Boonen’s Tour back on, by a nose (and a handshake)

-- Boonen can’t say no to cocaine; Tour organisers can’t say no to Boonen

Dear Quick Step

Just a quick note congratulating you on Tom Boonen’s reinstatement to cycling’s showpiece, the Tour de France.

It’s a great credit to you and your fine legal representatives that you were able to fix Tom’s drug addiction so quickly and convince Tour organisers that nose candy shouldn't interfere with professional sport.

(I suspect that he doesn't actually engage in all that ghastly snorting - rather, he gets his fix with a handshake - works in has favour).

Finally, cycling is coming around to what baseball has known for years: sporting integrity is so last century.

Yours in fondness and admiration.

Lester

Chopper Guard Harden The Fuck Up Award: Svein Tuft – hard as fuck

-- In 2003, he showed up for the Prime Alliance pro team’s training camp near Los Angeles. He had ridden there from Canada. “He had this really long beard, and he smelled very bad,” said Jonathan Vaughters, then in his last year of professional racing.

While his European peers experimented with women’s underwear and side-parts, Canadian cyclist Svein Tuft, who this year rides the Tour de France with the Garmin-Slipstream squad, rode vast tracts of Canadian wilderness on a $40 bike hooked to a homemade trailer groaning under the weight of a sack of potatoes and Tuft’s 80-pound dog, Bear.

By all means clap Team Cancer Man, but here’s a rider we can really holler for, eh.

Now, go make yourself a nice cup of harden the fuck up and read the full story here.

Celebrate the hardness

-- Seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong called him Nails. Viatcheslav 'Nails' Ekimov finished every one of the 15 Tours de France he started. Aged 14 he rode 38,000 kilometers in one year. That was just the beginning.  

Like the colours of a cyclist's wardrobe, motivations driving pedal strokes cover a spectrum. But where individual cycling goals often diverge, admiration of the cyclist's dedication to improvement is universal. Has there ever been a cyclist, of any ability, who at some stage hasn’t wanted to go faster, ride longer or more effortlessly? Cycling’s mere mortals cut out a few weekend drills for quick gains. Immortals, like two-time Olympic Gold medal winner and Russian cyclist of the Century Viatcheslav Ekimov, go to such lengths they make their professional peers look like big girls' blouses. 

Ekimov started training as a cyclist aged 12 (it was the Soviet era) and moved on to the rather ominously named Armed Forces Sports Society. He became a pro bike rider in 1990, at the age of 23, starting and finishing (aged 40) 15 Tours de France.

Daniel Coyle, in his book Lance Armstrong's War, provides a taste of Ekimov’s unflinching determination. 

The third parable ... was the Story of Eki. Thirty-seven-year-old Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov was the only rider on Postal -- indeed, perhaps the only person in Armstrong's world -- whose work ethic was beyond question. This status was underlined frequently, most of all by Armstrong's assertion that Eki was “nails.” Which raised the question: what does it take to be “nails”? This is what it took. When Eki was fourteen and living at a sports club in St. Petersburg, he rode 38,000 kilometers in one year, an average of 450 miles a week. In 1996, as a professional, he nearly doubled it ("That's not possible for a human," Landis said incredulously). But it was true -- Eki had twenty-five notebooks full of training logs to prove it. Eki had ridden thirteen tours and finished every one. Eki never missed a training day. Eki was never late or unprepared. Eki coached himself. Eki was Eki.

A salute to Ekimov and hardness. Don't worry too much about all the miles. But we all should suck up some of Eki's iron willed determination.

Cycling dos and don'ts: DON'T

-- It's just not right 

Don't skip meals. It looks bad and gets you expelled from professional bike tours.