johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
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Wow!
Oy vey!
A brief update on my own life first. I haven't checked my brake fluid yet, but made it safely to the $5 of 25 deal at the dollar store and back. I got milk, tuna and margarine to keep up my Tuna Helper habit for 6 more days, plus brake fluid.
I hope it's either that, or my parking brake needs adjusting. Parking brakes are made to adjust automatically when you back up and push the regular brake. The problem is, I park at an angle on a steep hill with the front of the car facing the building, so when I back out, I don't hit the brake because the car stops when I stop giving it gas. I'll be out early on Sunday adding fluid and moving forward and backward in the parking lot. The big thing is, I have food for a week and don't need to worry about driving.
I bought a gallon of gas to avoid it running out of fumes while it's parked. Then I checked my Caller ID to figure out which past due utility is calling me every hour. It was AT&T, even though they just got money two weeks ago. I didn't have enough money for the past due amount, but paid most of it. My phone will stay on Monday, but the could be asshats about my Internet. If they are, I'm cancelling my phone and they're out monthly income.
OK, pro cycling is imploding. I mean, as far as the sport is concerned, the rapture predictions came true. Let's start in Americaland. You know about the guys who spoke to 60 Minutes about Lance. Well, another minute of the show was on the news Friday night. Lance's most trusted teammate, George /Hincapie, the only guy who rode all seven Tours of France with him, told the grand jury that he and Lance gave each other EPO and talked about testosterone patches.In the past, Lance has always said that attackers have no credibility, but no one is doubting George.
That's not even the fun part. Hincapie is currently racing the Tour Of California as American legend. He never spoke to 60 Minutes. They found out about his testimony some other way. So Lance can't say Hincapie has an agenda, or wants a book deal or something, because Hincapie didn't say anything in public. So now the loving fans at the race know he's testified under oath that he doped, but he's still riding without punishment. 60 Minutes claims there episode will be the most detailed, most damaging story about Lance ever.
As a palate cleanser, you have a letter from the cycling organization threatening the boss of an American team because there's talk of a breakaway league.
Now to Italy. People were kind of satisfied that the dangerous climb was fixed up enough to race in moderate safety, but then the organizer told them the team cars couldn't go down the descent. So doctors would be on the back of motorcycles, and poor mechanics hanging on to extra wheels and maybe a spare bike would have to go down the dangerous descent with the bikers. Eighteen of twenty-three teams didn't want to do it, as guys would be too far from equipment and medical help for it nor to affect racing, like if a leader had to wait ten minutes for a new bike. The UCI race Comissar said the climb and descent were out, and a lot of us breathed a sigh of relief.
But. People go to climbs like that days in advance with campers and things to reserve a good spot to watch. They drink and barbecue and carry on. Somebody had to go and tell those people that the climb was cancelled, and they'd wasted days of their lives waiting in the wrong line.
It gets worse. The head of the race said all kinds of insulting things about team managers, especially Contador's boss, and the UCI. The Italian media threw fuel on the fire. It turns out that a lot of the fans from Crostis moved over to the next climb, Tualis, and they were pissed.They formed some kind of road block to stop the race and let the riders know what they thought of them. The organizers, or maybe the Comissar or police, found out about it halfway through today's stage, so they took a different turn and skipped that mountain too. All of a sudden, the distance to go on the screen dropped by twenty kilometers, and the angry people never did get to see the race.
Contador put in another dominant performance, but people screwed up his day, because he was quoted about the danger of Crostis. On the steep climbs, fans can move faster than cyclists, and there's nothing keeping them from making contact on the narrow roads. One had something that looked like a steak dangling from a string on a stick. He held it in front of Contador and jogged up the hill with it in his face. When Alberto approached the finish line, he had people boo him, probably because they heard the race director's rant on the radio or TV. People whistled when he went up to get another pink jersey, and he couldn't even smile even though he's dominating the race after two weeks.
So yeah, there's a lot going on. Sunday is an even harder mountain stage - the last opportunity for a lot of guys to pretend they have a chance. Then Sunday night is 60 Minutes. I need to recover from a super stressful morning, but tomorrow will be an epic day.
1:23 p.m. - Saturday, May. 21, 2011
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