Punishment or Preclusion?
So I’ve been having these thoughts recently that I’d like to share. I would also like to put forth a proposition to the readers here. Since every Tour is marked with positive results for blood enhancing, I suggest that these caught individuals be punished by the following way.
Give them two choices.
1.) Never enter another bicycle race again.
2.) Ride a single speed bike circa 1920 for the rest of the tour wearing a jersey that says something like the “Dopers Suck!” kinda statement.
I feel like in this day and age, people are so readily let off the hook by just paying a fine. I kinda like the punishments that sorta humiliate the offender in some public way. So what better way to both punish those caught AND return the tour and cycling back into something of interest.
I propose that we sort out some agreed upon punishment like this and start a petition for the cycling world to sign. We could even buy a URL like www.takebackthetour.com or something and post it up there. Let’s hear some ideas. Is this a waste of time? Am I on to something?
Whaddya think?
RobQ
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I vote #2. No outside support either, they gotta carry their own shit. And grow period authentic facial hair a la handlebar moustache’s.
isnt that what the tour should be about anyway? no outside support, from drugs or team cars. other riders can help you thats it. rob, i dont know man, i do think restrictions should be more severe, but i also think the ‘trial’ format for convicting/releasing cyclists needs revision. i am personally very stoked on those two german networks that dropped coverage when riders from germany were caught doping. i think if more corporations grew some nuts and did that, riders would be forced to clean up their act out of monetary rather than moral fear. who knows?
I question whether those two German networks dropped coverage out of pride/shame and not because they wanted to send a message to the German riders. This punishment could be a monetary and moral one. We could set it up so that team riders that had to ride this bike had to carry their own supplies and get real food at towns. This punishment would ground the riders caught doping and make them see what the tour is really about on another level that is so far removed from current time. Bring them back from this bionic man on a carbon pedal jet with blood that has been enhanced to dangerous levels so that they can wear a freakin’ yellow shirt!?!?!?
Somethings gotta change.
dont forget that the old old tour riders doped with coke and ether, and 1950-1970s guys doped with heroin/coke speedballs, as well as amphetamines. its not a new problem. those dudes who used to ride fixed with just a front brake where doped up to kill the pain.
So your saying that this is just an aspect of cycling…? I hardly think that doing lines of coke or huffing ether is anywhere as beneficial as a complete transfusion. I mean, good coke can really make people go…but I’m talking about enhancing performance, not modifying it for a couple of hours with narcotics. What’s gonna happen in like twenty years? Riders are gonna have new legs attached for the mountain stages? Super aerodynamic heads fitted on for time trials? Cleats surgically attached to feet to reduce the need for shoes and extra weight? All I’m saying is don’t let cycling turn into baseball. It’s already going that route. Turn back now. I don’t want arm-chair coaches spouting off statistics of riders energy outputs in wattages while deciding which $3000 pedals to buy by using a postal scale to determine weight and lurking around any bike shop I work at wearing kits that cost more than my bike and pretending to be riders. That’s the kind of fuckheads that will be attracted to cycling if these riders keep pushing to be super human pedal machines…like moths to a light. What the fuck is wrong with just saying, “we’re humans…we can only ride so fast?”. Then they could come up with new ways to make the race harder. Do you want to accidently stumble into a sports bar one night and find cycling on the TV above a bartender pouring Redbull and Vodkas for the rabid houlighan throngs poised there at the bar high fiving and arguing over whether Lance’s real advantage was only having one testicle?
I think not…..
Riders are gonna have new legs attached for the mountain stages? (they are allowed lighter super bikes for those stages, does that count?) Super aerodynamic heads fitted on for time trials? (basically have it)
cycling isnt going the route of baseball, its been there done that. its going far beyond. bond’s is just on roids. he wouldnt know what EPO was it if it jumped out of station wagon and flagged him.
i’m not saying the racing culture is headed in a positive direction, but for ‘every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’ and if that means more people will enshew racing and get on normal bikes, and ditch spandex and ditch red bull, then i am all for it. and i see that as happening already. more custom builders than ever before, more wool options, more good tires, more cantilever brakes, more leather saddle makers, ect. this wouldnt happen if racing was just like it was in the 70s. cause it was approachable, and damnit some people out there still like to walk up to a bike and say, i bet that rides nice, rather than that looks like a fucking rocket, i bet i could shave .02 seconds off my 4 man TT with that joint.
There’s an article in Washington Post today that fits into this debate quite nicely (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/31/AR2007073101997.html). Check out the third page, where Leon R. Kass advocates for encouraging a culture of shame to inhibit doping (kind of the idea Rob is going for). Just thought I’d throw this in here as fuel for hte fire.
but the fire is burning my retinas.
Maybe you should get some glasses from that Aussie school program…..or just do what you do so naturally, and that’s steer away from the light the moths are flying toward.
Devils Advocate….
I see your point James, I think….your saying that all this negative media attention is good for cycling because it makes people not want to be associated with the lycra-clad multi-composite pedal rocket crowd…? and thus, people will then go in the direction of practical and aesthetically pleasing forms of cycling instead…? this could be good…perhaps we should help in hyping up the racing scene to force the world of watchers into a hyper-aversive state of revulsion.
i dont pay much attention to the other blogosphere, but i think this is already happening, ie long term tour fans lost interest/got disgusted with the tour this year and turned away. mel did and she loves the tour. i have read a few other blogs that had daily coverage to a point then said fuck it