Riding after dark

Fall. Dark. And cold. It was 53 when I set out today.

I got a little bit of a late start. I tried not to ride very far but I felt good. I rode a bit too far and it got dark. All of the cars with headlights on dark. The street lights actually illuminating street corners dark.

The last couple of miles of the ride were pretty dark. Particularly the .12 miles that I have to ride on Fairview to get from virtually any route home to the head of my street, that fraction of a mile was too dark.

But I am home. I felt good.

In other items of interest to bicyclists, this is actually yesterday's news but another Tour de France jersey winner has tested positive (or actually non-negative). This time it is Bernhard Kohl, this year's winner of the mountains classification (the spotty jersey). I haven't seen any announcement of the official disqualification but it has to come.

So here's the deal as I see it. Kohl was the winner as of the end of the race, yellow jersey winner Carlos Sastre and Frank Schleck were tied for second. As you know by now, Schleck is already under suspicion for sending 7,000 Euros to a well known doping doctor he claims he had never met as some sort of I'll be coming to see you gift. It seems inevitable that Schleck will be DQ'd at some point in the future.

Sastre rides for the same team as Frank. The team leader, Bjarne Riis, has admitted that he doped when he was a rider. Sastre had that extremely suspicious Tour de France result where a pure climber has the time trial of his life to secure his position as race leader (see the whole sorry saga of Michael Rasmussen for further illustration of this phenomenon).

So, let's recap. First place finisher has already been tossed out. Second and third seem likely to follow. The fourth place finisher will have to be declared to be the winner.

In anticipation of this moment I present to you all, but particularly to his biggest fan, Ms. Wireless, the probable winner of the 2008 Tour de France spotty jersey: Thomas VoecklerRichard Virenque will be proud.