HERE WE GO AGAIN

[the following is from a recent velonews article, now they say without new evidence against jan, the swiss will drop the case against him. but he will have to wait till january. i think he deserves better than that, how about dropping everything until you have a case, or evidence or a note on a napkin from a disgruntled swiss official that got pushed aside at a restaurant so jan and his new wife could sit first. just look at the recently published examples of the evidence, come on people, a doctor that makes millions and supposedly made millions on his doping ring, doesn't have a computer that can encrypt excel files of his dealings, he has to hand write his logs. this whole thing is a pile of bullshit, hand written logs, please spare me the juvenile attempt to produce false evidence, it is almost as bad as lance hacking into the inept french lab's computer and than using bad french to write notes. this whole thing is funnier than a old pink panther movie [and they were funny]. ]

velonews- Swiss cycling chief Lorenz Schlaefli said Thursday that he was likely to halt anti-doping proceedings against former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich next month unless new evidence comes through. Schlaefli said he was not able to use existing evidence received from the legal probe into the Operacion Puerto doping ring in Spain because the Spanish investigating magistrate had forwarded it on condition that it was not used officially. "Since these documents cannot be used, there's no sense in continuing this process. With these documents, officially we cannot do anything," the director of the Swiss Cycling federation explained. However, Schlaefli emphasized that the procedure could be reopened if other evidence comes through. "It's not finished afterwards. This doesn't mean we can't open new proceedings," he said. "If there's something else, it's clear that we can reopen it afterwards." The disciplinary chamber of the Swiss Olympic Committee's anti-doping commission is aiming to start proceedings against Ullrich in January.

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/11368.0.html

SOCK DOWN

this is a nod to team rider and blogger superstar tim. i believe i have the one pair of sockguy socks you don't have... aka limited addition schwalbe tire blue shark... beat that masiguy and skinny.


[blue shark, blue masi]


[actual daily ride photo]

NARROW CHAIN

[heading out to dehesa]


[where i was heading]


[the ride profile, dig those 5 bitches in the middle]

today was a great day of training in san diego [la mesa out to dehesa to do more MT's]. the surprising thing was my new chain, it was so quite, as in no noise, none. my entire drivetrain was super smooth too, very smooth. which is surprising in itself, since i need to replace the centaur rear derailer that has more miles on it than i can count and has been flung across the street after myself and good friend john lost a bike[s] versus car incident early one morning last year. the whole new chain saga started last saturday while noah and i were out doing MT's up mulholland inclines, north in calabasas. i guess i am stronger than i think [insert laugh] or my power cranks do exuded power or simply the removable link on my chain busted. as it was, the link broke [luckily after all of our planed intervals], while we had just started climbing our way back up to ventura blvd. i found all of the pieces and set about putting it back to together, as we were a good 35 miles from home. after realizing i had a multi-tool with a chain tool on it, that my good friend todd at iMartin talked me into buying years ago [thanks todd]. we started back on the road again, just to have the chain completely relieve itself of my bike. this time there was no fixing it, as most of the link parts were gone.


[road kill]

so it was time to call the support car [aka josephine] to bring a new chain from the team warehouse. i will just say that putting a new campy chain together in falling temperature and without the campy chain tool is close to impossible, but we did it and started home again. this time the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees and the sun was setting. so noah and i put it in the big ring and put the hammer down and a few espressos at starbucks [thanks carolyn, team starbucks card giver] to warm up. we made it home after 8 hours and just about 5 min before sunset. ok so now i have a brand new spanking campagnolo record ultra narrow chain. i have to say that using the campy chain tool is a joy and it is a very precise and beautifully simple designed tool [thanks to mike and alfredo, service persons extraordinare at iMartin for lending me the tool and alfredo's expert assistance].


[isn't she purdy?]

PIP'G PROS

[i am not sure when this photo was taken this morning, whether it was before tim pip'd the a&f pro in the ride sprint or after. way to go tim, story to come at masiguy]

let him ride

everyone loves jan, i have never been a huge fan, but i do respect him as a rider. but please, give the poor guy a break, he has been humiliated by lance for 7 years and now this trumped up evidence from the spanish affair, let the guy ride out his last few years, hopfully in brilliance.

Ullrich won't have to testify in Operacion Puerto [cyclingnews.com]
By Susan Westemeyer

Jan Ullrich's spokesman, Michael Lang, has told www.sport1.de, "Jan's attorneys have been notified by the Spanish court responsible for the matter that they do not lay any value on his testimony in this [Operacion Puerto] case." Lang, who is currently in Switzerland with Ullrich, confirmed to Cyclingnews that this meant that Ullrich would not have to testify in either Spain or elsewhere concerning the case.

[stop the nonsense already, the UCI / WADA keep having to remove their prejudged foots out of their large mouths everyday now, call it a day. put down the operacion puerto [spanish for comedy], and step away from it]

now go ride

more OP discredit

[well, here is another of many discrediting stories pretaining to the operacion puerto, or should i say, how to pay someone to discredit riders so they can't race and the tour has a better chance of being won by a frenchman. jorg jaksche is one of my favorite riders, always strong and game for some aggressive riding. the following are excerpts from a cyclingnews.com story, read the whole story at http://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/2006/interviews/?id=jorg_jaksche]


"Some weeks ago, my attorney had received positive signals by the federation saying that, after studying the documents, they would not open proceedings against me," Jaksche was relieved to say. "Moreover, this decision had nothing to do with the fact that the Spanish judge in charge of the affair had ordered that the documents could not be used by the federations - they took that decision independently."
Jaksche, who continues to deny that he has used performance-enhancing drugs or methods, meanwhile admitted that he was in contact with Fuentes, who according to the investigation of the Guardia Civil was the instigator of a wide-spread blood-doping network based out of Madrid. "He has a two-year old child, who suffers from a particular form of cancer, and looked to make contact with me because my father is a renowned ophtalmologist," he explained. "We have specialised clinics in Germany, and he was just trying to get information from my father to save his child's second eye, because it had lost one already. So this was the kind of relation we had, but I have nothing to do with his alleged doping activities - if they are indeed true, which only the legal procedure can establish." [it doesn't get any more messed up than this, what a bunch of lowlifes]
Jaksche's attorney, Michael Lehner, put it this way: "Submitting a DNA sample would reverse the burden of proof on which our legal system is based on. The notion 'in dubio pro reo' [innocent until proven guilty – ED.] would be undermined. The law foresees that the prosecution must prove its accusations to be true - it is not for the accused to prove that he is innocent." [very well put, a great explanation as to why the riders should not submit to DNA testing, along with what should be obvious privacy issues]

Pantani - I Miti Del Ciclismo

[the first in a series of videos commerating one of my favorite riders. it is also a sad testament that 'drugs never make dreams come true". i miss watching you el pirata devastate the field in climbs, what pure grace, strength, and courage.]