HBO Real Sports = Real Dissapointment

Woke up this morning excited to catch the HBO Real Sports episode featuring David Millar and the Garmin-Chipotle cycling team. It's not often our beloved sport crosses into the mainstream media, so I was excited beyond words to watch. (I even postponed my training ride to the afternoon, so I could watch the show in the morning).
The piece was good. David's story is truely a remarkable one. Here is a guy who stood on the moral high ground on doping early in his career. He was out to prove you could win without doping. After a few years under the intense pressure of his team, sponsors, and managers, he cracked and doped. In an instant, David pushed his values aside and fell into the dark side of our sport. He was caught, jailed, suspended, fell into drinking, and gave up on cycling. Like any redemption story, he made his way back to the sport he loved, and is now a champion in the world of ending doping in our sport. Doing so with the flair and cool that only David can.
John Frankel and Bryant Gumbell completed the piece with their commentary at the end. I should have turned the TV off at this point. My faith in the media left me to believe they would leave the audience without something positive about the direction cycling is going. Some nice kudos for those teams who are leading the charge for a dope free sport. And then they drop the bomb...
Bryant Gumball "I can't believe folks in the cycling world still consider Lance to be a hero" He went on to compare Lance to Barry Bonds and Roger Clemons. The debate over whether or not Lance doped can be argued from here to eternity. So what substance does this accusation make to the story? I guess a sports writer is only happy if they have a villain. Who would make a better villain than the man who won 7 Tour's and is a hero in the minds of thousands of cancer survivors? It's this kind of gutter ball media that makes me ill.
Someone pass me a pain reliever. The Tour can't start soon enough.

Disco Days Revisited

How the time has passed. 1 year ago......

Do you have what it takes to race in France this summer?

If you think you can climb the hardest stages of the world's best-known cycling race, then Discovery Club1080, presented by Discovery HD Theater, invites you to saddle up to test your skills this summer.

Discovery Club1080 is looking for two cycling enthusiasts to star in an upcoming program. If selected, you'll travel to Spain to meet riders and coaches from the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team. They'll show you the ins and outs of training for the world's toughest cycling race before they send you home where Discovery Club1080 cameras will follow you as you continue to train on your own. Then it's back again across the Atlantic, this time to France (with the Discovery HD Theater production crew right alongside), to negotiate the toughest stages of the world's best-known cycling event this July.

Well someone in the production department at Discovery thought I would make a good test speciman for the show. "So how many ways can we kill this guy on T.V.? Any reader of this blog would agree that getting a chance to participate in the challenge above, is the equivalent of winning the lottery of amateur cycling. It’s playing in the Super Bowl for your favorite team. It’s driving laps at the Daytona 500. It’s hitting a grand slam in the World Series for your favorite team.

So I’m that guy. I’m that guy who actually won this contest. So here are a few of the things I got to check off my list this past summer.

1. Getting the new team issue Trek Madone not available to the public. Check.
2. Sipping lemonade on Johan Bruyneel’s porch in Madrid with the legend himself and previewing stages of the Tour. Check.
3. Spending a week in Girona, Spain (the Mecca of professional cycling). Check
4. Going on a training ride in Girona with George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer. Check. (oh and running into Michel Barry and Freddy Rodriguez on the way).
5. Eating dinner, drinking wine and talking about the Tour with George and Levi afterwards. Check.
6. Hanging out with Tom Danielson at his home at the base of the Pyrenees. Check.
7. Climbing with Tom on a training ride (well watching him drop me) Check.
8. Having my body pricked and poked in ways I never would have imagined while having my V02 tested by Chris Carmicheal at his facility in Colorado Springs. Check. (oh and another training ride with Chris afterwards). Check
9. Being hooked up to this fancy computer bike fit thingy with all these sensors on me like a video game. Check!
10. Getting all of the coolest Discovery Channel gear you could imagine. Check.
11. Being on the team bus. (does that make me a groupie?)Check.
12. Riding stage 16 of the Tour and cracking on the climb. CHECK!
13. Sipping champagne on the Champs Elyesees with the team. Check
14. Sitting on the rooftop of the nicest hotel in Paris at the Discovery Team after party wondering how I got here. Check.
15. Hearing some of the greatest Lance stories from the coolest camera crew ever!
16. Meeting some really cool people who watched the show. Making some great new friends!
17. Getting up every morning at 6:00 am trying to relive the smallest part of my experience on my local training ride. Check.