So what?

It seems that every report about Landis and his ride Thursday includes the apparently extremely important information that he had a beer Wednesday night to relax after he cracked and had the disastrous ride.

I don't get it. Most endurance athletes avoid alcohol during competition because it dehydrates you. So I guess having a beer was unusual, but it surely as hell is not that big of a deal. It is like high school kids who get all fascinated about a beer because they are too young to drink legally. It ain't such a big deal to a non-boozer adult as he/she can go buy one anytime. But the cycling websites have just got a hardon over hearing this.

Velonews.com, the site of the overpriced American cycling paper (which normally has more ads than cycling news in the paper. You can get better info on the net at cyclingnews.com than you get if you buy Velonews' rag.) has a guy who writes a rant occasionally. Naturally, most of what he writes is just political asskissing, but last Friday, his little wee-wee got bigger when he became all excited about what type of beer Landis had.

July 24 update. Here's why they think it is so interesting, I guess: The night before his epic ride on stage 17 he had a beer. People have beer every day, it's a mundane daily custom for most of us, but Landis is a Tour athlete - men who supposedly measure every gram of fuel that they put into their bodies. Every Joe Six-pack around the world took heart.