Dear Cell Phone Using Driver:

I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how very proud I am of you and your ability to multi-task; to drive while talking on your phone, and putting on mascara, and reading the newspaper, and eating...all while keeping your lap dog from jumping out of the window of your vehicle.

It's a skill that cannot be learned. You are a gifted driver, indeed.

Thank you for talking on your phone from the moment you enter your car each morning to the time you lay your head to rest each night and go to sleep. It's your proven expertise as a phone user that has allowed me to be nearly killed several times. And without these brushes with death, I wouldn't appreciate the life I have been given.

Thank you for always rushing to wherever you're going and talking the whole way there.

Thank you for text messaging while you're in the middle of a left turn; I can't tell you how much I love the pure rush of adrenaline I get when I see you in action. It's quite simply, breathtaking.

And while some people don't understand the need to be on the phone every waking minute of the day, you have an uncanny proficiency for the concept. Without cell phones, what would we do in a car anyway?

Some people will mock or scorn you for this gift you've blessed society with. But not me. I'm all for the wonderful distraction if cell phones.

I realize there are other people on the road trying to drive safely, or ride their bikes, but you understand who really owns the road. You and your phone.

Please don't be deterred by the various laws being passed around the country requiring cell phone users to go 'hands-free'
— this doesn't apply to someone of your aptitude.

Besides, if you went hands free, what would you do with your hands?



The bottom line is I owe you big time. And you know who you are...the savvy, well-groomed oversized vehicle driving crowd who is driven for success and won't let anything, or anyone, stand in their way. You're taking the tiger by the tail and keeping in touch; you're networking and multi-tasking; you're in the know.

Don't ever change, cell phone using drivers. We need you. Without you the world would be a safer place. And what fun is that?

Face down in the rain

I went to lunch today with a friend. On the way back I saw a man lying on the sidewalk, next to his bike...he'd just been hit. The driver and several others were trying to help. Gave me a gut ache.

I don't want to ever end up face down on the losing end of a car vs. bike scenario. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time; people don't pay attention.

.

They should pay better attention.

Two wheels for life

Right place, right time, right color...nuff said

Big cookies and dope

I read with interest today the astonishing news that Leonardo Piepoli has demanded a counter test to his Tour de France positive for CER-EPO. He was one of seven riders in this new era of cleaner cycling to test positive in Le Tour. He joined fellow countryman and big mouth Ricardo Ricco, a.k.a. the Cobra, Austria's Bernhard Kohl, Germany's Stefan Schumacher, the Spanish duo Manuel Beltran, of Liquigas, and Barloworld rider Moises Duenas, and Dmitri Fofonov, a Kazakh who rides for Credit Agricole, who tested positive for a banned stimulant and has since been banned for three months.



Now add other high-profile positives like Tom Boonen's cocaine addiction that was recently documented through hair sample testing to the mix and it seems like many of the riders in this new, cleaner era of cycling haven't caught up with the program.



Frankly I think these cheats need to be stripped. Not stripped of anything particular, for now, just stripped. Make them undress for two years and leave it at that.

We've all seen the "Dopers Suck" t-shirts and stickers. And I agree, cheating while racing your bike isn't cool. But I think to get the point across that filling your body with harmful amounts of drugs is indeed dangerous, we should allow doping at an unprecedented level.

Here are my suggestions for what should be allowable in the professional ranks:

1. Bikes should be equipped with IV poles mounted to the chain stays, carrying bags of blood — your blood, Basso's blood, bull's blood, Ullrich's blood, whatever — so you can receive your transfusion en route. Riders could turn the flow of blood on and off with a regulator on the IV and we as viewers could see them race up climbs like a Japanese motorcycles at full throttle. Now that would be some exciting racing.
2. Instead of having race radios, team car cameras, or heart rate monitors shown on the TV, we should be able to hear the racer's sludge, err, I mean blood, surging through their veins like the sound of a Slurpee being dispensed. You'd also be able to switch to real-time heart rate sounds where every 12 seconds you'd hear a distinctive yet dull thud of the heart pumping gelatinous cells to the muscles.
3. As part of the pre-race team presentations we should be able to watch teams inject each other with various drugs and bet on the outcome of the race based solely on dosages.
4. Just once, instead of seeing a team director drive up next to his star and offer a bottle of water, I'd like to see the director offer a small mirror with a line of cocaine for the rider to snort. That would take real bike handling skills to accomplish that.
5. Forget the biological passport that the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) is pushing, fans should be able to buy their favorite rider's favorite stimulant in branded packaging...Ricco fans could have their very own CERA-EPO viles in a collectible cardboard container with Ricco on the front smiling. If you're lucky, you could even get his autograph before he has to strip and can't find his pen.

While there are certainly other ways I'd love to see doping enhanced in the sport of cycling, these are but a few of the early adopter ideas I've envisioned. I welcome your suggestions also.

And while I would never dope, and I wish no one die from doping, perhaps a tragic mishap on the lower slopes on Mount Ventoux would shake some sense into these idiots.

I myself have tried various different types of fuel while cycling: gels, bars, gummy things, and an assortment of beverages are the usual and expectant fare.

I've also tried some non-traditional foods hoping they'd give me both the energy I needed and the satisfaction of taste from eating them.

• Frozen cookie dough balls: You must eat these early or you just have a warm mess of unmanageable dough in a bag melting in your jersey. Tasty, but no EPO effect.
• Tater-tots: If you've cooked them the night before and salted them thoroughly, they're delicious on a long ride...especially if they've had time to reheat in your jersey. Again, tasty, but no EPO effect.
• Turkey sandwich: Just make sure you go heavy on the wasabi mustard and you'll be fine. Filling, tasty, and good for ultra events like LOTOJA
• Lofthouse giant sugar cookie with pink frosting: Like a surge of crack cocaine (not that I know what it's like, but I'm guessing here) that leaves you wanting more. Worst part is you have no milk to wash it down with.

Many of the things I've eaten while riding have done nothing more than hasten the lower GI distress — not a particularly enjoyable experience while riding with a wedge of leather underneath you. And some have simply tasted good.

And so to commemorate the memory of Leo P. and his doping friends, I've opened betting on the next to be caught. This will be a simple "call your shot" type of contest. Correctly identify the next doper to be apprehended (and who will soon thereafter deny everything) and you'll win a bag of my frozen homemade cookie dough for your July century ride.

Do I look fat in spandex?

Last weekend was Halloween, obviously, because otherwise I only expose this much skin while showering or riding my bike. And sometimes not even when showering.


And while dressing up to resemble people who you might better recognize from the movie Deliverance seemed fun at the time, when I saw how disturbing these photos were I started wondering how funny I might look posed in the same position in spandex...but still wearing the boots, of course.



Not too shabby...I think this is what Jan Ullrich might look like right about now. I'm sure he still wears his T-Mobile kit around the house for kicks. He also has a pair of T-Mobile PJs that he likes to wear when he's entertaining women or going out for some Euro Techno Disco.

But, I like to envision myself like this instead of the above photo.


Yes, I'm growing a mullet. I need something like Sampson's hair to power me to the ranks of Cat. 3 and be able to hang with the Josh's and the venerable and indestructible 155 pound ball of fury Larry Hall.

And so I've contrived a winter workout plan that include both the boots and the spandex. It's designed to increase strength and flexibility, while improving coordination, balance, endurance, and flexibility.

Here it is: I'll be doing all my off-season strength training wearing only a jock strap and my cowboy boots. And when I'm done with the weights, I'll wear the same attire while I do my spinning workouts...five days a week, for 70 minutes a night on the bike.

I know, I know, you're thinking that's too much clothing and I'll be sweating to death while working out. True. But consider the benefits next spring when my taint it so callused that I could ride on a seat made of sand paper for hours on end without so much as the slightest discomfort, and with the boots jettisoned for cleat and shoes, I'll be like a locomotive on the pedals.

Look what training in sweat pants and a sweat shirt as a youth did for Floyd Landis? I'm just taking the old school approach back a little bit more.

And don't ask for a photo....my jock is being laundered right now so the ensemble isn't complete.

But here's something to wet your appetite.



No pain no gain.

-- Two wheels for life

Two wheels for life

Yes, this will be you in a few years...riding around aglow from radiation while wearing your gas mask. Cars 'r' coffins. Every time I wear this T-shirt from the best bike apparel designers around, Twin Six, I get the same question: Why are those people wearing gas masks?

The answer I routinely give: Because this is a peak into the future and you've polluted our environment so badly that I'm forced to ride with a gas mask to avoid your toxic fumes. 

The open mouth breathing, deer-in-the-headlights looks I get tell me either people feel guilty about driving too much, or they have no clue what I'm talking about.

Either way it doesn't matter. I'm not anti car but it's fun to use this T-shirt as a conversation starter for alternative methods of transportation — buses, trains, carpools, bike commuting, and the like. 

Lest I be labeled a extremist when it comes to cars vs. bikes, let me clarify. I love to ride my bike to work...it saves me money, uses less natural resources, and keeps me healthy. And I do drive a car for a lot of things in my life. I just think when we have access to buses, trains, and bikes we should use them more frequently.

However, I do see a die hard bike commuter every winter wearing a gas mask as he rides from Davis County to SLC every day. I suppose it's to alleviate the impact of the Utah inversion from thrashing his lungs, plus it probably keeps his face warm. He's tough; he rides in some serious cold weather and doesn't seem to mind taking his life into his own hands every day on Beck Street.

I could do this for a living if I had to. As long as all I hauled was Styrofoam. This guy's not that tough.

And how about more of these signs around town...

And as dumb as I think recumbent bikes are, this has to be more than double retarded. The only thing more disturbing than this would be if they were facing the same direction, spooning. (Shudder)

And now it appear that the fair weather riding season is slipping away. Everyone enjoy your spin bikes and trainers.

Two wheels for life.