Avoiding crashes and points at Hillingdon

Posted on 22 April 2009 by Alex Murray

Yes, I know it’s like a scratched record, but I failed to score any points last night at Hillingdon. Then again I also avoided going down in a nasty looking crash in the sprint for the minor places.

When you weigh those two things up, I’ll settle for missing out on a point over hitting the deck every time. I had to be at work for 7am this morning, I don’t want or need to put myself out for a point or 15th.

Here’s my advice if you are riding in the 4th category race on a Tuesday night: there is absolutely no point sprinting for 20th. If you’ve got a good position coming off the last bend, go for it; if you haven’t, then don’t.

I need to work on my concentration in the final third of the race. I was in all the right places, including briefly off the front, up until the closing stages when I allowed myself to drift back too far to be in contention when the 3 laps to go board came up.

I’m riding more frequently no which is a good thing, trying to get out at least every other day for a couple of hours of either training or racing. Saturday I think I’ll have another crack at Hog Hill, even though it is a 3/4 race and I’m “hill-averse”.

My bookshelf has moved on since last week with a change of mood. I finished Paul Kimmage’s Rough Ride and have moved on to Vin Denson’s The Full Cycle, which is a much lighter read so far. Kimmage’s book was bleak, raw and in many ways coloured by the proximity of its writing to the end of his career. That’s what gives it much of its power. Denson’s seems to be much more of a traditional autobiography, more reflective in tone.

Next on my to do list, other than getting my weight down below 75kg and closer to 70kg, is to write the rules of being “Pro” as I see it. There’s loads of variations on what constitutes the right “European Pro” look on a bike and I disagree with some versions, so I’ve decided, somewhat arrogantly, to write down a correct version.

Posted in Books, Road Racing | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ashenden, Armstrong, Kimmage

Posted on 14 April 2009 by Alex Murray

Somehow I seem to have a rather high googlerank if you are searching for the Michael Ashenden interview from NY velocity in which he examines the evidence around Lance Armstrong and his 1999 Tour De France samples and the states that:

“So there is no doubt in my mind he (Lance Armstrong) took EPO during the ’99 Tour.”

There’s now an additional article which discussed in more depth the possibility of the samples having been spiked: Read more of Michael Ashenden’s explanation of why it is unlikely the samples were spiked.

As a journalist it makes my heart race when I read articles like those two. It feels like a story unfolding right in front of your eyes on the page. It also races because, as someone who struggled with science at school, it looks terrifying and difficult to explain in simple terms. It feels frustrating that it has taken a blog to go into this sort of depth and present the evidence in a way which seems compelling. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is one of those “must-read” articles, regardless of where it is published.

I’m currently working my way through another “must-read”, Paul Kimmage’s Rough Ride, in my effort to better understand where he’s coming from. I’ve read excerpts from it before but never sat down and worked my way through it to fully appreciate his position. In a way I felt scared that he’s such a forceful writer that I would end up cowed into agreeing with him about everything. So far I haven’t been fully swayed but I feel I much better appreciate his perspective on the sport.

I’m at the point in the book now where I’m confronted with a question for which I struggle to find an answer: when did we go from a position where the riders were compelled to dope as victims of an unjust system to one where they protagonists and every bit as guilty as the system and those that control it?

My feeling is that somewhere between Miguel Indurain and Lance Armstrong it changed. In part this is down to L’Affaire Festina and the revelations of Willy Voet and others, but I’m not sure how exactly the revelations flipped the situation to where we are today.

The sport got rid of the split stages, the excessive calendar, the long stages. The riders eventually got a minimum wage and now pick and choose their specialisations. We lost Bordeaux-Paris and other epic races, yet the problem didn’t go away.

Or, is it as simple as this: Festina gave them the perfect opportunity to clean the slate and almost everyone involved; from the UCI to ASO to Armstrong to the press making a living from the sport; decided that grasping the nettle was too painful to contemplate and condemned the sport to another ten years for the sake of courage and bravery, those values so engrained in the fabric of the sport.

Posted in Doping | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tunes to ride to, episode 2, plus Ashenden v Armstrong

Posted on 6 April 2009 by Alex Murray

Here’s another batch of five, available from amazon.co.uk and currently on my iPod (other mp3 players are available).

Today’s ride was punctuated by a puncture and coffee so not the most profitable but I’m still gradually working my way towards the very distant goal of “being race fit”.

Right now I’m currently distracting myself from writing work with a very interesting interview with Michael Ashenden on NY Velocity which seems to me to be a very large cat among the pigeons. It covers the usual topics you’d expect him to cover, in particular Lance Armstrong and EPO, but in more depth than I’ve seen many other articles go into, notably on the 1999 samples and the information around how EPO positives are analysed. I’m only half way through it as I type so you can read the article in full on nyvelocity.com.

Posted in Doping, Music, Recommendations | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment