Weekly Ride Report: 5/24/10 - 5/30/10

Date	Course	Type	Distance	Ride Time	Climb	Max Altitude	Max Speed	Avg Speed	Odometer
05/24/10 09:15 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:55:37	1213	1594	31.1	17.69	18849.1
05/25/10 09:45 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.6	00:58:31	1351	1549	38.9	17.02	18865.7
05/26/10 08:30 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.6	00:58:21	1375	1574	42.8	17.07	18882.3
05/27/10 09:15 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.8	00:59:29	1313	1460	36.7	16.95	18899.1
05/28/10 08:30 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:54:57	1087	1447	30.6	17.91	18915.5
05/29/10 07:15 AM	Pasadena – La Verne	Rolling	67.9	04:55:02	3322	1769	36.5	13.81	18983.4
	Weekly Totals		150.7	09:41:57	9661			15.54

Weekly Ride Report: 5/17/10 - 5/23/10

Date	Course	Type	Distance	Ride Time	Climb	Max Altitude	Max Speed	Avg Speed	Odometer
05/20/10 09:00 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.6	00:55:49	1147	1441	29.7	17.84	18761
05/21/10 09:00 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:56:02	1202	1479	32.2	17.56	18777.4
05/23/10 07:10 AM	Rose Bowl- Santa Fe Dam	Rolling	55.3	03:50:51	3371	1660	33.1	14.37	18832.7
	Weekly Totals		121.1	05:42:42	5720			15.46

Notes: My cycle computer conked out for two of my rides last week - a combination of riding in the rain and dying batteries in the wireless sensors. So, two of the entries are missing, but the total mileage is still reflected in the Weekly Totals under Distance and Odometer.

Landis Admits Systematic Doping

As one who followed closely the aftermath of the doping scandal which claimed the title of the 2006 Tour de France, I always believed Floyd Landis when he said that he did not take exogenous testosterone on the days he tested positive. I based that belief, at first, on Landis' strong denials of doping, and then later on the expert testimony during his appeal to USADA, that his positive result at the former LNDD in France would have been interpreted as inconclusive or negative at the testing labs at UCLA, Montreal, and Switzerland. The three member panel agreed with that statement, but only one of them thought that unfairness was enough to strike down the doping conviction. Even with today's bombshells from Landis admitting to participating in a full-blown doping regimen, and pointing his fingers at everyone else, it doesn't change that fact. In the story at ESPN, Landis still denies having exogenous testosterone in his system during stage 17 of the Tour, even though he may have had EPO and HGH, so his strong denials came from being caught doping for the wrong substance. So, while technically "innocent" of the doping charge he tried to overturn, he was definitely not racing "clean."

Does this change my opinion of Landis from four years ago? Not much, since his performances after his doping ban ended have not shown him to have the same racing quality that he had before the doping saga began. If he came back, and was as strong as ever, like a Vinokourov, that may have bolstered his story, but he did not. And now it seems that bitterness of not being able to reclaim that past fitness and strength has fueled these recent actions to admit that he was riding in the mud and drag as many people down with him. One thing I remember back in 2008, while Landis was in the middle of all his legal wrangling, was his comment disparaging one of the new American teams trying to establish an anti-doping image for the sponsors who had fled the sport of cycling after 2007: Team High Road, the former Deutsche Telekom team of Jan Ulrich, Andreas Kloeden, and Aleksandr Vinokourov, and current HTC-Columbia Team of Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel. Landis called them "Team High Horse," which always seemed mean-spirited for someone proclaiming that he was innocent of doping violations and had always ridden clean. Now I know where that animus was coming from: guilt.

Weekly Ride Report: 5/10/10 - 5/16/10

Date	Course	Type	Distance	Ride Time	Climb	Max Altitude	Max Speed	Avg Speed	Odometer
05/10/10 09:45 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.6	00:56:53	1086	1374	28.7	17.51	18605.8
05/11/10 09:30 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.6	01:02:38	1290	1376	33.5	15.9	18622.4
05/12/10 09:15 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.6	00:59:42	1218	1428	37.1	16.68	18639
05/13/10 09:00 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.9	00:59:10	1186	1437	37.7	17.14	18655.9
05/14/10 09:45 AM	ToC Circuits	Climb	16.9	00:59:05	1138	1381	36.6	17.16	18672.8
05/15/10 07:15 AM	SG Valley Tour	Rolling	39	02:38:18	2411	1900	41.4	14.78	18711.8
	Weekly Totals		122.6	07:35:46	8329			16.14

Weekly Ride Report: 5/3/10 - 5/9/10

Date	Course	Type	Distance	Ride Time	Climb	Max Altitude	Max Speed	Avg Speed	Odometer
05/03/10 09:30 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:55:56	838	1237	27.9	17.59	18523.4
05/04/10 09:00 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:55:45	884	1329	29.7	17.65	18539.8
05/05/10 08:30 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.6	00:55:08	1007	1398	26.8	18.07	18556.4
05/06/10 09:45 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:55:40	865	1333	33	17.68	18572.8
05/07/10 09:45 AM	Rose Bowl Laps	Flat	16.4	00:55:33	928	1335	28.3	17.71	18589.2
	Weekly Totals		82.2	04:38:02	4522			17.74

Remarks: It looks like it's been a long time since I've been on the bike, but that's not true. I got a chest cold for about a week after the last weekly report, but I've been on the bike since then getting my form back on working larger gears than I used for the Solvang Century. I was without my computer for about a week due to a damaged hard drive caused by a bad wifi driver, which explains the lack of tables with numbers. If you are really curious, though I can't imagine why, I can do a data dump on a separate entry for those missing three weeks.