Pwned

The cycling public just got pwned by Lance. Again.

If you've been following the manufactured drama around the Tour of the Gila you know that the UCI is allowing Lance to ride. That's not what's got my knickers in a twist. It's that Lance and his cohorts have played this whole thing off as "oh can't we just let Levi and Lance go do a training race in New Mexico..."

And that is a bunch of crap. See, it's not about the training- Lance never did much racing in the US before his retirement, so why should he suddenly want to now? Is it to prepare for the Giro? By doing a 5 day stage race against US amateurs? A race that only totals 340 miles? Is he going to ride all of the stages at once? Will he pull a "Frankie" and let the field get a head start every day?

Or could it have something to do with the fact that Lance Armstrong has a substantial financial investment in SRAM, the title sponsor of the Gila? And that by creating pre event drama he keeps the "SRAM Tour of the Gila" in the media? And moves the spotlight off of one of the greatest US stage races and right onto him? Do you think Lance is squeezing the Gila promoter for an appearance fee? After all he's rumored to have gotten over a million bucks to do the Tour Down Under.

Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I'd prefer that the cameras and the microphones at the finish of todays stage be around the winner of the race, and not around Lance. Maybe that's because I prefer substance to celebrity and sports over sports entertainment.

Out Come The Wolves

The road show is in full swing again. Last week I hit up a new event for me- the Copake Swap Meet. I've heard about the swap for a few years- Copake Auction has a pretty well regarded annual bike auction, and the day before they hold a swap meet out behind the auction gallery. I wonder where they got that idea?

Anyway, since the swap is held on a Friday I figured that I'd hit it up before going back to Rhode Island the next day to continue the results season at the Rick Newhouse Memorial. The swap is outdoors, so here's how the setup worked out:
Yeah, all of that stuff fits in the truck. It's actually not even packed tight on this trip- after a couple of decades doing auctions, swap meets and moving all over the country I've got the spatial relations thing down pretty well. And since I can, I usually bring everything. Growing up doing flea markets with my dad has taught me "You can't sell from an empty wagon"... how's that for New England wisdom for you.

It was a good trip- though it was definitely an "industry" show. Maybe because of the proximity of the auction, or because it was a Friday, it was very much the core vintage bike crowd and not many 'general public' folks. Which isn't bad except that it's tough for sales. By this point in the year, after Westminster, Richmond and Monson everybody knows what you have and if you don't have fresh stock you're dead in the water. Since I'm more of a vendor/dealer than a collector I've got a big advantage there. I want to turn my stuff over, not show it off. I was lowering prices as soon as anyone picked something up. With no swap meets for the rest of the summer (at least for me) I didn't want to put it back into the garage.

One part of the swap meet that never ceases to amaze me is the swarm around a new vendor. Somebody unknown shows up and instantly there's a crowd. People are tearing through the stuff looking for anything in their niche- be it touring, pre war, racing whatever. It's almost like you don't have to unload- the pack will do it for you. This dude barely got his car parked before the swarm hit him:
By the end of the day he was pretty tapped out. I have to admit that I was a bit jealous- but then again I had stuff that had dragged through the full show season- there's only so much Alivio I can push on people after a while. In the end, I did walk over to see what all the hubub was about- and of course I walked away with a couple of cranksets... at least they weren't Alivio...

Classics Season

Too busy with real life to post. But it is classics season, so here you go: