Rides & Olympic Rants N'at

Do you know that feeling you get when you slip into a warm bath, or the how you body tingles when you the first drops of java start to course through your veins in the morning? Or better the way you feel when first drops of an Imperial Stout wash over your tongue on a Friday night?? Well that's how tonight's road ride felt. It just felt ggoooood. Combining 3 days of rest with many more hours of technical mountain biking in recent weeks has REALLY made the road flatten out a bit. It was pretty sweet but I'm anxious to see dirt again soon!

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So I guess there's a big Olympic hullabaloo about 4 American cyclists arriving in China for the Olympics sporting masks issued by the U.S.O.C. to guard against the air pollution. They were told they may "offend" the host country! WTF?? Don't get me wrong, I am MORE that aware that MANY Americans go swaggering around the world offending folks, thinking that everyone should speak English and act the same as folks in the U.S. But this is sort of absurd! Say what you want about when and where the athletes should wear the masks, but why the hell were they given the freaking things if they weren't allowing folks to wear them??

"When they handed us these masks,
they never said, 'Here they are, but don't wear them."
-Mike Friedman

A BIG deal has been made of the pollution in Beijing and rightfully so. It sounds bloody awful. I'm sure it would be bad in many other cities in the world too (including some right here in the U.S.). Making a big deal about freaking masks does nothing to help these athletes who have worked hard to get to the Games focus and do their best.

Austrian Thomas Rohregger had these things to say to ORF (Austrian TV)- "I hadn't thought that it would be so bad...(it's) Really awful, my lungs and even my eyes are burning. The pressure on my lungs was nearly unbearable. Three hours of training felt like six hours." Were the Chinese offended by that? Is the Austrian Olympic committee all jacked off at Thomas? Again, do not mistake me for some red, white, and blue, USA! USA! chanting, flag waving, face painted, jingoist. I hear and see many of my fellow Americans do a LOT of embarrassing things around the world. BUT I have to say that a few cyclists wearing air masks in an air port to protect against pollution and illness in the days leading up to one of the biggest events in their sporting life, is NOT really one of them. On the bright side, this is probably the most coverage U.S.A. cycling will get at the Olympics from the press! At least Joe Six Pack knows there IS cycling in the Olympics.

So to Meatball, his 3 mask wearing friends, and to the rest of the cyclists getting ready to roll on China I say... Forget this shit, wear the masks if you want, relax, have some Kung Pau, kick some ass in the saddle and then relax with a couple Tsingtaos while you heckle the silly run/walkers and synchronized swimmers.

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As far as the Mountain Bike Event goes you can check out the course profile [HERE]. Some folks on the forums were saying it looks lame, and while it's not exactly a single track course, that I would wan to ride all the time, but for an Olympic event in the middle of Beijing I don't think it looks to shabby. Looks to be a lot of room for folks to pass, so hopefully the racers wont have to get all "Euro World Cup" and start cutting across the tape when they can't pass as I've seen them do.

The course is not even 3 miles long, but it seems that the Olympics are a lot about spectators and TV, so that has to help in that department. By the way if you want to watch the Mountain Bike events they will be on 3 A.M. Eastern, August 22nd (Women's XC) and August 23rd at 3 A.M. (Men's XC). Yeahhhh, I'm not really seeing myself up at 3 A.M. to watch it. But you all out West will only have to stay up until Midnight!

I have to ask, will the Chinese be offended and will the U.S.O.C. be up in arms when they see Adam Craig on the start line with that white breathing shit rolled up and stuffed in his nose? Hmmmm. Could we have ANOTHER International incident on our hands??

Later.

*Thanks to CyclingNews.com for some of the quotes and the Adam Craig pic.