Jaksche

"Cycling per se is not fun. It always hurts. The sport is a lot about pain, physical pain. Workouts are the attempt to increase your performance so you won't get dropped. And so it won't hurt so much first there was cortisone, then EPO and today it is fresh blood. Cycling is a difficult sport. A soccer player can run 90 minutes like a fool over the field, but if he scores the decisive goal in overtime he's the hero. In cycling, you get dropped in 99 out of 100 races, even when you give it everything. It hurts, all the time; but you still are successful only a few times."

Cynical about the future, he said, "Of course, no one held my arm for the injection, but team leaders, who got rich off you in the past, who supplied the things, they are now pretending to push for a clean sport... . Nobody liked doping; neither a Stanga nor a Riis... . I was told by one rider that there are deals between some teams and the UCI concerning the training controls. So one has to assume that there is no general change going on. This rider told me that proudly. Then I knew: Nothing has changed."

Jörg Jaksche confessed Saturday to using banned substances and practicing blood doping to enhance his performance.

Jaksche admits taking banned substances & blood doping

I can't really say much or I'll sound naive, but it looks like this dude got the worst of both worlds. It doesn't seem to me that doping is too mainstream in any of the races I've done. If it were I don't reckon I'd have ever thought winning was possible and indeed quite probable.

Good to go

Girona, ESP
Friday, June 29, 2007
4:28 pm Girona, ES / 7:28 am Pacific NW, USA

It seems like it's been a long time coming, but I'm finally back to 100%. Today I went out for 3 hours and felt extraordinary. For the first time in 2 weeks, there's no illness and no shoe problems. Muí Bueno, eh?

Not quite right

Girona, ESP
Thursday, June 28, 2007
España 8:59pm / Pacific NW USA 11:59am

Today I figured it was best to beat the heat with a little time on the trainer. So at 9:30 sharp, I hit the trainer for a short 30 minutes interval. At which point I jumped off and spun around for another 30 minutes near Sant Gregory. Through which, alas, I believe I finally got my cleats into a position quite usable by me. I was a bit worried at the outset of things, for my hip was beginning to take a terrible turn to the left... but after conferring with several sources I decided that at once the problem must be dealt with and the position fixed. The solution was most bizarre, but indeed if history had been consulted a quick fix´d have been in store. Every time that I reposition my cleats I want to make them as symetrical as possible, yet for some reason or another, my feet do not cooperate when the cleats are positioned as such. So today I arrived at such a position that the state of each cleat was in no way similiar to the other. In fact, a quick glance would promote the thought that two shoes of the same size lay afront of you, yet the mysterious and altogether baffling asymetrical state of the cleats would prompt further examination... and perhaps betray thy eye as the beholder concludes that two shoes of different persons lie afoot.

That´s a negative ghost rider, the pattern is full

Girona, ESP
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
2:06 PM España, 5:06 AM Pacific NW, USA

I´m getting the itch to get back on the bike, it´s kind of an addiction, but I guess if you stopped going to work for a couple days when you felt you should be working you´d feel as though something were amiss too.

I´ve been thinking a lot about what I´ve found elusive since the beginning of the year and It´s so apparent and absolutely necessary... I need to win. I need to win something, anything... just to win. I guess not anything, I´ve already won ¨something,¨ but perhaps something that people actually have heard about, would be nice. I guess this is what the plan´s always been though.

I´ve been forgetting to tell ya´ll about something, that I´ve found quite interesting, entertaining & all together life threatening. It´s RyanAir, similiar to King County Metro, but with wings. The fare is similiar... okay maybe not, but in relative terms it is... $20 if you book the flight a couple months ahead of time... for a ¨swift¨ride on the bus from North Bend to Bellevue and back it´d be around $4-$5. They (ryan air) use old millitary bases for their airports and receive funding from the little towns located a short jaunt from the nearest big city for the proceeds provided by lingering tourists... i.e Girona is to Barcelona as Issaquah is to Seattle (If you think about it, it´s an excellent way to bring airfares down, but the budgeting doesn´t stop there.) They use only 737s, so the aviators have only to be trained in the piloting of 25 year old 737s. Security exists but it´s so swift that you can arrive 45 minutes ahead of your flight and make it with plenty of time. Seating is Southwest style: first come, first serve. And the seats aren´t leather, and there is no foot room. It´s like riding a bus that has seat belts, the bus is a bit smoother though... But here comes the best part of all.
If you go to drivers ed and are trained on an automatic, yet are book smart on a manual... does that mean you can drive a manual? Uhh... yes? It´ll just be a real bumpy ride... Welcome to Ryan air. The take off is absolutely full throttle, no waiting around for air traffic control to give the go ahead, it´s all systems go from the get-go. Elevation 0 to 40,000 in 15 seconds. Unfortunately the take-off´s not too different from the landing. The pilot comes over the intercom and lets everyone know that we´ll be landing in 15 minutes... of coures this doesn´t mean we´ll be starting our descent now, it means in 15 minutes we´ll both be starting our descent and our landing. After 15 seconds of free-fall the pilot is usually having exceptional trouble getting the nose straight, so he lands it slightly to the left or right with one wheel before bouncing a dozen times and wrenching on the e-brake... at which point the nose finally straightens out. Everyone´s prayers are answered and the passengers break out in applause. After substantial skidding and a near miss with the runway the plane comes to a hault and everyone jumps up to fight for position euro-style.
Ryan Air... aka-pilot training school.

Wily thieves

Girona, ESP
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

I went to the cafe today to use their internet, and I met this guy who spoke english. He was real friendly like until he found out that I rode bikes... after that he had not a thing to say. He said he was from Sevilla, maybe people from there don´t like bikes. I don´t know. He thought I was from England first, then I told him I was from Seattle. Oh! No wonder you sound English, British Colombia obviously has a profound influence on Seattle. I don´t know about that, but I´ll grant that he´s exceptionally savvy with his geography.
I was just trying (when I was interrupted) to get the low-down on the life and times of seattle via the live radio stream of kiss 106.1 over the internet. Evidently it´s to be sunny in the 80´s... quite well indeed. & trying to cancel my bank & credit cards again... because someone is living large off them at the moment. Someone in Barcelona... Someone who had enough of my information to activate them... Someone who intercepted them in the mail in route to girona... Most mysterious indeed.

Looking forward

Girona, ESP
Monday, June 25, 2007

I did route du sud and it wasn´t quite the result I´d been hoping for. In fact, it was of such a nature that had I not been ill I would have been in an absolutely desolate and worthless situation. Fortunately, with Route du sud in the books, I now have several weeks to get a handle on the illness and begin once more to build for the precurser to the tour of portugal... at the moment the name eludes me.
In Girona the temperature has continued to increase, & if history has anything to say about the future only more of the same is to come in the months that follow. Certainly Portugal will be anything but cool, I presume that it´ll be similiar to death valley in it´s most radiant moment... No doubt summer should be in full swing on July 11th in both portugal and death valley.

La route du sud... wie, wie

Girona, ESP
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Next on the schedule is la route du sud. A race very much suited to my strengths with plenty of climbing, and not much of anything else. Since Catalunya I've been counting the days until this race, but then the catastrophe of the Basque Country occurred... leaving me calculating the time in which it'll take me to recover against the time until the race. At once (1.5 days), it seems that the Bronchitis is very much still alive, the infection is gone but the mucus remains and makes awful & most regrettable attempts to strangle me as I endeavor to press on the pedals.

By the way... if you don't like what I've gotta say, then move on. 'cause odds are that the feeling's mutual. If you say something I don't like, then I, acting as, Comentario suprimido, will utter as follows:

"El administrador del blog ha eliminado esta entrada."

Keep your negative analysis, your superior thoughts, & your credentials to yourself. If you want to read it then read it, if you want to revise it, spit on it, or ridicule it then move on.

Climbing

Girona, ESP
Saturday, June 16, 2007

In Spain the weather goes from hot to hotter in the Summer. There's no spring, at least not that I've seen. After taking a short hiatus following the sickness, I got back on the bike yesterday entirely forgetting the sanctity provided by sunscreen- and got a burn done a bit over-easy. Today it was quite cloudy, yet I forgot not the sunscreen quite aware that here the rays are unhindered by a light covering of clouds. I took the 5 hours of riding today and made a loop of the two best climbs around (they're actually the only exceptional climbs I know of that are quite near); Saint Hillary and "the Amer climb." Amer is this "Sacalm" on top of a mountain where some people live... there's actually a bit of a farm up there, but I think they spend more time checking out the view than farming. Saint Hillary is similar that it is on top of a mountain, but the church is the main attraction here... There are a few more people residing on the top of Saint Hillary than Amer's Sacalm. Saint Hillary is 7 km long and quite steep... it takes something like 30 minutes. Amer is 9 km long and ~40 takes minutes, it has a much more consistent grade. The only thing that Spain has going for it are it's roads and weather.

Americano!

Girona, ESP
Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Since not much is happening here, except that the condition of my illness seems to be getting worse despite a daily dosage of antibiotics normally prescribed to those who've caught Anthrax. I'd presume that Anthrax antibiotics would be quite potent, but evidently whatever I've got is giving 'em quite a battle.
That's not what I wanted to write about though. I was thinking about America and how much better it is there than it is here. And I got to thinking about this little situation we got ourselves into after the Grimpeurs race near Paris. Evidently someone left a light on or something in the camper, & of course no one had jumper cables... and definitely no one in France has ever jumped a car (especially if they're American) so... we started pushing the camper (quite light indeed) on this little one way road as every team tried to exit on the same road. The idea was that we would pop start it. I don't have much experience here, but I guess the idea is that you get it rolling, and start it in 2nd gear. I guess somehow this generates a spark or something that starts the engine. We tried this multiple times to no avail.
This is where some typical French sentiment was offered. I was pushing the camper with a teammate or two and a handful of very enthusiastic French spectators, when some comment was generated from a group of spectators who were spectating our situation. In reply one of the helping spectators said "Americano!" This cleared up all confusion generated by the situation, and the spectating spectators looked at each other and said awh, Americano!" obviously liberated from the ambiguity of a stalled camper being pushed. It may seem puzzling to you why the French would be so surprised that someone pushes there car, but the answer is simplistic in that the French are in no hurry at all. They'd rather get out of their car and yell at the person they're holding up than consider the notion of perhaps pushing their car. Eventually we got the camper to a downhill section and got a good solid pop and a roar from the diesel below the hood of our high quality fiat motor home. Italiano, eh? Awe, Italiano!

Euskal Bizikletta

Girona, ESP
June 12, 2007

The lot of us ventured westward for the Euskal Bizikletta- a race held in the Basque region of Spain. As you probably know, there's something of a conflict underway among the Basque, so the arrival of local militia men from the hills isn't altogether uncommon. Regardless of the state of the militia the region is quite spectacular. Where we are staying the mountains are right up against the coast with virtually no flat terrain anywhere. The mountains aren't so small either, I'd guess that the highest is probably around 3500 feet, but that's straight from sea level to 3500, which is rather intimidating at a bike race.
Nevertheless, I only had an afternoon to gawk at the scenery, because that night I came down with a fever and spent the night figuring out where I was. That morning I woke up and felt a bit better and decided to race. That I think was a bit of a mistake. I finished the race, but promptly ignited the fever & a whole host of other symptoms. I didn't start the next day and stayed in bed for 36 hours. But, the big news wasn't the fact that I didn't finish the race, it was that indeed not one of us were able to finish. Shortly after I was viciously assaulted by the Basque bug, it made it's way most discretely around to every single one of my team mates. By the last day only one of us lined up on the start line... and it wasn't a healthy I'm ready to go, kind of line up... it was a wait, wait! I have to go throw up real quick kind of a line up. Timmy defied the angry imp within for 80 km before staggering up another hill and throwing up for the 20th time caused him to throw in the towel in frustration. Regardless, 80 km in a state as such is quite a feat.
The next race on my schedule is Route du Sud... hopefully what happened there last year, happened at Euskal Bizikletta this year. Otherwise...