Chills...

no, not cause i accidentally bumped the stitches (healing nicely, not much problem keeping that area from drying out -vague reference to rich's wounds and remarks on road rash)...

From reading Kimmage's article 25 days to last a lifetime. It carries a date from June 29th, 2003.

Both Booke Strut and Big Jonny are pimpin his articles today. Based on his May 27th, 2007 editorial. I read that and it wasn't nearly as devastating or remarkable as the 25 days one. I may need to look up that book of his. The Cycle of Confession article (most recent one) sadly leaves the Sean Kelly sitting with a big target on his head. Sean Kelly, true man of grit. Green jersey winner supreme. An idol for many. My folks were in Ireland when the tour rolled through his town (i was given a tape recording of the riders racing past and a stack of irish news papers with the coverage). I've spent years listening to his Eurosport radio coverage of the Tours. Sure. If i had stopped to think about it... Kelly, just like everyone else, probably was doped to the gills.

But then you wonder, or i do. Is it possible that Lemond, Indurain, and Armstrong, maybe even Mercx were clean? And the only riders to race clean of their times? Were they truely the Champions that they were? Were they setting the mark that the rest of the riders all tried to reach but only could begin to touch with drugs?

Were they the Tiger Woods of their times? In sport, there are always the lone standouts. The gifted, the driven, genetically perfectly matched to their sport that they loved? Gretsky, Howe, Yzerman... Nearly every sport has a few that are untouchable.

Are there greats in cycling that are like that? Is the lung capacity and heart size the secret to Indurain's success? Is he really genetically and mentally matched perfectly with being a tour champion?

It is possible. I guess that is the romantic hope that we can have, and hold on to.

Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
- Evan Esar

But in hope are we being delusional?

I haven't read the rest of the articles that Big Jonny posted:

directly from drunkcyclist.com
[kimmage 1] timesonline.co.uk
[kimmage 2] timesonline.co.uk
[kimmage 3] timesonline.co.uk
[kimmage 4] timesonline.co.uk
[kimmage 5] timesonline.co.uk
[kimmage 6] timesonline.co.uk

The first and the last have been enough. The last has the brilliant quote from the immortal Bob Roll:

I remember the speed on the fourth stage to Evreux, hanging on by my fingernails with another Tour debutant, the American Bob Roll, as the stage reached it climax. “This race f****** sucks,” he whined. The description was perfect.

Pretty crazy...

Maybe we can look to assume that single winners were the dopers who broke past the real champions, the Woods, the Gretzky. But then, Eddie? Did he obliterate everyone cleanly? Maybe. But that hope is the thinnest veneer of all.

Another quote for today is depressing:

I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in the world is fixed.
- Frank Deford

Is it so? Is the outcome fixed? Is that why Dickless Pound and Co have gone after Landis? Was Landis the guy who was paid off in the fix? Yet he decided he wasn't going to stay down? Did he get up from the scripted bonk at the 4 count and put fear in the eyes of the promoters who expected him to stay on the mat as he was instructed to? Lance at least complained of suffering from his famous bonk for days. He said he only won the tour that year because no one attacked him. That is generally how people physiologically respond to bonking. Most bike racers that might read this have experienced a real bonk. The days after are painful. No where near our potential. Yet Landis comes back and delivers a knockout punch to the peleton? Hard to believe. Esp if the bonk was for real. Are we to believe that the Jack Daniels and the Amstel (non-alcoholic) were the miracle recovery ergogenic aids that let him explode the next day? Or was it some testosterone gel or patch stuck to a cleanly shorn scrotum (as the rumor that was running rampant last year had it). BTW yes, it does make me wince just writing the word scrotum still.

The Omerta certainly seems to be powerful, and Kimmage's comments lend support that Lance is certainly not on the clean side with the regards and connections to the whole simeoni affair. So what do we do. What do the fans do?

Baseball came back from the scandal and the strikes. The fans, it seems, will move on. Will forget. Will forgive. Some won't but the majority will. Do they do it out of what? Plain old love for the sport? Do they do it because they hope from deep within that their favorite is in the class of Tiger Woods or Wayne Gretzky or ...

The bog world certainly is a cacophany of sound resounding about the doping affairs of late. And maybe the walls are crumbling. And maybe everyone should just get wicked stoned and head over to a special IMAX version of Pink Floyd's The Wall.

What do we all know, and what can we do? Does the Slipstream team have the answer? I don't know. Will a clean field of riders produce a boring race? I think it will. Fans don't want to see a blow-out unless they are fans of the winner, and unfortunately you need people to be fans of numerous riders, or they won't watch/follow, and in this marketing age, ya need the demographics to make some cash...

forgive my ramblings if you've made it thus far,
GeWilli