I’ve been having a little email chat/banter, back and forth, with an old friend of mine.  It is about a certain rider that I think shows all the signs of a rider that is doping.  This rider has never tested positive and, as far as I know, never had anything mentioned publicly about implications of doping.

I’ve been having these discussions, with this certain person, over the past two decades.  He’s been involved in the sport for as long as me and has historically been either evasive or just downright opposite, of my views of the prevalence of doping in the sport, both here and in Europe.  It’s as opposite as his defense of Lance back around 2000, when I wasn’t.

We got into it again recently and he said the rider was a shoe-in, looking at the start list.  This race wasn’t the Tour de France, which might be somewhat predictable before the start, but it was a one day race.  When you can pick the rider that is going to win any given race, on a professional level, before the start, then there is something screwy going on.  One of the coolest things about the sport is that it is very unpredictable.  It is a little more predictable for one day races in Europe, with whole teams controlling the race for a single rider, but still only one guy wins and the rest of the teams look a little silly after the fact.

Anyway, my friend has a selective memory and got a little feisty and said,

Steve, don’t think for a second that I didn’t believe extensive doping was going on in the 90’s and 2000’s. I knew it like everyone else knew it. No one spoke out in public back then including you.

I had to remind him of an interview I did back in 1998 with MTB Action about the prevalence of doping in MTB racing and the road.  I think that was pretty vocal.  That was 17 years ago.  That is very depressing.

Anyway, he was implying that we were all guilty because of the silence.  He said that he needed “Strong, credible evidence” of doping by this rider.

I asked him what that would be?  The same evidence I had knowing that Ivan Stevic, Tom Danielson, Kayle Leo Grande, Ryder Hesjedal, Lance, or dozens of other guys that were riding juiced.  I told him that I had the same evidence, personal observation.  I guess that isn’t enough for him.

But, it isn’t good enough for anyone.  I’ve been asked a ton of times, if I am so sure that a certain rider is doping, why not just go public?  Also, that USAC has a program for reporting a suspect rider.

Look at Greg Henderson’s situaton  after he went public and tweeted about Fabian Aru doping.  Greg tweeted –

Sad to see @FABARO1 “sick”. Mate make sure next time u come back to our sport “healthy”. Aka. Clean! #biopassport! Or don’t come back!

— Greg Henderson (@Greghenderson1)

I am so sick of it. It becomes common knowledge within days. Why try cheat

— Greg Henderson (@Greghenderson1)

Now Aru is threatening, or actually, suing Henderson over the tweet.  Even though Henderson tried to apologize, via twitter.   It must of been such common knowledge, in the pro peloton, that Aru was having some issues, but without evidence, Henderson is most likely screwed.

And, for the USAC program, I have no confidence in the tests.  Obviously they don’t work close to anywhere close to as well as we all hope they might.

That said, I don’t think that there is ever any strong, credible evidence.  Not until a rider actually confesses do fans believe that their hero doped.

I insinuated that Ryder Hesjeal used drugs, in a post about Tom Danielson.   Jonathan Vaughters, Garmin’s Team Owner, came back at me asking how I could imply that Ryder, who had won the Giro, used drugs, just because he rode a year for the Postal Service.  Then, just a little while later, Jonathan had to confirm that Ryder did dope, but only when he was MTB racing, after Michael Rasmussen named Ryder in his book.

That irked me to know end.  At a twistedspoke, I had a whole post dedicated to my Hatchet Job of Jonathan Vaughters.  I wonder if he feels a little silly citing Ryder as an example of how clean the sport is since he won a Grand Tour.

I didn’t know Ryder doped because he rode for the Postal Service.  I knew he doped because I raced against him dozens of times and it was very apparent that he doped.  It isn’t that hard to recognize.

Anyway, my friend is sticking with his stance.  At the end of his last email, he said,

“I am an optimist for the future generation and I believe ____________ is part of that new generation of clean riders.”

He is wrong, but I have to admire his optimism.  Won’t it be great if it even finally works out that way.

Yesterday, on the evening ride, I was feeling just so/so.  My mind has been on other things and cycling has sort of been put on the back burner, which is abnormal for me.  I’m trying to keep some sort of resemblance of form, even though it seems to be changing, and elusive, depending on the moon cycles or something.

They are still burning around here, which means the air isn’t good.  Plus, the pollen count if off the charts.  I was standing in my front yard, talking to a good friend who lives in Italy and was in town visiting her mom.  When I went back inside, the top of my head was covered with oak pollen.  That was in just 5 minutes or so.

Anyway, I was riding with a group of 7 that were going for about 50 miles.  It was pretty windy from the Northeast and we were riding directly east into it.  We started out riding out by the river, which is pretty dead flat, and I was riding next to Bill, doing about 18 mph at 300 watts.  I’m not too big on just sitting and pedaling that hard for a long time.  That is what is nice about Eastern Kansas, it is rolling hills just about everywhere, so you never have to stay seated for extended periods of time.

I was telling Bill that I was breathing bad.  I can tell when I’m breathing badly because my arms get just as tired as my legs, especially when climbing out of the saddle.  Plus, I was having trouble taking a full breath.  And this was early in the ride.

About 20 miles from home, my brother, Kris, “attacked” the group.  I’m not really sure what he was doing, I guess he wanted to ride harder than we were going.  So, the speed picked up.  Bill and I kept riding side by side, but it was pretty hard.  We stayed at the front for maybe 3 miles, until we had almost caught him.

But, the speed never slowed down.  I couldn’t tell how I was going.  I felt pretty okay riding steady state hard, but didn’t much like any change of speed.  Pretty soon we caught Kris and we were just rotating.  Scott Williamson, who had raced Joe Martin last weekend, kept it going pretty hard initially.  Then Kris went hard again and pretty soon I ended up at the front.

Sometimes when I get to the front, if Bill is feeling bad and doesn’t relieve me, I end up pulling for quite a while.  I didn’t feel like doing that yesterday, but that is what seemed to be happening.  There was a big hill, we call Indian Hill for some reason, up the road less than a mile, and I was pretty sure no one was going to come by before it since I’d been left out in front too long already.

So, we start up Indian Hill.  I was a little hurt, but was going to ride up it steady fast.  That was until Scott came blowing by me.  My jump is completely non-existent now and he was instantly 5 bike lengths ahead.  The hill isn’t long, maybe 200 meters, but it is hard enough.  I slowly crawl back up towards Scott at the top and the other 5 guys are a little ways back.

So, Scott and I kept going hard.  I haven’t went that hard in a long time.  I wasn’t going good, mainly from lack of air, but I was trying to pull good.  We kept a good pace for the next 10 miles.  We lost the tailwind, heading back west.  It always seems to die towards sunset.  It seemed like we should have been going over 30, but were hovering closer to 28 most of the time.

So, we rode to where we sprint at the end.  Scott led it out from in front and I could barely hold his wheel.  After we finished, I couldn’t stop coughing.  That is unusual for me.  If I’m getting some exercise induced asthma or something, it is usually from going way too hard early.  Like riding a short time trial way too hard.  It isn’t after 2 + hours of doing a ride and then 30 minutes hard.

The whole way home I was coughing and spitting up phlegm.  Plus, my nose was dripping down the back of my throat.  It has to be allergies.

Whatever the reason, it is more than a little disconcerting.  I am already behind where I want to be form-wise.  I had to go back and look at Strava to figure out what I’ve been doing the last few weeks, that is how out of it I am mentally.  I sort of forgot I was sick just over a week ago and missed 4 or 5 days.  That might explain it some.

I’m sort of scared going to a real race.  Everyone is a month or two fitter and I’m still at square one.  Look at Scott for example.  He has probably around 15-20 race days already.  And it shows.  He has no trouble riding at speed.  I, on the other hand, have done two races this year, one in February and then a 100 mile gravel road race a few weeks ago.  Neither one of those races are going to give me any sort of form for riding fast.  They gave me power, but not top end.

I’m not really going anywhere here.  Just a little venting about how painful next month or two is going to be.  Coming up pretty soon are a lot of criteriums that I historically do.  Memorial Day and Tulsa Tough, etc.  I’m not sure how I’m going to get up to speed for those races.  It’s a little worrisome.

 Exercise induced asthma.