The Real Enemy

Folks can carry on on they want about evil Phloyd Phraud. I as well think he's probably guilty blah blah blah. The real enemy, though, is the UCI and its tete-a-tete with the ASO. Those two are going to kill cycling more than Floyd Landis. With the two meanies, include the national federations and circuses like the Spanish Guarda Civil and it's Operacion Puerta and the LNDD. Cheating riders should be disciplined severely, but this alphabet soup of governing bodies, labs, and other antagonistic acronyms will truly kill the sport if they manage to stop the racing. The idea that an historical race like Paris-Nice can just fizzle out w/out the best cyclists there is absurd. The notion that Floyd can be found "GUILTY" by a lab that isn't secure and that doesn't follow protocol is absurd. (Much less mentioning assmonkey Dick Pound) The reality that hundreds, literally, of cyclists lost wages and jobs b/c of a HUGE PRONOUNCEMENT ON CHEATING came to virtually nothing is absurd. Last summer I was tired of the cheaters. Now I'm tired of cycling's hierarchy. At least the riders are one the ones suffering on the road in the heat for 6-7 hours a day. How in the hell should the pasty morons at the UCI be allowed to literally destroy the sport? Major cycling is built on the traditional one-day races in combination with the Grand Tours. If the G.T.s don't like how the Pro Tour is set up, then the UCI is going to have to bend. Fans want to see the Tours in all their glory. This is all coming to a tipping point, and none of it is Floyd's fault. I'm beginning to see comparisons to the big hullabaloo when CART and Indy Car split in the mid-90s. That precipitated the rise of NASCAR and the demise of the Indy 500 as "America's Race". Interestingly, Andrew Hood of Velonews made this same comparison on February 22nd but I promise I didn't steal it from him. Unlike some of his other examples, like the XFL, it really did kill Indy-style racing in the U.S. Actually I'm sort of bummed that I was only 2nd in making this pronouncement. That's why he's the paid pro writer and I'm the, well...