The Mailbag is a regular department 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 should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company.

Wishing Fausto well
Editor,

re: Fausto Esparza's accident

My best thoughts go to big Fausto. Hope he makes a full recovery.

He is a very humble rider has raced bikes for at least 15 years. I first remember him as one of the dominant mountain bike riders in the expert class in '94. My best memory is him wanting to beat someone up for cutting shortcuts in a National Cup race in Morelia I think.

When I moved to Guadalajara where he's from, he was a staple at the off season long mountain bike group rides, always sharing laughs and being loud and friendly. He even showed up at some club races, riding without registering, helping stablish the day's break and when the race hit the turnaround point he'll just keep going straight. That of course made him a favorite of those of us that didn't take ourselves or our racing very seriously but really pissed the organizers and the Sunday ride world champions among us.

In all he's a very playful, fun guy to hang around whether on the trail or on the road and has of course some really impressive results to his name.

A rueda machin no te achicopales ...
El Güerote.
Rodrigo Hermosillo,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Canadian geography
Editor,

re: the article on the new offroad stage race

You'd think from most bike media coverage that BC is one gigantic (Rocky) mountain. It is great you cover the new MTB stage race in Kamloops, but then you go and say Kamloops is in the Rocky Mountains. Not so. Kamloops is in the middle of BC, the Rocky Mountains (home to the Trans-Rockies race) form the eastern boundary of our province, keeping the rest of the
country at bay ...

I've seen this mistake made by several bike mags — but never by a ski one!

The race is named the Intermontaine Challenge after the Intermontaine Plateau (upon which Kamloops is located). And, as our Quebec brothers could tell you — "intermontain" means "between mountains." The terrain around Kamloops is arid, rolling and smooth - and cannot be found anywhere else in the province. It is closer in climate and terrain to Moab than it is to The Rockies.

There are about 70 mountain ranges and sub-ranges in BC. The Coast Mountain Range can be found near the coast (duh), running from Alaska to Washington (where they become The Cascades). This range is home to the seven-day BC Bike Race.

The Columbia Mountains are another distinct range, between the Rockies and Coast Mountains, extending south through Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Between the Columbia and Coast ranges is BC's prime farming (and riding!) terrain — the Intermontaine Plateau.

Throw in the Rockies to the east, and these four regions make up most of southern BC, and probably have as many mountain bike trails as the rest of North America put together.

If you think I am exaggerating - plan a roadtrip & ride Fernie, Nelson, Castlegar, Rossland, Kelowna, Kamloops, Penticton, Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler. Each has unique geography and dozens of maintained trails. And those are just the big towns ... I could list twenty more.

A lot of these towns/cities live for mountainbiking (and road!) from spring to fall. The trails are easy to find and the locals are happy to see tourist riders. Epic XC & DH singletrack awaits! But brush up on your geography first — regional rivalries abound!

Thanks for a great magazine/website. And thanks for including our Canadian superstars in your World/European coverage!
Steve Overland,
Vancouver, British Columbia

Inhaler abuse?
Editor,

re: Allesandro Petacchi's suspension

As a cyclist with asthma I really can’t understand the CAS’s ruling: Petacchi is declared to be not guilty but he’s suspended anyway … Hunh?

If I can’t breathe after (or during) a hard ride, I’m going to hit that inhaler until I can breathe again. I like breathing, I assume Petacchi does too.

It is a shame that an inhaler has the capacity to increase performance and could potentially be used for cheating but have they studied how long that increase in performance persists?
Minutes? Hours? Days? (that would really surprise me).

If Petacchi took a few too many hits off of his inhaler so he could breathe and they agree that it was "unintentional," then strip him of that one day's results or the number of results that may have been affected by the medication for the duration of time in which an elevated amount has been found to increase performance not just the arbitrary yet conflicted sympathetic ruling of one year.

This really just seems to reinforce the impression that the anti-doping forces are more interested in looking like they are doing something by punishing people rather than using the information to establish better testing and appropriate penalties.
Al Parker,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Tour is dangling ...
Editor,

With Astana to compete in the Giro, the Tour de France is left dangling out there on its own, twisting in the wind with an impending event that does not include last year's winner.

Of course there's always time for the Tour de France to have a change of heart, but they'll have to be willing to eat a little crow if they decide to have an eleventh-hour revelation and decide that it wouldn't really be a Tour de France without the best teams and riders participating.

Will that happen? Who knows? Cycling politics are filled with more twists and turns, hills and valleys, than the roads traversed by the riders.
Roger Lubin,
Palm Desert, California

Road discs

Editor,

re: The next big thing: road disc brakes

I agree that disc brakes have a future on road bikes. I have been riding a flat bar road bike with hydraulic disc brakes for two years. The stopping power when riding in traffic is worth the weight penalty for the daily commute. My only gripe is that the disc rotor decreases the available axle width for spokes on the rear wheel.

The rear wheel is seemingly more prone to deflection as the cumulative effect of the 10 speed cassette on one side and the disc rotor on the other means a shallower spread for the spokes.

Might I suggest that the 'next big thing' might also require a rethink by increasing the standard width of the rear wheel axle to compensate.
Richard Silink,
Sydney, Australia

The Ardennes
Editor,

Congrats to Mr. Dreier for a great piece on the history of the Ardennes.

It's hard for folks outside of Europe to understand how much emotional ground the classics cover, especially in Battle of the Bulge territory. So it was with pleasure that I saw that he noticed how there are many cemeteries in the small towns there, dedicated, in French, to fallen Americans.
Kurt Martin,
Detroit, Michigan

Shootout
re: Bob Mionske's column

Open letter to fellow cyclists:

Normally I feel Bob's activism reveals horrible grievances toward the cycling community. This time I think he is loosing focus by attempting to use legal loopholes to justify illegal riding behavior.

Without question the Tuscon police are not in the right either, but the cyclists have generated a situation were they cannot win. Unfortunately, this situation plays out over and over again with just the location changing.

Assuming the local authority has sufficient mental fortitude, or intellectual capability, to maintain "professionalism" when dealing excessively large group rides is huge mistake. It is extremely unfair that injuries have occurred and clearly the "punishment" is unfit for the crime, but at the same time the cyclist are knowingly flaunting the law in addition to being
horrible citizens.

Unless we, the cyclist, begin to police ourselves, there is clearly public support for legislation to limit our riding freedoms. I for one do not want to have a politician decide we must not only ride single file, but that groups of six or more require an event permit. Imagine a world were we are restricted to bike paths and not allow on "public" roads. We need to fix the problem ourselves, because letting the police do it for us clearly isn't working.
Jim Wong,
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada