The rebuttal: I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Canadian cyclists kick some serious ass, no ifs, ands, or rock hard butts about it.  Well, OK.  There are a few solid butts about...

Yeah, sure, the US has Lance Armstrong, and sure the world knows his name, but we have hard-core heroes here in the Great White North. Don't believe me? Here's a tale of a guy who can heft an artisinal axe as well as he pilots a 'crabon' crotch rocket.

CBC

BC boy Svein Tuft is making his Tour de France debut this year at the tender age of 36.  Why? Cause he rocks, that's why. You won't find any EuroPussy here.  He's a man's man.  He's not afraid of a little muscle mass; he's the rider with the Paul Bunyon biceps. Sez the Times:

Though upper-body weight is taboo for bike racers, he worked out so hard in the off-season that he would thicken to 190 pounds, from 170.

Kevin Cunningham warned him: “Do not do another push-up. You gain muscle so quickly, you will look as big as a grizzly.”

Tuft could crush Cipo with one flex of his mighty pecs. You won't find any pigeon-chested pantie-waist here, no sirree.... it's all that wood-chopping he's doing in the winter, you see.  Keeps a man in fighting form.  

It's in his blood, cycling. He lives 45 kilometers (28 yankee miles or 224 artisinal douchebag furlongs) from Vancouver, and if it's a local event, like say the Gastown Grand Prix, he rides to the race and home again when he's finished, bless him.  Training camp in California? No problem. He rides there, too.  And yes, he smells every inch the man when he arrives.

How does that biblical verse go?  

Knock and the door will be opened unto you, 

Seek and ye shall find.

Ask and these things shall be given unto you...

Just ASS.  K?

OK.

For a long time now I've wanted a real riding hero I can hold up for the kids to see, 

someone whose integrity is beyond reproach,

an honest rebuttal to the corruption rampant in our beloved sport today.

So now I'm just ass-king:

Can we see more of Grizzly Svein Tuft, please?

Much more.