the How The Race Was Won® cycling blog
Two days ago, USADA announced that jillion-time US National Cyclocross Champion Katie Compton tested positive for anabolic androgenic steroids. To say this took the US cycling world by surprise is an understatement. Between top-level results, ready availability for fans and media, and just generally being bad-ass, no other US cyclist comes close to matching the…
I got into a little Twitter dust-up this weekend with VeloNews’ John Bradley. It wasn’t on purpose—yes, I did tweet a rebuke at him, but it was based largely on my misinterpreting something he’d written. @johnwbradley @velonews shop your feelings away. Strong take. — Cyclocosm.com (@Cyclocosm) January 31, 2016 @johnwbradley @velonews my apologies. My interpretation…
Script (not verbatim, contains typos, and sometimes I go off-book) What is the definition of credibility? In cycling, the term has largely become what you are not. I am not glibly big-ringing myself to the top of Hautacam. I am not suing the living daylights out of every journalist and assistant who dares suggest that I…
Transcript Hey there Internets—as I mentioned on Monday, I’m a little cranky this week and so I figured, what with my ample amounts of free time and top shelf home production facility, I might as well turn some of that angst into entertaining multimedia web content. So I guess I want my first rant to…
I consider myself among the more optimistic commentators as far as cycling and doping go. But as the year wraps up, I can’t help but think a nice Resolution for the sport might be to stop asking me to ignore what a more cynical man might call “the obvious”. Consider the example of Sven Nys,…
“We are no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport. We are not confident that this will change for the better in the foreseeable future.” Rabobank, on their departure as a professional cycling sponsor That about sums it up. As someone who has advocated, and…
There’s an easy way to make a million people agree with you—present an argument that’s both simple and entirely compatible with their existing values. An example: A man is suspected of burglary. He has left fingerprints near, but not at, a number of crime scenes, 11 friends are willing to testify against him, but the…
It’s a welcome change each February to watch the lead stories in cycling move from the minutia of law and bio-pharmacology to the nuance and verve of actual bicycle racing. The wild line-changing leading into a bunch sprint, fading desperation of the second echelon, and poker-playing as a break pulls itself appart before the finish…
20% unemployment. Massive cutbacks in public funding. A looming credit downgrade. There’s no question that “La Crisis” marks a major threat to the fortunes of the Spanish peloton. But if recent history is any indication, the increasing internationalization of cycling will force a near-total collapse of the Spanish peloton in the next few years, if…
“[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…