Just like Dad

I find more and more that my Dad taught me some of the best ways to deal with middle schoolers. Rather than calling the parents of my plagiarizers during the test, I pulled them aside one by one right before school got out for the day. I talked to them about what they had done and offered them the opportunity to talk to their parents this weekend before I call on monday. This is right out of my Dad's playbook. It's like the Kobayashi Maru scenario in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. You could see the thrill of the weekend just drain right out of their faces when I presented them with this situation.

Today's ride was sooooooooooooooooo cold. It started off cold and then, mysteriously, got colder. I rode the new bike by myself. There isn't enough that I can say in praise of the BMC SLC01. I can enthusiastically say that it blows the ride of my Scott CR1 (from last season) out of the water. Never has a bike made me feel more unworthy of riding it! The ride is nimble, plush and no power is wasted through frame flex. The bike accelerates with undescribable quickness. Never have I felt that so much of my (meager) power output was transferred to forward motion. The frame seems to disappear beneath you from any lack of unwanted frame twist or flex. In a word, this bike is superb!



Tour of California starts tomorrow. Hopefully, Levi will be able to get some good results before he has to play errand boy to Ivan Basso. Think about it, you sign with Discovery to be the team leader and then they go and sign Basso, and all bets are off. That would suck, big time. You know that Levi's clean. You know that Levi's competitive. You know that Levi's been slowly, but surely improving year by year. And you know that Levi's never going to be let loose in any other capacity, but to flog the peloton for Ivan "E.T." Basso.

Looks like Hamilton and the Tinkoff boys will be riding in the Giro this year. I think we'll be seeing Tyler unleash a whole lot of angry. As to all of the people who so crassly comment about Hamilton even racing (including Dick Pound), whether you think he's guilty or not, the guy served his suspension and is now putting the pieces back together. If you point to the Operacion Puerto suspicions against Hamilton as further evidence of guilt, then you are seriously deluded to the major problem of the anti-doping crusade in cycling. Make a 100% public, completely above board (as in WADA follows its OWN damn rules) process that is beyond reproach (rather than beyond prudence), then doping tests will have the credibility needed to end the controversy. Until that time, stop following rumors, leaks and innuendo and just enjoy the bike racing!