Mike Hanley from Team 7-Eleven to Now: The Official's View on Doping

Mike Holds up Scott McKinley in 1988 Tour of Texas Pit

Most of you know Mike Hanley as the chief referee at Ohio Valley cycling events.  In the 80's he worked with Andy Hampsten and the 7-Eleven Cycling team, the team that led the American charge on the then European dominated peloton.  Mike offers a professional, historic, and an official's perspective on doping that only a select few in the sport can deliver.  He answers the question of what it means to us, the amateur/local racers and riders, and what we can do to preserve and grow the sport.  I am both humbled and honored he gave his permission to share his opinion.  Thank you Mike. 

by Mike Hanley
Executive Director
Indiana-Kentucky Cycling Association

(Indianapolis, IN) After the first Oprah/Lance interview I sit here wondering what my friends in cycling think about the recent developments in the Lance Armstrong saga. 

Most of you know me as the chief referee that runs the majority of the races around these parts. And a few of you know that I work behind the scenes with race organizers to develop the annual schedule of events. After watching the first Lance/Oprah interview I feel the need to share my thoughts about Lance Armstrong and how recent revelations/admissions may impact what you and I do as amateur bike racers.

Professional cycling, like most endurance sports, has a long history of performance enhancing (PED) drug use. In the early days, there was a distinct advantage over the competition when athletes at the top of a sport were experimenting with PED's. Over the past 30 years, coaches, team doctors and sports scientists, have developed a sophisticated system of doping with the goal of circumventing current testing methods. That has been the game behind the scenes and that's why Lance has been able to claim he's never tested positive.

The one thing that Lance said during the Oprah interviews that I thought was truly relevant was that he didn't feel he was cheating, just ensuring a level playing field. I get that. During the 1980’s I worked for the 7-Eleven Cycling Team which was the first organized American foray into European cycling. I didn't know it at the time but we learned a lot about racing in Europe, and the most obvious lesson was that we needed to get on the program. A program that was firmly entrenched in a culture of doping that included all the champions in recent memory and a majority of the riders in the peloton during the most formative years of the sport. How can we expect Americans to be successful at a European game if we aren't entitled to a level playing field? What I'm saying here is not justification for Lance’s behavior or an endorsement of PED's, its a question of 'how is one to be competitive when facing a stacked deck?'

I'm proud to say that 7-Eleven, for the most part, and specifically Andy Hampsten, raced clean. There were times when we pushed the envelope (or, more accurately, certain riders took chances) but overall we were the new kids on the block and we brought a distinctly American (read, clean) approach to pro racing in Europe. It wasn’t easy. But with a tireless staff, great coaching and a brilliant team doctor we earned every win and the eventual respect of the European cycling community.

Lance Armstrong’s confession was watched by millions of people who, I’m afraid, now believe that all cyclists are dopers. I hear it every day. However, when applied to amateur racing, nothing could be further from the truth. Doping, on the local and regional level in the U.S., is virtually non-existent for two reasons. First, the cost of PED’s is prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthy. And second, U.S. rider demographics are predominately over 30, educated, professional and family oriented.

If those of us on the front lines of local/amateur racing hope to quiet the outrage associated with Lance and professional cycling, and preserve our heritage of club sport and athlete development, we must take every opportunity to inform our friends and families that Lance's world is about fame and fortune, not what we do as amateurs and weekend warriors. We are riders who simply love the sport for the lifestyle and health benefits it offers and who will never succumb to the pressures of competing in Europe.

Pushing The Lance Boulder Down The Hill

The elephant is in the room riding a tandem and twirling a soccer ball on his trunk, and only CNN last night got a glimpse of it.  It’s bigger than Oprah.  It’s bigger than Lance’s ego.  I watched Mike and Mike on ESPN this morning.  While they summarized the interview well, they quickly breezed through and went right on to the bigger, easier and tastier story of the day, the poor Notre Dame football player who got catfished.  I don’t blame ESPN.  It has to hurt when the self proclaimed world wide leader in sports gets scooped by Deadspin, the world wide leader in telling Donald Trump to go F himself.  Not to mention, catfishing a college football player is way more interesting to the majority of viewers than doping in a sport that only makes the news for three weeks in July.  But, what if there’s a bigger fish to fry?

My TOC Photos Take on New Meaning

What if there is systematic doping in Soccer, Football, Baseball, Basketball…sports where the money is bigger, the fame more intoxicating and the rules are way more lax?  What if your kid, your nephew, the high school phenom next door doesn’t have a shot at making the team unless Mom starts making room in the fridge pronto to store some blood?  On Oprah, you may see a mature man in his early 40’s, but think about how young he was when it started to get real.

Who’s asking these questions Sally Jenkins?  Isn’t it obvious that if Lance says he saw himself as being on a level playing field, that this is way bigger than we can imagine?  C’mon it’s cycling.  By salary comparison, most cyclists don’t make in a career what most football players make in a year.  Still, Lance alludes to a peloton 200 or so deep, all with their doctors and support staffs systematically doping, for at least 7 years.  Doping has to be engrained deeper in other sports.  Maybe that’ll come out on part two tonight with the 2^nd place world wide leader in sports, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

What's behind those drawn shades?

Let me help pull the wool jersey from over their eyes.  It couldn’t have stopped with Lance.  It couldn’t have stopped with baseball player hearings on Capitol Hill.  It must be still happening.  It can’t be one or two bad apples.  It’s has to be orchards upon orchards.  Sure cycling now has the biological passport and out of competition testing, but come on.  They don’t do a whole lot of that in football or baseball, where penalties are measured in days not years.  I’ve never seen a doping control tent at a ball game stadium.  History has shown us that doping has a way to stay a wheel length ahead of the knock on the door.  It can’t be only cycling.  Who’s shining the light on soccer, football, baseball, basketball?  Who’s nosing around those doctor’s offices?  Who’s swinging by the baseball team locker room for a look?  What’s going on in the college team hotel before the big game?  What are those kids really doing after school?

Damn I Loved George

Maybe it is up to Deadspin to dig it up and steal some more world wide thunder.  Last night we saw the fastest guy from the fastest team admit to years of systematic doping.  While Lance danced around giving “the look” to specific others, journalists could pull up any team roster from any sport and find some names, players, doctors, trainers to start with.  February sweeps are right around the corner.  If anything, Lance proved it’s not a witch hunt and more likely shooting fish in barrel. 

When you discover that doping likely didn’t come to a magical halt with cycling in 2005, and probably takes place in other sports, sports with crazy rock star money, sports with much more lax penalties for doping, then you’re getting at something.  Then take a look at how these athletes get to the pro level.  Who missed the cut?  Who’s next in line to make the pro jump?  Look at the feeder leagues.  Look at college sports.  Seriously, take a look at high school. 

Right now there are talented 14 year old kids out there who might have a chance to go pro, only they need to be much bigger, much faster and have much more endurance to compete with all the drug users and enablers that currently occupy the team rosters and staffs.  Put your arm around one of those kids, read the “side effects” of EPO, Testosterone, and Steroids and ask yourself, does it really matter if everyone is doing it?

Or, you could just run with this catfish thing.  

Video: Oprah Lance Code Red Promo Parody

USADA Report: Now That You Know, Which Knee Warmers Will You Wear?

It was called “Clarity.”  As they adjusted the plastic mask over my face, I recall it having a hint of lemon lime.  It was what I ordered from the bar at the “O2 Lounge,” 9600 feet above sea level on Main Street in Breckenridge.  For lack of a better term, the barista at the oxygen bar turned on the flow and my wife and I sat back in hopes of relieving our pounding headaches on day two of our cycling vacation.  It worked.  If only for a few hours the headache subsided and my labored breathing eased climbing the trail.

While widely accepted, and being no hard and fast rules or sanctions against it, mountaineers are divided on the subject of using supplemental oxygen in their summit bids.  It’s also widely accepted that I’m no mountaineer.  Still I wonder, had I cheated in a way?  Absolutely not.  I was not trying to set a speed record on the local 14’er Quandary Peak, but simply trying to ease a day on the bike path to Frisco and a hike up to the Colorado Trail.  There are no rules in recreational cycling and hiking.  In more or less terms, nobody gives a hoot.  However in pro cycling we do, give hoots that is. 

Now with temps in the low 50’s and falling, I pulled on my knee warmers.  Blue, warm and sag-free, I love them.  Days earlier, I read Hincapie’s admission on his website, as well those of the others who cheated.  Like watching the slow helmet motion footage of a Red Bull Rampage rider casing an 80-footer, I followed the live blog of the USADA release at the WSJ website.  Even though we could all see this coming like semi-truck headlights in the fog, my stomach sank.  I began to feel played for a fool.  While there are a dozen companies that make blue, non-saggy, toasty knee warmers, I chose to buy Hincapie.  A few days ago, like many personal decisions we’ll make down the road based on our scruples, I chose to take them off.

Errmahgerd George!

The Hincapie I knew made those knee warmers as cool as the consummate right hand man I cheered for on TV and sought out for a photo when I vacationed at the Tour of California, the perfect teammate, always up there toughing it out in mud, in rain, and on the steeps.  I identified with that.  While I can count my personal solo wins of my 14 years of amateur racing on the fingers of one hand, I’ve always tried to encourage my teammates, give them the perfect lead-out, help with a draft, and lend equipment or advice.  I’m not going to say Hincapie knee warmers were like putting on Superman’s cape, but they did make me feel more like the bike racer I wanted to be.  Now instead of being a symbol of cycling’s team and hard-men nature, the knee warmers are a reminder to keep role models at a distance while trying my hardest to hold the sport dear. 

“Don’t be naïve Joe,” I can hear you say.  Everyone was doping.  Get over it.  “People suck and they cheat,” a reader posted on our Facebook page.  I know.  I know.  I know.  With taxes, the stock market and their spouses it happens everyday.  We all get screwed sometime or another.  However, I do feel cheated and I’m entitled to feel that way.  For (insert name of hero you can believe in here)’s sake, the accomplishments of the greatest American cycling team, the results of every race I saw them compete, the fame gained by the coaches and management, every dollar earned directly or indirectly because of that success is all ill-gotten. 

Adam Myerson ‏@AdamMyerson

You motherfuckers have a LOT of work to do to pay your debt back to all of us.

The root of my feeling lies in the fact that doping is not a one race thing.  To me, it’s preposterous to think, and as far as I can tell, physically impossible for a rider to stop doping and continue to masquerade as a clean athlete.  Doping is a tattoo, permanent.  Even if for a short period of time, the muscles built, the cardiovascular system developed, the knowledge gained at the top of the sport will always be with these riders till the day they die.  The phrase “former doper” is a joke.  Once a doper, always a doper. 

Nooo!  Him too?

By using EPO they were able to train harder and recover faster, win, get their name in the headlines, generate fans, and be in touch with industry people.  Now, years later these riders, team managers, coaches and doctors are going to ask me to participate in their Grand Fondo, read their book, go see their new team race, watch the movie, believe in the new crop of athletes under their wing, sign up for that triathlon, purchase their training program, to toe the line with me at a non-sanctioned mountain bike race, buy their brand of bikes or feel comfortable in their knee warmers.  I’m sorry.  They may be able to race a UCI event in 6 months, but I think I’m done with them and their knee warmers.    

However, I do somewhat sympathize with the riders…somewhat.  I’m sure you noticed a hint of victimization in the USADA report.  Many riders allege management more or less said it was dope or go home.  It reeks of coercion.  Yet a Barry, Hincapie and the others made the decision.  They were 10-12 years younger than now, hungry to go big time, pressured and perhaps a bit narrow minded to realize that there were more options than doping or going home. 

In mountaineering you’re judged by your peers, be it bottled oxygen or team support, on what type of assistance you used to get to the top and back down.  Maybe that’s what divides us from the those that doped.  From the USADA document, most riders seem to hint that they felt there was no other way to the top of the mountain.  We the fans feel otherwise, until now having to assume we were witnessing a monumental accomplishment.

I Booked a Plane Ticket and Got Up Early for This?

The real victims in all of this are the people that didn’t make the cut, the riders who lost to the dopers, talented prospective staff members that didn’t buy into the program and ended up trying to make the most of other avenues and/or cycling’s minor leagues.  I also feel sorry for the fans that booked a plane ticket, drove up the mountain in a rent a car at 5am to be a tiny part of something they thought was great.  It turns my stomach to think of all the people in the last decade that bought into the Trek marketing machine.  I feel bad that I once poked fun of Floyd Landis showing up for the Mohican 100 NUE Mountain Bike Race and thought LeMond was a loud mouth buffoon.  Looking back, at least they had the courage to speak out against a momentous opponent. 

Doping is against the rules in cycling.  Cycling is not anything goes like fighting cancer.  It’s not kill or be killed.  You practice, you eat right, you persevere, you find a mentor, you play by the rules, you lose, until one day…you win, and it’s glorious.  As a fan, I cheer for the guy dangling off the back in danger of getting dropped as much as the one goosing the pace at the front.

Floyd Landis and I (I'm the Fat One)

People jump up and down.  They scream.  Some have followed you since you were an amateur.  Some heard about you and came out to see if you could pull it off.  Now, they surround you cheering.  You get a trophy, sponsorships, book deals, and cameo roles in movies.  They want the same brand bike you have.  They want the same clothes, now with your name on them.  They want to get the advice of your coach.  They want to ride alongside you on a Grand Fondo.  Your success creates a worldwide movement.

However, doping makes all of that lying, stealing and cheating.  So don’t tell me that it’s okay for any of these cyclists, managers, coaches, doctors to continue in the sport, to continue their endorsements, to put on rides, to start or consult other teams, to show up at local mountain bike races and triathlons, endorse products, and create foundations based on the very color of the ill gotten glory.  It’s not.  All their perceived success in cycling is tainted by doping.  They gave up that chance the moment they went down the wrong path.

I’m not a strong enough voice to sway cycling one way or the other.  I’m not qualified to come up with a fool proof way to insure pro cycling is clean nor have the authority to change its direction.  I am however qualified to not attend events tainted by the presence of a doper.  I can impress on our local racers about what it really means to cheat and that there are other options.  Like Adam Myerson, I am qualified to question those at the highest level of the sport, raise an eyebrow when things don’t look right and be vocal about it.  For now, I can choose to remain a fan of the sport, but not the individual.  I can choose which bike to buy and which knee warmers I wear.

It’s Not About Lance, It’s About You.

$20 OBO

It looks like a good day to stay off the internet, said pro rider Adam Myerson on Facebook.  I don’t blame him.  Facebook lit up with the language of Lance this morning.  I was aghast at some comments.  However, having a communications background, I’m a good listener with a very long fuse.  So far, two co-workers kiddingly popped in my office to make sure I was doing okay.  Cute.  I genuinely laughed out loud at a friend’s post that read something on the order of, “I think I overheard someone say Lance is now stripping.”  Chapeau!  A nice twist on words.  I rolled my eyes at another post showcasing an autographed yellow jersey and the caption, “$20 OBO.”  Laughter is the best medicine.  Thank goodness it’s not a banned substance because today we need all we can get.

All kidding aside, I told my coworkers I feel a bit empty.  The emptiness comes from knowing the outcome before it’s happened.  As cycling fans, we know where this road leads.  Under a thick cover of trees it’s dark and foreboding.  However, even with the front end sliding out on gravel in a corner, you keep your hands on the bars hoping the rubber grips ground for a miraculous save.  Right now, your knee is instinctively augering outboard.  We know it’s a matter of road rash or a broken collarbone.  Lance chose road rash. 

It’s still going to hurt.  It’s hard to watch.  We’re still peeking between our fingers.

Some of My Other Cycling Heroes

In bike racing there are things you can control and those you cannot.  We learn, we strive to perfect what’s in our control and quash what we can’t.  We lube chains the night before the race and never, ever, under any circumstances do we make mechanical changes before a race without riding the bike.  We kick ourselves when hindsight shows we could have prevented a mishap.  We throw up our hands and say “that’s bike racing” when riders two rows in front of you fall and take you out with them.  For better or worse, today’s news is bike racing.

We can’t control what comes next.  So, like Lance, I’m throwing up my hands and saying I’m done with this nonsense.  I’ve had it with this BS of stripping titles, taking back medals and negating record books.  I too am disgusted with the after-the-fact reshuffling of the deck.  Lance is right.  It is absurd.  Either someone wins at that moment on that day, or they don’t.  The guy standing atop the podium after the final day of the Tour De France should be the winner, cut and dry.  Riders want to win when they cross the finish line on the bike, not 10 years later on the phone.  Lance contends he knows who won those tours.  In a perfect world, he’d be right.  

"Ce qui est fait est fait."  What's done is done.

You can curse the USADA’s and UCI’s procedures.  You can say Lance passed all the tests, gave them everything they asked, played by the rules and is clean, by definition.  That’s all that matters right?  Or, you can look for the crack in the pavement and insist that somehow he was able to beat the system, but is a doper.  One thing is certain, if we keep this up, we’ll be saying that for the rest of our lives. 

I don’t want to live that way.  I’m not going to continue to beat a dead horse.  I think its obvious UCI, USA Cycling, USADA, and WADA need to change.  So do riders and promoters.  They need to make sure the guy they hand the trophy to is the winner.  I can’t do that.  I’m not part of cycling’s governing body.  I’m a guy on my couch with a remote control in one hand and a beer in the other.

Sometimes Being A Fan Isn't Easy

I love banging the couch cushions and hiding my eyes between my fingers.  I love watching riders make miraculous cyclocross saves through the grass of a switchback.  I love seeing guys get mercilessly spit out the back on long arduous climbs.  I love to watch riders pick themselves off the pavement and close the gap.  I love the lead-out train as much as the guy who beats it.  I love bike racing.   

Lance did what he thought was best for him.  My opinion is to take is his advice.  Whether you’re a cycling fan or part of racing yourself, do what’s best for you.  Go ride your bike, enjoy the wind in your face.  Ride hard.  Ride long.  If one day you’re faced with a choice, make a decision you can live with the rest of your life. 

Right now, as a fan, my decision is to continue to cheer.  However, I chose to no longer be crushed days, months, years later that the riders involved were doping.  Hopefully that will change.  Till it does, I will watch races, ring cowbells, shout “Allez” at the leader and call it a day.  Fin.  Game over.  I'll turn my back having enjoyed another bike race and not care about it anymore.  I got what I came for.  It’s no different than turning off the TV at night.  

Goodnight Lance.

Blink.

Dear Doper Revisited

This Is The Real Me

Dear Doper,

I just want you to know that every time I watch a race I fake cheering for you.  My cowbell is battery operated.  My screams are a smart phone app.  My camera doesn't have a memory card.  You thought when you raced up that mountain that I was on the sidelines pouring my guts out for you.  Turns out I wear a football helmet with deer antlers and hang out on mountain passes all the time.  It was all a sham.  

Remember when you saw me running with my Belgian flag and stabbing my devil’s pitch fork into the sky?  You thought you witnessed my pure emotion, elation, joy, anger, and sympathy.  But, that wasn't true.  I save my woo-hoos and tears for things I truly care about.  

Did you really think that when I shouted at my big screen, spilled my Mountain Dew on the carpet, and scared the cats by jumping on the cushions that I was truly cheering for you?  I was totally bluffing when the attacks unfolded.  I can’t believe you fell for the old pound the sofa and hide my face behind my fingers trick.  

When cases of doping in cycling arise, I wish that was true.  However, every time I watch a race, I show my true feelings and emotions for the sport of cycling.  I cherish my autographs and photos.  I plan vacations around major races.  That's the true me.  Whether it’s bonking and losing 20 minutes to the leaders or kissing the podium girl on the cheek, I expect I’m seeing the true you. 

Sincerely,

Joe Bellante

(Joe Note: This is the 3rd incarnation of this post.  When news of doping in the sport arise, I revisit it and question it's relevancy.  Since the first post in July of 2007, my feelings haven't changed.)

Doping: The New Meaning of the Yellow Jersey

Does it really matter?  Considering what Tyler Hamilton said on 60 minutes last night, if Lance doped and every other team in the pro peloton distributes their version of the white lunch bag in the team bus, does it really matter to me, as a fan?  Not really.  It’s still a fair race.  The playing field is still even, just lower than it used to be.

I keep going back to "Dear Doper" an article I wrote about doping a few years ago.  In more or less words, I said when I watch a bike race I show my true self.  I shout at the TV, spill my soda and hide my eyes when riders knock elbows in sprints.  My true emotions come pouring out.  All I expect from the pros is that they are showing their true selves. 

My Yellow Jersey signed by Johan Bruyneel

When I wrote that, I never considered if doping is an all-encompassing aspect of pro cycling as Tyler insinuates, maybe I was wrong.  Maybe, even with PED's, I am still seeing the real pro athlete.  Only now I have to accept that they use drugs to go faster and last longer.  Perception is reality.  The playing field isn’t really all that level to begin with anyway.

Cycling is a team sport.  There are domestiques and team leaders.  It’s not expected that every rider in a 180 strong field has a chance to win.  Of the twenty teams, 20 team leader type guys are expected to go for the win.  The implication that there should be a level playing field for all riders is silly.  It’s really domestique versus domestique, leader versus leader, team versus team which is the reality.

It's sort of feeling that way isn't it?

If the leaders up the mountain stage are all doping up to the legally accepted limit, I accept that.   I can expect a shot of cortisone may be necessary to ride between the team car and your team leader for three weeks with a jersey full of water bottles over enough elevation to make an astronaut reach for the puke bag.  The playing field is even.  The catcher gets the big mitt.  The receiver doesn’t wear knee pads.  The team leader gets the earpiece and Edgar Allen Poe.  It’s not too much to accept that the level-road of cycling includes performance enhancing drugs.

Mr. "T"

It’s already accepted.  The UCI sets limits for testosterone, hemocrit and a thousand other things that I can’t spell or pronounce.  Does that not imply that there is doping in the sport and we’re just setting acceptable levels?  If the limit for blood hemocrit is 50, who wouldn’t want theirs at 49.5?  Like the commercial on the nightly news says, if you’re a man with “Low T” wouldn’t you want your T to be at normally accepted levels and take some T?  It's not so much that doping is against the rules, it's going over the limits that's the big no no.  

From what Tyler is saying the trick is to dope up to the acceptable limits and scrutiny of the testers.  You give your top dawgs the good expensive stuff and the domestiques what they need to fetch cookies and cola day-in and day-out and make the time cut.  You give them a schedule and have your team “doctor” do your own in-house testing to know how fast they can metabolize each product and still eek in under the limit if a test would come around.  Some win.  Some lose.  Some lose and get a do-over.  Some have a prescription.  Some are the most tested athletes in the sport, peed in a million cups and cleaned them all.  The playing field is still even, only winning the yellow jersey takes on a new meaning.  

Practically Fool-Proof DIY Blood Transfusion

Rule #1 before starting your at-home blood transfusion is to realize that it’s easy to get the blood out, the real challenge that tends to send people to the emergency room with small complications like Ricco’s septic shock and kidney failure is putting it back in.  That said, with this almost fool proof technique, there’s no doubt anyone, even you or I, could DIY a blood transfusion.  Just answer these simple questions to see if you’re qualified:

1) Can you operate a band aid? 

2) Does a half gallon of tomato juice in your fridge remind you of only a half gallon of tomato juice and nothing else, not even a scene from the movie Saw 6? 

3)Do you always remember to shut the refrigerator door? 

If you answered yes to these questions, then you too can easily increase your body’s ability to carry oxygen and boost your on the bike performance by performing your very own at home blood transfusion in your kitchen with the following household supplies and three easy peasy fool-proof steps.

Supplies:

1 sharpened stainless steel spoke

Bottle of 151 proof rum

1 set of barbecue tongs

1 bottle of window cleaner

1 roll of paper towel

Large water bottle

1 lube free latex condom

2 Quart pot filled with water

1 Bicycle

1 Trainer

3 sets of latex gloves

2 thick rubber bands from bunches of broccoli

1 reliable refrigerator where you can locate the temperature control

1 oversized syringe & needle paid for with cash at your local pharmacy (throw away receipt)

2 Bulging veins

1 black marker

1 postie note

Step 1: Get the Blood Out

Bring your bike and trainer up into the kitchen.   Put your pets outside in in another room till you’ve cleaned up.  Ya don’t want pet hair or dander getting in “the good stuff.”  Clean your countertops with window cleaner.  As seen in the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” it is rumored to kill most bacteria and cure many ailments.  Arrange the sharpened steel spoke, bottle of rum, condom, and rubber bands on the counter top.  Start by boiling your water bottle for 10 minutes in the 2 quart pot to sterilize it.  While it’s boiling, hit the trainer and bust out a few hard 1-min on 1-min off intervals.  When finished spinning, using latex gloves and a set of tongs, fish your water bottle out of the pot and set it on the counter with the top open.  Sterilize the spoke with the rum.  Quickly find a bulging vein in your arm or forehead or wherever one’s sticking out.  Jab it with the spoke and let the blood drizzle filling the bottle.  When it’s close to full, take a rubber band and run it up your arm to slow the blood flow.  If you used your temporal vein, put the rubber band around your forehead.  Use a paper towel to apply pressure and sop up the wound.  Once the nastiness is over, cover wound with band aid.

Step 2: Store the Blood

Now, cover the water bottle with the sterile condom and another rubber band.  Stick it in the fridge.  Label it with a sticker that’ll help you identify it and keep others from using it.  I usually call mine tomato juice, nobody in my household likes that stuff and it’ll never get touched.  Set the temperature control to between 4 and 6 degrees Celsius, from what I hear that’s the best temp range to store blood.  If you need to convert that to Fahrenheit, it’s just around 10 degrees above freezing, give or take.  It’s your your own blood, no need to sweat a degree or two.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Close the door and let it chill for 25 days, the approximate time it takes for your body to replace the lost blood.  I’m certain nothing could possibly contaminate it.  Heck, tomatoes last in the fridge for days.  Certainly human blood will keep for much longer than say american cheese or juicy Spanish steaks.  When you’re satisfied with your storage, go lie down and watch Sports Center while you rest.

Step 3: Give Yourself More Blood

When it’s time to get pumped up for your big event, get back on the trainer and find a vein again.  This time when you’re done, put on a set of latex gloves, use the oversized syringe and draw a syringe full of “the good stuff” from the water bottle in the fridge.  If the blood looks like chocolate syrup, don’t worry that’s probably normal.  Heck avocados turn brown on the outside, but they taste just fine when mashed up in guacamole.  Put the needle in the vein and inject the whole thing.  Repeat, using a clean needle each time, till all the blood is back in your body.  Oop.  Maybe I forgot to mention to get more than one needle.  Yep, should’ve been needles with an “s.” My bad.  No worries.  If you only have one, use the bottle of rum to sterilize the needle before reinjecting it.  Clean up, put on another band aid and go out there and kick some ass champ.

WIKI LEEKI: 2011 Tour De France Route Map Leaked

(Nose Hit News Service/Paris, France)  Just hours before Tour De France organizers planned release of de 2011 race route, Le Wiki Leeki (a French organization that is not on strike) allegedly unveiled portions of the route and uncorked the champagne themselves.  French authorities are redundantly calling it a faux hoax.  Included in the leak were details of new starting cities, a time trial in the Basque town of Testostero'ne, and a full map pictured below.

Stages 1 & 2

Stage 1, according to Le Wiki Leeki, takes place after the traditional prologue in Paris and follows the traditional flat start to the tour taking riders 135 miles from Clenbuterol, originally settled by Russian immigrants and finishes in Cera, known for its potent blood red wine.  Stage 2, the group contends, continues through the northern part of the country with an undulating 120 mile circumnavigation of the wine producing country between Vino and Landis'eille. 

Stages 6 & 7 

The first week of the tour ends with a bumpy ride, according to the Leeki, as the road tilts up for the first time.  Of particular interest is stage 7, which Wiki says will depart in Aach-Gee-Aach and finish 145 miles and three Category 2 climbs later in the Belgian town of Balco.

Stages 9-11 

These three stages take riders from through the heart of the Pyrenees Mountains in the middle of the 2^nd week says Leeki.  While stage 9 from E'peeo to Cortisone features 3 HORS rated climbs, stage 10 ending in the ski resort town of Puerto is certain to be a pivotal stage Le Wiki reports,  since it will be followed by a stage 11 time trial from Homologous to Mayo, where mayonnaise was invented.

Full 2011 Tour Route Map

Dear Dopers, Hoodwinkers, & Rule Skaters:

From the Desk Of:

I just want you all to know that every time I watch a race I fake cheering for you.  You thought when you raced up that mountain that I was standing on the side of the road for hours in the rain pouring my guts out for you.  It was all a sham.  I like ringing cowbells for fun and think my voice sounds cool when it's hoarse.  You totally pedaled faster for nothing!

Remember when you saw me running in my Borat underwear with my Belgian flag and devil’s pitch fork?  Well I burned you.  You thought you witnessed my pure emotion, elation, joy, anger, and sympathy, right?  Well, I wouldn’t waste that on you.  I save that for the things I truly care about.

Did you really think that when I shouted at my television, spilled my Mountain Dew on the carpet, and jumped up on the ottoman that I was truly cheering for you at the Tour?  I was totally bluffing.  I can’t believe you fell for the old pound the sofa and hide my face behind the cushions trick.  That team jersey I bought...it's hanging next to my bidet.  Sorry.  Joke’s on you.  I subscribe to Versus for Bull Riding.

I wish that was true.  However, every time I watch a race, I show my true feelings and emotions for the beautiful sport of cycling.  I show you the true me.  Whether it’s bonking and losing 20 minutes to the leaders or kissing the podium girl on the cheek, I expect I’m seeing the true you. 

Sincerely,

Joe Biker

PS: Originally posted on 7/24/2007

Fun With Me & Floyd Landis