Decal Disaster

Yeah, yeah, I know. 'sbeen AGES.  Even my MUM'S been bollocking me...

You might remember back in the summer the cyclist smashed the shit out of one of his fancy wheels, did himself some fairly impressive damage in the process, and spent months flumping around the place generally getting under my feet and complaining about not riding his bike.  And that after some pretty extensive research (thank you Bike Rumor) and list making, we toddled off hand-in-hand on a not overly successful trip to a popular bike shop that shall remain nameless, apparently exclusively staffed by dimwits and morons (I know you know) to dictate in words of one syllable the precise items we wished to purchase.

And that smashing the shit out of a front wheel means you have to buy quite a lot of replacement wheels because of aerodynamics and physics and that (really, the cyclist can explain it so much better than me).

Well, this little trip was back in July (documented here). I got a bike of my very own (currently set up in turbo trainer in front room, where I will occasionally sacrifice style for speed for 30 minutes* when I'm not using it as a drying rack for jeans and duvet covers), and the ancillary bike kit that one requires.  The cyclist picked up some replacements for the bits that had been ruined by the crash - most importantly some extremely blingy Bont shoes, and also chose some new rims to build replacement wheels on to. 18 hole front and 24 hole rear to match the hubs from the destroyed wheel and it's friend.  Special tubeless rims to avoid punctures, with less rolling resistance (and basically because they're new and he reckons he needs them in his life).
*30 minutes denotes chamois time not turbo time.

And last week - last week! - the aforementioned spanky new rims finally arrived.

'But you ordered them 4 MONTHS ago! And the warehouse had them IN STOCK!'
Why yes, dear reader, you have hit the nail on the head.  Here's what happened.

We put the order in at the bike shop.  The bike shop put the order in to the warehouse.  We paid, and took the items that were actually in the shop, and awaited a quick phone call to let us know the other bits had come in so we could pick it up.  And waited.  And phoned the bike shop.  And were told that all our stuff had come in and we could come and get it.  And went and got it.

Except there were no rims.  But we would get a call on Tuesday to let us know when they would be in the shop for collection, probably later that week.

And we waited.  And Tuesday came and went.  And we waited.  And we phoned the bike shop, but the person we needed to speak to wasn't in that day, but he would phone us on Tuesday.  And we waited.  And we phoned the bike shop.  And we got a bit shirty.  And we went to the bike shop.  And the rims had been there, but they weren't there any more, they'd been sent back to the warehouse, and we'd get a phone call on Tuesday.  And we waited.  And we didn't go back down to the bike shop because we weren't sure we'd be able to keep our temper.  And we phoned the bike shop, but the person we needed to speak to wasn't in that day but he'd definitely call us back.  And we phoned the bike shop and put on a funny voice and gave a fake name, but he really wasn't there (or he was avoiding all calls in case it was us putting on a funny voice).  And we waited.  And eventually we rang head office and dished out a bit of a bollocking and funnily enough the rims rocked up at the office a few days later.

And here's the killer: Four months after ordering the bastarding things, one of the rims that has turned up is the 2012 version they presumably had in stock, while the other is straight from the distributer and (we assume) 2013 version.  So the situation we find ourselves in is a subtle but totally crucial minor difference in the stickers which is sending the cyclist's bike OCD into apoplectic spasms of fury and frustration.

The crucial detail of bike decals, be it on the frame, wheels, stems or saddles, is absolutely an art form unto itself.  Heck, there's even a reasonably large market in custom post-factory decals should a cyclist absolutely require a certain size of lettering or colour detail.  And as his bike is his pride and joy, rim decals that don't match will not be happening on my cyclist's watch.  Wrecking his fingernails, soaking the stickers with washing up liquid, and scraping away with various utensils, all the while muttering and swearing to get the feckers off will be happening.

Farce-port

Thought I'd go a bit off topic and tell you the one about the stressed-out mum and the passport office....

That's the thing about holidays.  There's paperwork.

We went off on a long-awaited holiday recently.  Long-awaited, because for reasons I'll not bore you with we've not been on one in a while.  And, slightly to my shame, this holiday represented the first time we've ever taken the squids to the great abroad.  And taking squids to the great abroad requires the aforementioned paperwork.

In the best traditions of these things, and again for reasons I'll not bore you with too much, I left the organisation of the paperwork to the last possible minute.  Obtaining their papers (I am saying that 'Allo 'Allo style, feel free to join me) was on my radar, in the same vague sort of a way as helping them pick their GCSE subjects.

Naively, I assumed that when I got round to it I would arrange myself a little appointment at the nearest passport office (Liverpool), waste a bit of time in a local coffee shop, return to pick up the kids passports and be back in time for tea.  I think we can all probably tell by this point that that was not how this shit was going to go down.

Point the first: you cannot get a kids first passport on the same day.  Once you know this, the reasons seem pretty obvious really, but it genuinely hadn't occurred to me that this was the case.  They can guarantee to turn the document around in a week, but no quicker.  Luckily, I had made this discovery 2 weeks before our departure day.

Point the second: I couldn't get an appointment at Liverpool passport office in time.  I made the call, gave the information and was told the first available slot they had at the Liverpool office (about half an hour away) was September the 18th.  That meant they would guarantee the passports back on or before the 26th September.  Our outward flight was 6am on the 25th.  Fuck.

I had the first little wibble at this point.

Point the third: Durham is a lot further away than it looks.  The next nearest passport office is in Durham, and I could get an appointment in plenty of time.  I almost calmed down at this point, until I checked my route on google maps, and gave myself permission for another little wibble.  On the day, I gritted my teeth, tooled myself up with a couple of packets of Haribo, and set off for the 3 hour drive to the far north like an intrepid pioneer in the Amelia Earheart model (actual similarity to Amelia Earhart may vary).

Point the fourth: It pisses down epically in Durham*.  I got the right turning after the third go round the Durham city centre one-way system (yes I have sat nav.  Her name is Sally and she's the definition of frenemy).  I sweaty-palmedly negotiated a multi-storey carpark, and came to a halt not sure if I was more desperate for a coffee or a wee.  We (yes I was packing a three-year old too, who was casting her vote for wee) had over 2 hours to kill til our appointment time at the passport office, and got completely drenched.  Any bits of us that weren't utterly soaked were soon seen to by a passing white van.
* other weather may be available but certainly wasn't in evidence.

The interview at the passport office passed without incident, the drive home was boring, but the sun came out and there was even a little rainbow. This was not, in hindsight, a little sign that everything from this point was going to go well.

The first buggeration factor was the text from the courier company on Monday at 9.05, when I was approximately 100yards from the house and in a full sprint on the way back from the school run, saying they'd tried to deliver my item.  Because what 'We will be with you sometime between 9 and 5' really means is 'We will rock up the second you drop the kids at school/ pop outside to hang out the washing/ nip to the loo - and then vanish like a puff of smoke'.  I rebooked delivery for Wednesday, but got another text Tuesday.  I missed them Wednesday too (school run again).

The delivery came on Thursday.   It was 5 days before we were leaving.  I was feeling quite smug about it all.  But when I opened it, there was Oscar's passport.  No passport for Isabella.  Wibble time.  A call to the courier company, a confirmation that this was the only delivery they had for me.  A full-blown panic.

They give you a receipt at the passport office with a unique 9-digit number barcode that you need to quote when following up with any queries etc.  I had, of course, lost it - probably threw it away.  And so I'm there 10 minutes later with a pair of rubber gloves on pretty much hysterical and going through the bins on the kitchen floor like a mental.  An hour later, still no sign of the one bit of paper I needed, although I'd found quite a lot of old spaghetti.

I rang the passport office and managed to bypass the 9-digit barcode safety protocol by crying.  At this stage the crying wasn't actually deliberate, I'd started properly about half an hour before and couldn't stop.  They had all my details, all Bella's details, and everything was fine.  Then they asked for our address.  After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing it turned out that for some reason they had attributed the wrong postcode to Bella's application and dispatched her passport to an address in Prestwich.

I did the only thing I could at this point - rang the cyclist at work and had a complete heaving mucus-filled meltdown where 2 out of every 3 words were only audible by dogs.

The courier company were able to confirm the delivery in my name to the wrong address hadn't been actioned.  They still had Bella's passport, which was a massive relief - but they couldn't change the address on the delivery until they had an instruction to do so from the passport office, and did I want to call back Monday.  No, I said, I did not want to call back Monday, because at 6am on Tuesday we were flying from Manchester Airport.  A little later I got a voicemail saying the re-delivery had been confirmed and the passport would be with me Friday.  I breathed out and got a drink.

Friday I get a text from the couriers. 'Sorry, we are unable to deliver today. Delivery has been re-booked for tomorrow'.  Yep, you've guessed it, wibble.  I rang them up to ask if I could come and pick it up, to be told that it was at their Northampton depot, probably a 4 hour drive.  I gave up and placed our holiday fate in the hands of the courier gods (Mercury and Yodel if my memory serves me), and got on with the task of taking the house apart to find the cyclist's passport, which we knew had to be here somewhere and eventually turned up behind the bedside table under a Bill Bryson book about 3 hours later.

Bella's passport arrived Saturday morning, about 11am.  I didn't kiss the delivery man out of sheer relief because that sort of thing gets the neighbours talking.

Now we're back from our holiday all our passports are in one place  -  the special compartment in the document folder in the cupboard, where they should have been all along.

Apologies

Sincerest apologies for not having posted in the last couple of weeks - events have conspired to rob me of both my time and inspiration!

In the meantime though I have posted a three-part 'introduction' to Domestique Bliss on the Wheelsuckers site - I was extremely flattered to be asked to provide them with some guest blogs.  If you've been reading for a while you will recognise a lot of the gist of the Wheelsuckers posts, but there's some new stuff in there as well.

Feel free to have a look at 'The Bike, The Bits and The Wardrobe' here.

50 Shades of Turbo

In which our heroine lifts the lid on her S+M relationship with the turbo trainer.

The turbo trainer is a brain-numbing, bum-numbing torture contraption of fiendishly criminal genius.  And I love it.  And I hate it.  I love/hate the stupid whirring noise it makes.  I love/hate the mind games I play with the resistance setting (the resistance setting is winning the mind games, hands down.  That bitch is cold as ice).  I love/hate the almost hypnotic trance the bastard thing lulls you in to.  I love/hate the clock watching challenge - can I make it past 18 minutes on the thing before my bum drops off, my legs turn to jelly and I want my mum?  I love/hate the almost instant sensation in my legs that lets me know I am doing exercise.  And I love/hate the fact that I can ride my bike whenever I feel like it, in the comfort of my own front room.

You see, thanks in large to my mind, I am still very bad at riding my bike on the road.  To offer up some kind of mental picture; let's start with Bambi on ice.  Translate that to a thirty-something woman on two wheels, and throw in some additional gibbering.  Add the discomfort of still being more than a little self conscious out in the big wide world in a pair of bike shorts, and I think now we all understand why I prefer the safety of my own front room.

A few days last week saw me watching the Tour of Britain highlights shows from the abject discomfort of the turbo.  I attempted a chunky-monkey intermediate sprint challenge (I won the Yodel sprints jersey in a convincing manner, sorry Pete), and a thunder-thighs King of the Mountains sprint challenge (Kristian need not fear for his jersey however. Not bothered, wasn't my colour anyway).  I found it quite a good fit, watching the cycling while attempting a little of my own.  Them skinny buggers (or professionals, to give them the name they prefer) do make it look deceptively easy though.

I have a turbo-challenge from the cyclist.  The cyclist, who does these things properly. The cyclist, who will cheerfully (well, not cheerfully exactly, but you know what I mean) do over an hour on the turbo without moaning, sighing, whining, swearing, or getting off for a drink, a wee, a 'rest', a 'stretch' or a 'cry'. The cyclist, who requires a tea towel to be draped across the cross tube when he goes on the turbo, for drippy cyclist sweat.  As I am a lay-dee, I of course, glow.  And the challenge the cyclist has set me is to get a drop of 'glow' to drip off the end of my nose when I'm on the turbo.

So why the sudden interest in the turbo trainer, I hear you clamour.  Simple.  We are off to Majorca next week.  Now, I know what you're thinking, and you can stop it right now.  There are no bikes accompanying us (and none will be hired on the island either).  Instead I am going for the sophisticated pursuits of heavy drinking (pink wine and rainbow-drinks made from paint thinner, with sparklers and plastic monkeys in 'em), and lounging around in the sunshine, with possibly a side order of dancing to incredibly rubbish Euro-pop until the kids pretend they were adopted and the cyclist has to give me a fireman's carry back to the apartment.  The biggest issue about this eagerly anticipated week in the sunshine is that it is creating a head-on collision between two of my most irritating character flaws (no, not alcoholism and predilection for bad music); vanity, and lack of self-control in the snacks department.  I want to look acceptable on the beach and I want to eat fifteen packets of Quavers and a Mars Bar.  Enter the turbo.

And I love it.  And I hate it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those that hate the turbo might remember that a few months back a brilliant eBay listing for one was doing the rounds, link is here if you want to refresh your memory.

Riding dirty...

...And wet.  And cold.  

Summer has left the building.  It didn't even bother to cancel the milk; instead it threw one last raucous party and skipped out the next morning, leaving the place looking a bit like one of those hoarders flats on Grimebusters.

So we are faced with the prospect of autumn rides, and all that entails.  And all that entails is weather, and lots of it.  The cyclist and I reside in the north of England, the wrong side of the Pennines.  Therefore, as it is September, there is now greater than an 85% chance of getting piss wet through on any ride undertaken.  There is also a 56% chance of hail, 48% chance of sleet and 15% chance of a plague of frogs.  There are approximately 3 'good ride' days left this year - you know the ones, gorgeous crisp and clear autumn days - on two of them the cyclist will be stuck in the office.  He will get out on his bike on the last one, and it will remind him why he does this. The lungs full of clean clean air, cold and still; the clear sky that allows the thin sunshine to bathe everything in the particular yellow glow you only get as winter draws close, will keep him hooked for another year.

But from here on in that's not going to be the norm.  The norm will be rain.  And as every cyclist at this time of year knows, rain is not just rain, oh no, there are types of rain.  There is blobby rain, extra large drops that go right down the back of your neck and make you squeal.  The horizontal driving rain that accompanies a fierce headwind and makes you wish you had never been born.  Freezing rain that slowly creeps into the bones until you're sure you will never regain sensation in your hands and feet.  That fine rain which is basically sopping wet air which manages to get in everywhere, no matter how waterproof you think you are.  Sheet rain - how can there be that much water in the sky?  The targeted microclimate black cloud rain that follows you about.  And the surprise rain, which should in fact never be a surprise and yet always is.  You will experience more than one type of rain in a ride.

You will put on your glasses to protect your face a bit, your glasses will steam up.  You take them off, your face steams up.  You layer up to try and keep warm, all that results in is you lugging extra kilos of cold wet and above all heavy kit around with you.  The best weapons in your armoury will be anything that keeps your hands and feet dry, the holy grail of winter riding.  And even when your ride is done, the misery continues, as there are few things less pleasant than the removal of cold and sodden lycra.  The one I can think of is standing, dripping sadly, in cold and sodden lycra waiting for the feeling to come back into your fingers so you can remove said cold and sodden lycra. The cyclist has a mild circulation disorder, meaning that quite often following a winter training ride when he is finally able to take off his shoes and gloves he will reveal the purple and yellow extremities of a 3-day-old corpse.

Of course, rain is not limited to the colder months (in fact the cold is not just limited to the colder months).  When the weather is grim and the race schedule is heavy in the 'summer' it can be hard to get kit washed and dried properly in time for the next race.  With my 'glass half full' outlook on life, I like to think of this as your kit 'pre-moistened for your convenience'; the cyclist has a slightly different take on the issue, quote from evening crit at Preston, Thursday 7/6/12:

"Damp socks. Brilliant.  Oh, and damp tights too.  Well done.  It's a good job I had a dump, I'm carrying an extra kilo in waterlogged kit."

More fun even than rain, is hail.  Hail hurts.  Hail comes at you hard and fast, and tries to sandblast your ears and nose off.  Hail lurks, waiting until you are on the most exposed and remote part of your ride, and then strikes, knowing full well you have nowhere to hide and were close to tears anyway.

Finally, let's talk about wind.  Wind, mortal enemy of the cyclist.  Cycling has dedicated years of research, millions of the currency denomination of your choice, endless experiments and modifications, all to the pursuit of better slicing through the air.  The least the bloody stuff could do is stay still and stop moving about.  From Autumn to Spring there is one undeniable fact about cycling and the wind - there is no such thing as a tailwind in this period.  The winter cyclist knows well the phenomenon of the circular headwind.  Or the sweeping sidewind, that mocks your aero frame and tries to topple you into a field.

There is only one known cure for a cold wet and windy ride; a hot bath, a large mug of tea and some toast.  Chin chin!

Inertia

There's an elephant in the room.  A white one, with pretty gold accents.  And she keeps giving me dirty looks...

Forgive me, for I have sinned.  It has been 3 weeks since I last rode my (new, expensive) bike.  And I can't really put my finger on why.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of excuses.  In no particular order, some of them have been: Kids, Work, Tired, Weather, Ironing, Vuelta, Tomorrow, and Wine.  But none of these explain why I'm finding it so damned hard to get motivated.  Especially now the weather's perked up a bit.

So what have I been doing while I've not been riding my bike?  Ridiculously, I have mainly been sat on my ever expanding arse, moaning about how wobbly various areas of me are getting.  To add insult to injury, I'm off on holiday in a couple of weeks, about to subject myself to a week of trial by bikini.  I attempted a dry-run with the sodding thing yesterday.  The results were not what I would hope - please feel free to insert your own ocean-based mammal joke here, with extra points if you can work a reference to Greenpeace in.  Like rubbing your tummy while patting your head, trying to walk in a two-piece while holding everything in and attempting to hide your bum from the majority of terrified onlookers is a skill requiring serious mental agility and plenty of practice.  But I digress.  The daft thing is, I know I'll be ok if I just get over it, get on the bike and get a ride done (you might note I didn't use the word enjoy in that last sentence.  That was deliberate - I'm not there yet).  There's really only one answer.  I've got to escape the gravity of my own inertia.  This blog post is my solemn pledge that I am going to lycra-up this week and get out on my bike - no excuses.

Must try harder.

N + 1

Here we go again...

The formula above, N+1, of course indicates the correct number of bikes one should own.  A more complex equation makes the addition (N+1) = (D-1), where the correct number of bikes one should own is N+1 but crucially 1 less than the total number triggering automatic divorce.  You will know them already, but you can find The Rules here; Rule 12 being pertinent to this post.

I mention this because a chain reaction has been set in motion.  I have caught a glimpse of the future.  A series of events is about to transpire, the upshot of which will be:
Me, stumbling downstairs at 3 am for a glass of water.  Much like a big-haired, bleary-eyed Indiana Jones, I will dodge the small cat on the stairs ferociously trying to remove my foot at the ankle.  I will not do a little yelp at the sight of the enormous spider that lives in the hall and comes out when we've all gone to bed.  I will skip nimbly across the lego booby-trap, scattered liberally across the living room floor.  As I near my thirst-quenching destination, smugly congratulating myself for so smartly running the assault course of my house - I will stub my motherfucking toe on a Yeti Mountain Bike propped up against the sofa.  Clutching the damaged toe and swearing like a navvy, there is a grim inevitability about what will happen next.  I hop backwards straight into the lego.  With both feet now completely ruined, I stumble blindly right into the path of the monster spider.  Screaming like a girl, waking cyclist, kids and several neighbours, the small murderous cat chooses this moment to leap out from his stair (where he has been waiting, biding his vicious fluffy time) like a genetic splicing of Cato Fong from the Pink Panther movies and the Facehugger from Alien.  I never get my drink of water.

How can I have seen the future like this?  A Yeti?  What's going on?  Let me explain - the cyclist bought a Mountain Bike Magazine this morning.  And we all know what that means.

And so we enter the research phase of the next two-wheeled acquisition.  He has spent quite a lot of this afternoon on my laptop (his is at the office).  The internet browsing tabs he has left open are 1) Google search Where to buy Yeti SB66 - Aluminium Pro XTR 2) Megavalanche Week - Everything You Need To Know To Do The Megavalanche 3) Wheelbase Cycles 4) Google search Does Blake Lively dig Mountain Bikers?

Stubbing my toe on a Yeti in the front room is only a matter of time.

Lance Laughs Last?

Does he have a card or two up his sleeve? 

It happened a couple of days ago.  Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that Lance Armstrong has refused to participate in the USADA's arbitration process.  They subsequently stripped him of his seven Tour de France victories and other results and subjected him to a lifetime competition ban.

There have been numerous commentaries stating that this step back away from the arbitration process was Armstrong's best and only recourse to maintain what is left of his reputation.  He did not want the charges and the evidence against him to be brought into the public domain and scrutinised.  This way he can still parrot his favourite 'Never tested positive' line 'til he's blue in the face, while watching the LiveStrong dollars stack up as his loyal fans reach into their wallets to express their support for him via his foundation.

The arbitration process he declined to participate in involved the USADA progressing their case to (crucially) their arbitrator and presenting the evidence to Armstrong in a face-to-face (crucially) public setting.  The reaction to Armstrong's refusal to fight the charges has been seen as his desire to avoid the public airing of the gamut of evidence against him.

But what if that's not how it is at all?  What if, instead of trying to dodge the evidence, Armstrong is actually engineering a situation he feels more in control of where it all comes out - every last drop, in the manner and to the audience of his choosing.  Rather than dodging the fight altogether, he's merely attempting to change the weapons and the battlefield.  In the world's most defiant example of passive-aggressive taking one's ball in (oh yes I did), Armstrong is creating a situation where he sets the UCI and the USADA to slug it out before the CAS, while he gets to put his feet up and watch what unfolds.

Warning: What follows is pure conjecture- conceived, like so many things, in the passenger seat of a Landrover Discovery on a drive to North Wales.  As such, there are most likely mistakes.  Probably huge ones.  Apologies, as always, in advance.  Most of all, I apologise if I am not expressing myself clearly and articulately. 

So, the USADA has effectively sought to strike Armstrong from the record, nullifying his results from August 1998 and imposing a lifetime ban upon him.  Theoretically, what has he left to lose?  He's not going to confess.  He's not going to play ball.  My suggestion is that rather than sweeping as much of this under the carpet as possible and sloping off quietly, he is about to come up swinging.  And by that, I of course mean getting other people to do his dirty work for him while he has no further part in this.  Stick with me while I try to explain...

Armstrong's statement spoke of his belief that entering into the USADA arbitration process would deny him the option to 'Confront these [USADA] allegations in a fair setting'.  Now, the sanctions imposed by the USADA have to be ratified or not by the UCI.  If the UCI choose not to ratify the USADA's sanctions, the case will almost certainly go before the Court of Arbitration for Sport - and it is my suggestion that this could be exactly what he wants.  Again with the sticking with me thing...

So why would the UCI choose not to ratify the decision of the USADA and the sanctions it has chosen to impose?  Well, I think the question here is -  Why would they ratify the decision?   To play Devil's advocate for just a moment, the USADA is seemingly deciding whom it will pursue and who it will not, who will face sanction and who will not, and under what circumstances they are prepared to change their own rules.  So who polices the policemen?  Please let me be clear - I am not passing judgement upon the USADA, their process or their findings; merely stating that the role of judge, jury and executioner is not a happy one.  If the UCI choose to accept the sanctions of the USADA they are handing over virtually all their power to an unregulated body, albeit one which has the support of the WADA.  I propose that they have no desire to do this; however, not ratifying the sanctions of the USADA is by default positioning for Armstrong - thus the UCI (with their eye on their own reputations) is forced into doing his dirty work for him, while at the very least he gets to sit back and enjoy the show.  And let's not forget, the UCI are in this up to their necks -  heavily implicated in covering up positive tests for Armstrong and facing accusations of corruption in relation to cash donations made by him.  Additionally, the UCI facilitated Armstrong's comeback from retirement version 1, despite him not having completed the mandatory testing period for the Biological Passport.

Judge Sparks, when confirming the USADA's jurisdiction to manage the anti-doping case with relation to Armstrong, said: "There are troubling aspects of this case, not least of which is USADA's apparent single-minded determination to force Armstrong to arbitrate the charges against him, in direct conflict with the UCI's equally evident desire not to proceed against him.'', demonstrating that the UCI, for whatever reason has no desire to pursue Armstrong (and therefore no desire to ratify the USADA sanctions?).

So then, let's make the assumption that Armstrong by deciding not to proceed with the USADA arbitration process is actively trying to engineer a situation where the CAS gets involved.  What's in this for him?  My understanding is that the CAS is a completely separate body from any already mentioned, and it is here I believe Armstrong plays his masterstroke - the introduction of this separate body overseeing the arbitration process engineers a subtle but utterly crucial shift on the part of the USADA from attack (of Armstrong) to defence (of it's processes, findings, methods and decisions).  The CAS will more than likely subject both the USADA and the UCI to some fairly harsh and uncomfortable scrutiny - would anyone emerge unscathed from this process?  

Another question that I can't find a straight up answer to is this: What (if anything) changes if the CAS are brought in to the equation?  The evidence against Armstrong is held in witness statements - although his stored 'B' samples may be re-tested, they don't have 'B' samples of their own (C samples if you like), and are thus inadmissible.  He is never going to 'test positive' in such a way as to be inarguable proof of doping.  So then, what, if any, implication does the introduction of the CAS have potentially upon the witnesses?    Could it change the game to the extent that some even choose to pull their statements when faced with the CAS rather than the USADA arbitration panel?  Would the supposed 'deals' reached between witnesses and the USADA in return for their testimonies be upheld by the CAS?  Can they be upheld by the CAS?  Or, once presented to the CAS could the UCI even be intent on progressing against the witnesses themselves in order that the decisions of the USADA are overturned with relation to their past doping admissions and full sanctions are imposed?  This is pure conjecture, which surmises that the UCI or the CAS would want to pursue the witnesses - it may of course not for any of a number of reasons.  But I can't find anyone else asking these questions or providing any information either way.

The point I am trying so clumsily to make is to ask whether shifting the arbitration process from the USADA to the 'neutral ground' of the CAS may have significant implications, not only for the bodies involved, but also for the witnesses themselves.  And whether, by refusing to participate in the USADA arbitration process, Armstrong has in fact not stepped back from a fight, but instead engineered this situation; a very different sort of fight.

Someone far brighter and better informed than me might have a completely different take on the scenario outlined here, or be able to explain how this might work or otherwise.  I am struggling to find answers to any of the questions I have posed.  There may be zero implication on anyone should the CAS become involved in the process, or indeed quite the reverse to what I am suggesting, the USADA may relish the notion.

But - big if - if I am right, and introducing the CAS into the equation changes the game even slightly, then while things as they stand are unlikely to get any worse for Armstrong, they could be about to get a hell of a lot worse for everyone else.  And if this is the case, then this isn't over.  It's only just begun.

For interest, the CAS procedures can be found at  http://www.tas-cas.org/d2wfiles/document/4962/5048/0/Code20201220_en_2001.01.pdf .  Note - CAS hearings are not undertaken in public, except for the agreement of both parties.

Footnote.
In the light of how emotive an issue the Lance Armstrong doping case is, and how strong people's feelings are on both sides, I would like you to understand that this blog 'article' (for want of a better word)  came from a train of thought and a subsequent discussion myself and the cyclist had in the car one afternoon, about how there could be more than meets the eye to Armstrong's apparent position U-turn.  I am trying to ask questions about where this goes next and whether there are implications attached to that.