First – the obligatory Ridley X-Fire bicycle update.  Still in love with it after 700 kilometers together.  It’s fast, it’s light and it continues to impress me.  The bicycle is amazing – the rider however is another matter.

Previous to picking up a bicycle last year, I didn’t care about cycling, it’s stars or it’s problems.  I’d heard of Lance Armstrong of course, you’d have to have lived in a cave not to, but Verbruggen, McQuaid, Landis, Andreu and so on – never.  No idea.  The UCI?  Never heard of it.  I admit to being fascinated by the Lance Armstrong case though, certainly more-so than my poor wife would like me to be.  When I start a sentence with “I was reading”, she’ll interject without skipping a beat “about Lance Armstrong”.  She’s right more than she should be perhaps.  Why should I care about Lance?

The obvious of course – a superstar cyclist, paragon of perseverance, triumph and the will to win, cancer conqueror and philanthropist being outed as a cheat, a doper, a liar and a bully.  I didn’t have much of an opinion of the man before, which is to say I didn’t have one, not that I viewed him dimly.  Getting on that bike led to paying attention to Ryder Hesjedal’s performance in the Giro, which in turn led to following some cycling journos and bloggers on Twitter and suddenly finding myself bombarded with details.

Intrigue and suspense, the hero / villain, the villain / hero (or heroes in this case), allegations of a corrupt system that protected it’s star personality while tossing others under the proverbial bus, dodgy European hotels, private jets and shadowy doctors.  Most of the tweeted allegations have shown up in the 1000+ page USADA Reasoned Decision in sworn affidavits which they published on a special website.  It will take a feat of unimaginable legal gymnastics for the UCI to refuse to strip Lance of his results now.

Given the mountain of sworn testimony, there’s no doubt in my mind the man is guilty of cheating through the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs.  The multitude of sworn testimonies that fit together nicely paint a picture that is every bit, if not worse, than the man the USADA made him out to be.  Now, while it’s my opinion that the sworn testimonies are accurate depictions of reality, it must also be said that it’s possible everyone is lying.  That begs the question though – what kind of individual must you be to have 11 former teammates – one of whom you described as a brother – and 14 (or was it 25?) additional connected individuals all conspire to ruin your life in such a fashion?  Possible?  Sure – but not probable.

So – does it matter to his legion of Livestrong fans?  Does it change their perception of him?  His foundation?  Cancer being what it is, it wasn’t hard to reach into my little circle of connections to find some input from people touched by cancer.  Perhaps being Canadians, his charm is slightly muted, the Foundation’s work less tangible but the majority of feedback I received could be categorized as “Meh – whatever”.  They have no opinion of the foundation or of the man.  They’ve not followed the story beyond filing the soundbites in the dim recesses of the “unlikely to be used again” section of their memory.  For them, it isn’t even much ado about nothing – all of it is simply…nothing.

Others had more opinion on the matter, but not a whole lot more information than the previous group.  Distilled, it comes to this “We’re all human and make mistakes”.  When probed a little further, they believed he’d been accused of using steroids to win – full stop.  They didn’t reveal being aware of the remaining accusations - threatening teammate’s wives, telling new riders to get with the (doping) program or they’d find themselves terminated, relentlessly crushing anyone who dared speak the truth – even under oath.  I didn’t offer up the information – my purpose was not to debate or change anyone’s position after all – I wanted their unfiltered view.

What I didn’t find?  People who railed against the injustice of the witch hunt or who had digested the 200 page summary and determined that the witch hunt had found an undisputed witch.  Not a single person seemed to have consumed the volume of information I’ve read – which is not to say that their positions are incorrect or that I know and you don’t – only that I’m the foolish one spending my time reading it all…for purely spurious reasons.

What of Livestrong?  My wife – a survivor – feels as I do, that nobody is uni-dimensional.  Nobody is completely evil or without anything redeeming.  Similarly, nobody is without failure or lapse in character or judgement.  I suspect I’d have chased the money as a pro cyclist and doped to the eyeballs, rationalizing it in whatever twisted way was required, or maybe not.  It’s easy to say I wouldn’t today but 20 years ago I wasn’t me.  So, Lance’s cycling-related actions, despite providing the basis for the foundation he promotes, don’t need to overshadow the work they do…whatever that is.