Recently in Cycling Category

There's a profile of Jens Voight over on the Mens' Health site. He talks about what it means to be a domestique and pro cyclist for 16 years:

Obviously, this sport is a very hard sport. If you only do it for the money you're not going to last very long. It's too hard to be a mercenary. You have to have passion inside of you. Passion in me feels like a high, full burning flame--it's not a tiny spark in the dark. It's still burning and I still love it. I'm not winning races like when I was on top, but I believe I'm still able to do my job, be among the best and be a valuable teammate. Every year you get a contract, you know that people still think you're worth it. And it's cool to hang out with all of your boys, get a shiny new bike every year and all of this equipment. You get paid to stay healthy and fit. When I'm riding a quiet little country road, I heard birds tweeting and think, I'm in my office now. How cool is that?

Favorite Jens saying? "Shut up, legs!"

Man, after three weeks of watching 2-3 hrs of television a day, I'm not sure what to do with my free time at night.

Not surprised by the outcome, although I'm pretty sure things would have been a little different with an uninjured Levi Leipheimer there for all the stages and Chris Horner on the tour squad, maybe three Astana riders on the podium.

Looking forward to see who Armstrong's new team ends up signing.

Man, you come home from riding to a second-place finish in the Amgen Tour of California and find that someone robbed your place. Took nearly everything, apparently, including :

• Black 2008 Subaru Outback, Utah plate A189NC
• Black 2006 Toyota Scion, Utah plate 094VWM
• Giro D Italia Race Medal (approx. 6" circumference)
• Olympic Seiko watch
• Beijing Olympic ring (silver) with initials "DZ" engraved ($4,000)
• Olympic Time Trial Bike, plus 12 other bikes (combined value of $100,000)
• Cervelo (black/red) bike frame - team issued ($5000)
• Tag Heuer watch ($6,000)
• Bose Speaker/Receiver System ($15,000)
• Sony 52" flat screen TV ($4,000)
• Two Mac Books and one Mac desktop, plus hard drive ($8,000)
• A pair of Space legs, a recovery compression system for legs ($5,000)
• 7 Marvel sideshow statues ($11,000)

More info here.

Levi on the Bonny Doon climb, originally uploaded by Arley L..

Great shot I saw on Flickr of Levi Leipheimer tearing the peloton apart on the Bonny Doon climb during stage two of the Tour of California. That rain is intense.

Looks to be so:

Paceline.com

Vanity Fair article

Funny quote from the Vanity Fair piece:

While dining at Chef Melba's in Hermosa Beach, California, Armstrong heard an obnoxious voice, with a thick New Jersey accent, coming from the table behind him: "Hey, kid, what are you gonna do for work this summa?!" Armstrong worried that he had a kook on his hands. "I'm talkin' to you, kid. What are you gonna do?" Armstrong got pissed, he recalled. "I was like ... I think this motherfucker's talkin' to me. So I wheeled around in my chair. It was fucking Don Rickles. And I started laughing.

Great interview with cyclist and commentator and man-about-town Bob Rollabout the state of cycling, drug use in professional sports. Nice beard, dude.