I received the following email today from the Brandt-Sorenson company –

Good Morning, I wanted to inform you that your internet blog Stevetilford.com contains damaging and false information about our trademark “brandt-sorenson”

Specifically:

“He served a 2 year ban for testing positive at Master’s Nationals a few years ago.  But that obviously didn’t slow him down.  He decided to profit from it by becoming a drug dealer.”

The accurate information is available publicly through the Federal Court filing system. The incorrect statement is damaging and negligent. Please remove any reference to our trademark “BRANDT-SORENSON” from your blog and comments section.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Brandt
Cecilia Sasso
co-owners BRANDT-SORENSON Cycling Apparel

And I also talked to Cecilia.  She seemed nice enough.

I told her I was writing about Nicolas and not about their company.  She told me the link to their clothing brand was damaging.  I asked her what was inaccurate.  She emailed what was bothering her, I guess.

I’m pretty positive that Nicolas did accept a two year ban for doping.  An article from USAC from 2013 states –

USADA announced today that Nick Brandt-Sorenson of Los Angeles, Calif., a masters athlete in the sport of cycling, has accepted a two-year suspension for an anti-doping rule violation.

Brandt-Sorenson, 32, tested positive for Efaproxiral, which artificially enhances delivery of oxygen to the tissues, as the result of a sample collected at the Masters Road Nationals in Bend, Ore. Efaproxiral is prohibited under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing and the International Cycling Union (UCI) Anti-Doping Rules, both of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code.

So, suspension was true.

Then the part about profiting by dealing drugs.  From the LA Times a couple days ago – 

In his plea agreement, Brandt-Sorenson admitted to selling a vial of erythropoietin, or EPO, to an athlete in Boulder, Colo., for $631.

So, that seems to be truthful also.  Maybe the part about obviously not slowing him down?  That was just my opinion.  If that is false, then I apologize.

I think my friend Seth received the same email from her.  I think his response will be a joy to read.

Anyway, I might need to raise money through GoFundme to defend myself.  This blog thing is getting a bit stressful.

Alert – Just received a clarification from the Brandt-Sorenson Co.  It states –

I’m sorry I do not think you are understanding what I’m arguing. You need to not use the words “But that obviously didn’t slow him down.  He decided to profit from it by becoming a drug dealer”

This implies an order in which things happened. Which is FALSE. This was not in this chronological order. This is a false statement. Please remove. 

So, I guess I got it out of order.  He must have been selling doping products before he tested positive?  I guess they are confirming the truth of the statements, but saying it is out of order chronologically?  I’m bad, sorry.

This Nicholas Brandt-Sorensen thing from the past couple days has got me thinking about ways to handle “delicate” situations.  I don’t think that they did a very good job of trying to control the outcry of Nick’s behavior and punishment.

When you’re trying to decrease publicity, it isn’t the best thing to be doing to create more publicity.  And that is exactly what their “tactics” did.

Normally, the weekend traffic on my website is about 2/3’rds of what a normal weekday is.  This past weekend, the traffic was more than double that of a good weekend day.  So about 6X as many people saw the posts about Nicolas than would have if they wouldn’t have sent a cease and desist demand email.

And, of course, Seth at Cycling in the South Bay, was going to get a little more worked up when he got his demand notice.  His post from today is here.  So everyone that races bikes in the LA area is obviously knowledgeable about Brandt-Sorensen and his problems.   This didn’t work out that well for them.

From watching the history of this doping thing and the accusations and admissions, I think the best way to handle it is to admit, then disappear.  Americans are very forgiving to their fallen heroes, not that Nick is a fallen heroes.

I still can’t get over how he is professing to be the  “Top most randomly no-notice bio sampled cyclist in USA”.  I still don’t even understand what that means.  

Is he the best no-notice bio sampled cyclist?  Or he gets tested the most?  I’m not even sure what bio sampled means.  And the weird part is that the only reason he can write this down is because he was positive for a doping violation, so he was on someone’s radar screen.  That is a weird sort of bragging.  

Social media, in general, is a great source of information.  I use it all the time for tons of stuff. Results from races, how to fix things, etc.  But trying to defend yourself seems to be a losing proposition.

There was a link on my website a couple days ago to a Cyclingnews forum and there was a thread about me.  I don’t usually go to these things, but didn’t know what I was clicking on.  The just is below –

This thread talks about the first post I did about Nick and then goes off about me doping and that I cut the course in races to cheat.  Then it implies that I got “medicines” from Greg Lemond’s father-in-law.  Somewhere earlier it says that Greg was the first rider that brought EPO to the cycling community in Europe.

How ridiculous is all this stuff?  It is so weird because it is sort of close to being correct, but just off a notch enough to make it absolutely wrong.  I guess that is the way rumors start.

I didn’t even consider going into the forum and trying to defend myself, or Greg.  It is a losing proposition.  When I initially responded to the cease and desist email, I had a line about it would just be better if “they” just dropped the whole thing and let it die quietly.  But then thought it wasn’t my business telling someone how to deal with their situation.

Okay, enough of all this.  I’m going to go out for a nice long ride and think about more productive things.  It is spring now, so everything is going to be a little brighter and fresher soon.