The Shaved Soapbox » Sport

Old school rules for cycling

Baldy — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:30:00 +0000

This is blatantly copied from cyclingnews.com's reader letters...

Old School Rules

Every Rider Deserves Respect: Give It Up!
Thick or Thin, Fit or Not,
Young or Old, Weak or Strong
Every Rider Advances Our Sport
So Say Hey When You Pass

Look or Move Right before Spitting
Announce When You're On or Off
Attack Hard, Don't Gloat, Acknowledge Defeat
Take Your Turn Then Flap Your Wing
Point Out the Glass Not Every Rut
Have Fun; Every Day on a Bike is a Good Day

People say I’m mad, but the voices in my head says I’m getting better

Baldy — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:59:00 +0000

After an absence of over a week, I'm back and writing. The reason for my absence?

I did a cycle tour from Joburg to Durban. 690km in 5 days. And what fun the tour was.

Therewere 13 of us riding, with the last stage being the Amashova race fromMaritzburg to Durban. On the Saturday night we decided with the tiredlegs, we'll ride the race as a group, so we all hung back and took overthe D bunch, and controlled it from the word go. In the end, therewere 5 of us who pulled the whole group to a 3:03 finish, which is byno means a bad time for the race.

This was something that I'dbeen looking forward to for a long time, and will definitely do again. By far the longest tour I've done, but now I want to go bigger andbetter. So I need some suggestions on start and end destinations for alonger tour, I'm thinking around 1000 - 1200 km 7-8 days. Preferablyonroad, I don't have the budget at this point to buy a MTB good enoughto do a tour like that.

What makes a cyclist tick

Baldy — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:24:00 +0000

Padraig from BKW has written a few posts about the things that make a cyclist tick. These can also be applied to other aspects of life.

Motivation : Yes, we do ride a roller coaster between a huge amount of motivation to go ride, enough to brave any weather, any time of the day, and so little that you can't drag yourself out the door on a perfect day. I suppose there a lot of contributing factors to this roller coaster, including your diet, and the amount of training you're doing. As well as how you place in the races you compete in. A race where you feel like you're pulling out all the stops and still get dropped can kill your motivation for riding quite quickly. On the other hand, some days you feel like you're just cruising, and you have no issues staying in the race.

Pride : This is what ultimately drives your motivation, the will to show the world what can be accomplished.

I can just say that Padraig is spot on, and I can't wait for the future posts here...

The basics of golf

Baldy — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:13:00 +0000

There is a new book out to help you lift your golf game, this one is especially for me. Here's the list of chapters

Chapter1 - How to Properly Line Up Your Fourth Putt

Chapter2 - How to Hit a Maxfli from the Rough When You Hit a Titleist from theTee

Chapter3 - How to Avoid the Water When You Lie 8 in a Bunker (also SeeChapter

Chapter4 - How to Get More Distance off the Shank

Chapter5 - When to Give the Marshal the Finger

Chapter6 - Using Your Shadow on the Greens to Maximize Earnings

Chapter7 - When to Implement Handicap Management

Chapter8 - Proper Excuses for Drinking Beer Before 9:00 a.m.

Chapter9 - How to Rationalize a 6 Hour Round

Chapter10 - How to Find That Ball That Everyone Else Saw Go in the Water

Chapter11 - Why Your Spouse Doesn't Care That You Birdied the 5th

Chapter12 - How to Let a Foursome Play Through Your Twosome

Chapter13 - How to Relax When You Are Hitting Three off the Tee

Chapter14 - When to Suggest Major Swing Corrections to Your Opponent

Chapter15 - Religion and the Meaning of theBirdie-to-Bogey Three Putt

Chapter16 - When to Re-grip Your Ball Retriever

Chapter17 - Can You Purchase a Better Golf Game?

Chapter18 - Rules Interpretation: "Loss of Ball is penalty enough..."

Chapter19 - Why male golfers will pay R5.00 a beer from the Cart Girl and giveher a R3 tip, but will balk at R3 .50 at the 19th Hole and stiffthe bartender.

Drugs in sport

Baldy — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:57:00 +0000

I've been very quiet about the subject, even though my sport of choice has been the one in the spotlight because of it for the last few years.

After reading this article I have a few things to say.

Even though cycling has been by far the worst looking as far as doping goes in the last few years, I'm of the opinion that it is also the sport code that is doing the most to get rid of the problem. And unfortunately it is getting the bad publicity because it perceived to be getting more positive tests than any other code. Of course if the other codes started doing as many tests as cycling does things would probably look different. But, name one other code that goes as far as cycling. Just looking at the Tour, 800 tests on 189 athletes in 20 days. That is ridiculous, the riders must start to look like hardcore users with all those puncture marks.

Then you have a lot of the other codes, and to name a few, like cricket, baseball, american football, shall I go on? They all seem to sweep the problem under the carpet and the athletes get away with a small fine or short ban, but they keep it quiet enough so that no-one really knows what is going on.

As far as testing goes, I'm still convinced that it is done the wrong way around. Don't look for things that shouldn't be there but is. Rather look for things that should be there but isn't. A lot of the masking agents out there actually remove proteins that should be there as well. So if you find something that should be there and it isn't, you get an automatic positive test.

This way the athletes would be able to establish a baseline for themselves over a period of testing, and could therefore be easier to prove that they are clean. On the flip-side, it is also easier to test for an unknown drug like mentioned in the article.

As far as guys stating categorically that they've never tested positive...I'm starting to think that you're hiding something with your choice of words. Rather state that you've never used any performance enhancing product or method, to your knowledge. That is more believable, and still clears you for the time that your doctor makes a mistake when giving you flu medication, which happens.

It is getting particularly difficult to go to the doctor these days, because I insist that he does not give me any medication with any type of banned substance, even if the cycling unions allow it with doctor's clearance. So quite a few times I've walked out of his office with no medication, and just have to ride out the illness. Obviously this is not a choice I would make for anything life threatening, it is quite an easy choice for flu or allergies, and I've found that medication actually makes those types of ailments take longer to heal. I've asked my doctor what benefit I would get out of any of the medication he's not allowed to prescribe, and he stated that with the volumes involved, none. But unfortunately, tests cannot tell what the maximum level was in your body, and can only tell what the level is at the time of testing.

With the money involved, I don't think the problem will ever go away, but we can only hope that our heroes are clean...and stay that way.

If only we could all strive towards code perfection

The state of South African Cricket

Baldy — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:55:00 +0000

Don't know if there should be a "Jokes" tag on this one

Q. What do Mark Boucher and Michael Jackson have incommon?
A. They both wear gloves for no apparent reason.

Q. What is South Africa's best chance of a winat Kingsmead?
A. Telling the other team the match is at the Wanderers.

Q. How bad is the South African batting?
A. Well, the selectors are thinking of moving Extras up the batting order.

Q. What is the height of optimism?
A. A South African batsman putting on sunscreen.

Q. What is the main function of the South African coach?
A. To transport the team from the hotel to the ground.

Q. What's the South African version of a hat-trick?
A. Three runs in three balls.

Q. Why don't South African fielders need pre-tour travel injections?
A. Because they never catch anything.

Q. What do you call a South African with 50 runs against his name?
A. A bowler.

Q. What's the most proficient form of footwork displayed by Graeme Smith?
A. His walk back to the pavilion.

Q. Who has the easiest job in the South African touring party?
A. The guy who removes the ball marks from the bats.

Q. Who spent the most time on the crease of anyone in the South African
touring party?
A. The lady who ironed the cricket uniforms.

When are the springboks going to get the basics right

Baldy — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:31:00 +0000

Jake White finally lost a home game. He blames a lack of experience, but I do not agree. Our guys are still making basic handling errors, and they don't seem to be getting better at all. Also our defense was poor, especially in the backline, where there were quite a number of missed first tackles. You just cannot afford to make these mistakes at international level.

On the attacking side, our guys seem to be scared to be tackled. Nine out of ten times the ball carrier will offload without drawing the defense. This leaves the opposition free to cover the new ball carrier, and he gets taken out without making any progress.

When are we going to concentrate on getting the basics right before trying the rest?

Do the guys even train basic handling skills? In my opinion you need to train this as often as possible to keep the skill sharpened.

Another thing that a lot of the commentators are mentioning is that Jake selects a lot of players out of their normal position. Maybe the powers that be should be giving him more power of the provincial coaches, so that he can instruct them to try some of the players in other positions, so that he can see how they do, and not have to use an international match to experiment.

Maybe he can also get the provincial coaches to include the basic skills into their training methods.

Part of unofficial statistics

Baldy — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:54:00 +0000

So, I've finally become part of statistics (unofficially, more about that further down). Me and one of my teammates were riding out in the South of Johannesburg, trying to get in some base mileage before the next Vets tour in two weeks time. When on the Eikenhof road two guys crossed the road in front of us, pointing a gun at us, and telling us to stop. The one holding the gun asked for 50 bucks (looks like he knows the exact amount us cyclists normally carry on long rides). I tried to get the money out of my pocket, but with the winter gloves on it is an impossible task.

The second guy came around behind me, took my hand out of my pocket, and helped himself to the money my mobile phone, and a packet of jelly babies. And then started pushing the bike telling me to go. I went slowly at first, listening for sounds behind me, because they hadn't let my teammate go yet. So I was kind of waiting for a shot, or shouting, or something, not wanting to look around in case they do start shooting then. About 200 metres down the road I snuck a quick look, and very relieved saw my teammate not far behind me, also riding.

We carried on down the road and stopped at the police station about 10 km further. When we told them we'd just been robbed at gunpoint, they looked up for a few seconds, and turned around and carried on talking amongst themselves. Nice service SAPS. Don't tell me to at least report a crime, and then not even be willing to take down my statement or let me use your phone!

Maybe the police should have a website where we can report these crimes, without having to go to a police station, since they're not going to do much anyway. At least then we'll have more accurate crime statistics in this country, and not the bullshit (this is my site, I can say what I want) they're feeding us at the moment.

Assos clothing

Baldy — Tue, 30 May 2006 14:13:00 +0000

Over the weekend I took the plunge and bought myself a pair of Assos longs to go ride on these cold winter mornings, and took them out for the first time this morning. I can only say that they are worth every cent I spent! It feels like you're floating in the air, not sitting on a bicycle seat, and not a hint of cold. Temperatures were warmer this morning, with a minimum of 4 degrees, so I'll put them to the true test tomorrow morning with temperatures expected to go below zero.

I'll definitely be buying more items of this make, as the savings allow.

Translate cyclist speak

Baldy — Thu, 25 May 2006 17:14:00 +0000

Cyclists are the biggest sandbaggers and secret trainers around.
They'll say anything to soften you up for the kill. Don't let this
happen to you. Study this handy rider's phrasebook to find out what
they really mean when they
say:

"I'm out of shape"

Translation: I ride 600 kilometres a week and haven't missed a day
since Muldoon was PM. I replace my 11-tooth cog more often than you wash your
shorts. My body fat percentage is lower than your mortgage rate.

"I'm not into competition. I'm just riding to stay in shape"

Translation: I will attack until you collapse in the gutter, babbling
and whimpering like a baby. I will win the line sprint even if I have
to force you into oncoming traffic. I will crest this hill first if I
have to grab your seat post, and spray energy drink in your eyes.

"I'm on my better bike"

Translation: I had this baby custom-made in Tuscany using titanium
blessed by the Pope. I took it to a wind tunnel and it disappeared. It
weighs less than a fart and costs more than a divorce.

"It's not that hilly"

Translation: This climb lasts longer than coalition negotiations. Be
careful on the steep sections or you'll fall over -- backward. You
have a 39x23 low gear? Here's the name of my knee surgeon.

"You're doing great, honey"

Translation: Yo, lard ass, I'd like to get home before midnight. This
is what you get for spending the winter decorating and eating
chocolate. I shoulda married that cute Cat 1 racer when I had the
chance.

"This is a no-drop ride"

Translation: I'll need an article of your clothing for the search-
and-rescue dogs.

"It's not that far"

Translation: Bring your passport.

What makes a cyclist tick