In the face of the FLandis doping allegations Lance Armstrong remained at his statesman best. Calmly dismissing the accusations made as being so beneath him that they’re not even worth commenting on and in doing so not actually having to comment on them.

But it seemed as if it had all became a little too much for Armstrong as he crossed the line to finish 3rd in the 2010 Tour of Luxembourg. Because as he did so a heckler dared to cry “Liar! Cheat!” from the crowd. And again as Armstrong was being interviewed came the cat-call “Liar! Cheat!”. This was a heckle too far for Lance, and out went the statesman’s poise and in came the bad attitude.

“Come and do that to my face!” Armstrong repeatedly spat back as he mounted the barrier and curled a finger.

Armstrong followed this outburst up by claiming, with some exasperation, that he pitied “the fool who come and do that to my face!”. But fears that the exchange might escalate from handbags into a full blow ruckus – possibly involving a cabbage cannon – were thankfully not realised. And as Armstrong was lead away by his security guard to enjoy a glass of ice cold milk he could be heard muttering “I ain’t flying on no plane with no crazy fool”.

Hear Europeans Boo!

I’m sure you’ll be amazed to learn that the account above doesn’t strictly follow actual events. If you’d like to see what actually happened then have a look at the video below.

Warning: This video contains 5 minutes of booing and particularly grating European voices dully calling “Laaance!”

I’ve wallowed in the smugness of that title for so long that it’s not exactly news any more that Vino won the 2010 Liege-Bastogne-Liege. But his return, and more importantly his return to winning ways, has left cycling with a bit of a headache.

How to solve a problem like returning dopers?

This particular headache is in no small part due to cycling behaving like a jilted lover who’s hit the bottle to try and forget those those painful memories of someone you loved cheating on you. They’ve been mulling over that pint now for 12 years – ever since the Festina Affair – pretending they’re searching for the answers to their problems but in reality all they’re doing is hiding from them.

But suddenly cycling has been shaken from it’s stupor. The ex is back and they’re looking as good as ever:

Vino’s Got Class

How time has changed since Vino first last crossed the line last first in Liege. Gone was the adulation of the fans and the plaudits of the commentators. Replaced by the jeers of derision (“Boo”) and whispers of suspicion (“Did he just steal my wallet?”). And an overwhelming fear that Vino had just besmirched the otherwise smirchless Old Lady in a way that previous winners like Alejandro Valverde, Tyler Hamilton and Frank Vandenbrouke couldn’t possibly imagine. Even if you drew them an extremely graphic picture of the besmirching using cuttings from Nuts magazine.

Spare a thought for poor Vino himself though. He’s completely dumbfounded by this reaction: “All I did was sleep with your grandma and you’re like all “boo!” on my arse. Give me a break, will you?” – I’m paraphrasing there, but you get the drift.  He seems totally oblivious to his betrayal and remains resolute in his refusal to admit any guilt. He has gone as far as referring euphemistically to his “dark years” but this only serves to makes it sound as if he’d gone a bit over the top with the fake tan rather than taking part in a systematic and premeditated doping regime. Surely if David Millar has shown the dopers anything, it’s that to be accepted back in the fans hearts you got to show contrition.

“Hang Him!”

So how should we treat returning dopers?

Some will claim that letting a former doper return to the peleton, particularly one who continues to admit their own guilt, is like letting a crocked accountant run your finances. It all comes down to an issue of trust – and even if they are now perfectly straight, if they’ve seen the error of their ways, they will always carry an air of suspicion with them. If they’re subjected to the same controls as all other riders and they continue to pass those tests we have little choice but to let them ride.

I still think that cycling would have a better, brighter future without Vino coming back – let alone winning a monument but until the day he does finally retire we’ll just have to wince at the thought of a relationship that could have been so beautiful but turned out to be so painful.

There’s something undeniable naff about folding bikes. Endearingly so, maybe, but naff nonetheless.

Naff. Naff. Naff.

I suppose, before I go any further, I should come clean here and confess that my feelings towards folding bikes are more than somewhat coloured by the fact that, when we were children, my sister had one. It was a real horrorshow of a bike – some sort of Raleigh, its cream finish offset delightfully by the white wall tyres on the tiny wheels. It had moulded plastic handlebar grips that after ten minutes of riding made your hands burn as if you’d been holding a pair of curling irons. It was hard to make “go” because the lever on the Sturmey Archer was stiffer than a teenager at a women’s beach volley ball tournament and even harder to make “stop” thanks to brakes that had so little power, pulling the level felt like you were pressing a wet sponge against a jelly. It also had a basket.

And worst of all, my sister – being 2 years older than me – used to regularly kick my arse on it.

So, there, now you know.

Shockingly, despite this naffness – and my deep psychological scarring – the folding bike is now more popular than ever with 60, if not 70, percent of all doorways on trains into London currently blocked by a folding bike. All of which might be a pain for those commuters without their right trouser leg tucked into their socks, but is great news for the granddaddy of the folding bike - Brompton.

What’s not quite such good news for Brompton, is that the folding bike’s image problem is compounded by the fact that it’s also British built – a fact which essentially uses the unstylish, yet powerful, thumb of bad taste to shift the bike’s Sturmey Archer hub of naffness into third. Because, and I’m wildly generallising here, British manufacturing has struggled to do the whole “cool” thing making everything seems to be a little bit, well, naff.

But before you tut-tut and tell me I’m “Bally well out of order, old chap”, it’s not just me. Look! Alexei Sayle thinks so too:

“If the British had invented the Walkman, it would have been a teak box, covered in leatherette, with the headphones out of a Lancaster bomber”

Maybe it’s our pragmatism that makes us place function over form. Maybe we’re too rational and not emotional enough. Maybe we genuinely would rather be Richie than the Fonz. Whatever the reason, while we were out taking “country jaunts” on our drab Pashley’ Roadster Classic:

Our European neighbours, the Italians, were knocking out things of beauty like Coppi’s 1952 Bianchi:

Hey, You There! What Are You?

But in the midst of all this naffness, almost behind our backs, something unusual happened. Something completely unexpected has happened. Something involving Brompton turned out to be *cool* – the Brompton World Championships.

As you can imagine, these *cool* Championships weren’t held in Britain. The first was held back in 2006 in Barcelona by the Spanish importer of Bropmton bikes. And despite not being able to find any reports or pictures, I like to think that each and every one of those taking part were nonchalant chicos who whilst racing through the exotic streets of Barcelona each offer a casual “Hola, guapa!” to every girl they pass. Sounds like a reasonable, yet in no way over glamourised, and highly plausible description of events, doesn’t it?

Anyway, whatever actually took place in Barcelona, Brompton liked what they saw enough to bring the event back home to Blighty. And, would you believe, in the process turned the World Championships from something that was exotic and cool into something slighly less so:

After You. No, After You. No, No…

With its strict dress code of shirt, tie, and jacket the Championship was moved to Blenheim Palace – the home of the most British of Brits: Winston “Bloody British” Churchill – making it a Spanish fantasy no more but a quintessential British affair. A celebration of our spiffing British eccentricity.

Of course, in reality, it’s also a cynical marketing ploy by Brompton – preaching their “brand messages” to the converted. Quite literally peddling naffness to people who are quite literally peddaling naffness. But we’re all too terribly, terribly  British to mention that, aren’t we?

Maybe the quirky rules, the location, and the prospect of another day away from the family is a spot on recreation of your average Brompton rider’s experience of community by train/bike – but it’s not mine. So here are a few ideas I’ve had to make the event a little truer to the my train/bicycle commuter’s experience:

• Before the race, the competitors are held in a cramp, smelly, and searingly hot compartment with their face pressed into a stranger’s armpit for 45 minutes.
• Instead of clapping and cheering on the participants, the crowd geer and throw insults at the riders as they pass.
• Taxis suddenly pull out into the path of riders at various points around the course.
• The event is only held if it’s raining.
• To win the race, each competitor MUST hold a door open for someone – even though you’re the one with the bike – AND have shouted “Wanker!” at someone along the course regardless whether it was actually them in the wrong or not.

Let’s hope they bring these in for the 2010 event to make it proper British, innit?

Don’t I Know You From Somewhere?

Bringing a bit of the Spanish cool to last year’s Championships was ex-Pro Roberto Heras:

What was most startling about his participation in last year’s event is just how much of an improvement to your performance an effective doping programme can really make. With it, you can win a Grand Tour, with out it, you can only finish 2nd in a fold-up bike race.

And speaking of recovering drugs cheat not performing at their best, Floyd Landis finished 25th in the recent Tour of Utah:

After being beaten by Utah Jazz’s Deron Williams in a pre-race publicity time trail, Floyd Landis carried his form into the race proper, finally being beaten by 24 other riders. Jolly good show, Floyd.

Responding to the Tourmalet-sized cynicism that’s developed in all of us since it was decided drug taking was bad for bike racing (despite the fact that everyone – inlcuding the soigneurs – were apparently doing it) and manifests itself as an endless moan, Bradley Wiggins was forced to release his blood test values.

Garmin-Slipstream put out his blood values for both haemoglobin count – the concentration of oxygen carrying protein in red blood cells – as well as, what’s becoming the de facto measure of cheating, his “Off Score”.

Now calling it the “Off Score” makes it sound a little more Terry Thomas – “Your Off Score’s really not on, you absoulte scoundral!” – than it probably is. Here’s how Garmin explain it:

The Off Score, which takes into account the relationship between haemoglobin and reticulocyte concentration is currently used as the reference point for assessing an athlete’s blood profile. Since reticulocytes tend to decrease when haemoglobin is artificially high, the combination of a high haemoglobin and a low reticulocyte raises the Off Score.

Not quite as funny as it first sounded, I think you’ll agree. Maybe closer to some of Thomas’ later work but certainly not up there with Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or Monte Carlo or Bust.

Anyway, much was also made of Bradley’s weight loss in the build up to the Tour – in the 9 months prior to the Tour he lost 7 kilos. Which although might not win him the crown of “Weight Watchers Slimmer of the Year” it’s no men feat for someone who’s not actually a fatso. Of course, for the anti-doping cynics out there this is a hard fact to believe – and Bradley’s partly responisble for this. Judging by the account in his autobiogrphy Bradley used to be an almost Flintoff standard drinker and his cake consumption is estimated to be the same as that of a single woman in her early 40′s.

Which is why Garmin have been forced to release Bradley’s cake and beer intake levels for this year’s Tour:

At first glance, you might think that this is simply a pathetic attempt at humour, very badly done in Microsoft Paint – you’d be wrong, though. It was actually done using Adobe Photoshop.

As you can see, during the whole of the Tour both his beer and cake intake were very low. There’s only a slight blip plotted on the cake line when Bradley accidentally ate half a croissant. No-one is quite sure how this happened, although it’s currently believed that a member of Saxo-Bank may have spiked his porridge with it. His consumption levels stayed constant until he hit Paris and, as clearly shown above, beer imbibment rose markedly and he Katona’d it on the cake front before returning to a more normal level.

There we have it, categoric proof to support Wiggins’ weight loss based performance increases. We can only hope this will be enough to satisfy the doubters or, at the very least, stop them moaning on and on and on for a couple of weeks.

So hot on the heels of the first drug revelations from this year’s Tour comes the first drugs use denial.

Mikel Astarloza is reported in the Guardian as saying:

“…he had no idea how he tested positive for the endurance-booster EPO in a sample taken before the race.”

Obviously, just as performance enhancing drugs have no place in pro-cycling, so casual racism made popular by 1970′s comic creations have no place in cycle blogging but am I the only one who thinks that Astarloza is trying to channel Fawlty Towers’ Manuel by essentially claiming “I know nothing” possibly in the hope that we’ll see him as a hard done by idiot ignorant of his crimes rather than a filthy drugs cheat. Initial reports that Astraloza also claimed the rat he’s keeping as a pet was in fact a hamster were later revealed as nonesense.

I didn’t do it!

Just like a child with chocolate round his mouth denying he ate the last biscuit, the motto of the doper is “I didn’t do it”. In the most high profile of recent cases, Floyd Landis, took his “I didn’t do it” as far as the CAS. In claiming he’d no idea how he’d become “super spunky” over night, he rather disturbingly added that his high testosterone levels were “produced by my own organism” despite those levels being more than twice those of the 1980 East German Women’s Olympic Shot Put team combined.

So despite his denial, it’s not looking good for Astraloza.

He is, of course, innocent until proven guilty so the anti-doping vultures circling above the ailing Astraloza will have to wait for the results from his B sample before the can descend and peck his eyes out. Even if his B test does come back negative to clear him of these charges there’s still a 50:50 chance he doped. And let’s not forget that when the US sprinter Marion Jones was cleared of EPO use thanks to a negative B sample back in 2006, it turned out to be the dope smoke from the fire that eventually ended her career.

And it seems that Astraloza has been around enough to realise this:

“The damage has been done, I’m innocent and I’m being accused of something I haven’t done. This is a very serious situation.”

I bloody well knew it!

Most worryingly for me, the Astarloza affair has revealed a side effect of the witch hunt against the dopers that’s far worse than doping itself: it’s turned me into a cynic of near Kimmage proportions. When I heard a rider had been suspended for doping my first thought was “I knew it was too good to be true” and on reading Astarloza’s denial all I could think was “Well, you would say that.”

Having said that, I’m not quite at the bitter, forgotten, old Lemond level of showering Contador’s parade with “VO2 Max” flavoured piss – we should celebrate the class of his win with out putting our hands over our mouths and muttering to ourselves “unless you’re a drugs cheat”.

Becuase if we suspect everyone who achieves anything in cycling of cheating, what future will there be in the sport at all?