End of the Tour but Not the End of the Season

Tour de France 2014

The Tour de France has come and gone now. I watched it with enthusiasm but not being able to ride myself was frustrating!

Quick update. Much better but still can't ride. The area below the left knee cap remains tender and undependable. Rest and wait.

I 'm doing hip strengthening exercises though I am not yet on a definitive routine. I realize that to continue cycling at the level I aspire to, I have to beef up my hips, glutes, quads, and lower back. Once upon a time, vain about the sculpted nature of my chiseled hockey legs, I took their strength for granted. I had sequoia trunks below the waist.  But somewhere over the course of two decades, the legs lost some of their strength. They softened. They were tethered to my torso by unstable and not-well-conditioned ligaments and tendons:; they lacked the animal power once inherent in them.

New and drastic measures required. Assuming present condition is NOT the result of psoriatic arthritis, Lyme Disease, the Ebola virus, lead poisoning, voodoo, or any other arcane and hard-to-diagnose maladies, then it follows that it's a strength thing. So strength as purpose the focus going forward.

Ghosts of Triumph

Tour Observation

Here's a curious thing. The TV coverage of the Tour referred occasionally to past winners that later on ended up being disqualified for doping. Marco Pantani and Byrne Riis both came up at various times. But Lance was never mentioned. Why is Lance more toxic than any of the other cheaters from those days? Because he was a bigger asshole and from Texas?

The double standard stinks. Lance was the most dynamic and charismatic rider of his generation. Ignoring him doesn't make the doping history of the Tour go away. The Tour was (and is?) a stained and tainted spectacle. It is what it is and every rider, doper and non, should be remembered and duly noted for his contribution to the race. It's too late to sanitize the EPO years. Trying to do so is cowardly and absurd. Eddy Merckx? The cannibal. What did he ingest other than the competition?

Losing on the Champs-Élysées 2014