Flats & Dopers

So yesterday, after all that miserable rain, I decided to suit up and ride over to the park. I didn’t have anything fancy planned, just an hour-and-a-half of getting the heart rate up to 150 or so and I was doing exactly that, trying not to get all too aggravated with the dirty water saturating the back of my jacket and shorts, when I suffered a flat.

As I’m sure everyone reading this can attest, getting a flat when it’s cold, dark, and wet completely sucks the big donkey.

Pulling to the side of the road in Prospect Park, I unclipped both the computer and headlight from my handlebars, flipped my baby over, removed the wheel, and promptly made a complete mess. Changing a tire always means dirty fingers, but changing a tire in the wet means very dirty fingers, not to mention dirty fingernails, dirty palms, and dirty everything.

After quickly swapping out the punctured tube for a new one (there was no way I was going to spend the extra few minutes finding the leak and patching it in the dark), I inflated the tire with a canister of CO2 (that stuff makes a stem mighty cold and it does so mighty fast), tossed the old tube in the trash (with such wet, dirty fingers, I didn’t much feel like getting the back of my jersey filthy by saving the tube I had just removed), shoved the wheel back in the frame, replaced the computer and headlight, and started on my way again.

By the time that happened, I had had enough of riding for the evening, so I went home.

What’s the point? I think I might start carrying my pump around with me again. That CO2 can be a pain in the ass. Further, I might drop the saddle bag in favor of a shoving a spare tube, tire levers, and a patch kit in a sandwich bag and hauling it around in the back of my jerseys. Finally, I’m worried I might be boring you guys to tears with these updates, so I wanted to begin incorporating content surrounding other avenues of cycling. What avenues?

Floyd Landis the Doper.

Anyone who truly believes that past and present frontrunners in the Tour de France--Armstrong, Ullrich, Basso, Landis, Hamilton, Mayo, etc.--are riding without synthetic help need to schedule an appointment with a mental health expert and have their heads checked. Understandably, by grouping Armstrong in this alleged-doper category, I’m committing something of a cardinal sin. There are those out there in the cycling community who, due to Armstrong’s cancer foundation and comparable good deeds, feel the man is in a class entirely of his own and that his VO2 max and lactate threshold are enough to allow him to race up impossibly tall mountains in France while other world-class cyclists fall far off his wheel.

To those people I offer a single argument.

Yeah, right.

At the same time, I do recognize that, if all things are considered equal, it’s fair to say that Lance Armstrong is not just the best, but the best of the dopers. In that regard, Armstrong truly is a champion. For me, that statement is much easier to swallow rather than sticking my head in the sand and believing Lance never stuck a needle in his ass.

Stepping away from Armstrong for a moment, let’s think about the Tour de France and how cycling has almost become anonymous with doping.

In any sport, there will always be those athletes who simply rise above the rest due to superior gifts: Kareem Abdul Jabaar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Troy Aikmen, Peyton Manning, The Fridge, Lawrence Taylor, Randy Moss, Babe Ruth, Yogi Bera, DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Pete Sampras, John McEnroe, Tiger Woods, Minnesota Fats, Ricky Carmichael, Jeremy McGrath, Mick Doohan (I’m not counting NASCAR drivers as I see that less of a talent and more of a money thing, meaning if you’ve got the money for a fast car, you can learn to race), etc. All these men had extraordinary talent which is why we all know their names as well as we do. Their talent revolved around coordination, timing, aggression, practice--all that good stuff most of us don’t have in the same abundance they did.

Not to take away from cycling, but it’s basically an endurance event. Sure, you need strong legs and lungs as well as a big heart (a lot of heart is needed in any competitive activity), but pedaling a bike up a hill doesn’t require too much hand-eye coordination, does it?

Let me reiterate that I’ve grown to love the sport of cycling, but compared to the stick-and-ball athletes, how much talent does riding a bicycle require? The point I’m trying to make is, you’ve got a peloton of almost 200 riders who start the Tour de France every year. Are the guys who finish in the rear of the pack that much less gifted than the frontrunners? Or are the frontrunners giving themselves an unfair advantage via dope? In other words, if I train just as hard as the next guy for the same length of time, what’s to stop me from winning a local cycle race? Endurance is built through training and repetition, no?

For example, when Tyler Hamilton was racing to win the Tour de France, he was Mr. Nice Guy. He was the hard worker the same way Armstrong has always been considered a hard worker. No way was Mr. Nice Guy a doper. Couldn’t be. Sure enough, when Hamilton’s doping schedule was recently discovered, it included an extensive program of blood doping, EPO, steroids, and more.

Hamilton was a frontrunner in 2003 and 2004 riding for CSC and Phonak, respectively. And it’s now known he was a major doper.

This year, Basso and Ullrich were dropped prior to the start of the Tour due to doping allegations. Think they’re really just allegations?

Yeah, right.

At the end of the day, there’s no doubt in my mind as to the true nature of professional cycling at the level at which these guys are riding: Armstrong, Ullrich, and company. How anyone can believe otherwise truly amazes me.

What do you think?