Here's one of those stories and pictures that crops up on the Internet every once in a while: A 15-year-old Lance Armstrong (right) and his agent Scott Eder, seconds after Our Very Boy Lance won the 1987 Hillcrest-Tulsa Triathlon.

There's a story in the Tulsa World in advance of the 25th annual Tulsa Triathlon June 10. There's a 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bicycle race and a 10-kilometer run.

OTHER GOOD READS:
-- LA Times Michael Hiltzik: Landis case succeeds in exposing faults
-- William Fotherington in the Guardian: Tour tells former winner Riis to stay way after drugs confession

What is it with bike theft these days! Last year around this same time, I was writing about Heinz Stucke, the "Forrest Gump of Cycling," who had his bike stolen on one of his circumnavigations (yes that is plural as the man has been cyc-lin and cyc-lin since he left his German home in 1962) of the globe.

Earlier this month, Team Lamonta had their entire supply of LOOK/SRAM bikes stolen while at the Olympia’s Tour in the Netherlands.

Now comes the story below, orginally printed on Velonews. Since this is as social a network medium as they come, I thought that I'd help get the word out.

Thieves nick 300 bikes destined for Tulsa kids' ride
By VeloNews.com
This report filed May 30, 2007

It was tough news for Tulsa Tough Ride and Race-300 Schwinns destined for school-age kids tackling a special Tough Kids 10km ride on Sunday have gone missing.

A 40-foot steel shipping container containing the bikes was apparently stolen last weekend from the Pacific Cycles shipping yard.

The youngsters earned the bikes through the Tough Kids Challenge, a program in which middle- and high-school students either participated in Tulsa's Little 100 cycling event or completed a bicycle-safety education course.

Tulsa Tough Ride and Race launched the youth health and fitness initiative this year with the support of The Children's Hospital at St. Francis.

The bikes, which sported the Tulsa Tough, Little 100 and Saint Francis logos, were to be delivered on Tuesday and assembled on Wednesday for pickup on Saturday. Organizers were hoping to find loaner bikes for Sunday's Tough Kids ride.

For more information, email info@tulsatough.com.

**UPDATE: May 31st @ 9:00am EST - Bikes were recovered by Dallas Police. Volunteers, including Ed of Cycledog stayed up all night assembling the cycles for the Saturday pickup.

For all that he is (a two time Giro d'Italia champion) and for all that he's claimed to be (a serious challenger to Lance Armstrong at the Tour de France), you can't deny Gilberto Simoni's talent as a climber (Photo - Fotoreporter Sirotti).

It wasn't exactly a rest day yesterday at the Giro d' Italia, but it seemed that way for the favorites and those ranked highly on the General Classification (GC). With the exception of former champion, Stefano Garzelli, who won his second mountain stage, Stage 16 amounted to "the quiet before the storm." And what a storm that may be!

Stage 17 from Lienz to Monte Zoncolan has been earmarked by the riders and tifosi alike ever since this year's route was announced. As you can see from the profile of the mountain top finish, this stage has the makings of being the final GC decider.

Current maglia rosa wearer, Danilo DiLuca (Liquigas) will need his "killer" instincts to be extremely astute. He will most likely have to fend off every would be contender up Zoncolan alone as his team has faded since the route turned uphill.

Saunier Duval, with its full complement of 9 riders, looks to be the most well placed team, as both Ricardo Ricco and Gilberto Simoni are only a few minutes arrear. Climber (and currently second on the GC), Eddy Mazzoleni (Astana), however, will have a say in the matter especially with Paolo Salvodelli aiding his cause.

Follow today's events LIVE on Cyclingnews or Velonews.

Our IronGal in training, Katie, checks in after a bit of an absence from the blog, and as you'll read, a little absence from training as well. C'est la vie, no? And no worries blogosphere fans, although Katie's training journal for the Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene will be over in three weeks, she'll be a regular contributor as the Triple Crankset's resident Physical Therapist.

Life Happens!
Hey there, long time no journaling! Mainly because I missed the last two weekends of long biking due to travel! OOooopss!! The good news is, it was well worth it!

Brandon graduated from law school and we are now engaged!! Hooorray!! I could not be happier!! But, this is an Ironman journal so I will try not to digress!!

For starters, I think my coach is on crack. I basically listen to her suggestions and then do my own thing. She is great, but crazy. For example, today, she wanted me to swim an hour....rest 90 minutes for breakfast....bike 6 hours...rest 90 minutes.....run 2 hours.

ARE YOU FLIPPIN SERIOUS DUDE!

Now, for those of you "serious and seasoned" Ironmen and Ironwomen...great for you. I hope you enjoyed yourself out there.

As for me, I felt great about my 6.5 hour bike ride (107 miles). Especially considering I had 2....yes 2... flat tires I had to fix! Also, I was going up this million grade hill (or really steep hill) and I shifted to a low gear and ooops, off goes the chain. I NEARLY FELL OVER! I had to get off and walk up the hill. I had to laugh at myself.

I had to laugh to myself again at about mile 54 when I passed a large farm crop of cows that mooooooo'd at me as I passed. And again at mile 72 when I began to sing renditions of Wison Phillips "Release Me" and "Hold On" from my teenage years. Okay, so I'm a dork....but you'd be surprised what you would do by yourself for 6 hours!

The weather has been so incredibly crappy lately, I was lucky to even get out on the bike. I had tried last weekend and nearly got frostbite on my fingers! Again, for those of you psycho...I mean seasoned triathletes...you probably have every piece of garb to protect you from such conditions. But me, in my high school soccer shirt and spandex SHORTS...I'm less than prepared.

Anyways, today felt great except I have a bit of a headache now. I think it is more due to my neck musculature as opposed to my lack of hydration. I really need to work on my chin tucks while on the bike!

Tomorrow is a long run and then Brandon is taking me to the driving range and then the tennis courts to create our own rendition of a triathlon.

Congrats to Scott and Brandon for graduating from law school...and GOOD LUCK on the bar.

Beth, if you want to send this on to Elaine and Rich, please do as I don't know their email.

In closing, I will try to keep in touch more. This next week will be tough again but not as bad as last week. Then I start to taper...YEAH! I have attached a copy of last weeks schedule...just in case anyone is interested!

Quote of the day: "Don't confuse activity with achievement"

Love y'all
Katie

Didn't see the finish of the 11th stage of the Giro d'Italia in Pinerolo in the rain? Then you'll want to see this:

Some good reading for the final day of the long Memorial Day holiday weekend:
-- George Vecsey of the New York Times:
The Tour de France breaks a fan's heart
-- Art Spander of Inside Bay Area:
Failures, not feats, taking over sports pages

Here's a good recap of what has transpired in the past week on the doping issues plaguing professional cycling by the Chicago Tribune's Phil Hersh.

Of Bjarne Riis's confession on Friday, Hersch writes:
"What shred of credibility remained about elite pro cycling has disappeared as 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis of Denmark on Friday became the first Tour winner to admit he used banned performance-enhancing drugs."

What we have always feared and suspected has now been laid bare. Cycling's dirty little secret is no longer everyone's secret.

So, what about Our Boy Lance? Hersh writes:
"Between [Marco] Pantani and [Floyd] Landis came the Lance Armstrong era, with its record-breaking seven straight victories, nearly all by humbling margins over rivals known to have doped during their careers.

"Armstrong has claimed abstinence from the prolonged orgy of doping his sport has indulged in for more than two decades.

"He never has been sanctioned for a doping positive and apparently is not discomfited by the unofficial retroactive testing at a French lab that found EPO in six of his samples given during the Tour in 1999, two years before cycling began testing for that endurance-building drug."

It is a sad time for professional cycling. I maintain that the sport is TOO difficult, the tours too long, the climbs too difficult, the temptation to cheat too great because the sport drives its athletes beyond human endurance. We marvel at these beyond-possible accomplishments and turn our heads, pretending we don't know.

Now we know. Or at least we've been told -- to an extent. Who else will have the courage to come forward? How honest can the sport be with itself -- and us -- and still survive?

It all makes the Bad Boy Floyd hearing this past week rather superfluous. The testing process stink. But so does Floyd in all likelihood.

And what of Our Boy Lance? Can he remain silent any longer? Can we continue to admire his courage without one last courageous act of admission? I continue to want to believe. So do a lot of people. But how long can we continue to fool ourselves just because we want to?

It's time for cycling to come clean. For Bad Boy Floyd. For Our Boy Lance. It's time to come clean.

MORE:
-- SFGate.com Matthew Tom: Cycling has broken my heart for the last time

Given that my mainstream local media (which happens to include the very fine Washington Post) has no idea and even less concern about what I consider my news (they're getting better, though, on delivering the how-I-want-it/when-I-want-it part), I'm intrigued with a new concept from Steve Outing's Enthusiast Group niche sport websites that he's calling "grassroots media."

Let me back up and begin with a disclaimer: Outing is my former editor and the creator of the E-Media Tidbits blog. A much honored and respected online journalism pioneer (he still writes an online column, "Stop the Presses," for Editor & Publisher), Outing founded and is publishers of the Enthusiast Group, a network of grassroots, media-based websites serving adventure and participant sports. Sites include YourMTB.com, YourCycling.com, YourClimbing.com, YourRunning.com and YourHorseSports.com, with additional rollouts expected throughout 2007.

Two of the sites, YourMTB.com and YourCycling.com, which are home to mountain and road biking enthusiasts, have developed an innovative program to provide coverage for cycling races and events that allows competitors and/or spectators to blog, take photograph and shoot video.

Site members can apply to be selected as correspondents and receive a free entry fee to compete or admission as a spectator in exchange for covering the event.

Given that many of these events rarely attract mainstream media coverage, even though the participation level or attendance can be large, it's a great way for niche sports to get coverage.

"What we offer is an audience that is really passionate about the sport, provided from the athlete's or competitor's perspective," says Outing. "We partner with events in our websites' sports and recruit grassroots correspondents to cover them. We also let event organizers embed this into their sites. It's an innovative form of grassroots media -- an angle I haven't seen before. We call the event sites 'Grassroots Channels' -- though we're debating whether that's too geeky still given our audience of sports enthusiasts."

YourMTB.com recently signed a deal to provide Grassroots Channels for Granny Gear Productions' series of 24-hour mountain bike races. As part of that relationship, YourMTB is recruiting correspondents to race in and cover the races. Correspondents' photos, videos and blogs appeared on Granny Gear's Grassroots Channels, for example, for the 24 Hours of Conyers race last week.

And recently, the USA Climbing Regional Championship at the Boulder, Col., Rock Club used volunteer competitor correspondents. Jill Salva, BRC's sales, instructions and events director, said, "The beauty of grassroots reporters is that these are people who are already motivated and keenly interested in the event. Plus the advantage of having multiple grassroots reporters means that you get multiple unique viewpoints. In addition to that, it frees up event organizers to focus on serving competitors, attracting sponsors and running the event itself.

With the positive response we got, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The creativity of our correspondents uniquely captured the flavor of our comp."

This approach represents yet another lost opportunity for mainstream media, which simply lacks the resources to make all its audience happy all of the time. I've already approached the CSC Invitational in nearby Arlington, Va., about covering the event for The Triple Crankset, and I'll volunteer to cover the event for YourCycling.com, too.

My guess, however, is that there will be more coverage of the Washington Redskins in the local media that day with the season only three months away!

Pat McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union, said that because Bjarne Riis’s drug use happened more than eight years ago, he cannot be stripped of his title or otherwise sanctioned. However, McQuaid said that the race records may be altered to show that the 1996 Tour had no winner.

That may be just as well. The second-place finisher that year was Riis’s teammate, Jan Ullrich of Germany, who is now the subject of a doping investigation. Third place went to Richard Virenque, who was the leader of a team that became of the focus of a series of antidoping raids by police in 1998.

Memorial Day Weekend
This weekend usually signals the "true" beginning of summer. Friends and family are planning cookouts and outings, while others are headed to their favorite vacation spot (BTW, have a great time in the Land of the Grand Banks, and in the Sunshine State).

For the touring cyclists and racer in all of us, this weekend usually helps us to get honed in on our "targets," whether they be training for a charity century or for a specific race. As such, below are a few of the races scheduled for this weekend. (Drop me a line, if you'd like me to list races in your area).

05/26/2007
Dragon's Challenge & NC Criterium Championship
Fort Bragg / Fayetteville, NC
Hellertown Criterium
Hellertown, PA
LÄRABAR So Cal Cup #3
Encino, CA

05/27/2007
Granville Grand Prix
Granville, OH
NETWORK CONTROL MT HAMILTON CLASSIC
San Jose, CA
Aliquippa Industrial Park Crits
Aliquippa, PA

05/28/2007
Tour De Gaslight Village
East Grand Rapids, MI
Quad Cities Criterium
Rock Island, IL
TREK BICYCLE STORE MEMORIAL DAY CRITERIUM
Morgan Hill, CA

Biking The Drive
In Chicago, this weekend kicks off the weekly summer ritual of neighborhood street festivals. And, its also time for the annual Bank of America Bike The Drive (formerly sponsored, but still hosted by, the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation). For those unfamiliar with the event, simply click HERE to be taken to the official website or HERE for Oude Granny's rundown of last year's event (yes, I was pedalling when I took that photo!)

In the Pink
For those of you who aren't merely following cycling right now to see or hear who will step up to the mic next and proclaim, "Yes, I doped!" (thank you Mr. Riis, and who's next to purge their soul?), the Giro d'Italia is getting really interesting. Granny's favorite to win the race this year, Danilo DiLuca confirmed his form and retook the Maglia Rosa for the third time in this year's race. He did so in dramatic fashion as he won Stage 12 and distanced himself from some of the pre-race favorites, former champions Paolo Salvodelli and Gilberto Simoni.

Although there are many more mountains to come in this race, having the Giro's leader's jersey may be enough of a whip to motivate DiLuca's Liquigas teammates and help him to a long sought after victory.

To see if DiLuca can hang on, catch the Giro this weekend on Versus' Cyclysm Sunday.


A Gift
With the possibility of thunderstorms ruining most outdoor fun this Memorial Day weekend, I thought I'd throw out another review from the ROLL Film library.

This week's offering is Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey. It chronicles the courageous story of a disabled man who cycles across his native Ghana.

What Borzo (the "bike guy") says:
Is being disabled or severely ill a curse or a blessing? Lance Armstrong has said that if he had his life to live over, and it was up to him, he would welcome the cancer. Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, the hero of Emmanuel's Gift, is another cyclist who made the most of a life-altering challenge...MORE.

What Strauss (the "movie guy") says:
I had never heard of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, but after seeing the moving and inspirational documentary, Emmanuel's Gift, I will certainly never forget him. He is a true-life hero and, because it tells his story, this film deserves to be seen...MORE.

For those of you who went to a Floyd Landis Fairness Fund fundraiser, you're already familiar with Dr. Arnie Baker's colloquialism of certain LNDD laboratory procedures not "passing the smell test."

But now we can probably apply that same notion to the whole of professional cycling.

Bjarne Riis (photo: AFP), through mutiple denials and acts of hypocrisy; as he chided riders (Hamilton and Basso) formerly under his care of their recent doping indictments, has come out and admitted his own performance enhancing drug use (as T-o-03 mentions below).

"The time has come to put the cards on the table," said Riis. "I have done things which I now regret and which I wouldn't do again. I have doped. I have taken EPO. For awhile it was part if my life."

A former Tour de France stage winner, all of a sudden taking down one of cycling's greats? We all should have known that his breaking of Miguel Indurain during the 1996 Tour de France smelled a little funny.

Now you have to begin to wonder whether his adeptness of reviving careers as the Director Sportif of CSC smells right?

And now, Bjarne Riis.

The manager of the highly successful CSC team and the 1996 winner of the Tour de France, admitted on Friday that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his 1996 Tour victory.

"I have taken doping. I have taken EPO," Riis said at a televised news conference. "I have made errors and I would like to apologize."

Riis said he used the substances from 1993 to 1998, including during his Tour victory. Riis said he no long considered himself a worthy winner of the Tour, and indicated he would be willing to give back the title.

"My jersey is at home in a cardboard box," he said. "They are welcome to come and get it. I have my memories for myself."

Riis said he didn't suffer any side effects from EPO, a blood-boosting hormone. "The only effect I had was that I rode faster," he said.

Riis said he also used cortisone and human growth hormone.

Here's an interesting take on the possible ramifications of the just-concluded Bad Boy Floyd hearing by Andrew Vontz for FoxNews. Vontz points out that the ruling could come out smack dab in the middle of the -- yup -- 2007 Tour de France.

Yeah, we have crashes in Arlington, too, at the CSC Invitational.

Here's a scoop for you, cycling fans!

I've applied for press credentials for the 10th annual 2007 CSC Invitational in Arlington, Va., on June 2. I've attended the event for the past several years, but I've never covered it (neither does the Washington Post to any great extent, even though thousands attend the event). So let's see if the event organizers credential the Crankset!

And if this video of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen reporting on the 2006 Inivtational, won by Mark McCormack, doesn't blow you away, then nothing will (Hear Phil say: "Two great races in a great town!)!

A couple of days ago, T-Mobile announced the release of their new PDA phone, Wing. Developed by the folks over at High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), Wing is the first phone to employ Microsoft’s new mobile operating platform, Windows Mobile 6. As far as phones go, it quite possibly could be the crème de la crème (at least until Apple’s iPhone is released, or as they say in the computer business, “just wait another 3 months.”)

Unfortunately for the telecommunications giant, it seems to be the only "positive" coming out of Germany these days, as news of widespread performance enhancing drug use during the 1990’s predominates.

Even one of their former stalwarts, Eric “Say It Ain’t So” Zabel (now with Milram; left, photo: AP), admitted using erythropoietin (EPO). What’s next, Jan Ullrich admitting he was a bit lax in his off-season training regiment? Oh, right?!

But such is the ludicrous nature of professional cycling these days.

With the current defection of major corporate sponsors due to the tarnished image of cycling, it wouldn't be surprising to see T-Mobile follow suit. And quite possibly, it could be before their cycling sponsorship was due to end in 2010.

Regardless, T-Mobile’s been caught red, make that fuchsia – handed!

If you were wondering when Australia's Robbie McEwen, winner of Stage 2, would drop out of the Giro d'Italia, the answer is: Stage 12.

Thursday's 12th stage from Scalenghe to Briancon in France is the first mountain stage of the 2007 Giro. The 163-km stage includes the Colle dell'Agnello, the highest climb of this year's race, and the Col d'Izoard.

McEwen who finished third in the 11th stage of the Giro d'Italia on Wednesday, withdrew from the race to prepare for the Tour de France, which begins July 7.

Alessandro Petacchi of Milram took his third victory of the tour ahead of teammate Gabriele Balducci and McEwen in the 198-km stage from Serravalle Scrivia to Pinerolo. Overall leader Andrea Noe of the Liquigas team was one of several riders who crashed on the finish line but retained the pink jersey.

MORE:
-- AP Interview: Tour de France director wants life bans for cheats who fail to confess
-- AFP Cyclist Zabel admits taking drug in 1996
-- NYTimes: Lead Lawyer for Landis Describes Errors by Lab
-- CyclingNews: It's science versus science, as Landis' fate hangs in the balance

Unless you get the New York Times Select online -- or the print edition of the Times -- you can't read Sports of the Times Columnist Selena Roberts. I think that's pretty dumb on the Times' part, but that's another blog item for another day.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, writes quite like Roberts, who takes on Bad Boy Floyd in her column Wednesday. Since you probably can't access the column, I'm providing it here:

Armstrong Strategy, but He Isn't Armstrong
By SELENA ROBERTS

A brief look at Day 8 of the Bad Boy Floyd arbitration hearing:

HIGHLIGHTS: Many observers thought USADA would stick to the science, and the Landis side would try to put on a big show. In fact, the opposite has happened. USADA's decision to bring Greg LeMond to the stand has turned this into an examination of Landis' character, as well, which is what Tuesday morning's cross-examination was all about. But do the arbitrators care?

LOWLIGHTS: Landis had another good witness, Simon Davis, who was compelling in his dissection of practices at the French lab. But if the Landis team's strategy was to get word of Davis' scientific testimony to the public, Landis' cross-examination proved to be too much competition.

LAB WORKERS GONE WILD: Davis ripped lab technicians Cynthia Mongongu and Claire Frelat, saying they "clearly did not understand the instrument" they used to manually reprocess data and claiming that some of their testimony "shows a complete lack of understanding of the instrument."

CHEMICAL REACTIONS: The Landis camp has made much of "sloping baselines" in graphs that show the result of Landis' tests. An arrow-straight line at the bottom of the page represents a cleanly produced test, Davis said. He said sloping baselines, or baselines with minor peaks, show bad methods. He said the baseline on a particularly bad example looked like a "squashed hedgehog."

WEDNESDAY'S WITNESSES: Davis returns. Depending on his testimony, USADA could bring rebuttal witnesses, including J. Thomas Brenna. Arbitrators had hoped to wrap up with closing arguments in the afternoon, but that plan is in limbo.

MORE:
New York Times: Landis's Character Is the Focus of Questioning
AP: Tour Director Says Doping 'Killing' Cycling
Deutschse Welle: Team T-Mobile Under Fire from Doping Admissions
Denver Post: Vaughters' cyclists welcome weekly exams

Interested in reading Bad Boy Floyd's new book, "Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France," due on June 26?

You can read a bit of the first chapter on the Amazon site and save about a third of the $25 cover price by ordering now.

Here are the first two paragraphs from the opening chapter, "Breaking Away":

"I have nothing to hide.

As far as I'm concerned, people can know everything about me if they want: how much money I've made, when I've been a fool or felt regret or shed tears. I don't care. There's no reason to hold anything back. I don't feel the need to be selective in order to create some image of a person who isn't me. I'm me. That's it.

I ended up making a living in a sport where a bunch of men wear spandex and shave their legs -- and that's not even the funny part. The funny part is that cycling and its anti-doping program are run by people so incompetent they couldn't even run a Ralphs grocery store. I couldn't
always laugh about it, because they wrecked my life. But I don't ask for sympathy. I take what I'm given in life and try to make some good out of it, always."

For some of the best coverage of the ongoing Bad Boy Floyd hearings and cycling's doping scandals in general, check out Michael Hiltzik's coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

We're about halfway through -- 10 stages -- the Giro d'Italia, which is being hyped as a showdown between the young guns.

But you always have to watch the old guys. A pair of veterans stole the spotlight during Tuesday's grueling 250-km climbing stage in the sun-baked mountains above Genova.
Leonardo Piepoli and Andrea Noè, two unsung workhorses in an age of millionaire general classification captains, clawed their way to the podium at the end of an explosive battle that saw the end of Marco Pinotti's pink jersey run.

Piepoli, 35, held off a late charge by Danilo Di Luca on the steep 8.8km climb up the Santuario Nosta Signora della Guardia to claim his third career Giro stage victory.

"Okay, today it's the old guys winning the stage and taking the jersey, but don't tell me the young guys aren't good. Look at the class of '81 -- Cunego, Pozzato -- you can find 10 champions. And this young guy Schleck today," said Piepoli, who won two Giro stages last year. "There are a few of us old guys who are still there. That means that I've been racing against very good ones my whole career."

Noè, the oldest rider in the Giro at 38 and reputed as one of the grumpiest men in the peloton, inherited the maglia rosa from Pinotti after finishing 10th at 52 seconds back.

"I have been doing this job for 15 years now and many things have changed. The young guys aren't like us anymore," Noè said. "I don't recognize the young riders anymore. I have to look at their jerseys or their helmets to see who they are."

Here's a brief look at Day 7 of the Bad Boy Floyd hearing:

HIGHLIGHTS: News that Landis' former manager, Will Geoghegan, was checking into a rehab facility did nothing to diminish the sometimes-sleazy feeling of this hearing. And this from Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, an expert testifying for Landis: "I'm terribly sorry, but if someone's life depends on it, his career depends on it, you don't go on assumptions."

LOWLIGHTS: Landis was supposed to be cross-examined, but other witnesses held that up. Now, he'll be on the stand Tuesday.

SCHEDULING, AND RESCHEDULING: After thinking they wouldn't get to closing arguments by Wednesday, the sides agreed they could, indeed, finish things up by the deadline, which means they won't have to reconvene at a later date.

CHEMICAL REACTIONS: According to a primer from the University of Colorado chemistry department, retention time "is the time it takes for a compound to travel from the injection port to the detector" on a gas chromatography machine. Errant retention times in the testing done on Landis' urine samples were a big part of his argument that the tests were faulty. Where WADA rules call for no gap of more than 1 percent or plus-minus 0.2 minutes between different tests performed on the machines, Landis produced data showing gaps of 6 percent and up to eight minutes.

TUESDAY'S WITNESSES: Landis for cross-examination by USADA attorneys; Landis expert Simon Davis.

MORE:
-- Fox News: Tour de France Champ Landis' Testimony Centers on Fired Manager
-- Cycling News: Landis makes Stage 7 comback
-- Pro Cycling: Landis takes the stand
-- The Guardian: Former Telekom rider tells of systematic EPO use in 90s
-- San Jose Mercury News: Landis case a wild ride, and will get wilder
-- VeloNews: Doctors question lab's findings in Landis case
-- San Jose Mercury News: Killion says Landis sees peril in going public
-- ABC12.com: Landis hearing costs could reach more than $1 million

If you want to know which way some of the folks at Sports Illustrated online are leaning, you need only download the final image from their site. The actual width size...666 pixels.

One of the dangers, at least for your Oude Granny, of working in a university setting is being surrounded by intellectuals. In their presence, I revert back to your average 3 year old; veritable sponge of knowledge.

So rather than write about Floyd Landis, I thought I'd tell his story in two sets of 5 photos. The first, titled "Hero." (I'm sure some of you can already guess what the next set will be titled).

A brief look at Day 6 of the Floyd Landis arbitration hearing:

HIGHLIGHTS: Landis saying cheating goes against everything he stands for: "It wouldn't serve any purpose for me to cheat and win the Tour, because I wouldn't be proud of it."

LOWLIGHTS: Long, boring, confusing testimony over the telephone from German scientist Wilhelm Schnazer to start the day.

CONTROL THE MESSAGE: During cross-examination of former UCLA lab director Don Catlin, Landis attorneys pressed him on whether lab directors were compelled not to testify on behalf of athletes. They brought up Catlin's testimony in the case of Zach Lund, the skeleton racer who was suspended for a year for using a hair-restoration drug. Catlin acknowledged being pressured by World Anti-Doping Agency officials before his testimony. "One of them made a comment that this was about getting to the truth, as if to say I was not going to be providing the truth," Catlin said.

CHEMICAL REACTIONS: Catlin's most interesting revelation was that standards at the UCLA lab would call for at least two compounds of metabolized testosterone to surpass allowable limits for a test to be considered positive. WADA rules say it's only one, and Catlin was asked many times about this distinction under cross-examination by the Landis attorneys. Landis' positive sample only has one metabolite that is consistently over the threshold.

MONDAY'S WITNESSES: Cross-examination of Landis; Wolfram Meier-Augestein, a research scientist in the field of carbon-isotope ratio testing, from Landis' witness list.

MORE:
-- Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Cycling drama is pushing buttons, not pedals