More Doping

Okay, I’m a few days off the back on this…

A well-known and clearly well-liked US rider got busted for buying vitamin Epo and IGF-1 and went on to blame former teammates, who he says borrowed his laptop and credit card to make the purchases. To most people this would sound ridonkulous… who lets someone borrow their credit card? 

I am going to go out on a limb and say… I believe the guy. If you study the team roster from the team he rode for in 2007, there’s a few guys I would definitely question more than the accused:

2007 Team Successful Living Presented by Parkpre USA

New for 2007
Alessandro Bazzana (ITA – Zalf Desirè Fior)
Chuck Coyle (USA – Vitamin Cottage)
Dusan Ganic (SER – GS93 Promosport)
Ricardo Escuela (ARG – C.T. Ormesani Panni)
Christian Valenzuela (MEX – Monex)

Returning Riders:
Curtis Gunn (USA)
Alexi Martinez (USA)
Daniel Ramsey (USA)
Ryan Yee (USA)

For background, I rode Redlands back in 2004 with the accused rider and have since maintained a friendly relationship with him, but I don’t think I am considering him innocent because “he’s too nice a guy to be guilty” or whatever.  Honestly, he just never put in a performance that was remotely questionable to me. As someone who never really “made it” (for whatever that is worth) as a pro cyclist and kept racing, I probably felt some sort of connection with him and perhaps that is clouding my judgement.

And, of course, the ban has to stand unless someone comes forward and says they used his computer and credit card, lest everyone on the “Papp list” use the same excuse. Should his story be true, whoever this teammate is is probably still racing. Again, this is a big “if”, but were that to be the case, I can’t imagine the guilt I would feel in their shoes, knowing someone else’s reputation was destroyed and they were banned from the sport for something I did.

Anyway, go ahead and tell me how naive I am being…

Sedona

We made it. Block headwind the whole time and the car was acting up, but we made it! It’s raining today, but I guess we got a dumping of snow at home with more on the way, so I’ll take a day of driz-nizzle, I guess. Especially as the forecast for Wed says a high of 19!!! It is rare in January that we would not crack 20, so yeah, glad I’m not there.

Gotta take the car in tomorrow. I’m hoping it’s just a filter or something as we managed 500 miles or whatever. There was no sign of a problem on Friday, but Saturday every time the engine was asked to work hard, it gave a little sputter. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to make us worry the whole drive. At least we got through before the snow!

Team

I wrote this a couple years ago:

New Utah based Dev’t team looking for riders. 

– Max. 8 rider Cat 1-2 Team

-Utah based (border towns considered)

-Age, ability, and attitude will be determing factors

-Willing to work with and for team goals

-Willing to race full season with some travel

-Willing to attend and work sponsorship events

The entire purpose of this team is to get young riders onto bigger programs.  If you are interested, please send me a racing resume (1 page, please!) and cover letter with 2009 and long term goals to ryan b at reynoldscyling dot com.

Since that time, our little program has been fairly sucessful (see team page) on a shoestring, but we find ourselves in the same position rider-wise. We need some new blood in our quest for world domination. Hit me up at turbo_ryan@hotmail.com. No details just yet, but our little team is in a good position heading into 2011.

Rear Ended

Yeah, I got “rammed from behind” on the freeway tonight. The truck in front of me slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. I had enough room to slow down without skidding, but the lady behind me couldn’t quite get stopped in time and gave me a little nudge. I am fine.  The car is mostly fine, will probably need a new bumper. You probably wouldn’t even notice it. 

And to think, 9 times out 10 I’d have driven the jeeper and gotten away without a scratch.

For the record, this is my 2nd crash since starting this position five years ago. You remember Teal Jetta, right? Previously, I had never crashed (don’t call it an “accident”). You could blame getting old, but I think the commute is just dangerous. 

Before anyone says it, yeah, I just bought a house that is at least as far as my previous one from my office. What are you going to do? We found a house we love in the perfect area for us… except for the commute!  I may not be at this job forever (not that I’m leaving, either), but we could be in this house forever. The kids can walk to school. And they’ll be able to for middle school. And high school. And the access to the Provo Canyon (read Alpine Loop) is unreal.  And the house is as close to perfect as we were going to afford, anywhere.  Maybe I am re-convincing myself a bit here…

In any case, happy to be unharmed!

Back in among the wheels

A few weeks back, I did a post about Alexi Grewal’s attempt at a comeback. At 50. He has a blog, dig it:

http://www.alexigrewal.com/index.php/blog

Good luck, Mr. Grewal and Godspeed to all my two wheeled brethren.

Nobody comments anymore

Road Trip Season

Big day on the road yesterday, with my first appointment up in Logan. This is basically the I-da-ho border for my out-of-state (or out of touch) readers. I gotta say I am enjoying the rep game.  I am able to meet a lot of cool folks and windshield time is not an issue for me. 

Anyway, after a long day out, I decided the car could use some love before we get into the meat of road trip season. The tires on the wagon were looking pretty bad, so I decided to get ‘er rebooted and a blood transfusion (oil change) as well.

My California girl has a tough time with winter, and me, I just love road tripping, so we tend to fly south for in the winter with considerable regularity, beginning week after next with our annual trip to visit my mom and her husband for Thanksgiving. My sister makes the pilgrimage, along with her husband, and two kids from Boston, so it’s a highlight of my year. 

Having a huge network of red dirt trails less than a mile from their door doesn’t hurt either. I haven’t ridden my cross bike yet this year and that’s typically what I take. I have to hold myself back and realize it’s a family trip and not a training adventure though, so I’ll keep rides pretty short as always.

*Yes, this is a photo from Sedona. I was too lazy to take off my pie plate.

Anyway, we’ll have a few weeks back on the frozen tundra* and after Christmas, we’ll hit out for a week at Kelly’s folks place in Long Beach. 

*For the record, things are rarely that bad in the valley here winter-wise. I find that you can usually ride outside pretty much all winter- minus a few really bad days.

For the Record…

Yesterday was my 3rd post with the name “Separated at Birth”.

The first was me and Napoleon Dynamite. Tom Petty was a better doppleganger.

And my personal favorite, was Laurent Brochard and Mr. Rollerverse, at least partially because there was only one comment and it was from God.

Oh yeah, and if you are wondering why I brought up a show that’s been off the air for years (Alias)… we don’t get regular tv at the new house, so we’ve been watching the first season. Good stuff.

Separated at Birth?

Sark from Alias:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom “Tommeke” Boonen

Hardcore Fridays

No, this is not about some crazy workout that I perform on Fridays… Rather the opposite. After 5 years doing inside sales, I now get to “work the streets” one day/week- ie- outside sales on Fridays, travelling around visiting dealers and what-not. I am rather enjoying it.  The upside to mad windshield time is that I get to pump mad jams at a generally unacceptable volume. The astute reader will recall that back in the day I was enthralled by the hardcore music scene:

Exhibit A:

In any case, as the song goes “I am older now, but I feel the same”. The same muzak still gets me going, but it’s not always something that I can rock out to, as I drive the Jeep most days and it only has AM/FM (yeah, that’s right, baby) . Kelly is fairly accepting of more melodic bands like Shelter and Avail when we are road tripping, but the point of this post is that I’m noticing that Fridays have kind of become my rock out day.

So, here are the highlights from yesterday:

Avail -“Dixie”. Still one of my all-time favorite albums. Totally takes me back to my late teens, when we’d go see them play all the time. RVA’s finest.

Despair- “As We Bleed”. If someone asked me what hardcore is, I might put this on. And then, they’d probably not understand why I like this stuff. That is the way it plays out in my head.

Snapcase- “Steps”.  It’s hard to imagine them without huge pants on, but this ep stomps all over you and the makes you take pause to consider the repercussions of being stomped and how everyone else is stomped on worse than you.

Anyway, I know there’s a few readers out there who knew me back when, and I figured they’d find it funny that I am still rocking out to the same stuff I did 12 years ago.