The 2013 Anti-V Award
We reflect on another year of cycling; who has been naughty and who has been nice. The rusty chain award used to go to the biggest tool of the year but that has been folded into the Anti-V award. In years past the rusty chain award usually went to the present day dopers. Multi-year winners like Danilo “triple threat” Di Luca would now be eligible for the Anti-V award. To finally earn a lifetime suspension which should have been issued after his last infraction, that is something. To bring down a whole team because of his cretino behavior, that’s impressive. How many riders, coaches and support staff on Vini-Fantini Selle Italia lose a living because of his bad brain? But really, enough of him and his 2013 doping colleagues, let us leave them behind.
For those who did not read the Freddy Maertens recent interview, please do so before 2013 expires. It’s important to be reminded how tough he and his competitors were. They were racing more and being paid much much less. We have to admire how much Rule #5 was fueled on passion alone. This brings us to another personality in the running this year, Abandy Schleck.
We cannot criticize an injured rider. One can only compete at the professional level with mind and body working in harmony. Abandy seems to be suffering on both sides of the equation. We can criticize him for his lack of professionalism before he was injured. If you are a terrible time trialist and you want to win a stage race that might include time trials, you really should be working at that, even if it slows your awesome climbing talent. Contador was an impressive stage racer when he beat Cancellara in a TdF TT. Ha! When Freddy says today’s pros are paid too much and are too soft, he was winking at the interviewer and using international sign language to spell out “Abandy”.
Specialized threw itself in the running with it’s abysmal treatment of Dan Richter and Café Roubaix Bicycle Studio. CEO Mike Sinyard pulled Specialized out of the top spot for the Anti-V award with a personal apology to Dan and a promise to do business differently in the future. We take people at their word, let’s move on.
What really made us crazy was the notion that corporations have some legal rights to stop anyone to using the word Roubaix. Roubaix is a town in which the world’s most awesome velodrome decides the world’s most awesome bike race. Trek has a trademark on Alpe d’Huez and Specialized (and Fuji) have one for Roubaix? How clever of you. Well, keep it to yourself, leave the cycling community out of it. Cyclists made these places iconic, not lawyers so if want to have a slap fight over trademarks, do it in the privacy of your law offices. If you would like to do this in public, please make your argument in a bar in Northern France, in early April. You are not welcome to ride the secteurs of Roubaix on two wheels. Piss off. And yes, trademark lawyers, We are looking at you, you have earned both our incredulity and the 2013 Anti-V award.
But remember: If you have a good idea and believe in it — trust it and trademark it.
How fitting to just put “lawyers” what an all encompassing anti-V award.
@unversio
Well, if “Roubaix” is an idea rather than a place, go for it, yes.
@DCR
Actually just trademark lawyers and I could change that to “cycling industry related trademark lawyers”, that’s sounds more lawyerly anyway. I bet most trademark lawyers are fine people and they are working at the behest of their CEO overlords, but Roubaix? No, that’s going too far.
I like this choice. When trademarks stop being an incentive to create and start becoming a cudgel for corporations to whack small companies (cycling companies, for buggertifuck’s sake!) half to death with, that is Anti-V.
@Gianni
Forget the Roubaix debacle. In a normal world, a business idea or identity should be iron clad. And iron clad implies that research has given good reason to move forward — registered trademark ®.
@unversio
I understand the basic idea but I can’t get my head around getting a trademark on a place, like Alpe d’Huez or Roubaix unless the city of Roubaix wanted to protect its name. Maybe the problem lies at the feet of those who grant trademarks. When asking for one like Roubaix, which is a city, they should have said, Roubaix? get the fuck outta hea’, as they would say in New Jersey.
( Ed McMahon voice) “You are correct sir!”
Man, a lot to consider. Every year I love cycling more and more, both turning the cranks and paying attention to other crank turners, both the folks ’round here and the folks getting paid to do it.
Even weeks after reading the interview with Freddy I’m still spinning. What an excellent transportation back to a great career he had. Imagine doing all that on a bicycle? Amazing.
Passion. My mother-in-law asked me yesterday what got me “obsessed” about cycling. I said obsessed carried too many pejoratives. I’m not obsessed, I’m passionate. I ride to work, I ride for fun, I ride for exercise, I ride to see how far my ol’ body can still take me.
The last day of the year looms, three hours away. Here is my biggest conundrum – do I ride ride some cyclocross (new chain with a new Red right shifter, oooh boy) or do I ride a road loop on the Italian steel road steed.
I’d say it’s been a good year, and thinks are looking up for the near future. VLVV.
Well done. Well done indeed. Seemed a big year for “anti V”. Teams folding, guys not getting contracts, douchbag tour de save face, this:
But all in all my biggest disappointment was not winning that freaking Veloforma for the TdF VSP. All Contador had to do was sit in 2nd at the end. Damnit.
A-Merckx. It’s just plain wrong for a corporation to be able to trademark the name of a city or a mountain in another country. FFS!
@unversio
Totally. And protect your trademark and possibly be a dick about it (keeping Rule #43 in mind at all times). Your IP is sacred and people stealing it is complete shit.
People work hard for their ideas, they put blood, sweat and tears into it – and often invest their own hard-earned cash into getting it off the ground. Innovative minds deserve to lay claim to their creations.
But as Gianni says, Roubaix is a city – a city made sacred to Cyclists by those who have raced and ridden over the savage roads to get there. Like I said before, it’s an insult to the sport that someone should trademark that.
@PeakInTwoYears
Word. There is a company here in Seattle that buys up obscure, obvious patents that no one gives two fucks about and then sets about the Internet litigating anyone who infringes on them.
Cunts, if ever there was a proper use of the word.
Patent attorneys are the YJA-wearing audax riders of the legal profession. Most of them (in Commonwealth countries anyway) are usually engineers too.
Thats why they are usually found in their own firms – not even other lawyers want to work with them
@scaler911
Wow. That is just fucking unbelievable. Full-on doping for a MASTERS 60+ category FUCKING RACE?
For some time, I seriously considered quitting my job to go back full time to ski racing in the hopes of making the 2014 Olympics and contesting the 50k.
Then I realized all these dickheads are doping like made and no way am I going to uproot my and my VMH’s life, only to be beaten by a doper.
(If nothing else, it was a good excuse not to throw everything at a goal and fail, but in my heart I seriously considered, delusional as it may have been.)
@frank
It’s scary just how widespread doping is. I wouldn’t even put this guy on the lower rungs – at least he was competing in a national championship. I know a woman in her 40 s riding in obscure local races who does it and I reckon any race I line up in has several people who’ve at least dabbled.
How much good it does them is maybe questionable but it’s easy to get hold of so they think they might as well give themselves a few hits of testosterone or HGH to help their training.
on the Anti-V award I sort of agree, although I think we need to make a distinction between the concept of trademarking something using an iconic name and the application and methods used to protect it. Steve Hed presumably has a trademark on Ardennes wheels but he isn’t going around getting biblical on people, nor does Chevy with Tahoe for example.
Fantastic. The award goes to an entire class of scumbags. Patent protection is extremely important but this is well deserved.
Biggest disappointment for me this year was watching Tom Boonen suffer another series of setbacks after thrashing himself at the front of Paris Nice to regain some form, closely followed by the demise of Euskaltel Euskadi. We are going to miss those basque boys, a lot!
About time….William Shakespeare saw this one coming a long time ago!
– Now we have passed judgement, when does the cleansing begin?
A worthy award for worthless people…
@Deakus Ha ha, I’d forgotten that one….
Happy New Year All!
@Marcus
Careful there…being audax riders would imply that they possess copious quantities of V, high pain thresholds, and an intimate relationship with The Man With The Hammer, all of which I suspect they lack.
The YJA or a variant thereof is required by RUSA rules here in the states, and we follow the fucking rules around here.
I was eagerly awaiting this year’s announcement. The winner seemed a foregone conclusion, but I like the nuance. Well-reasoned and warranted – looking to the larger issue exemplified and amplified by one of many legal malefactors. I wholeheartedly concur.
@ChrisO LeDuc didn’t just compete in a national championship, he is a world masters champ as well as multiple time national champ. He’s been decimating SE masters races for decades and everyone here saw that coming. His titles should all be stripped. Good riddance.
@stickyjumper
Ah didn’t know that, so it’s a little more understandable but no more excusable. Glad they caught him then.
It’s an interesting point about stripping titles – I was thinking about that as I read the USADA release.
Maybe anyone found guilty should be stripped of results for a set period prior to the actual positive test on the reasonable assumption that they didn’t just take it up that week. It might make people think twice about starting in the first place if they also stood to lose some clean results.
brilliant work, I absolutely agree, and love the sentiment
Now, to be fair, there may be some descent patent attorney out there, its just I don’t know of any personally. IMHO, the corporate suit and ties can kiss my dogs dirty ass, suck my hairy balls and wear this dedicated award for perpetuity with pride. They truly deserve this, however, if they think for a second I buy in that they have a trademark on ‘roubaix’ or ‘alp d’huez’, they are delusional. I wouldn’t have budged on this either, and am glad DanR stood firm, albeit I could only imagine how hard that would be to do in reality.
Bully lawyers in this really are something, but who cares. Bully your whatever around, I care not. Accusations are meaningless, unless people allow it traction. Ethereal arguements in a court of law, with judges who sincerely have no clue as to the utility of the arguements does not equal justice. Justice in this is cycling, cyclists…we own these places in our hearts and minds, as frank well said, we made these places our holy ground, our forefathers, Merckx et al did. Not only the past, as there will be others going forward we will all Hail in the end as greats. No corporate vermen will ever own this, the Pave’, the Arenberg, the Muur, and the host of every other thing in cycling we treasure with meaning….and corporates/douches never will.
If doping gets an anti-V award, then this site itself is a source of douchbaggery, anti-V, and hypocrisy unlike any other.
There are no clean riders at the professional level, but let me refer you to a comment posted on roadbikereview.com before it got deleted:
So please, stop searching in vain for a embodiment of V in professional cycling because you won’t find it. Seriously, the desperation here for worthy hero worship is so beta it makes me sick to my stomach. HTFU should also apply to anyone who tries too hard to live vicariously through some completely contrived public image sports figures put on for the media. Try looking for the hero within instead.
Also that post was submitted before AICAR became the drug du jour of the most well funded GC guys. Team Sky is currently rocking it. There is no way to test for it. By the time WADA can figure out who’s using it, all the riders will profited from its use will be retired and rolling in dough like Lance.
All professional sports are freak shows guys!! Stop sticking your heads in the sand trying to pretend like there’s something noble about a tradition that only non-competitive plebs still follow.
Somehow you managed to fall on your head and it ended straight up your ass. Happy New Year!
@unversio
Is that the best you got? Maybe the comment about your head in the sand got you too butthurt to come up with a clever rebuttal.
Try taking some Provigil or amphetamines bro. You’ll do better next time.
The Keepers, the lurkers, and all the rest of us plebs [sic] have been told. I feel as if a weight has been lifted.
@PeakInTwoYears
It’s a word bro Nice try with the net sarcasm though. It’s about as easy to catch as doping.
@crucible
Fascinating post. Can you now tell us why eyewear arms are worn over helmet straps?
I think it is more commonly spelled “plebe.” I think this is because, given the conventions of English pronunciation, the lack of the silent “e” would suggest that it is pronounced “plehb,” which it isn’t.
Stick around, though, and read some of the contributions to the site, if you have time, and you’ll find an interesting range and complexity of perspectives on doping. Then, maybe, you’ll begin to hear the discordant note that your initial contributions strike. Or not. It’s entirely up to you, obviously.
@PeakInTwoYears
Ha! I withdraw my spelling complaint. The Oxford English Dictionary includes both spellings. I love little discoveries like that.
@crucible
Ok, ok, jesus, take it down a fucking notch already. Believe me, this discussion is an on-going one here on this site. Is Sky or Garmin for real or not, yes we would all like to know. I would like knowing more of your background before I can believe anyone saying “Trust me, I know”. Someone close to a team doctor would have such a depth of knowledge as you. Riders might not be that smart.
I would hope the biological passport might be of some use here. Anyone racing close to a 50 hematocrit should be highly suspect. I’ve had mine checked many, many times, as a plasma donor and I’m always around 43-44%. Never higher.
Thanks for checking in, I’m not convinced but glad to have your point of view.
@crucible Bro… I’m speechless.
@Gianni
What do you need to be convinced? For a professional team, the logic couldn’t be simpler:
1. Will it give our athletes a demonstrable, competitive advantage?
2. If yes, can we acquire the methods/substances employed?
3. If yes, can we avoid detection if said methods/substances are banned?
If you made it this far without any nays, congratulations! You just got an unfair advantage over the competition thanks to better strategizing and the tacit culture of ignorance doping “authorities” impose by rushing to ban anything and everything before they can figure out how to test for it, let alone the possibility that your team is gonna use it while the rest of the huddled masses look on.
Anti-doping culture is willful ignorance, the complicity with elitism, and class warfare at every level. The haves and the have nots play out a rigged game for your amusement. You think Team Sky would appreciate WADA temporarily making undetectable substances legal as part of a pilot program designed to study how the drugs were being used in competitive sports, only applying retroactive bans to athletes later who didn’t come forward as part of a temporary amnesty agreement? Obviously this would speed up research for developing testing protocols, as well as help the officials and greater sporting community stay informed on who was using what.
You see, neither WADA nor Sky would appreciate such a logical approach, because it would make doping officials look “soft” and level the playing field for elite teams. None of them want for differing reasons, so the tacit collusion remains. Better to keep everyone blissfully ignorant and make an example out of some has beens every ten years or so, since public beatings haven’t gone out of style.
The money is on doping, no matter what perspective you look at it from, and it’s never going to stop.
Logically, it seems to me that if the money is on doping and always will be it doesn’t make a ton of sense to do backflips working out new testing protocols for currently undetectable substances. Wouldn’t that be merely another instance of “anti-doping culture”? Just another escalation of an elitist, class-based chemical arms race to the bottom of something or other?
I thought we were reaming patent lawyers, here, anyway. Way more fun. Some Assos model is about to make an appearance, I predict.
The Roubaix thing is just Spesh’s most recent douchebaggery. They tried to bury Volagi a few years ago as well. Because the curved top tube and black and red are trademarked. Or something.
Here here! It’s was the douchbag attitudes of Spech’s lawyers (being rude and unhelpful) that caused all the shit. It appears Dan, realising his mistake tried to work privately with the lawyers to sort it out but they apparently refused. That being the case deserve the award
That said; It’s moot whether a town name can be registered or not. If anything, the name that both Spech and Cafe Roubaix are trading, and profitingoff was brought to the status it has today by the Paris-Roubaix race and really they owe the owners of it for their sales. That said, anyone who wants to sell anything needs to take 30 seconds to do a (free, internet based) trade mark search before attaching it to a saleable good. Its not sufficient to say “oh, I never thought a town name could be trade marked, I’m a small trader so you should leave me alone”. Who’s to say he’ll stay small and if they allow him, do they allow all comers? Also fail to see what the fact that he’s a vet has any bearing on the issue. I love he fact that it’s always “oh the big guy is smashing the little guy”. Bull shit, regardless of size, it’s simply one company protecting their profits by preventing others from trading off their tm’s regardless of their size. If someone started selling, say “cafe Roubaix” coffee, or a component called “richter” Dan would be suitably pissed. Similarly if I started trading off the Velominati name without consent.
Anyway, I’ll be very happy if this issue is never mentioned again. Yes, can we move on now?
@Puffy
Sure we can move on. Talk to @crucible.
@crucible
appreciate ur input; the tone could use some refinement, no? I mean, shit, on NYE you feel compelled to hold court, our court, with ur either god-given or insider knowledge and supposed insight. There’s actually a wealth of knowledge, experience etc already here, so save the condescension and just chat, yo.
What I do find fascinating is the numbers of performance- they don’t come from true studies; these are “scientifical” at best, only because no institution will give the approval for such studies. So at best you are looking at observational anecdotal medicine. Not to say it isn’t accurate and borne out by practice/real racing, but it ain’t from legit studies.
the other issue at play here for someone like me, is simply what to say for my kids generation as a moral compass. I do believe in a moral compass, an attempt, even if futile, to show a stigma about such bad behavior. Yeah, the bad guys always are a step ahead, name the arena where that isn’t true. But you don’t give up. thats how I see it anyhow.
@gaswepass You’re right about my tone. However, there is science as hard as Merckx confirming the gains possible through oxygen vector doping. The problem isn’t that we’re being directed to stigmatize anything “bad,” it’s that the people trying to direct the moral compass are deliberately pointing it at a slippery slope.
The most morally toxic atmosphere in sports is one where everybody rightly each other’s honor, simply because officials insist on making unenforcible rules like banning a substance before a test can be devised, or even gene doping for heaven’s sake. The end result of this snipe hunt can only end badly as it becomes a witch hunt. It may initially seem well intentioned, but in the end doping authorities have us all drinking from a poisoned well. We’ll either end up banning sports altogether or implanting homogenized embryos in surrogates that will serve as future athletes.
I’m looking at the long term picture also. We’re really trying to halt human evolution with the anti-doping thing, accepting nearly every external aid upon the body while trying frantically to prevent the emergence of Da Vinci’s allegorical perfect man. You can get legally get Lasik for a sport that requires superior vision. You can run in the Olympics with bionic legs that make you faster than normal ones can. You can participate in marathon races on this nifty thing called a bicycle, which enables a human to use less energy to travel a mile than a gliding bird. You can’t “dope.”
In other words: we’re saying it’s okay to improve on what you do as long as you can’t improve some willy nilly concept of what you are. Then we all go take drugs anyway. It’s preposterous.
Anyway, I shouldn’t be a dick, and yes I did misdirect my vitriol. I just get sick to my stomach seeing society try to pile chaos on something as simple and logical as a bicycle and the rider.
Happy new year everyone :)
@crucible
@crucible
welcome to the conversation.
Happy new year
… and Happy New Year to all. Rock on.
@crucible
I used to think that legalising doping would be the solution – and at that level I think it would work. Make the teams and doctors liable to the athletes for every drug they give them. Teams would have to include liability in their insurance and if we think patent attorneys are dicks, insurance lawyers are the Biggest Dicks in Dicklands. the whole thing would implode the first time a team was sued for killing a rider with EPO and it would be the crazy risk-averse insurance companies we would have to thank.
unfortunately the problem I have come to realise with not at least trying to fight doping, however imperfectly, is the people outside the official and regulated circles. The people in local and age group races who will feel the pressure and invitation to dope but without proper medical advice and supervision. There are already people in lower level racing taking GW 50156 which by all accounts is almost guaranteed to cause cancer. How does your proposed scenario address the issue of relatively widespread unsupervised self-prescribed doping ?
I would also take issue with the examples you give. I think there is a reasonable line to be drawn between procedures to restore function caused by injury or abnormality and seeking to enhance and improve on normal function. It’s not easy to write it down and codify it but just because there are some grey areas doesn’t mean we should abandon it entirely. Sports have rules and finding a way around them is cheating – it’s not that difficult.
@crucible
An honourable response, and I pretty much agree with your initial arguments, anyway.
The use of an emoticon, however, is unforgivable
Happy New Year
Oh, fine. Happy New Year, everyone. Jesus.
Can’t really argue with your choice, but I would like to nominate Specialized and Big Mike for the Lifetime Achievement Award for Ultra-Douchebaggery. To me they have represented all that is wrong with the cycling industry for a long, long time.
A good day gentlemen! The local impromptu 89 km New Years Day ride was a perfect day on the bike. The temperature and atmosphere stayed the same for the entire duration. Talk of chainrings and bar setups and even entirely new bikes were the only cause to speaketh. In fact the followup to today’s successful ride is to change over to a quill stem (3TTT 140mm) and 26.0 Cinelli Eubios bars this Thursday. Thanx to frank, wiscot and others offering up parts and great advice, the MX Leader will be redeemed tomorrow.
@crucible
Let the record show that I am only drinking water.