Do Good Guys Wear Lyrca? - Another New Dawn in Cycling

Cycling fans we can smile again! Pat McQuaid has been ousted from UCI presidency and replaced by the UK’s Brian Cookson OBE. Cookson was endorsed by just about every cycling/doping critic around, but we’ll have to wait and see what he delivers. (You can read Cookson’s Manifesto here:
http://www.briancookson.org/files/6313/7208/9499/Manifesto_BC_English.pdf)
Now, my first cycling crush and the only American to ever win the Tour de France, Greg LeMond is back designing bicycles!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the LeMond bicycle, it was originally distributed through Trek until a certain litigious, chemical driven, bully on wheels used his then considerable clout and hatred for Greg to get the line dumped. Call it Karma, call it delayed justice, but the tables have turned. As the bully sits at home in Texas buried under an avalanche of lawsuits, LeMond is relaunching his brand through Time Bicycles.

This is the stuff of Fairy Tales, the Hollywood happy ending! The bullies and the corrupt leaders have lost in disgrace. The Cutters win the race, Dave Stoller gets the girl, the college degree and the pro contract. (If you are a cycling fan but you've never seen the movie Breaking Away, shame on you!).

The problem is, life is not so clear cut; good guys sometimes do bad things, bad guys sometimes do good things and our expectations that everyone has to stay on one side or the other leads to disappointment, pessimism and ambivalence. Look at the riders who admitted to cheating (without getting caught), confessing in order to help move things forward in a positive way. Which side of the good-bad divide do they belong on?  How many times have you said, “What’s the point, they’re all cheaters anyway”? All of them, really? The neo-pro barely making $30, 000 a year? The team that let the most skeptical of cycling journalists travel with the team with 100% access? What about Christophe Bassons? Surely he wasn’t an anomaly. He was racing at cycling’s nadir of doping and yet he remained so true to his ethics that he quit the sport rather than capitulate.

What cycling needs is what life needs, a healthy dose of cynicism tempered with optimism, a commitment by the critics to not just complain but do something about it and hordes of Dave Stollers and Christophe Bassons leading the way.

And if Time Bicycles or Greg LeMond needs someone to write a product review on the new LeMond bikes, just give me a call!

Re-Blog: Open Letter by Greg LeMond

Here's a re-blog of my first cycling crush and the only American to win the Tour de France, Greg LeMond's open letter to save the sport of cycling:

Can anyone help me out? I know this sounds kind of lame but I am not well versed in social marketing. I would like to send a message to everyone that really loves cycling. I do not use twitter and do not have an organized way of getting some of my own "rage" out. I want to tell the world of cycling to please join me in telling Pat McQuaid to resign. I have never seen such an abuse of power in cycling's history- resign Pat if you love cycling. Resign even if you hate the sport.

Pat McQuaid, you know dam well what has been going on in cycling, and if you want to deny it, then even more reasons why those who love cycling need to demand that you resign.

I have a file with what I believe is well documented proof that will exonerate Paul.

Pat in my opinion you and Hein are the corrupt part of the sport. I do not want to include everyone at the UCI because I believe that there are many, maybe most that work at the UCI that are dedicated to cycling, they do it out of the love of the sport, but you and your buddy Hein have destroyed the sport.

Pat, I thought you loved cycling? At one time you did and if you did love cycling please dig deep inside and remember that part of your life- allow cycling to grow and flourish- please! It is time to walk away. Walk away if you love cycling.

As a reminder I just want to point out that you recently you accused me of being the cause of USADA's investigation against Lance Armstrong. Why would you be inclined to go straight to me as the "cause"? Why shoot the messenger every time?

Every time you do this I get more and more entrenched. I was in your country over the last two weeks and I asked someone that knows you if you were someone that could be rehabilitated. His answer was very quick and it was not good for you. No was the answer, no, no , no!

The problem for sport is not drugs but corruption. You are the epitome of the word corruption.

You can read all about Webster's definition of corruption. If you want I can re-post my attorney's response to your letter where you threaten to sue me for calling the UCI corrupt. FYI I want to officially reiterate to you and Hien that in my opinion the two of your represent the essence of corruption.

I would encourage anyone that loves cycling to donate and support Paul in his fight against the Pat and Hein and the UCI. Skip lunch and donate the amount that you would have spent towards that Sunday buffet towards changing the sport of cycling.

I donated money for Paul's defense, and I am willing to donate a lot more, but I would like to use it to lobby for dramatic change in cycling. The sport does not need Pat McQuaid or Hein Verbruggen- if this sport is going to change it is now. Not next year, not down the road, now! Now or never!

People that really care about cycling have the power to change cycling- change it now by voicing your thought and donating money towards Paul Kimmage's defense, ( Paul, I want to encourage you to not spend the money that has been donated to your defense fund on defending yourself in Switzerland. In my case, a USA citizen, I could care less if I lost the UCI's bogus lawsuit. Use the money to lobby for real change).

If people really want to clean the sport of cycling up all you have to do is put your money where your mouth is.

Don't buy a USA Cycling license. Give up racing for a year, just long enough to put the UCI and USA cycling out of business. We can then start from scratch and let the real lovers in cycling direct where and how the sport of cycling will go.

Please make a difference.

Greg

For more on Paul Kimmage see http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/paul-kimmage-sued-cycling-governing-body-they-want-try-shut-me

For the Paul Kimmage Defense Fund see: http://nyvelocity.com/content/features/2012/paul-kimmage-defense-fund

Bike Love in the Time of Scandal

You knew my not writing much about cycling wasn't going to last forever

I far too briefly alluded to Tom Boonen’s Paris-Roubaix win in my last blog. I also failed to mention his wins in E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem and Ronde Van Vlaanderen. We lifted many a Leffe Blond to his honour in this house. Like Philippe Gilbert last year, Tornado Tom seems unstoppable, and that makes me so very nervous. Ever since the 90’s, into the dubious Armstrong era and up until recently, dominance in cycling has usually been followed by scandals or at least implications. Let’s face it, positive results on the bike generally lead to positive results in the lab and that sucks.

I am not trying to mitigate the wonder that has been Tommeke and Phil Gil over the past two seasons. In fact watching these men has given me tremendous pleasure and I like them both as riders and sports personalities. If anything, I am pissed off that an endless parade of cheaters makes me so jaded that a good performance makes me immediately suspicious. The reason I get nervous is that I don’t want all my celebrations of their victories to come crashing down around me like so many have before (you broke my heart, Basso).

I understand that doping in sport is a complex issue, that the indoctrination of the needle starts in the junior ranks with coaches taking advantage of young, impressionable kids (don’t buy that for a second? How mature were your decision making skills at 18, 15, 12…you get the idea) that the pressure to win is crushing and the insular lifestyle of a cyclist, with days away from home and family probably more numerous than any other sport and the grounding elements of having some life away from the bike just doesn’t exist. I know there is no simple solution, that the problem isn’t going to go away even if the UCI adopts every suggestion WADA ever made. Someone who lives and breathes for the sport isn’t going to be convinced that winning isn’t everything – just look at the headlines when they lose.

I don’t know what the answer is. Better supervision in the junior ranks is probably a good start. Not making a sport’s governing body responsible for policing their own might be another. I’d really, really like to enjoy bike races without making wry comments that the results are going to be meaningless is 4 months (though probably good news for all those riders who finished just behind Ballan in each race. Get ready to move up, gentlemen).

Here’s to you, Tommeke. Faith on the line, I complement you on a wonderful spring campaign with cynicism shoved down to the pit of my stomach. I’ll try my best to watch Amstel Gold without a suspicious bone in my body….unless Ballan lines up.