Let's call it "The downfall of the doping generation and what the rest of us are doing now".
So let's start of by admitting that I am born in the early 70's and I turned to sports that require a lot of training and endurance. In my case it was x-country skiing in winter and running and mountainbiking in the summer. Later road cycling caught my attention.
Miguel Indurain made me start watching bits of "le tour" and Lance made me watch more cycling than is healthy. Armstrong was the perfect star in a sport that needed someone bigger than life and his contribution to the sport is of course massive either way you think about it. He showed up in July with his team and his entourage consisting of cute kids, Sheryl Crow and a bunch of Hollywood friends. And he delivered over and over again (until it got rather boring).
OK let's pause. Anyone who didn't find it just a little bit suspicious that he just crushed all opponents every summer please raise your hand. Especially if you take into account that almost everyone on the top five lists from these years have later admitted to or got caught cheating.
About six months ago I read "Racing through the dark" by David Millar, a great bit of reading by the way. I think I have a very "Swedish" view on doping and dopers where everything is very black or white. Reading David's story was an eye opener for me. Maybe I was naive before but when someone finally admits to anything here (and without hanging other named people out but yourself) anp puts the finger on the fact that the generation that was active late 90's early 2000 was so systematic in their "preparation". Add to this that the sport didn't do anything to get rid of the problem and voilá - a very dirty sport. Just imagine being a hotel cleaner in a French hotel after the tour has stopped. Just how many empty plastic bags with some blood stains still there have they seen?
Anyway right now it feels like almost all of them have been either caught (sometimes banned for a small time) or have openly admitted to being doped. One person however just won't admit to anything but sees a shrinking number of people still believing in him. Yes Mellow Johnny it's you and I wanted to believe so badly that you where above all that crap.
So is there still hope for proffessional cycling? Maybe I'm all naive again but I actually believe so. I believe this sport is so much cleaner right now. This doesn't mean that some old dirt floats up every now and then or a young guy tries to take the easy way out but in general I think it's cleaner. The way the races are raced and won today are more how should I put it "human". Just the fact that a nice wholesome (please don't make me regret having said this) guy like Fredrik Kessiakoff almost won the Polka dot jersey this year points to this.
My theory is that for every rider born in the 70's that quits the peloton there is more hope for a clean sport!
So back to what I called this piece. What are the rest of us doing now. Well I'll tell what is happening in Sweden - people between 30-45 are signing up for recreational races like maniacs. Today was the first day to sign up for Vätternrundan (300 km around Sweden's second largest lake) and it was fully booked within a couple of hours. Cycling, skiing and running is so trendy right now people actually listen to my stories from back when I was so geeky I was always out training these (formerly known as) unsexy sports.
I've always focused this blog on yellow bikes but right now the coolest bike I know is this one. It's red and it belong to one very special little guy...
