No, actually—not even close. Not since a third-generation Yalie picked up a Texas accent and ran for President as a Washington Outsider has a brand been so obviously out of sync with its own reality. Cyclocross, while thrilling and fantastically enjoyable, is also the most expensive cycling discipline for those with an actual desire to be competitive, and the least friendly to the common racer stepping up to give it a shot.

On the road, race-able bikes start at around $1000 and, without swapping a single part, can be trained on and raced competitively for at least one season. That’s certainly how I got started, and I remember the winning selections of collegiate B and C races stocked with Dura-Ace and Sora in roughly equal proportions. All due respect to the high-gloss fields I currently run with, but thanks to some impressive raw talents and a general lack of any tactical know-how, those collegiate events remain some of the fastest, hardest-fought races I’ve ever had the pleasure of contesting.

Manufacturers can wage nerd war til the cows come home, but road races aren’t won and lost at the bike shop. Zipp and Cervelo will remind you of Cancellara’s amazing charge at the ’07 Tour, but his on-the-hoods, out-of-the-saddle position on that particular rampage more than negated any aerodynamic advantage of his wheelset. Road cycling isn’t contested by torso-less robots on trainers in wind tunnels; it’s a game of canny, back-biting, and subterfuge, and 99 times out of 100, you’ll do better to poach another rider’s aerodynamic advantage than to invest in your own.

By comparison, gear in cyclocross actually matters—specifically, tires. While entry-level CX bikes often offer a lower price, what you get for the money is also drastically reduced. I’ll overlook the downgrade from Ultegra to Tiagra (as I mentioned above, if the gears shift, you’re good to go); I’m complaining about the “cyclocross” tube and tire setup that has no place on any respectable race course.

After a few seasons of attempting to race ‘cross on clinchers, I’ve arrived at the conclusion—one that ought to be plastered in bold-face at the beginning of any article on cyclocross—that attempting to actually race cyclocross with clinchers and innerubes is an often pointless endeavor. Maybe if you’ve got the mad handling skillz and mimized downforce of, say, Rudy, you can venture out past the fringe of the greens on your local golf course. Otherwise, the tire pressures you need to run come with a DNF rate (via pinch flat) of about 1 in 4.

Tubulars fix this problem, of course, but they’re astronomically expensive. The tires start at 70 dollars, and even Williams Cycling’s much heralded “affordable” $369 cross wheelset represents an outlay as large as I’ve ever made on a pair of road wheels. To me, “affordable” applies to <$150 wheelsets, like the Maddux F20 I put 6000 miles into over the past two years.

Another reason competitive cyclocross all but requires tubulars is that, without free laps or follow trucks, you’ve got to be able to get to the pit on your own—much tougher on a flat clincher than a flat tubular. And once you get to the pit, you’ll need something to put on your bike; tack on another $470 for a second wheelset. And patching that tubular tire back up after the race…let’s just hope your puncture solution is a simple as an injection of Caffelatex.

But as anyone who’s been to a muddy Verge Series race knows, the only really competitive support is to have a second cyclocross bike at the ready in the pits. ($800 + $470) x 2 = $2,540, or better than twice the up-front investment of a raceable road bike. And keep in mind, these ‘cross figures are still for Tiagra level parts, while a similar road rig ships with Ultegra gear that’s good for at least few seasons to come. Much as I appreciate the functionality of Shimano’s low end parts, an ill-timed spill in the sand pit might be all she wrote for that budget shifter.

And of course, no detonation of this populist facade would be complete without pointing out how thoroughly cyclocross kowtows to the elite. A sponsored rider has to worry about almost none of the things I’ve listed above—no entry fees, a guaranteed spot on the line, free pit bikes, boatloads of swag, and a retirement account’s worth of wheelsets, making an unexpected snowstorm as manageable as a wheel swap.

I hasten to add that there’s nothing “wrong” with this—good riders are fantastic marketing exposure, and with the salaries (or lack thereof) offered to the pros, the people who are actually good at ‘cross need as much help as they can get (see #livingthedream).

At the end of the day, though, what road racing does that cyclocross doesn’t is routinely turn out Frederick Vuechelens, Bobbie Traksels, Frederic Guesdons and host of other one-off winners who saw an opening, read a race, or were otherwise crazy enough to pull off the unlikeliest of upsets over the most elite of fields.

In road racing, there’s a sense that any rider with the skills to hold position, the watts the get free, and the stones to give it shot is guaranteed an opportunity to make a race-winning move. Most times, it doesn’t work—heck, sometimes it doesn’t even get attempted—but the option is there for any rider who would lay claim to it. Drop Zdneck Stybar into the first lottery spot at a World Cup and I don’t think he’d enjoy that same opportunity.

The point of all this isn’t that cyclocross needs to be somehow “fixed”. Obviously, I wouldn’t mind if the industry turned out more ~$1000 CX bikes that weren’t built to sit in the garage, but ‘cross racing is just fine in its current incarnation. Adam Myerson’s fantastic piece on CX racing rings as true for the guy in first as it does for the guy in 101st—I would know, having found myself riding in both positions at various moments over the past three years.

What bothers me is this position cyclocross seems to enjoy in the popular imagination of cycling fans as a, blue-collar, working (wo)man’s sport, as if mud, beer, tents, and Belgian country music were proof positive that it’s a somehow purer competition, geared to the common rider. Make no mistake about it, cyclocross rewards privilege—both in terms of income and talent—above almost anything else.

Related posts:

1. On “Cyclocross” Clinchers
2. Tubeless For Cyclocross – The Complete Saga
3. Why George Hincapie Will Never Win Paris-Roubaix

With no direct contact emails for authors and editors, a reluctance to respond to @replies or Tumblr inquiries, and a Memory Hole-esque contact form as the only institutional recourse, that magazine makes it very hard to open any sort of communication channel. Whether you take this to be intentional or not depends on your level of cynicism—certainly, it’s no way to endear yourself to a blogger.

I did finally manage to get in touch with the author, who actually talked with me to smooth out the wrinkles in the piece, and revealed that—as predicted— the comment had been deleted due to the number of links in it.

While I could question the wisdom of not documenting this anti-spam feature, or of attempting to block commenters who bother to cite their sources, I’ll instead stick with the message that, had the magazine simply been easier to contact, my flaming would have been far less intense, and the article would have been improved a whole lot sooner.

Multiply the difficulty of communicating with The Atlantic by about a billion, and you’ll get roughly the challenge presented by any sort of communication with the UCI. I really do appreciate Michael Ashenden’s NYVelocity interviews, but he shouldn’t be “taken aback by how poorly” both a scientist and a leading cycling publication understand the finer points of the Biological Passport; the UCI has done nothing to communicate them.

The governing body’s own documentation on the project is scattered, nearly illegible (gray on gray!), and hardly detailed. A sparse FAQ, and an in-depth WADA outline for a generic bio passport program leave a lot to be desired. Such total disregard toward informing anyone outside the process (riders, fans, media, researchers for The Atlantic, etc.) is no way to win support for a controversial program, and it probably doesn’t help in the courtroom, either.

Sure, the UCI isn’t awash in cash. But what would it cost them to hire a freelance writer to untangle that rat’s nest of an FAQ? The RadioShack jersey fine alone would pay for a microsite and a decent design team to create an informative, user-friendly interface for the entire Bio Passport operation, plus a couple of nice infographics to help this pill of a program go down.

In fact, if the UCI had any sort of communications savvy, it would be making the entire program—statistical formulae included—completely open for scrutiny and re-use. The AFLD has apparentlyburied the hatchet in its dispute with the UCI, and they’re the only group I could imagine “stealing” a doping suspicion algorithm and setting up a competing project. If the UCI’s blood passport algorithm were made open by design, and then adopted by other sports, the UCI would have an ironclad talking point that cycling was leading the way in the fight against doping.

But sadly, communication is not an art form well-respected in the backhalls of Aigle, where top-down management is fetishized to a point that might just make Josef Stalin blush. One almost gets the feeling that negative user feedback only stiffens the UCI’s resolve to maintain the status quo, if for no other reason than to remind the world that they—and not the athletes, organizers, or fans they allegedly serve—are the real authority around here.

I’d love to attribute this non-communicative stubbornness to the entrenched attitude of privilege inherent in many European governing bodies, but sadly, it seems to pop up wherever a self-conscious authority feels threatened—on either side of The Atlantic.

Related posts:

1. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
2. The Four Impossibilities of Radio-Free Racing

While I respect the man’s opinion, I think his statement couldn’t be further from the truth. Even as I type this, the allegations made in his book are flushing out the foundation of a federal case against Lance Armstrong and the former US Postal Service Team. A deposition prompted by Walsh’s investigation has already caught the seven-time Tour winner in an obvious contradiction, and for those eager to see the Texan’s head on a platter, the best may be yet to come.

But cycling’s steps toward a cleaner sport over the past few years go well beyond exposing les secrets de Lance Armstrong. Though the progress has been slow, and it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture with each new positive test, the long-term trend has been turning solidly and inexorably against the dopers.

Consider 2004, the year in which LA Confidentiel made its debut. That fall, Tyler Hamilton recorded the first positive sample under new testing for homologous blood transfusions (the re-injection of someone else’s blood). Aside from proving the efficacy of the new test, the Hamilton case also revealed to exactly what extent the anti-doping authorities were able to monitor the blood samples they took; thanks to Hamilton’s rigorous legal battle, the scientific validity of this testing was thoroughly established.

This detailed monitoring—which would eventually become the UCI biological passport program—sent the message that successfully-executed doping would now be a full-time job, requiring careful dosing, refrigeration, planning, and support from medical professionals: none of which come cheaply or easily. Even the deep-pocketed Hamilton, whose doping program was extensive and well-planned, still hadn’t been able to dodge the vampires or beat the rap.

2004 was also the year of Jesus Manzano’s revelations about the pervasiveness of doping within the cycling world. Manzano, a middling Spanish rider, opened up to the Spanish press with a flood of allegations, which were categorically denied and dismissed by cycling’s establishment. But the maligned Spaniard’s work with authorities bore fruit in a 2006 raid on the offices of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.

Despite massive interference from the Spanish government, the Opercion Puerto case lead directly to the accusation and punishment of countless riders, including three serious TdF contenders: Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and Alejandro Valverde. While the case was never as far reaching as it should have been, and progressed with interminable slowness, the actual sanction of top-tier TdF finishers was a first since the cycling “owned up” to the extent of oxygen vector drug abuse in 1998.

Between 1998 and 2005, there were no major changes in the UCI rules—EPO and blood doping were just as illegal as they are today. But before the Hamilton positive and Puerto raid, efficacy of testing and enforcement had been decidedly lacking. Both homologous doping and EPO lacked a good tests for years, and early positives were met with skepticism and short suspensions. At some points, authorities may even have turned a blind eye to higher-profile positives.

Consider the Tours since the Puerto raid, and I think you’ll see a definite change. In ’06, Landis was caught after a miraculous, ride-away-from-everyone Tour win, just days after the Tour ended. In ’07, Vinokourov was caught re-injecting someone else’s blood and booted mid-race. Later that same year, Michael Rasmussen was voluntarily pulled by his team while wearing the Yellow Jersey, after his violations of the UCI’s whereabouts policy were revealed.

In 2008, a few riders, riding high on the general classification and throwing back stage wins like energy gels thinking they’d discovered an undetectable new drug, were caught and very visibly ejected, along with a handful of other names sanctioned after the fact. And now, in 2010, we have Alberto Contador caught shortly after the Tour with nearly-undetectable levels of a drug, and chemical substances that, while not sanctionable yet, strongly suggest re-injected blood.

If those previous two paragraphs don’t represent a remarkable increase in testing effectiveness, I don’t know what does. And it’s really just the continuation of a longer-term trend. Consider the Tour podiums from 1999-2005. While it is glaring that the most successful rider of that era remains at least technically innocent, it’s difficult to find another Head of State from the period with whom justice has not caught up. When compared with the soft or non-existant sanctions placed on riders in the Festina era, even those slow-moving cases mark a dramatic improvement.

The initial reaction when inundated by news of positive tests—as Walsh and Ettore Torri have recently voiced—is to throw up your hands and say that everyone’s on drugs and that nothing is improving. But natural though that instinct may be, it’s also highly irrational.

Positive tests mean riders are getting caught. While the confessions of some riders make test evasion seem trivially easy, their own positives contradict that suggestion. There’s no argument to be made that an effective doping program isn’t a massive undertaking today, especially compared with the casual EPO needlesticks of a decade ago.

While the UCI may at times seem to be doing everything in its power to erode public faith in the sport, the fact remains that cycling’s progress in rooting out dopers has been commendable, and the improvements are continuing. Bernhard Kohl’s well-worn quip that you cannot win the Tour without doping may indeed still be true, but the cost, complexity, and risks involved in dosing up are exponentially higher than just a few years ago—as his own downfall reflects. If testing continues to improve, in the very near future, it may no longer be worth the reward.

The dream of a sport—any sport—with no doping is an attractive fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. As long as there is competition, people will cheat to gain an extra edge, and those hunting the cheats will always be playing catch-up. The best a rational fan can hope is that those running the sport make cheating as unattractive a proposition as possible, through consistent, effective testing, and firm, swift sanctions.

And in that regard, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a sport going in a better direction than professional cycling.

Related posts:

1. WADA’s 8-Year-Snitch
2. “Did We Know This?” – The Hot New Cycling Game.
3. Maybe We Should Test For Accountability

[right-click for iTunes-compatible download, tap for iPad/iPhone]

(Contains many photos, most of which are public domain or licensed for free use, and footage from Eurosport and NOS Sport.)

1. How The Race Was Won – Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2009
2. How The Race Was Won – Amstel Gold 2010
3. How The Race Was Won – Omloop Het Niewsblad 2010

Tactical considerations aside, I think it’s nice to see a reigning Tour champ active and attempting to win races in mid-April. And to see him battle against two potential Grand Tour rivals only sweetens the mix. Certainly beats listening to some old crank stay home and whine about the weather

But what I’m decidedly less pumped about is the reaction to another podium of potential Grand Tour winners at the Giro del Trentino in Italy. Versus, through the magic of Google Translate, called it a “regal podium”, and were assailed for it almost immediately. The same-day win by Evans was heralded as “a victory for the anti-doping movement” in contrast

That opinion lasted all of about five minutes, however, as Evans’ teammate Thomas Frei, who had been doing quite well, ended up turning in a positive EPO test. Never mind that that B-sample hasn’t been tested—the A is never wrong, after all—time to pull BMC’s Tour invites and start simply lying about the circumstances surrounding the suspension of other riders on their squad.

Attitudes like this are why I view much of the anti-doping movement with deep skepticism. You can dislike the riders currently leading the standings at the Giro del Trentino, but the fact is, all three of them have been caught and punished according to the rules. They’ve served their time. What more do you want?

Cycling has the heaviest testing regimen and most rigorously enforced penalties in the sporting world. It’s gotten to the point that teams routinely suspend riders the moment their names appear in an investigation—regardless of validity. Is that still not enough? Does every ex-doper need to be taken out behind the press tent and beaten with a bag full of BikePure headset spacers every time he or she turns in strong performance?

At some point in their careers, Basso, Ricco, and even Vino’ (who does look awful beefy for a guy racing a Grand Tour in two weeks…) were riding exceptionally well despite not taking any drugs; why is the assumption that, as soon as they return to form, they’re back on the juice? Why do people brand their very reappearance in the headlines as a horrible thing?

Perhaps what I like least about this vocal court of opinion is the uneven nature in which it dispenses punishiment. I don’t seem to recall anyone screaming out for justice when Pantani made his last exciting lunges for victory at the ’03 Giro, or when VDB almost came back from the dead at that year’s Ronde.

For that matter, reformed doper David Millar is routinely excoriated for being too sanctimonious about his rehabilitation, and depending on who you ask among the “tarnished podium” crowd, some grant Ivan Basso a pass for reasons as tenuous as his status as a “[nice] family [man]” and his post-suspension work Cadel Evans’ coach.

While the Ricco certainly seems to have all the personality his nickname would imply, objectively speaking, he’s also the purest example of reform from Wednesday’s “tarnished” podium. He confessed immediately and cooperated with authorities, which is more than one can say of either Basso, who denied all charges for nine months and still didn’t really confess, or Vinokourov, who maintains his innocence to this day.

I think it’s pretty clear that the real villains in this tale of two podiums are the fickle cycling fans and commentators, and I think more people need to adapt the attitude taken by Fleche Wallonne winner Cadel Evans: some athletes in every sport will always cheat to win, and no amount of wristbands, invasive testing, or draconian punishment is going to change that.

Cycling does the best job of any sport at rooting out the drug cheats, and I think it’s time we started celebrating the efforts that catch dopers instead of whining that cheats exist in the first place.

Related posts:

1. DiLuca wins Killer LBL, Hinault, Eurosport
2. Playing the Lotto
3. Scarponi Folds, Giro Previews, General Uncleanliness

In a claim worthy of Chesterfield Cigarettes, Speedplay has asserted that wind tunnel testing has proved its pedals will save you an astounding 33 seconds per hour if you use the four bolt attachment.

There are, of course, the obvious problems with this wind-tunnel derived claim—you don’t ride hour-long time trials; even if you did, you couldn’t ride them a consistent 30mph; even you could, they have hills and corners, and you’re overweight and a lousy bike handler. Then there are cross-winds, other competitors, traffic, mental toughness, etc.

But in this post I will ignore these things. Instead, I want to focus on highlighting Speedplay’s ill-conceived methodology and misleading conclusions.

“…the testing of a single component by itself raises questions as to whether or not the component will perform in the same way when installed on a bicycle and used outside of the tunnel.

With this in mind, we mechanized a life-size, lower-half of a mannequin so the mannequin, rather than a person, would pedal the bike.

Yes, you read that correctly—the problem with wind tunnel tests is that they’re not like real life, so we replaced a real life person with a torso-less pair of mechanical legs. Does its motion churn the surrounding air like a real human set of legs? Are its proportions correct? What about foot position—idealized by biomechanics, or average observed foot position of pro riders? These are questions Speedplay didn’t feel like addressing.

At any rate, Speedplay’s use of de-torsoed legs in means that the results—in the unit-less and not particularly useful form of coefficient of drag—apply only to this mannequin. When this bodiless apparatus is wears shoes with 4-bolt-mounted Speedplays, that coefficient is .237.

However, Biomechanics and Biology of Movement found that “a cyclist on a standard road bike in racing position” has a drag coefficient of 0.78. That 200% increase reflects all the things Speedplay’s disembodied legs left out of their results.

So what appeared to be a small difference in coefficient of drag—2.5%—is actually an all-but-insignificant 0.7%*. And even that minor change requires to you have faith in the reliability of Speedplay’s procedures. Measuring drag coefficient to three significant digits—the finest measure available from the wind tunnel if Speedplay’s videos are any indication—and coming away with a single thousandth of variation invites far closer scrutiny of the study.

Sadly, Speedplay states only that the tests ran for five minutes, at a cadence of 100 rpm, and a headwind of 30mph. Data on number of trials for each pedal design, and variation in wind speed during the course of each trial would be more than welcome, but are entirely lacking.

Speedplay offers similarly little help in saying exactly what “available data” lead them to infer that the advantage to their pedal is “equivalent to the speed gained when switching from a standard front wheel to a deep-profile, aerodynamic front wheel.” The only data I could find using coefficient of drag were from Greenwell, which describes aero wheel advantages roughly two to ten times more pronounced than anything measured by Speedplay in this testing.

So, Speedplay—as far as I can tell, you’re lying to sell more gear. You certainly wouldn’t be the only ones. But I’d hate to stand here casting such aspersions without giving you a chance explain or clarify your findings.

I want to see the precise data behind this test—with detailed descriptions of apparatus, methods, and raw results. I’d also like to know the names and qualifications of those who designed and carried out this test. Finally, I’d like to see what research you used to conclude that, based on the data in this test, Speedplay pedals deliver such marked aerodynamic savings.

My request for this data is genuine. Readers and tech editors alike will tell you I’m receptive to criticism and more than willing publish your response.

*actually, I’m told that the increased surface area of a full-sized rider would make the coefficient of drag an even less relevant than the absolute value I’ve derived here.

Related posts:

1. Breaking Down the Voigt Crash
2. That’s Not What I Call Data.
3. Vino Strikes Back – News

The problem is, logic has no place in cycling sponsorships. None. Winningest team in the ProTour? American squad sponsored by an American sportswear company that doesn’t even sell cycling apparel. It’s secondary sponsor? A telephone handset manufacturer that barely produces any phones under it’s own brand in the US. Does any of this make sense? Of course not.

It’s tempting to pin the roots of this nonsense on the old US Postal Service squads, which promoted a domestic American mail service all across Europe for six full years. The squad was then taken over by Discovery Channel, who, other than a few glib commercials, gave zero airtime to the exploits of the team. Money well spent, no doubt.

You’d think things would be better over in Europe, where people at least have a decent grasp of the sport’s nuances. But no: Quick.Step? It’s a flooring company. And nothing sells a smooth, clean, well-laid hardwood kitchen floor like mud-spattered Belgians ricocheting off the hilliest, lumpiest, most mangled cobblestone roads in the world.

Just look at the businesses lining up next season. Footon? First off, the company needs to learn how to use the Internet—the first Google result is from Urban Dictionary, and footon.com, .net and .dk are all similarly unhelpful. If it weren’t for Andrew Hood, I’d have no idea that Footon is (drum roll) a Danish foot-beds manufacturer.

So Denmark + footwear + cycling…what comes to mind? Oh yeah. That’s exactly what a squad that’s trying to shed the image of its dope-laiden past is going for. I’m totally gonna invite these guys to my ProTour race, esepcially when The Chicken himself has said he’s got a top-tier ride for next season, but hasn’t revealed who it is yet.

I don’t want to insist outright that Rasmussen will be riding for Footon-Servetto next season, but a Danish sponsor—when the other big Danish name is spoken for—is pretty compelling evidence.

Then there’s De Rosa/Stac Plastic. In case you don’t read The Economist (article reproduced illegally here), everything in cycling is made in the same East Asian factories, and branding is key to a successful enterprise. So what better name to pair with a high-end classic like De Rosa than “Stac Plastic”. It adds so much to the gravitas, does it not?

Rather than the plastic storage bins or Lego-knockoffs you might imagine a company named “Stac Plastic” producing, it turns out the firm is actually a manufacturer of spray adhesives. I learned this from their totally sweet website (motion gifs? <frame> tags? BALLER.) that—in addition to pointing out their official sponsorship of Team LPR—features not one, not two, but three riders who have failed drug tests in the past two years. Could you ask for better brand representation? I think not.

So on second thought, #TeamGoogle might not be that much of a stretch. The Internet is rife with cycling sites that look like they’ve been optimized for IE 2.0 and that display none of the customization and versatility that’ve become the hallmark of the Modern Internet Venture. If nonsense sponsorship really is the rule in the cycling world, it’s not a matter of if there’ll be a Team Google, but when.

Related posts:

1. Pro Cycling News – The Sponsorship System, Charly Gaul Dies
2. Why The Radio Shack Sponsorship is Brilliant
3. Pro Cycling News – Zaballa takes San Sebstian

But I’m not swayed by the notion that this is some sort of “new Beginning” for Silence-Lotto. Let’s not forget that Lotto put two riders in the final break of six at Roubaix this year, and was only derailed by Juan-Antonio Flecha’s crash. The tactics at Paris-Tours played very similarly to the rest of the classics, with Lotto and Quick.Step making probing attacks and putting a man in as many moves as possible. Not to take anything away from the Autumn Double, but luck plays as big a role as anything in the one-days.

As for Lotto’s performance supporting Cadel Evans in the Grand Tours, I think it’s been pretty miserable. Everyone remembers the bumbling wheel change that might have cost the Aussie the race, but no one seems to remember that Evans never should have been so isolated in the first place. Jurgen Van Den Broeck was on career form at this year’s Tour, and burned off most of it up the road in early breaks—not the kind of teamwork that regularly puts riders in Yellow.

Cadel’s biggest win—the World Championships—had absolutely jack-all to do with Silence Lotto. Not only was Evans riding on an Australian National team that contained no one else from his Belgian trade squad, but he also profited immeasurably from underdog status, as the Italian and Spaniard Squads battled to control the race.

The timing and determination of his attack, plus better-than-most support from his team is what brought Cadel the win at Mendrisio. While his support of the sponsorship is laudable, it’s almost disheartening to see Lotto flacking Evans’ gold medal as “their” accomplishment. More cycling commentators should go out of their way to point this out.

Related posts:

1. Worlds Wrap-Up And A T-Shirt Winner
2. Looking Forward to Flanders/Roubaix
3. Pro Cycling News – Simoni to Saunier, Linus Iscariot

To wit: blood pressure drugs Telmisartan and Quinapril, diabetes drug Sitagliptin—which could, in theory, protect muscle glycogen stores from breakdown—and the anti-convulsive Valpromide. Of course, the AFLD neglected to mention the name of the teams or riders involved, what hotels they were staying at, how frequently these substances were found, etc., because that might lead to some sort of coherent investigation, instead of just muddying the waters.

However impressive this “therapeutic arsenal” might be, the fact remains that none of the substances are on the WADA prohibited list, and since the AFLD is a WADA signatory, they really ought to be more respectful of the protocols that shuffle substances onto and off of that register. As it stands, the only nod to procedure seems to be a dubious claim that AFLD head Pierre Bordry “signalled” WADA about his findings back in July—somehow, I feel that not how most list amendments are made.

I think it’s pretty obvious—the UCI implied as much in their press response—who’s at the other end of Bordry’s leash, and honestly, I’d be fine with this power-play if AFLD had been methodical and open about their methods. A detailed report, with evidence of what they found and how often they found it, released shortly after the TdF, would be a welcome thing, regardless of political motivation; if more drugs need to be added to the list, or if the UCI really does need to step up their control procedures, I want to see it done as much as anyone.

But a sensationalist, week-long media blitz, aimed right at the media gap between the European road and ‘cross seasons is of no help to anyone—except, of course, the dopers. Stefan Schumacher, one of the first riders picked off by the new CERA test is now using the AFLD retesting as grounds to clear his name. Now that anything “incongruous” is an implicit exception to the rules, who knows how many others will follow suit.

Related posts:

1. Zabel Wins, Freire Still Hot, More Stupid Dope News
2. Do Not Feed The Trolls
3. FWD: New Armstrong Allegations – Rant

You can be pretty sure it’s going to be followed up by one of these:

It should be noted that in either case, the assertion is obviously ludicrous—Eastern Bloc cyclists were notorious for their wild, aggressive riding despite institutionalized, statist upbringings, and a host of Americans have managed to do quite well in cycling without Uncle Sam paying their medical bills (though back in ’96, a certain Texan was damn lucky he had Uncle Mike to help him out instead).

I know this is a touchy subject for many, and as a guy who’s been forced to treat his road rash with nothing more than Neosporin, Saran Wrap, and an expired bottle of clindamycin, I can relate. But if a single tweet sends you into a rage, I think you may need to re-examine your feelings on the issue.

Loud, emotional, knee-jerk reactions don’t help anyone, which is precisely the reason they need to be lampooned like this. I roll overexposed mainstream stories into my cycling commentary for comic effect all the time, and I do my best to be an equal-opportunity offender.

You also have the option of not following me anymore, which, all things considered, is probably the best bet. If you’re not willing to take a second to ponder whether or not I’m being serious, there are better blogs for you out there.

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1. Everyone’s a Winner (except Boonen)! – News