New Pappillon Website with Integrated Blog is Live

To repeat a post from Decemeber, while we have enjoyed our time with Blogger, this version of Pappillon seems to be going the way of our WordPress site, and will be has been wistfully integrated into a completely new www.joepapp.com wwww.josephpapp.com. The bugs are still being worked out of The new site's content, which is incomplete at present, is more complete, and we will continue blogging there - so but check there for new blog posts before you click back here. Time will tell to what degree the integrated-blog serves the needs of you, the readers. Stay tuned - but not here!

New Website ONLINE NOW

While we have enjoyed our time with Blogger, this version of Pappillon seems to be going the way of our WordPress site, and will be integrated into a completely new www.joepapp.com. The bugs are still being worked out of the new site's content, which is incomplete at present, but check there for new blog posts before you click back here. Time will tell to what degree the integrated-blog serves the needs of you, the readers. Stay tuned - but not here.

Blazin' Saddles: The real McCoy? - The LOST Paragraphs

"What was he, a Master of the Universe, doing down here on the floor, reduced to ransacking his brain for white lies to circumvent the sweet logic of his wife?"

Such is the predicament of millionaire bond trader Sherman McCoy, a self-styled Master of the Universe, in the opening chapter of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, a satire on the decaying class, racial and political structure of New York in the 1980s.

In the light of recent developments, you could seemingly replace Alberto Contador for the adulterous McCoy, the doping laboratories and baying media for his wife, while the thing that's decaying is the core of professional cycling and its organisational bodies. As for the white lies, well, they remain white lies - if you believe all the rumours.

Cycling has been riddled with mendacity in recent years. In any walks of life, those in the wrong more often than not don't actually believe they are doing anything bad in the first place. Certainly not in relation to their immediate surroundings. Take Sherman McCoy, for instance. As a Master of the Universe, he is entitled to do as he pleases – especially given the temptations around him.

"Technically, he had been unfaithful to his wife. Well, sure … but who could remain monogamous with this, this, this tidal wave of concupiscence rolling across the world? Christ almighty! A Master of the Universe couldn't be a saint, after all … It was unavoidable. For Christ's sake, you can't dodge snowflakes, and this was a blizzard! He had merely been caught at it, that was all. It meant nothing. It had no moral dimension."

Most would agree that there has been over the years a tidal wave of transgression rolling across a peloton lacking a certain moral dimension. Doping is unavoidable, many say. What's more, it's not a sin as long as you don't get caught.

The minds of many top cyclists snared for their indiscretions appear to mirror that of Wolfe's banker, who sees himself incorrigible, on a different level both ethically (his extra-marital affair) and legally (he mows down and leaves a young boy for dead in the Bronx).

The Contador "situation" means all of the winners of the previous 15 Tours de France – with the exception of Carlos Sastre – have now been associated with (or accused of) doping, have admitted doping or, in one case, have been stripped of their title for doping.

It gets worse. Only this week, convicted doper Bernhard Kohl told an anti-doping symposium in Colorado that it was "impossible to win the Tour de France without doping". The best riders, he inferred, cannot be saints.

It gets even worse: former rider Roy Sentjens, who retired this year after testing positive for EPO, said it was not even possible to reach the Tour top ten without doping (quite how one of his former Lotto team-mates - a staunch anti-doper who finished runner-up on two occasions while the Dutchman was on his squad - feels about this is anyone's guess).

It gets worse still: this week, a 78-year-old Italian anti-doping prosecutor claimed that all professional riders - with no exception - take banned substances.

Such a generalisation is as dangerous as it is patently incorrect (much like the notion that all bankers are b------s) and yet the sad thing is that it may not be as far from the truth as we previously thought.

But let's forget the final outlandish statement and accept, hypothetically, that the first two assertions are true (Saddles isn't going to question the credibility of Kohl and Sentjens in this blog because he'll be here till the Basque cows come home for their daily dose of clenbuterol).

Say they're true, that you can't win or even make the top ten without doping, and you can begin to comprehend why someone like Floyd Landis was so determined to clear his name back in 2006 - or why, for that matter, Contador feels so aggrieved now.

Sure, Landis knew he had doped, but he may have had good reason to believe that those standing either side of him on the podium had done the same. He was clearly adamant (or at least, says he was) that a certain former team-mate had won seven consecutive races using similar preparations.

Landis, like the fictional McCoy and the real-life top bankers who brought the world's financial institutions to a halt with their arrogance and misplaced aura of invincibility, believed himself to be a Master of the Universe. And Masters of the Universe can't be saints.

Sticking to the world of banking, take the example of French rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, who on Tuesday was given a three-year jail term and ordered to pay back the 4.9 billion euros he lost his bank Societe Generale.

Kerviel was no Master of the Universe - he was a mere domestique of the banking world in comparison to Grand Tour contender McCoy; more of a Sentjens than a Landis, if you will.

The trader's lawyer said his client would appeal the "totally unreasonable and unbelievable" judgement. "Kerviel is disgusted," he said, stressing that the court had judged that the bank "was responsible for nothing, not responsible for the creature that it had created."

This is a similar defence made by convicted dopers: they are not to blame, but cycling and its inherent doping culture is. "I have the feeling Jerome Kerviel is paying for an entire system," the lawyer added - something the lawyers of Landis, Ricco, Kohl, any convicted doper could all say.

For once they're caught, dopers are hung out to dry like a piece of beef biltong. And in the cycling food chain, the knives can turn on anyone - even the most cocksure of predators, the Masters of the Universe themselves.

The question we now have to ask is whether Contador is a real McCoy – or if he is a bona fide victim of the freak contamination he claims to be.

Let's look at the evidence. Last week Saddles suggested that Contador's tainted meat excuse was so unfeasible it must have been true; this week, BS would say it seems simply unfeasible.

Many readers gave Saddles beef for overlooking the then latest development in the case - namely that Contador has received a blood transfusion which left plasticizers in his blood as well as clenbuterol - but the blog was written before that angle had been broken in the German press.

At the time, Saddles believed he was in the right in stressing the episode contained more hot air than a cattle farm - but given how things have panned out, BS admits he was perhaps too hasty in coming to Bertie's defence.

While it's natural to presume everyone innocent until proven guilty this whole affair has proved that in cycling the opposite rules must apply: everyone is guilty until proven innocent. And that is a sorry predicament. [What follow are the lost paragraphs.]

The contaminated meat line is now beginning to look almost as much of a chimera as the guff about Tyler Hamilton's unborn twin. The Astana chef's initial line that the beef came from Pau is contradicted by Contador's claim that it was brought for him across the border in Irun by the organiser of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon (a race the Spaniard has won on three of the previous four occasions).

That doesn't even answer the question as to why Contador was eating beef on the rest day in the first place (a practice not usually done in big races). Presumably, the next line will be that the meat was wrapped in cling film made from the same type of plastics found in blood bags. Or that it was accompanied by a plate of boil-in-the-bag rice.

Put simply, today's youth would dismiss the beef excuse is one big epic fail. Saddles wouldn't go so far, but he might suggest that it was a slight red herring.

Contador has known since 24 August that he failed this doping test - and this is the best he can come up with. In the six weeks that passed before the story broke, why had he not traced down where the beef came from, whereby sorting out his defence? And if, as Contador stated, the UCI had assured him it was a case of food contamination - why had the cycling body not further investigated the matter?

The answer, perhaps, is that the story wasn't meant to break. Contador may have been told he should keep quiet about the whole thing - probably to save the flagging reputation of the sport. When the story was reported, both he and the UCI were perhaps caught unawares and with their pants down. Now that would be a decaying structure.

Since being caught in the headlights, Contador has been both contrite (crying into the cameras) and bullish (denying any wrongdoing with all the arrogance of a Master of the Universe).

Pulling the strings, the rider has said he will say no more about the case and has even threatened retirement if a positive resolution is not made within 10 days.

His ex directeur sportif has issued a staunch statement of defence - something he tellingly failed to do when his own rider, Fuyu Li, blamed contaminated meat for a positive test for clenbuterol six months ago.

Contador's principle rival over the French roads in July also came to his sudden defence on Twitter, stressing how he was shocked about the "crazy" news and how he hoped Contador was innocent and would be given the right to defend himself.

Sadly, Blazin' Saddles has it on very good authority - from blood doping specialists with inside information on the biological passports of cycling's top riders who echo the sentiments of Kohl and Sentjens - that the Contador conundrum could well be just the tip of the iceberg.

But given that so much was seemingly done (for whatever reason) to keep the Spaniard's positive under wraps, it's unlikely we'll ever see what is lurking under the surface.

Just pause and think, though. What development would be the worst case scenario for the UCI, the Tour, cycling in general should Alberto Contador be stripped of his title and the yellow jersey awarded to the runner-up who matched his every move but for a slip of a chain?

Towards the end of the Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe's narrator asks: "Who but an arrogant fool would want to be a Master of the Universe - and take the insane chances he had been taking? […] The Master of the Universe was cheap, and he was rotten, and he was a liar."

Let's just hope these similarities with Wolfe's work are all just a coincidence.

Ever since he was bullied by his brothers into watching the Tour de France as an eight-year-old, Blazin' Saddles has been a cycling fanatic. As persistent as Voigt, as fast as Abdoujaparov, as voracious as Ullrich and as accurate as a Festina watch, Blazin' Saddles offers a lighter take on the oft-grave world of professional cycling. The self-styled best cycling-blog pedlar in the business, BS refutes sullied claims of doping levelled by his rivals: these nuggets are powered on Gerolsteiner fizzy water alone. Just ask BS's friend Bernhard Kohl for a reference. An edited version of this post originally appeared at Yahoo! Eurosport.

New Blog to Follow and Something New in the Works Here

Dear Readers, the Pappillon cupboard has been bare of late, owing in large part to the demands of real-life (it's a time consuming process, atoning for participating in a systemic doping program...) and the drain on resources due to a comprehensive redesign of www.joepapp.com. Yes! You heard that right! We'll be moving the Pappillon blog off of the Blogger.com hosting platform and integrating it into a new JoePapp.com website, and are terrifically excited about the chance to recontextualize these musings and centralize their location on the web.

The site redesign is nearly complete, but until it is updates here will be limited. But not to fear - Twitter is proving very useful for maintaining contact with all of you, and to a lesser-degree there remains the option of connecting via FaceBook. But if you're starved for good eatin' and quality cycling-related musing, check out the new Antipodean blog The Cyclingmuse, which is helping everyone Dig a Little Deeper! Their latest post, "Scuttlebutt," is excerpted below:

"Greetings cycling fans, with another blockbuster Giro behind us (one day everyone will wake up to the fact that it has always been more exciting than its bigger Gallic cousin) and as the days get shorter and colder (in my part of the world at least), it only serves to remind me that the Tour de France is just around the corner.

Not to long ago this was a time of joyful expectation, waiting for the evening highlights of a race which was the only cycling event which existed according to mainstream media. Alas things have changed since then and the sport is easily accessible to anyone who might be curious. Well it’s still a time of expectation for me but for different reasons. You see over the years as interest in the sport has slowly increased I have noticed a pattern. I’m waiting, waiting for the next doping scandal to break.

Of course we have already had Floyd Landis finally coming clean (after years of denial) about his doping experiences and consequently slinging mud in every direction to see where it might stick. When the story came out during the Tour of California I started to think why didn’t he wait till before the TDF? Of course soon after the Landis mud slinging Lance Armstrong had a nasty fall and had to abandon the race. According to some conspiracy theorists this was a clever ploy to avoid the media and there was even the suggestion of fake blood capsules being used by LA to feign the bloody facial injuries he received as a result of the crash! Well done to Floyd for finally coming clean, it would have taken a whole lot of guts. I just wish he had have done that from the start, he may have still had a career as a top cyclist if he did..."

So I was thinking of trying out the HTC HD2...

Based on a recommendation made to me by a loyal Pappillon reader earlier this year, I'd been thinking about trying the HTC HD2. Today, I received a text from a friend who manages a T-Mobile retail store, advising that the phones were finally in and he could hold one HD2 for me until Saturday. I'm impulsive and often push common sense aside when making decisions (see Feb. 2010 revelations...), but this time I  wanted to refresh my memory with some research and make an informed buying decision. So I hopped online, but - owing to post-concussion syndrome and general flittiness - decided to make a quick post here before I got stuck-in on the question of dropping mad loot on a Windows Mobile-equipped "smart-phone" (their words). After putting together a post concerning one of the most amazing crash photo sequences I've ever seen, this was the first ad that was served up to ME on my OWN BLOG:

Something similar happened previously with a Competitive Cyclist ad and a pair of Oakley's [Editor: And a priest and a nun? Just asking...] (see below), but this is different enough that I don't know if I should interpret it as a sign of impending consumer folly or a not-so-subtle nudge pushing me to spend my hard-won shekels (sheqel, Hebrew: שקל‎, pl. shekels, sheqels, sheqalim, Hebrew: שקלים‎) on a phone that one reviewer describes as (paraphrasing) the sexiest, most beautiful tragedy of a smartphone ever. Thoughts? (Besides that this post is much ado about nothing...)

  HTC HD2 - it's pretty freakin' hot for a phone

 The Competitive Cyclist ad - Hey I'm a Believer

If you made it to the bottom of the post, I just wanted to apologize for sucking you in on what was the blog post equivalent of the movie "Pearl Harbor" - a vapid entry that struggles to hang meat onto Pappillon's bones on a day without confirmed news of a major doping scandal (on the other hand, I've supposedly got at least 180 potential doping scandals brewing here, but, according to some, am the bastard of bastards for not posting what would basically be the raw material for my book (amongst other things, depending on who's counting) and starting to name names - pfft! Let's hope that the UCI kicks Swiss Federation ass and succeeds in completing their persecution of the hapless Jan Ullrich, who more and more to me seems like an East German version of the Michelin Man crossed with the Pillsbury Dough Boy - just leave him alone already...

The Ugly Side of Sports

A well-respected member of the anti-doping community shared his thoughts on a recent blog post (penned not by him, but rather, by some sociopath writing under a pseudonym) in which the author seemed to suggest that I merited torture and sexual abuse (in the form of a most foul and disgusting nonconsensual  act - so foul I won't repeat it here. I also won't post the URL of the site, so as not to encourage traffic to it.). He called it, "The Ugly Side of Sports."

The Ugly Side of Sports

Cyclist Joe Papp, who recently plead guilty of conspiracy to distribute performance enhancing drugs, has drawn criticism and support for his actions. This blog, however, goes beyond the bounds of civility in a blatant attempt to insight violence against Papp. It’s one of those items where you issue a warning to the reader that what you’re about to read will be offensive.

Another Reason Not to Dope

By Doping you subject yourself to hate mail like what follows (whether delivered directly or published anonymously, or even sent to you directly by an anonymous commentator! lol), which showed up in a thread on the Cyclingnews.com forum. I'll post a snippet, though you should read the entire thread and watch how what starts as a fairly cordial exchange of information and discussion of a specific issue within cycling can be hijacked and polluted with hypocrisy and personal attacks that are spiteful and without merit - especially as the attacker hides behind the cloak of anonymity. I appreciate everyone who stands up for me, or at least refrains from piling-on, as the original hater is so disconnected from the reality of doping in cycling and its consequences to almost not merit this post. But, given the foulness of what he says and how he says it, this can be another one of those "scared-straight" learning experiences for other athletes who might consider the needle. Here is an excerpt from the hater's first post. Others follow in the original thread:

"...Maybe it’s different when it’s close to you but I don’t forgive him and probably never will. The way some people in the forum respond to him, praising him for coming clean is beyond me. Thanks for coming clean but just saying you’re sorry doesn’t cut it for me. Justice will be served when he benefits in absolutely no way from cycling. He should not have a career as a celebrity confessor/blogger/author/speaker because of a cycling career that was a hoax. Can we allow a dishonest racing career to be parlayed into a successful career as a blogger? You admitted your mistake, you’ve told us everything that’s at all helpful (not much), now…" and:

"joe's nickname is mr. 58%, but you're right, he's a good guy, forget all those bad things i said about him he didn't dope to stay competitive, he egregiously took every shortcut he could find. dare i say, hog-like. isn't joe's admission self-serving? the quickest way to turn around public perception is to confess. he's now got people lined up in this forum to defend him. for the life of me i can't figure out why but it seems to have worked beautifully.

naming names? he testified against landis (who would have gone down anyway) and leogrande who i have to admit i've never heard of. it sounds like he may have made a bargain for leogrande so he himself didn't get busted for trafficking. it seems he was a supplier in this case. i don't care to dig anymore, i'm disgusted. either way he should get a nobel prize. what are the valuable insights again?..."

It's laughable, of course, to think that I've become a successful blogger because of doping, or that I'm in any way earning a comfortable living as a result of having cheated in the sport I love, been caught, admitted to the full scope of my dishonest activities and those of scores of others, and agreed to testify in various proceedings. While I brought it on myself, if you're a young rider just starting out in cycling, you have the chance to avoid the same tragic ending by steering well-clear of doping and the idiots who would try to convince you that you needed it.

Think about it - do you really want to read shit like the above (which is only the proverbial "tip-of-the-iceberg") four years after your career ends in shame? lol - no, of course you don't! So just say no to doping and instead Bike Pure!

We Interrupt Posting Based on Fear and Loathing (and Dread) for a Laugh and an Ad Preview

Since Pappillon cashed-out of the CDO market just before the global financial collapse, we've been paying on the Ferrari by the ads this blog generates. While most are simple Google text ads, certain posts earn full-size, full-color advertisements from major brands. Though they haven't brought in enough revenue yet to add a Porsche to the fleet (and we hope you're clicking on those ads, people!), they're a source of pride (and occasional bemusement, like when the "Give a Goat" ad showed up last week) and are steadily filling-up what will one day be an art exhibition-like collection of screen caps.

I don't know when we'll open the exhibition, but when we do, it will feature classics like this "Lenovo Sells ThinkPads to People Interested in Reading About the Horror that Tim Montgomery's Life Has Become, Thanks, in part, to Doping":

Hmmm, that T400 looks nice, and it would be a great replacement for my nearly-drowned vintage 2004 T42p ThinkPad that I bought off Ebay for $200 last year...

Oh, and the goat? Check it out:

WTF? Truth in Advertising?

Reason Magazine

Anyone out there besides Hoovis read it?

And $10.00 to the first person who tells me exactly how to edit my Blogger Blog template to change the default color for hyperlink text (like Hoovis's name above). Contact me at the usual address.

Moving Forward

With the unexpected death of another close family member, the onset of what looks to be a cold, dreary, rainy, gray Fall in Pittsburgh (and the difficulty many, myself included, face in motivating themselves to train outdoors - or IN! - in such conditions), and an ongoing personal uncertainty around the next few months and in which direction I'll ultimately be able to move (though if I had my choice it would be either West to Southern California (forevermore known as "SoCal") or South into The Tropics or the Southern Cone until it was again sunny and 78F in Pittsburgh.

Alas, cruel world, neither are options. Therefore, in order that this blog not decay or become stale, dead or worse - an unending stream of me posting about how crappy the weather is and what my current blood values are - I've given my Italian contirbutor, Allesandro Ballanserezióne, free reign for the foreseeable future to start dropping posts full of his swarthy Mediterranean humor, sunny disposition, twisted Italo-Catholic sense of propriety, and hopefully, love of beautiful women. Pappillon would like to state for the record that it recognizes Doucheblog Cycling as the original proponent of the "Add a picture of a hot chick to   so-so   workman-like written content and your readers will be pleased" theory of blogging. What is it they say, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?