The Season Begins

President's Day weekend is typically my "unofficial" beginning to the cycling season. The last couple of years we have spent it at the Seattle Bike Expo. In prior years I have used it for the first really big ride of the year. The European season really starts to ramp up mid-February. The last couple of weeks have been a real grind at work. I have had numerous public hearings, appellate briefs, mediation events, and other projects which have consumed most of my time. I had a significant brief due on Friday and I did not get it done early enough to get a ride in Friday. Anyway, I have not worked at all this weekend, although I will work on Monday to get a jump on things. Here are assorted news, thoughts and stuff for your President's Day weekend.

The Tour of California, Part 1

Sunday was the start of the Tour of California with the Prologue in San Francisco. Levi Leipheimer won the uphill prologue for the second year in a row. This year he did it for Discovery Channel. The field for this year's Tour of California is a significant upgrade over last year's event with additional ProTour teams from Europe participating. Even better, the television coverage appears to be much improved over last year's middle of the night, ESPN8, broadcasts. Vs., the home of the Tour de France, is broadcasting this year's race and after one day, the prodution quality is greatly improved. We will see how it goes over the mountains, where last year's coverage kind of fell apart. Here is Cyclingnews.com's home for the Tour of California.

The Tour of California, Part 2

One of the greatest innovations at last year's Tour of California was the Specialized "Angel," America's answer to the Devil seen in Europe. Here is PezCyclingNews.com's interview with the Angel detailing her experiences last year. She returns for a second year. To be "fair and balanced" here is PezCyclingNew.com's interview from 2004 with the Devil.

The Tour of California, Part 3

The Tour of California organizers and sponsors were chagrined this week when they confirmed that there had been no testing done last year during the Tour for EPO in a story by the New York Times. Amgen, the Tour's sponsor, had viewed the race as a way to promote the benefit of EPO for cancer patients while distancing itself from the taint of the recent drug scandals. It appears someone screwed up and based upon past experience and the reporting of Cyclingnews.com, it was probably someone at USACycling.

Will the Riders Boycott?

Team Unibet.com continues to get bad news. Giro d'Italia organizer RCS announced its invitations for Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo and the Giro d'Italia on Friday, omitting Unibet.com from the list of participating teams. Unibet.com became a ProTour team after Phonak withdrew from the sport. The Grand Tour organizers had announced that they would only recognize and invite the 18 ProTour teams left at the end of last season. The Spanish team that was Liberty Seguros and then became Astana ultimately was reforumlated as a Swiss-Kazakh team and recieved the other ProTour slot for the season. Astana has been given a "wild card" into the Italian races and is a much more attractive team than Unibet.com. Cyclingnews.com had an interesting article about the responses of some of the teams to Unibet.com's exclusion from the ProTour races so far this year by RCS and ASO. If the ProTour teams do not show solidarity and actually show up and race Paris-Nice after the exclusion of Unibet.com and if the UCI fails to take some action, then the Grand Tours will have won and the ProTour will be dead. If the teams boycott the opening ProTour races, Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, then they will once and for all show a maturity in the sport that has never been shown before. Regardless of what happens, I expect a train wreck.

First Family Ride of the Year

Saturday was sunny and in the mid 50's here in Boise. Andrew and I replaced the old 650C tires and tubes on his Fuji road bike I bought last year, which even though just a 43cm frame was too big for him. We put on the odometer he received from his grandparents as a Christmas present and he, Kristin and I went for a family ride on our road bikes. We had our Cyclista.com jersey's on over longsleeves. We ended up going nearly 18 miles on the first ride of the year and Andrew's bike handling skills have greatly improved. The first nice day of the year is always the most dangerous in Boise as you have to dodge the twice-a-year Greenbelt crowd who dust off the Wal-Mart specials and take to the Greenbelt with all 26 kids in tow. Either that or you have old folks on cruisers who think you can ride two abrest. Once we got past Municipal Park we were alone with the more serious riders. One dude even asked which club we rode for, I told him we are the corporate team for Cyclista.com and he thought that was cool. No one cried, no one complained of pain, and Andrew did his best Marco Pantani impersonation riding up Amity road to Federal Way as he struggled to get up the hill in his smallest gear.

I am Glad People Ride, but Really . . .

Last Wednesday night, heading home in rushour traffic, I passed a family riding from the Albertson's grocery store on Overland down Orchard. They had been shopping and the mom had one kid plus the groceries in her trailer. I like seeing families out on their bikes, but it was a cold day, none of the kids had adequate coats on to be riding. None of them had a helmet. The kids were probably 6 and 8 and were weaving down the sidewalk ahead of the mother who was talking on her cell phone. Unfortunately, this was a situation with an accident waiting to happen.