Happy belated New Year, kids. A very few of you might have been wondering where the old PooBah has been lately. Well, I’ve been busy, let me assure you. For example, I’ve been on my trainer nearly nonstop since the Missouri State Cyclocross Championships, getting ready to exact my revenge next year, when I will be trying to finish somewhere above last place. (If you are a cycling newb, a small child, an invalid, or have never raced cyclocross before, but are contemplating giving it a try next year despite having no abilities and not even owning an appropriate bike, you’d better look out. I’m gunning for you, bitch.)

In case you don’t think I know how to work out in the off season, rest assured, my basement trainer sessions are nothing to sneeze at. For example, last night I did my Downton Abbey workout: Every time Carson the butler gives a disapproving quip about the shoddy skills of the new footman, I have to do a two-minute Zone 5 interval. And every time Lady Mary throws a hissy about Papa pissing away her inheritance, thus raising the prospect of her having to finally find a job, I actually dismount, shoulder the entire bike (with trainer still attached) and hurdle the old coffee table we store downstairs. Oh yeah, and drinking water is not allowed. All you get is straight Cytomax powder that you have to chew like Pop Rocks whenever Thomas the valet makes you so mad you could spit. This is hardcore.

But the good news is that I think I figured out how I can make my basement a Strava segment so I can finally claim a COMO King of the Mountain (KOM). And believe you me, if I can, two things will follow in rapid succession. First, I will post a self-taken photo of me on my trainer to Facebook to inform everyone that I just beat myself and rightly claimed the COMO CYCO basement KOM crown away from a weaker, flabbier, long-dead PooBah who lived in the past and finished second-to-last in the State Championships…

(an actor portrayal of the PooBah…I only wish I looked this good)

And secondly, only hours after I am awarded my KOM crown, the Black Bandit of COMO Strava-land will undoubtedly try to break into my basement to steal it away from me while the GEEC and I are asleep. Well, bring it on, my friend. I’ll even leave the door unlocked for you. And don’t even think about trying to flag the COMO CYCO basement segment as “Hazardous” just because of the pill bugs, a shoebox holding my Duran Duran cassette tape collection, and an off-the-chart radon level that I’ve not gotten around to fixing yet. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, right? And in the words of my hero, Lance Armstrong’s, new Strava profile…”Come and take it.”

Speaking of Lance Armstrong, maybe you heard the rumors that he was thinking about admitting his doping last Friday, as reported by Juliet Macur in the New York Times. If this was, as I suspect, nothing more than him dipping his toe in the waters of public sentiment to get a sense of how an admission would go over in the court of public opinion, I’m guessing the ensuing outcry let him know that the pool is ice cold. Perhaps it was because of his alleged reasons for wanting to come clean. He was driven not by a selfless need to better the sport of cycling, ensure a cleaner future, provide information as to how the doping occurred, or offer apologies or restitution, but rather by the fact that…

Armstrong has hopes of competing in triathalons and running events, but those competitions are often sanctioned by organizations that adhere to the World Anti-Doping Code, under which Armstrong received his lifetime ban.

Well, a bro can try, right? At least, like me, he’s training in his “off-season,” although in his Hawai’i hideout, he’s not forced into doing Downton Abbey training intervals in the basement. He can do the real thing out on the street as he douche-bragged tweeted on Saturday.

Great ride out to Hawi today w/ my buddy Mitch Hall. Wind was howling tho. app.strava.com/rides/36084603 mob.li/_1jafs

— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) January 6, 2013

Whoa, hang on a tic! Where’s the yellow bracelet, Broseph? Your wrists look so naked!

Oh, I think I get it…Since LA is not allowed to compete anymore and was uploading this ride to Strava, my guess is that he was actually racing against a former ride he did along the same route sometime previously. Thus, present-day Lance now competes with past-Lance, kind of like what I do! Only, when springtime comes and I can compete against others, he’s only got himself to play with—that is, his former self’s data uploaded to a computer and recalled like a virtual competitor. It’s kind of like he’s having time-travel cyber sex with himself. (Was that a Dr. Who episode?)  And my guess is that he distinguishes current loser Lance from his former winner persona by the presence or absence of the little yellow bracelet. Clever!

Well, good luck, current, wrist-naked Lance. I hope you kick that old Tour de France champion’s ass! But be forewarned, word is that bracelet-wearing Texan is loaded to the gills…