Ethics, Doping and the Future of Cycling

Graphic courtesy : Cozy Beehive

Yet another tour, yet more cheaters.

Why do cyclists resort to this behavior? And what is the future of cycling?

Here's a one hour discussion between Gwen Knapp and former 3 time Tour de France winner Greg Lemond at the Commonwealth Club of California in Santa Clara. Gwen is a staff writer for the sports section of the San Francisco Chronicle. David Decosse, director of Campus Ethics Program at Santa Clara University, introduces them both in the beginning. Video courtesy goes to Fora.TV.

Note : Video may take a few minutes to load depending on your internet connection.

* * *

L'Alpe d'Huez

Do you see what I see?

BBC Journalists Ride L'Etape du Tour

Last week, I linked to a video of Google's Dylan Casey giving a first hand account of what it is like racing in the Tour de France as part of Lance's US Postal brigade.

Here's the latest video from a trio of BBC journalists - Andy Nicolson, Paul Redgrove and Jon Cook who rode the L'Etape du Tour on the 6th of this month. This amateur cyclosportive centers around riding one of the actual stages of the Tour de France, and this year the route was from Pau to Hautacam, 156 km featuring two massive unclassified climbs. The pros will hit this stage on Monday, July 14 which will be really exciting to watch.




Here's a route preview from Cycle Film's Michael Cotty :



Some will also remember that NY Times journalist Robert Mackey of the Climb blog fame also rode the Etape and completed it in cold and pouring rain within a time of 8 hours and 5 mins.

But here are the 3 mortals from BBC who rode the stage after 6 months of training. After watching the video account, I simply have to give it to these guys for just thinking of attempting it.

Tour Preparations

Brest

Stage 1 of the Tour de France will kick off from the colorful city of Brest, supposedly the western most city in mainland France. Just imagine the revenue from tourism all those little towns will generate. When the Tour started off from London last July, a financial boost of 115 million Euros was estimated for the city by the Transport for London department.




I'd like to be upbeat about clean riders coming to the starting line, but a recent post from Belgium Knee Warmers (Hit or Miss) about the alarming inability of French testing agencies to accurately detect EPO in blood samples has got me rethinking the situation. Oh well...we'll see how it goes.

So happy July 4th, and ofcourse, happy Tour de France! Its an occasion with a life of its own, isn't it?