VeloNews | 2008 Tour de Georgia

Rock Racing gets in

Domestic team Rock Racing was not originally invited and had threatened take race organizer Medalist Sports to court over a disputed verbal invitation, but was given Saunier Duval’s team slot Tuesday. With that settlement, Rock has signed on as a founding sponsor of the Tour de Georgia — the event’s highest sponsorship level.

“My commitment to cycling is long-term and I am proud to support this world-class race which has featured such winners as Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis,” Rock team owner Michael Ball said. “As a tribute to the state of Georgia and to the rich tradition of this race, we plan something special for the final stage, so stay tuned.”

Hmm … sponsorship? Or bribery (on Rock Racing’s part) / extortion (on Medalist Sports’ part)? The timing of this sponsorship announcement is awfully suspect … making it seem as though the sponsorship is part of the agreement to let Rock race … a nice little quid pro quo.

The exchange of money does not make either the team OR the organizers look good.

Wall Street Ponders Extent Of the Woes At Other Firms
By SERENA NG and JENNY STRASBURG
March 15, 2008

Behind the swift decline of Bear Stearns Cos. is a deepening worry on Wall Street that some financial institutions might not be able to make good on their commitments.

Such angst about the health of an institution holding somebody else’s money is an age-old worry in finance. The federal government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 1933 to give bank depositors confidence they would never again face such concerns.

Bear had denied rumors of financial stress for days, but Friday said persistent rumors about its financial health had caused some lenders and clients to back away from financing or trading with the firm and forced it to turn to JPMorgan Chase Co. for help.

Some hedge-fund clients had demanded that Bear come up with cash as collateral on trades they had done with the firm or had withdrawn funds from their accounts with the firm, further straining its finances. Taken together, it was like a modern version of a bank run.

And

Fed’s Bear Stearns Rescue Is Rarity for Wall Street
By RANDALL SMITH
March 15, 2008

Bear Stearns Cos. once prided itself on trading securities other firms wouldn’t touch — such as New York City bonds during the city’s mid-1970s’ fiscal crisis.

On Friday, the firm, in the middle of its own crisis, was being kept alive only with the help of a government regulator, the Federal Reserve, which was sponsoring emergency credit support for the once-proud bond firm.

The role of the Fed in brokering a temporary rescue shows how Bear, now Wall Street’s fifth-largest firm, has so many connections to other big dealers and investors that regulators are loath to allow a sudden collapse.

Like Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., which collapsed in 1990 after its main market, junk bonds, suffered a steep downturn, Bear’s main market of mortgages has been the center of bond-market woes that hit Wall Street starting in June.

But the Federal Reserve didn’t intervene to stop Drexel’s collapse, partly because the firm had been the subject of a bruising series of regulatory investigations that took hold in 1986.

LEADING MEN

Can an American team that aims to compete clean help put cycling on the right road?

BOULDER, Colo. — Conditions are cramped in the modest bedroom with burgundy carpeting and busy floral wallpaper at the Boulderado Hotel.

A small antique-style desk has been cleared off and covered with a clean towel, syringes, vials, latex gloves, a tourniquet and a waste disposal box. A second station is set up on a small round table. Coolers and carrying cases are stacked against the walls.

Blood and urine roll call starts at 6:30 a.m. sharp. The riders report a few at a time, with sleepy eyes and hair rumpled from pulling T-shirts over their heads in a hurry. It’s been a scant few hours since the same group gathered at a bar a few blocks away, where everyone had a few drinks and a lot of laughs.

They sit down, verify their paperwork and quietly proffer their left arms to have blood drawn. On the floor next to the bed, a centrifuge machine hums steadily, spinning red blood cells away from serum for analysis.

Cycling’s most secretive business has taken place for years in rooms not unlike the one in the Boulderado. Riders, with or without the help of team doctors and all-purpose staff members called soigneurs, have long used the privacy of a hotel room to undergo transfusions or take EPO, steroids, stimulants and other performance enhancers during races and training camps .

But this team does everything differently. This team has pledged to be open about its operations, right down to the open door of this hotel room on a mid-November morning.

This is Team Slipstream/Chipotle, a team with the uncommon vision of restoring faith in a sport savaged by scandal and disillusionment. Its collective commitment to riding clean is a mantra and a business plan rolled into one — an attempt to persuade fans and corporate sponsors that the team practices what it preaches.

Read the rest of the article at ESPN.com

A number of people I know are going through the divorce and/or break-up process right now … and it’s easy for me to understand what they’re going through, up to a point … their not-soon-enough-to-be-ex-spouses (ex-spices?) are making their lives difficult.

As an ex-husband-to-be, I decided that it would just make my life easier if I pretty much completely acquiesced on everything …

You want the house? Sure, as long as I get to keep my 401(k) intact.

You want the cat? Sure, she was yours before you met me.

You wanna start dating someone else before our divorce is even filed, much less finalized? Sure! (grumble grumble bitch whine moan).

From filling out the paperwork to finalization took about 2-3 weeks total, and I don’t come out looking like the bad guy, even though it was pretty much my fault the marriage started falling apart anyway because of my fears of commitment (despite having been married for 5 years), self-loathing, feelings of inadequacy, ADD and dysthymia, which pretty much prevented me from allowing myself to actually engage and be part of the marriage in the first place.

It took me a while before I realized that my life is better now … especially now that I’m buying my own place again, and exiting the limbo status I’ve been in for the past 11 months.

I think I’m finally in full-on recovery mode. My therapist is bragging about me to my career counselor (whom she recommended), so I’m either doing something right, or am very good at fooling the professionals whilst simultaneously fooling myself.

I’m gonna be some catch someday, huh?

All I need to do is to find someone who digs short, fat, bald guys who talk a lot about bikes, but rarely actually seem to get out and ride them anymore. Know anyone who fits the bill?

Even better if she gets cyclocross, because where else can you have so much fun feeling like you’re going to puke after only 20 minutes on the bike with the realization that you’re only half-way done?

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Neologisms“, in which I discussed “smittenness”.

I’ve got a couple new words to add to the list:

Crushiness (n): the state of having a crush on a new person. Yeah, this is kind of synonym for smittenness, but in some ways it very accurately described my emotional state.

Crushedness (n): the state of being devastated due to failure. A part of me is feeling this already, simply because of how close I am to my marriage finally being over. I’m just waiting to get the paperwork from K. to sign the divorce papers, then it’s just a matter of waiting for the judge to sign the order and waiting for it to become final.

In the meantime, I’ve met a few people recently in various states of availability and life situations … and of course the ones I’m drawn to the most are the ones with whom it would be most difficult to have a real relationship, either because a) I’m not ready to jump into something, but they’re looking for something long-term, or b) they’re in the same situation that I am …

I wonder if it’s the approach-avoidance thing that my counselor and I have discussed on a number of occasions; that I’m drawn to those that are the least available because it means that there will always be a little distance between us (so I don’t have to be completely open).

All I know is that there are people out there whom I really enjoy talking to, with whom I’m really comfortable sharing who I really am, even though I don’t really know them well … and that I don’t want to risk throwing away what could be a potentially wonderful situation because of how quickly things are happening.

I’m still scared of a lot of things … I’m afraid I’ll fuck up my future relationships as badly as I screwed up my previous ones, either by coming on too strong, or by not being available.

I have this marvelous knack for self-sabotage, in my job, in my friendships, in my relationships. It’s a pattern I’m truly working to break, because I don’t like being that person anymore, but it’s so difficult.

The word “just” keeps popping up in conversation … and I hate that word. I don’t ever want to be “just” anything … just friends, just a temporary distraction, just another guy, just another asshole who is afraid of commitment, just another freak, just Steven.

All things to talk about tonight, I suppose, when I go see my counselor.

“When people get married because they think it’s a long-time love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.”

  — Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987), American Author, Philosopher and Teacher.

“When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn’t a sign that they ‘don’t understand’ one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.”

  — Helen Rowland (1876 - 1950), English-American Writer.

“The fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self — two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation.”

  — Pope John-Paul II (1920 - 2005), Polish Theologian.

Recently received this open letter to all USA Cycling license holders from Steve Johnson, acting CEO of USA Cycling:

In light of the recent change in management at USA Cycling, I would like to assure all of you that we intend to stay the course with our current programs and will continue to work on many new, exciting programs and member benefits. The real strength of USA Cycling comes from you, our members, working together with your Local Associations and promoters, along with our dedicated staff, to grow and improve American cycling. In fact, many of the recent improvements, from the Local Association and NORBA promoter incentive programs to the enhancements of the website to the creation of effective new athlete programs, have been staff-driven initiatives. Over the past few years, USA Cycling has augmented the staff, encouraged their creativity and supported their ideas in order to serve you better.

As someone who has been intimately involved in all of the changes you have seen over the past several years, I can assure you that I am absolutely committed to supporting you - the members of USA Cycling - and expanding all of the great programs you have come to know and appreciate. I firmly believe the management of local cycling belongs and should remain with the local cycling community working with your Local Associations and Promoter Groups; that continuing to seed and support the grassroots and lowering the barriers to participation in our sport is essential to our continued success; that the success of American athletes at the top-levels of International cycling across all disciplines fuels excitement in our sport and drives participation at every level; that Collegiate Cycling is a tremendously important and untapped opportunity to identify the next generation of cycling champions while creating thousands of life-long participants; and that the continued development of our programs for women, juniors, masters, officials, coaches and mechanics will be critical to the growth of American cycling.

I also happen to believe that cycling is the greatest sport in the world. I have been a cycling competitor, enthusiast and consumer for over 30 years and have participated in virtually every aspect of our sport. I would like you to know that I will do everything that I can to ensure that American cycling continues to thrive and grow; and it is to that end that I pledge my absolute commitment.

In the days ahead, I look forward to working together with you to grow this, the world’s greatest sport!

Steve Johnson, Acting CEO

With the knowledge that Steve Johnson is one of the many cronies put into place by Thom Weisel, I have problems believing anything coming out of his mouth (or fingertips, in this case).

I don’t have as much direct experience with Johnson that many others in the cycling world do, but when the news came out last summer in L’Équipe about Lance Armstrong’s “positive” tests for EPO during retroactive testing, I would have preferred to see Johnson say something along the lines of “these are very serious charges, and we will investigate them thoroughly,” rather than “This is just a publication in a French tabloid newspaper. That’s our perspective. … frankly I don’t care what they think. This whole thing isn’t a big deal for Americans.”

You’d think that with all the news about steroids in baseball (Barry Bonds, anyone?), cycling’s bad reputation in general, Zach Lund’s being dropped from the US Olympic skeleton team at the last minute because he tested positive for a disclosed hair-replacement product, amongst many other incidences, that Johnson would know that the idea of Armstrong doping is a big deal.

But hey, as long as Armstrong, Ochowicz, Weisel and Johnson are making money, who cares, right?