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On liftetime bans, Ed Farrar and fence sitting
Do you want to contribute to Mailbag, a regular feature of VeloNews.com? Here's how:
● Keep it short. And remember that we reserve the right to edit for grammar, length and clarity.
● Include your full name, hometown and state or nation.
● Send it to webletters@insideinc.com.
In praise of Dr. Farrar
Re: Tyler Farrar's father in accident
Editor,
Let me join what should be a chorus of distraught voices responding the news of that recent car/bicycle accident involving Tyler Farrar's father, Dr. Ed Farrar. While I never receive this sort of news well, in this particular instance it is incredibly depressing.
While I have never met Dr. Farrar personally, I was given his name and phone number by a friend when my local Seattle sports doctor's response to my knee problem was "well, you just may not be able to ride any more." I was shocked by this (and my doctor's general demeanor) and fearful that
what he said might be true. But I had not given up hope. So I called Dr. Farrar.
He spent at least 45 minutes with me on long distance phone. He listened carefully to my case history, helped me identify some drugs that might help, and encouraged me to try to ride through the pain. His prescription was right on target ! I still ride regularly and am able to manage the
pain issues just fine. Dr. Farrar refused payment for his time and made me feel like he was more than happy to help a fellow cyclist. I sent him a case of wine anyhow but I was startled by this man's generosity and kindness.
Only recently, I started riding with another fellow who turned out to know Dr. Farrar quite well and he told me that Ed is Tyler's father. What a strange and happy coincidence! I had not managed to put 2 and 2 together myself. As I watched VeloNews' coverage this season, I was so pleased to see Tyler have what can only be described as a break-through year. I was sure his father must have been incredibly proud.
Now we have this terrible news. I hope that all your readers will join me in wishing the best to this fine man and his family. As more details on Dr. Farrar's recovery become available, I hope that VeloNews will keep us informed.
David White,
Clinton, Washington
Now here's an idea
Re: Italian pro racers call for a lifetime ban
Editor,
Bravo, the letter from the Italian Pro Cycling Association speaks volumes! This is a sign that the peloton is taking action to clean itself up. Could it be that the days of the omerta are over? It certainly seems that a new day is dawning. Clean cycling is a beautiful thing.
More on the lifetime ban
Editor,
Finally! Finally! Finally!
The irony is that the riders (Italians) initiated this, not the governing bodies or promoters or managers, all of whom still have their heads in the sand. The UCI has its new drug cheat ban of 4 years; what a joke! That's not going to deter the cheaters. When the cheaters return to cycling after
a slap on the wrist, what kind of message does that send to the younger guys?
Congratulations to those Italian riders; they have finally determined how to save this wonderful sport (and their livelihoods) from disappearing altogether. I can only hope that other rider associations will immediately jump on board. (The Germans should be next, if they want to have another national tour or watch the Tour de France on TV.)
Lifetime bans should have been policy 20 years ago. The whole notion that catching cheats with new tests will eliminate doping is so ridiculous it's laughable. Most of the cycling world seems to think that catching cheats is the objective. No, keeping the riders from cheating in the first place is
the objective. The testing and the minimal bans haven't put a dent in this problem. Please look at Wikipedia's List of Doping Cases in Cycling
Start in the 1990s and scroll down to 2008; the list gets longer almost every year. The cheating problem is not better than 10 years ago, it's much worse! Absolutely zero progress (negative progress really) has been made; and the governing bodies, promoters and team managers are
responsible.
If you want to eliminate doping in cycling, then give the riders an absolute reason not to dope: Ban the Cheaters for Life.
JD Nelson,
Denver, Colorado
Adorable readers
Editor,
I find it adorable that at least one of your readers (in the Oct. 22 Mailbag) thinks that amateur bicycle racing is free of dopers.
Marc Bertucco,
New York, New York
Astana rules the world!
Editor,
How about this scenario for Astana World Dominance (AWD). Levi cleans up the early season domestic races like the Tour of California and the Tour of Georgia (with help from Lance of course), while Vino can kick butt in the spring mini stage races like Criterium International and Paris-Nice (which he has won before).
Then in May Lance can do the Giro and win with the support of Levi and Alberto while in July Lance
can return the favor by helping Alberto win a 'revenge' Tour. And to cap it all off they can all work for Levi to dominate a very deserving Vuelta victory. Now that's a season I'd like to see!
Martin McCreary,
Atlanta, Georgia
Thom McNabb,
Rancho Cucamonga, California
Wrong mountain
Editor,
I very much enjoy all of the relevant, topical articles you present on your Web site. In regards to your article Ventoux: '09 tour saves best for last", I was wondering if the photo in the article actually is the Col d'Izoard instead of the Ventoux? Thanks again for all of the great coverage.
Frank L.
Ashland, Oregon
Editor's Note: Thanks, Frank. You were one of a half dozen alert readers who let us know of our mistake.
Innocent Question
Editor,
I'm having a hard time understanding something here. With the recent busts of Schumacher and Kohl at the Tour de France for using CERA, it is clear that this is a seriously powerful drug with amazing effects. Kohl went from crashing out of the Dauphiné Libéré to starting the Tour de France only three weeks later and ending up on the podium with the KOM jersey. And that's without even being able to train before the race started!
Similarly, Schumacher suddenly became the world's best time trialist, able to defeat two-time World Champion Cancellera not just once, but twice. Additional stage wins went to CERA dopers Riccò and Piepoli. Clearly this CERA is powerful stuff! And although the Giro organizers have refused to re-test the blood samples from this year's race, it is a safe bet that Riccò was using CERA then as well.
So the thing that I don't understand is how was Contador able to defeat Riccò in the Giro?
Can someone please explain that to me? Is he so much better than everybody else in the whole peloton that he can be relaxing on the beach one week, and the next week beat all the dopers that were using the best go-juice to come down the pike in years?
Or am I missing something here?
Charles Hansen,
Boulder, Colorado
Mr. Explainer Guy gets it right again
Editor,
Your explanation was spot on — I've never raced, but I ride better with others who are working with me, no matter the type of ride — purely psychological, as we're recreational riders and we don't do team tactics, etc.
But, there's a natural desire not to let the others down and not to be an embarrassment. Plus, if you can> hide from the wind, so much the better. Thanks for a great explanation.
Jim Manning,
Riverside, California
Stuart O'Grady: A class act
Editor,
I was thrilled to read your correspondent from New Mexico (in the Oct. 20 Mailbag) recognizing the efforts of Stuart O'Grady in Australia's Herald Sun Tour.
Amongst all the bad press cycling gets he represents all that is great about the sport: holder of Tour de France jerseys, winner of Olympic medals, Tour Down Under and Herald-Sun Tour stage races, and the Paris Roubaix, survivor of horrific Tour de France crash and a serious assault in France whilst all the time being a consummate team player (who could forget the work he and and his CSC team mates put in for this year's Tour de France) and accessible and giving to his fans.
Henry Porter,
Brownsville, Victoria, Australia
Bob Mionske: A class act
Editor,
I just wanted to write in to VeloNews to tell you guys what a stand-up, #1 Class Act Bob Mionske is.
Bob has been helping me huge with lots of information dealing with my situation, and I just wanted to repay him back with great feedback to VeloNews. I used to live in Boulder and raced and trained on my bike as a cat 3 road racer in Boulder and through out Colorado in 2007 and 2008. But I had to move back to Nebraska due to financial situations.
I was just hit on my bike two weeks ago in my hometown in Nebraska by a van, luckily I wasn't hurt too bad, just a fractured rib and a collapsed lung but the guy who hit me T-boned me in a intersection where I had a green light and he was turning left.
Broke my expensive racing bike frame in half, and found out later the guy let his insurance lapse on August 29th and was driving without insurance.
The investigative officer at the scene, never gave the guy a breathalizer test or citation for not yielding to oncoming traffic. Luckily with my persistence the cops finally gave him a citation two days after the fact that he hit me. I'm still dealing with this problem, it's been a nightmare iand I'm praying I can get a replacement bike out of the guy who hit me.
A good friend of mine in Boulder told me to write in to VeloNews, to tell you guys Bob has been a huge help to me in this tragic event in my life. Thanks so much, that would be great if you guys could put this in one of your web letters. I hope my situation helps someone else as well ...
Darrick Sommers,
Sidney, Nebraska
More kudos to Legally Speaking
Editor,
Legally Speaking is great, so is the Web site and magazine, for that matter, but I’ve always found something very interesting about cyclists and their rights.
In a typical week I put in 180-200 miles which includes commuting to and from the office in Atlanta. I must tell you, I’ve never once worried about what my rights as a cyclist are.
Never has been an issue of right or wrong in my mind, more an issue of safety. What I mean here is simple; if you get hit by a car while on a bike you lose, regardless of fault.
Unfortunately, being right doesn’t un-break your leg, arm, collarbone, head, whatever.
I’ve always taken the view that it's most important to be safe, if that means bailing off the side of the road or running a red light I do it without regard for who may be right or wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t get angry when I am put in danger by a driver not paying attention, of course I do. I worry about my safety, not my rights.
Keep up the good work.
Wally Neill,
Atlanta, Georgia
The perfect weight?
Editor,
Why is it that the 165 pound cyclist is always given as the baseline when discussing nutrition, etc? In her recent Feedzone column Monique Ryan uses the 165 pound cyclist as an example. How about throwing us cyclists who are just as fit but fall into the Magnus Backstedt weight category a bone and give information for the cyclist who isn’t 165 pounds? Just a thought.
Chris Wright,
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Editor's Note: Could be that 165 pounds is a fairly average weight for non-professional cyclists. Or it could be that the web editor happens to weigh, precisely, 165 pounds. Not sure. Thanks for the question.
The short suspension proposal
Editor,
Jim Johnson’s idea about no-appeal short suspensions (in the Oct. 17 Mailbag) shows some great alternative thinking.
However, when one considers the most blatant case of 2008, the Ricco doping at the Giro (likely) and the Tour de France, one can see how this system would be constantly abused. It would basically encourage riders to risk getting caught with new generation drugs, and turn the sport even more to pharmacology over athletic accomplishment. Brief suspensions would make the consequences relatively minor.
We have to stop blaming riders, and ask ourselves why a Floyd Landis is banned from the sport, but a Bjarne Riis continues to head the sport. Lance Armstrong is snubbed by the ASO, but Riis’ team wins in '08. Also, how is the culture of doping going to be addressed by the UCI or ASO, itself made up of riders from the peak doping era of cycling? Who is the moral authority for the Tour de France, Richard Virenique?
Why do cyclists become pros? They want accomplishment and fame. Drugs are still the best way towards this goal. It’s naive to assume there are clean and dirty riders, nothing has obviously changed, other than teams, riders and ‘doctors’ learning how to avoid detection — this is the single largest area of innovation in cycling in the last decade. I think it’s also incredibly naive to assume amateur cycling does not have doping.
Former NFL great Dick Butkus has taken on the task to addressing steroid abuse in sport (which he admits to), as a result, he is a pariah with team sports organizations. One of the strongest themes in Butkus’ work and the work of others is that PEDs are cheap, everywhere and pervasive. One may be surprised to learn that the leading group of steroid abusers in the US is teenage girls buffing up for cheerleading.
In a recent survey in Science magazine, even many scientists and academics candidly admitted to abusing Modanafil, the “smart pill” while writing grants, so this isn’t about uneducated jocks.
This is a cultural issue, from our entertainment heroes to our political leaders. Only cycling is really addressing this, to its demise. Cycling is telling the world what they don’t want to hear about their sports heroes.
“If you had to take a drug, with the known side-effects of anabolic steroids, to keep your job, and feed your family — would you do it?”
Ray Truant,
Ancaster Ontario, Canada
Admitted caffeine abuser
On the fence
Editor,
As a long-time reader (from the early 80s), I wonder why VeloNews does not take editorial positions on significant hot button topics, such as doping.
I understand that cyclists are an eclectic and outspoken (downright surly?) lot who abhor being preached to, but competitive cycling is taking a disastrous beating from doping scandals over the last decade, risking the viability of even small, locally sponsored races, and, I might guess, national cycling publications like your own.
It’s hardly a secret that the tone and atmosphere for this scandal was set in “win at all costs” pro teams and national team training programs in this country and elsewhere (remember the US Olympic track team blood doping scandal from 1984, as pathetic and disgusting as that was?) and it’s hardly a secret that doping works in the sense that it improves results.
Does it not trouble you — the editors of VeloNews — that some guy or gal self dosing EPO and perhaps testosterone may end up winning a small race over someone who is completely clean? Of course it does; but for you to refuse to take sides in the debate does a disservice to your own economic self interest and the sport.
For example, the Floyd Landis defenders are morally bankrupt, and you should invoke your bully pulpit to tell them so. The argument for his innocence is purely procedural — that the original test was incorrectly administered such that the lab should not have been allowed to use the results from the second, more sophisticated test to determine if he used synthetic testosterone.
Everyone agrees — even Mr. Landis’ defense team — that the second test for exogenous testosterone was positive and that a false positive using the second test cannot occur! So he doped! He should be thrown under the bus and you should be there doing it.
You should also be promoting the biological passport (or a better system, if you have one) and using your energies to support cost effective (i.e., for local races) anti-doping techniques, so all of us — Velo News included — can have confidence that the next time you hail a champion we can believe that he or she has real talent and dedication, as opposed to the best pharmacist.
While you will undoubtedly alienate the near libertarian readers who cannot stand to be “judged,” you will win the confidence of businesses (i.e., advertisers) which want to be associated with a thrilling sport, knowing that the races are honest, fair and transparent competitions.
Regards,
Alex Darcy,
Chicago, Illinois
Editor's Note: You make many points worth consideration, Mr. Darcy. As for VeloNews.com, we are focused on covering the doping news fairly, accurately and comprehensively (as we cover the more appetizing aspects of our sport). Our readers' depth of knowledge and range of thoughtful opinions tells me we are on the right track. — Steve Frothingham
