Juan Pelota

I love it. Personally, I’m not a fan of Contador. I think he’s got a lot to learn before he comes a great cycling champion (I really just don’t like his grin). The sport of cycling needs a good rivalry like this and, even though Contador is nearly 12 years younger than Armstrong, next year is already shaping up to be a great year of cycling.

El Pistolero

I’m glad too because somebody needs to wipe that cheesy grin off Contador’s face.

What do you think? Is this rivalry good for cycling? Am I too hard on AC? Am I a LA fan boy?

UPDATE: I’ve redirected all Tour de France Contest posts to this page and updated the links for 2011 Tour de France Contests and Giveaways. I’ll add more as I find’em but if you know of one not listed please leave it in the comments or contact me.

With the Tour de France in full swing it seems like everyday I’m seeing where somebody is running a contest or giveaway ranging from trips to bicycles to gear. I thought I’d try and put them all in one spot. Here you go.

1. RoadID Tour de France Challenge – Multiple ways to enter and with the Grand Prize totaling $8500. And if you don’t have a RoadID it’s a good time to get one.
2. Map My Ride Aquaphor le Tour Challenge – jerseys, bikes and a trip to Paris.
3. Trek Travel daily giveaways
4. Tour de France Fantasy Cycling Challenge at NBC Sports
5. IZOD Race for the Podium – trip to Paris, Cervelo Bicycles, Giro Helmets, and Clean Bottles
6. Training Peaks – daily giveaways of Training Peaks premium subscriptions plus drawings for more prizes on July 23.
7. Easton/Cycling News Trivia Challenge – answer the trivia question each day for a chance to win a EC90 XL Carbon Clincher Wheelset, EC90 SL stem, SLX3 handlebars, & seatpost, or an autographed BMC jersey. The grand prize winner gets a BMC Teammachine SLR01.
8. PerformanceBike.com – Three lucky winners get over $5000 in gear including a Scattante CFR Race Road Bike.
9. IG Markets Cycling Tour de France Competition – ‘Like’ their Facebook page and enter to win a signed copy of On Tour by Bradley Wiggins.
10. Pro Bike Kit £1000 Gift Voucher Competition.

Here’s a list of special sales and/or promotions by some of our sponsors:

The weather was pretty nice actually with it not being as hot or humid as it has been the last couple of weeks. It made for a pretty pleasant ride. There was a large number of cyclists around White Rock Lake today too. This was the first day I’ve ridden there since the Tour De France started so I’m thinking some folks have been watching on TV and deciding to hit the road. Call it the TDF effect.

Overall I think this ride went pretty well. Near the hour point I was starting to feel it a little but I think that’s because of my bibs. Here are the numbers for today’s ride:

Total Time: 1:36:11 (1 hour at endurance; 36 minutes warmup/cooldown)
Avg: 14.6 mph
Distance: 23.49 miles
Crunches: 20
Push Ups: 20

I was going to make a copy of the training plan found in Bicycling to post here but won’t be able to. I emailed Bicycling for permission and was told I could request a PDF of the article but prices start at $1900. I like my readers but that won’t be happening.

Is the snubbing of Horner only the tip of the iceberg though? When Astana put together the team they did they assembled one of the most talented teams ever created that includes a combined seven eight tour wins and multiple podium finishes. Having that much talent on one team, especially with multiple tour winners on it, has created a pressure cooker that has potential to explode. Throw in the financial woes of the team during the Giro d’Italia, the potential team takeover by another sponsor and the rumors of Cantador going to Garmin-Slipstream and you have a good ole fashioned soap opera.

Now that Horner has been left off the roster because Cantador wanted one of his “boys”, combined with the events surrounding the team over the last two months, I think we’re going to see some real fireworks during the tour. It reminds me of when Lemond and Fignon were teammates and all the drama surrounding them. I just hope the Astana soap opera doesn’t totally ruin the tour.

What do you think? Will Astana provide us more drama than racing? Did Chris Horner totally get boned?

In an effort to try and spread the word around about some of the great cyclist/bloggers out there I’ve decided to start a new series of posts called a “Cycling Blogger Profile”. This is where I’ll feature a cyclist who also blogs about their cycling and try and bribe them into answering a few questions. How often will I do this? Who knows. Once or twice a month maybe. Maybe less. You get my drift.

My first victim is Jeff Contreras who runs 331miles. Jeff runs a great blog where he talks frequently about his cycling as well as other events in his life. He rides in the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas and is famous for being an “Elite Cyclist” and having “truly massive quads”. On a serious note, he puts in some serious riding and his posts are always accompanied with pictures from the ride.

Jeff @ 331miles.blogspot.com

Q: How long have you been cycling and what got you started?
A: I started cycling in high school, only to me it was just riding my department store bike for longish distances. After an almost 20 year hiatus, I started cycling in earnest in 2006. The combination of wanting to lose weight and the encouragement of a triathlete buddy got me started.

Q: What kinds of bike(s) do you ride?
A: I ride a 2005 Giant TCR C1. I also have a Marin Hawk Hill (2003?) mountain bike, although I rarely ride it.

Q: What do you consider your greatest cycling achievement?
A: I rode from McAllen, TX to San Antonio, TX in 2 days during the summer of 2008. 100+ miles each day.

Q: What’s one thing you’d like to accomplish with your cycling but haven’t yet?
A: I would like to race sanctioned races (of course train for them too). Living in McAllen, it requires too much traveling. If I get back to Austin (or other metro area), I’ll probably make it a #1 goal.

Q: What’s your favorite on-bike food/drink?
A: I like Clif products, particularly the mocha gel. To drink, I like water with Nuun electrolyte tablets, alternating with sips from a bottle of plain ol’ water.

Q: Who will win this year’s TdF?
A: Ooooh. I’m picking the sentimental favorite — Lance Armstrong. But I’ll hedge by saying it could definitely be another Astana rider, either Contador or Leipheimer. My outside pick is Boonen.

Well, that’s it. Be sure to head over to Jeff’s blog, 331miles.blogspot.com, and give it a read. Subscribe to his RSS feed while you’re there and/or follow him on Twitter @331miles.

Jeff, sorry you had to be my first victim but thanks for answering the questions.

I have one question for all you cycling fans out there. Are you surprised? I mean come on. The French have been after Lance for years because of his domination of “their” race. He won it seven consecutive times and with his return this year to professional cycling I think they are now worried he may win it an eighth time. You see, this is a French race and they haven’t had a native winner for 23 years when Bernard Hinault won in 1985. I don’t know about you but I think this has rubbed them the wrong way just a little bit. It may have even chaffed them some. Maybe they should have used some Butter in their shorts to help alleviate the pain of this long drought.

This “violation” along with the leaking of the report to the press is just another event in the long line of shoddy behavior by the AFLD. Their practices, procedures, and tactics have been so shady that I’m really surprised anyone even listens to them anymore. Am I glad they’re trying to find the druggies in the sport? Sure. But why does it always appear they have a personal vendetta against Lance?

Something else to consider is that with this comeback Lance has made a conscious decision to subject himself to the most stringent drug testing that has ever occurred in the sport. Knowing that, how stupid would he really have to be to take something? If he was going to get caught now would be the time. How much would he stand to lose? I honestly think that winning the Tour de France is a distant secondary goal to raising worldwide cancer awareness. If he were to take performance enhancing drugs, and get caught, do you realize the huge negative impact this would have on his cancer work? There’s no way he would take that chance.

I almost wonder if AFLD should change their name to Agency For Lance’s Demise. I guess we’ll have to wait and see who drops the soap first.

Now I’m off to investigate if Lance’s crash in the Vuelta Castilla y Leon was a cleverly designed plan by the French to keep him out of the Tour after he passed their drug tests. Is it mere coincidence that the crash occurred a week after the drug test? I think not.

I’ve collected some images of trial bike bikes that possess the ability to not only be fast but look fast.

BMC Time Machine

BP Stealth

Cevelo P3C

Cervelo P4

Fuji D6 Professional

Kestrel Airfoil Pro

Look 596

Specialized Transition

Trek Equinox TTX

This is a repeat of the Trek Equinox above but I’ve included it because of the awesome paint scheme that was specially done for Lance Armstrong’s comeback to professional cycling. The 1274 signifies the number of days that have elapsed since his last race and his return at the Tour Down Under this year.

Lance Armstrong Time Trial Bike

This is certainly not an all inclusive list. I’m sure there are others out there that could have made this list but just weren’t included. My criteria for this list were that they have the coolness factor and aren’t prototypes. If you have a recommendation for the list please include it in the comments.

I did a book review of Heft On Wheels by Mike Magnuson soon after I started Biking To Live. If you haven’t read it you should. It’s a great read. You can find it on Amazon here.

Over the last couple of weeks I had the desire to go back and read Heft On Wheels by Mike Magnuson again. I had let someone borrow mine and never got it back so I went and bought another copy. In fact, I finished it last week and have started it again. Why am I so interested in his story? For one thing it’s inspirational reading about a 255 pound overweight, chain-smoking, borderline alcoholic who turns his life around with a bicycle. Second, I can relate. The more I payed attention to it I started to notice a lot of parallels between Mike and myself. They are:

1. I’ve always ridden a bike. I can always remember having a bicycle of one type or another and riding it everywhere. One of the first ones I remember was silver and had a banana seat. I have no idea what brand it was but that’s not important. We lived sort-of in the country when I was this age and couldn’t ride our bikes really anywhere other than the two acres we lived on. My brother and I tore up those two acres though!

Jumping our bikes was one of our favorite activities. I remember setting up a huge ramp one time using an old basketball backboard that was actually half a sheet of plywood. This jump in particular stands out because I vividly remember failing to get enough speed on the approach and basically tumbling over the end of the ramp. I had a pretty nasty bruise from taking the end of the handlebars in the stomach but other than that escaped injury. I’m really surprised we didn’t seriously injure ourselves.

When I was 10 we moved to the city and we continued riding our bikes. We had a friend whose dad had collected a bunch of old junk bicycles and we would mix and match parts to make the ultimate machines. That’s where I cut my teeth on working on my bikes.

We would rides our bikes everywhere. To the local fishing hole, downtown, going to the store for my parents, etc. Imagine a little kid riding back from the grocery store with shopping bags hanging from the handlebars. That would be me on many occasion.

When I was in high school the Youth Director at my Church and I would ride our bikes across town to a friends house where we would stash our bikes and then run back home. Kind of like a duathlon. The next day we would run to our bikes and then ride home. It was about a five mile trip one-way.

2. I’ve always liked watching the professional bicycle racers on TV. Ever since I can remember I’ve watched the Tour De France. I remember trying to catch bits and pieces of it on Wide World of Sports back when Lemond was America’s only hope in the race. He was the sports figure I looked up to back then. Can’t say that I agree with him now-a-days but he helped shape my love for the sport of cycling. I remember when Lance Armstrong first started riding in the TDF and when he abandoned the race before being diagnosed with Cancer. I watched intently as Miguel Indurain won his five Tour de France races followed by Lance. Like Mike I received all the popular catalogs (Nashbar, Performance, and Colorado Cyclist) and drooled over them. Man I loved cycling.

3. When I joined the military right after high school I forgot about cycling. I’d still catch it once in a while on TV and always looked forward to July but I wasn’t able to ride again for a while. While on deployments overseas I had always hoped to be able to be in France in July and maybe catch a stage in person. That never happened though.

Then in 1994 I had the opportunity to do a bicycle ride from Connecticut to Ohio to help raise money for the children’s hospital in Akron. I jumped at the opportunity and bought my first true road bike. The Cannondale R-300 that I still ride today. I didn’t know much about serious road bikes at the time and probably didn’t get as good a bike as I should have. I really enjoyed that bike ride. I trained by myself for it by riding to and from work. Doing some long rides on the weekends and so on. Looking back I’m surprised we didn’t have any group rides.

4. I forgot about cycling again. After that trip to Ohio my life got busy again after being selected for Officer Candidate School and I moved quite a few times again. I tell myself that I had no time to ride but I drug that bike around with me everywhere. I kept it indoors so it wouldn’t feel the effects of weather (often suffering the wrath of my wife). I would see it all the time and it would never dawn on me that I could use it to help me with my weight problem. That’s probably not true though. I knew it could help me but I was just too lazy to use it. Every once in a while I would get the urge to ride and would drag it out for a spin or two. I even had it overhauled once or twice in anticipation putting in some epic time but I failed to follow through.

5. I liked to eat. I liked food and it liked me. Too much in fact. Super-sized fast food meals were a staple in my diet and were essentially another food group for me. I knew it was bad but didn’t care. I drank way too many soft drinks. I would eventually cut over to diet drinks but are they really that much better? How many people do you see order the double quarter-pounder with cheese, super-sized, with a diet coke? That was me. Ironic isn’t it? My love of food eventually cost me dearly but that’s another story for another time.

6. I knew I had a problem. Unlike Mike I don’t have an alcohol or smoking problem. Never did. The food though we have in common and it was going to kill me. After seeing my dad have a heart attack at an early age I should have taken the hint then. I was too stupid to do anything about it. Not until about a year ago when I started this blog. The last six months though were rough, especially with Dad passing, and I think I’ve finally started to get the message. It’s a shame it takes stuff like that to make us listen.

Courtesy of foxcycle.blogspot.com

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know by now that Lance has announced his plans to come out of retirement and return to professional cycling. He will be re-united with his old friend Johann Bruyneel and race on the Astana squad. He will not be paid for his racing but will instead use the exposure to promote cancer awareness around the globe. Mr. Armstrong is a cancer survivor himself who overcame testicular cancer to return to the sport of cycling and win seven consecutive Tours de France.

Once he started winning the Tour de France his critics came out of the woodwork. The doping record of professional cycling hasn’t helped. He has undergone test, after test, after test and there have been no conclusive results that have linked Lance to illegal performance enhancing drugs. It never fails though that rumors will begin circulating anytime Mr. Armstrong is in the news regarding cycling. His announcement to return to cycling after a four-year absence is no different. Lance is receiving more criticism in the area of drug use even though he has committed to making his blood tests public following his return. Don Catlin, former head of UCLA’s World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory, will post Armstrong’s biomarkers online for the entire world to see.

Mr. Lemond decided to show up at an Interbike Trade Show press conference last week where Lance was set to outline the details of his comeback. Lance allowed Lemond the first question and he immediately set to questioning Catlin’s testing methods. The press conference was moved along by Armstrong after an exchange between Lemond and Catlin but Lemond wouldn’t let it die stating, “So, the whole history has just been passed over?” Yes, Greg, it has. The investigations, the countless tests, and the court appearances are over with. No charges have been filed. No substantial evidence has been produced. No bans have been issued. No wins have been stripped. You need to get a grip and move on. I almost wonder if you’re not jealous of Lance’s success. Where’s the Lemond I grew up with that was fighting the politics of the European peloton to establish himself? Where’s the Lemond that overcame a horrific hunting accident to win the tour? Where’s the Lemond that put USA cycling on the map? Wherever he is you need to find him, have him step up to the plate with Lance, and make the sport better instead of continually trying to re-open old wounds.

In short, don’t be a tool.