Website Update!

Once again using the old blog to update you on the new website - which disappeared from the Internet this week. Apparently the registrar decided unilaterally to delete or deactivate the domain. Hopefully it's sorted by the time you read this, and we can update you on France via the new site!

Meanwhile, we're still trying to convince the Poles to transfer www.joepapp.com back to our control, or at least stop holding the URL - and all joepapp.com email - hostage. Unbelievable that this has been going on for a year!

As for Joe, he's hanging in there and is trying to make the best of a tough situation.

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.

UPDATE: Pappillon

The lack of new postings as of late stems from complications in the process of integrating this blog into a redesigned www.joepapp.com website. The new site itself is more or less complete (needing only the final content in some areas), but currently we are unable to associate the correct URL with it. Negotiations are underway to resolve this issue at the earliest possible moment, but until then, we don't expect to invest further resources in updating this version of the Pappillon blog.

Thanks, though, for all of your interest and support. Cycling remains the most beautiful sport in the world. Ride on!

CyclingTorrents - Race Video Site

Let's say that you have more time to consume content than you have content, and you're a wicked fan of cycling. Maybe Jan Ullrich was your favorite racer, and you've never seen him win gold yet in the 2000 Olympics. What do you do? Well, back in the old days you might have tried to get a paper catalog from World Cycling Productions (WCP) in hopes that they might have a video of the event in question, which would have run you at least $45USD. Now, however, thanks to the wonder of the internet, if you're willing to tread through what the site's own founders admit is a "grey area," you might be able to download free of charge a copy of the Olympic Road Race via the truly amazing website CyclingTorrents.nl.

Using the site's very simple yet thorough search feature, you'll quickly find the torrent for the race video you desire: example. You're on your own as for how to actually get the video onto your hard-drive (I don't encourage any behavior that you might find unethical or of concern), but trust me, it's not that hard.

Enjoy the show. This is a really cool site and it has made accessible some footage that would otherwise be both lost and inaccessible to the masses.

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..."

Cycling Quotient - learn who's on the bike AND on Twitter...

Want to know which of your favorite cyclists (male OR female) is represented online by either a personal website, Twitter account or both? Well then, look no further than the handy list compiled by Cycling Quotient, which ranks this author (alphabetically), in a stormin' 249th place with both a personal website AND Twitter account!

Soooo...what is Cycling Quotient (CQ)?

 From their website: CQ is short for Cycling Quotient. The CQ-ranking is a world ranking of professional road cyclists, based on their performances during the last 12 months. It can be seen as the non-official successor of the UCI-ranking which disappeared when the ProTour was introduced in 2005.

History

For years, the UCI published weekly a world ranking, the UCI-ranking (formerly known as FICP-ranking). This ranking gave a value to all professional cyclists and was used in this respect in the webcompetition Gigabike. In 2005, the UCI abandoned the UCI-ranking while introducing the ProTour. Because Gigabike still required an overall ranking system of professional cyclists, the organizers decided to calculate the ranking themselves from that moment on. They called their ranking initially the Anja-ranking, based on the first names of the data managers, being Andy Roose and Jasper Van Hoof.

In 2007 Anja became CQ, representing a more professional approach. On April 14th, 2007 this website was launched with the intention to make the ranking and the results database accessible for all cycling fans all over the world.

The point scales used for the CQ-ranking are still based on the old UCI-ranking scales and follows the race categorisation as defined by the UCI. Since its foundation in 2005 only some limited adjustments were done to the existing scales. The applied scales for the different race categories can be found here.

Women CQ

Although the UCI-ranking for women still exists, the organizers of Gigabike also decided to start calculating the women Anja/CQ-ranking for their spin-off Chicabike. The main arguments for doing that, were the availability at all times of the ranking and the fact that the UCI made some mistakes in their calculations! Some people might remember the Bubnenkova/Boubnenkova confusion. Even at this moment there are still mistakes in the UCI-ranking. For example, in the final ranking of 2006: ...there were no points awarded to the world cup leader after the world cup races (according to the UCI rules, that rider must receive 10 points), ...no points were awarded in the NC time trial of Germany, France, Switzerland and Belgium, ...too many points were awarded in the NC time trial of Australia, ...no points were awarded in stage 2 of the New Zealand Tour, ...often too many riders received points in TTT's, ...Clemilda Fernandes appeared two times (Silva Clemilda Fernandes and Fernandes Silva Cremilda), ...the NC of Egypt was actually the African championship of 2005 in Egypt, etc. etc."