Oh Froomey, say it ain't so!

Maybe this isn't going to be as bad as it looks. Then again, maybe it is. But it is really important not to let the noise surrounding this story get us distracted. What is really at issue here is a question of marginal gains and just how far you can take the idea before it gets you into trouble.

We know Salbutamol helps you perform better on the bike. If it weren't the case, why would Ulissi have been using so much of it? Why would guys from historically shady teams be getting caught over the limit? Why do so many riders in the World Tour seem to suffer from Asthma? Even Ale-jet seemed to have some trouble that required quite a lot of salbutamol to fix.

Why was Wiggins getting injections for asthma that were so conveniently timed? David Millar explained exactly why they all have asthma, it is so they can use salbutamol and other drugs like it.

And maybe, just maybe, amateurs are getting asthma too so they can take advantage of what is clearly a loophole (especially when there is more testing.)

But all of this is just noise, the real problem is the blow to what some of us know is a wonderful performance enhancer, legal, and not even filled with yak blood or turtle hormones!

They are those lovely ovalized chainrings, the rings that have been born and almost died many times living under labels like biopace, but now gaining wider acceptance with Rotor, Osymetric, and Absolute Black among the biggest producers of the rings for both road and mountain riding.

And Froome was clearly a big believer. Look at the size of those things:

And particularly because he was into the super ovalized ones (seriously, how much farther until they are square folks?) Apparently actually square chain rings are a jewelry thing and not yet a cycling thing.

But it was important that Froome was always riding these crazy looking rings and winning big races. It may have just been a convenient way of hiding his actual power numbers when the public was so desperate to know.

But I, for one, have been convinced of the utility of the oval rings. Some people would say that my conclusions are irrelevant since I use a Stages power meter that isn't precise enough, but if Froomey is down with it, it has to validate my feelings a little bit. (Especially since Sky started using Stages!)

But if we've perhaps lost Chris as the most recognized believer in oval chainrings, have we now lost the fight? Only time will tell but I take a different lesson from it.

Don't take things too far in your pursuit of marginal gains. Oval chainrings work, they are great, I even like the aesthetics of them, but don't go too far. Those Osymetric things are just too much, the chain bounce and the squashed oval is just a bridge too far. 1000 ng/ml is ok Chris but when you are starting to approach 2000 ng/ml, you've crossed a line!

So go for the marginal gains, put these pretty rings on your road bike, enjoy the performance benefits and the pleasing look that is just odd enough to catch the eye but not enough to frighten anyone.

Seriously, how good does that look!

Just avoid going too far. It is fine to have asthma, lots of people do (lots even have legit asthma!). But if you are suffering from asthma so severe that you need injections of kenacort, you probably shouldn't be starting a grand tour soon. Get that stuff better and then start your grand tour!

Seriously Chris, say it ain't so. As much as I wanted you to lose, as much as I find myself unfairly despising Team Sky, I didn't really want it to go down this way. It is bad for the sport, I agree with Nibs on this one.

(On a more straight-forward note, it does seem really strange to blow it on salbutamol, which hasn't been shown to really increase performance so why go over the line there? Is it just a miscalculation in dosage that got messed up because he metabolized it differently, etc.? I know the science of the testing and the drug itself is super complex and so it isn't an open and shut case, he may have followed all the right instructions and still ended up with the adverse analytical finding. Labs can make mistakes. So I sort of hope this turns out to be nothing because otherwise Froome and Sky are just being dumb. Unless they have done other testing that has shown that salbutamol really does help.)

On Wouters and Weirdness

I re-visited The Barkley Marathons documentary recently and was struck by Wouter Hamelinck's story at the race.

When I've shown the documentary in my class, students are always shocked by the fact that he rode his folding bike from the airport to the race. He may have taken a route similar to this one:

And this seems so bizarre to the typical American high school student, and my guess is to the typical American.

But see, this isn't weird. Riding a bicycle to get places is not weird, it isn't crazy, it isn't just for insane people who have vendettas against cars, it isn't just for vegans.

Bicycles have always been fantastic at getting people around, they are efficient, can be modified to do all sorts of great things like carrying kids, cargo, even other bicycles.

Bizarre is the fact that Wouter wanted to run the Barkley, one of the most tortuous ultra-marathons in the world and famous for crushing even the most accomplished psychos who love this sort of thing like Gary Robbins.

In the US, slow progress is being made. The number of bike trips taken by Americans has steadily increased since the 1970s and exploded in some places in the US. Apparently in Portland, nearly 6% of all trips are taken by bicycle.

But that is seen as weird by the majority of Americans. But it isn't weird, the only reason we think that is because we've been trained to think that.

Elsewhere, the culture of cycling to get places is completely, absolutely, majestically the norm. It isn't just in Copenhagen where people think it is normal to ride bikes.

It is certainly true that US cities lack the infrastructure to make cycling as safe as it is in other countries where people don't feel the need to wear helmets because riding a bike is inherently pretty safe until cars are involved hitting the people riding bikes.

And helmet laws discourage riding, which, as Chris Boardman so eloquently pointed out, makes people significantly less healthy.  Mandatory helmet laws are seen as being so important but have never been shown to decrease head injuries.

This too is simply a cultural problem, a culture that believes that cycling itself is dangerous and weird is incapable of seeing that it isn't cycling that is dangerous, it is the way that people operate motor vehicles that is dangerous to everyone around them and in them.

And this has all sorts of incredibly negative effects on public health. Boardman writes: “In the UK one in six deaths – nearly 90,000 per year – is as a result of physical inactivity related disease including diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Clearly, any measure proven beyond doubt to reduce people’s likelihood to travel by bike, will almost certainly kill more people than it saves.”

I rode my bike to work this morning, even at 6:15AM with roads that are relatively quiet, it can be scary. I have super bright headlights and tail-lights, reflective bits all over, and I don't have that far to go. But it can still be terrifying.

But it is only terrifying because of drivers. Sometimes they are just ignorant about the rules regarding bikes in roads, sometimes (a lot of the time) they are just not paying attention, and sometimes they are belligerent and homicidal. 

But the problem has nothing to do with me and my bike. But Americans can't see it that way because of the way they've been trained to view people on two wheels. Legally it is basically ok to hit and kill someone on a bike as long as you don't flee the scene and say you are sorry. Real cycling infrastructure always faces huge obstacles and takes decades to happen. Then as soon as it is in place for some time, most residents love it, even the people that don't ride bikes.

But the act of riding from the Knoxville airport to Frozen Head State Park to run the Barkley Marathons is not weird. It isn't unsafe, even though Wouter didn't wear a helmet. 

Why would he? He knows cycling is safe because he grew up thinking that and has lived it. 

Maybe someday America will realize it too.

PS - When I think of Wouters, I cannot help but think of Wouter Weylandt. Cycling can be dangerous sometimes, even for people who do it for a living. But those times are astonishingly few and far between even for the guys who take insane risks because they are racing down mountains in packs and in and out of cars, etc. RIP WW

A sweet new bike being sadly neglected

I got this in the mail a couple weeks ago:

Not this exact frame mind you, but one that is an awful lot like it. Only subtract the nice ceramic bearings. And I find it a little bit sad that I am so busy that I actually haven't even stripped off the packing materials to properly gaze upon this beautiful new (to me) machine. Or started spending money I shouldn't on getting the bits necessary to build this up into the powerful steed it will become.

Pitiful, in a way, but also good to know that my priorities are not entirely demonstrably misplaced. At least not all the time!

And I was struck by another, significantly different observation today. Some of you are familiar with the "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Tennyson. The most often quoted lines come from the second stanza:

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

   Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

When one team leader quoted it to another team leader in a flashback sequence in Netflix's new Punisher series, Frank Castle (the other team leader) gives a reply that paints the poem in a new light for me:

"Ours is not to reason why, Frankie Boy, ours is but to do or die" mis-quotes the soldier.

Frank's reply: "That's from a poem about a bunch of guys got their asses handed to them on the back of bad intel, right?"

The idea of the rough and tumble Frank Castle having actually read a poem shocks his buddy.

But it is reminiscent of a few good portrayals of the more-complex-than-you-thought hero or anti-hero. Perhaps my favorite is still Omar in The Wire.

One of the sweetest scenes in the series:

That stuff is deep. Truly.

So is the explanation of "Charge of the Light Brigade" as "a poem about a bunch of guys got their asses handed to them on the back of bad intel."

Good work whoever wrote that episode!