I must admit to not having read most of the cycling memoirs in the Works. I may eventually but the local public library doesn’t carry any of them and never will so I’ll have to buy them or ask Frank to tote everything he has to Hawaii. I did get off my wallet and buy these two and it was money well spent. David Millar and Tyler Hamilton have produced two excellent cycling books, parallel stories in very general terms and times. The contrast of how two people in similar straits handle the truth and the divergent roads it puts them on is compelling.
Doping in professional cycling is still secretive enough that it is best told from someone all the way on the inside. Journalists will be lied to by cyclists. Federal grand juries do better at getting the truth but we usually don’t hear it. Cyclists who lived the lie and need to unburden themselves make a good conduit. I can’t begin to explain it as well as Tyler or David did; their inner world of professional cycling is nothing we hear much about. In the 1990s it was the wild west where the law was absent. Spanish “doctors”, syringes and mini-centrifuges ruled the day. It’s such a huge subject, too interwoven with passion and pressure, so much grey area. For a person like me who likes to talk about doping in black and white, I’ve learned how institutionalized and insidious it was (past tense, I hope). It’s not so simple. It’s tragic. To feed the young ambitious athlete into a system where there is no choice but to accept the drug system is criminal. When money is at stake and the UCI is complicit, as is team management, those are some criminals.
Racing Through the Dark-by David Millar. I’ll also admit to being a long time admirer of David Millar. He has always been well- spoken and not afraid to confront, two qualities I admire and personally lack, but they make a good writer. Millar is a military brat who found his cycling talent in the 10 mile British time trial club races. He ended up living his dream, riding on the Cofidis team, France’s well- funded but dysfunctional squad. He spent his first few years with Cofidis riding clean, yet watching how others “prepared”.
“In my youthful exuberance, I was telling anybody who would listen that I’d won in De Panne and broken the course record with a hematocrit of only 40 percent. I went to see Casagrande and his roommate, whom I refer to as L’Équipier (the teammate), so that I could show Casagrande the test results.
I stood there, a big grin on my face, expecting Casagrande to congratulate me and say something morale boosting. But he didn’t. After a pause, he handed the results back to me and then turned to speak to his roommate in Italian.
“Perché non é a cinquate?” Casagrande asked L’Équipier, puzzled, Why isn’t he at fifty?
No one talked about doping and no one talked about not doping. Eventually, after VDB self-destructed and Casagrande was busted, Millar became a team leader. And with that mantle came the responsibility to produce results, be a professional. And eventually he was implicated by a teammate, evidence was found, he was out of cycling, deeply in debt, and drinking his way to the bottom.
For some interesting video here is a recent Spanish documentary from the inner ring.
The Secret Race-by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle. Tyler Hamilton and I grew up in the same end of Massachusetts, he went to the same prep school @rob and I dropped out of, so I always felt slightly connected to him. So I was a fan boy and stood by his fantastic excuses for too long.
The whole wretched story of doping in cycling is right here. Tyler Hamilton cheated and lied for so long, it took until 2011 before he could tell his parents the truth. And despite his decade of lying, this book rings true. His reward was getting out from under the lie. I think he would have written the book for free just for the unburdening. He states many times the lightness of being after testimony and though he knows it’s very unlikely, hopes Lance can feel the same lightness that comes from telling the truth. This book is Tyler Hamilton’s story but it is closely linked to part of the Armstrong saga.
Like Millar, Hamilton was unaware of systemic drug use until he had joined the professional ranks. US Postal drugs were at first team- provided and paid for. Once you proved yourself as one of the best riders on the team, as someone who could help Lance win the Tour, you earned the right to use EPO. It is fascinating reading, it’s horrifying, it’s depressing. Most unsettling is Lance Armstrong’s behavior. There are many revelations regarding Armstrong’s psychotic need to win. I’ll share just this one.
Tyler was eased out of US Postal because he was too strong a rider and perceived as a threat to Armstrong. So Tyler left and signed with Phonak in 2004. There was a time trial up Mont Ventoux in the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré weeks before the Tour de France. Tyler beat Lance in the TT. Later during the Tour, Floyd Landis, who was still riding for US Postal rode along side Tyler.
“You need to know something”
I pulled in closer. Floyd’s Mennonite conscience was bothering him.
“Lance called the UCI on you,” he said. “He called Hien, after Ventoux. Said you guys and Mayo were on some new shit, told Hien to get on you. He knew they’d call call you in. He’s been talking shit nonstop. And I think it’s right that you know.”
This little story is amazing for many different reasons and the only good one is Floyd Landis telling it to Tyler. I’m guilty of saying some negative things about Floyd, mostly because he was such an idiot liar. But at a point, when he has nothing to gain and he has lost everything else and he starts telling the truth, he gains back my respect, just like Tyler Hamilton has.
I ended up reading these books one right after the other. As I said before, I recommend them both. David Millar is a better writer. He actually has more demons to battle than Hamilton so his story of redemption is inspiring. Tyler Hamilton’s story is more depraved (in a doping sense) but both books are important. A lot of people in cycling are now admitting to past deeds in very unspecific terms. These two authors are both shining lights into some dark corners and making the inevitability of drug use in cycling more human and understandable. Also, in reading these books back to back, it highlights the contrast in how these two people dealt with their fates.
Both had the bad luck to be nearly singled out as dopers when a large percent of the riders were dopers. Millar realized it was the doping that killed his passion for even riding a bike. He took no joy in his EPO-assisted victories, only a temporary satisfaction that the task at hand was completed. He decided to come clean and to become an advocate for clean racing and changing the corrupt system.
Hamilton could not admit to anyone but his wife (who already knew) that he had been a cheat. His lie was so crushing he couldn’t even see a way out. He then spent all his money and energy protecting the lie for years, for nothing, obviously. It was the threat of perjury in that finally broke open the dam. It’s a cruel lesson to learn; the truth will set you free, even if it takes forever.
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@G'rilla I'm ready for Velominati Super Prestige Superprestige Cyclocross
was / am tempted to have a go at LA through strava - but à just don't feel like stooping to that troll like level .... but am tempted..... he posted 3 hours ago about some triathlon business....... some other douche said "" ooooo i love you dont't listen to teh haters ooooooo you're the greatest cyclist EVAAA ooooooh....." - now he deserved a spray....
th line I had in mind was "how did Edgar go on the cycling leg?" or some such hilarity.
Any strava peeps who don't already know and have the balls to slap Lance - he is registered as Juan Pelota.
@Leroy Not sure I really follow you. Are you suggesting some sort of moral equivalence between, say, (i) DZ and Banged and Felled, who succumbed to explicit pressure to get on or get out but eventually confessed their trangressions and accepted their suspensions, and (ii) COTHO, who applied the pressure, abused his position as patron by becoming the uber-enforcer of the omerta and remains unrepentant to this day? "Too black and white" is one way of describing that view. Barking mad is another. Of course the DZ's et al did wrong and deserve punishment. They're getting it. One may cynically ask about their motives and question quite how much clemency they should receive, but that does not put them in the same category as COTHO. Take a read of the Reasoned Decision. Even though there are troubling aspects (e.g. the reliance on hearsay), the overwhelming picture painted is not reconcilable with a moral equivalence between COTHO and the confessed. It was orchestrated cheating of the highest order enforced by coercion. That no-one had a needle rammed into their arm while being held down doesn't mean those doing the coercing are no worse than the coerced. They mainfestly are.
@Leroy I don't say that USPS is any worse than any other team, but USPS is the one involved in these explosive revelations that finally opened my eyes. And I think you underestimate the pressures involved - I'm not saying the kids didn't have a choice, I'm saying that it's unforgiveable to put so much pressure on them they felt they didn't have a choice. Damning the coercion is nothing to do with forgiving the complicity. As we see in the general population, there's a big difference between a drug user and a drug pusher. I have plenty of sympathy for a user but little for a pusher. Whatever team or country they are from, or if it's Armstrong, Bruyneel, Saiz, Pevenage or anyone else, fuck them.
I too am a little uneasy about some of the motivations of various people in all this, but the sheer preponderance of the various testimonies and the peripheral casualties (Matt White, etc.) who are also fessing up far exceed the doubts. I really think that if you think this is still just anti-Lance witch hunt you're gravely missing the point.
@G'phant +1
@G'phant
Eloquently put Cap'n Pou Pou.
@G'phant & @Oli nicely put.
@Leroy
The closest any of us are likely to come to making such a decision would be if our kids display a bit more sporting ability or application than than we did, so it's hard for us to truthfully say how we'd have reacted to the pressure in our youth (what we want for our kids is often a very different path to that which we chose ourselves). I suspect that a fair few of us would have gone with the flow and most of those would have then done everything within their power to maintain the lie. I'd say its more than likely that I would have.
@G'phant
Can you direct me to where anyone said they felt they needed to dope to ride for USPS alone? From what I've read; to a man, each rider is saying that they felt like they needed to dope to remain a PRO. That, by simple logic, means that USPS was no different than any other team and that any of those riders who may or may not have considered staying clean felt that they couldn't ride clean FOR ANY TEAM. Singling out USPS is stupid... Singling out Lance is even worse. If it was all Lance than some of these guys would've refused and gone on with their careers elsewhere... But that's simply not the reality of the era. It wasn't that you had to dope to ride for Lance, you had to dope to ride Pro... period. If recognizing that basic and obvious logic makes me 'barking mad'... so be it, but that's really as basic as logic gets and you'd have to be 'barking mad' (or just looking for more reasons to hate Lance) to ignore that reality. Maybe it's that you guys are eager to hate Lance while I'm entirely ambivalent about the man but you guys seem to ignoring the massive massive grey area that no one wants to touch.
You're either saying that:
1. Lance personally introduced EPO and 'roids to the peloton, in which case it's too rediculous to even continue debating... Or...
2. You have to recognize the simple reality that, at some point somewhere, Lance WAS that young rider making the choice and some previous patron of the peloton encouraged/pressured him just as he would later do.
So, once you reconcile that obvious reality... and knowing the extent of doping as well as knwoing that it was common knowledge among riders (I can't recall who exactly but one testimony mentions specifically that riders from other teams would share doping techniques even with competitors)... Then you have to face the reality that, at the time, the majority of riders knew they were skirting the rules and willfully helped one another do so to a disgusting extent. Once something reaches that level of acceptance, it's no longer pressuring people to commit some huge moral transgression in the eyes of the peloton... it's simply pressuring people to get with "the program". Just like steroids in college football and amphetamines & roids in baseball years later, it reached a level of acceptance across the sport that makes any attempt to leave a single individual cuplable for the bulk of it is disingenuous at best.
The guy is a douchebag, which makes him easy to hate... I get that. Hate him for being a douchebag, hate him for doping his way to victory... but this idea of hating him because he "forced" everyone else to dope is a joke.
@Oli
Calling Lance the "pusher" is a bit extreme as well... I see this as more akin to meatheads in the gym who share steroid and hgh techniques and encourage their buddies to do what they do. Lance wasn't out there pushing EPO to get kids hooked, he was endorsing it to win. He wasn't passing out free hits of crack to get unsuspecting kids hooked... he was bringing young riders into the reality of the sport as he knew it, as he himself had been brought into it. But, Lance being Lance, he doesn't do anything half ass... whether its his riding or his training or even his lying, he does it vigorously, extensively, and with a fury that few can match. So, just as all these poor kids were introduced to doping by Lance, Lance himslef was at some point introduced to doping and simply embraced it fully as a training tool and doesn't look back with remorse. Truth be told, I don't buy the supposed remorse from any of these witnesses either. I think the only remorse they feel is that they had to testify to avoid getting busted themselves. How much choice did a guy like Hincapie really have? You lie before a grand jury, you go to jail... Once he'd told the truth to the Feds, if he lies to USADA he's perjured himself and goes to jail... Jail time or a slap on the wrist suspension after you've retired with no stripping of your own accomplishments??? That's a far easier choice than to dope or not to dope.
I don't think we're going to change one another's minds... just agree to disagree I suppose.
There is the pusher aspect of it. There is also the bullying, character assassination and witness intimidation. Absolutely despicable.
@San Tonio
I second that!