“[T]hey wouldn’t even do that to a criminal. None of what they did was legal”
-Alejandro Valverde

It’s tough to imagine a doping scandal more fraught with irony than Operacion Puerto. Even before it had a name, the fantastic contradictions were there; Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes ran a doping ring where he saw his job as ensuring “that riders could put up with the physical demands being made of them”, but a client alleging his health had been ruined by the treatments was what finally blew the lid.

Two years later, when the scandal finally broke, the investigation proved itself an embarrassment to nearly everyone involved—Fuentes, who could have better concealed his clients’ names with a cereal box decoder ring; the Guardia Civil, who revealed their investigative skills outstripped in ineptitude only by their inability to prevent leaks; the riders themselves, caught red-handed; and the Spanish courts and anti-doping officials, for being unable to drive home a slam-dunk case.

Is that 50,000 EUR in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? / pd, wikimedia commons

Most embarrassed of all were the ASO, organizers of the Tour de France, who now had to host a race where everyone even remotely considered a favorite had run on the front page of every sport daily from Lisbon to Kiev in a photo collage of blood bags and syringes.

The Tour’s response to Operacion Puerto was blunt and idiotic: cajole any TdF teams with riders implicated in the scandal to voluntarily withdraw them before the race. I’ve scattered ample pixels already on the inequity of this—let’s just say I found it wonderfully poetic when Floyd Landis’ late-race urine sample came up positive a few days after the Tour finish, giving the ASO the very “Tour Winner Was Actually On Drugs” headlines their pre-race purges had been conducted to avoid.

Strangely enough, Valverde could have saved the Tour organization from this embarrassment. While no one can say for certain what would have happend if the Spaniard hadn’t broken his collarbone in a mundane crash on Stage 3, Valverde had long gotten the better of Landis in the mountains, and his 5th place finish in the dead flat ’06 prologue was as brilliant as it was suspicious. It’s the opinion of this humble commentator that the 2006 Tour was Valverde’s race to lose.

Still, I hesitate to call Valverde’s crash “bad luck”. While Puerto left entire teams fluttering in the wind, Valverde healed up and battled gamely for the Vuelta title—holding the leaders jersey and taking a stage win in the process—before making the podium at the World Championships later that year. Puerto fallout continued into 2007, as investigations pinned Ullrich to hijo rudico and retirement, while Basso, accorded no other option by investigations in Italy, made the ludicrous claim that he didn’t inhale—but Valverde kept right on riding.

In fact, from the day some Spanish cop found a bag labelled “val.(piti)” to 2009, Valverde’s right-to-ride encountered only one major challenge: the Germans attempting to keep him from riding at the ’07 Worlds in Stuttgart, a prohibition summarily overturned by the CAS. When you’re riding dirty, it sure doesn’t hurt to have your national cycling federation, and indeed, your country’s entire judicial system willing to bend the rules on your behalf

For all of McQuaid’s flack about “mafia nations” it was the Italians who finally clipped Valverde’s wings, matching DNA taken from a rest day sample at the 2008 Tour to DNA in the EPO-laced Bag 18 seized at Operation Puerto. After another year of trial and appeal, the CAS concurred with the Italians, and slapped a two year ban on Valverde, backdated to the beginning of 2010.

To recap: Valverde, for a bag of blood that showed he’d been cheating in 2006, got 18 months off racing, a few results scratched from the records books, and four years of otherwise unencumbered competition, during which he amassed palmares including—but hardly limited to—a Vuelta, a Liege-Bastogne-Liege, a San Sebastien, and two Tour stages. And somehow, this is his idea of rough justice.

There have been a few interesting reactions to Valverde’s unrepentant stance. Joe Lindsey respects the blunt, twisted honesty of it, while @inrng sees holding the Armstrong line as a media management mistake and a bad example. But for me, the biggest problem of Valverde’s response is the delusional excoriation of the very system whose assumptions of innocence let him continue to ride.

Valverde’s sanction wasn’t the result of nefarious forces arrayed against him—it was the product of being extended the benefit of every doubt available. For anyone who missed Tyler Hamilton’s appearance on 60 Minutes, Valverde’s continued sense of persecution might be the best example of the insidious self-deception that is so often the byproduct of an artificially high hematocrit.

Related posts:

1. Pro Cycling News – Boonen Loses at Qatar, Valverde Quicker, Bode Cheats?
2. Not Earning His Billables
3. Basso “Confessed”, Valverde Accused, Dekker Victorious

I’m hardly one to bugger flies on the finer points of the UCI or USAC rulebooks, but I’m also of the opinion that the exhilaration of cyclocross stems mainly from the competitive aspects of the discipline.

It’s not that hurdling barriers in a dog suit or executing a clockwork-perfect beer handup isn’t freakin’ awesome; it’s that tightroping against your lactate threshold while trading elbows for a clean line through half-frozen, off-camber bends is much more so. And rules—specific, unfeeling, inflexible rules—are critical for the integrity of the competition that provides this thrill.

That’s not to say there aren’t rules with gray areas, or that there shouldn’t be races with costumes, smoke grenades, and shaving cream, but having a few arbitrary, black-and-white dictums along the lines of “no flat bars” or “no triple barriers” lets the participants know—like a dress code that bars hoodies and sneakers—exactly what kind of party this is going to be.

This is important because no one flies halfway across the country to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin in the few precious weeks most cyclists reserve for dark beers and second helpings for a catch-as-catch-can goat rodeo. They do it to race a serious, well-organized, tightly-run, national-level competition, and to test their mettle against other freds on the same course that the pros use.

As innovation crushing and counter-productive as the standards of the sport’s governing bodies might be, they are also what makes a top-level ‘cross race top-level—as integral to the experience as immaculately prepped course tape, a well-ordered starting grid, and 1970s boxing analogies from Richard Fries.

While he may have been teasing just a bit when he said it, Cycleboredom pretty much hit the nail on the head:

Related posts:

1. How The Race Was Won – Rules of the Group Sprint
2. It’s Good Not To Be The King
3. “A Sprint that will be Talked About”

Now that allegations have surfaced that Vino’ may have bought the win, I’ve gotten a few messages asking me how I feel about it. And after re-watching the video, I don’t feel all that different. Certainly, as far as the racing goes, I stand by everything I said—especially the parts about Vino’ intentionally waiting up for Kolobnev, and about how Vino’s final separation from the Russian seemed “downright pedestrian”.

In cycling, the realities of the sport make the occasional negotiated outcome a near-inevitability. Grand Tours simply wouldn’t be possible if every so often, the pack didn’t roll in at a snail’s pace behind a small breakaway—and you’re crazy if you think the makeup of that lucky group isn’t the result of some pretty intense discussion within the pack and between team cars. And it’s almost expected that stage race leaders will “gift” stages to teammates and competitors alike, once their position at the head of the GC is secure.

While the UCI’s rules set out that collusion is explicitly illegal, this sort of “acceptable collusion” makes the unacceptable kind very difficult to define. Compounding the problem, groups of riders in every race collude to give one of their number a disproportionate chance of winning—they’re called “teammates”. Even between teams, there’s a tremendous ebb and flow of politicking, posturing, support and payment.

For example, if Team A takes the promise of future support from Team B to help chase down a breakaway, have they cheated? What if Team A agrees to help for a share of the prize money if Team B wins? What if Team B wires them a bank transfer mid-race? What if there’s no payment, but some Team A gains some advantage that Team B is unaware of? In all four cases, the outcome is the same—the only ethical distinctions between the cases lie in what motivates Team A’s efforts.

Granted, the ethics of the Vino’/Kolobnev case are a bit more cut and dry, but there’s still the question of proving that any illicit cooperation took place. If it weren’t for the enterprising muckrakers at l’Illustre we might not be having this discussion. For an insider’s view of payment and cooperation, you’re not likely to better than Mike Creed—though I suspect that in the highest level of the sport, the money, prestige, potential damage to reputation, and future income stemming from a major win outweigh the offer to lie down.

If anything, the biggest question here isn’t how could this happen, but how could Kolobnev sell so cheap? Joe Lindsey has a great breakdown of the longer-term costs to Kolobnev, but even in the short term, the deal didn’t make a lot of sense for the Russian. Sure, 100,000 Euros is a lot of money—especially when a win is only 20,000, split eight ways—but keep in mind, too, that in all likelihood, the bribe was only roughly equal to a year’s pay.

After winning Liege in 2003, Tyler Hamilton was rumored to have landed a contract with Phonak for over 800,000 euros. Though the American brought a GC threat that Kolobnev simply doesn’t have, it seems more than probable that Kolobnev could have garnered a salary boost well beyond the 100,000 EUR of Vino’s payoff.

And Kolobnev and Vino’ aren’t exactly strangers. In the recently-published emails, Kolobnev claims that Vino’s nationality (non-Belgian) and the bad press surrounding the Kazakh’s doping affair (apparently it was a raw deal) made his offer of collusion slightly more palatable.

So Kolobnev must have also known that Vinokourov is a very well-known man in an very corrupt country—honorary colonel in the army, Peoples’ Hero First Class, aspiring politician, and pasta spokesman. If Vino’ wanted to buy a bike race—Liege, of all things!—Kolobnev should known to bleed him for retirement money.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that Kolobnev’s legs must have been pretty well fried. If I were in Kolobnev’s pedals, and was as confident in my sprint as the Russian seems to have been, even Vino’ probably couldn’t have named me a price high enough—especially given the potential difficulty in collecting on the offer. But if I were on the rivet and clinging to my last reserves of strength, it’d be like getting paid 100k to lose a race I would have lost anyway. And where’s the fraud in that?

If there’s anything I feel bad about about in this affair, it’s the fortunes of Alexandr Kolobnev. His recent doping positive—and the soon-to-be-overturned slap on the wrist his national federation handed out—not withstanding, I found both his aggressive riding style and tenuous grasp of written English refreshing and entertaining. Even if he never seemed to have it in him to win the biggest races, it was always fun to watch him try.

But reading through the recently published emails between the two, I find him a startlingly sympathetic character. He clearly had a lot to gain from a win, and his emails reveal a recurring internal conflict, ineffectively placated by promises from Vinokourov. Before, Kolobnev was waiting for his bronze medal, now, having sought out seedier means of compensation, he’s waiting for his 100,000 euros. Thankfully, it hasn’t seemed to impact the quality of his tweets.

Vino’, of course, has been his usual, inscrutable self. First panning the “gutter press”, then claiming that it’s his personal life and he loans money to people all the time, and then—like Bettini before him—launching the inevitable lawsuit. The UCI has addressed that the case exists with its usual gibberish, though with Vino’ finally retiring after 2012, and Kolobnev facing the CAS, any resolution that comes for the alleged crimes in this case is likely to be purely symbolic.

Related posts:

1. How The Race Was Won – 2010 Tour de France, Stage 11
2. “This Is Not A Mickey Mouse Race”
3. No More-Ov Vinokourov

What, you thought I was just blowing hot air? For all its *ahem* foibles, Velonews.com is one of the oldest and richest cycling resources on the Internet. The Wayback Machine has snapshots dating from late 1997, and the current incarnation of the site contains at least a few stories that are over a decade old.

However, the interceding years have not been kind to this article collection—buyouts, a series of redesigns, and staff cutbacks have created an accumulated dead-link problem that’s made accessing old content almost impossible. It’s not that the books are missing—it’s just that someone’s burned the card catalogue.

Because Cyclocosm likely has more dead links heading back to the Journal of Competitive Cycling than any other single website, I decided I might as well cook up a solution. When you encounter the dreaded “Not Found” page, just copy the bad Velonews URL, come to this page, and then paste it into the text box above. You should be magically transported to the content you wanted to find.

I know of a few things that won’t work—including most of the third-party video player content, so “What Game Play” remains lost to the ages it’s back! —but if you come across anything else that doesn’t work or find something other than what you were looking for, let me know about it. There’s a chance I could track it down manually, and the info will help me improve this solution / build a better one in the future.

Related posts:

1. Velonews’ Boo-boo, Racing News
2. VeloNews Strikes Again!
3. Velonews Freakin’ Loves Me

As someone who’s watched a lot of road sprints, it seemed like a pretty obvious case of Nys closing the gate on Pauwels—and I certainly wasn’t the only one who thought so. On the road, Nys would have been relegated to second at best, and likely full-on disqualified, but after a protest and some deliberation (“a sprint that will be talked about” was how Nys’ Sporza interviewer styled it in English) the result was left unchanged.

The UCI’s official explanation of the decision—that Pauwels wouldn’t have been strong enough to get by—is…well, the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from the UCI over the years. Aside from the fact that it’s essentially impossible to assess exactly how strong a blocked rider might be, it also makes the counterproductive implication that it’s totally OK to cut people off, so long as they wouldn’t have beaten you anyway.

But as nonsensical as the “official” announcements of race directors can be, they also tend to reveal certain implied rules of the sport. When Mark Renshaw was kicked out of the 2010 Tour for headbutting (generally just a relegation) it wasn’t his actions that got him bounced—it was the fact that his teammate, Mark Cavendish, went on to win the stage. The officials couldn’t punish Cavendish–he’d done nothing wrong—but relegating the Australian would be essentially no punishment, since he hadn’t been riding for a result anyway. The message: don’t use dodgy riding to give your teammate an advantage.

So assuming the UCI officials aren’t crazy—or, as Mario De Clerq gamely suggests, swayed by Sven Nys’ position as one of the greatest ‘cross racers of all time, and a member of the UCI cyclocross commission to boot—what’s the major difference between road and cyclocross sprinting that sees Nys keep his result while, say, Giuseppe Calcaterra gets relegated?

First of all, the final sprint in cyclocross just an entirely different animal than what we’ve become accustomed to seeing from the modern road peloton. In flat stages at the Tour de France, the final kilometers are the battle ground of some dozen sprinters who’ve been keeping themselves rested and fresh all day long, before slingshotting off megawatt trains of domestiques to top speed for a final, all-out, all-or-nothing burst.

Behind them, nearly 200 others, often exhausted and essentially blind, cling desperately to the wheels in front of them just hoping to make it to the next day of racing without losing time. The bunches are huge, the speeds are incredible, and the collateral damage from a split-second mistake can be enormous.

A cyclocross sprint, on the other hand, comes following an hour-long, non-stop, full-on effort, punctuated by dozens of unsustainable surges as riders try to put daylight behind their rear wheel or draw back their rivals. Technical course features open gaps, and it’s rare to see more than a handful of riders contest a final charge. When they do, it’s a low-speed, nearly-cooked effort, on a short, straight-line finishing stretch. There’s room to manoever, plenty of road for everyone, and in the event that disaster does strike, the fallout is limited.

But I think it’s the very reality of a cyclocross race, rather than any consideration for safety, that plays the largest role in sustaining a result like yesterday’s. While position and line selection is important in road racing, in cyclocross it’s a constant consideration—as soon as you exit one corner, you’ve got to be mentally assembling your approach to the next.

The focus on where you’re putting your bike is relentless—it is as important as wattage in preserving your position, closing the gap to the riders ahead of you, and—most relevantly—denying the riders behind you an opportunity to pass. To suddenly apply the stricter (if somewhat more capriciously enforced) rules of the road sprint to cyclocross would be to suddenly alter this equation, turning the tables away from the very unique set of skills that are the essence of ‘cross.

In his post-race interview (or at least the English portion of it) Nys was unambiguous about saying he’d gone to the opposite of the road specifically to get in Pauwels’ way. What made it legal, Nys contends, is that Pauwels wasn’t yet alongside him.

The implication seems to be that Pauwels’ attempt to ride though a not-quite-wide-enough opening along the barriers was the Sunweb rider’s own poorly-calculated decision, same as if he’d tried to dive for the inside line through a corner earlier on the course, and gotten stuffed by riders ahead of him who’d set up more sensibly.

Of course, Pauwels had a different story, claiming that Nys’s knee banged into his front wheel and handlebars as the Landbouwkredit rider drove him from one side of the road to the other, before pinning him against the barrier. And if that’s true, by Nys’ own admission, he ought to be punished.

Sadly, without the all-determining helicopter camera shot, there’s no way to determine exactly how the barrier-to-barrier dance between Nys and Pauwels went down. Pauwels’ body English certainly suggests contact, but there isn’t anything definitive in the photos and videos I’ve seen. If nothing else, the last few seconds of the race are a great example of how, in cyclocross, leading out a sprint early can actually play to your advantage.

Related posts:

1. Pro Cycling News – Worlds ’05: To Sprint or Not to Sprint
2. The First Sprint Stage
3. How The Race Was Won – Rules of the Group Sprint

That Guy, way back when he was news
/ by Ciclismoaldia, pd

Dear Internet,

Let’s all stop talking about That Guy.

While the phrase “that guy” has a coloquial meaning (and That Guy has most certainly gone out of his way to be “that guy”) I’m actually referring to a specific person, here. A former cyclist. You know the one I’m talking about, probably because Cyclingnews ran an article about him yesterday. That Guy is a polarizing figure, and once that article was published, the Twitters (self included), and a few notable blogs rose up, with disappointing predictability and fervor, to take the bait.

Regardless of your opinion on That Guy, that was the wrong response.

The simple fact is that That Guy does not deserve mention at present. Not on Cyclingnews, not on your blog, not on Twitter, not anywhere. He has done nothing—good or bad—of any relevance in years. Whether to crucify him or to facilitate his redemption, any mention of That Guy as things currently stand is unwarranted, and you undermine your own efforts by bringing him up.

If you do not like That Guy and would like to see him “in a ditch” (in the colorful and I hope figurative words of one Twitterer), I suggest you email Cyclingnews‘ Daniel Benson directly, saying that you do not feel That Guy is a newsworthy topic right now. I would be polite, well-reasoned, and succinct in your email, and I would avoid linking to the piece or clicking on any ads or paid offsite links on the article page. I would also avoid addressing or defaming That Guy on any of your online presences.

If you do like That Guy, I would email him directly, or leave a comment on one of his blogs, expressing your support. He has a track record of emotional fragility, a dark past to atone for, and could likely use some support. That said, I would still avoid mentioning That Guy directly on Twitter, or linking to his blog, web sites, or any news articles on him. He has shown many times that his thirst for the spotlight outstrips his desire to do good, and if he can have the first without the second, he’ll do it in a heartbeat.

If That Guy is—as he claims to be—truly interested in reform and advocacy, he will, of his own volition and without incentives from law enforcement or attention from the press, begin taking steps to advance that goal. Conversely, if he is—as many others seem to think—pure, unmitigated evil, he will turn to darker means to regain notoriety. If and when he’s done something noteworthy, we should once again feel free to voice our opinions; until then, let’s see if we can’t avoid feeding this particular troll any more than we already have.

Thanks for hearing me out on this, Internet.

Sincerely,

-Cosmo

Related posts:

1. An Open Letter to the ASO
2. Early Seasons and Open Championships
3. Worlds And An Open Vuleta

In its natural state / by Brian Ellin cc-nc-sa

Occasionally, people ask me why I don’t more actively seek out work in the cycling industry. Aside from the fact that it’s an insider’s game and I’ve got the schmoozing skills of a dyspeptic orangutan, there’s just no way I could bring myself to participate in the absolute nonsense the positions tend to require—all the more so when that nonsense runs contrary to the interests of the company I would hypothetically be supporting.

Case in point—the sidewalls of the pro cyclocross bikes making the rounds on cycling news websites the past few weeks. While I applaud the spirit of whichever mechanic or press agent decided to turn Ryan Trebon’s sidewalls into a massive, garish Clement ad, it’s pretty clear no one was fooled by the effort. And while I’m sure the people at QBP smiled warmly at James Huang’s insistance that the uproariously camouflaged Dugast was merely a placeholder, it sure doesn’t look like the Typhoon has been cut from Treefarm’s arsenal.

Maxxis has at least taken a step in the correct direction—kinda. It seems a more-than-open-secret (mentioned at least twice) that Geoff Kabush is running tubulars with a Maxxis tread, but glued to a Dugast casing. To my consumer’s eye, that’s awesome step forward, and one Maxxis should be touting. But instead they’ve Sharpied over the sidewalls, lest the random passer-by find out what anyone who might possibly buy these (unbuyable) tires already knows.

It’s bad enough that blacked out sidewalls scream “we’re trying to cover something up”. But when you consider the unbelievable history of iconic brand crossovers, it’s almost criminal that anyone could pass an opportunity to advertise their racers on the Shelby GT of cyclocross tires. It’d be like Cinelli or Trek attributing the artwork on their iconic machines to “some contemporary artist” to save the feelings of their in-house designers.

Just some artist / by lafattaturchina cc-nc-sa

As The Economist noted, brand is critical in cycling—and if you can clothe yours in the finery of someone else’s, all the better. Perhaps some tire makers out there still consider Dugast and FMB to be “competitors”. And maybe, if it takes you three weeks to turn out 20 tires at $350 a pair, letting people know your top riders race on someone else’s casing might be a mistake. But for most of the industry, churning out affordable rubber in industrial quantities, a sewing a little free advertising for the boutiques into your team equipment will come back in positive brand association at the bike shop ten-fold.

Of course, racers and brand managers would still—at least for the first few seasons—have to answer questions from fans and press about the (OMG) off-brand equipment. Aside from stressing the talking points that casings are just part of a tire, and that FMB buys both tubes and treads from somewhere else, here are some blurbs that everyone should feel free to crib:

“Obviously, [sponsor] has the best tire arsenal on the market today. But when you pair [sponsor]’s treads with this custom casing, [tread name] really is the ultimate weapon”

“99 times out of 100, [sponsor]’s stock tires are the best thing out there. These custom casing models are a huge investment on the part of [sponsor] to cover the remaining 1%.”

“These tires are really indicative of the support we’re getting from [sponsor]. These are the best casings out there, and [sponsor]’s tread is a decade ahead of where the stock rubber is.”

“You couldn’t be competitive in today’s field without custom casings. And thanks to [sponsor]’s tread pattern, today’s field could be competitive with me.”

There was once a day when sponsorship was 100% about advertising. When differences between production models and custom machines came down to minute subtleties in lugs and steel, and when the public’s only window onto them was a small collection of low-resolution photos, the only thing that mattered—the only legible detail, really—was the name on the downtube.

But in the modern era, where every pocket holds a combination high resolution camera and instant publishing platform, and where fans are bombarded with a constant flood of information, I think the idea of cycling sponsorship really has to evolve from the purchase of rolling billboards to a more holistic concept of rider support.

This isn’t to say that riders should be able to run whatever the heck they want no questions asked, but if a rider competing at the top level feels that in certain conditions, they need a certain part to be competitive, a good sponsor will be willing to make a concession—just like Maxxis has done for Kabush. Now it’s time for the marketing side of the equation to catch up.

Related posts:

1. On “Cyclocross” Clinchers
2. Tubeless For Cyclocross – The Complete Saga
3. Cyclocosm 3.0

After all, so much attention has gone to crashes this year because so many GC riders have been taken out. But is there really an increase in overall riders down? It’s rare that more than a passing nod is given to a tumble that takes out a few domestiques, but as far as overall safety is concerned, I think one rider’s abandon is as good (or bad) as any other’s.

So I’ve compiled some data for all the Tours de France since 1997 (cyclingnews.com doesn’t go back any further), looking at the percentage of riders who’ve gone home after nine stages. Obviously, it’s not a comprehensive study—early climbs and drug scandals have also played a role in thinning the pack, and not all crashes result in abandons—but I think it’s a decent ballpark metric.

Avg Attrition: 8.13%*
Avg Attrition w/198: 11.11%*
Avg Attrition w/180: 5.67%
Std Dv: 3.10%*
+1 Std Dv: 11.23%* (higher rates in red)
-1 Std Dv: 5.04%* (lower rates in green)

The numbers say some interesting things. The first is larger fields definitely increase the number of abandons—the rate of attrition by the 9th stage in a 198-rider field is almost a full standard deviation above the average since 1997, while 180-rider fields fall almost a full standard deviation below it.

As much as I’d like to see as many teams as possible contesting the sport’s biggest prize, it might just make for a better race if a few more people stayed home. Perhaps the 8-rider-teams solution floated by Craig Lewis might be a good way to get as many sponsors involved in the Tour while maximizing rider safety.

The second big takeaway is that this years race hasn’t been as brutal as you might expect in terms of sending riders home. Through nine stages, 2011 is just a touch above the 15-year-average, and well below what you’d expect for such a full field. Certainly the GC contenders have been overrepresented in the early departures, but that higher visibility doesn’t necessarily reflect a more destructive event.

The third thing that stands out to me is that—and I readily confess to falling back on the TREND(); function here—there is a slight trend toward lower attrition rates over the past 15 years (through nine stages, not correcting for field size*):

While I wouldn’t say that the ASO has ever been a tremendous advocate for rider safety, I believe this trend reflects the increasing level of sanity they’ve applied to routing each year’s Grand Boucle. Continuing in a direction that began with the end of split stages, organizers have promoted shorter routes as a way to stave off doping, while extending the “safe” zones at the end of flat stages to preserve the campaigns of GC riders caught behind crashes.

The end result of these changes has been—statistically speaking, anyway—a less destructive race, and 2011, for all the carnage we’ve seen out on the roads thus far, has been yet another step in that trend. It’s certainly felt like a more dangerous race, and viewer reactions (mine included) have helped foster that sense. But looking at the numbers, it’s pretty clear that reaction is not reflective of a greater number of crashes, but more a result of a greater public awareness of and affection for the athletes involved.

This post initially misreported the number of starters at the 2007 Tour as 198. Dossards 1-9 were omitted that year, making for only 189 starters, despite dossard 219 being the highest awarded. Numbers and figures marked (*) have been corrected from their initially reported values; the conclusions of the post remain largely unchanged.

Related posts:

1. Tour de France ’07 – Soler Solos, Vino’ Sours
2. Tour de France ’07 – First Rest Day and Still No GC Picture
3. 2010 Tour de France Versus Media Call

For all its storied climbs, the Dauphine has long been an exercise in posturing and one-off performance. In 1999, Jon Vaughters famously used the race to “answer some questions” about his riding abilities. In 2003, Iban Mayo lured Armstrong into a deep-dug defense of his lead at the race, and it almost cost the Texan a record-tying 5th Tour de France the following month. Most commentators saw Armstrong’s “disappointing” finish in 2004 coming a mile away.

This year, while it was good to see Brad Wiggins riding with aplomb in the hills, I can’t say that there was any less gamesmanship than previous editions. Cadel Evans, for example seemed to be a bit off, but he told the press he was happy enough with second—no surprise, considering the front wheel he rode in the TT, which would have been behind the curve in the Cat 3 fields I race. It is especially strange in light of the Super Secret Project Bike he’d been on in the prologue. And then there was the heads of state bunch sprint for second on the final day, on top of a Cat 1 climb, won (behind an uncontested late jump by Joaquim Rodriguez) by a young FdJ rider who’d been in the break essentially from the gun.

Now lets compare this to the Armstrong/Hamilton incident. At first blush, it is indeed a bit dull, but a quick glance at logistics make it a bit more interesting than “two men meeting in a toilet“. After all, news of Hamilton’s visit had been well publicized—the press even extracted a quote from local flavor Charlie Tarver, who also happens to own/operate Hub of Aspen, a bike shop and Trek dealership where Armstrong goes “to be a regular person“.

On Saturday, Armstrong attended a benefit Century in Tennessee organized by Nissan. That’s probably why Hamilton thought Lance would be out of town that night. But Hamilton didn’t anticipate that Armstrong’s teammates would power through the ride at a decidedly uncharitable 25mph pace. Even with “leisurely” stops and a relatively flat parcours, that’s a pretty quick event appearance.

Now, maybe Armstrong rides that hard at most events in an effort to keep the pack around him down. Certainly the magic of the private jet would have easily allowed Armstrong to get back to Colorado by that evening after wrapping up the bike ride at noon without any special haste. And off-season Aspen is indeed a pretty small town—Tyler wouldn’t have been hard to find, and a chance meeting at one of Armstrong’s favorite eateries isn’t entirely out of the question.

But the confrontation itself went down so late in the evening—between 11 and 11:30pm—that I have a hard time believing it was a casual happenstance. Armstrong appeared at the Tennessee ride at 7am—that’s 5am Mountain Time. A long day with a century, even if he napped on the plane. Compounding the issue, reports of the meeting itself were a little scattered, to say the least. Schaffer ‘s initial tweets said Cache Cache was “crawling” with Outside Magazine staff, yet the magazine’s later blog post says most of them were across the street.

My guess? Armstrong probably got a tip after getting home that Hamilton was at Cache Cache. A quick Google search pulled up the Hamilton event announcement, and minutes later, Armstrong was on his way over, without thinking especially hard about whether this might constitute witness tampering or not. A bunch of journalists, a bit jumbled from The Pass, thin air, and whatever it is that Outside drinks, were on hand, but not quite ready to catch the meeting.

So, when you can tell me that Gilberto Simoni will jet into the TdS from the other side of Europe, intercept Damiano Cunego coming out of the bathroom of his favorite Swiss eatery, and deliver the ultimatum that he better lose the race or some long-buried positive test will be revealed, all under the noses of a gaggle of besotted writers from L’Equipe, then I’ll expect the race to be top news on every cycling site.

But if the best you can do is a daredevil descent from Peter Sagan (nothing to shrug at under normal circumstances) I’m afraid these tune-up events will continue to play second fiddle to the sort of off-course intrigue that only Lance Armstrong can deliver.

Related posts:

1. Post-Flanders Drama
2. False Alarms, Dauphine Li-boring
3. There’s Drama in The Air

Had that been the case, you wouldn’t be reading this. The bike racing and riding public in America would be a mere shadow of its current self, and millions of cancer sufferers would still view their disease as a crippling, unrecoverable plague. If, through some luck, you did still follow cycling, you’d probably consider yourself an Armstrong fan; he’d be a lone, underachieving American hero in your obscure, European sport.

Objectively speaking, there’s no way to say that the end result of the cancer, the stepped-up “preparation”, the work with Ferrari, the personality cult, and the Livestrong brand were bad things—for the sport or for the world. So why, then, is there such a groundswell in the cycling community to see Armstrong fall? Why do the haters hate?

I don’t claim to have the same motivations as everyone, but the fact is I don’t really care that Armstrong cheated. I don’t have a problem with him being a complex character, at once guilty and an inspiration. On occasion, I even think he did a pretty good job racing the bike.

But what I find a constant source of consternation and embarrassment, is that despite all the Tour wins, and millions of dollars for cancer, and other accomplishments, under it all, Armstrong still comports himself as the gel-haired bro-caricature captured in this video.

The legal battles, the past-prime comeback, nobodies on Twitter, the heckler battling, the Chair You’re Sitting In, the increasingly transparent denials, trying to “win” assembling a legal team the way he tries to “win” collecting art—for a man who should have nothing to prove, Armstrong’s inability to gracefully accept even the tiniest of slights and compulsion to continually pad his legacy is pathetic.

Had Armstrong been a lesser rider, it could be overlooked—we all have flaws. But he isn’t a lesser rider. He is the public face of cycling, and has a far larger pull than the sport itself ever will. By all accounts, Armstrong dominated almost a decade of unsustainable rule-breaking, and as the pre-eminent rider of that era, the onus is on him to simply admit what the rest of the world already knows.

The sad part is that because Lance has so fortified himself in the myth of his performance, the consequences of a confession now will likely be harsh. His legacy will be tarnished. Cancer research may suffer. He might even go to jail. And that’s not entirely fair. But celebrity is a double-edged sword, and for the hundreds of millions he’s raised on his reputation, he owes the world the courtesy of owning up to his transgressions.

So until that moment comes, I’m viewing the Fall of Fortress Armstrong with a certain satisfaction. Not with any particular malice toward the man, or for the heady glee of watching a tyrant hang, but as an audience member at an Elizabethan play. Armstrong is our tragic hero, and his fatal flaw is the monomaniacal focus that had until now served him so well. Unable to account for it, he’ll continue stacking denial upon denial, until the whole house of cards tumbles in a familiar, inescapable denoument.

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2. Not Earning His Billables
3. T-Mobile Folds, No Cyclingnews Links