See my previous post for background to this post.
The French, the same lab that conducted the witch hunt on Lance last year, is the lab that is claiming Floyd Landis had increased levels of testosterone and that he was obviously doping. Now first you have to ask yourself, why would the Tour de France use the same lab that illegally released bogus test results of 8 year old samples of Lance's whiz in order to smear his name last year to analyze samples for this year's TDF. What happened to chain of custody, secrecy and scientific integrity? I would not use that lab to examine my turds for seeds after finishing sesame chicken. What a bunch of crap. The TDF, in it's arrogance and sick psychological need to hate and smear America, is now going after Floyd and the lab is in cahoots. I mean sure, the TDF has had it's share of scandals and many bikers are cheats, but to presume guilt like they do is not only wrong in so many ways, but in my mind it is just damn un-American, and what else would we expect from certain French people.
I have been reading all the articles from the various papers around the world, including the London Times and L'Equipe (the scummiest paper in sports, just as bad as anything from Fox News) and they have already judged, convicted and sentenced Landis to biking death. What is wrong with people who, in the absence of evidence, are so willing to vehemently convict a man and ruin his reputation and career. Floyd is now screwed, even if he can prove his is clean because he will always be assumed to have beaten the system.
I was glad to see him come out swinging today to not only proclaim his innocence but vow to fight to prove it. This is counsel he got from Lance and good for him. Look, I do not believe he is guilty. If he had been using steroids, it would have been detected in one of the earlier 6 tests he took during the tour or one of the other of dozens of test he took this year while winning stages and bike races across the US and Europe. Steroids are used to help people build body mass and recover after hard workouts. They do not work, at least not appreciably, as a short term repair for the body. Check it out and see what the doctors have to say about it. So testosterone (steroids, like in baseball) would only have been used if it was a full blown program to cheat and he certainly would have done it in the off-season and been caught before his hard ride in the TDF.
It just makes no sense that he would use steroids or testosterone. Blood doping, okay, EPO, maybe, but testosterone during the middle of a race makes no sense. It may be that his ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone was off because of his natural body chemistry and the great strain those three days had put on his body. This is my guess. As far as his amazing recovery, such things are not at all unheard of in bicycling because the incredible conditioning of the athletes and the physical care they get during the tour to help them recover. After bonking in 2000 and 2003, Lance went on to win stages and each tour. Floyd was the best cyclist before his bad day and I think he was just careless on that day. He forgot to eat and drink properly just like Lance did back in '00. On the day in question, the tactics of the field allowed him get 7 minutes back that day. Sure, he rode well that day, but the once the peleton and leaders realized they needed to chase Floyd, his lead stayed pretty much the same. The roads on that stage, because of their narrow, winding nature, ruined the peleton's ability to use aerodynamics to catch Floyd once they put their mind to it. They just did not analyze the stage properly and Floyd, once he got the lead by riding hard when everyone else was on cruise, was able to ride at the same pace as the chasers who were really pretty much all riding as individuals, not as a peleton or team. In fact, I think Sastre even pulled back a couple of seconds on Floyd during the final descent, although Periero, who is not a good descender, actually lost a few more seconds to Floyd on the descent. Do not forget he is literally one of the best descenders, certainly among today's riders, because of his mountain biking background. Plus he obviously took desperate, but reasonable chances during the descent to maintain his advantage. I watched the stage and actually saw him get squirrelly once or twice during the final descent.
So I think this is a witch hunt and the only question is whether or not Floyd gets the court of public opinion behind him because there is no way those scumbags running the TDF and their worthless lab are ever going to admit they fucked up. He is screwed, but I believe him and you should too.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Floyd or Lance
Let me say, first of all, my favorite sport hero of the first 43 years of my life is Lance Armstrong. I liked him before his cancer but so much more so after, especially when he started shoving his damaged thing up the rear ends of the French. Now I love France and most French people are really good folks, just as good as any American. Unfortunately, the French have their own group of a-holes, similar to W., Rush Limberger and O'Reilly that deserve to be taken behind the woodshed and beaten silly. The French writers, especially the jackasses from L'Equipe, seem to get on someone and be unable to accept truth or let it go. So it was a pleasure to watch Lance kick everyone's butt up L'Alpe d'Huez and then shove his silver bowl up the butts of Jean Marie LeBlanc and the French press.
I also liked Floyd when he was on US Postal and hoped that he would wait for Lance to retire instead of taking the money and running to Phonak. I went into this year's TDF rooting first for Hincapie, who I thought could not win, Popovych, Acevedo and Salvodelli. When Basso and Ullrich were chucked out of the race, I entertained about 30 seconds hope that Hincapie or one of the other Disco boys could win. But I was afraid that George's crash and collarbone break in Paris-Roubaix would really prevent him from being a factor in the TDF. Boy was I right.
Now aside from Disco, the rider I most hoped would win was goofy looking old Floyd Landis. First of all, he was clearly the toughest American in the race, but more importantly, I like him. I thought I was right on after L'Alpe d'Huez but then when he cracked on La Toussuire, I, like the rest of the world, wrote him off. I mean here is a guy riding on one leg in the absolutely toughest sporting event in the world and he just shat all over the mountain. He was out of the race and everyone except one guy knew that to be the case. It was the next day that really made him a true American hero in the mold of Hank Aaron, Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMonde. It's one thing to be Jordan or Bonds and make the most of talent. Overcoming racism, cancer and being shot nearly to death is truly what makes a hero who transcends his sport (or any other activity). While his accomplishment may not be quite up there with Aaron, LeMonde and Lance, it certainly comes close. Single guy against the peleton, riding with one leg, day after nearly falling off his bike and out of the race ready to have a hip replacement at the end of the race and he goes off and wins the race in a really sick manner.
I understand biking pretty well and here is the story for those uneducated in biking. When Floyd cracked and was eight minutes down, he was essentially six feet under with several of scoops of dirt already on top of his coffin. In bike racing, you cannot come back from that kind of deficit in one day when the rest of the 145 or so riders in the race know you are for real. And they still knew Floyd was for real, they just screwed up and failed to keep him out of the first break. Now whether it was the rest of the contenders being tired from spanking Floyd the prior day or just the main contenders' teams being completely asleep at the wheel, Floyd's ride may have been, as Bob Role, OLN commentator and former TDF rider, "the greatest single day bike ride in the modern era of the TDF". What was truly special was his ability to keep his leading time gap even when the other 145 riders were trying their darndest to catch him. On reflection, Role may be right, although Lance's ride up the Col de Tourmalet in 2003 (remember Phil Ligget's comment that he "nearly lost his manhood" or what was left of it on the top tube of his bike) was a close second or maybe as good. As far as I am concerned, the team directors of T-Mobile, CSC and Illes Balears should be fired for not instructing their teams to chase Floyd down. But it is what it is and now he is ensconced in our memories as a real American hero.
Now, just today, comes news that someone high up in Le Tour may have been doping and the speculation as of midnight, CDT, is that is might be Floyd. I sure hope not. I could not see him doing it nor could I imagine him cracking the way he did if he was on the juice. Time will tell and just like I have done for Lance through the years, I will only believe he is dirty if the evidence is incontrovertible. Sometimes I think they mess with the tests or have bad testing protocol when these unexpected positives show up. So we shall see.
At the end of the day, I still go with Lance because he was dead, for all intents and purposes, and he truly rose like the Phoenix and did it for seven straight years. Floyd only has one and can never get more than one or two more before he is too old. Plus a bad hip ain't dead, no matter how you spin it. But if Lance stays retired, and it certainly appears he will remain so, Floyd is a pretty good guy to root for going forward.
I also liked Floyd when he was on US Postal and hoped that he would wait for Lance to retire instead of taking the money and running to Phonak. I went into this year's TDF rooting first for Hincapie, who I thought could not win, Popovych, Acevedo and Salvodelli. When Basso and Ullrich were chucked out of the race, I entertained about 30 seconds hope that Hincapie or one of the other Disco boys could win. But I was afraid that George's crash and collarbone break in Paris-Roubaix would really prevent him from being a factor in the TDF. Boy was I right.
Now aside from Disco, the rider I most hoped would win was goofy looking old Floyd Landis. First of all, he was clearly the toughest American in the race, but more importantly, I like him. I thought I was right on after L'Alpe d'Huez but then when he cracked on La Toussuire, I, like the rest of the world, wrote him off. I mean here is a guy riding on one leg in the absolutely toughest sporting event in the world and he just shat all over the mountain. He was out of the race and everyone except one guy knew that to be the case. It was the next day that really made him a true American hero in the mold of Hank Aaron, Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMonde. It's one thing to be Jordan or Bonds and make the most of talent. Overcoming racism, cancer and being shot nearly to death is truly what makes a hero who transcends his sport (or any other activity). While his accomplishment may not be quite up there with Aaron, LeMonde and Lance, it certainly comes close. Single guy against the peleton, riding with one leg, day after nearly falling off his bike and out of the race ready to have a hip replacement at the end of the race and he goes off and wins the race in a really sick manner.
I understand biking pretty well and here is the story for those uneducated in biking. When Floyd cracked and was eight minutes down, he was essentially six feet under with several of scoops of dirt already on top of his coffin. In bike racing, you cannot come back from that kind of deficit in one day when the rest of the 145 or so riders in the race know you are for real. And they still knew Floyd was for real, they just screwed up and failed to keep him out of the first break. Now whether it was the rest of the contenders being tired from spanking Floyd the prior day or just the main contenders' teams being completely asleep at the wheel, Floyd's ride may have been, as Bob Role, OLN commentator and former TDF rider, "the greatest single day bike ride in the modern era of the TDF". What was truly special was his ability to keep his leading time gap even when the other 145 riders were trying their darndest to catch him. On reflection, Role may be right, although Lance's ride up the Col de Tourmalet in 2003 (remember Phil Ligget's comment that he "nearly lost his manhood" or what was left of it on the top tube of his bike) was a close second or maybe as good. As far as I am concerned, the team directors of T-Mobile, CSC and Illes Balears should be fired for not instructing their teams to chase Floyd down. But it is what it is and now he is ensconced in our memories as a real American hero.
Now, just today, comes news that someone high up in Le Tour may have been doping and the speculation as of midnight, CDT, is that is might be Floyd. I sure hope not. I could not see him doing it nor could I imagine him cracking the way he did if he was on the juice. Time will tell and just like I have done for Lance through the years, I will only believe he is dirty if the evidence is incontrovertible. Sometimes I think they mess with the tests or have bad testing protocol when these unexpected positives show up. So we shall see.
At the end of the day, I still go with Lance because he was dead, for all intents and purposes, and he truly rose like the Phoenix and did it for seven straight years. Floyd only has one and can never get more than one or two more before he is too old. Plus a bad hip ain't dead, no matter how you spin it. But if Lance stays retired, and it certainly appears he will remain so, Floyd is a pretty good guy to root for going forward.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Wine Spectator rant numbers 3 and 4
Rants numbers 3 and 4 have a similar theme. The first is Wine Spectator's use of barrel samples and in-the-field tastings to rate vintages and wines prior to release. The second rant involves their assertion that their ratings are accurate in the maximum drinkability window.
Rating vintages and wines on pre-release or barrels samples is, at best, like test driving a car and then ordering another directly from the factory. You never really know what you are going to get. From my guitar experience it would be like buying a guitar after listening to someone else's "identical" model. Each guitar is a grouping of unique pieces of wood, cut and assembled discretely. Whether mass produced or hand made, any guitar maker or player worth a gross of picks will tell you that two guitars made right next to each other from wood cut from the same tree and right next door when the pieces are sawn will still have different tonal properties. They may be similar but they will never sound the same. Like guitars, wine is a living, breathing, changing item. Pre-release samples or barrels are often cherry picked by vitners to showcase the wine. The Bordelaise or California Big Cab makers may make 20 or more different "assemblages" over the bottling of a vintage of wine. Although the winemaker may strive to make each bottling similar, it cannot physically be done. I think I read where Paul Draper and the crew at Ridge might make a dozen or more assemblages from their various barrels for Monte Bello. Does anyone really think that every barrel intended for bottling of a vintage of a given wine is commutated before bottling. No way. Does not happen. So it is bad enough that the finished bottle I buy may be different than yours but how about rating a wine or vintage of an unfinished assembly or a barrel sample? Even worse. When I read the crap about the 2005 Bordeaux vintage where the Speculator, Sir Bobbie and the rest are slinging 95's and 100's like a drunk rich guy at a titty bar, I say "bullshit". There is no way they can have any more than the most mind-boggling WAG about the true worth of the vintage. Oh, they say, we talked to the winemakers and they all say it is the best swill we have made since blah, blah, blah. You think a winemaker is going to diss his product? Give me a break. Every bottle the make is liquid gold in their overcharging, paid-to-much-for-my-vineyard, God-complex minds.
You ever notice how these wine rating a-holes never compare their barrel/pre-release sample ratings to their bottled sample ratings? You ever try to do it? It is pretty difficult because there are often several years between the publication of the pre-samples and the bottle rankings. They do not want you to do it because they know it would expose the idea of pre-release or barrel ratings as a farce perpetuated to help the winemaking corporations sell swill so that they advertise in their mags. My recommendation is never buy on these pre-tastings. I buy Monte Bello futures every year because I like the wine and I trust Draper won't put out a piece of crap. If you have a favorite wine and want to buy futures, have at it. But know what you are in for and don't ever trust what the wine writing ya-hoos at the Speculator or RP or ST or whomever say.
Now on to the actual bottle rankings. Does anyone really believe the Spectator's assertion that they are rating the wine not how it is now but how it will be when it hits it peak. F--k!!!! Give me a break. God could probably, maybe come up with such a number. But those bozo's. Yea, right. I bought the '92 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet which old Jimmy Laube gave 99 points. I drank it throughout the "drinking window" and it never, ever approached 99 points. Even when the Speculator re-rated it in 2002 in one of their ten year retrospectives, the wine, which should have been right at the peak, only got something like an 89. I would have to go back to my Speculator back issues to look up the actual number, but it was not much higher than that, if at all.
Snap, there it is. By their own admission their rankings "at peak" are bullshit, to quote old Penn and Teller. It boggles the mind that these guys think they are so great at tasting that they can actually predict how a wine will be 5 maybe 10 or more years down the road. What a bunch of arrogant, wine geeky, snobby pigs. It is unfathomable that these jerkoffs can claim to rate the wine "at its peak". You can rate it now, but don't feed the rest of us that you somehow are prescient or God.
NOT
Rating vintages and wines on pre-release or barrels samples is, at best, like test driving a car and then ordering another directly from the factory. You never really know what you are going to get. From my guitar experience it would be like buying a guitar after listening to someone else's "identical" model. Each guitar is a grouping of unique pieces of wood, cut and assembled discretely. Whether mass produced or hand made, any guitar maker or player worth a gross of picks will tell you that two guitars made right next to each other from wood cut from the same tree and right next door when the pieces are sawn will still have different tonal properties. They may be similar but they will never sound the same. Like guitars, wine is a living, breathing, changing item. Pre-release samples or barrels are often cherry picked by vitners to showcase the wine. The Bordelaise or California Big Cab makers may make 20 or more different "assemblages" over the bottling of a vintage of wine. Although the winemaker may strive to make each bottling similar, it cannot physically be done. I think I read where Paul Draper and the crew at Ridge might make a dozen or more assemblages from their various barrels for Monte Bello. Does anyone really think that every barrel intended for bottling of a vintage of a given wine is commutated before bottling. No way. Does not happen. So it is bad enough that the finished bottle I buy may be different than yours but how about rating a wine or vintage of an unfinished assembly or a barrel sample? Even worse. When I read the crap about the 2005 Bordeaux vintage where the Speculator, Sir Bobbie and the rest are slinging 95's and 100's like a drunk rich guy at a titty bar, I say "bullshit". There is no way they can have any more than the most mind-boggling WAG about the true worth of the vintage. Oh, they say, we talked to the winemakers and they all say it is the best swill we have made since blah, blah, blah. You think a winemaker is going to diss his product? Give me a break. Every bottle the make is liquid gold in their overcharging, paid-to-much-for-my-vineyard, God-complex minds.
You ever notice how these wine rating a-holes never compare their barrel/pre-release sample ratings to their bottled sample ratings? You ever try to do it? It is pretty difficult because there are often several years between the publication of the pre-samples and the bottle rankings. They do not want you to do it because they know it would expose the idea of pre-release or barrel ratings as a farce perpetuated to help the winemaking corporations sell swill so that they advertise in their mags. My recommendation is never buy on these pre-tastings. I buy Monte Bello futures every year because I like the wine and I trust Draper won't put out a piece of crap. If you have a favorite wine and want to buy futures, have at it. But know what you are in for and don't ever trust what the wine writing ya-hoos at the Speculator or RP or ST or whomever say.
Now on to the actual bottle rankings. Does anyone really believe the Spectator's assertion that they are rating the wine not how it is now but how it will be when it hits it peak. F--k!!!! Give me a break. God could probably, maybe come up with such a number. But those bozo's. Yea, right. I bought the '92 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet which old Jimmy Laube gave 99 points. I drank it throughout the "drinking window" and it never, ever approached 99 points. Even when the Speculator re-rated it in 2002 in one of their ten year retrospectives, the wine, which should have been right at the peak, only got something like an 89. I would have to go back to my Speculator back issues to look up the actual number, but it was not much higher than that, if at all.
Snap, there it is. By their own admission their rankings "at peak" are bullshit, to quote old Penn and Teller. It boggles the mind that these guys think they are so great at tasting that they can actually predict how a wine will be 5 maybe 10 or more years down the road. What a bunch of arrogant, wine geeky, snobby pigs. It is unfathomable that these jerkoffs can claim to rate the wine "at its peak". You can rate it now, but don't feed the rest of us that you somehow are prescient or God.
NOT
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Wine Spectator Rant #2 overrating Wines
This is a pretty easy rant. There is no doubt in my mind that the Speculator overrates their wines, inconsistenly, on a regular basis. I believe they do this to support their source of revenue, the wine producers, resellers, distributors and others closely tied to the trade. I cannot begin to count the number of wines that I have tasted that get huge ratings and with which I have no agreement whatsoever. Case in point, 1992 Caymus Special Select rated 99 points. No freakin' way. The wine was good, but all three bottles I had were well below this. This week I had a 1999 Domaine du Pesquier Gigondas rated 94 and one of the top 20 wines of the year by the Spectator - HA. This wine was weak and full of bret, no way it was a 94. Maybe 82-84, maybe a little higher or lower. 94 was a joke and a lie.
So what gives, how can they be this bad?
Every taster, of course, has their own biases. This is to be expected and there are some tasters that I have more agreement with than others. Their European tasters are particularly screwed up. I can almost never find a wine rating from their European raters that is within a mile of what I think.
But I think it goes deeper than this. The Speculator has nothing to gain financially by rating wines difficultly. It has only been in the last year or so that they have gotten tougher with the Californians, I think because everything they rated out of Cali had 90 points or above. I have clearly noticed a reduction in scores in Cali wines, especially zinfandel. I think this re-calibration was needed, but I think they have to admit that they may actually have gone too far or that their old system was screwy there. But they will never do that. In the rest of the world, they have yet to keep up. See my last rant for an example, where they refuse to bust the balls of the French and Italians who load their wines up with bret because they are too stupid, lazy and cheap to get it out of there. Come on, step up and call it right you jerkoffs.
If the SPEC rates wines right, they risk losing advertising money and ruin their relationship with the trade. Without a rep, would they even get the wines to rate? What is crapiest about this overatting is how it affects wine prices on the shelf. Case in point the 2003 Domaine du Pegau Chateauneuf-du-Pape Reservee. This wine was selling at $50 pre-release until the Spectator gave it a 97. Next day, it went to $75. Give me a break. Okay, assume this rating is right. But in the overwhelming number of cases where they have overrated, the Spectator's inconsistent overrating of wines much more objectionable. First I pay them to read their rag and then they overrate a wine and it costs me money if I want to buy it. Then, when I try it, it tastes only a fraction of how they rated it. Sickening.
I guess the real solution is not to read the rag and to trust only your own opinion. These jerkoffs do not deserve our reading their rag unless they commit to getting independent, rating consistently and do their jobs. Do you think they ever run any statistics to determine the variability of their staff ratings? I highly doubt it. They would have nothing to gain by putting science and statistics behind their objective crap. In our lab, we know the variability of in our test protocols and we know which operators read high, which read low and which read average. We consciously retrain people who are not up to spec to make sure our lab is accurate and precise. The Speculator...don't count on it. I say again, they do not want to know what their accuracy and precision on their ratings are. Better to ignore it, overrate everything and hope people keep buying your piece of crap.
I say again, I need to grow a set and stop paying for this rag.
So what gives, how can they be this bad?
Every taster, of course, has their own biases. This is to be expected and there are some tasters that I have more agreement with than others. Their European tasters are particularly screwed up. I can almost never find a wine rating from their European raters that is within a mile of what I think.
But I think it goes deeper than this. The Speculator has nothing to gain financially by rating wines difficultly. It has only been in the last year or so that they have gotten tougher with the Californians, I think because everything they rated out of Cali had 90 points or above. I have clearly noticed a reduction in scores in Cali wines, especially zinfandel. I think this re-calibration was needed, but I think they have to admit that they may actually have gone too far or that their old system was screwy there. But they will never do that. In the rest of the world, they have yet to keep up. See my last rant for an example, where they refuse to bust the balls of the French and Italians who load their wines up with bret because they are too stupid, lazy and cheap to get it out of there. Come on, step up and call it right you jerkoffs.
If the SPEC rates wines right, they risk losing advertising money and ruin their relationship with the trade. Without a rep, would they even get the wines to rate? What is crapiest about this overatting is how it affects wine prices on the shelf. Case in point the 2003 Domaine du Pegau Chateauneuf-du-Pape Reservee. This wine was selling at $50 pre-release until the Spectator gave it a 97. Next day, it went to $75. Give me a break. Okay, assume this rating is right. But in the overwhelming number of cases where they have overrated, the Spectator's inconsistent overrating of wines much more objectionable. First I pay them to read their rag and then they overrate a wine and it costs me money if I want to buy it. Then, when I try it, it tastes only a fraction of how they rated it. Sickening.
I guess the real solution is not to read the rag and to trust only your own opinion. These jerkoffs do not deserve our reading their rag unless they commit to getting independent, rating consistently and do their jobs. Do you think they ever run any statistics to determine the variability of their staff ratings? I highly doubt it. They would have nothing to gain by putting science and statistics behind their objective crap. In our lab, we know the variability of in our test protocols and we know which operators read high, which read low and which read average. We consciously retrain people who are not up to spec to make sure our lab is accurate and precise. The Speculator...don't count on it. I say again, they do not want to know what their accuracy and precision on their ratings are. Better to ignore it, overrate everything and hope people keep buying your piece of crap.
I say again, I need to grow a set and stop paying for this rag.
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