Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

Trek’s Scott Daubert, before and after Paris-Roubaix

CyclingNews.com before:

CN: So that’s everything then, Scott?

Scott Daubert: One thing I forgot to tell you about is that George is running with a different fork; it has a longer axle to crown dimension, and it has a longer rake than the normal Bontrager Race Lite fork.

CN: Is this something new you’ll bring into the Trek line?

SD: No, it’s actually from Bontrager’s Satellite line, almost from their commuter level, but it has dimensions that are appropriate for Roubaix. It’s an in-house made fork, made at Trek from OCLV carbon, it’s just on a different model bike.

CN: Is it a steel steerer?

SD: No, it’s aluminium; it’s been blasted then anodized black.

CN: But the frame is essentially a Trek 5200, then?

SD: It’s a 5200 platform that we make and do what we make and call a prototype for Roubaix. But it’s still entirely Trek, handmade in Waterloo, Wisconsin, but just using bits and pieces from other bikes that we make.

CN: Is George’s normal bike still a Madone 5.9?

SD: The normal bike the guys are riding this year are the Madone 5.9 SL, so it has the round tubes, OCLV 110 carbon fibre, and the Race XXX Lite fork – that’s their normal fighting equipment. And these wheels he would normally race in stage races or other one-day races, but he’s also going to race these in the Roubaix classic tomorrow. There’s a lot of cool technology, but everybody’s still pointing at the wheels, saying, ‘Wow, what are you thinking?’ like I said, he was trying to hit as many holes as he could during testing, but he had no issues.

CN: Well, time will tell, won’t it?

SD: Time will tell – tomorrow’s the test!

Indeed it was…

CyclingNews.com after:

We asked Scott Daubert if he knew exactly what happened and if the bike was around to take a look, and he said: “I have as much idea as you do – only from what I’ve seen from the television. And even if the bike was around,” added Daubert rather tensely, “I wouldn’t be able to show you.”

That’s alright Scott, we all know what happened. Someone made the decision that it was OK to use the high performance light weight stuff on a Paris-Roubaix bike. I mean, look at this thing:

16 spoke carbon wheels? In Paris-Roubaix? WTF? And rear suspension? Waste of time! Someone was really not thinking rationally here.

Paris-Roubaix is the biggest single day race in the world in regards to public attention. The risk versus reward in using light weight stuff seems no where close to being worth it to me. The bad PR that comes with having a bike break is one thing, the injury to best American rider on the team could have been disastrous. Hincapie could have been knocked out for the year.

I understand the desire to win, but some risks are not worth the potential price. I think someone lost track of that fact.

Posted by smithersmpls at 4:47 pm in Uncategorized | Permalink | No Comments »

From AmericaBlog, the response to the build up to war against Iran should be as follows:

1. George Bush is the wrong man to be launching yet another war.

The same president who made a disaster out of the Iraq war now wants to launch another war with Iraq’s neighbor, Iran. Bush has already proven he is incompetent at running an effective war. America simply cannot afford another rash Bush misadventure.

2) Slow down, we’ve got ten years.

America’s intelligence community estimates that Iran is still ten years away from building a nuclear weapon. There is no reason we need to prepare for war in the next few months, or even before Bush’s term runs out in 2008. Give diplomacy and the international community a chance. We’ve got years, not months.

3) Since we have ten years, we can at the very least wait seven months until the congressional elections this fall.

America needs a Congress that is going to look into Bush’s claims about Iran’s nuclear program and determine if those claims are even credible. The Republican-controlled Congress has already shown that it is unwilling to provide any oversight on any matters involving the Bush administration. We need someone who isn’t on George Bush’s team to use their subpoena power to get administration officials under oath, review the evidence, and see if Bush is right this time around. That someone is a Democratically-controlled Congress.

4) It is ridiculous to consider any congressional resolution on Iran until after the fall elections.

George Bush proved with Iraq that he has no intention of using diplomacy to avoid war. His first option is always to declare war, then ask questions later. It would be foolhardy and naive not to think that Bush would take any congressional Iran resolution and immediately use it to declare war prematurely. The resolution comes ONLY after we know the intelligence is right, that Bush is telling the truth, that we have exhausted ALL other options to avoid war.

And finally, NO resolution is considered until Congress has verified that our military has been given a real plan for victory and sufficient resources to achieve it. Such a verification will NEVER happen under a Republican Congress – they simply cannot politically oversee their own president. It can only happen with a Congress run by the other political party – and that means a Democratic Congress.

5) There is no reason we need to even go to war until Bush has left office.

George Bush has proven that he is unable to wage war effectively. We will have new presidential elections in 2008, a good eight years before Iran will have nukes according to our best estimates. We should wait until Bush leaves office before considering any possible military action against Iran. There is simply no reason to rush things and permit this administration to prove its incompetence in foreign and military policy once again.

6) Bush is the not the president we want exercising the nuclear option.

There are credible news reports that President Bush isn’t just considering using nuclear weapons against Iran, but that he is strongly leaning towards that option. Regardless of one’s opinion on such an option, George Bush has already proven that he is not competent to run a conventional war. It would be insane to trust him to run a nuclear war.

7) Bush either lied to us, or was unable to determine the truth, about Iraq’s WMD program (which we now know didn’t exist). Why should we believe claims from the same president and same intelligence agencies about Iran’s WMD program? We need more than President Bush’s assurances.

What military and what money are we going to use to launch a war against Iran?

Our troops are stuck in Iraq, and Bush says he refuses to withdraw them. So what troops are we going to use to invade Iran? And is America truly prepared to fight 3 wars at the same time? That has never been US military policy, at least not in the past several decades, to be able to fight a three-front war. Our military simply is not made to fight three wars simultaneously.

Just as importantly, Iraq has cost us over $300 billion, and the estimates of the total cost of the Iraq war is in the trillions. George Bush inherited a budget surplus when he came to office, he has now put the budget into a massive deficit. We simply no longer have the money, so how is Bush going to finance a massive invasion of Iran?

Incompetence comes at a cost. George Bush has run our military into the ground our and bankrupted our government, and now wants us to give him permission to do it all over again?

9) Why is it always us?

If Iran is such a threat, then why not let the Europeans and the Russians and the Chinese take care of it? Clearly none of those countries wants a nuclear Iran on their back porch. So why is it always America that has to give our money, our soldiers’ lives, and our goodwill?

Saddam Hussein was contained before this administration decided to launch their preemptive attack against Iraq. Now it’s time to contain this administration before they blunder into another economic and military disaster in the middle east.

Posted by smithersmpls at 1:28 pm in Uncategorized | Permalink | No Comments »