There seems to be a lot of debate about cyclist behaviour in Calgary of late – at least if you read the entertaining CalgaryHerald.com Pedal blog.  I find this both amusing and distressing.

I’ve come to love cycling in what I feel is an organic way.  I long thought cyclists in Calgary were insane, riding in traffic I barely wanted to ride a motorcycle in.  If you’d told me that one day I’d forgo the leather in exchange for Lycra, I’d have thought you landed on your un-helmeted melon one too many times.  Yet it happened.  A poor purchasing decision, an insistent child and suddenly here I am.  I am, for lack of any better box to draw around me, an accidental cyclist.

At almost 40, I don’t aspire to be a professional nor is my head filled with delusions of my own talent and performance.  I don’t have a pro-cycling hero  though I’m watching the sport and the governing body – the UCI – approach self-implosion with fascination as rider after rider comes clean about their doping.  I have no doubt the venerable Lance Armstrong is as guilty as Mr. Hamilton presents him to be.

I don’t read cycling magazines, I’m not in touch with the cycling community and as a result I find myself largely immune to the politics, the trends or awareness of my faux-pas.  I wear stretchy pants and shorts because  they proved to be more comfortable than the alternative.  I can’t begin to imagine riding in a pair of jeans or trying to keep the pant leg of my suit out of my chainrings.  Riding clothes are…well….for riding.  Why wouldn’t I wear them when I’m riding?  Does a judge wear his robes in the car on his way to work?  I thought not.  Do I care what you’re wearing?  Do I care that you care what I’m wearing? Not in the least, and why should I?

I’ll admit to bending a few rules, notably around stop signs.  On my daily commute I have a grand total of 6, round trip.  Two are on right-hand turns, one of which leads to  a dead-end / bus trap.  The traffic coming from my left are buses heading for the bus traps, sneaky motorized scooters using the bus trap and the occasional rider.  I roll through it.   There.  I said it.  I treat that stop sign as a yield sign.  I feel no guilt.

Two of the other stop signs are on residential streets that cross busy four-lane roads, which I inevitably arrive at during rush-hour.  I am not a pedestrian and I don’t pretend to be one.  When I arrive at the intersection, I sit in the middle of the lane, on my bike in the same spot you would if you were a car trying to get across.  I bide my time waiting for a break in traffic and go out of my way to avoid making eye-contact or communicating any other indicator that I expect or am waiting for traffic to stop so I can cross.  Despite that, about 50% of the time traffic does exactly that, and stops.  Now I’m obligated to cross but I’m not suddenly going to get off my bike and walk across like a pedestrian.  I’m not a pedestrian, nor did I seek to be treated like one – so I’m not going to act like one because a well-meaning and kind, but misguided motorist felt they should stop.  Besides, having been brought to a halt by the actions of one or two motorists, do the rest of them really want me to get off and clickty-clickty-clickty walk my bike across the road in my clown shoes?  Or would they rather I got my butt and bicycle to the other side of the road so they can get on with rushing home in anger?  I don’t care if @TomBabin or @CURTMAH think I should walk – I’m riding.

@curtmah That one annoys me too — the now-I’m-a-pedestrian, now-I’m-a-vehicle. I’ll add it to the blog.

— Tom Babin (@TomBabin) September 7, 2012

What about cyclists trying to “educate” each other by yelling at them when they’ve broken a rule they think is important?  First, nobody cares what you think.  Or what I think for that matter, at least they shouldn’t.  Do I think you’re reckless for not wearing a helmet?  I do, but so what?  I wear a helmet because this is the only noggin I’ve got and I’d like to keep in reasonable shape.  Do I think riding a brakeless fixie on the street is stupid?  Yep, and it’s illegal.  Would I yell at someone for it?  To what end?  Moral superiority?  Smugness?  Who cares.  In my first few forays on the bike, I had an indignant woman yell at me “where’s your bell!” to which I replied “Where’s your leash?”, her dogs (plural) wandering across the path.  We were both in the wrong and both yelling.  How much fun is that?

Imagine if you yelled at every driver you saw bending the rules or driving in a fashion that displeased you.  Sounds stupid just to say it.  I figure if you’re going to put the effort and energy into pointing out the incorrectness of someone else’s riding behaviour, you ought not to be discriminatory.  Take your good fight to the motorists too.  Make sure that all of those making the rest of us look bad motorists know that you know that they’re wrong. That You. Don’t. Approve.

The more I read about cycling community, the more I want no part of it.  I don’t ride to make a statement, to save the planet, to mimic my broken-winged idol, to make friends or for any reason other than one – pleasure.  I love riding my bike.  It is, to mangle a phrase, damn hard work and greatly rewarding when done right.  I want it to be hard work (most of the time).  When I’ve finished my ride, I expect to be tired, sweaty and sore.  I want to feel like I conquered some limits, pushed some boundaries and fought my demons.

You’d be better served and likely have lower blood pressure if you stopped worrying about things you have no control over.  You might even learn to enjoy your bike.

This morning marked a major milestone for me.  Two Hundred.  200.  Finally.  200 pounds.  I’m as psyched to be down to 200 as I was the first time I was that heavy.  I’d worked my ass off (on?) eating a huge amount of very boring food, giving what precious little money I did have away to supplement companies and gym memberships, getting up at 4:30 in the morning so I could train in solitude at 5:00.  Now I’m getting up at 6:00, eating small amounts of fantastic food and spending all my money on bicycles.  What strange twists life takes.

On my desk there is a calendar full of bumper-sticker wisdom and occasionally amusing quotes.  Despite their relative worthlessness, from time to time one appears that makes me pause and think.  Last week I was greeted with It is not the fruit of a man’s toil that matters, rather it is what he becomes from it – or something to that effect.  I’m not sure where you separate fruit from what he becomes in a situation such as losing the weight (or gaining the weight).  Is the weight loss the fruit and the discipline the true reward?  The awareness?  When does one become the other?

In more money-centric scenarios it is of course easier to draw the line.  I ran into an old acquaintance – an old employer – the other day.  It was pure chance that I happened to arrive in the middle of what can only be termed a complete shit storm.  It was classic him.  Despite having countless lives depending on him, he’d worked for months, perhaps over a year, putting together a plan that would see him exit the business he’d built up over the past 40 years.  He did this without telling anyone in the business save perhaps his soon-to-be ex-wife / business partner.  You’d think with all that time and effort, he’d have a smooth and painless transition but just the opposite was true.

His staff were all running around shaking their heads in disbelief as they were unexpectedly packing up the operation and moving, the real-estate having been sold out from under them with less than 2 weeks warning.  Actually that’s unfair – they didn’t have 2 weeks warning, they had weeks of rumours from other companies, in particular the company already advertising that they were taking over that particular piece of property.  It was just 2 weeks of formal notice.  Then, the other shoe dropped “and by the way we sold the entire operation in both locations to new owners”.  Tah dah!  New owners means a new management team and as of Friday his current management team had zero idea confirmation of their future employment.  That they were his immediate family seemed not to factor into his plan.

On the surface, the man has made millions of dollars, suffered a rumoured 8-figure settlement with his ex-wife, alienated his staff and family and left everyone thinking he’s version 3.0 of Slimy Scheming Duplicitous Greaseball, comes complete with more bullshit, thinner lies and improved misdirection!  By one measure he won big – lots and lots of money in the bank and the bragging rights to say I built that.  On the other he has the respect of few and the company of almost none.  I couldn’t provide a 5-figure divorce settlement if I was pressed, I don’t get to drive around old musclecars or fly first-class but I’ll tell you now – I wouldn’t trade my life for his for 5 minutes.  I don’t like the price of his fruit.

On an entirely different note…I found a new rabbit.  A new purple rabbit.  A new purple rabbit dressed identically to me (except he had a green plastic tub bungied to his bike).  Friday morning dawned cold and windy with a “feels like” of just 2 degrees.  I was up early, had some extra time before my late morning t-time meeting and no excuses not to ride – except for the wind and the cold and the laziness.  I headed out in my stretchy pants and long-sleeve shirt marking the end of summer mornings, not really knowing where I was going to go.  Common sense would dictate starting by heading into the wind but I never claimed to have a lot of sense.  I went south and immediately fell in behind a guy I can only describe as naturally clothed.

In shorts, sleeveless t-shirt and prodigious body hair, he hammered away in front of me setting a very nice pace of 35 km/h.  This was not going to be an easy undertaking and he was showing no sign of putting any effort into things.  There was no way to get by without looking like I was desperately trying to pass him for the sake of passing him.  Which I was.  My opportunity came in a most unexpected spot – a little hill.  We were already traveling fast and I carried that momentum as far as I could, downshifting early and spinning up like mad.  I passed him the moment the grade started in earnest as he faltered and shifted late.  I went by still carrying a good deal of speed and never looked back.  Cresting the top of the hill, I spied my new purple rabbit not more than 40 meters away.  ‘click’ ‘click’ ‘click’ responded the shifters.  There would be no rest for my wicked self.

My new rabbit was unaware of his newly appointed status but was maintaining a steady pace just shy of the hairy one’s, perhaps 33 km/h.  I chased him down but couldn’t close to less than 10 meters.  As I got closer, he’d inch away, I’d put my head down and try to dig up just a little more and I’d slowly reel him back in again, over and over.  Speeds bounced off the 40 km/h mark as my lungs threatened to explode.

Satisfied that I’d held the chase until our paths thankfully diverged, I relaxed for a moment, trying to catch my breath.  No more than 150 meters after taking the divergent route, he was suddenly beside me, then in front of me and the chase was back on.  I tried valiantly to re-mount an attack but I’d blown up after the first round.  I followed, rather than chased, him out until our paths diverged once more on Blackfoot Trail.  I headed south towards Glenmore Trail, fully expecting to have him pass me once more for good measure.  He didn’t.

My folly and lack of common sense was punishment enough however.  Having reached my half-way point, I turned around to head home, blown-up, sweaty and beaten.  With a headwind.  It’s hill-training, it’s hill-training, it’s hill-training…

Everything that is public to know about Lance Armstrong is now out there on the table for everyone to read.  Both supporters and detractors vehemently espousing their positions and their proclamations of Mr. Armstrong’s guilt or innocence.  Stories abound about his impassioned work with cancer survivors (cue halo and choir) and his ruthless personal attacks in the cycling world that pushed people out of the sport (where’s that pitchfork?).

Where the whole farce seems to fall down is in the apparent inability of people to separate the two lives of Lance Armstrong.  “He can’t possibly be the man the USADA says he is – just look what he’s done for cancer awareness!” or “Livestrong is simply fancy marketing, a shield for Doper Lance to hide behind”.  My question is – why can’t Doper Lance be an impassioned proponent of cancer awareness?  Why must he – or anyone – be singularly good or evil?

Al Capone opened the first soup kitchen in Chicago during the Great Depression.  Does this somehow absolve him of his crimes?  No.  Neither does Armstrong’s cancer work erase his actions as a cyclist.  The key here is to accept that people are not one-dimensional.

My opinion:  I believe he doped and I believe he was a key player in the conspiracy the USADA charged him with.  I also don’t believe he was the target of their investigation.  Here’s why.

• While there’s little doubt about Lance’s abilities on the bike, I am exceedingly skeptical that a clean Lance Armstrong was so blessed, so gifted, that he could beat the world’s best cyclists who were doping.  Never mind that analysis of his performance – specifically power output per kg of body weight – was, like other cyclists since found to have been doping, well beyond the realm seen in normal humans.  So, he’s either an alien or was doping.  Occam’s Razor would suggest doping.  If he’s an alien, I still count that as cheating.
• Passing a test doesn’t mean he didn’t cheat.  The rules were not “don’t fail the blood and urine tests”, they were “don’t use performance enhancing drugs”.  A quick search of the internet will put reams of information in front of you on how to cheat drug tests.  Passing the drug tests was considered so easy that getting caught was likened to failing an IQ test.
• He didn’t fail any of his tests, but…  when developing a test to detect the use of EPO, the lab tested 87 samples from pro cyclists.  An enterprising reporter requested the results of the tests from the lab and the doping control forms from the UCI.  The UCI cleared the release of the forms with Lance, to which he granted permission.  The reporter quickly matched the ID numbers on 6 out of the 13 EPO-positive samples to the doping control forms belonging to Lance Armstrong.  (side note – the manufacturer of Amogen brand EPO was venture-capitalized by Lance Armstrong’s business partner Thomas Weisel though this in no way implies a connection to the doping)
• USADA suggested they had 10 or more first-hand eye-witnesses who were willing and able to detail the specifics of PED use by Lance and others, including themselves.  Either Lance is such an unmitigated asshole that 10 (or more) of his former associates, their family and his own staff are willing to lie under oath or, Lance is trying to valiantly – and failing – to keep a lid on things.
• His defence has been: “I’ve never failed a test” and “everyone is out to get me”.

Here’s the rub though.  I don’t believe that Lance himself was ever the target of USADA’s investigation.  Sure, they named him because their investigation showed he was involved – heavily – in the use, distribution, counseling to use and even administering PEDs to other riders in addition to thwarting all attempts to uncover it.  That takes a team of people to accomplish so why hack on a “retired 41-year-old father of 5″?  Because he wouldn’t get on board.  USADA has said publicly that Armstrong was offered the same “sweet deal” that their 10 witnesses were offered, but he turned it down.  If he was offered a deal to testify on their behalf, he can’t have been the big target now could he?

But why does any of this matter?  Of the 5 people named in the USADA documents, 4 of them are actively involved in professional cycling today.  Now.  This is not aboutthe haters taking down the hero Lance Armstrong at any cost.  This is about cleaning up pro cycling today.  This is about excising the cancer of people who would give your 16-year-old son a choice between a needle or a seat on the next flight home to mamma.  Lance isn’t important, the people he’s protecting are.  Bruyneel, Ferrari, Del Moral, Marti, Celaya – they’re still active.  Bruyneel and Celaya are the team Manager and Doctor respectively for  the Radio Shack Nissan Trek Cycling team.

So, at the end of the day I’m obligated to follow logic – there’s an extremely high probability he doped given the EPO positive research tests, the eye-witness testimony and his performance against known doped riders.  The USADA tried to offer him a deal to testify against the remaining 4 but to no avail – so this isn’t over either.  Bruyneel and Celaya are going to arbitration where at least some of the testimony will come out.  Do I think we’ll ever see a contrite and apologetic Lance Armstrong?  No, but then we don’t need to – that’s for the haters and the people who’s lives he’s turned upside down, the racers he forced out.  For the rest of us, the real victory will be the removal of these particular poisons from the sport leaving kids who don’t want to dope a fighting chance.

Now, when are they going to go after the UCI?  That’s the real question.