California Dreaming

They announced the route for the Amgen Tour of California recently and, as it was last year, it's interesting but nothing to do back flips over. It's still going to be the crown jewel in the US racing calender because of its beauty and accessibility, but as far as complexity and difficulty? Not so much. Their climbs will mostly be really long hills because the best mountain passes will still be snowbound at the time of the race.

Okay, before you Cali riders yell at me, I know they are tough climbs and that I would be spewing blood out of my lungs and seeing dead relatives on the easiest one. However, they just aren't very sexy. And that's okay because I'm still excited.

According to this Velonews article, Versus (aka OLN, aka Home of Moose Hunting) will carry nightly race coverage. Which pleases me to no end. Last year ESPN2, which was a race sponsor, gave us an hour at 1 a.m. and half the time it was pushed out of its timeslot because of a late hockey game. Yeehaw. You'd think they would have given the race a little more prominence than that, given their financial stake. But I believe Versus will give it worthy coverage. Probably Bob Roll and Paul Sherwin and not that goofball they have doing the Nature Valley Grand Prix with Bobke. Bob's goofy enough, but in a lovable way. And don't get me started Al Trautwig.

I was concerned that cycling was going to get screwed by Versus, and television in general, because of the Floyd Landis affair. It's a black eye on cycling, to say the least and certainly is an issue for advertisers and sponsors. But, USA cycling is certainly growing. So it's a strange situation.

I don't know what this means for the Eupropean race coverage. I would sure hate to have to watch Paris-Roubaix on the computer. Oh, sure, it was hard, very hard, last year to stay off the Internet all day to avoid the results. But when we were watching the race and watched George Hincapie crash we all gasped and screamed. And that damned train! Somehow I doubt I'd have a very big group sitting at my desk watching it on my new Vista ready box.

I became concerned in August when OLN didn't run their scheduled Tour recap because "the results are not decided". Though, honestly, with the results up in the air it would have made one hell of a recap and would have provided a great opportunity to inform the cycling public (all seven of us) of the process Floyd was looking at. But, rather, it was simply ignored.

We won't hear much from Versus until the spring when they announce their schedule. Hopefully they'll include some of the Spring Classics and give me a full Tour coverage. I hope. Then I'll pay for the daily online coverage for the Giro and the Vuelta.

Still, the issue all comes back to Floyd. This situation is causing a public relations problem with cycling. Most people have condemned Floyd because, after all, he failed both tests and, no matter what he says, he's guilty now. And yet, if you were accused of something that you say you did not do, would you sit down and accept the judgment? Of course not. You'd take it to the streets.

Floyd's problem, however, is that he's a terrible television interviewee. It's not his fault, it's the way he speaks. He also has quite a twisted wit, but that never comes across. He's much better in print.

Here's what I sincerely hope, and it may sound evil: Floyd is declared innocent (because I want him to be . . . I'm very much "Say it ain't so" with him; Floyd's my Shoeless Joe), the UCI is completely reorganized because it is finally realized it is being run by a bunch of morons who can't decide which way to go, WADA is shown to be just as disorganized and is revamped with STRICT controls on testing and procedures for labs and the appeal process so that integrity is restored in sport and athletes are given the benefit of the doubt.

Nothing is infallible and if the USADA says that not one single athlete has ever won their appeals process, to me that shows very flawed thinking. Not one athlete? To me that says they've convicted quite a few guilty dopers and ground up a few innocents to preserve their record.