I'm signing up for the tour

After ReneeMC's encouragement, I've decided that I'm going to do the Tour de France. The logic behind this being that after listening to about a year's back-episodes of Competitor Radio I've come to the conclusion that apparently there are no professional cyclists out there at the moment who are clean. So, if I show up on Saturday I'm sure that even if I'm not in the yellow jersey at the end of every day, they'll eventually award me the title in 2015 when all the WADA anti-doping hearings have worked through every cyclist out there today.

There are a couple of problems and kinks to work out though:

1. Up until now only men can participate in the Tour.
This is easy to get around. It wouldn't be the first time that someone thought I was a boy in a cycling race. I will go by the name of Blair Makemsuffer. I'll just tape down my boobs (or what's left of them) and make my girlfriend happy by cutting all my hair off again. It's not like my shaved legs are going to give me away. And I can be pretty sure I won't test with elevated levels of testosterone (I don't think). The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how I'm going to fool them when they watch me pee into a cup.

2. You must be a professional to participate in the Tour.
So between now and Saturday I'll be hitting up some companies for sponsorship. Here's my list of candidates:

• San Miguel beer, which is responsible for so many sub-par and missed workouts.
• Gold Coast cigarettes, which I have been second-hand smoking for nearly a year as my girlfriend smokes a pack a day within 3 feet of my poor lungs.
• Twix, which has supplied so many mid-day boosts in metro vending machines.
• Ace Bandage, which will be holding my boobs in down.
• Decathlon, who made my shitty bike and who swallow half my paycheck every time I walk into the store.
• Forn de Pa Kevin, the bakery were I buy the loaf of bread that I eat on the way home from the gym every day.
• NyQuil and Tylenol PM which are responsible for me falling asleep most days.
• iPod, for obvious reasons.
• Nike, because every respectable athlete is sponsored by Nike.
• Camelbak, because they already owe me one for all the crap I've had to put up with for my loyalty to them.
• The Spanish Egg Board, for all the omelets that I eat nearly every day (not by choice).

3. Every star rider needs a great team.
I am going to assemble a tailor-made team to pull me to the finish line so I can get there fresh to out-sprint the rest.

• Miguel Angel from my regular cycling group, because he comes up behind people, puts his hand on their ass, and pushes them up the hill.
• Jaume, the team racist and misogynist, because he makes me so angry that I would do nigh on anything to speed up so I don't have to ride next to him.
• Dave, the English guy who helps me through traffic so I don't get hit. He can knock aside any scatter-brained spectator who gets in my way coming up the huge climbs.
  
• P!nk, because she's hot and I wouldn't mind riding behind her any day.
  
• Warriorwoman, because I can pretty much count on her to go out with me for a beer after every stage.
• My friend (whose identity I will keep to myself) who trained to do the 7-day San Francisco-LA AIDS Lifecycle, and couldn't participate because he couldn't raise the $2,500 minimum donation. I think the cycling world owes him this one.
  
• One lucky winner who posts the best answer to this question: Said nameless friend is a Female-to-Male transsexual. He has been on testosterone for over 2 years. Do you think it should be legal for transsexuals to participate in the all-male Tour? Should they have separate rules for synthetic testosterone for transsexual riders?
  

4. Every solid team is based on a good support crew.
On mine I will invite:

• the Kenyan marathon team to grab the back of my saddle and push me up the steeper climbs at 20mph. I have gathered from old Tour coverage on YouTube that this is legal.
  
• Macgyver to be my bike mechanic.
  
• Fiona Apple because I've always wanted to meet her, and this seems like a good excuse. I don't think she's on tour right now.
  
• My girlfriend, who would complain if I left her alone for 3 weeks.
• Joan, my college swimming coach who was just about the best yeller of threats in the whole wide world. (Claire to James, "I (uuuhhhh) can't (huuuuuh) do (uuuuuuhhh) this (huuuuuuh) anymore". Joan, with a voice louder than God booming 7 feet above my head, "YES YOU CAN! GO, GO, GO! IF YOU CAN COMPLAIN THEN YOU CAN SWIM. 200 MORE, GO, NOW!" And I always went, cuz you were never sure she wouldn't kick you in the head).
  
• And Dr. Anino, my childhood pediatrician who told me before I went to college not to share drinking cups because that was a good way to get meningitis, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't slip me anything unethical after a really bad stage.
  

5. A national sports hero needs to be supporting a charitable foundation.
After much careful consideration of groups like the Challenged Athletes' Foundation and PETA (which always needs a respectable spokesperson to stand up there with such giants of ethical dogma as P!nk, Fiona Apple*, and Jessie Spanno from Saved By the Bell), I will finally settle on the Board for Upstanding iLl-treated and Litigated Sportsmen pHonily Implicated in Testosterone, or BULLSHIT.

6. Any celebrity must have a scandal to launch them into the public eye to get ratings.
My scandal will be when, unexpectedly, 2 days before the prologue, they catch me ordering 5 large anchovy pizzas and having them sent to Greg LeMond's house. The poor guy's a legend and super-intelligent, and super-ballsy for speaking out for the last 15 years against doping; but since both Lance and Floyd seem to have it out for the guy, I don't think you can win a tour without picking on Greg LeMond just a little bit.


*I would just like to point out that I am a supporter of PETA and I appreciate any celebrity's involvement in the cause. However, somehow, any celebrity's involvement with PETA seems to make them a laughingstock. In fact, PETA seems to be a big joke. In any case, although I don't hold Jessie Spanno in any high esteem, I think that P!nk is hot and pretty cool by pop standards in that she doesn't play into the whole stupid waif image (I'm attaching her Stupid Girls video at the bottom if you're not convinced of this, I'm not saying you have to like her music). And, well, Fiona Apple is kind of my idol, so I would never criticize her in any meaningful way.

The Claire went over the mountain

The Claire went over the mountain,
The Claire went over the mountain,
The Claire went over the moun-tain,
To see what she could see.



And got really tired. And thirsty. And hungry.

That morning Our Fair Heroine had woken up at 5:20 in order to have plenty of time to get dressed and drink tons of coffee. Minutes before leaving the house she had grabbed her handy-dandy pump with pressure gauge and psyched herself up to not deflate the tires completely before figuring out exactly how to attach the damn thing to the valve. When she started wheeling the bike out of its home under the front window she noticed that the computer was a little crooked. This was nothing new. It seemed like after every time the cleaning lady came the little plastic mount was a little off-kilter in its zip ties. But this time, the mount and everything were snugly in their place. 'What the...?' she thought as she examined the little machine (which has no release lever, and therefore is a permanent fixture on her handlebars), as it came off in her hand. Two of the three little hooks that secure the computer in place were broken clear off. *tick, tick* they went as the little pieces of plastic fell off the back of the apparatus and onto the floor. Claire hates cleaning ladies. This comes from a deep-seated trauma from when she was little and had to clean up for the cleaners and her little 9-year-old mind seized onto the irony of the situation. But this cleaning lady is special. She comes in like a hurricane, eats the food in the fridge, takes a shower, watches TV turns the radio up loud and starts singing and dancing, and cleans the house like a natural disaster. A few weeks ago, somehow, this Lysol diva managed to tear the oven door completely off, where it stayed until Wednesday when we had to call in the technicians. The girlfriend fled to the kitchen to look busy while Claire launched a tirade about, "I don't care that you feel bad, I don't care how long she's been cleaning this house, I don't want that woman in this house anymore! This is a 175 euro piece of equipment!" I mean, what the HELL does she do to fuck the thing up so much? How do you break off a bike computer if you're not the rider of said bicycle? It didn't make sense. Claire did the best she could with superglue and walked out the door. The day was off to a good start.

The thought crossed her mind to give up this stupid cycling business. It's too hard. She kept dropping off the back, for she had gone out with a different group who seem to have motors in the backs of their Orbeas and Cervellos and Treks. She wanted to play the girl card, but there was a girl with a fatter ass than the Claire's way up there in the front of the group keeping up with the boys and chatting.

With the Tour de France starting in 1 week, all the talk was about that. Here are some oppinions (names invented because I don't know anyone's name):
Claire: Since they're busting everyone for drugs, there won't be anyone to do the Tour. Maybe I should sign up.
Pepe: It's all the Americans' fault. If it weren't for them, cycling wouldn't be getting such a bad wrap.
Manolo: It's not fair, how come cycling's getting all the bad publicity? Why don't they test people in soccer or tennis. What do you think Rafael Nadal's taking? Nothing but a traditional Mediterranean diet?
Miguel: Indurine was all juiced up too. Why do you think he retired? He knew he would get cought so rather than do his last tour clean and suck he dropped out.
Pedro: And let's not pretend that Armstrong was just genetically gifted!

She also found out that a guy that she called Patrick in a previous post is actually named Dave. He isn't even from Ireland as she thought. Coming back into Barcelona there's this one chunk where you come into a 6-lane free-for-all where you have to change lanes a bunch of times in the middle of tons of traffic. She turned to David Not Patrick and said, "Can I ask you a favor?" "Sure." "I hate this part, don't leave me." And David, not Patrick sat behind her and signaled to the cars and didn't leave her behind on the last little bumps. And she didn't die, at least not yet.

She arrived home after 125km (which was supposed to be 10 more), 2,500 calories, and a full gallon of water. She wanted to curl up in the corner and whimper. You know how when a little kid gets really tired they just start crying for no reason at all? She felt like that.