Riding Dirty

Let's see . . .

Floyd Landis may know his fate today--or not. I still sincerely hope it turns out differently than it probably will.

Bjarne Riis will not be going to the tour.

Petacchi cannot race in this year's Tour due to doping allegations.

Valverde, somehow, will probably ride the Tour. Huh. Interesting.

Jorge Jaksche essentially dropped the hammer on the entire peloton. And not in a good way.

The UCI, rather than encouraging people to come clean, have managed to make doping look like the better option than honesty.

There's a new book out that alleges that Lance Armstrong killed kittens and snorted their corpses for power. Or whatever the latest allegation is. (Actually, it's the same damn allegation with a new cover. True or not, it's boring now. The kitten thing would at least be interesting.)

The whole Fuentes situation that nearly derailed last year's Tour is still in about the same situation.

Did I miss anything?

What's a boy to do? Why ride. That's what I did this yesterday. It was raining when I woke up and had it had dumped about an inch of rain on us in a short period of time. But after I ate, the sun was out. Why mess with my schedule?

I slapped on my kit, hopped on and was hit by a wall of humidity. The pavement was slick and puddles were everywhere. At one point, showing how deeply I've devolved, I moved to the left to avoid a puddle and announced, to the puddle mind you, that I was on its left.

I rode through two inches of standing, muddy water so that I wouldn't miss the climbing portion of my ride and, conversely, rode back through it to get home. On the way out I rode through it slowly. On the way back? I blew through it. My butt was soaked. On my way back up one of my favorite hills I came across a roadie in the ditch changing a tube.

"Everything okay," I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "But Kenda tubes are shit!" He's not the first guy to tell me that.

The results of my ride? See the photo set below.




It was an awesome ride. The heat and humidity was punishing. The muddy water in my shorts was unpleasant. And I wished I could have kept going all day long.

Will I watch the Tour? Of course. I'm in it for the stories that come about each day. I love the narrative aspect of a bicycle race.

Dopers? Screw 'em. This is riding dirty.