This might be a good time...

To take a vacation from the blog. After all, with the Tour starting up in a day or two, you'll have plenty of workday diversion already, with live feeds, play-by-play, blog commentary, etc. That should be more engaging than anything I'd write, that is, unless, like me, you could really give a shit who wins the tour this year. Spectating and being a "fan" is totally lame anyway. Get out there and do it yourself. That's why I got into this stupid sport.

Yeah, I know, I'm being a pisshead. Truth be told, I've been sucked into fandom before too. Personally I believe what makes any sport exciting to watch is caring who wins. This past weekend I went to Fitchburg to do a bit of soigneur duty for Team Terry, and also to watch the crit on Sunday. Now, if you've seen one crit, believe me, you've seen them all. Cycling on TV with motos and cameras in the rider's faces is mildly interesting from a technical perspective, but if you're standing on the sidewalk in the broiling summer sun, you'd better have an interest in who succeeds or fails in a race. Luckily for me, I did care, at least during the womens' race. After that, when the pro men hit the course, the Fitchburg locals were far more entertaining. I wish I'd had the balls to video tape some of it. Twenty minutes of hanging out at the team car was better than twenty seasons highlight footage from "Cops." Yeah, Fitchburg is a hurtin' town.

At the road race on Saturday, I was focused on getting bottles delivered to the six women on Terry. They were great, calmly coming into the feed zone, separated just enough so that I could make a smooth handoff to each one in rapid succession. It helped that the race was smaller this year, and the zone wasn't too crowded. When the pro men and the Cat 2 fields came through, things were pretty busy, as these fields were each doing nine or ten 11 mile laps before climbing Mt Wachusett. Obviously, feeding was important for them, but these guys are all good and handled it nicely for the most part. Then the Cat 4 field came through... Now, these youngs studs had to complete all of four laps before calling it a day. The day's temp were a spectacular 75 degrees and not humid, so it isn't like anyone was in an inferno or something. With two bottles on the frame, a 44 mile race shouldn't really even require a feed. Well, you know how this goes. The rolling kindergarten stormed into the feedzone, transforming sleepy Princeton into something more like East LA after the King verdict was announced. Bottles flying everywhere, screaming, yelling, begging, swearing, and panting like they'd just climbed the Tourmalet. Hilarious. Most of them were just dumping the water on their heads, as like I said, in a two hour race you have enough on the bike anyway. Funny part is, most of it was so violently thrown up that it soared over and onto anything but the rider. Calm people, calm. Drama is a waste of energy; there is no place for it in endurance sports. For the record, I'm not talking about CTodd here. I don't think he took a feed, although he did take his eyes off the road to turn and look when I heckled him (free NegaCoaching here). Bad call dude. Amongst those highly skilled racers, you'd best keep your eyes open. Glad you made it home alive.

Oh yeah, back to the Tour. Why my apathy? This doesn't really have anything to do with the recent doping news. I just don't have a favorite this year. The doping, well, I'm not an insider, so I can't know what goes on. The media game is sickening. Cyclingnews has gone down hill. They'll print anything, and the sad part is some people will believe it. I am not interested in McQuaid's drunken ramblings of the day. And where has Pound been? A few months ago we got at least five gems a week from there. The Unibet deal is another story. I know the ASO and other race organizers needed to break the union (aka the ProTour). I'm with them there. You don't spend decades building something up just to let a bunch of greedy thugs take it away from you. I also don't believe all the bullshit we hear about actions being motivated by nationalism. Sorry flag wavers, get over it, this is not a conspiracy against the USA. Recently though, the Tour leaders appear to be trying to out bozo the UCI buttheads. I'm not sure what is going on, but for the most part it seems like everyone is just trying to avoid accountability for allowing doping to be a pervasive part of cycling culture for all these years. Fuck them, time to ride. Thanks for reading.