Giro d'Italia Wraps Up Tonight

The Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) wraps up tonight (Taiwan time) and I have to say I have been able to follow every stage on live internet feeds or through some kind of live-blogging. What a great race this year. I have hardly cared to track the Tour of Californi-yawn.

Throughout the Giro the Maglia Rosa (Pink Jersey) has been up for grabs the entire way with the lead switching from rider to rider almost daily. I had been rooting for Cadel Evans, mainly because Vinokourov looks like Drago from Rocky IV and I don't like the way Basso's name looks. Yes, call me superficial. Actually both Vino and Basso were wrapped up in some pretty nasty doping scandals. Basso admitted the bags of blood found in the fridge belonged to him, but never said he actually doped. As it stands there are still several riders in contention. The Italians are poised to sweep the podium on home turf if Cadel Evans can't scratch out a victory on tonight's short TT stage.

As it stands now:

1  Ivan Basso (Liquigas)              
2  David Arroyo (Caisse d’Epargne)     + 0:51
3  Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas)          + 2:30
4  Michele Scarponi (Androni)          + 2:46
5  Cadel Evans (BMC)                   + 4:00

Houli Loop!/后里, 臺中縣

"...but plans can fall through as so often they do

and time is against me now..."--The Smiths

Pho

At this time of year even the best laid plans often go awry. The weather is simply too unpredictable. The Central Weather had been calling for thunderstorms all week and they never materialized, so we took a chance and planned a century ride up into Miaoli to the Ming de Reservoir. At 5:00am, I could hear cars sloshing through the rain and by 6:00am we had called off the ride, so I went back to bed. The next thing I knew, my phone was ringing and Michael was on the line with the news that the rain had stopped and we could get a ride in. We wouldn't have time to pick off the century, but we put together some hastily made plans to salvage a ride and in just over an hour he was downstairs. His finger itching to try out his new toy; a Fuji supercalifragalisticexpialadocious camera. I took him over Dadu shan along the road I use for my night loop. We then rolled into Ching Shui in time for a little lunch.

That Little Vietnamese Place

There is a great little Vietnamese place on one of the side roads off the Highway 1. The food is fresh and always prepared while you wait. We foreigners gotta stick together, you know!

Coffee of the World Unite and Takeover!

The best surprise happened after we finished eating. Just as we hit the road, the rain picked up and we didn't feel like getting rained on and hoped to wait a few more minutes over coffee somewhere to see if the drizzle would abate. No luck. Not even the 7-11 had their brand of ashtray-tasting brew. We continued on and then we found it. There, just outside of Ching Shui, on that decaying old ribbon of concrete known as the Highway 1, right by the auto repair shop, betel nut stand and rebar lot... in a nondescript concrete box, we saw a sign for coffee. We couldn't really tell if they actually sold coffee or not from the looks of it. but we gave it a shot. As we walked up to the door, a look of "whatthehellaretheydoinghere" crossed the faces of the family inside. We noticed they had all the trappings to make coffee and went to order.

A Coffee Maestro

Once it was established that they could in fact sell coffee and that we could speak Chinese, we sat at the only table in the living room/cafe and ordered. The proprietor set to work like some type of coffee artisan in choosing the proper beans (Yemen) and working through a process of brewing, steeping and pouring to make the perfect cup of coffee. It took a long time to make, but I have to say that outside of Cafe Vivace in Seattle, this was one of the finest cups of coffee I have ever had. It was not too acidic, not like Starbucks, and just hit all the right spots. Perfectly carmelized! Apparently, the couple who owned the place lost their jobs a few years back and had nothing to do to maintain their house in Ching Shui, so they used their savings to buy a small coffee roaster and set to work learning how to roast and make coffee. They sell their beans and other products to other cafes and restaurants in central Taiwan. The place is called Lailin Coffee/來林咖啡, if you ever have the chance to stop in.

Michael Rides A Dike

After we reluctantly left Lailin Coffee, we headed up toward Dajia. Just over the bridge across the Dajia River we took Zhong Shan Rd. up the river valley toward Houli.

A Real Dike

This is a very pretty ride, away from most vehicular traffic, and through quiet farms and fields. Navigating the labyrinthine roads takes practice and intuition, but it a also very rewarding. At one point the road was closed to traffic, but this being Taiwan and not over regulated, we just rolled our bikes up onto the dike and kept right on going.

Little Shack On The Alluvial Plain

After climbing out of the river valley up a short, but really steep hill, we were up on the plateau in the area that had formerly been known as Varizan, or 麻里蘭社, a Pazih village which was once one of several satellites of the greater Anli village. When some of the land was parsed off to some Han farming families in the 18th century, many of the Pazih settled in the area to take advantage of the water networks and even negotiated with Han farmers for better resource allocation. The close proximity to the hills and to the river made the location an ideal spot.

Father Son Time (Another kid on a proper road bike)

We got back on the Highway 13 in Houli and checked out a very interesting Reynolds 853 steel frame that is a fantastic example of the acrobatics between OEM, subcontractor, marketing team and distribution network. The question arose how a Giant franchise could be selling a rebadged non-Giant bike that used the advertising literature of the original brand while blatantly being an obvious rebadge. Still... a light steel frame with full SRAM Force for a decent price. Not bad.

I left Michael in Tanzi and hammered my way the rest of the 13km home. I was feeling great, so I tried to keep my speed up between 40 and 50kph the rest of the way home. That felt great.

So no great century ride today, but any day on the bike is a good day.

Weekend Notes

Despite the forecast calling for thunderstorms and clouds, there will be plenty of cycling action to satisfy the twitchy nerves of riders everywhere who need to get the next fix.

Saturday: The AmainT 11km Circuit race will be going on out near the Taichung Science Park.

I believe things will get rockin' at around 7:00am. Lots of racers from all over will be there to join in.

Sunday: The Wu Ling Race up to the top of Ho Huan Shan will get going. It is quite a climb. Lot's of riders burn out early on this one.

Me? Maybe a Century Ride up to the Ming De Reservoir and back on the Highway 1. Back to the endurance training for June.

You Never Know What You'll Become

Like most people, I have known how to ride a bike for a long time. I remember my first hand-me-down, yellow, girl-tubed Schwinn I learned to ride on. The red Schwinn Stingray I inherited from my cousin. I have fond memories of my first dirt-bike with the Enduro number plate on the front my brother and his friend Darren painted and put together for my birthday. That was followed by the black and white Toys R' Us Huffy 10spd with spongy grips on the drop bars (I thought the Team Murray was stupid and the Stu Thompson series even worse.. Stu-pid). I got that because that is what I saw Jim Murray, the paper-boy riding. That bike sucked. As a pre-teen I bought the neighbor's 1980 chrome Mongoose BMX and tried to polish it up to look as nice as the new Fisher, Haro and Diamondback BMX bikes that were popular at the time. At the same time we dredged up the great Clipper by Columbia, a massive early 29er with super-fat tires and coaster brakes; the precursor of the mountain bike. That thing had no end to its crank range. These were all tickets to childhood independence and misused as a means to sneak off to the store to blow pocket money on: doughnuts, Laffy Taffy, Red Vines, Shasta, Fruit Pies, Hostess-anything for that matter, Fruit Rollups, Charleston Chews, Powdered Donette Gems, Nestle Quick, A&W Root Beer, Runts, Fun Dip... crap! It was wonderful. Income from becoming a paper route mogul made the issue of biking to the store a more serious enterprise. Once I bought a car I put the bike down and would drive or skateboard. Finally before moving to Taiwan when my car was no longer insurable, I used a Specialized Rockhopper that was about 3 sizes too big.

Now I am a quasi-roadie who is totally addicted to cycling and everything about it.

It is amazing what we become. Ten years ago I would never have thought I'd be lusting for bikes and following the Giro every night. These surprises make life so worth it!

1st Night Ride To Caotun: 48Km

These stats above that look like a richter scale are from my first night ride out to Caotun 草屯and back on the Highway 14 on the Changhua 彰化 side of the river, through Fen Yuan 芬園.

It wasn't so bad... but could have been better. I think I rode a little on the conservative side as it was a solo ride during peak traffic at night on a route I have done... maybe once before. I think it took way too long for my legs to warm up, but the added nutrition from insects flying into my mouth provided a little energy boost half-way through. I need to get a little bit faster on this route and I hope that will happen as I get more familiar with it. It was a great way to get a few more kilometers into my week. And yes, I still use Standard measurements.

:(

UCI Responds

The UCI, which is the main governing body of professional cycling and the keepers of arcane beliefs that regulate official equipment use and other trivialities that influence what average consumers buy to look "pro", has issued a statement regarding the potential bombshell released last week by 2006 Tour de France winner and loser Floyd Landis detailing the UCI's response to the allegations it colluded with Lance Armstrong and others in hiding positive results from random tests for performance enhancing drugs.

Oooooo.... the plot thickens! I hope there is a part coming up where a splinter group of the Catholic Church sends out an auto-masochistic assassin to suppress the truth and preserve the power of the UCI and its Rosecrucian overlords.

UCI Press Release, May 25 2010

Floyd Landis’s accusations: clarifications from the UCI

Due to the controversy following the statements made by Floyd Landis, the International Cycling Union wishes to stress that none of the tests revealed the presence of EPO in the samples taken from riders at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. The UCI has all the documentation to prove this fact.

Between 2001 and 2003, only the Paris, Lausanne, Cologne, Barcelona and Madrid laboratories, commissioned by the UCI, detected the presence of EPO in the samples that had been entrusted to them for analysis. During this period, the first laboratory carried out three positive analyses for EPO, the second 18 and the three last laboratories one each. None of the samples concerned had been taken at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.

The International Olympic Committee received a copy of all the reports for the positive analyses mentioned above. Furthermore, in 2001, all the analysis reports carried out at the Tour of Switzerland were sent to Swiss Olympic.

Since 1st January 2004, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) receives a copy of any analysis reports which show an abnormal result. WADA has not reported any abnormal analyses from any of its accredited laboratories that have not been duly dealt with by the UCI.

The UCI wishes to reassert the total transparency of its anti-doping testing and categorically rejects any suspicion in relation to the concealment of results from parties involved in this field.

Read more: http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/05/news/uci-press-release-floyd-landis’s-accusations_118561#ixzz0p1Gw1uwf

On The Dope

With the Floyd Landis allegations of rife doping on the pro tour set to cast a pall over this year's Tour de France, I thought I would dig up an article on some of the tricks top athletes and movie stars use to perform beyond their natural abilities and keep the paydays coming.

Outside Magazine did a great article a while back on the different performing enhancing drugs in which an amateur athlete puts himself through a regimen of drugs on the DL to see how the chemical cocktail could improve his performance.

"OK," the doctor said when we settled into his examination room. "What do you want to be?"

I looked confused, so he explained.

"You want to be bigger? Leaner? Faster longer or faster shorter? More overall endurance? You want to see better?"

"See better?"

"Human growth hormone does that for some people. It improves the muscles in the eyes." He tried again: "So, what do you want?"

This was quite a concept. Freud wrote that anatomy is destiny, and here was a doctor giving me a chance, in my late forties, to alter my body in the most fundamental way. It was strange, but also strangely alluring.

As a lifelong athlete, I have done my share of hard training for wrestling, cycling, running and fitness, and at no time did I ever feel inclined to try ANY type of supplement. I have always believed in receiving all my essential nutrients from the miracle drug called... food. I even resisted the allure of Creatine in the 90's and Whey protein. I just figured that if you couldn't get what you need from eating food, you're not going to get it. I have often simply organized my diet around the properties of the foods rather than the simple appearance, taste or whatever food lust I feel at any given moment.

The only time I have been aware or doping and steroid use was a guy I used to wrestle against, who gained 30lbs in muscle mass over a year and had stretch marks from the rapid growth... and after coming to Taiwan.

When I first moved into town and got settled, my friend and I decided to seek out a gym to keep fit. There were few gyms in Taichung at the time and most were really expensive. We finally found a gym that charged NT5000 for a year and was run by the former ROC weightlifting team from the glory days of the 1960's when Taiwan's diplomatic warfare was being fought on every international venue including the Olympic Games. The gym was in a concrete basement with no A/C and only rotating ceiling fans. The equipment was often homemade and made of steel and concrete molded in coffee cans. The ancient "Coach" would sit in the back doing calligraphy and occasionally shout for no reason.

We'd go in for two hours a day, four days a week and recover from some intense workouts over Taiwanese steaks. We were getting strong and ripped. I was 120lbs benching 7 sets of 7 reps at 210lbs... but I wasn't getting big, only strong.

The gym attracted gang enforcers and rabble as well as a small group of young guys who wanted to be weightlifters. We'd watch them come in looking like sticks and after a few months they were Atomic-Powered Supermen. The only thing we could see for sure was that they would get really big, really fast and disappear into the bathroom with their kits before working out. It was just kind of understood that these guys were getting a little extra help to prep for their competitions. Probably nothing exotic, just animal steroids or something, but they were surely on roids and had easy access to cheap performance enhancing drugs.

They were easy to get and no secret in the gyms of Taiwan.