Jure Robic Sore Loser

RAAM 2009 is in the books, and the controversy is just heating up. After leading the pack for most of the race, Jure Robic quit in Mt. Airy Maryland. Why? Although he arrived first well ahead of Dani Wyss, Jure had an hour of penalties tacked on, putting him firmly in second place.

RAAM has a lot of rules, most of the rules are for the safety of the rider (like stopping at Stop signs and stopping at red lights) but they are also there to assure a fair race. Yes, there are a lot of common sense rules, but in a 3000 mile race, sometimes common sense goes out the window. There are penalties associated with breaking these rules, the problem is on a 3000 mile race is that sometimes there aren't officials around to see it. They have some "undercover" officials. If you look at Robic's penalties, they were stupid and he should have known better.

1. Peeing into a planter at the ride start surrounded by officials, cops, and spectators, not smart, especially given that there was a set of bathrooms to the side of the stage area and another set a short walk away.
2. Passing on the interstate. It can be difficult out in the desert to find an exit ramp, but if you just got done talking to an official, you shouldn't do something illegal, because the official is right there, at least wait long enough for the official to get down the road a little ways.
3. Going off course. If you go off course, you are supposed to return to the point you went off course and start from there. Yes, it sucks when you've ridden 20 miles in the wrong direction, but that's why you need your crew to pay attention to the directions.

There was one corner that tripped up a bunch of competitors both years I raced resulting in a 15 minute penalty for each, I believe it was the first stop sign on the course, they had 3 or 4 officials there, it was obvious that they were there to make sure everyone stopped completely. I put a foot down there because I knew they were watching (The rules say you can do a trackstand).

Robic has a video on his site that allegedly shows Dani Wyss running a red light by making a right turn at the light then immediately making a U-turn, then making a right turn back on course. It's clear from the video that he is essentially running a red light; but, is that what happened? Perhaps Robic's crew painted an arrow at the intersection and Dani thought he was supposed to go right and his crew corrected him before he got to far? I think Wyss should get a penalty for this, because he is essentially running a red light. If Wyss made a habit of running red lights and stop signs, then its a pox on the race organizers for not catching him. They definitely need more officials out on the course. They should also be drug testing these leaders, it's too easy these days to dope. I doubt Robic is racing clean.

  ¶ 9:01 AM

  Awesome Weekend

I continued my streak of good scratch made pizzas on Friday (Hawaiian/Green Pepper, pepperoni, plain), but the Pizza stone I got from my mom bit the dust after only 16 pizzas). A cyclical thermal stress caused a brittle failure. Afterwards, Q and I rode our bikes into Herndon to see 'Love Seed Mama Jump' in the square by the library. My buddy Jason G. was there and as I chatted with him, I noticed that there were 4 families from my street there within feet of where I was sitting. Jason was expecting his family, so Q and I sat with the neighbors. At some point though, Q discovered one of her classmates was about 60 feet behind us and she went to play with her. I was able to occasionally coax her into dancing with me. LSMJ has some good music of their own, but I think they were mostly doing covers that night.

Around 9:15, Q and I went for Ice Cream at DQ, then we rode our bikes home in the dark. I had my dinotte 1 watt LED, which I should have mounted to Q's bike, but she rode like a trooper. It had threatened to rain and thunder all night long, but it held off; although the lightning was close enough to make Q wish for her mommy.

Sunday was spent taking down tree limbs in the backyard. Our yard looks huge now.

  ¶ 8:04 PM

  World Naked Bike Ride

I am depressed. I missed the World Naked Bike Ride in DC on the 13th. I'm going next year :)  Link ¶ 11:59 AM

  Fountainhead Regional Park

Have you ever been? This place rocks. It was way past my skill level, but I managed to make it around the whole outer loop. I embarrassed myself on the seesaws, falling off about a dozen times. I hooked a tree coming out of a downhill turn, so I was going good and fast when I did it. I went over the handlebars a couple of times.

I can't wait to go back.

  Link ¶ 4:51 AM

  Can Robic Win Again?

Robic probably could win again. To be honest, I haven't checked the race roster yet, so I don't know who's racing this year. The man is a machine. I've never really been a fan of Robic, because I don't know if he's racing clean. To my knowledge, he's never been tested before, during, or after any competition. There's not enough money in the sport of Ultracycling to get him tested and the governing body, the UMCA, well, let's not go there. I think they might be thinking that it's only $10,000 in prize money and it usually costs someone like Robic at least $14,000 to participate, so no sane person would dope to win because there's just no money in it.

Also, I think it was 2004 when Robic's crew accused Trevino of cheating. They were neck and neck across the country, until his crew accused Trevino of cheating. Trevino took it hard personally and very nearly quit the race, but once Trevino got his head back in the game, he matched Robic's pace across the final miles. Unfortunately, for that brief period where Trevino was absolutely disgusted with Robic and RAAM, he lost too much ground to Robic to challenge him. Yes, I'm going to hold this against Robic for eternity, it wasn't sportsmanlike. They instituted new rules on how to report cheating after that incident. There's now a penalty if you report cheating where none exists.

  ¶ 4:18 AM

  Smackdown In Silicon Valley

Like most people, I followed the development of the Tesla Roadster with anticipation. I will never own one (way out of my price range), but the Roadster shows what can be done with electric propulsion. It will finally shut up those car guys who think that electric cars are nothing more than golf carts. It's got real world range (250 miles). I've been driving for 20 years, I've probably logged 400,000 miles behind the wheel, and I can count on my fingers the number of times I've gone farther than 250 miles in a straight shot. 2 cross country trips, and maybe 6 trips to Florida, a trip to Maine, There might have been a trip or two to Massachusetts thrown in here and there (ok, so maybe I need to use my toes too). 95.5% of my driving is within that 250 mile range. I'm getting off on a tangent here

Anyway...The company was founded by Martin Eberhard, but within a year, he had brought Elon Musk on as an investor. Originally, Tesla was to use a stock body from Lotus for the Roadster. Lotus makes cool cars and using off-the-shelf parts would make it affordable. By the time Elon Musk was done, nearly every part required some modification by Lotus, which forced Lotus to retool (ka-ch$ng Ka-ch$ng), which lead to the delay in the Roadster's introduction. There was a story floating around that Elon's wife had trouble getting in to the Lotus because the seat is so much lower than the doorsill, so Tesla paid $1.5 Million (and who knows how much time) to get the door sill lowered. Eventually, Elon Musk forced Eberhard out and co-opted the "Founder" title for himself. It was only a matter of time before the lawsuits started flying. The lawsuit alleges a lot of things, among them that Elon Musk falsified his educational credentials. Also it alleges that Eberhard was promised the second car off the production line and that Musk sold it to one of his friends instead. The funniest allegation is that before they delivered a car to Eberhard, they rammed it into the back of a truck during an "endurance" test. Essentially dropping a totalled POS on his doorstep and a "Take that MF."

You know, the OJ trial never really interested me, but this one, I'd pay to see. I know, I know, this is never going to trial, Tesla will settle out of court, but imagine all the sordid silicon valley tales that will emerge! It'll be a Po Bronson tale brought to life. I think Elon Musk is headed for a day of reckoning.

  Link ¶ 9:05 AM

  SACREBLEU

Outrageous! Boonen fails a second drug test for COCAINE, but he's still allowed to race Le Tour??!?!?!?!?  Link ¶ 12:14 PM