Here is a video of cruising along on the old Golden Spike Railroad bed. It’s barely wide enough for two bikes with panniers, you have to watch out for old rusty railroad spikes, and the work-around routes that divert you around old trestles can sometimes be interesting. This is from Nato Cam, mounted on the Blue Angel.
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We are back safe and sound after a soggy but rewarding Loop the Lake. A full report will follow, once we get all of our video diaries compressed, images collected, all that kind of digital stuff. But first, here’s some Monday morning commentary from our friend Dave Z:
Wow. Just read an article on VeloNews about an apparent exchange of words and blows between former U.S. Pro road race champion Marty Jemison and Garmin-Chipotle team doctor and apparently, former heroin addict Prentice Steffen. I was down spectating at the criterium and saw Marty before the race. He was super-friendly and after exchanging pleasantries, he had a job to do, and we had a race to watch so we went our separate ways. Here’s the thing about Prentice Steffen. What the fuck? What could this guy possibly hope to gain by tarnishing the reputation of a hard-working cyclist who has been retired for years. A guy trying to make a living and support his family through riding a bike, with his tour business. I’m not just sticking up for Marty because I know him, and I’m not passing judgement about whether or not he doped. To my knowledge, aside from the unsubstantiated claims by Steffen, Marty had never been implicated in any doping. The only stain against him is his name was mentioned in the same vein as Hamilton. I’m just saying. This Prentice Steffen guy has a job as team doctor for Garmin-Chipotle. Mind your own business and do your damned job. In the sport of cycling, no doubt there are many people who know where bodies are buried. Move on people. The past is the past. Focus on the now and get rid of the dopers, because there are plenty of them still beating the system. And focus on the future. Make sure today’s young talented riders stay clean. Meanwhile, Tyler Fucking Hamilton, one of the biggest and saddest cheats of all time, was here in SLC racing his bike, courtesy of Michael Ball’s idiotic and pathetic attempt to rescue the careers of proven dopers in hopes of selling a few pair of overpriced jeans. I’m sorry for the language, but I raced against Tyler in New England. He was always good. Better than me. I was stoked when he crushed everyone at Liege Bastogne Liege. Then I almost cried when he smashed his collarbone in the Tour and soldiered on. What a sham. How ironic that while the Olympics were going on in Beijing, Tyler was doing circles around Pioneer Park in Utah. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
Here’s one for you: apparently there is an offer for Floyd to return to racing with Rock. Floyd: don’t do it. You are better than that.
After reflecting on this evening’s Wednesday Night Unfriendly Ride, from Park City to Kamas and back to Park City, I was contemplating how much I hate road cycling when my legs feel like wood. I had a few issues tonight:
1. Dead legs because I was off the bike for a week while on vacation.
2. Slight headache from working too hard in an office where little things get in the way of the big ones.
3. Or maybe that headache was from working too hard and forgetting to drink water most of the day.
4. Saddle height adjustment that made sense, but just didn’t feel quite right. You raise your saddle a millimeter and it feels like a mile.
5. Stopping with Jasonn after he flatted in Brown’s Canyon and then riding the whole way up with nobody to draft off of.
6. Headwind. See #5.
7. Freaked out every time a truck went past because of the recent death of a Park City woman who crashed while riding down Brown’s Canyon last Saturday.
It’s really pretty fun when your legs are good and you can get out there and slay people. It can sometimes feel effortless. When it’s miserable and every pedal stroke feels like a punch to the loins, it’s hard to imagine why we do it. So then I read the article on cyclingnews.com that Richie Rich finally admitted to taking EPO in the Tour de France this year. Here are a few thoughts that really describe how I feel about doping:
1. Cheaters will never admit to cheating. They’ll say they made a mistake. A bad choice in a moment of weakness. I’m sorry, but that does nothing to humanize an egomaniac like Ricco.
2. Cheaters will never admit to how long they have cheated. I only used EPO once, the time one time I happened to get caught. But the rest of the time, I was clean.
3. Cheaters who are young have nothing to lose. Ricco will be racing again in two years. He should be banned from the sport and required to give back all his winnings and salary, but he probably has that all neatly tucked away in Monaco.
4. Ricco has a point: the testing must suck if he was tested more than once but only popped a positive once. He says the testing is flawed. I say he fucked up and got lazy with his masking. But maybe he’s right. How many other small fish cheaters are slipping back into the water through the holes in the nets? Maybe they only care about catching the big ones?
5. Like reformed doper and prodigal son David Millar says: if a rider looks too good to be true, they probably are too good to be true. After all, he should know.
6. Ricco idolized Pantani. Enough said. Pantani died alone with a bag of blow on the table. Do performance enhancing drugs become addictive? Are there some athletes who have addictive personalities and they are going to risk everything because they can’t help it?
I’ve never taken EPO when I was racing or even thought of it, but I know people who have. Thing is, for how wooden my legs were today, all the EPO in the world wouldn’t have made me ride any faster or made it feel any less hateful.
As I write this, Darth Nater is in India, on a family trip to volunteer in a part of the world where every day is an adventure. Darth, wife and children are on a mission to teach English to children and spend some time in a Leper colony. Obi-Ben is knocking about in Egypt. My solo motorcycle adventuring might be a simple ride on the KTM to run some errands in Park City after listening to my new Porcupine Tree cd. Our dualsport motorcycle pilot lights are all flickering, waiting for the next gathering to twist the throttles and explore. Until then, make every day an adventure of some sort.
All is well after two days and lots of dirt. The small issue I was having with the KTM not starting ended up being a non-issue. When we rolled out of SLC on Saturday, we stopped at The Edge Motorsports in Draper, Utah. Cody the technician took one look at my clutch lever and offered an explanation: I had replaced a bent clutch lever with an aftermarket lever and the aftermarket lever wasn’t engaging a small switch in the clutch assembly. In a nutshell: it starts every time as long as it’s in neutral. No worries.
After the first day, we landed in Baker, Nevada, at the Silver Jack Inn (which will warrant a longer post later). Hooked up with an old friend from Park City, Mike, on a tour on his Moto Guzzi.
Second day was scheduled to be an all dirt route from Baker to Eureka. Before getting rolling, we all rode to the top and back of the paved road into Great Basin National Park, a twisty climp up to the summit of 10,000 feet. After gassing up back in Baker, Hans Solo split off from the group and took his own path back to SLC. Darth, Obi-Ben and Moto did about 240 miles in the dirt, saw some ghost towns, an amazing sunset, then rolled in to the Best Western at 9:00 PM local time. No cell phone service the whole trip, so no road posts. Today’s route takes us to Battle Mountain, Nevada, where we expect to have cell.
All is good.
You can tell Darth Nater is getting his head straight for the upcoming Trans-America Trail trip: this evening he called me from his Satellite phone (from this point forward, the sat phone will be known as aka “Death Star”) to test it out and make sure it was all charged up and working. In addition to all of our gear concerns, safety is top priority. Darth also scored a Darth Vader sticker for his aluminum panniers, I might opt for master Yoda, if I can find one. Stay tuned for more random snippets as D-Day approaches. More later.
Darth Nater sent this video, which immediately sent up the red flag that there might be material with mature adult content. I usually don’t pass things like this on, but I can promise this is worth watching.
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.