Go flag yourself

Wow - what a stage in yesterday's USA Pro Challenge To Make A Race in Colorado That Has No Mention of the Word Colorado in the Title!  If you were like me, you were watching the race on your work computer in a tiny window covered up by lots of bigger windows opened up to porn websites so that everyone else in the office would think everything was status quo.  But I almost gave myself away toward the end of the stage when I started yelling at the computer  - which I almost never do when I'm watching porn....other than that one time.  Anyway - what a nail biter...

Tommy D, barely holding off the chase group for the win!

 

I know I wasn't alone in my excitement either when I saw what MO State Crit Champ Austin Vinton Twatted in this Tweet:

 



If Tommy D wins this I will swallow a garmin whole
— Austin V (@austinjosephv) August 22, 2012
 

To which I responded:

@austinjosephv Upload the data to Strava - I want to see if the transit time of your GI system is as fast as mine. #KOMturdmaker
— COMO CYCO POOBAH (@COMOCYCO) August 22, 2012
 

Well, this must have hacked Mr. Vinton off, because he sent me an email challenging me to a race.  And, I'm happy to announce I took Austin up on his challenge of going mono a mono, (or colon a colon as the case may be) - and after a lengthy discussion between his agent and my agent to get the details sorted out - a gastrointestinal match sprint commenced last evening.  Both he and I swallowed our Garmin 500s precisely at 6:00 PM. Upon retrieving them this morning (mine after three espressos and a bear claw), we uploaded the data to Strava.  Here's Austin's mapped segment:

GI transit time: 11 hours, 32 minutes

 

And my data:

GI transit time: 13 hours, 22 minutes

 

On first glance, it would appear as though Austin beat me.  However, I have it on good authority that he chased his Garmin 500 with two tablets of Ex-Lax and a Metamucil shake.  Therefore I issued an official protest and had his entry 'flagged' - which means that I have actually claimed the KOM crown (KOM = King of Movements).

 

Never heard of a flagged Strava entry?  Well neither had I until recently when my trusty sidekick, Pickle 2, did a little experiment on Easley hill.  One sunny Saturday morning, Pickle rode up the hill with his Garmin....only it was sitting in the passenger seat of his car.  He uploaded the data as though he had made the ascent on his bike and posted the data to Strava.  Not surprisingly, he was instantly awarded the KOM for ascending the 0.8 mile Easley hill at 19.2 m/h.

 

That Pickle can flat out MOVE!

 

Approximately 6 minutes after Pickle posted his KOM-worthy ascent of the big hill, he got a response from someone, whose name I've changed to "Mr. Rogers" for the sake of anonymity.

 

Was this Easley climb on a bike?

 

When Pickle didn't respond, the ride was 'flagged' and the KOM status was rightly returned to Mr. Rogers.  By the speed of Mr. Roger's response, and his sheer dominance in KOM crowns around COMO, I wonder if he keeps constant surveillance of Strava, maintaining each of his KOM segments open on his desktop computer and mobile devices at all times. Once an alert pops up on his smart phone that one of his KOMs has been bested, he assesses the data, and dashes over to a fire pole that descends into his garage where his bike lies waiting, tires inflated, chain lubed, skinsuit draped over top tube, bottles full of a 50:50 mix of Red Bull and Cytomax, ready to go at a moment's notice like the Batmobile, eager to reclaim his glory. 

 

The problem with our experiment is that Pickle went up the damn hill too damn fast resulting in him getting called out by Mr. Rogers and subsequently flagged.  But in light of the recent lawsuit surrounding Strava, I'm a little worried this was a reckless stunt to begin with.  What if Pickle's KOM didn't get flagged, and it inspired a whole host of COMO's Strava-teers to go out there and try to best it, and someone stroked out while climbing that stinking hill trying to beat a time that was actually set by Pickle's Bugatti (yes, Pickle drives a Bugatti - I really need to figure out how much we are paying him).

 

At any rate, now that I've flagged Mr. Vinton for inappropriate use of cathartics - I think my GI King of bowel Movements crown will remain safely on my own colon, thank you very much.  And rather than laying down the gauntlet, I will lay down the adult diaper to any COMO Strava-naut that thinks they can best it.  I may not ride a bike up a hill very fast, but I've always taken the advice of "shit or get off the pot" to heart and know how to do just that.

 

Speaking of flagging results, I still have no idea how Christian VandeVelde took the yellow jersey from Tejay VanGarderen yesterday when they finished in the same group.  To add confusion, BMC had previously filed a protest over the Crested Butte stage saying Tejay had gapped VandeVelde coming into the mountain finish on Tuesday suggesting that he should actually have a couple of seconds on the Garmin rider.  One would think the race officials could have reviewed the televised finish (or alternatively just looked at this photo).....

 

and made an immediate ruling on it, but they said they wouldn't make a decision until today - two days later?  And then BMC's director Michael Sayers decided to lash out at Team RadioShack for not doing any work in helping bring back Danielson yesterday and made the quote regarding the possum-playing RadioShack squad, "I think they forgot that the women's race is later in the week." Not a cool thing to say from the BMC leader as firstly, his team leader's wife, Jessica VanGarderen, is the race organizer for the women's race, the Blue Ribbon Alpine Challenge.  And secondly, the women's race was actually run yesterday and had to be shortened to a single day's criterium versus the previous 3-day event last year because of an absolute lack of funds.  Sayers can rip on the Shack all he wants, but slighting the women's race like that was pretty low...I think his ass needs to be flagged for that comment....

Monkeys and blow

It sucks playing second fiddle.  I wouldn't actually know that as a fact, because the fiddle I'm typically playing is so far down the line it's not even in the orchestra pit, but rather out in the parking lot somewhere.  But as a general rule, playing second fiddle generally blows, which is why so many sayings are dedicated to the position.  "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride," or "second place is the first loser."  Even in the diarrhea song, 'second' gets so much disrespect that there is no reference made to what specific form of defecation you will achieve as you round second base.  If you're coming into first, your pants are about to burst, naturally. And if you are contemplating stretching your double into a triple and heading for third, you are going to lay a turd. And of course if you are sliding into home, your pants are full of foam.  But NOTHING if you are coming into second!  It is the forgotten position.

This year, one of two men have dominated the majority of sprint finishes in pro-cycling and they both have one, if not many, nicknames.  Mark Cavendish cleaned up at the Tour de France as well as the World Championships and is, of course, referred to as the "Manx Missile" (although we here at COMO CYCO like to refer to him as "Cavendouche."  And Peter Sagan, who dominated the Tour of California and won the green jersey in the Tour has since been called the "Tourminator" or the "Velvet Samurai."

And whilst The Samurai and the Manx Missile have been competing with one another over whose celebratory sprint pose is most douchetastic, American sprinter Tyler Farrar (it's pronounced like FAIR-rah, I'm told)

has usually been simultaneously mopping the pavement with his body in race after agonizing race this year. Well today, Farrar finally has pulled a big ol' salami out of his chamois in the USA Pro Challenge Tour of blah blah blah.....in the form of a sprint win!  And truth be told, let's give the kid some props, because he did it by hanging with the winning field and dragging his ass up a long ascent into Telluride and over a couple stinger passes when many of the other sprinters decided to catch a ride in the sag wagon instead...I don't want to call anyone out...but....oh shit - hang on...a sneeze is coming on....ahh..ahhh....ahhhh-CHICCHI! 

Hell, even Farrar's teammate Dave Zabriskie suffered today, barfing away all of his vegan lunch and most of his vegan breakfast as he tried to stay with the breakaway group.  (He's a vegan, if you've not heard).  So can we finally give Farrar a nickname?  Oh wait - Christian VandeVelde just did.

"The Ginger Ninja gets the monkey off his back in the mountains. So happy for him."

Yeah - I think that nickname should stick nicely.  And this, apparently, is what you look like when you are a Ginger Ninja and you get a monkey off your back.

Begone, monkey!

And in other, much less interesting news, Lance Armstrong apparently has gotten himself some "fresh blow...."

And I thought he was just being accused for using EPO, steroids and testosterone....

Judge Sparks has sided with USADA and dismissed Armstrong's case against the anti-doping agency.  Looks like he's got until August 23rd now to decide whether he's going to accept USADA's sanctions or try to fight them through arbitration.  As I Googled this story, I noticed that many of the various news outlets have chosen to use the pursed-lipped, salmon-mouth photo of Armstrong seen above as visual representation of the story in an attempt to convey..... I actually have no idea what they are trying to convey, as he was neither photographed nor interviewed at all in response to this news story.  I guess the news agencies just subjectively guess what he may be feeling upon hearing this and then go through their files in search of a photo that conveys those emotions.....and today, that would be this....

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this is what it looks like when a monkey jumps on your back...with some fresh blow.