Friday, July 16 2010

Tour de Vin?

I'm envisioning a very long straw, and a helmet made from a baguette

There's nothing as much fun as a bicycle ride, and some of my favorite rides have involved impromptu picnics with wine, cheese and bread in the middle--no sense in overdoing the whole physical exercise thing without the prospect of a reward!

I don't follow the Tour de France, except when I can't avoid it in the media, but something funny caught my eye today. According to the New York Times, The International Cycling Union is taking a very strict line on cheating on the tour this year. Cycling is considered by drug-testing cognoscenti as one of the dirtiest sports for drug use (right up there with my chosen sport, Powerlifting) but this time it's a little different. This time they're checking bikes

. . . the International Cycling Union on Saturday wanted to make sure that Cancellara’s speedy, 10-minute victory on the 5.5-mile course was not too good to be true. Suspicions of motorized cheating arose this season, fueled by Cancellara’s dominant victories at Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders.

 So, soon after Cancellara crossed the finish line Saturday, officials grabbed his bike, took it to a nearby tent and X-rayed it, checking to see if there was a tiny motor inside. His was one of 14 bikes X-rayed Saturday. All passed the inspection.

Seriously check out the thighs on any rider in the top ten: they could pedal a bulldozer up a hill, they don't need motors! But that's not really what made me laugh.

This is not the first time the Tour, in its 97th edition, has endured controversies. In the past, those controversies were part of the spectacle.

Some riders have been accused of guzzling alcohol along the way — including carrying wine bottles on their bikes — to dull the physical pain of the race.

Ha ha ha, they have to be kidding! If I drank a bottle of wine while simultaneously burning every energy resource in my body to try to wine a gruelling race, I'd ride right off the first cliff I came to. Cheating in sport is a serious matter, but when it comes to this controversy I take the same tack as I did with the Ross Rebagliati incident or Dock Ellis' no-hitter: if someone can win with a headful of mind-altering substances that are shown not to be performance-enhancing, then don't take their medal away, give them an extra one for doing something spectacularly hard while showing really bad judgement.

Now where can I get a bottle rack that will hold a magnum of Champagne?

Posted by Velocipedal Tim AT 11:18AM

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