Random bug squashed

Ya know, Cantador is a dope/joke whatever.  I have never been much of a fan. So him getting a slap on the wrist is less than meh whatever.

Retroactive ban is dumb.  if you have good lawyers you might be able to keep racing and taking a salary and spending money on your fancy house/boat/doctors/lawyers and then if the ban is retroactive? well oops, that money? yeah I don't have any, but If you let me race I will win again (with better doctors this time).

Also 2 year is dumb.  Make it lifetime. And not just from racing.  Ban from the sport.  No need to have convicted/admitted dopers running the show, who cares how guilty they were about doing it when they did it and how much they profess they believe in a clean sport.

Awe fuck it.  Does it matter? The sport is just fucking beautiful. There will always be some one who will try and cheat to win, in any competition.  Human nature.  Some people are so empatheticly [sic] disconnected that they will do what ever it takes to win, to get noticed, to succeed, to get a contract, to get out of where they are.  There is little difference from the mentality of a doper and the mentality of a criminal.  They are in it for themselves.  Sometimes they are in it for those immediately around them.

Just the way it is.  Would all of us (amateur bike racers, club riders) physiologically benefit from a daily/weekly dose of HGH? Absolutely no question.  We would immensely.  healthier, stronger, whatever.  Pretty tempting to be able to get the feeling of being 20 years old again, esp once you hit that 40 mark. But the benefits are there for those in their early 30s too.

Oh well.

There will always be riders we love, and riders we hate. That's what it is to be a fan.  Dale Earnhardt (Sr) fans hated with a passion that kid who drove the Dupot #24, by having a favorite rider/driver you almost have to have someone you would hate to see win.  For a lot of people it was Contador.  Probably still is.  Some times we root for the under dog.

Or a cross over like Lars Boom, killing it in the spring classics, or making a break away.  The rider across the line first may not give us as much joy as a suicidal breakaway, doomed from the start but ridden with so much passion as to be beautiful.

Bike racing is pretty amazing.  The Classics are coming up soon.  Cyclocross is basically over.  Soon it will be time to switch to pirate feeds of road bikes with skinny tires.  Maybe the mild winter will translate into some epic cold nasty brutal racing this spring in Belgium.  Riders crossing the line with so much dirt that it obscures their paycheck backer.

Life. It is what it is.  People want to cheat, to exploit the system for personal gain.  To mitigate it is a challenge, a noble cause with far too few champions.

heddwch
G