to drop a card or letter in the mail, it's going to arrive late. Okay, so yeah, that's the truth of how many of our mothers first discovered our existences, but that's not an excuse any of us can use next week. Our dads may have made our mothers 'late', but we can thank our dads for, (you'll have to forgive me for this turn of phrase,) making us right on time.

I was considering starting a campaign to make the second Sunday in June, Sperm Day, except the implication to one's parents is just a little too unsettling. Moreover, Minnesota already had one during their state fair, in September last year. But still, thanks to all the parents out there for getting it right. But for you..

Ride safe. I love you all.

Rhymes with Alone

Ahh, Sunday. To many, Sunday is a day of atonement. A day to make up for the sins one has committed. To others, it is a day of 'at-one-ment', or communing with one's self, in a posture of sin. In the world of pro cycling, this was a week of accused sin, and eternal suffering. From the introduction of Italian mountains in the Giro, or yesterday's time trial stage at the Tour of California, or even the scandal to which this sport is now accustomed, it's been a punishing weekend to be a cyclist.

If you're not a pro, and celebrated what most of the nation called, Bike to Work Day, this weekend was one of recovering from Friday's commute-stop-induced sugar high. Rest assured, our collective cycling hedonism has not gone unpunished. Here in Seattle, our punishment arrived in the form of a thunderstorm on the way home. Thunderstorms are, otherwise, uncommon here, so it stands to reason that we, cyclists (as is often assumed to be the case--wrongly or rightly,) must have been to blame.

Today, the Giro riders climbed Monte Zoncolan, with an occasional, twenty-two percent grade. The name of this mountain, alone, sounds like level fifteen of some video game featuring some horrible creature dressed in pink, with green-, white- and red-striped, horns. Or maybe the goal is to free this creature from some kind of captivity. (I'm not good with video games. I imagine the conversation goes something like, "Dude, I made it to the Zoncolan today. Totally kicked my ass, too." "Really? You're full of shit; they would never put that thing in.") I'm not sure which sin these racers are atoning for, but my guess is that it has something to do with shaving.

Anyway, I'm not one to make spiritual judgments on anyone. I'll leave that to those that feel they are qualified to do so, which is to say, I have not met that person yet. Nonetheless, I learned, while hanging out in the comments-section of BikeSnob's blog, that Buddhist monks create sand mandalas for the benefit of everyone else's eternal souls. An altruistic act of creation and destruction, similar to those of other faiths. Apparently, this inspired Team Garmin to simultaneously baptize each other, after winning the Team competition in the Tour of Califiornia. I'm not familiar with the faith they practice, and why this was a sin requiring ablution, but bless them, and their and their newly washed souls.

It is in this extended spirit of atonement, that I will be taking next weekend off from posting. I don't know that I've reached the pudding-like gooey tastiness of this blog to deserve a break yet, but it's probably time to act like I have a soul, and scrub it a little cleaner. Like a small business still learning the disciplines required, I venture forward in my quest.

Ride safe. I love you all.

Hey look! I can post no hands too!

Oh my god. I published mid-week.

Weird.

If you missed it, the Tour of California featured Washington's own, Phil Miller, as the start line ref today. Yea, us! This race ends tomorrow; more to follow.

Are you man enough? ... To ovulate?

The big news in the world of sport is the confession and accusations by Floyd Landis, (or as the Spanish commentators of the 2005 Vuelta a Espana called him--Flllooohoyd Landeese!) The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, and the blogs of the interwebs have been burning hard like cigarettes after an international flight, since.

I'm not going to form an opinion as to whether or not the people Landis has accused used performance enhancing drugs or not. In all frankness, I don't have an opinion on it today, and I'm not about to start. Sure a few years ago I may have had an opinion, but whichever side I had chosen, I've forgotten now, because my opinion just didn't matter then. It doesn't matter now either. The only opinion that I get to have is which sports I choose to tune into, and the good news for sports in many forms, I am still choosing to 'opt-in'.

The reason I say my opinion doesn't matter is that I'm not a race ref, organizer, manager, or financer, so I have no political, nor financial sway, in any judgments I cast. Similarly, I like cyclists, and as long as you're riding your bike, I don't care all that much about what you do on it, as long as you stay out of my way. (Yes, I'm referring to 'while on my bike', just to be clear. In my car, I'm happy to give cyclists space.) Forming an opinion on this only causes heartache for me, on one side or the other, and it wastes time that I could be spending watching other sports, like say, lushly-bearded, Stanley Cup hockey.

But the truth that I have taken notice of, is that performance enhancing drugs do bad things to you. In 1967, cyclist Tommy Simpson died of an amphetamine overdose during the Tour de France. That prompted the IOC to develop an official definition of doping, put together a list of banned drugs, and created a stinking Pandora's Box of testing and guilt that gets opened every three years or so.

We've seen this across the sporting world, though:

According to WebMd (I figured they would know something), McGwire's supplement of choice, androstenedione, "causes whopping increases" in the levels of the male hormone testosterone in the blood. Sounds pretty good, if you're already a dude, and McGwire sort of qualifies. But here's the crazy part:

• Finklestein and colleagues from Harvard... studied the blood taken from healthy men given either 100 mg or 300 mg of androstenedione. At 100 mg, he says, there is no effect on blood levels of testosterone. But, even at the lower dose, androstenedione does affect the levels of estrone and estradiol. Both estrone and estradiol are potent forms of the female sex hormone estrogen, which is normally present only in minute quantities in men.

  "Estradiol is so high it looks like these men are getting ready to ovulate," Finklestein says.

Personally, I like it when I ovulate. It's kinda fun when you're voice changes just a little, and you get...

nah, this isn't about that. Suffice it to say, that I can't imagine these are good things if you're male. This does not even begin to discuss the effects on the genitalia (of either gender), and how steroids can confuse the external sexual attractiveness of the user. And what else is there in life, really?

That's just one example. There's also this bit from that same site:

• blood booster EPO, human growth hormone, and insulin. The full list covers nine pages. All are safe when used, as intended, to treat illness. None are safe when used to improve athletic performance.

One of the reasons why too much insulin is bad, is that it burns up all your blood sugars, and makes you tired. Having done some endurance cycling, I can't see why a cyclist would want to use this. Moving on, human growth hormone, HGH, too much can cause bones of the face, jaw, hands, and feet to grow larger than normal. In other words, HGH causes ugliness.

EPO increases your red cell production. This is great if you're anemic, but if you're already healthy, it just turns you blood into maple syrup. Next time you're at IHOP, if you see someone slice a vein over their shortstack, don't just assume that it's a depressed cry for help, you may have encountered a doping athlete. (Either way, you should probably call the cops.) But Nine pages of drugs? Really? My brain hurts already. That's another negative effect for Performance Drugs.

So then, the WebMd list serves up a link for Why People Cheat. Okay, so I had pasted in a section about why college students 'borrow' essays from the web, but it felt a little weird, so you'll have to go to the actual link to learn more about copying and pasting material. What I understand from it, is that people cheat because they feel, somehow, inadequate. If you're not good enough, perhaps you should consider another field. (Yeah, I have a mirror. I am greatly entertained by this.)

So, if you want to prove to other people that you find yourself to be inadequate, then you should probably try a performance enhancing drug. Rest assured that after you've done so, you will in fact, be less adequate.

Which brings me to the 'nut' of the problem. Many performance enhancing drugs create negative impacts on the scrotal contents. Why create further abuse of these lowly creatures? The testicle (and it's many nicknames: nut, nutters, nards, sack, junk, gibblets, gonads, bollocks, teabags, family jewels, cojones, ...etc,) are the least appreciated of the sex organs. They are the first target, that any self-defense class teaches. They're completely unprotected and exposed. They're a step below hamsters in the evolutionary scale. They're not even very cute as far as small, furry creatures go.

But, as everyone who's heard the scientific version of the birds and bees legend knows, they also play a major role in this species' baby making process. And babies are lovable, even if they also are not very cute. Family Jewels may not get a lot of respect in our society, but the same is true of Playdoh. It turns out both feel good in your hand.

The one comment I haven't heard yet in all the flames across the web today is one that I will say here.

Please! Won't somebody think about the children?!!

Beard Season 2010

The Stanley Cup Western Conference Finals are in the first intermission of Game 2. I realize you're probably just checking your email while you're waiting for the game to come back on, but be careful not to miss any of the action.

Here's a treat, for the next intermission. Be sure to share your playoff beard at NHL Digest's Facebook page, while you're at it.

Beards are like orgasms. If you have the ability, you should enjoy it.

Oh yeah, and Way to go, Tyler!!!

I Raced in the Rain, and All I Got Was This Lousy Shirt

One thing about the American races: The podiums don't offer cool, European sounding jersey names. The Giro has the maglia family; the Tour de France features the maillots, (not to be confused with the Mayo's), and the Vuelta a Espana treasures 'el jersey oro'. Though, what if the races went the other direction. What if, instead of jerseys, we call it like it is. In the major races, the top prizes should be called just 'shirts'. That would make this sport much more accessible to the media-consuming public.

I can imagine the marketing pitch to the various professional teams: "And if you donate half your body weight, three of your team members, four ounces of skin, gallons of testable bodily fluids, and your dignity, you get a shirt!" Oh yeah. That's marketing genius right there.

Much of the coverage in the Tour of California has been 'offline' today. The airplanes sending the race feed are unable to take flight in the heavy rains. And the TOC footage is beamed back via airplane, it seems. The Giro coverage, on the other hand, is lassoed to helicopters.

What I think happens in bike racing is some kind of technical hi-jinx involving motorcycles, and aircraft, such that, the motorcycles following the racers have a guy standing up on the back of the bike, filming the non-motorized bikers, and then by some antenna, they beam up the feed to the aircraft. I'm under the impression that the 'beam' technology is akin to the same sensor and infrared that's used in most TV remotes, and has about the same abilities. This is why the race feed is greatly affected by weather, forestry, cell phones, guitars, cats, dogs, annoying people, and tin foil. In truth, this technology is more effective than many garage door openers, but part of me hopes that the moto-camera guys start investing in iPhones, or something.

Over a half hour into the coverage now, and there's been zero footage of the actual race course, other than some confused, dampened fans and some organizers puttering around a puddly finish line. My heart goes out to Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen; they are having to ad-lib like crazy. It's clear that this mishap has occurred way too early in the week for Versus to have filmed enough of the usually insipid "human interest" stories to fill the space.

I confess, I'm hoping someone will do a piece about how Mark Cavendish combs his back and butt hair into the the coiff he fits under his helmet. Okay, yeah, I don't actually know if he has that ability, but I'm hoping somebody in the peloton does, and that it gets reported. It's my understanding that racers don't, quite, shave everything. And some of what they choose to shave, and what they don't, just confuses me. Please Versus, or Universal Sports, Body hair is an, as yet, (vast?) untapped resource in cycling's .. uhh... landscape.

Oh wait. The race is on! .....Okay, that thirty seconds went quickly. Way to go Brett Lancaster! Giro coverage starts (in my world) in fifteen minutes. Thank goodness for the tape delay.

Universal wasted very little time in introducing the race coverage today. No sooner, had I turned it on, than the race was already 40 miles in. Apparently, it's raining everywhere in the world that isn't Seattle today. We were supposed to see a bunch of rain, but it decided to travel the world like lost luggage. The puddles in Italy are outlandish. Kudos to Astana, for their appropriation of carbon fiber, 'swim' technology.

The Tour of California had an ace in the hole for today's coverage. It's common during a multi-day race for the TV coverage to skimp on some of the race notables that are not part of the actual General Classification. I'm not sure that was the case yesterday, or if I blacked out after the race ended. Whatever the case may be, I seemed to have missed seeing the TOC King of the Mountains winner from yesterday, Paul Mach. Oh yes. He's a Californian, and on one of the American teams, Bissell. Not only that, he's a fellow blogger!

Not satisfied with the, "I was abducted by aliens part way through the race," that many riders experience during slower than expected race times, Mach takes it to the next level. He writes:

• "When did the break get all that time?" and "Where did I lose those 5 seconds?" are a couple questions I ask a lot. Racedata.paulmach.com is a web application I developed to find the answers.

Mr. Mach, you are amazing. Someone who can balance the beauty of numbers with the vicissitudes of racing, while, not making my skull rupture from the expression of data, is a true American hero, in my book. I'm now a fan.

Ride safe. I love you all.

It's Back! Mud is Just Part of Life

(photo edited, so as not to be same as another, better-tasting blog site.)

So, if you noticed any major events last week, you may have noticed that this blog, suddenly went into convulsions, and passed out for a bit. Okay, so it wasn't a major event when you compare it to the continuing efforts in the Middle East, the US Economy, or the Miss USA Pageant, but it was a moderate inconvenience in my world, and that's close enough.

Today, the Tour of California competed against the Giro d'Italia in a television Time Trial of coverage. I same time trial, because the two media outlets televising pro cycling races these days, Versus and Universal Sports, didn't 'roll off' at the same time, the way a standard race does, and they each had to push they're skills to the limits of what they could do for cycling coverage.

Initially, Versus (showing the Tour of California), stumbled right out of the starting gate, when they had two different Phil Liggett audio files (not to be confused with the Phil Liggett audiophile,) playing at the same time, creating a fugue of lilting, British fury. They quickly recovered though, with a return of the 'Epic Cycle' graphics.

Not to be outdone, Universal Sports pulled out all the stops by extending their daily two-hour coverage by a full, extra half-hour with the uncategorized mountain-top finish at the top of Monte Termination, (or something like that, but in Italian.) It turns out that the Giro organizers decided to not categorize any of the mountaintop finishes, to keep them in a shroud of mystery, like when large-busted women wear puffy sweatshirts. (Yes, you can tell that there might be some breasts under it, but is it a nice set of womanliness, or some mutant form of chicken breast? In a sweatshirt, it looks pretty much the same.) And just like hiding in a big sweatshirt, one can guess that the Giro organizers are trying to cover something up. In the case of today's race, the finishing climb edged over 12% grade at one point, putting into what the Tour de France would describe as Hors Categorie, or in English, uncategorized.

Back at the Tour of California, the race profile exposed a largely downhill course. Snooze. The fact that cycling celebrities are choosing to race TOC, rather than the Giro made it a little more interesting. Barring a catastrophic mechanical failure or massive crash, chances of a Mark Cavendish win were pretty good. He did. There was a crash mere feet from the finish line involving Tom Boonen, where he displayed that American roads tear up modern cycling clothing much faster than that of the French. He's tested the crashability of roads all over Europe, so it was easy to predict that he would want to crash-test Cali's, as well, but it seemed he got more than he bargained for.

So, Universal Sports brought the fight to the wheelhouse, and declared the term 'epic' is overused in descriptions of cycling. Ooooh. A direct hit! Rest assured, as the race climbed into final mountain's fog bank, the word 'epic' slipped out like a nipple from a bathing suit. And who doesn't like that.

It was also revealed that, during yesterday's Giro through the Strata Biankay--as Steve Schlanger called it (don't ask me if it's right, nor how to spell it)--or the dirt sections of the race course, Cadel Evans changed his bike from a typical road race bike to the roadie equivalent of a cyclocross bike. Okay, sure so it was kind of a messed up, almost dickish, move of the race organizers to suddenly divert a bunch of pavement-loving road cyclists onto the terra firma, but what's the point of allowing the richer teams to trade equipment before hitting this section? It's sort of like if you're in school taking a test, and halfway through the test, when you get to the essay portion, the guy next to you hands his pen over to James Joyce to finish. Yes, racers are allowed to change equipment during the race due to mechanical failure, and I confess, I don't know the rules on changing equipment for no good reason at all, but this seems like a douchey move, unworthy of the rainbow stripes.

Watching the race slog through the mud, made me pause. It was slogging through the blogtacular mud that made this blog go into the aforementioned convulsions. I'm guessing that it contained a toxic parasite of some kind. Nonetheless, it's back now. Whatever.

But, back to the 'muddy-mudskipper' Giro: this seems fishy to me. It's sort of like letting your bike take a performance enhancing drug. If one guy is allowed to do it, everyone should be allowed to. Heck. There should be a triathlon-like changing station where everyone swaps to a different ride, and the race should be renamed, The Giro d'Italia d'Douche, and the stuffed, plush, soft-drink looking thing they had out at the podium, should be changed to a, ...well...

On a lighter note, the Seattle media reported on a guy that saved a bald eagle on the Columbia River, recently. Say what you want about the way that patriotism has been thrown around in the past decade as some kind of political litmus test of some kind, and the bald eagle seems to symbolize that, but it's not uncommon to see them while on a bike, during the spring and summer months. Sure, it's possible see them in the car, but it's more likely to be, "Hey look! that's a really big bird!". On a bike, when the eagle is searching the surface of Lake Washington for tasty vittles, while you're riding past on Lake Washington Blvd, nearby, it gives a much better perspective on how huge, amazing, and beautiful our national symbol truly is. Here's the rescued eagle, post-release:

(photo courtesy KOMO4-News)

Speaking of lycra-clad sports and weather, the sun and 70-degree weather has reached the typically gray and sedated Seattle weather-schema, meaning summer is essentially here. This means donning that other lycra, sporting gear, the swimsuit, and getting a little wet. If you're interested in a swimming adventure opportunity, schedule a trip to NYC and visit the waterways around Manhattan. I've heard that you can even dip yourself into the wetness that is (as one of the locals calls it,) the Big Skanky. You don't even have to get a hepatitis shot first!

But, no need to start swimming just yet. We are still in Bike Month, and are beginning, now, Bike Week.

Ride Safe. I love you all.