The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

Bikes are cheap - time is precious
Editor,

In regards to the letter from Bill P about how kids in the US need cheap bikes, I submit the following:

Here is a 20” kids bike for under $40 from WalMart. This isn’t a little kids toddler bike (like a 12” or 16”), but a real bike for kids.

And before someone gets uppity about safety, here is a youth helmet for $10.27.

Total cost to get your kid riding NEW equipment is under $50. Buy used and you could do it all for under $20!
Tom Stone,
South Pasadena, California

Sponsors rush to the exits
Editor,

CSC is the latest in the rush to the exits, behind Liberty Seguros, Discovery Channel, T-Mobile, etc.

Discovery you could rationalize: with Lance gone, American consumers/TV eyeballs could care less about bike races; but now corporate honchos in Europe are shutting their wallets. Not a plus for the peloton.
John Rothchild
Miami Beach, Florida

Our pro-George bias
Editor,

This is in regard to your article about the Tour of Flanders:

You have stated that George Hincapie has been a regular podium finisher. Could you please tell me when did George Hincapie finish on the podium in the Tour de Flanders? Are you watching the same Tour de Flanders that I watched every year? And since when is Alejandro Valverde a real contender in the Tour of Flanders? When did even Valverde take part in the Tour de Flanders?

So much for objective journalism!
Jairo Daza,
Brookville, Maryland

Editor's response: Hincapie was on the podium (third place) in Flanders in 2006.

More trash talk
Editor,

I was thrilled by an unusual event I spotted as I watched the stage 7 coverage of Paris-Nice.

Clément Lhotellerie was away alone approaching the top of the La Turbie. At the top of the climb he reached into his pocket, pulled out a gel pack, ate it and put the empty back into his jersey pocket!

It always bothers me when the pros drop their garbage onto the road. It saddens me greatly when I see my favorite cycling routes cluttered with discarded energy bar wrappers and empty gel packs. I see no reason why these can’t be pocketed and disposed of properly, and I would like to see the pros set a better example in this regard.

Lhotellerie eventually go caught that day, but I don’t think the empty gel pack in his pocket had anything to do with it. Vive Clément!
Richard Swent,
Palo Alto, California

Sad season
Editor,

I feel like I have to tell someone that this new season is a different season for me. I remember springs past when San Remo was for me a source of pure excitement. I would watch, listen or read with dreams of 300km worth of grime accumulated on the road to the sea, and admiration of the power and courage required not just to finish 300 k, but to contest it.

And then, I would suffer over the last of the local hills I love with the peloton on the mind. How does it feel to hum along at 25 mph, 275 k into the 300 k race? How could I be tired now?

I want to be the same this year. But I do not feel as I wish I did. I apologize to the peloton and I apologize to me.

I look at the racers and I feel sad; what does it feel like to wonder if you will even be allowed to start? This is not all about Disco-Astana. It is about Unibet too — such a shame it was last season to see an excited young team and an excited new sponsor excluded. But Lotto rode. And it is about Astana; the recent exclusion of Astana is a new shame. To ban Astana after le Tour '07 would have been understandable, or even at the end of the season. To wait to exclude Astana until the team restructured and started a new season with new riders is just sad. But Rabobank will ride. It is about the entire peloton. The lives of the riders are so uncertain.

When the peloton rolls off on the roads so far from the sea I will feel their pain — could I be excluded? Will I dishonor those who have been excluded as I face the sea? Could I be punished? Can't I just suffer in peace?

I wish I could.
Jamie Bridges,
Baltimore, Maryland

UCI and ASO
Editor,

Methinks that the only way UCI and ASO will ever settle their feud is for all the pro team sponsors to band together and draw a line in the sand — or across the road for cycling — and promise to withdraw all sponsorship if the squabbling isn't settled by, say, 1/1/09.

It's interesting to see some words in Webster's defining a feud: a prolonged quarrel; lasting conflict; attacks made for revenge. They all fit, with emphasis on revenge. A huge problem is that the revenge is taken out on the riders, not each other. Webster's doesn't include "childish," which also describes this feud.

C'mon, sponsors, lay down the law. It's time you got involved. If cycling is being hurt, so are its sponsors.
Tom Smith
Ithaca, New York

Pro ASO
Editor,

In response to the letter from Allison Colbath:

So much for being fair and equal!! Here is hoping that all those people knocking the ASO are not being as biased as they are accusing the French of being.

Would you be so verbose in your support for the UCI if Levi wasn't a member of the Astana squad? Why are you not upset that the Acqua e Sapone team is not riding any of the big races?

The ASO has been around much longer than the UCI and the UCI needs to respect the grand tours for the prestige they've EARNED. I'm not surprised that ASO are upset with the UCI, so would I be if they tried to insinuate that the Tour de France is the same as the Tour of Qatar.

Andrew Marais,
Johannesburg, South Africa

Oblivious roadies
Editor,

A few Saturdays ago, I found myself embarrassed to call myself a Boulder-based cyclist. My teammates and I turned out for the NoBo ride, which leaves out of the Gateway parking lot. Over the previous four Saturdays, the group has swelled as the race season looms in the near future. On this Saturday about 100 riders showed up, including a strong pro contingent from the local teams and some pros from Toyota United and Slipstream-Chipotle. It would prove to be a spirited, challenging ride. Just what the doctor ordered to get the legs ready to start racing next month.

However, the ride itself was a complete mess. I have been racing since 1990 and this was, by far, the most disrespectful and flat-out dangerous group ride in which I’ve participated. On the more rural roads, the peloton took up the entire traffic lane on the two-lane roads. And, when the mood suited many individuals — like when battling a crosswind — the group took up the ENTIRE road. As if the roadway were closed off to traffic for our benefit. Riders consistently violated the yellow line rule and would go into the oncoming traffic lane to squirt their way up closer to the front of the group.

The string of cyclists was so long that vehicles heading north with us had to spend an inordinate amount of time in the oncoming traffic lane to pass us. In one instance, a minivan nearly collided head-on with a large pick-up. Both vehicles had to come to a screeching halt to avoid disaster. The cyclists in the group appeared oblivious to the dangers we were creating by acting so aloof. It was as if the riders were more concerned with grabbing the wheel in front of them regardless of where it took them than for their own safety or the collective safety of the peloton. I am still amazed there were no crashes and no disasters (in fact, the following weekend there was a 12-15 rider pile up on this ride).

My teammates and I came to the same conclusion at about the same time and peeled off before the halfway point of the ride. We were dumbstruck. We could not believe the complete sense of disregard and irresponsibility the group was showing – to each other and to the public. This is the type of ride that makes motorists hate cyclists.

What was most disappointing, however, was that the professional riders — especially those from the more prominent teams — were the worst offenders. Not good for cycling, not good for other riders who look up to these guys (they are, to varying degrees, household names if you follow pro cycling in the US), and certainly not good for the sponsors paying their bills.
Nate Llerandi,
Lafayette, Colorado

Fresh Korn is great!
Editor,

As a VeloNews reader since the Brattleboro days, I was shocked by the politically incorrectness of Will Frischkorn’s latest report. Shocked, I tell you simply shocked! I felt compelled to respond.

Belgium: Despite the fact that history books tend to dwell on the liberation of gay Paris, the Ardennes was the World’s battlefield for two world wars and serves as the gravesite for untold numbers of war dead. They deserve their pomme frites, mayonnaise and the best beer on earth.

France: If they could retreat or surrender during a bike race they would.

Italy: Heck, overly done up Italian broads are hot, at any age!

USA: Any racing is good racing compared to baseball.

Oh, darn it I lapsed into incorrectness (is that a word) also ... Please tell Will to keep up the good work, and don’t rein him in ... Push the kid. He’s young, he can get away with being truthful!

Keep up the great work. Love the new look. Don’t screw it up.
Peter B. Erdmann,
West Palm Beach, Florida

Re: the Astana snub
Editor,

This will be a sad July for me. I don't own a TV but every July would pay for a month of cable and borrow a TV to watch the Tour. But this year I can't stomach the hypocrisy of the Astana snub. Part of the excitement is always to see if the previous winner can defend.

It is such a tragedy being played out that several other teams got the invites even after they had their own doping moments last year and before. It's not right...

I wish Cadel and many others good luck, but I have to simply rely on VeloNews updates this year.
Joe Bright,
Honolulu, Hawaii

Editor's response: Joe? We're sorry you're sad, but we're not sure how to take that last phrase of yours ...

Re: the Van Impe test
Editor,

It is written, "There is a time and place under heaven." This was neither the time nor the place. If the organization that demanded Van Impe to submit to a urine sample under these circumstances can't figure that out, to hell with them. It truly shocks the conscience.
Larry Buttrey,
Long Beach, California