It was over in an instant, but the altercation between a Tour of Utah race official and Garmin-Chipotle team doctor Prentice Steffen was years in the making.

During the stage 3 criterium in Salt Lake City last Friday, Tour of Utah team liaison Marty Jemison, a former [...]]]>

VeloNews | Old doping accusations lead to altercation

It was over in an instant, but the altercation between a Tour of Utah race official and Garmin-Chipotle team doctor Prentice Steffen was years in the making.

During the stage 3 criterium in Salt Lake City last Friday, Tour of Utah team liaison Marty Jemison, a former U.S. Postal Service rider, punched Steffen after the team doctor made what Jemison considered to be an inflammatory remark about alleged doping dating back over a decade.

Jemison and Steffen worked together at U.S. Postal during the 1996 season; Jemison was a talented American rider on the upstart squad, and Steffen was an emergency room physician and admitted recovering heroin addict.

In 2001 Steffen told Irish reporter David Walsh that in 1996 U.S. Postal riders Jemison and Tyler Hamilton had approached him during the Tour of Switzerland looking for information about illegal doping products. Steffen said he reported the incident to then-director Mark Gorski, and at the end of that year his contract with the team was not renewed.

Whether or not Prentice Steffen’s story is true or not, it has always smacked of disgruntled former employee sour grapes to me …

We all know about Tyler’s history, but no one has ever produced a shred of evidence other than Steffen’s testimony that Marty Jemison doped, or inquired about doping. And since it’s impossible to prove a negative, Jemison has no way of demonstrating that he rode clean.

So why keep telling the story, Dr. Steffen? What’s more, as an admitted junkie, how do we know that you’re not still sticking a needle in your arm? Are you being subjected to all the same tests that the riders on Garmin-Chipotle are? Can you prove that you weren’t actively using heroin at any point over the past 12 years, especially back in 2001 when you were telling your story to David Walsh; another man who seems to have an axe to grind?

Regardless of what may or may not have happened in 1996, it’s in the past and there’s no need to bring it up every chance you get, especially when of the people involved has been retired for several years and is now working with the organization of a race to which your team has been invited.

sometimes there is nothing else except for the pen, the ink, the paper, me, and the muse

Or get modern. Sometimes there is nothing but me the monitor, the keyboard, the words, and sweet inspiration

looking at the blank paper looking at the blank screen

watching the words take shape something [...]]]>

addiction is like this

sometimes there is nothing else except for the pen, the ink,
the paper, me, and the muse

so do you

  — Father Luke (b. 1959), American poet. Reprinted with permission.
  — For more, see FatherLuke.com

Paris-Roubaix winner and former world champion Tom Boonen has tested positive for cocaine, Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the 27-year-old Boonen tested positive for the drug three days before the Tour of Belgium on May 25, although anti-doping officials say the rider will [...]]]>

VeloNews | Boonen tests positive for cocaine

Paris-Roubaix winner and former world champion Tom Boonen has tested positive for cocaine, Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the 27-year-old Boonen tested positive for the drug three days before the Tour of Belgium on May 25, although anti-doping officials say the rider will not face suspension since use of the drug is not specifically banned except in competition.

Boonen and his Quick Step squad have scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at the team’s headquarters in Wielsbeke, Belgium, promising “an annoucement regarding the current situation.”

More on the Boonen situation on VeloNews here and here, Eurosport, and the Guardian UK.

Will be interesting to see what comes out of this. I can certainly understand the allure of cocaine … when I was younger, I did a fair amount of “experimentation” with various illicit chemical substances, cocaine amongst them … I know firsthand what the effects are, how it makes the user feel, and why someone would want to continue using.

Thankfully, after a really bad night in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco involving glass pipes, getting robbed (twice), and the offer of needles (with other substances, which I turned down), I wised up. I have been clean since August 1991; almost 17 years at this point.

This is not some huge confession that I’m putting out here … I’ve never really hidden this from anyone, and have discussed it fairly freely when the topic has come up. I’m certainly not proud of it, but nor am I ashamed of it.

To me, there is a huge difference between taking drugs to cheat, and taking drugs to escape. What I did, and what Brother Boonen has been doing was seek an escape from the pressures of our lives. Different pressures I’m sure, but not always easy to admit and seek help for.

Hopefully, this will be Boonen’s wake-up call, and he’ll seek the help he needs, rather than continue down the same path that Marco Pantani and Jose Maria Jimenez have traversed, to their unfortunate and tragic deaths.

And lest anyone worry, based on other posts on the blog over the past year or so, as bad as my life sometimes seems to me now, it’s not nearly as bad as it was in the last 1980s and early 1990s … I am in no danger of falling back into old habits.

I’m not even drinking really … a beer here and there, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a real cocktail. It certainly wasn’t at home. I still have the same 4 unopened bottles of vodka in the freezer that I’ve had since posting about the The Great Vodka Taste Test last fall.

I’ve already been hooked for about $40.00 on a Limar 911 helmet. Limar and Rudy Project seem to be the helmets that fit [...]]]> Chainlove.com is a new site launched by the folks at Backcountry.com, along the lines of SteepAndCheap.com … one item at a time, at an incredible price, until the item is sold out.

I’ve already been hooked for about $40.00 on a Limar 911 helmet. Limar and Rudy Project seem to be the helmets that fit my head the best, so whenever I can score a deal on one or the other, I jump.

I can see how this site is going to be addictive. But why do I keep hearing Depeche Mode in my head everytime I go to the site?

Okay, sure, for some people music isn’t about the words, [...]]]> Sitting in the dark, avoiding sleep … listening to podcasts of old “This American Life” episodes … pondering why people (and not just sk-HAWT) think that poetry is weird, but really get into music and lyrics; especially since lyrics are simply poetry set to melody.

Okay, sure, for some people music isn’t about the words, it’s the beat … but to me, the beat, the melody, that’s just the tease; the bait; the hook … but … it’s the words that really draw me in …

I can’t believe I’m going to draw from a cheesy rom-com, but in the movie “Music and Lyrics“, the characters Sophie Fisher (as played by Drew Barrymore) and Alex Fletcher (played by Hugh Grant) have the following exchange:

Sophie Fisher: A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physical attraction. Sex.
Alex Fletcher: I so get that.
Sophie Fisher: But then, as you get to know the person, that’s the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It’s the combination of the two that makes it magic.

A well-crafted poem is musical, even without the melody, and for me, that’s where the draw is. When a poem resonates in my head, not just from the subject matter of the poem itself, but from the way that it’s written; its meter, its tone … it’s a hook that’s hard to let go, almost like an addiction.

My mom has this uncanny inability to let more than 5 minutes pass without saying something … she maintains a constant running commentary about pretty much anything and everything at all times.

Next year, if I come back down, I’m flying in on 12/24, and flying home on [...]]]> I have now gone completely bat-shit crazy.

My mom has this uncanny inability to let more than 5 minutes pass without saying something … she maintains a constant running commentary about pretty much anything and everything at all times.

Next year, if I come back down, I’m flying in on 12/24, and flying home on 12/26. No more of this 8-9 days shit, because I can’t take it.

I think I’m really going to need my counselling appointment on the 28th (the day after I get back to SLC), just to vent, if nothing else.

I’m not doing a very good job of letting go, as Pema Chödrön suggests.

The rain today didn’t help. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be mid-60s and sunny … I think I’m going to get out for as long a ride as I can possibly take, just to work out some frustrations.

One friend just suggested hookers and cocaine … I’d consider it, but I gave up cocaine 15 years ago, and it just seems like one should go with the other … since I won’t do one anymore, I can’t do the other.