My day was pretty quiet today and went for an easy ride up to the North. After spending the week off the bike because my bike was in the shop I decided to take it easy. I took my bike into the LBS for my pre-season/after winter pamper. Similar to what women do by going to the beauty salon I take the other lady of my life to her own special pampering parlor. Generally I have the cables and chain replaced as well as a general checkup where I replace anything that may be worn. This time around the headset, rear tire, BB and middle chain-ring all needed to be replaced, so this was a rather expensive trip to the shop and it took the whole week because of the holidays that were sprinkled between. At least now everything is working as required on the bike and I can know that something is not going to snap or break because I did not replace something before the time, much better to do it before the time and prevent problems.
Onto today's ride. I did an easy hour and a half ride up to Rosh HaNikra, the normal easy ride loop that takes me along the coast and with the weather lately the normal calm Mediterranean was kicking up white horses, I even spotted some surfers trying to catch the four foot waves blowing in. I was listening to the iPod and a new Podcast, the Two John's. Interesting stuff and its bike related so I'll give it a go. They have a wealth of knowledge but each show is about two hours long so its not a one sitting type of podcast I'm used to. An uneventful ride although it is still hell of a beautiful with all the flowers opening up on this harsh land.
Finally I read that we are once again befallen by another doping problem. Tyler Hamilton, of the badboys of cycling Rock Racing Team, was a little too bad. What i don't understand is that he knowingly took the substance, as if the riders that dope don't normally knowingly take the products. He claims to be suffering from depression so you sort of feel sorry for the guy but once you read that he once accused of paying some serious dollars to Dr. Fuentes you have to ask the question, why not go to a specialist and find some treatment that is not going to throw the entire peleton back into the spotlight. He will go on to retire and cycling will take another kick while its down. As if the news of Lance last week was not disconcerting enough now we have the real deal again. Lets hope that this will just go away quickly, thankfully he is not claiming his innocence and wondering who slipped something into his drink at the local pub.
