Since the Tour is almost over, I guess it's ok to talk about it, sort of. I've stayed away from the subject because I figure that since I get my information about it from the same places as everyone else, I'd just be vocalizing what like minds are already thinking anyway. Some people do a better job of this than others, and there have been a few blog entries that showed me some unique perspective or ideas. Like I've said before, some of you obviously give this stuff a lot more thought than I do. Then there's the chorus of reactive BS that flows from some every time a media story about the latest scandal breaks. These stories are very sad, but a mob mentality and a rush to judgment is never a good idea. Bike racers are just people. Really. The Pro Tour riders have just made it a little further than the D2 Pro Continental riders, who in turn have just made it a little further than the D3 riders we all know (I mean really know, not "know" like we know the Pro Tour riders) and love. And the D3 guys have just made it a little further than the rest of us. They may be the ones truly affected the most by doping in cycling. Yes, I'm sure there are a few D3 guys who have dabbled in dope and still never made it to the big leagues, but I don't care about them. It's the clean D3 guys that I care about. The general public doesn't give a shit about them and has no idea who they are. During Lance-0-Mania, lots of the faithful had no idea who the other riders on the Postal tour team were, never mind the guys on the squad who didn't get picked for the tour, or the hundreds of outstanding athletes who just never made it to the big stage.
It's really easy for a couch riding spectator to look at the Pros and say "hey, I don't care if they dope or not, it's entertainment to me." Tell that to a clean D3 rider who is busting his or her ass to get noticed and maybe move up. These are real people, real athletes. The public who only knows Lance and Levi and figures everyone else must just be a meaningless shitbum have no idea what they are thinking about. What goes on inside elite and pro cycling? Do you really think you know? I know I don't. But I'm sure most of it doesn't ever get us through the media.
It's hard to understand why someone like the Cofidis guy would dope, but think for a second that there were about 25 guys on Cofidis who did NOT get picked to ride the tour. This guy had to "earn" his spot, and then prove to them they made the right choice. Anyone who thinks this is a few bad apples is living in a world of naive and blind faith. After what happened to Riis, do you really think anyone is going to get in front of the cameras and tell the truth?
Hopefully this culture will slowly die out and a willingness to dope will no longer be a prerequisite for moving into a D2 or D1 team. Of course some riders are so talented, maybe they never had to. I believe that. They could be the best in the world. But go down a notch and find a few thousand riders all competing for a few hundred spots on the top teams. A willingness to "do whatever it takes" has been a big part of the equation from what I can see. The smartest ones have probably opted out. If your kid, or your kid brother, was an extremely promising 19 year old, would you encourage them to skip college and go for it in Europe? Would you be faithful that they knew enough to go into a world of dope and still keep themselves clean? Or would you recommend they just drop that dream of being a pro bike racer? Ultimately I see this as the biggest threat to the sport. What if the whole thing just starts scaring people off?
This wasn't where I was going with this, but here we are. The politicos are going to make this entertaining, so at least we have that going for us. Hopefully they will eliminate each other one by one and this entire situation will bring out a better leadership and the whole thing will be positive. It all had to happen.
So here is what I started to write. Rode Big Blue several times last night. It sucked. There were other riders there, but I was going like shit. Anyway, I looked back over the Tour stage profiles and found this categorized climb:
Côte de Baleix: 1.4 km climb @ 8 % grade / 3rd Cat (Thursday stage)
Just a tad less steep then Big Blue's 8.9% average grade, and the same length. This would be the "major climb" in just about any road race I've ever done. So when you read about these "flat stages" that have only Cat 3 and Cat 4 climbs, think about that one.
That's a wrap. Won't it be cool if they clean the Pro Tour all up and then they come to the Tour of California next year and all these mega-dollar superstars get their asses kicked by the D3's? It could happen... Thanks for reading.
"Cool for Cats"? More like "Up the Junction".
ReplyDeletei haven't read any TdF blogs... so, now i feel so dirty reading yours.
ReplyDeleteone point of note, i thought was worth mentioning. i talked to a pro cyclist, one-on-one, and he told me that you're hangin' off the back of a group on a training ride, and the team car pulls up beside you, and a dude sticks a syringe in your ass.
all of a sudden, you're not hangin' off the back anymore.
sometimes, as a pro, you don't choose the dope, the dope chooses you..
I dunno BinB. Look at all that stuff on your counter.
ReplyDeletehttp://bp2.blogger.com/_CrkwKM9wjkk/Rqdn7U80w9I/AAAAAAAAA2o/c0atNhZkmsk/s1600-h/photo2.jpg
That ain't bread and mineral water.
Its going to get worse before it gets better...
ReplyDeleteBrucie, if that's the case, the shit don't work...
ReplyDeleteCTodd, I'm not sure. There seems to be a slight chance that sponsors have had enough. The use and encouragement of doping has always been institutional, IMHO. In other words, the teams are close enough to the riders to know what is going on. If the very existence of the teams is threatened due to sponsorship pressure, at least some teams will back away from it, no matter how sophisticated the methods of "doping" may get.
The political side, that's another story. Even in my wildest dreams I did not thing the teams in the union would strike back at the ASO like this, but the Rabobank move sure looks like a bold attempt to discredit the tour organization to me. Pretty damn shrewd, I might add.
After what they did to Riis for *finally* manning up and telling what appears to be the only truthful confession so far, all of these hypocritical fucks who have looked the other way for decades can go down in flames for all I care. There is no way ANYBODY is going to come that clean again, not now.
I can't afford that stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt's not mine. I'm just holding it for a friend.
I mean my cat. it's my cat's.
(btw, not my counter).
Nothing but water in my bottles and jam butties in my musette.
I know Brucie, you probably don't have granite counters, and if it were yours there would be chourico on there. I've heard those PE drugs can thicken your sausage...
ReplyDeletei always figured brucie as a linguica man...
ReplyDeleteI just finished watching "Hell on Wheels", a German documentary following Telekom in the 2003 Tour. It's very good. The atmosphere agrees with what bolder said about some dude sticking a syringe in your ass.
ReplyDeleteOne scene shows Zabel getting a massage and the masseur pulls out a syringe and plunges it in. In another, after his crash, Kloden says, "They gave me a shot, but it didn't help."
I would think that more often than not, riders are on drugs for quite a while before they know about it and by then, it doesn't seem too bad so they keep it going.
Yeah, I don't know about European culture, and maybe it's just me, but I don't let people go sticking needles in me unless I know what it is. And even then, it goes on my medical record so I can get a review/second opinion in the future. I've heard the stories. The one person I've ridden with who rode for a Pro Tour team went over when he was around 20 and as soon as he had trouble recovering, well, the team doctors suggested medicine. For the most part though, we're talking about adults who should take responsibility for themselves. I'm not suggesting riders are the only ones to blame here. The entire bike racing industry has ignored or covered up the problem for decades. It's good that some are FINALLY speaking out, but it's hard to believe that so many are proclaiming TOTAL INNOCENCE now, and even harder to believe the ZERO TOLERANCE crap from organizers/leaders who have been around for years and had to have known things. Even now, at least publicly, nobody seems to be whistleblowing. That's not zero tolerance.
ReplyDeletethank you. i accept your apology.
ReplyDeletefor the record, i would like to point out that i have photographic evidence that points to solobreak, in europe, hooked up with some kind of clearish liquid, in what appeared to be a dark part of Foley's Tavern...
i heard, from someone who knows things, he uttered the words 'i do this repeatedly'...
draw your own conclusions on his innocence...
i'm just sayin'