johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
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Twitter makes for some strange damned bedfellows, as well as the chance to learn stories you otherwise wouldn't see.
Here's an example of the latter. Tyler Hamilton is the former pro cyclist that was on 60 Minutes recently telling everyone that he had doped, and so did Lance Armstrong. Tyler lives in Colorado, and drove from Boulder over to Aspen for the weekend to lead some bike rides for Outside Magazine. Lance has a house there, but Tyler thought he was out of town. Tyler was at a restaurant having a nice time with friends, but then he walked towards the bathroom, and an arm shot out to block his way. It was Lance, and he wasn't happy. Tyler suggested that they go outside and speak quietly, but Lance said the people there didn't care. I guess he was right, because the owner, Lance's "friend", told Tyler he could finish his meal but he was never welcome there again. There were guys from Outside Magazine around, and one talked to them both & blogged about it later.
There's a well-known sports journalist in Australia who has been close buds with Lance, and talks trash about Contador. I really dislike the guy - he's part of the problem with cycling. Anyway, a headline in Google News led me to an article he wrote about Contador. He said that Contador had done his first "test" at a Marcha he held Saturday with five hundred locals, and based on that, had decided he'd recovered well enough from the Giro to ride the Tour. In real life, Contador had gone out Friday for a serious day of training with a lactate threshold test, where you do repeated climbs at different effort levels, and have blood taken and tested after each one. He alsoi tested his power in watts, and his average rate of ascent over a familiar 1850 meter climb. There's a huge difference between serious efforts in the mountains to gather scientific data, and an easy ride showing 500 people your local training routes. I unblocked him on twitter so I could send a 120 character correction to him. He "followed" me, even though I don't follow him. I don't know if he tried to communicate with me. I went to bed. I woke up to see the Lance story, so I blocked him again while I had my fun. The thing is, he's one of those guys who takes a tiny bit of info and thinks he can fill in the blanks, and no one calls him on it. I did.
Back when I was blogging about Lance, and tweeting about him and everything else with hundreds of people on twitter, I made some friends, especially from Australia. These guys were obsessed with Lance going to the Tour Down Under. They're riders, so they bought all of the Livestrong and Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop stuff. They went to watch him race, and one drove his son to another city to get an autograph. I removed everyone when I ditched Lance. Anyway, a week or two ago, I happened across one of their accounts the other day, and clicked his communications with other guys I knew to see if their opinion had changed. The public ones were defending Lance to the end. The one I knew best, Simon, who I'd once caught downloading my entire blog, was locked, so I couldn't see where he stood. An hour ago he started following my account by a different name he used to know. I sent him a few tweets, saying I hope he and his son are both doing well, but that if he was still a Lance fan, he wouldn't enjoy following me. If he's still around in a couple of days, I might request to follow him back, but then I get sucked back into cycling discussions, which can make me angry.
I watched racing today, to see if I could watch the guys I don't like without ruining my day. The scenery was beautiful, and I discovered the pleasure of watching some over rated guy I don't like, mostly due to his arrogance, partly due to him staying out drinking until five in the morning during a race and lying about it, suck on a steep climb. The world has been brainwashed to believe he can climb poorly all year with no results, but transform magically in France in July into one of the two best stage racers in the world. Today, twenty days before the Tour, he couldn't keep up.
It's meant to be cooler this week, so if I remember, I'll have the window fan in, and try to switch my sleeping to nights. Wimbledon starts on ESPN3 at six in the morning in a week.
I should go out and walk while it's cooler, but don't have anything in a bottle that makes me give a damn.
But, I DID stumble across the scoop that Channel 5 has picked up some form of Big Brother UK and that people are stealing golden tickets out of newspapers right this minute for a chance to be considered, because let's face it, small time thieves are who I like to watch on live TV:-)
Edit: There was one cycling journo I still liked well enough on twitter, and we chatted a bit during the Giro, before I dumped the sport for the 27th time. I hadn't checked toi see who might have stopped following me. Anyway, I was just at Pez Cycling News to read Eurotrash Monday, and the bastard linked to my twitter account! He had done a summary of clenbuterol stories a couple of months ago. Today he He noted that the Spanish President had declared Contador innocent, and the Mexican President did the same for the soccer players, and he told people that I'm all over the story. Damn it! I was just at the cycling forum venting a bit about Lance and some current riders, and trying to figure out a way to watch the Tour without being angry, and now a guy is sending me cycling fans? I'm pissed off at ninety percent of the sport! Ay yi yi
3:00 a.m. - Monday, Jun. 13, 2011
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