By no means Belief Something That’s Too Clear

This previous Saturday was springlike, however winter fought again on Sunday with chilly and even a little bit snow, and so I caught to my aspect of the river:

And to a extra voluminously-tired bicycle with flat pedals:

Although I’m sorry to report I used to be compelled to dispense with the Brooks Cambium saddle, which was one of many few remaining elegant elements on a bicycle that over the previous six years has advanced from showboat to workhorse:

Sadly, whereas I discover the rubber Cambium exceedingly snug, this specific specimen had begun to squeak like a canine’s chew toy, and I’ve been unable to quiet it regardless of liberal utility of all method of lubricants. Ultimately I may take it now not, and so I modified it for one thing from the ol’ Saddle Pile, and the blissful silence is properly definitely worth the slight downgrade in aesthetics and sumptuousness.

You may suppose that lavish upgrades within the type of expensive baubles from corporations like White Industries and Paul are an indication {that a} bicycle is beloved, however I keep that the other is true, and the extra you worth a motorbike the extra you defile it with odds and ends. The Homer appears to be like the way in which it does exactly as a result of I worth it extremely and experience it typically, and so over time I’ve modified this and that to optimize it for all situations and for as many makes use of as attainable, from sunny-day pleasure rides to commuting to moist climate street responsibility:

Nonetheless, in so doing, I’ve regarded every time attainable to stuff I have already got, and the result’s a practical but matted fashion I’d characterize as “slovenly minimalism:”

Hey, it ain’t fairly, but it surely works:

Certain, in case you’re a dick break apologist that is the form of picture that haunts your goals:

However one man’s nightmare is one other man’s reverie, and when the spring lastly does come I’ll hose it down, possibly give it a brand new chain and cassette, and it’ll be good as new:

Truthfully it’s good as new even now, but it surely simply doesn’t look it.

Talking of previous and soiled issues, doping scandals nearly destroyed professional biking. Now the game is in bother once more as a result of…there aren’t sufficient doping scandals?

This sport actually can’t win, can it?

Apparently biking is someway going to look higher if one of many huge stars will get busted:

In response to two completely different sources near the UCI, talking anonymously to guard relationships, the game’s governing physique has been urgent the Worldwide Testing Company (ITA) — which manages anti-doping applications for biking and greater than 70 worldwide federations — to discover a high-profile case of dishonest inside the sport.

These sources defined that many on the UCI consider the absence of a big-name suspension previously decade can’t be wholly because of the sport’s cleanliness.

In response to these sources, the UCI believes {that a} distinguished determine being sanctioned for doping could be a wholesome growth, proof that the anti-doping program is functioning. It might additionally act as a deterrent to others — if an enormous rider will be caught, anybody can.

Wow. You’ve bought to marvel who they’re about to throw beneath the autobus. As a result of piccoli pesci fish like this aren’t gonna lower it anymore:

Essentially the most weird latest case got here from Italian rider Andrea Piccolo, who was stopped at an airport in 2024 on suspicion of transporting human development hormone. American crew EF Training-EasyPost sacked him, and he briefly opened an OnlyFans account along with his influencer girlfriend. In early February 2026, he was arrested by Italian police in Naples with counterfeit cash. The investigation is ongoing.

I can’t consider I missed this one:

Sadly for the UCI, biking can now not rely on these types of salacious Cipollini-esque exploits to spice up its reputation, this being the post-woke period and all. Due to this fact, one of many huge riders should go down in an enormous drug bust quicker than an OnlyFans influencer on a disgraced professional bike owner’s piccolo. Solely then will we return to the “transparency and openness” that after characterised skilled biking:

One other level worrying journalists is the overall temper of the doping dialog. Whereas questions on doping have been inspired a decade in the past, as the game sought to cleanse its picture, enquiries on the subject are more likely to be rebuffed and snarled at. Transparency and openness have given option to secrecy.

I can’t consider I simply learn that.