Omnishambles averted

Team Grumpy has averted their first omnishambles of the 2013 season.

As usual, Team Grumpy's first 2-up scheduled in the season was the Port Talbot Wheelers '25'. Usually held in the first weekend in March, this year's event was a week or two later. This should have offered an opportunity for Grumpy Bob and 'Grumpy' Art Vanderlay to recoup some of the fitness lost through winter illness. Alas, this appeared something of a delusion, with both riders bitterly reporting lack of form. Recent weeks have seen dark mutterings of faked 'mechanicals' as a a means of saving face should the team under-perform.

In the end, Team Grumpy evaded an omnishambles by the simple expedient of opting for a monoshambles. This took the form of a recurrence of Grumpy Bob's lower back pain to such a degree that riding (let alone racing) was judged completely impossible.

Grumpy Bob did actually try racing a week ahead of the Port Talbot Wheelers event, but this did not go well.

Team Grumpy protests: "We never drank 'energy drink' while racing"

Team Grumpy has noted that among the truly epic landslide of doping confessions (mostly from now-retired riders, we note), Michael Boogerd has finally come clean (Boogerd confesses to doping in television interview - Cyclingnews.com). Boogerd confesses to doping for a decade in the professional peloton. However, he does still seem quite delusional about what doping's for, as he's quoted as asserting he always rode the Tour de France clean:

Boogerd, now 40, said that he didn't use doping products while he was racing the Tour de France, instead - "It was in periods, usually periods of training in preparation for competitions. I have always ridden the Tour clean."

So it's OK to dope in training and in preparation for an event, as long as you don't dope during the event. Oh well, that's clear. As mud.

All this brings to mind the Team Grumpy 'energy drink' scenario. Team Grumpy can confidently assert that the riders have not consumed 'energy drink' while actually competing in 2-up time trials. The riders, however, are willing to confess to 'energy drink' consumption prior to and following competition. The Team Grumpy Manager is mostly concerned that pre- and post-competition 'energy drink' consumption is actually detrimental to performance, and that not putting 'energy drink' in the Team Grumpy bidons could be seen as performance-enhancing. Oh what a muddled and confused world we live in.