The Cycliste Moderne, January 16, 2006

It has been about three weeks since I last published the Cycliste Moderne. A bunch of things have happened since then.

1. First, I was elected into the partnership at Hawley Troxell Ennis & Hawley. That took a lot of stress off both me and Mrs. Cycliste Moderne. Now I have to go perform. Rather than run out and buy the BMW or Mercedes, I am debating whether the next road bike will be carbon fiber or titanium and whether it will be Shimano or Campagnolo. That said, the prospect of having to pay self employment tax next April is enough to cause me to temper my wants and wait and see how much I make next year, so I will stick with my 11 year old aluminum Trek which has been a real workhorse and will keep me riding for a few more years at least.

2. The ProTour teams have started to have their season launch events. As we get farther into the season we will revisit the peleton’s fashion sense. Early report is blue. Milram is blue, Quick.step has even more blue than last year.

3. Dick Pound accused cycling of not being serious about doping again causing more outrage among the peleton. CPA, the organization of professional cyclists, has threatened legal action for Pound’s alleged defamation. With the Winter Olympics just weeks away, you would think that Pound would be more focused on the upcoming dope-a-thon that the nordic events have been during the last several Olympics. Having been in attendance when Johann Muhlegg won the 10km Pursuit during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, I can say that it was not necessarily a surprise that he got caught doping. I mean, he was better than the Norwegians and he had glittery tights. I mean, you have to be on drugs to beat the Norwegians and wear glittery tights.

4. AIGCP, the International Association of Professional Cycling Teams, has let the organizers of the Grand Tours, ASO, RCS and Unipublic know that they did not support the proposed Grand Tour Cup and that they would stay with the ProTour structure. It will be interesting to see who blinks first. The Grand Tours clearly think that professional cycling will not be able to exist without their races, the riders and sponsors think the Grand Tours will not be able to exist without the best riders. This is a train wreck waiting to happen. We will probably have a good idea of where things are headed by the time Milan San Remo rolls around.

5. Laurent Brochard has shortened his trademark mullet. He has gone with a more streamlined, Tom Boonen Euromullet, as opposed to the Billy Ray Cyrus thing that Brochard has had going on for nearly 10 years.

6. Mrs. Cycliste Moderne bought me the Audioslave, Cuba concert DVD for Christmas. Good concert film and it does not change my view of Audioslave’s musical talents. However, I would have thought that at least the former members of Rage Against the Machine would be able to speak some Spanish. I mean, how do you lead the socialist revolution if you cannot speak Spanish?

7. Cyclista.com has just added “Off Road to Athens,” which profiles the men and women mountain bikers who were in the running to represent the US during the Athens Olympics and their racing for inclusion on the Olympic team. A very well done documentary that captures the skill of America’s top off road riders. More importantly, it shows how USA Cycling can make a mess of even the most simple process of selecting athletes and what a hypocrite Filip Meirhaeghe is. The 2003 world champion, and favorite for the gold medal in 2004, Meirhaeghe is shown stating in the film that the reason Americans don’t win in the Mountain Bike World Cup is because they do not work hard enough. Thereafter, Meirhaeghe was busted doping and received a 2 year suspension. Hey Filip, maybe American’s don’t win on the World Cup because they do not cheat!! More importantly, Meirhaeghe’s suspension ends in April and he has already found a top level road cycling team to give him a contract. Maybe Pound is right and the sport does not take doping serious.

8. On a final note, I am in the midst of the first business trip of the year. I got to spend much of Saturday on a small regional jet flying to Tucson, Arizona. You just cannot make these travel stories up. On the flight from Tucson from Phoenix we had a dozen or so Mary Kay Cosmetic Consultants on the way to a conference. The woman who had the seat next to me could not get her bag in the overhead compartment because it was too big. She fought with it and finally opened to remove the offending item. What was it that kept her bag out of the overhead compartment until it was removed? A 64 ounce refillable convenience store mug that she claimed she had bought in Las Vegas for her mother in law.