Bikezilla

Bikezilla Interviews Alessandro Petacchi

2011-12-21T23:50:00.000-06:00

I discuss age, doping, the Tour de France points race, Mark Cavendish and Peta Todd with Alessanro Petacchi.

Ride Journal #2: Stupid is . . .

2011-12-17T16:59:00.002-06:00

Riding on ice + not wearing a helmet = stupid

Ride Journal #1: Badass Old Lady (BOL)

2011-12-14T23:05:00.001-06:00

Went riding one day and was tormented by an amazing and horrible old lady.

Trash on da Ground

2011-12-09T22:17:00.001-06:00

Parody of "General" Larry Platt's "Pants on the Ground", dedicated to cyclists who litter.

Joe Papp and His Place in Anti-Doping

2011-11-09T17:30:00.001-06:00

I don't know Joe Papp. I've never spoken to Joe Papp. On a day to day basis, I don't pay attention to Joe Papp. I have no personal investment in what I'm writing, here.

Yesterday (08 Nov 11) I read an article / interview on Cycling News, by Daniel Benson about Papp's time as a dealer of EPO to professional athletes, including cyclists, and about his conversion to anti-doping warrior based upon his co-operation with the feds in many doping prosecutions, due purely to his desire to stay out of prison.

Joe has received positive and negative feedback on all of this.

Regardless of how noble or ignoble his reasons for his transformation from Sith to Jedi, I don't doubt his commitment to the cause.

In addition to keeping his ass out of jail, this journey into the light is also Joe's claim to fame and his means to remain relevant, at least within cycling.

He has no lack of motivation to continue using the Force for good.

But, none of that is related to the point I wanted to make.

I have to believe that Papp is in a far better position to damage the culture of doping in professional cycling than many other people who hope to make a difference in cycling's doping culture, because he's coming from so deep inside that culture. He's a man In-the-Know. He knows names, dates, times, places. He can't be fooled with the "there is no systemic, systematic or organized doping within professional cycling" bullshiite.

There are many people, people with titles like president, owner, manager, director, coach and rider, who could swing a lightsaber at Papp's side, not because they're under any legal duress, but because it's the right, just, ethical, moral and honorable thing to do. You know, like a real Jedi.

However, it's painfully clear that without inserting their asses into slings that this is never going to happen. There just isn't anyone in professional cycling with that kind of integrity.

I'll leave you with something Jonathan Vaughters sent me a while back, which speaks directly to Papp's value in the fight against doping. And I'll hope that in the not-too-distant future other Jedis will be found:

JV:

"Piracy was never solved by the Royal Navy. Corruption prevented solution. Henry Morgan, a pirate, or former pirate, was the single (person) most responsible for the end of piracy in the Caribbean, after he was hired by the Royal Navy."

Thoughts: Martin Hardie

2011-11-08T20:34:00.000-06:00

Remember, this series is excerpted from my raw research notes. There are only a few differences:

1. I've corrected most of the typos.

2. I've turned disconnected words and phrases in my notes into full sentences, so that someone other than me (you, for instance) will understand them.

3. I've formatted the links.

4. I've cut out some of the non-relevant thoughts (that is, relevant to the current Thought blurb).to avoid devolving threads.

-------

In the last "Thoughts" I speculated that Martin Hardie is a primary antagonist in the saga of Trent Lowe vs Jonathan Vaughters and Slipstream Sports.

JamesStout said via Twitter:

“. . . weboth (James and Trent) contacted Martin (Hardie) ATF(after the fact) “

They bothcontacted Martin only after the being fired by their respective teams? Is this accurate?

From his Cycling Tips interview

CT:

“So when you were recovering in Denver you started talks with Pegasus. How did that come about?”

[Trent Lowe]

“Martin (Hardie) suggested I talk with Henk Vogels."

Vogels was Pegasus' DS.

What was the time frame?

From the same interview:

CT:

“When did you begin speaking with Pegaus?”

[Trent Lowe]

“Not until July or August (2010).”

So, Martin Hardie was in the picture and counseling Lowe, at very least, in July or August of 2010, but Lowe wasn't fired until late December 2010 or early January 2011.

When and how did Lowe's relationship with Hardie begin? Was it ongoing?

From the same interview:

“CT:

“Howto you know Martin Hardie and what’s your relationship with him?”

[TrentLowe]:

“BasicallyI met Martin when he started to interview me for that report (NewPathways to Pro Cycling) at the Sun Tour 2009. I was happy to do thatand we got to know one another more since then. We’ve stayed intouch as the year’s gone by.”

Trent Lowe himself establishes that:

1. Hardie's contact with him was ongoing throughout the periods in question.

2. That Hardie pressed him to contact Pegasus without any notification of Jonathan Vaughters (and with no attempt to let Vaughters accept or reject the possibility of extending Lowe's contract with Garmin) until months later.

3. That while Lowe indeed may have contacted Hardie after the firing, it was by no means his first contact with Hardie regarding the situation with Garmin and JV.

Followups: Interviews

2011-11-06T13:52:00.000-06:00

I get scattered comments, tweets and emails about the interviews I have up on Bikezilla and Cyclismas, usually in regards to my relationship with or feelings about the subjects of those interviews.

So I figured I'd address the most common, here.

-- You must really dislike James Stout.

Since we just had a short exchange on Twitter, this one came to mind first.

Dislike James? That's not at all true.

There were things that happened during the run up to and after our interview that I took personally, perhaps in error, that irked me. THAT is true.

But, on the whole, I think James is a fantastic person. This opinion is bolstered by the fact that people who have had random contact with James have made a point to mention how he's had a positive and sometimes life changing impact on them.

Another thing that greatly increases my opinion of James is that while he does a lot of volunteering of his time in an effort to educate diabetics in poor neighborhoods, you NEVER hear him boasting about doing this or that, and you NEVER hear him complain about how hard it is or how much time he spends doing it.

I personally believe that when you do a good deed, that it should remain between you and the person you've helped. I admire James greatly for this trait.

As far as I'm aware, there is no bad blood between us. I'm not saying we're bestest best buds, but we're not enemies.

-- Why were you so mean to Chris Smith from Lazer Sports?

Mean? Hmmmmmm.

I believe, and maybe I'm wrong, that Chris understood going in, that he was, in part, a sacrificial lamb on behalf of the industry. That was not the entire point of the interview, not even close, and I did try to get some input from POC to ease the burden on Chris.

There are issues, or perceived issues, with the bicycle helmet industry that I wanted to address. Chris was gracious enough to step onto the pyre of his own free will to help me out.

I sincerely apologize if it seems (especially to Chris) that I unfairly bashed him or Lazer. I believe Chris is a guy with very high integrity and that Lazer is doing more than most companies to combat known shortcomings in the legal testing standards for bicycle helmets. He's a good guy and they're a good company.

To the best of my knowledge everything is cool between Chris and me.

Chris, I'm sorry if you felt ambushed or disrespected. That was never my intent or desire.

-- Do you really think JV is good for professional cycling? Or were you just kissing his ass because he gave you a good interview?

Well, when you put it like that, it kind of makes it hard to answer without seeming like I'm just sucking up to JV, doesn't it? I also think it's interesting that this comes up repeatedly, because I know that immediately after the final article in our interview series went up, JV did not feel that I'd been especially kind to him.

But, yes, I really do believe that Jonathan Vaughters is good for professional cycling. That is not to say I think he's a saint or that he's 100% honest and transparent, or that he never puts self-interest ahead of the sport's best interest.

As I've said several times, JV is the model for the phrase, "a pirate and a good man".

JV inspires VERY intense emotional responses. There are people who hate his guts and think that because he refuses to openly admit that he was a dope sucking weasel when he rode professionally, that he cannot and should not be trusted. Ever.

I can only say that based on the total body of his public statements, and based on personal conversations I've had with him, on and off the record, that I trust him to lead professional cycling and that I think he does so with a reasonable amount of integrity and honesty.

-- Do you really believe that Bill Strickland is not bought and paid for by Lance Armstrong?

Bill is very much like Greg LeMond in one respect: When he sees that someone has done something shitty, he's very inclined to view that as a good person who happened to do a bad thing, rather than as a bad thing that was done because the person behind the act was also bad.

I won't rehash the entire Postscript of our interview, here. But, yes, I 100% believe that Bill Strickland is a man and a journalist of very high integrity and that he is not bought and paid for by Lance Armstrong. That is NOT the belief I had going in to our conversation, but it is my belief now.

-- After you interview these guys, are you like buddies or something?

Um, no. Not at all.

I have only rare contact with any of the people I've interviewed.

James and I have very little contact, all of it via Twitter.

Chris and I spoke very briefly about the Afterword and his response, and like I said, as far as I know we're cool.

JV is just way too busy for casual, "Hey, how ya been?" kind of emails and I would feel disrespectful even sending that kind of thing. We've had a couple very brief exchanges via Twitter.

Bill has been great. I've contacted him a couple of times, seeking his professional advice and opinion. He's responded in a polite, friendly, professional manner, telling me his thoughts without at all saying, "This is what you should do." But, again, I never write him just to find out what's up. I'd feel like I was being intrusive and disrespectful.

Non-of these guys writes me just to check in.

I like and respect every one of them, but I'm not friends with any of them.

It'd be cool to meet all of them. I think I'd like a couple of them a lot on a personal level. But, no, I'm not buddies with any of them.

However, two of the interviews I still love the most are tiny deals that hardly anyone even notices.

Those were my interviews with Rebecca Rusch and Joe Lawwill. about clipless pedals.

No one had even heard of Bikezilla when I did those interviews. In fact during the offseason over that time period I had contacted Cadel Evans for a short interview of a similar nature. His agent politely told me no thanks there was enough of that kind of article out there. But, Rebecca and Joe were both great.

They were both big deals in MTB and I was this schmoe blog writer. They had no reason to say "yes" and they were paid nothing. Yet, they still took the time to talk to me. It was and still is incredibly cool to me.

Thoughts: Martin Hardie

2011-11-06T10:06:00.000-06:00

Martin Hardie, the lawyer who helped but did not represent James Stout, is also the lawyer who represents Trent Lowe.

What are the common threads between Stout and Lowe?

1. They both dealt with a mysterious alienation between themselves and the managers of their teams. They seemed to have a sound relationship, then all or nearly all communication stopped, seemingly with malice on the part of the managers (Phil Southerland at Team Type 1, Jonathan Vaughters at Garmin).

2. The both had / have issues that don't seem to make sense surrounding their separation from their teams.

3. Both dealt with or are dealing with their former teams and managers refusing to pay them and / or withholding bonus money after separation.

4. Both were counseled by Martin Hardie.

In both cases Hardie was antagonistic toward the teams and managers.

In both cases Hardie displayed a habit of making provocative public statements, then sitting back and maintaining that neither he nor his charge was able to speak on the matter due to pending legal actions. We are just to ignore the fact that he continues to throw out little jabs and poison barbs during the entire period of said pending legal actions.

In both cases Hardie's charges demonstrated both fear and paranoia based solely on information and counsel gained directly from Hardie.

Martin Hardie seems to be poison disguised as caring, causing more harm than good in any situation that he touches, giving advice that damages not only whatever current situation his charge may be in, but also the future career potential of those charges.

I have to wonder if Hardie's advice and interference was the direct cause of the rifts that opened between Stout and Southerland, and Lowe and Vaughters.

Hardie utterly lacks professionalism. Here is an example of an email he sent to JV:

"I am trying to be open and honest with you.

I am also trying to keep Trent from blowing his lid and going public. I have made it fucking clear as to when and how he will talk to you. Just tell me now if you will pay him or not and when. If not I will let him do what he likes and you can deal with that without me helping. It is really quite fucking simple. I don’t know why you are being such a scrooge about paying him."

If Hardie is not the root cause of the conflicts between Stout and Southerland, as well as those between Lowe and Vaughters, then he is at a minimum a contributing factor.

Thoughts: Trent Lowe, Jonathan Vaughters, Matt White

2011-11-05T19:18:00.000-05:00

JimBarlow, Vice President of Finance, Slipstream Sports, in 43) promisesLowe his $2,000 bonus, admits that the bonus has been EARNED andpromises it to be paid in January 2011.

Yet,it was never paid.

Whyis JV risking serious legal action in refusing to pay money that theteam admits Lowe has earned? Why is he withholding money that helegally owes Lowe, punitively?

In46) we learn that in August of 2010 Trent Lowe informed JV of theintended move to Pegasus, but not of what form that exchange tookplace.

Thenwe learn that Martin Hardie discussed the same issue with JV viaemail in September 2010.

Yet,JV stated that he was never made aware of this, by anyone at any timein any manner.

Clearlynow we see that JV is not being honest when he speaks of the Loweissue.

But,why? And why when it's no difficult matter to prove him to be lying?

Again,this just doesn't fit what we know of JV. He lacks the reputation forbeing a guy who fucks with his riders or even his former riders, whoscrews with them about pay issues, who deals with them dishonestly.

So,again I have to ask myself, WTF? What is going on here? What is thesource of this bad blood between them? Why is JV demonstrating suchmalice toward Lowe? What is its root? And why are all parties (Lowe,JV and White) all so intent on hiding it from the world?

Thoughts: Trent Lowe, Jonathan Vaughters, Matt White

2011-10-30T20:50:00.002-05:00

This is a new series, which will simply contain blurbs of my thoughts, related to things the I'm researching for larger articles or interviews.

They may seem to be cut from the center of something larger, thoughts snatched from within thoughts, incomplete on their own.

That's because they are.

My hope is that they will inspire you to ask your own questions and increase interest in the subject matter itself.

Tom / Bikezilla

Trent Lowe had informed JV (in writing?) about his intent to sign with Pegasus, which would seem naturally to indicate that at least a possibility of Lowe attending training camp at Pegasus in November 2010.

Lowe, clearly should have followed through with the formality of gaining written consent to attend the training camp. But, considering that JV was fully aware of Lowe's intention to leave Garmin for Pegasus, was this really such a sticky situation that it merited firing Lowe and confiscation of his salary and bonuses?

Or was it merely an excuse to end the relationship in a passive aggressive manner?

This issue itself shows a considerable malice directed from JV toward Lowe. I find this surprising, in that JV is widely and commonly known to be a “riders' manager”. JV, more than any other manager, seems to view his riders first as human beings and second as racers on his team.So, where did this bad blood come from?

Is it entirely related to the del Moral problem? And since it was Matt White who sent Lowe there, and since White clearly did so with intent, why is JV directing his ire at Lowe?

There is something in this that none of the involved parties is sharing. JV claimed, in Velo News, that he had in fact NEVER been informed by Trent Lowe (nor by Svein Tuft), that they were intending to move to Pegasus.

Yet, JV himself had made no effort to speak to Lowe regarding ANY topic, seemed to very intentionally avoid any type of communication and had not made even preliminary efforts at extending Lowes contract with Garmin.

It's also interesting that VeloNews knew in September 2010 that Tuft was leaving for Pagasus, but JV claims to have been ignorant.

This is just one of many areas where the stories do not mesh and where there is evidence of something deeper and hidden going on out of the public view.

Interview: Chris Smith from Lazer Sport: Afterword

2011-10-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

The two-part interview upon which this opinion piece is based can be read here: Part 1, Part 2, Afterword

I had been contemplating a helmet article for a few months, when, bam, I stumbled onto Chris Smith from Lazer Sport on Twitter.

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that my entire initial conversation with him was not based on curiosity about helmets as much as it was about whether or not he'd be a good interviewee. Every one of those initial questions were just probes, feeling out his knowledge base and his frankness.

I mean, was he just going to spit out the company line? Or would he say something interesting?

While many of his answers look like the “standard company line,” and some of them certainly are, many are also truthful in a practical sense. He was a lot more open than what I'd expected, but I still had some frustration in the nature of a few responses.

For instance, is it a cop-out when a company builds helmets within the current – and admittedly inadequate – legal testing standards, and falls back on the argument of 'lack of empirical data' as a reason for continuing to make helmets without faired or recessed vents; or with more and larger vents even though it means that smaller sections of harder foam crush against a rider's skull in the event of a crash; with a visor; or to justify the "aero tail" for purely recreational riders when it gives no clear benefit but may in fact increase the chance for a rotational brain injury?

Yes and no.

If there are concerns regarding unfaired vents, unrecesssed vents, aero-tails, the potential of being sliced in the face by a visor, thinner and harder vent ribs actually being less safe despite performing identically during testing of the legal standard, then who is it incumbent upon to study those concerns? Shouldn't that be helmet manufacturers? Do they get to turn their heads and ignore possibly serious and even dangerous failings in their products merely because the current legal standard fails to make them responsible for that specific aspect?

It's clear from the interview that the legal standard is widely acknowledged within the industry to be inadequate and unrealistic. Once that is acknowledged, doesn't it become the responsibility of manufacturers to ensure that their helmets are safe according to real-world standards and not merely an ineffectual and unrealistic legal standard?

Are helmet manufacturers negligent if they fail to at least examine the possibilities that certain features may be inherently unsafe?

But if helmet manufacturers are negligent, then don't consumers hold some responsibility as well?

Chris said:

“ ... if safety is the only goal in helmet manufacturing, then you're not going to survive as a company."

And he established several times during our interview that customers are not purchasing helmets based on which one has the best safety features, nor based on which has the fewest unsafe features, and that consumers – when they bother to contact Lazer either directly or through their dealers – aren't concerned with safety-based features, but instead with cosmetics and things like “will I be able to put my sunglasses in the vents of this helmet?”

It would seem that, at a minimum, consumers are complicit in any negligence on behalf of the helmet industry.

On one hand, manufacturers have a responsibility to make the safest helmet possible, and when they know that the legal testing standard is inadequate and unrealistic, then they have the additional responsibility of developing helmets that protect in real-world situations.

But, if the consumer proves through their buying habits and through an utter lack of expressed interest in those safer helmets, and the manufacturers might in fact run themselves into the ground by producing maximally-safe helmets that will then be purchased by virtually no one, then it seems right and reasonable that, as an act of self-preservation, such helmets are not offered.

If consumers say they want more vents, and they don't care if the resulting helmet puts smaller sections of harder foam crushing against their skull should they crash, then what?

Is it the manufacturers' responsibility to save us from ourselves and refuse to make that type of helmets? If one manufacturer refuses, then won't there be others willing to oblige?

But Lazer's (and I assume most if not all manufacturers') practice of looking, as Chris said, “at what consumers are already buying in that segment” seems to blatantly ignore any possible direct input from consumers. There are no studies, no polls, no questionnaires, no focus groups, no email queries via a database of existing customers.

It's just, “hey, which helmets are our competitors selling the most of and what features do those helmets already have?” That's not only a very indirect method of gathering data, but it fails to take into account that consumers only have a specific selection of helmets and features available without even wondering if maybe we'd like something different if we were given an opportunity to provide direct feedback. It's like the industry doesn't really give a damn about whether or not we want safer helmets, it's going to offer us what IT thinks we want and if that isn't good enough, well just too damned bad.

When Chris says, “I would politely take issue with people saying that's what they're looking for, because that's not what they're looking for, because that's not what people are buying,” isn't at least a portion of that due to the fact that we can't buy those helmets with specific safety features because they aren't even offered?

You can say that consumers “vote” with their wallets, but they can only “vote” in that manner for products that are already on the market and readily available for purchase.

The claim of not knowing or being able to tell if certain features, like faired vents, recessed vents, rounded vent opening edges, or lack of an aero-tail are truly safer or not because of a lack of empirical data and lack of testing standards, on the one hand is true and practical, but on the other is disingenuous. They'd have that empirical data if they gathered it.

And I apologize if this seems like I'm picking on Chris and Lazer. They just happen to be the sacrificial offering, laid upon the altar on behalf of the industry entire. And as of this writing, POC has not replied with requested feedback.

Let's take, for instance, the Lazer Rigidity Brace System (RBS). Is there a legal testing standard to determine if this is actually safer? Have there been official studies? Or did someone just say, “Hey, if we manage to keep the foam together in multiple low-speed impacts that might be a good thing and save some riders from suffering brain or skull injuries!?”

I mean, sure it SEEMS like a great idea, and quite logical, but shucks, without that legal testing standard and that empirical data, it's just pointless to even try to know for certain. Right?

Of course not. So I don't buy the argument that commonsense can't be used in evaluating the benefits or dangers of certain features. Like, I don't buy that you just can't know without a legal testing standard and an official study supplying official empirical data that narrower vent ribs made of harder foam will cause more damage when smashing into your skull than will wider vent ribs made of softer foam.

X amount of energy reaching your skull over a smaller area, delivered through a harder, less giving surface is a bad thing. I don't need an army of engineers and scientists to spend millions of dollars and hundreds of hours in a lab to figure that out for me.

As I mentioned above, the people who bother contacting Chris and his industry counterparts at all seem only to be concerned with cosmetics, weight, airflow and convenience features, instead of with any facet of helmet safety. I find that very disappointing.

Because I know from reading what cyclists and fans of cycling say on Twitter and elsewhere to me, that many people are very concerned with helmet safety issues. So, why aren't any of those people complaining to the people who actually make decisions about what features go into the helmets we buy and use? Why aren't they calling and writing Chris at Lazer and his counterparts at other helmet manufacturers? If you're going to expend the breath or energy to complain, then, damn it, complain so as to actually make a difference.

Even more disappointing is this; when Chris addressed the issue of customer contact he said, “...if I did get those questions, it would have to go back to, well, you know, our helmets are designed to meet and exceed the current testing standard.”

In other words, even if you do get off your ass and direct your needs, desires and complaints to the guy or the place where it matters – or should matter – you'll get brushed off. Why? Because companies like Lazer don't really give a damn about what you want? They only care about focusing on selling you what they want to sell you? When it comes right down to it, that's really how it seems to be.

How is it possible to combat that? Well, Lazer and other companies might blow YOU off if you call. But, what if it wasn't just you? What if it was you and three of your friends all in a week, plus a guy from your club and three of his friends, plus a guy you pass on the trail a couple times per month and three of his friends, plus...? As the numbers mount it becomes more difficult and less practical to ignore them.

Or what if you initiated a petition directed to the heads of several major helmet manufacturers at someplace like Change.org? What if a few thousand people all signed up for something like that and all those names and requests or demands went out to all those helmet manufacturers? What if you did that again every six months until they finally granted you the notice and respect you deserve and began producing better helmets? Helmets with commonsense safety features, like faired and recessed vents, like fewer and smaller vents and thicker vent ribs, like no aero-tail and no visor, like rounded shells. Wouldn't that be better than having them fall back on, “Well, these other helmets meet the legal testing standard that all of us in the industry readily acknowledge to be inadequate and unrealistic.” Why not upset the paradigm that the consumer will buy whatever these companies make and keep their mouths shut and like it?

Chris says, and I don't doubt his sincerity, “We are a helmet manufacturing company and the rider's safety, at the end of the day, is our number one priority.” But, is that true? I mean, in a practical, real world sense, is it true? Because that notion seems to contradict a lot of what we covered in our interview.

I do not mean to say – not in any way or to any extent – that helmet manufacturers intentionally make unsafe helmets. But, I do mean that they are ready and willing to settle for “safe enough” while using the known-to-be-inadequate legal testing standard as a shield and a convenience.

Companies like Lazer and POC are at least attempting to change on some level with the introduction of MIPS to (so far) a very small portion of their overall product lines. But unlike MIPS, those other features that we've mentioned – faired vents, etc. – don't require any special period of compatibility development and they don't cost an extra $20 per helmet to introduce. They can be done now and at very minimal cost.

Chris and the guys at Lazer, POC and other helmet companies are not evil people. They don't want you to have unsafe helmets just so they can line their pockets with fat stacks of your cash. But, if they're going to become motivated to alter the helmet lines to reflect YOUR desire for specific safety features, then YOU will have to express your thoughts directly to them, and you'll have to encourage your friends to do the same. They're going to need to know that “if they build it, you will come” (to thoroughly mangle a Field of Dreams quote). They'll need to know that in giving you helmets with these features, that they won't be sacrificing their very company to insincere whim and caprice. They need to know that we're not only asking for helmets with certain features and without others, but that if those helmets are offered to us, we will buy them.

So contact the manufacturer of your favorite helmets and express your opinions. Then get your friends to do the same. And have them get their friends involved. And so on.

Here is some contact information for a few helmet manufacturers for you to begin with:

Lazer:

Chris@lazersport.com

POC:

info@pocsports.com

Giro:

@GiroSportDesign (on Twitter)

Bell:

Bell Contact Form Page -------------------------------------

Chris has written a rebuttal article that I hope all of you will read.

In reference to that rebuttal I would like to make two points:

1. The supporting and explanatory links that Chris says are missing, are actually at the very top of Part 1, with more links sprinkled throughout parts 1 and 2.

Chris was, in fact, made aware of this material well in advance of our interview, and again at the start of our conversation.

2. I make an intentional point to say in the Afterword: "I do not mean to say – not in any way or to any extent – that helmet manufacturers intentionally make unsafe helmets."

The rest of Chris' rebuttal I love, because it reframes the presentation of helmets, the marketing of helmets, in the context of safety and safety features, which is a habit the industry does not seem to have developed. That's very curious to me, considering that this is, in fact, an industry based on safety.

My sincerest thanks to Lazer Sport, but especially to Chris.

Interview: Chris Smith from Lazer Sport: Part 2

2011-09-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Afterword

This is Part 2 of my interview with Chris Smith from Lazer Sport, and includes comments from MIPS' Daniel Lanner.

Bz:

I read some of your material and learned that head injuries caused by crashes are more often due to rotational forces, because veins and nerves in the brain get torn by the twisting and rotation.

Then I watched your MIPS (Multi-directional Impact Protection System) video.Some of Lazer's helmets for 2012 (P'Nut and Nut'Z) will come with the MIPS option.

It looks to me like MIPS helmets have a liner and in case of impact this liner rotates a little.

CS:

"Yeah, basically, we use a retention system called Rollsys® in our high-end helmets.

And, basically, compared to other manufacturers where all the adjustment is done at the back of the helmet and pulls the front of the helmet against the rider's head. The Rollss® system is a cable-actuated system that goes all the way around the rider's head and allows the entire circumference of the retention system to adjust around the rider's head. It serves as kind of a self-centering mechanism to ensure that the helmet is centered on the rider's head. It also helps to distribute the load of retention all the way around the rider's head so they don't have any kind of hot spots or discomfort. It's very easy to adjust, there's a roller on the top of the helmet that controls the cable.

Well, through our collaboration with MIPS, they've modified the Rollsys® system so that it's doing the same thing, where it's kind of isolating the rider's head from the shell. The hybrid MIPS/Rollsys® system is attached to one pivot point on the shell.

In the even of an impact that's severe enough to activate the MIPS system, that one pivot point will break loose, and allow the shell to rotate around the MIPS.”

Bz:

Under normal conditions and prior to any impact, there's zero rotation in the system, strictly due to MIPS? You can't just grab your helmet and jiggle it?

CS:

"No, no. You're not going to be able to pull the helmet/shell off the rider's head, or pull the shell from the retention system.

There's an attachment point and in the event of an impact of significance – and that's engineered, you know it's got to be a certain amount of energy going into the helmet – this attachment point will break loose and allow the shell to rotate or move, while the MIPS retention system isolates the head from that movement.The shell of the helmet is rotating instead of the head.

That's also a great way to identify when a helmet has actually received an impact that is sufficient enough to replace the helmet. Once that MIPS attachment point is broken loose from the shell there's no way to reattach it. The helmet at that point needs to be replaced."

Bz:

How much weight does the MIPS liner/system add to a helmet? How does it affect fit and comfort?

CS:

"It doesn't affect fit and comfort at all, because it's basically duplicating our current Rollsys® system. Again, we're talking about children's helmets, what we're offering for 2012.

Because of the size of the helmet and the design of the retention system, it doesn't add any weight and it doesn't affect the comfort of the helmet at all.”

Bz:

Does it affect airflow?

CS:

"Nope. It's basically replacing one retention system with another and the MIPS retention system as opposed to being attached the way our traditional Rollsys® system is attached, the MIPS system is attached differently with this one pivot point at the top of the helmet.

But otherwise the size of the belt that goes around the rider's head, the size of the, we call it the basket, that goes around the back of the rider's head, it's basically the same as our current system. It's just been kind of redesigned and modified by MIPS in order to achieve their goal and pass their test.”

Bz:

MIPS allows the inner portion of the helmet to move within the outer portion. But what about simply designing helmets with safer exteriors? Smoother, more rounded surfaces? Faired and rounded vents and ribs? Fewer vents? No aero-tail? No visor?

CS:

"Well, I would say two things. First off, it kind of goes back to what I was saying about designing the safest helmet in the world, but nobody is going to buy it.

If you go to an Ironman triathlete who is looking for a helmet that offers A, B and C features, and you don't offer them that helmet, but you say, well I offer you this helmet, it's a lot safer in case you crash. They say, 'This helmet from your competitor meets the testing standard, but I also get all this other stuff, why should I buy your helmet?' 'Well, our helmet is safer.' 'But, I'm not gonna crash.'

At that point you're trying to sell someone something that they're not really interested in. That can be applied to whatever segment you're talking about.

But the other, more specific [point] to this topic is, if you are looking at rotational brain injury and reducing rotational brain injury, then you're going to design a system to address that specific need. And if you can address that need while still incorporating the features that consumers want, like air vents, or an aerodynamic tail, or whatever else the helmet might have, if you can maintain those features and still address the phenomenon of rotational brain injury, then it's a win for everybody.

You've improved the rider's ability to get through a catastrophic impact with less chance for rotational brain injury, you've improved their ability to survive an impact like that, while you're still delivering the performance that they are looking for in that helmet.

Now, the downside to that is, it's more expensive.

Like I said, we're offering the P'Nut helmet and the Nut'Z helmet in a MIPS version and a non-MIPS version, and at retail the MIPS version is going to be $20 more.

So, the consumer has to make a decision, 'What's more important to me - a helmet that has the performance features that I want and is $20 less, or a helmet that has all the performance features that I want and this added safety benefit that's $20 more?'”

Bz:

Is that going to be standard upgrade price when you take MIPS to other helmets and lines?

CS:

"That hasn't been decided yet.

The issue with MIPS is that the helmet has to be designed specifically to accept it. The P'Nut helmet and the Nut'Z helmets, we introduced those in 2011 and we worked with MIPS on that helmet in order to come up with a helmet that was specifically designed to accept the MIPS system. Now, we're introducing that for 2012, because the system is finally dialed, they're comfortable with their testing and we're comfortable with integrating into the shell.

So, going forward if we're going to come out with new helmets that have MIPS, the helmet has to be designed, or redesigned to accept it. We had to make a decision to introduce MIPS at a particular segment of the market. We decided to address the children's market first, because the two guys that own Lazer over in Belgium, myself, the brand manager here in the United States who has a lot of feedback on product design, we all have families, we all have kids. It's a huge, huge priority for us.

We all ride, and wear helmets.

So, we kind of needed to update our children's helmet line. We decided, okay, we're going to come out with some new children's helmets, so let's design the shells to accept this MIPS system and let's introduce that into our children's selection first before we bring it out into our other helmets.

But, it's definitely a feature that we're going to include in more helmets going forward, because we really believe in it."

Bz:

I want to keep talking about this, but I need to jump back to the previous question.

The reason that we don't see what a lot of people might think are common-sense features like faired and rounded vents is, it's not what consumers are demanding, it's not what they're looking for, it's not going to sell?

CS:

"Yeah. And I would politely take issue with people saying that that's what they're looking for, because that's not what they're looking for, because that's not what people are buying.

The market is addressing what the consumers are looking for.”

Bz:

When people contact you they're not saying, 'Hey, I wish you'd make a helmet with faired/rounded vents, no aero tail, etc.'

CS:

"Nope. People are telling me they want lighter helmets, they want better air flow, they want a particular style or cosmetic. That is what people are concerned about.

Or, you know the other big issue that we face with our helmets is – you're probably not going to believe this – our helmets have a reputation for not being sunglasses-friendly. You can't stick your glasses in the vents. That's the number one feedback I get on our helmets. People are critical of our helmet design because the vents are not positioned for people to easily stick their sunglasses in their helmets.

Every time I get that comment, while acknowledging that's what the market is asking for in the high-end helmets, it still blows me away that that is what we're getting requests for and that is what people are concerned with."

Bz:

What about after a serious professional crash like Wouter Weylandt's, or Chris Horner's crash? Do you suddenly get an influx of people saying, 'What about these safety features?'

CS:

"During that first week of the Tour, well, not following Weylandt's crash, really, but during the first week of the Tour and the number of crashes that happened in Brittany, I noticed the buzz on the internet, people asking questions about helmet safety."

Bz:

But, they didn't contact Lazer with those concerns?

CS:

"Nope. I received exactly zero questions from consumers.

I can't say it's not happening. Maybe people are asking their dealers about it, or asking other people about it. But I fielded no direct questions from consumers or from dealers looking for follow up, or regarding how and when helmets might be improved in order to address their concerns regarding helmet safety.

And, honestly, if I did get those questions, it would have to go back to, well, you know our helmets are designed to meet and exceed the current testing standard. If somebody or an organization decided that they wanted to improve the testing standard and that testing standard was adopted by the government in whatever market that we're talking about, we would encourage that.

I mean, we are a helmet manufacturing company, and the rider's safety, at the end of the day, is our number one priority. So, anything that can be done in order to improve the safety performance of the helmet is absolutely something that we want to pursue and take seriously. But, we can't do it at the expense of the viability of the company.

We still have to meet the needs that consumers are looking for.

Because honestly, the consumers look at the helmet certification, I mean, nobody is selling uncertified helmets anyway, but the consumer goes into a bike shop or they're shopping on line, and they're assuming correctly that all the helmets they're looking at are passing the testing standards. So, the very fact that they're wearing a helmet at all, they feel, 'Ok, as far as helmet safety, I've done everything I need to do to make sure I'm wearing a safe helmet by just buying a helmet at all. Well now I'm gonna look at weight, I'm gonna look at the air vents, I'm gonna look at how cool this helmet looks on my head. And those are the criteria that I'm going to use to evaluate which helmet to buy.'

You know, what else can the consumer do? There's no other testing standard out there. There's no data that anybody could look at. There's speculation, 'Well, you know I think a helmet should be this, or it should have this, or it should have that.'

Consumers, there's really not much that they can do with that information."

Bz:

Do you think that the more stringent and more realistic MIPS testing standards might eventually be adopted voluntarily industry-wide?

CS:

"I hope so! I hope that, because honestly, [between the] motorcycle industry and bicycle industry, [in] bicycle crash injuries, this rotational brain injury accounts for a real significant portion of brain injury. So, it would be my hope that helmet testing standards, that the current standard is either replaced, or that the ability to test the head's resistance to rotational injury with a particular helmet is taken into account in helmet testing.”

Bz:

Back to MIPS.

How do you think that will be phased into your overall product line and over what time period? What's the next place you'll introduce MIPS?

CS:

"That's a good question, and that's going to probably have to be a follow-up question. Because I don't have the answer to that.

I don't know what segment we're going to introduce MIPS into next, whether it's going to be mountain, full face, road, price-point adult, urban commuter, I don't know. It could be one or a combination of those different markets, or it could be all of them. I don't know.

The owners of the company are going to be here in the United States next month for Interbike, and that's certainly something I can talk to them about and find out what the future plans are for that MIPS system in the rest of our line."

Bz:

Because each helmet has to be designed individually for or with the MIPS system, it's not something you can do at the snap of a finger. It takes time to redesign each helmet and each helmet line?

CS:

"Yep. We're not going to... no, I can't say that. I can't say that we're not going to have MIPS in everyone of our helmets at some point, because we very well may. As a matter of fact, if MIPS or some equivalent becomes part of the testing standard then not only Lazer, but every manufacturer, has some way to address this rotational injury phenomenon.

But, we're always working on the next-generation helmet that's going to replace whatever our current model helmet is in whatever helmet segment we're talking about.

So, I can only assume that as we're going forward and new helmets are being designed, that MIPS can, and may very well be, incorporated.”

NOTE:Here's the official answer:“While we continue to study the implementation of the MIPS system in our helmet line we are not yet prepared to discuss a timeline for integration into the entire line nor are we able to discuss which helmet might incorporate the MIPS system next.”

Bz:

I have to believe that you're not the only guy, not just at Lazer but in the industry, who's not happy with the testing standard. So is the responsible government agency being lobbied to change or upgrade the standard?

CS:

"Not that I'm aware of. I mean, you're dealing with three entities - Australia/New Zealand (ASI), United States/Canada (CPSE), and every country in Europe (CE). Honestly, I don't know who is setting the CE testing standard. Well, the CE testing standard is not just bicycle helmets, it's nearly every helmet sold in Europe. If you look at the back of your motorcycle helmet you'll see that CE certification. It just means it's approved for sale in that country.

The bicycle industry, I don't know if helmet manufacturers have the resources to lobby all the different government entities that may be involved in improving the testing process."

Bz:

Is there an industry organization?

CS:

"There's not a helmet manufacturer's organization. Not that I'm aware of. There's certainly advocacy groups, in the United States and I can only assume in every country around the world where cycling is a major activity, that advocates on the part of cycling and the cycling industry.

That would be certainly a good project for those advocacy groups to take on, to improve helmet safety, or at least be reviewing current testing standards to be sure that they are matching with real-world circumstances.

I can say on behalf of Lazer, we would have absolutely no objection at all to reviewing or improving testing standards in order to improve helmet safety. We'd have no objection. In fact, we strongly encourage it.”

Bz:

If the industry isn't going to push for change, how do you think it's going to come around? Or who's going to enact that change?

CS:

"That's a good question. Whether it's driven at the consumer level, the dealer level, the manufacturer's level. I don't know. I think that what, for better or worse, what the likely scenario is, that manufacturer's like Lazer identify a particular problem, like rotational brain injury, and either take it upon themselves or work with an organization like MIPS, in order to introduce features that address that. Then other manufacturers take that issue seriously and look for features that address that as well. Then at some point all these manufacturers will be addressing a particular problem from so many different directions that somebody finally decides, 'Well, everybody is trying to solve this problem different ways. Let's come up with a standard testing procedure and ensure that all helmet manufacturers are meeting that testing standard.'

But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know.”

Bz:

When that change finally comes it'll come from inside the industry, not from the government?

CS:

Absolutely!I believe, if I know my history, that the automobile industry early on could be an indicator. Because I don't believe that features like, and maybe I'm wrong, but features like seatbelts and safety glass and airbags and center-mount brake lights, I don't believe that these innovations were mandated by any testing agency.

I believe it was a concept that was tested, proven to provide a safety benefit, and introduced by manufacturers to gain a competitive advantage that said, 'Look, our car has this feature and it makes it more safe than another car at that price point and we think you should buy it because of that.'

Then all of a sudden other manufacturers are like, 'Okay, now we have to have a center-mount brake light because these guys do.' And then they're all offering that safety benefit. Then the government may step in and say, 'Well, everyone is doing this anyway, but they're all doing it lots of different ways. Now, the center brake light has to be in this position, has to be this width, has to have this kind of illumination power.' And they codify what everybody is already doing, into a testing standard.

I don't know if seatbelts, safety glass and airbrakes are the same situation. I could be wrong. It could be a situation where one country mandated airbags and the manufacturers said, 'Look if we're building this model car in this country and it's got an airbag, we may as well just put them in all cars.'

But I think that often you see innovation from manufacturers who are looking to distinguish their products and give them an advantage in the marketplace. Rather than trying to meet the testing standard within their own country."

Bz:

Is MIPS owned by Lazer? Or will we see this system offered by other manufacturers?

CS:

"Nope. No, Lazer is a Belgian company based in Antwerp. I believe MIPS is a Swedish non-profit research institute, that partners with manufacturers, but is a stand-alone company."

[Editor's note: MIPS is indeed a Swedish company, and the MIPS system acronym stands for Multi-directional Impact Protection System. It is not clear from their website statement whether they are non-profit or not.]

Bz:

So we'll see MIPS offered by other manufacturers?

CS:

"We're already seeing it. I mean, Lazer is not the first company to incorporate it into bicycle helmets.

POC uses a version of MIPS in, I believe, one of their full-face helmets and perhaps one of their bucket helmets.

o, MIPS actually came to market in bicycle helmets from POC.Lazer, is the first company that is offering a MIPS helmet in an in-mold manufacturing process. We're also the first company that is offering MIPS in a children's helmet."

Bz:

Initially it's going to cost $20 for a MIPS-upgraded helmet vs. a non-MIPS helmet of the same model. What's the actual cost of installing MIPS?

CS:

"I don't know what our installation cost would be. I mean, it's a more expensive manufacturing process to incorporate MIPS. So that's reflected in the cost. We're not making an additional profit on the MIPS helmet. That increased price just represents the materials and the manufacturing cost to include that."

Bz:

Do you support MIPS in their research and development?

CS:

"Yeah. Now I don't know what that looks like as far as a financial component, at all. But we worked very close with them to develop the shell, and they worked with us to develop the interior portion of the helmet. Because we wanted to make sure that the MIPS retention system was going to go into our shell, be compatible, and actually work. So, yeah, we worked very closely with them. It was a totally collaboration."

Bz:It wasn't just a matter of fitting the MIPS, it was a complete helmet redesign. It wasn't, 'How can we make MIPS fit in this helmet we already have.'CS:

"Yeah! They designed a MIPS system specifically for Lazer and specifically for this helmet."

Bz:

When you say “system” you aren't just talking about the rotation part and its singular attachment point. The entire helmet is the system?

CS:

"That's correct. And that's why this is not something that you can add to a helmet after the fact. It's not even something that you can redesign an existing helmet to be able to take. The shell has to be designed and the foam had to be molded correctly in order for the MIPS system to mount and function correctly when there's an impact.

And if you look at it, MIPS designed this 'insert' specifically for our helmets. They looked at our existing Rollsys® system that we used on our mid- and high-end adult helmets, and they duplicated the look of that Rollsys® system for the P'Nut and the Nut'Z helmets. Because they felt that the front belt and the rear basket that's used in our retention system did such a great job, as far as the attachment points on the head, that they kind of duplicated that look when they designed the insert that goes into the shell.

So, the MIPS system, looks like our Rollsys® system, because that was the foundation they used.

But, you can always tell a MIPS helmet, because the retention is this bright yellow. And that's how you identify the part of the helmet that's actually going to move vs. the shell. Because everything yellow is what's moving in the case of an impact."

Bz:

Since MIPS liked and chose to keep and use your Rollsys® system, will we see a version of your retention system in other manufacturers' MIPS helmets?

CS:

"No. I can only assume that other manufacturers are going to want to collaborate with MIPS in order to either take their retention system and figure out a way to modify it to do the same job in their helmets, or to come up with a completely new system.

The benefit that our Rollsys® system offers, is it encircles the entire head between the front and rear component of the Rollsys® system. To my knowledge, I don't know of another helmet manufacturing company that is making a retention system that encircles the entire head. The competitors that I'm aware of, the entire adjustable section of the retention system sits at the back of the head, and as you adjust it tighter it pulls the front of the helmet tighter against the rider's forehead.

We developed this, again, to go all the way around the circumference of the rider's head and to offer the adjustabilty and the comfort, and that's why it was so easy for MIPS to use that same style mechanism. Because it does go all the way around the rider's head, and that's what you have to have with this MIPS system. If you're going to isolate the rider's head from the shell, it has to hold on to the entire circumference of the rider's head."

Bz:

I've read a test report that compared the performance of sub-$20 helmets and $150+ helmets. They found virtually no difference in performance, and the cheaper helmets slightly outperformed at low impacts.

For an additional $20, the MIPS helmets are supposed to reduce brain damage, or potential brain damage, by about 33%. Is that a real number?

CS:

"Yeah! And that's directly from MIPS.

If you want to follow up on that I can put you in contact with those guys. They'd be more than happy to talk to you about their system and that number.

Obviously it's their number, it's their testing standard. But, it's a real number and they've duplicated it in the lab time and time again."

Bz:

A $20 investment can reduce your risk of brain damage by about 1/3?
CS:

"Yes.”

Bz:

But the MIPS system isn't going to be available in lower-end helmets.

CS:

"Not yet.”

Bz:

I can't expect to buy a $45 helmet, as opposed to a $25 helmet, and expect to have a MIPS system in it?

CS:

"Not from Lazer. Not from anybody, I believe.Technology like this can't be deployed all at once."

Bz:

What about over the next five to ten years?

CS:

"Oh, absolutely! I think it'll be a much shorter time frame than that.”

Bz:

Less than five years?

CS:

"Yeah. I don't know if it will be ubiquitous in the helmet market. But, I am pretty confident to say that within the next five years you will be able to find a MIPS helmet at a number of different price points, for adults. Absolutely."

[After my interview with Chris, I had the opportunity to talk briefly with Daniel Lanner, a technical engineer from MIPS. – Bz]

Bz:

Would you explain the MIPS testing standard/procedure? Chris referred to is as more "real world."

Daniel Lanner:

"I take it Chris refers to the fact that today's helmet tests, no matter helmet category, are only focusing on straight radial impacts (90 degree) whereas in a majority of all hits of the the head to the ground, you fall with an angled impact.

The difference between the two impacts is the type of violence or energy they transmit into the brain. A straight radial hit provides straight radial or translational energy, a type of energy we know is less damaging to the brain. The angled impact, however, gives rise to rotational energy and violence to the brain. So today's helmets are not tested to withstand the most common and most damaging blows to head – angled. Rotational violence is the cause of the most severe type of brain injuries. These injuries are called Subdural Haematoma and Diffuse Axonal Injury. (Please view our website for more extensive information)"

Bz:

Would you explain the reliability of the claim of reducing potential brain damage by about 33% using a MIPS vs. non-MIPS helmet and how that number was arrived at?

DL:

"It is difficult to set a specific number in percentage that the MIPS system reduces brain damage. The reduction using the MIPS system differs depending on impact site and direction to the helmet. However studies have shown that rotational measurements (rotational acceleration and rotational velocity) correlate well to the risk of brain injuries and that a reduction of these measurements reduces the risk of brain damage. With the MIPS system, we reduce the magnitude of these rotational measurements in the order of 25-55 %."

Bz:

Chris was aware of three manufacturers using, or soon to be using, MIPS: Lazer, POC and one other. Who is the third manufacturer? Is that number rising? Will MIPS helmets be more broadly or even generally available over the next few years? Do you have a time frame?

DL:

"Except for POC and Lazer, the US brand Burton brings their snow helmet brand RED to market this season. In addition, two different equestrian helmet brands – Back on Track and Felix Bühler – distribute helmets in Europe. At this weeks' international bicycle trade show, Eurobike, there will be two additional brands launching helmets with MIPS. I am afraid I can't reveal their brand name yet.

We are currently working on implementing MIPS in several bike, snow, motorcycle, military and ice hockey helmets. All to be launched during late 2011 and 2012."

Bz:

Is MIPS working to change the legal standards (CPSE, ASI, CE) officially? Or will the higher, more realistic MIPS standard remain entirely voluntary? If so, do you think that it will eventually spread throughout the industry in all (US/Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Europe) markets?

DL:

We are members of and participating in meetings with the mentioned certifying bodies and yes, we are working towards having the general test standards upgraded with a demand that helmets provide protections against angled impacts and rotational violence. We believe that the consumer demand for optimal protection will create a pressure on helmet manufacturers to include such technologies well ahead of any change of regulations. The official changes tend to take very long.

MIPS are, as mentioned above, delivering our technology to a fast growing number of leading brands in most helmet categories and we expect that to continue spreading across helmet segments and geographies."

Bz:

Are you aware of any alternate "real-world" standards either in use or in development by other companies?

DL:

"If you refer to the helmet industry, no. For other industries, a good comparison could be made with the airbag for the car industry. It started out as something very exclusive and to some consumers an obscure safety feature. But as the market got aware of the massive safety impact it has, the airbag has more or less become a "real-world" standard without authorities changing laws and regulations. Would you buy a car without an airbag? We see the same happening in the helmet industry where consumers will shift from old technology to new technology and include MIPS or future similar solutions."

-----------------You can also read and discuss Pt 2 of this interview at Cyclismas

Interview: Chris Smith from Lazer Sport: Part 1

2011-09-25T22:28:00.001-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Afterword

An Interview with Chris Smith from Lazer Sport, the bicycle helmet company.

Not that long ago on Twitter I came across @Helmeteer_Chris, who is the PR guy for Lazer Sport, and I had some questions for him. That discussion grew into a full interview, which follows in two parts.

Primary sources of information for this interview:

BHSI

Questions about standards?

Helmet foam materials

Bikezilla:

I'm just curious, when one of your competitors comes out with a new helmet, do you guys go out and buy a dozen, just to see what the other guys might do better?

Chris Smith:

"I can tell you for a fact that we do purchase and test competitor's helmets. We're not crashing them! But, we do, and I'm sure other manufacturers do, test helmets to assure that they're meeting testing standards. But we're also testing the actual weight vs. advertised weight, we're testing airflow, we're testing comfort.

So, yeah, when I go over to Belgium once or twice a year to meet with the guys in the office and when we go for rides, we're not all wearing Lazer helmets.

I mean, that's the only way you know what competitors are doing, as opposed to just getting anecdotal evidence. You gotta spend a significant amount of time riding those helmets in order to really understand what's going on. And I'm sure similar people at similar levels at our competitors are doing the exact same thing."

Bz:Have you ever tried out one of those helmets and come away liking it better than yours? I won't ask for a brand name.

CS:

"Ahhhhh, I've tested other helmets where I've appreciated a specific feature, 'Oh, God, this helmet is so light, or the venting on this particular helmet I really feel an amazing amount of air going over my head.'

But, I can tell you that at the end of the day there's always been some kind of knock that would keep me from using a competitor's helmet versus Lazer."

Bz:

Not just because you're paid to say it, you actually do prefer Lazer helmets.

CS:

"I've been working for Lazer for three years and I've been riding with Lazer helmets for seven years. I started using Lazer helmets as soon as they started being sold in the United States."

Bz:

Is it true that helmets are intentionally made to just meet or to barely exceed CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) or other standards? Meaning they intentionally do not exceed the standard by much?

Do Lazer Helmets exceed legal testing guidelines? If so, how?

CS:

"I can speak on behalf of Lazer specifically.

There is a minimum testing standard, specifically for CPSC for the United States, but also the CE for the testing standard for Europe and the ASI testing standard for Australia. We exceed that standard by a factor of two.

Helmets we design and manufacture – and I believe this is very common in the bicycle industry – are meeting and exceeding the testing standards by a factor of two. I believe that's very common if not the norm in the bicycle helmet industry.”

Bz:

Are the CE and ASI standards similar to the U.S. Standard?

CS:

"The CE standard is less stringent than the CPSC standard. The ASI standard is more stringent than the CPSC standard.”

Bz:

So you exceed the most stringent [standard] by a factor of two?

CS:

"Well, we are unique in the bicycle industry, I believe, in that we actually manufacture helmets specifically for the testing standard used in each market.

We exceed each specific market by a factor of two.

What I'm trying to say is, if you look at a particular model helmet, we may make that model helmet different ways depending upon the market that helmet is going to be sold in.

And what that will yield is a helmet that is more competitive in its category in that market.

Like in the CE market, the European market, the Genesis helmet is slightly lighter weight than it is in the CPSC market and the ASI market. And that's just because in order to meet our internal testing standards and the CE testing standards we can get away with using less material in the European version of that helmet and make it more competitive at its price point and its segment in the market."

Bz:

It's not a matter of making it maximally safe, it's a matter of making it competitive.

CS:

"Yeah. Fundamentally, what you need to understand about helmets is, there's lots of different helmets for lots of different types of cycling and different price points that consumers are willing to pay for a helmet. In order for a manufacturer to be successful in business, they need to deliver a product that the consumer wants to buy.

So, for a helmet that has a particular weight target it has to cost within a certain range or price. Or, a helmet within a certain price range, it has to have a certain maximum weight for it to be considered a legitimate contender in the marketplace.

So, the European helmets are a little bit more competitive on weight vs. price, because the testing standard is not as stringent."

Bz:

What about industry standards? Has the helmet industry come up with its own set of testing standards? Or does each manufacturer come up with his own, which may or may not exceed the legal?

CS:

"No. There's no collaboration in the bicycle industry between manufacturers on helmet testing standards.

It's a third entity, in the case of the United States it's the CPSC that sets the testing standard that the manufacturers follow. But there's no cooperation or work within the industry to develop a new standard, or to develop a standard other than what is currently accepted, which is the CPSC standard in the United States.”

Bz:

Is there much fluctuation, manufacturer to manufacturer, on exceeding the legal standard? Or does everyone exceed it by 2X?

CS:

"I can't speak for other manufacturers. I don't know.

I know that a smart company will look to exceed that standard, for two reasons. Number one, to assure that the helmet is providing the maximum amount of safety that it can within that category of helmets. Whether you're talking about a $300 helmet or whether you're talking about a $30 helmet, you want it to be the safest helmet you can manufacture at that price point, using whatever technology you're using and whatever benchmark maximum weight you're trying to hit, or whatever. You want to deliver the safest helmet you can at that price point, to be competitive in the market.

But you've also go to take into account manufacturing process, and that will fluctuate.

If you're using a mold to build the helmet foam, that mold is gonna start to wear over time. There might be factors in manufacturing that will affect how that single helmet will test out.

So, if you are designing a helmet and testing it out, preproduction samples, testing those out that they exceed the testing standard by, like I said, a factor of two. Because if you're beating it by a factor of two and you lose one or two points because the mold is starting to wear out, or whatever reason, you can be sure you're still far exceeding the testing standard.

Whereas, just hypothetically, if the drop test says, we don't want to see forces any higher than X, and you're hitting at X + .01, you basically don't have any margin for error during the manufacturing process [when not aiming to intentionally exceed the minimum standard – Bz].

So, in the case of Lazer, and I believe that this is common in the helmet manufacturing industry, exceeding that standard by a certain factor, and I think two is pretty common, assures the manufacturer that they're delivering a safe helmet and they're accounting for any kind of issues during manufacturing that may knock a point or two off of the result during that test.”

Bz:

When should a helmet be replaced?

CS:

"You talk about helmet manufacturers getting together and coming up with a testing standard. What I wish is that manufacturers would come up with a consistent message regarding helmet replacement. Either an amount of time, you know, you've had this helmet for two years you should really think about replacing it, and coming out with some hard data that says, okay, you leave this foam exposed to UV light for such and such a time the foam degrades and offers less protection, the plastic degrades and is more likely to crack or shatter or whatever.

I mean, every time you have it outside you're exposing it to UV light regardless of whether it's in direct sunlight or the clouds or whatever. And ozone can cause plastic and foam to deteriorate. It happens.

Obviously, there's sales and marketing. The more people replace their helmets the more helmets we're going to sell. But, I see people riding all the time with unbelievably old helmets. From the 1980s, you know, the huge Bell V – 1 Pro. Those, you know, look bomb proof, but realistically have been around for so long that the foam is basically just an extension of the plastic on the outside of the helmet. In case of an impact the energy will go right into your skull.

Without testing, I don't want to say that you'd be better off with no helmet at all, but..."

Bz:

What happens to foam when it gets old?

CS:

"It's more brittle."

Bz:

It's ability to give in an impact is gone?

CS:

"Basically what's happening is the cells in the foam close up. The amount of air inside the foam is being reduced. As the air in the foam is reduced, the foam is hardening up and the foam is then less able to absorb energy because it's the air pockets within the foam that are actually absorbing that energy and compressing."

Bz:At about what period of time does that occur? Or is it so much that you really should replace your helmet? Two years? Five years? Ten years?

CS:

"I tell people that at a minimum they should be looking at a new helmet every three years. And that's not just for deterioration of the foam. Because the foam would probably last longer than that. But, the more you use a helmet, the more it gets banged up. If you travel with the helmet, the helmet going to get knocked around. If you have in a suitcase or luggage, unless you take a lot of extraordinary care in order to protect the foam in the helmet, every time you move it around the foam gets dinged, the foam is compressing and compressed foam does not offer protection for the rider's head. So, especially if you're using it regularly, I think a new helmet every three years is not unrealistic.

Again, I'm not a scientist or an engineer, so I haven't seen any empirical evidence."

Bz:

What's the difference between a $25 helmet from Walmart or Target or some other big discount store and a $150 helmet? Because, just to look at them they all seem about the same; styrofoam core, plastic shell.

CS:

"Weight, ventilation, airflow, dual-density foam, additional reinforcement, better retention systems for more secure fit/comfort.Glue-on shell vs. an in-mold manufactured helmet.

A glue-on shell is basically, you mold the foam, then you have the shell that you glue on to the outer surface and you reinforce that with a piece of tape that goes around the shell.

That's the original manufacturing process, when companies started to get into helmet design.

Then they switch to what's called an “in-mold” manufacturing process, where you actually have the outer plastic shell, which you put into the mold and then you inject foam and it's kind of all built as one piece.

Then, beyond that, you can have multiple-piece manufacturing process where you have the shell, you have one part of the foam that is injected at one point, you have another part of the foam that's injected at another point, you can have multiple pieces of foam that are connected into the helmet during the manufacturing process. That allows us to piece objects inside the foam in order to increase the durability of the helmet in the event of an impact.

It also allows you to use multi-density foam. So if you want to lighten up the overall weight of the helmet, you can research areas of the helmet that are less critical for the protection of the rider's head and you can use a lighter weight foam in that area in order to reduce the overall weight of the helmet.

But, basically, as you go up in price, you're using a more sophisticated manufacturing process and trying to achieve the same ultimate testing result, using less materials.

You're also trying to improve the performance of the helmet at the same time. You're increasing the size of the vents, you're putting air channels into the interior of the helmet to draw more air through the helmet, making it more comfortable. All of that stuff goes back to that sophisticated manufacturing process and very easily drives up the overall manufacturing cost of the individual helmet.

Also, the sophistication of the retention system. That has to do with how securely the helmet fits on the rider's head. It also has to do with how comfortably the helmet fits on the rider's head.

In a very simple retention system, maybe a recreational rider who isn't going to be spending a long time on a bike, maybe doesn't need a helmet that is going to be comfortable after seven or eight or nine hours on the bike. So they can get away with something a little less sophisticated. Whereas somebody who is a granfondo rider or a racer, doing a lot of training, they're wearing their helmet for an extended amount of time. So they want something that is very comfortable for a long period of time, is very easy to adjust and maybe had multiple pieces that are involved in order to build that retention system.

The development of that retention system, building the helmet around that retention system and the multiple parts that go into it can also drive up the manufacturing cost. The straps themselves, you can use lighter weight strap materials in order to increase the comfort of the helmet, you can use a more sophisticated buckle system in order to lighten up the weight of the helmet. Or, in the case of our magnetic system, just to make it easier for the two pieces to connect. There's a manufacturing expense to doing that as well.”

Bz:

You mention the two different types of manufacturing, the two-part helmet with a glued on shell, and the one part helmet with the foam poured into the shell. At the high or low end of either, is one type inherently safer than the other?

CS:

"No. No. With current testing standards is one safer than the other? No. Because, they are both able to meet the testing standard and protect the rider's head in the event of an impact.

I, personally, would have no hesitancy going out and riding with a $25 or $30 helmet. It just would not be as light weight, it wouldn't offer the amount of airflow through the helmet, it may not be as comfortable, and it certainly wouldn't look the way that I would want a helmet to look.

But as far as ultimate safety, it's gonna do the same job as a $300 helmet is gonna do.

It's just that the more expensive helmet is going to offer some additional features for the rider that somebody who's going out and riding for 20 to 30 minutes is not going to... they don't need, they're not going to appreciate it, they're not going to want to spend the money on it."

Bz:

In a multi-density foam helmet, what area or areas will normally contain the lighter-weight foam? How is that determined?

CS:

"We make a determination regarding the areas of the helmet that are less critical for the protection of the head or the integrity of the helmet in the event of an impact, and those are the areas of the helmet that we can replace with the lighter weight foam. The helmet is then tested internally to assure that it passes testing within our margins. If it does not then we change the ratio between standard and lighter-weight foam and retest."

Bz:Pat McQuaid recently complained that the frames for $4,000 bikes are made in China at a cost of less than $40.

Manufacturers say he's off the mark by as much as a factor of 10, but none of them are showing the invoices to prove that.

What is the actual cost of manufacturing a $25 helmet? A $150 helmet?

CS:

"Hmmm, I don't know.

I can tell you that looking at pure manufacturing costs you're missing a portion, and a significant portion, of the expense of bringing a product to market. Research, development, engineering, prototyping, pre-production prototyping, testing. There's a lot more that goes into manufacturing a product, regardless of what a product is, than just the raw materials and time spent in manufacturing it."

Bz:

Are those costs proportionally multiplied when you're manufacturing a higher-end helmet?

CS:

"Yeah! You have the in-mold process, where you're molding the helmet out of different pieces of foam and you're introducing different material as you're manufacturing it.

Other than the machines and the shell and the foam in the helmet, there's a lot of hand labor that does into manufacturing these helmets. It's actually shocking.

We're talking about threading the straps. You think about the complexity of these helmet straps, they're all hand threaded. The more sophistication retention mechanism the more time has to be spent threading the helmet strap through that retention system. The more sophisticated the buckle, there's got to be a procedure.

Our retention system, again, is pretty sophisticated and it has to be fed through the the exterior of the helmet, the interior of the helmet, during the molding process.

So, yeah, I think for other manufacturing factors... our more expensive helmets require, not a significanct amount of raw materials, in a lot of cases it's actually less raw materials. But the manufacturing process is more sophisticated and there's a lot more hand laboring put into the manufacturing."

Bz:

What percentage of the overall manufacturing cost does R&D make up in a $25 helmet? A $300 helmet?

CS:

Impossible to say because these costs are highest at the first helmet sold and then are amortized over the life of the helmet model. The longer a helmet model stays in our product line or the more successful the helmet is in regard to sales the lower the cost of R&D makes up."

Bz:

I've noticed that lower-end helmets often don't even come in packages. They're just hung on a peg.

CS:

"Yeah! In Europe they're not even hung on a shelf. They're thrown into a big plastic bin. Just loose helmets thrown into a bin. Consumers just come in, they throw one on their head, 'Yep, that fits. I'm ready to go.'”

Bz:

If you just pick up a helmet and look at it, it would seem to be made of about the same material as a cheap picnic cooler, except for the density of the foam.

How is helmet foam different from picnic cooler foam?

CS:

“That is a good question and one that I don't have the answer to. Not being a helmet engineer and not being familiar with the different types of expanded styrene foams that are used it would be pure speculation on my part.

I believe the size of the individual cells, the air cells in the foam, the air cells on an EPS cooler may be very large and larger air cells do not offer the same kind of resistance to impact or the durability in a helmet that you're going to be wearing on a daily basis.

When you talk about a helmet that uses dual-density foam, as I mentioned earlier, you're IDing parts of the helmet that are less critical for the protection of the rider's head and you're using a lighter-weight foam, basically I think what you're doing is using a foam that has a higher air quantity. The cells in that foam are bigger and they're trapping more air and that lightens up the overall weight of the foam.

But, at the end of the day I believe, again not being an engineer and not knowing all the details about it, EPS (expanded polystyrene) is EPS.”

NOTE: Chris emailed the official answer the next day (along with a couple others). – Bz

CS:

"The chemical composition of the foam is the same [as in styrofoam coolers], but the quality of the foam in regard to the size/shape/consistency of the foam bubbles at the time of expansion during production is higher in the foam used in helmets.”

Bz:

Of the materials, EPS, SXP, EPP and SEPP, which best protects in case of impact? Which prevents the most energy from reaching the head and brain?

CS:

"I have not been able to get information from our engineers regarding these various types of foam. My limited understanding on this is that SXP foam is a version of EPS foam and is required for use in CPSC-certified helmets and also mandated for use in the state of California. I believe that this is the industry standard for use."

Bz:

Is one of these materials destined to be the "future" of cycling helmets? Or will EPS remain the standard for the foreseeable future? If it will, will you explain why? Could you (or one of your engineers, perhaps) give me a list of the advantages and disadvantages, the benefits and drawbacks for each material?

[This answer was emailed after the interview. – Bz]

CS:

"Whatever version of EPS foam (SXP) is being used now is going to be the standard in the foreseeable future as this raw material is readily available and currently most economical to use in manufacturing. Should another foam be determined to offer greater protection and the industry or regulative agencies determine that it should be used at that time, a switch will be made. I don’t see this happening in the foreseeable future, however. Keep in mind that EPS foam is not just used in the bicycle industry but other sports industries that require the use of a helmet, as well as the immense motorcycle helmet industry. I would expect the motorcycle helmet market will drive any significant changes to materials used in the bicycle helmet industry."

Bz:

Manufacturers often have to choose a foam density that will pass impact tests based on the number and size of vents. A helmet with larger vents or more vents, will have thinner vent walls/ribs so it will require a foam that is more dense.

This means that you have a smaller harder surface area smashing into your skull in a crash.

So even though two helmets may have identical numbers in an impact test, are helmets with larger or more vents actually less safe in crashes?

CS:

"Ummmmmmmm... that is a question that is impossible for me to answer without any kind of testing data to prove it one way or the other.

I mean, you can speculate all you want on that theory. Unless you're going to get helmets and you're going to go out and going to set up a testing standard, and actually get empirical data that says something one way or the other, then it's basically just speculation at this point. That's not something that I'd be able to comment on.

Every manufacturer is in the same boat. What manufacturers are facing is the demand of the market. I may have said to you, I've said to other people, you can make the safest helmet in the world. You can manufacture a hundred thousand of them and promptly go out of business because nobody is going to buy them.

People want helmets that, depending on the price point and the level of consumer you're talking about these are going to be different priorities, but people want a helmet that looks stylish, they want a helmet that is lightweight and comfortable to wear, and they want a helmet that's going to offer some airflow.

Again, you can make the safest helmet in the world with no air vents, a huge amount of foam, but nobody is going to wear it. Or very, very few people are going to wear it. Certainly not enough to keep your company viable and in business.

You've got to match your product to the demands of the consumers and match your product to what competitors are offering. And if you can offer A, B and C features that kind of exceed what the competitors are doing at that price point, and offer increased safety or better performance or whatever, that's where you can distinguish yourself in the market.

But ultimately, regrettably, if safety is the only goal in helmet manufacturing, then you're not going to survive as a company. As a consumer, yeah, it can offer benefit, but that's just not what the marketplace is looking for."

Bz:

Narrower vent walls also mean more squared edges, which are inherently worse in crashes than rounded edges. They're more likely to stick or to get snagged and jerk helmet off your head leaving you with no protection, or to jerk your head around violently and increase rotational injuries.

This is also true of the "aero" tail on many helmets.

It seems that things done specifically to increase the value of a helmet too often create a less safe product, but are allowed in the name of higher marketability and profit.

CS:

"What I would say about that is... I have not seen, I mean, I've seen anecdotal evidence and people's comments about this. But, I have not seen any testing data that says that a helmet with edges on it of some kind, or aero helmets, are inherently less safe than a perfectly round helmet or something that exactly matches the curvature of your head.

It may very well be the case. But, again, I've seen no data that proves that, and I'm not aware of anybody who's actually testing that.

Again, I'm not saying that it cannot very well be the case, but what I will say is that based on the overwhelming number of photographs and post-crash stories that I get from our customers – and I can only assume that other manufacturers get them from their customers – this phenomenon of an edge of a helmet or the sharp corner of a helmet or the aero tail of a time trial helmet specifically causing an injury to the rider, I haven't seen a case of it.

So, what we could be talking about is a very real scenario, but one that is so unlikely in a real-world situation, that it makes it impractical to take into account when designing a helmet.

No helmet can protect a rider in every situation, due to speed, due to the angle of the impact, objects in the road, objects off the side of the road, the surface that the rider is riding on. There are too many variables to take into account to say that this helmet is going to protect the rider the best in every situation.

So, to look at a particular feature of a helmet, regardless of how commonly it's used and say, 'this is something that I'm concerned about,' the chance of that being a problem in a real world situation – while existing – could be so remote that it's not a concern that a manufacturer can or should consider.

Bz:

Could you address the issue of visors shattering, or the edges slicing riders' faces, or snagging during a collision and violently jerking the riders' head around and increasing rotational damage?

CS:

"Again, hypothetical or anecdotal situations are always going to happen. I don't know. You've got a segment of the market that wants a feature. And whether they are aware of the risks of that feature or not, in the case of a visor they want a visor on their helmet.

Obviously, the visors from Lazer, the visors from other manufacturers, are designed to withstand impact without shattering. I know that I've got a number of visors from our Oasis helmet, the all-mountain helmet I was telling you about, I can twist that visor 180 degrees and it's not going to break, it's not going to shatter. It may deform, but it's not going to shatter. It's not that fragile.

If you leave it out in the sun for five years and the UV rays cause the plastic to deteriorate, at that point it might shatter."

Bz:

Does Lazer, or any manufacturer that you're aware of, make a helmet that's... maximally safe? Just, okay, here's the absolute safest helmet you can buy. It may be ugly. It may not be stylish, but if this is what you want, here it is. Is that helmet out there?

CS:

"Hmmmm. I can tell you on behalf of Lazer that we do not make a helmet that we specifically market like that. I can't say that Lazer does not make that helmet, because we're not testing the helmets to any kind of standard that says 'this is the safest helmet.' I don't know what that test would look like.

I can tell you personally that I think the current drop tests are not satisfactory. But, I'm not an engineer, I would not be comfortable being responsible to design what I thought would be the ultimate helmet testing standard.

So, again, without some kind of benchmark to say, 'Okay, this is the test that will determine what the safest bicycle helmet in the world is, I couldn't identify which of our helmets, or any other manufacturer's helmet, might meet that criteria.

Without discounting the fact that this helmet may not already exist and that Lazer may be making that helmet, without some kind of way to verify that in a reliable and clean testing situation, that's not something I'd be able to determine.”

Bz:

You've told me that Lazer Sport manufactures its helmets in China, but some companies manufacture in Europe. Is there a difference in the quality of helmets manufactured in one place vs. the other?

CS:

"My feeling is that the quality of manufacturing between China and Europe is about the same but the production costs in Europe are higher. So you can get the same quality helmet from a Chinese supplier for a more economical price. The quality of products coming from China has improved dramatically in the last ten years and Lazer has a very close relationship with our production facility which allows us to develop and incorporate new concepts and innovation into our helmets very quickly after design."

Bz:

You've mentioned before that you're not happy with the current testing standard. You mentioned that you aren't happy with the drop test because it doesn't match real world situations.

Does Lazer, or anyone, test more “real world?" Different angles? Skid? Just whatever might make the standard better?

CS:

"When we design a helmet we're designing it for the testing standard of that market [U.S., Australia, Europe – Bz]. We're partnering with another organization which is using a different testing procedure. I might have alluded to that in the article that I referenced [on his own blog, here – Bz]. The organization is called MIPS. We are, I know that POC and maybe one other company which I'm not sure of [also are]. We are partnering with MIPS using a different testing procedure, in order to address what I feel are more real world conditions.”

Bz:

MIPS is not just a system, they've also modified the testing standard?

CS:

"They've developed their own testing standard. It's not a stationary helmet with an object coming into it, it's not a stationary object with a helmet coming into it. They're doing a more dynamic test to the helmet.”

Bz:

Is a helmet designed for one function, maybe mountain bike (MTB) riding, less safe if used for maybe road riding than a helmet made specifically for road riding?

CS:

"Well, it depends.

One example is our high end Helium helmet, which we consider a road helmet, vs. our Oasiz MTB helmet or all-mountain helmet.

The Helium helmet, it's the pinnacle of our line. It's made using our most sophisticated manufacturing technology in order to make it as lightweight as possible.

Whereas the Oasiz helmet, it uses the same manufacturing process, but it's a more significant helmet in that it's meatier and there's more material that comes down the back of the rider's head. Because again, the demands of the market. Riders who are doing this all-mountain type of riding, they're looking for a helmet that offers more protection down the back of the rider's head and has more material that the helmet is built around."

Bz:

So there are features that make a helmet an MTB helmet or a road helmet?

CS:

"There are features that we are offering in order to address the needs of the MTB market, or the road bike market.

But, what I'll tell you is, like in the case of the Luna womens professional MTB team, we equip them all with the Helium helmet, because they want the super-light helmet

So, someone who's looking for a type of helmet, whether or not at the end of the day it's for the type of riding they're doing, the crash that they actually might find themselves involved in, whether or not the Oasiz helmet is going to offer them more protection, there's too many variables to take into account. But in the case of the all-mountain segment, A, B and C features are what those riders are looking for, so we incorporate those features into the helmet."

Bz:Ok, it's based on rider preferences within a category. What MTB riders want in that line, what road riders want in that line.

How do you gather the information about what various types of riders want in which line or type of helmets?

CS:

"We look at what – if it's a new segment for us to get into – we look at what consumers are already buying in that segment, as far as the features that they're looking for. Then we look at, okay, are there ways that we can improve upon those features, is there a way that we can offer the same protection with less material, to lighten up the overall weight of the helmet? Can we integrate our features and technologies that we use on our high-end helmets at a lower-price helmet and set our product apart from what the competition is doing, by a better fit or better airflow, better chin buckle, better visor.”

Bz:

Do you take feedback from the people and teams that you sponsor?

CS:

"Absolutely.”

Bz:

I remember seeing a crash test comparison of a Smart car and a Toyota Corolla, at 70 mph into giant concrete blocks. The cages of both cars held up amazingly well.

But after showing us that, the host mentioned that it doesn't matter how well the cage protects the body, the person inside the car in a 70-mph crash is still very likely to die from organ damage due to the forces involved in rapid deceleration.

Translating that to helmet design, it seems obvious that there's only so much protection a helmet can offer. Most of us will never crash at 70 mph, but a combination of forces, especially for racers, could equal that.

What are the limits of helmet protection?

Does that $150 or $300 helmet protect significantly better than the $25 helmet?

I know there's no standard scenario, so no standard maximum safe speed for helmet effectiveness, but can you give a range?

What is the upper limit of speed for impacts from the side? From the front? From the top? From the rear?

CS:

"No. No. At the end of the day, no. There are too many variables to take into account to even to begin to guess at that.

Again, without any empirical data or any kind of reliable testing it would be irresponsible for anyone to make that kind of recommendation.

I can tell you that in a $25 helmet vs. a $300 helmet, there may some features built into that $300 helmet that might help improve the odds that the rider will escape from a crash unscathed, for instance the RBS, the Rigidity Brace System that we build into our higher-end helmets, and again that's another component of that higher manufacturing technology. We can introduce more materials into the helmet when we're building these multiple pieces. But, what the RBS is, it's a skeleton that's inside of the foam and in the event of an impact the skeleton helps keep the foam together and around the rider's head. So if there are additional lower-speed impacts, the rider still has foam around their head and is offered that additional protection.

So, in our higher-end helmets we have that RBS that may offer that protection.

But again, there's too many variables. Is the rider going to crash and land directly on their head? Are they going to crash and land on another body part that can cause rapid deceleration so that the rider's head is hitting at a much lower speed? Is there an object in the road or off the side of the road that the rider's head could hit?

Again, it's impossible and in my opinion it would be irresponsible without a standard test, to say that 'you can wear our helmet at speeds up to 50 mph and be assured that in the event of a crash you're not going to have a problem.'

Because, honestly, you look at Natasha Richardson, the actress who was skiing on a bunny hill. She was standing still and fell over and had a traumatic brain injury and within... six hours? Eight hours? She was dead.

You can trip and land on the floor at almost zero miles an hour and suffer a significant brain injury that can cause death.

Bicycle helmets can help. They can offer considerable help depending upon the circumstances of the crash. But, at the end of the day there's just too many variables to take into account to say that this helmet will offer protection up to speeds up to this amount.”

Bz:

As in the example they gave with that 70-mph car crash, where it didn't matter how well the car cage protected the body, the organs inside could not survive, is there a point or a speed where it doesn't matter how well the helmet protects the skull, the brain inside cannot survive?

At 30 mph? 50 mph? I don't know...

CS:

"I don't know either. Because I'm not aware of any test that has defined that. Because ultimately what you're talking about is the speed... it's not the speed that your head hits the object, it's the speed at which your brain hits the inside of the skull. Because that's where the brain injury happens.

Your head can hit an object at whatever speed. But because your brain is not fixed to the inside of your head, there's a delayed reaction between when your head hits the ground and when your brain decelerates by smashing into the skull.

You're talking about survivability? It depends what part of the brain hits the inside of the skull. There's certain parts of the brain that are more durable than others."

Bz:

So it's things like, do you hit directly or is it a glancing blow, is it a front impact, or on the side or back, not just how fast you're going, that make a big difference?

CS:

"Exactly.

Again, there's too many variables to take into account. Because of what is happening – not just outside your head, but inside your head – in just fractions of a second, it can make a critical difference whether or not a head impact and injury is survivable or not.

I don't know what the speed of Wouter Weylandt was in the Giro d'Italia when he crashed. I know that they were descending. From what I saw of that descent it didn't look to be an extremely high-speed descent. If the speed was over 40 mph [64 kph – Bz] I would have been amazed. But, you hit your head in a particular way, it can be fatal, regardless of what you've got on your head."

The following questions were submitted by @CycleGirl108, a friend on twitter, following several discussions we had concerning Wouter Weylandt's crash at the Giro and Chris Horner's and Tom Boonen's crashes at the Tour. She knew we were doing this interview and has a keen interest in helmet safety and helmet advocacy. She emailed her questions to be posed to Chris Smith during the interview.

CG108:They've used hard styrofoam as the main cushion in helmets for 30 years; why not shift to gel or something with more give?

CS:

"Good question. Why haven't they?I'd have to talk to my boss and the engineers.”

OFFICIAL EMAILED ANSWER:

"Two reasons EPS foam is currently being used:
It’s currently readily available and mass-produced, so it’s easy for manufacturers to obtain for a reasonable cost while still offering good protection for the rider's head
Gel and similar materials have been tested but the overall helmet weight when used with these materials has yielded unacceptable results.”

CG108:

Is it possible to have a helmet which grips the head directly, and doesn't need a chin strap?

CS:

"It is possible? Sure.

But that kind of flies in the face the rotational injury phenomenon. You actually need to have some kind of system for the helmet to move independent of the rider's head.

Maybe you could do it. Maybe you could develop a system that grabs the rider's head so tightly, but still allows the shell to move independent of that. I don't know how comfortable that would be.I think you could do it, but you'd sacrifice everything in the way of helmet comfort to achieve that.”

CG108:

I've been told that above a certain speed or impact pressure, the helmet may keep the skull intact, but brains inside will liquefy. True? That is, it will be like shaking a raw egg: Scrambled in the shell. If so, what speed?

CS:

"'Liquify' is bit extreme, but it is true. I can't assign a speed to that. Because it could happen at high speed, it could happen at low speed.

The speed of the rider and the speed of the bike has nothing to do with it. It's the speed of the head, how and where it impacts whatever surface.

You can come off your bike at 70 mph but you may have decelerated to under 50 by the time your head hits the ground. Who knows, by what part of your body hits first.

But having said that, regardless of speed, yes, you can hit your head hard enough where you brain, because your brain is not fixed to the interior of your skull, you can hit your head hard enough that your brain will impact the inside of your skull and cause intercranial bleeding. That can be fatal, and quickly fatal."

CG108:

The current standards call for protection when dropped from 2 meters onto an anvil. Isn't that a lot slower than a typical rider goes? It seems to me that a recreational rider goes about 20 mph, which is quite a bit faster than a dropped helmet, so shouldn't the standard be made higher?

CS:

"Possibly. But, I can say that in the case of the testing standard, they take into account the fact that another portion of the rider's body, more often than not, impacts the ground first, which causes rapid deceleration.

It's very rare that the rider's head hits first at full speed.

The testing standard was developed to account for, I think, 14 mph. Because that's what they determined was the average crash speed when the head actually did have impact. So that was, for better or worse, whether you agree with it or not, that was taken into account when they designed the test."

CG108:

Can helmets be improved to absorb more impact and protect wearers from falls at higher speeds, without making the helmets so cumbersome that bicyclists won't wear them?

CS:

"Can it be done? Mmmmmmmmm, anything can be done, depending on how much the consumer wants to spend.

If you have enough money to throw at a project, you can do just about anything. But, you're going to price it out of the competitive market.”

CG108:

I understand that based on skull and brain physiology, it's hard to protect the brain from sloshing inside the skull during a high-speed impact. Nevertheless, will it someday be possible for a helmet to protect more against concussion?

CS:

"Concussion goes back to that rotational brain injury, which accounts for the overwhelming majority [of head injuries] in cycling and motorcycling. That's what we're trying to occomplish with the MIPS system.

One thing I'll tell you, this is also becoming something that motorcycle helmet companies are taking seriously.

I don't know if you're aware, but Lazer started out as a motorcycle helmet manufacturing company.

Just about two years ago, based in Brussels, was a motorcycle and bicycle and air-sport [helmet] manufacturing company.

The managers of the bicycle division bought that division out.

Now, Lazer Helmets, based in Brussels, still makes motorcycle helmets. Lazer Sport, based in Antwerp, is the bicycle division.

So there still is a Lazer motorcycle helmet manufacturing company. And they have addressed this rotational brain injury phenomenon by coming up with a helmet with a feature called 'super skin.'

Basically what this skin is, it's like a scalp that's applied to the outer portion of the helmet. If you think about it, your scalp is designed to prevent rotational brain injury.

So, at walking speeds, you trip and you fall, you hit your head. Your scalp, for just a fraction of a second, milliseconds, your scalp will adhere to whatever your head hits, just for that fraction of a second, and allow your skull to travel in it's original direction. It's just that few milliseconds of allowing the skull to continue in its original direction that can dramatically reduce rotational brain injury.

That's the job of the scalp at a walking and running pace. You get on a 50 mph or 70 mph motorcycle, your scalp is obviously not up to that challenge. So what Lazer motorcycle helmets did, working with another independent group, they developed this 'super skin' technology which is basically a scalp that is attached, is bonded, to the outer surface of a motorcycle helmet.

If you grab one of these helmets and press your thumb on it, you can actually move the outer surface of the helmet versus the shell underneath it. It's accomplishing the same goal. So, at 50, 60, 70 mph if you come off the motorcycle and you hit your head, for that millisecond, that super skin/scalp will adhere to the road and allow the rest of the helmet to continue in the original direction of travel.

Just that millisecond of energy absorbtion tested out to a dramatic reduction in the frequency and chance of rotational brain injury."

Bz:
Is there any chance that we'll see that on a bicycle helmet?

CS:

"Well, maybe. We were pursuing that at a time when we were all one company.

The problem is, a motorcycle helmet that has that, you can't have any air vents in it. It's got to be one solid scalp surface for it to work.

We were looking at maybe offering a full-face DH [downhill – Bz] helmet without any vents that had that technology. But now that we're different companies, I can't speak to us using that technology in bicycle helmets.

With what MIPS is doing, it's accomplishing the same thing, it's just coming at it from a different direction. Instead of having something on the exterior of the helmet, we're working with them to have this system on the interior of the helmet to accomplish the same goal”

CG108:

In discussions with friends, they ask why they should they bother with a helmet, if it won't protect against concussion. I point out that your head is a really bad place on which to get road rash. Therefore it is equally important to have the helmet be sufficiently strong to protect the head when the rider falls. When Jens Voigt fell on live TV during the 2009 Tour de France, his helmet got mashed and mangled and scraped - but saved his head from receiving that damage. He still had a concussion, but he didn't leave his brains out on the road, which would have happened if he hadn't had the helmet on.

CS:

"Yeah, absolutely! Again, time and time again, I get email stories and photographs from people who send me pictures of their smashed up helmet, overjoyed that their helmet did its job of protecting their head. Now, honestly, very few if any of these riders suffered a rotational brain injury. Because, that's a fairly serious issue and they probably would have mentioned intercranial bleeding and having to go through a procedure fairly quickly that involves removing a part of the skull and allowing the brain to expand and swell into that area.

These are people who just hit their head in a straight line incident and didn't have a brain injury. But, without that helmet, a skull fracture is serious business. Whether you have a brain injury or not, a fractured skull is a very, very significant injury. Bicycle helmets do a very good job preventing that injury.

If you're only going to use a safety device because it will protect you against the most catastrophic injury that you can imagine, yeah, you may as well not use any safety device at all. But, if you use a safety device knowing that in a great number of situations this safety device is going to prevent injury, who wants to suffer? Who wants a skull fracture, road rash, skull abrasions, or all the different kinds of injuries that you can possibly get. Even facial injuries, a helmet is not going to protect facial injuries. But just the fact that it keeps your forehead elevated can help reduced facial and vision injuries.

So, there's all kinds of different ways that a helmet can help, help keep the rider's head safe, not taking into account the effects of rotational brain injury that make it absolutely worthwhile to wear a bike helmet every time you ride."

--You can also read Part 1 and comment on Cyclismas

Helmet Safety

2011-09-11T20:46:00.001-05:00

Soon I'll be putting up an interview with Chris Smith from Lazer Sport, which will also contain information from MIPS and, I hope, POC Helmets.Here is a series of videos from MIPS that, I hope, will start you thinking more about this. MIPS is attempting to promote discussion and revision of helmet testing standards, improved protection and use of new technology by the helmet manufacturing industry.1.2.3.This one has a point to make, but it pisses me off that these manufacturers seem to be saying that only people willing to shell out for ultra-high end helmets deserve to have the safest helmets possible. If you're poor, if you have a very limited income, "fuck you we don't care about you".4.In this video a theme is repeated from one of the earlier vids: "People are stupid and choose styling over safety almost 100% of the time". This theme is also echoed in my interview with Chris.5.And here is the link for the MIPS blog. They invite you not only to read, but to participate and comment.

Working

2011-08-20T16:57:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I talked to Chris Smith from Lazer Helmets.

I currently working on transcribing our 2 hour chat, then the follow up, organizing and editing.

I'm expecting it to go up on Cyclismas in less than two weeks and up on Bikezilla a day or two after that.

Until then you can see me on Twitter under @Bikezilla1

POLL: Phil Southerland of Team Type 1

2011-08-11T17:16:00.001-05:00

Due to accusations of unfairness and unreasonable bias in my own opinion regarding Phil Southerland, I thought it would be right and fair and help to balance things out if I put up a poll expressing how my readers feel about Phil and his handling of TT1, riders, finances and resources.

My opinion is only one of many possible opinions. So, if you'll look over on the right hand side of this blog you'll see a place where you can express your own opinion, independent of anything that I think or feel.

You can pick as many answers as you'd like, even if they seem to conflict with each other.

Team Type 1 and the Electric Kool-Aid Litmus Test

2011-08-10T22:42:00.002-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Parts 3 & 4, Postscript, Team Type 1: Opinion

Team Type 1 and the Electric Kool-Aid Litmus Test

an editorial follow-up to my 4-part interview with James Stout

You might think that speaking to James Stout for our interview formed my opinion of Phil Southerland and Team Type 1 management. You'd be incorrect

When I first heard about James, my immediate opinion was, "Disgruntled former employee," "prima donna," "crybaby."

To quote myself:

James is at once, mature and immature; humble and arrogant; naive and wise; grounded and flaky; stoic and a drama queen; tough and a sniveling bitch."

What James is not, however, is a bitter former employee out to badmouth his ex-boss.

I gave James opportunity after opportunity to talk shit about Phil Southerland and Team Type 1. Not once did he take advantage of that, not even off the record.

When he discussed Phil and the team he seemed frustrated, sad, flabbergasted, regretful, but not angry.

Contrary to what I had expected, James felt and continues to feel a significant debt of gratitude toward Phil and TT1.

In fact, the one and only time that James ever seemed angry, was when he discussed the doctor who mockingly told him to "play chess."

Almost as soon as I began my research on James Stout, I came across the account of Willem Van den Eynde, whose abuse at the hands of Southerland and Team Type 1 instantly one-upped the Stout story.

To summarize the situation, according to Van den Eynde himself, Willem was denied food and sleep, forced to sleep on the floor of Southerland's hotel room, screamed at by Southerland for daring to momentarily place his bag on the bed in that room, berated by management for daring to train on his bike, given a diet that neither conformed to his diabetic needs nor to his needs as an athlete (putting him at risk of a hypo), was denied testing supplies by Phil Southerland though they were readily at hand (apparently Southerland laughed at him after the denial of testing supplies), was forced to pay all of his own expenses and never reimbursed.

Then I learned that WHILE James was going through his ordeal there were three other riders (at a minimum) who acknowledged they were going through similar hassles and harassments.

Every one of those other three riders is so intimidated and outright terrified of what Phil Southerland might do to them that they all refuse to discuss their time with Team Type 1.

The topper, however, the detail that pushed things over the edge in my formation of an opinion regarding Phil Southerland and Team Type 1, was hearing the rumors of an insurance fraud investigation that is ongoing in Italy.

The spread of dishonesty and corruption had become too much to overlook, or even to doubt, at least in my own mind.

From those few details that I've just shared came another handful of thoughts and opinions:

If we know that just during Stout's time with TT1 there were at least four riders all in similar circumstances, and we know that prior to that time there was at least one other, how can we not assume that there are many, many more such cases?
Looking at the bulk of just the known cases; three of the five are so frightened of Southerland that they've gone into hiding and cannot bring themselves to speak of their time on TT1. Willem Van den Eynde spoke up very briefly, but has since vanished and gone silent.
It seems that Southerland and top management at Team Type 1 are a kind of wolf pack, identifying the weak sheep, culling them from the herd and savaging them without mercy. The difference here, in my opinion, is that unlike wolves, Southerland and his crew seem to inflict their torments purely for sport.
Worse, Southerland and his top managers choose young athletes who lack the life experience to even properly recognize what's being done to them until it is far too late.

The only thing that set James apart from the other victims (those we know of and those we don't), is that after a series of personal struggles, which saw him very nearly caving in to the same fear and intimidation that has muzzled all the others, he found just enough spine to step up and tell his story.

The interview that I did with James almost didn't happen. Even after it was completed and written, James wanted it pulled and he see-sawed between hiding it from the world and daring to allow it to see the light of day.

Why? One can only presume that it is out of fear of Phil Southerland.

The day after Part 1 of our interview went up on Cyclismas for the first time (it was taken down for several days due to James' concerns, then republished), Phil Southerland called James and screamed at him on the phone for 45 minutes.

If you've read Part 1, then you know that part of the interview is completely innocuous. There's not one thing in there that could possibly be taken as negative regarding Phil Southerland or Team Type 1. They're barely even mentioned.

Considering that Part 1 was completely inoffensive, then Phil could only have been in a panic about what he thought would be coming in future installments of the interview. Since nothing negative was even hinted at in Part 1, Phil must have knowledge of things that he 100% knows that he does not want released to the general public.

Phil Southerland had avoided any personal contact with James for months while James was struggling to learn what was going on and why, while James was losing his apartment, living in his car, unsure of where he would find his next meal, suffering without proper access to diabetes testing supplies and insulin. I've concluded that the moment Phil thought that James had found the courage to speak up in his own defense, Phil was instantly in contact in a most personal and threatening manner. To me, that speaks volumes for the character, ethics and morality of Phil Southerland.

Here are a few more details.

Immediately after Part 2 of my interview with James Stout went up, there was this comment posted to the Cyclismas site by an "AJohnson":

How anybody could take this interview serious is beyond me. This kid has the reputation of a liar and a talentless cyclist. Plus, it sounds as if the interviewer is just trying to start a bunch of rumors about one of the few teams that is actually trying to do something good in cycling."

First, the assessment that James is a "talentless cyclist" is something you may think is hinted at in our interview, where James tells us that he was at first on the elite team, and then on the developmental team. Except that if he were truly talentless, he would have simply been released. No team keeps on riders that cannot help the team, and no team should have to justify getting rid of a rider like that. That's just a part of sports; if you aren't good enough, you go home.

If James had been struggling in his performances, this is the kind of thing that would generally be known by someone who raced against James, but even more so by his coaches and teammates. But no such sentiments have been found online to back it up and no evidence nor even accusations of James presumed lack of talent were given as reasons for his release. To toss that out publicly now seems not only disingenuous, but slanderous.

Second, in my researching James, I did not come across a single reference about any lack of truthfulness or integrity in him. Not one. Even afterward a Google search for "James Stout liar" brings nothing. Nothing.

Instead, what I've been sent since the interview started going up has been 100% in praise of James and his character, that he's pleasant, trusted, that the information he's shared about diabetes has allowed individuals help themselves and to help others.

Aside from the mysterious and utterly unsupported "AJohnson" comment, not so much as a single comment, tweet or email has even hinted at James Stout lacking integrity or honesty. Not. Even. One.

The statements in the "AJohnson" comment are the types of statements that are made by disgruntled employers trying to cover their asses.

So I speculated that "AJohnson" was actually Phil Southerland himself, or else someone very close to Phil.

I discussed this with William Thacker, the publisher of Cyclismas, who checked the IP address. This is what he told me he found:

"The comment came from an ISP in Georgia, just outside Atlanta."

The IP address has been saved, just so we can back that claim up.

Where is Team Type 1 headquartered? Atlanta, Georgia.

The day after "AJohnson" left his comment, Chris Baldwin started asking people I know about how to reach Cyclismas. He was given the editor's email address, but has yet to contact her.

Chris Baldwin, according to the team's website, is TT1's PR Director for Europe. Right, he's not a manager, he's a PR guy, a spin doctor. That says to me that the team wants to spin the James Stout "problem" and that they feel that the interview contains things that embarrass them.

Then I have to think, "This Southerland guy seems far too much like Lance Armstrong, in all the most negative ways."

As with Lance, everyone who speaks out against him is a liar, bitter and jealous because they have no talent.
As with Lance, sure he's done a few questionable things, but you should just ignore all that because he's really an unappreciated Man of the People, doing such good that any evil is negligible.

Phil seems to be setting himself up as a messiah figure, the savior of all those with type 1 diabetes. Much like Lance Armstrong has set himself up as the messiah figure to all those with cancer. Much like, in 1978, Jim Jones had set himself up as messiah to his followers in The People's Temple, leading them to the tragedy in Guyana, and giving us the original reference of "drink the koolaid."

I ask you now, can it be concluded that much like Lance Armstrong, Phil Southerland is a bully, a sociopath and a coward?

It is my fond hope that other abused riders will take courage from James Stout, and come forward to tell their stories, too.

--------------

You can also find this and future interviews, plus a lot more cycling related content, at Cyclismas.

James Stout Interview: Postscript

2011-08-07T00:27:00.002-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Parts 3 & 4, Postscript

When William Thacker, the publisher for Cyclismas, first contacted me about the James Stout interview, I hesitated, because who the hell is this Stout kid? Who ever heard of him? What's he ever done? How much information will I possibly be able to find?

But looking into it a little I found the Stout / TT1 / Phil Southerland story to be intriguing, so I agreed.

I was told that James was ready for this, that he wanted to do it.

Overall, that was true. But James had bouts of uncertainty based on his legal situation.

There have been more gopher holes and protruding roots in the trail of this interview than ever should have been.

James' issues with Phil Southerland and Team Type 1 first sidetracked and then nearly derailed publication of the interview on Cyclismas.

There were times when I thought very unkind things about James Stout, “flake” and “prima donna” were some of the kinder words that ran through my head when he crossed my mind.

But Thacker, calm, resourceful, peace making genius that he is, kept things running on track each time.

Much of my ill will and negative thoughts resurfaced and then re-submerged several times before everything was sorted out and publication was a go.

When we started talking I discovered that James is an excellent and interesting conversationalist. Talking with him was a truly interesting and rewarding experience.

Before I go on let me describe James to you: James is at once, mature and immature; humble and arrogant; wise and naive; grounded and flaky; stoic and a drama queen; tough and a sniveling bitch.

The interview took place via Skype connected to cell phone, America to Spain. The connection was not ideal. At times it was godawful atrocious.

While transcribing my Vaughters interview I might listen to a passage 2 or 3 times to make sure I understood something. Between the fuzzy connection and James accent I was listening to some snippets a dozen times or more; slowing them down, speeding them up, sometimes having to give up on them entirely and just leave them out.

For instance, during Part 3 James gave me the names of four friends. That snippet of recording took maybe 20 seconds to speak. But it took me nearly 10 minutes to piece together using a combination of what I already knew about James, what it kind of sounded like he said, and web searches, to get it all down correctly.

The digital noise break up was at its worst during the final ten minutes. During that stretch there was about five minutes worth of material that had to be left “on the cutting room floor” because the noise made them completely unintelligible.

That was frustrating, because James was sharing some really interesting personal stuff about school and what's going on with him currently.

The one thing that made this interview both more difficult and more rewarding, was that when James speaks he is very “stream of consciousness”.

I'd sent James an outline containing the topics for each part of the interview. We'd start talking about one thing and he'd end up covering all or some of another topic. From his rambling I'd have more questions, questions that were not in my script.

So, I ended up with more material than I'd otherwise have gotten, but I also did a lot more editing and reorganizing, so that things would make the most sense and flow better.

For instance, the passage about the doctor who told James to play chess: That was covered early in the interview, then came up again with a lot more passion and at greater length much later. But it was stuck at the end of something it wasn't really related to.

So, the second reference had to be moved up to beneath the first. I didn't change any context or meaning, but without that change things would have been more jerky and repetitive.

There were a few things that surprised me.

First, how this behavior by Southerland seems to be a fairly broad problem, to the point that I have to call it a pattern of abuse.

That continues to be a surprise for me, because I really liked the notion of TT1 and I'd read some nice things about Southerland. It made it hard, at first, to take James and Willem Van den Eynde's claims seriously.

Second, how James really did not at all come across as angry and bitter and trying to cause trouble.

Third, how the others that we know of seem not only reluctant to talk, but outright fearful.

Finally, what a flaming, arrogant, prima donna, pain in the ass James can be at times, but at others seeming so humble, pleasant, and generally calm and together in the face of adversity.

There is another significant difference between this interview and the interviews I did with Bill Strickland and Jonathan Vaughters.

In those previous interviews I went in knowing or at least assuming quite a bit about the subject. I had an idea before things even got rolling about what I wanted to ask and where I wanted things to lead. I had some nugget of “truth” that I wanted to attain.

With the James Stout interview I went in having never heard of James before and even after doing my research I had no idea of what to expect. I didn't know what the “nugget of truth” was going to be, I had no real aiming point beyond attaining James' version of the story.

When I finished those previous interviews I had a feeling of accomplishment, of completion, to one degree or another. With this one, not so much. It feels like there's more out there, more to know, more to learn. Not so much that I missed something or that James withheld something, but just that all the pieces haven't come together yet.

Will they eventually? Will the story eventually feel like it's complete? I really don't know right now.

But, for all his flaws and for all the hassle and high blood pressure James has caused me, I believe that he is truthful and that his account of what's happened to him is accurate within his understanding of it.

----------
You can also find this and future interviews, plus a lot more cycling related content, at Cyclismas.

James Stout Interview: Part 3 and 4

2011-08-03T07:15:00.006-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Parts 3 & 4, Postscript

Part 3

Bz:

What was your personal performance like while on TT1, not the team's, but just you?

JS:

“I was part of the team that won the Race Across America, which is a massive achievement. I won a criterium race, I won a hill climb time trail. I raced Superweek. I raced a ton of races with TT1 in a support capacity and by myself.

“More than that we were able to make a huge impact on people with diabetes.

“I did a ton of athlete days, where I'd go to speak to kids with diabetes. Speak to adults with diabetes.

“I was the only one who was bilingual in Spanish and English, so I did a lot of work in Spanish speaking communities, where obviously income average is a lot lower than in a lot of White communities.

“And that's as significant achievement for me, seriously, as winning bike races.

“If I can make one kid take a decent approach to their diabetes and not go blind, then that's waaaaaaaay bigger than putting my wheel across the line in front of another dude.

“So, that was massive for me.”

Bz:

What was your position or role on the team, on and off the bike.

JS:

“I'd say I was more of a kind of . . . rolluer. I can go well in long races, I can go well in stage races.

“Yeah, stage races, longer hillier races. I like it when the weather's groggy. More of that kind of thing, and certainly the criteriums, I've tried some longer time trials. But, longer stuff, rolling terrain, shitty gritty roads.

“I come from the United Kingdom, where our roads are just slow and dead. That's what I'm used to doing."

Bz:

Within the structure of the community outreach work, did you have a specific role in that, or did each rider or staff member have similar roles?

JS:

“For the outreach they'd send round the opportunities. We had to do outreach stuff, and we could volunteer.

“I was always really forthcoming in volunteering. Some of the guys saw it as a hassle. But, I loved doing it.

“So I was in the vanguard in that respect. I was able to do a lot of the outreach stuff. I never felt it was a burden. I was lucky enough to be able to do a lot of that.

“And like I said, with my Spanish speaking role, there were some things the other guys just couldn't do.

“That was a big part of what I did for the team.”

Bz:

After January, when you couldn't race any more, were you continuing to do outreach work?

JS:

“Yes, I was. Most times at my own expense, to the extent that I didn't get reimbursed.

“Absolutely I was. I continue to do outreach work with diabetic people, here (in Spain – Bz), when I get a chance, because I care.

“I wasn't doing it because it was a sponsor obligation. It wasn't like I was sitting on the Shimano tent talking to people about how great their gears were.

“I was doing this because I don't want any kid, eighteen years old, to be told, no you can't, you have to play chess. You know? Bullshit. It's not true.

“I want everyone to know that they can do what they want. Do to that I have to go out and impact them.

“So I do that here, now. I'm in Spain, I'm on my own, I have nothing to do with TT1. And if there's a clinic or a doctor or an endocrinologist who will help me, then I'll go. Because I really care.

“It's not a sponsor thing, it's not a professional athlete thing, it's a James thing.

“I won't stop doing that.”

Bz:

What was your relationship with your teammates? With staff? With managers?

JS:

“Really good!

“The soignuers were friends of mine, I got along with the guys who do the warehousing and that kind of stuff, with my teammates. We talked often and still do.

“If you look at my Twitter you can see that back and forth between me and a lot of the boys. They still email me to see how I'm doing. I've stayed with my teammates and babysat their children.

“Even now they say, "when you come back you'll visit? You won't be a stranger?"

“They're my friends. They're my good friends.

“I presume Phil terminated my contract. He certainly doesn't seem to want to be my friend any more. So, I'm not sure I can consider him a close friend anymore.

“Aside from that, everyone I met through TT1 I would consider a friend. If I bumped into them on the street I'd say hello.”

Bz:

Were there any you were particularly close to?

JS:

“Bob Schrank, Dan Schneider, Jeff Bannink, Adam Driscoll.

“Those guys were like . . . I staid with Jeff for two weeks and he left his kids with me. You don't do that unless you trust someone, right?

“Some of the best friends I have.

“Bob and Dan came and stayed with me this January in San Diego. I stayed with Bob before. Danny just sent me a care package of granola and peanut butter, because you can't buy it in Spain.

“I'm really close to those guys.”

Bz:

Any you were particular NOT close to?

JS:

“Not really. There was no one I didn't get on with.

“I'm a really firm believer that you shouldn't go through life leaving a trail of enemies behind you. So, I try my utmost to . . . if someone isn't my friend, then they're just not my friend. They're not necessarily my enemy.

“There's no one who I would say I clashed with.”

Bz:

It must bother you on a personal level, the way things have gone bad.

JS:

“Yeah, it bothers me a lot on a personal level. I took a real hit.

“Only through working with Martin and Bruce (James therapist – Bz), he's been helping with it on a personal level and just coming through it with my head screwed on right.

“On a personal level at first, it kicked me in the balls. I thought all my friends wouldn't want to know me anymore. I thought someone would tell them something bad, or that I had done something terrible. But, credit to them, they've all taken the time to contact me and say, hey man you're still my friend.

“That means a lot. That means a lot to me."

Bz:

TT1 did not pay you for five months. Didn't pay anything at all? Only paid part of what was owed?

JS:

“Nope, nothing. Absolutely zero. When I say not one penny, I mean not a single penny.”

Bz:

What about the insulin? Was that an instant cutoff? Or was it gradual?

JS:

“No, that was, 'From date X we will no longer be giving free insulin to TT1 members.'”

Bz:

So that wasn't just you? It was the entire team?

JS:

“It was only the people who weren't getting paid. Because if you're getting paid, you have health insurance.

“If you're not getting paid, you don't have health insurance.”

Bz:

People who had insurance had to get insulin through their insurance after this?

JS:

“Right. Correct. Which wasn't a problem.”

Bz:

Which other riders were having problems with their visas? How many of you were there?

JS:

“I shouldn't comment on other people's visa situations.

“And I don't know if they all weren't getting paid or not. We never discussed that.”

Bz:

When they did finally terminate your contract it wasn't over performance at all, but because of a tee shirt you wore to a party and a comment you made in your tweets?

JS:

“The reason they fired me was that I wore a tee shirt with the word 'penis' on it, and I retweeted something from Al Jazeera.”

Bz:

I think I remember seeing that. In the retweet you commented “no shit” or something like that.

JS:

“Yes, that's it. That was considered sufficient to terminate my contract.”

Bz:

Had you butted heads with anyone on issues like this previously?

JS:

“I'd never heard of anything like that happening previously, and they'd never spoken to me about anything like that.

“I received a warning when I wore the tee shirt that said “penis”, and then my contract was terminated for twittering Al Jazeera.”

Bz:

It feels like there's some amount of malice behind a lot of what happened to you and they way the situation was manipulated.

JS:

“It does.

“And it seems like I'm hiding some reason that they would hate me. If I am, then I'm hiding it from myself, because I just don't know why. I don't know what I did. I don't know who I offended. I don't know what I did wrong.

“That's what upset me the most. Because no one will tell me.

“I mean wearing a tee shirt that says 'penis', it's bullshit. It's a drummed up excuse of the worst kind, and insult to my intelligence if they think I'd believe that's a reason for terminating my contract.

“But I don't know what else I did.”

Bz:

They claim that the tee shirt incident happened at a company event, but that was actually at a friend's party and not related to work?

JS:

“That's correct, it wasn't at a TT1 function.”

Bz:

Was your health or your life ever in jeopardy due to lack of medication?

JS:

“Well, yeah, as I said, a week without your insulin and, as a diabetic, you're about to go blind. A month without insulin and you'll die.

“You can look up the effects of lack of insulin in Type 1 diabetics very easily on line, on Wikipedia or something and get more information

“Yes. If you don't have insulin you're life is very much at risk."

Bz:

Ok, what about team ethics? This is a team that makes a very big deal of helping people with diabetes, of promoting proper care, treatment and testing. How do their actions toward you and toward Willem Van den Eynde mesh with the presumption that their mission is to help diabetics?

JS:

“I have to say that it's changed my conception of what their mission is, quite a lot. It doesn't speak volumes about our mission to help people with diabetes."

Bz:

How do they outreach to kids in Hispanic neighborhoods, then deny members of their own team medication?

JS:

“I wish I knew what the moral equivalent was, there. I wish I could understand how that tallies. I'm afraid I can't explain it, because I don't understand it."

Bz:

It seems to be the antithesis of what TT1 stands for, but I guess there's a lot of money to be had from public sympathy.

JS:

“I'm entirely in agreement with you.”

Bz:

At first I thought, well, maybe this is their way of maintaining control of people. But looking at it deeper, they didn't really seem to be controlling you so much as simply shoving you down in the dirt.

JS:

“Yeah, it wasn't a control thing, it was just a kind of, 'we just want you to go away now'. And I don't know why, like I said.

“I was training my ass off, I was constantly emailing them, here's what I'm doing, how's stuff with you, I was very communicative. I tried my best to be the model athlete."

Bz:

Aside from this specific situation, what is the management system and the broader system of rewards and punishments like on TT1?

JS:

“There wasn't really a system of rewards and punishments.

“People split prize money if you won races. Sometimes the issue was with organization with getting stuff where it needed to be on time and things were often delayed and such. But, I wouldn't know how things ran on any other teams. So I wouldn't know how to compare.”

Bz:

Did UCI have any hand in or knowledge of the situation and the conditions at TT1? Were they aware?

JS:

“They are aware of it, now.”

Part 4: Afterward

Bz:

I read that you're type of diabetes isn't “normal”. Sometimes your pancreas produces insulin and sometimes it doesn't. So proper monitoring is even more critical?

JS:

“That's correct, yeah. I'm very brittle about that, so I have to do a lot more testing than most diabetics.

“My diabetes came on late and my pancreas still sometimes kicks back with insulin. Which can be really dangerous. In the middle of the night it could kick out a huge insulin bonus and I could die in my sleep.

“I have to make sure that I'm always aware of what my blood-sugar is.”

Bz:

If you can't monitor correctly and you have a surge of insulin, you could experience what they call a “hypo” (low blood-sugar) severe enough that you could die?

JS:

“That's a hypo, yup, and that could happen to me, as it could to any diabetic, without monitoring.

“But that's a side effect of too much insulin without proper monitoring."

Bz:

Like if you took your insulin, then your pancreas kicked back in, and suddenly you have an unanticipated surge of insulin and an unexpected rapid drop in blood-sugar? Is that how it works?

JS:

“That's correct, yeah. That's something that more or less unique to my type of diabetes.

“So I have to make sure I have sugar with me all the time.

“I don't have the luxury of not planning to always have . . . I always have a bag. Unless I'm riding, then I have gels in my pocket.

“But I can't think, oh, I'm going to do a ride for five hours, I need 200 calories per hour so I need a thousand calories. I better have 400 extra, just in case something goes wrong.

“If I'm going for a walk, or I'm going to a cafe, I have my bag with two or three Dextrogels. I can never be apart from it.”

Bz:

Are you in school now?

JS:

“No. PhD studies aren't like undergraduate studies. The credits don't transfer. So eventually I'd like to get back to the U.S.”

Bz:

Are you riding for a team right now?

JS:

“Yes, I'm riding for Team Traveler right now. They've been kind enough to connect me with some kits and a bit of money. But it's by no means a pro team.

“They've been really helpful in helping me get what I need to keep racing while I'm here.

“I'm very grateful to them.”

Bz:

I've heard that the UK's cycling federation is heavily slanted against riders in any disputed matter. Have they been more hindrance than help?

JS:

“The British federation hasn't been very helpful.”

Bz:

What of UCI's role? Have they helped you at all?

JS:

“They have not returned any of the emails. So, no, in a word. They've chosen not to respond."

Bz:

Did anyone, other than Martin Hardy, or any group advocate for you? IS there someone or some entity that normally would advocate for a rider under these circumstances or generally when there is difficulty for a rider with a team? Are you doing this all on your own?

JS:

“Apart from Martin and Bruce, and all the people Martin is connected me with, there's my friends. My friend, Danna, who I spend a lot of time with here in Catalonia, people who give me advice, they've been great. But, in an official capacity, just Martin and the JD foundation that he's a part of."

Bz:

Now that you're riding for Team Traveler, have you started racing again?

JS:

“Yeah, but when you haven't raced and hardly slept for three months you really don't have much form. But I'm getting back.

“I've been racing in France, I've been racing in Spain, been racing in Belgium.

“I just want to salvage something out of this season. I like racing my bike. I want to race my bike.”

Afterword

For me, this story began with James Stout. But it clearly extends well beyond James and even beyond Willem Van den Eynde. There are others. We know of some of them, but none except James have been willing to step forward. Fear keeps them silent.

What concerns me is that as with crimes centered on abuse, whatever does get reported, whatever may see the light of day, is almost always just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

So, I wonder, how many more like this are there? And will any of them take some measure of courage from James and step forward themselves?

Bikezilla

_____________

You can also find this and future interviews, plus a lot more cycling related content, at Cyclismas.

James Stout Interview: Part 2

2011-07-29T15:28:00.004-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Parts 3 & 4, Postscript

Part 2

Martin Hardy's letter to TT1 on behalf of James Stout

James Stout blog entry regarding his issues with Team Type 1

Bz:

Martin Hardy is “A” lawyer, but not your lawyer? He wrote TT1 strictly as a friend and supporter, right?

JS:

“Yes, that's right. Yes.

"Martin isn't registered as a lawyer in the U.S. and he can't represent me there. But he's been a very good friend to me throughout this thing, when I went through some pretty dark times.

“Martin's always been there for me.”

Bz:

Is Martin working with you on the case, now?

JS:

“He's working with me. But, as I said, Martin is not a lawyer in the U.S.

“But I still turn to Martin for a load of advice, with regard to lots of things.

“He advises me in the capacity of someone who I trust.”

Bz:

How long were you with TT1, altogether?

JS:

“Two years.”

Bz:

I remember reading somewhere that the first year was actually pretty good.

JS:

“Yeah, it was fantastic! I loved it!

“That's why this year I was incredibly enthusiastic.

“During any of my interviews from last year you'll see that I wasn't just on the team, but I was allllll about the team. It meant a lot to me. The diabetes things meant a lot to me. The team meant a lot to me.

“I was passionate about TT1.”

Bz:

Were you performing well, I mean at a high level, at the time?

JS:

“Yeah! I mean, we won the Race Across America, I won a criterium last year, I finished a few tough races in Belgium. So, yeah, things were all roses, until January of this year.”

Bz:

How did you go from point "A", happily employed as a professional cyclist, to point "C" unemployed and at odds with your former team? We seem to be missing something important in between.

JS:

“I wasn't really making anything public, because I was told not to by the team. I thought everything would be ok.

“And it turned out that everything wasn't ok.

“At some point I realized that things weren't gonna be ok. I had spoken to Martin and Martin gave me advice and we tried our hardest to resolve things amicably and it wasn't working. So, at some point we had to reveal everything that happened, into the public sphere. We had to, unfortunately publish some things.

“TT1 still means a lot to me. I don't want to run that name into the ground. But they didn't act in a manner that was consistent with the image which they portray and at some point you have to be accountable for your actions.

“So, after five months of not receiving a paycheck, when I lived in my car, moved out of my house because I couldn't pay rent, when for months I didn't have a visa in the U.S., when I had to return to Europe at my own expense, I realized that the only way I was ever going to salvage anything out of this situation was to publish what I did publish on Martin's website."

Bz:

At what point, or how, did it begin going from good to bad?

JS:

“Well, there was a delay with the visas, a delay with pay. Eventually I never received any pay, from January of 2011.

“From then I tried my best to reach out to the team and I asked what was going on. At first they just told me, it'll be sorted, it'll be sorted. And I trusted them because I thought they were my friends . . . well, long story short, I shouldn't have trusted them, at least in that capacity. Because, I still haven't received a penny.

“That got worse and worse. At first it's one month without pay, then you can't afford the rent on your house, then you're sleeping on your friend's couch, then you're living in your car, then you're selling all your shit to buy food.

“Then one day you realize that it's not happening and you need to go home.”

Bz:

In your own writing and even in articles about you, your poltics are front and center. Was that ever a source of conflict between you and the team? Was there a grind between your way of thinking and team owner Phil Southerland's way of thinking?

JS:

“I can't say that there was, because Phil hasn't communicated with me for months. And the reason I was dismissed was not officially that.

“But, it's clear, as you say, that I wear my heart on my sleeve and if I feel something then I say that. Some people might not like that. I don't know if he's one of them and I wouldn't like to presume to speak for him.

“But it's not beyond the realms of possibility.”

Bz:

Whenever you were face to face with Phil, was there any friction? Or did it seem that things were ok?

JS:

“No, things seemed ok.

“The day before I left the United States I rode 100 miles with Phil. We chatted. It was ok.

“I mean, Phil was never like my best buddy and I didn't see him that much. But, yeah, I turned to Phil for advice. I used to turn to Phil for medical advice all the time. There have been times when I've rung Phil at two in the morning to ask him what I should do with my insulin.”

Bz:

When things started turning, did he confront you? Or did he just kind of disappear out of your life?

JS:

“Ummm, he'd occasionally send me a couple of official emails. They were always in official language. And then he just hasn't really spoken to me.

“When my contract was terminated, etcetera, that never came through Phil.

“So, since things have started really turning, I've not heard from Phil.”

Bz:

Phil started out as a mentor, almost a friend, and then he just vanished?

JS:

“Exactly, yeah. Yeah. I don't really hear from him."

Bz:

And you were never really aware of the reasons behind that change?

JS:

“No. No, I don't know what I did to him. I considered him a friend at one point, and I wouldn't go that far now.

“I don't know what I did to warrant that."

Bz:

Were you on the team at the same time as Willem Van den Eynde?

JS:

“No. No, all I know about Willem is what you've read on Cycling News.

“I'm afraid I've never even met Willem.

“I've raced in Belgium, and I've never even seen another diabetic bike racer in Belgium. So, maybe he's not in the sport any more.

“I'm afraid what I know about Willem is what you know about Willem, or anyone else who's read the Cycling News.”

Bz:

His story is very similar to yours. His medication was withheld, he was forced to sleep on the floor of Southerland's hotel room. He was denied food, berated by management, and he didn't really understand what was going on, either.

Were you aware of other similar stories? More than just yours and Willem's?

JS:

“Not of that kind of thing. But obviously when you're on a team they don't say, hey, do you know about this guy and this guy and this guy. So, if that had happened I'm sure that I wouldn't have heard of it.

“But I'm not aware of any other stories in the same light.

“With the delays in our visas, that didn't only affect me. But I wasn't aware of anyone in the exact situation.

Willem Van den Eynde's story, and here's a discussion at Cycling News forums that contains a better translation of that article

Bz:

Willem Van den Eynde's case was resolved successfully through the Belgian cycling federation and UCI. Have you attempted to seek a settlement or arbitration through your own national federation? Have you contacted UCI? If so, what were the results? What's the status of your claims vs TT1?

JS:

“Yes. I was licensed through the USA cycling federation. I've been in touch with them and received no help and no response.

“Likewise Pat McQuaid (president of UCI – Bz), likewise UCI.

“That disappoints me, I'm not going to lie.

“There is a mountain of organizations who are designed to catch riders cheating, move bikes around, enforce all the rules.

“There should be an organization which supports the riders. There should be a (formalized – Bz) union of professional cyclists, which will step in on riders' behalf.

“I really strongly feel that.

“I'm now with the Spanish federation (RFEC -- Bz). Previously I went through USA Cycling.

"British cycling, in their wisdom, refused to grant me a license when I wasn't living in the U.K.

“Which is total bullshit. Hundreds of riders which aren't resident in the U.K. have British licenses; Mark Cavendish, David Millar, Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas. Those guys don't live in London or Oxford. Everyone lives in Italy or France or Spain.

“For whatever reason an official in the USA decided to kick up a fuss about me being registered in the U.S. from a British license even though I spent half the year in the United Kingdom.

“So I was forced to federate with the USA Cycling federation, who have not been that helpful in this case.”

Bz:

Have you tried to get help from the Spanish federation?

JS:

“Because I wasn't licensed by the Spanish federation at the time, I haven't. But, they have been entirely supportive in all my interactions with them. As far as processing my license, helping me find teams, helping me get carpooled to races. I can't fault the Real Federación Española for anything.

“I think that, whatever you want to say about Contador, they stick up for their riders. Until they're proved to be guilty.

“There are enough people who exist, as I say, to persecute the riders. I strongly believe that what they (RFEC – Bz) do is right. They stick up for their riders. I can't speak highly enough of them.”

NOTE:
Since this interview RFEC has agreed to help James with his case – Bz.

Bz:

RFEC is an advocate for its riders?

JS:

“Specifically my interactions have been with the Catalan federation. Things have been great

“They supported Contador. I know there are cases where they haven't supported riders. So I don't know if this is a change of policy. I know the supported Valverde, as well.

“But even down to the fact that they make you take a physical before they give you a license, because it makes sense to check if you're healthy before they take your money, not just take your money and watch you drop dead in a race."

Bz:

Who was your DS at TT1?

JS:

“Director with the development team was Jack Seehafer. The year before that, with the elite team, it was Bob Schrank, who I cannot speak highly enough of.

“Bob is one of my best friends in the whole world. Bob is someone who I still turn to even though I'm not with TT1. If I have a problem, he's someone I call.”

Bz:

So up to the DS level you felt pretty supported?

JS:

“Yeah, highly. They were good people, reeeeally good people.

“My father suffered some mental health issues in the past twelve months. I knew.

“I was 23, 22. You still need a father figure to look up to, and a lot of those guys on TT1 are people who I did look up to. People who I could turn to for help when I didn't know what to do because I haven't been alive long enough.

“Those guys who I met through TT1 were people who filled in for my dad, in a way, when my family was so far away.

“They're good people and they're people who have done a lot for me.”

Bz:

It's rumored that treatment of riders was tiered, that those riders who won more, were treated better, given more and better food, medical supplies, shelter. Is there any accuracy to that?

JS:

“Ummm, nope.

“I wasn't living with the team. I was living by myself in California. But until the medication stopped I was receiving the same medication as everyone else. I followed two medications, the best on the market.

“There were issues with getting bikes out on time, with getting kits out on time. I wouldn't say that was tiered treatment by any means, but I'd say it was just poor organization.”

Bz:

Because of your lack of medication did your own performance suffer?

JS:

“Oh yeah! I was creeeeping. If you don't take your insulin for a week you're about to go blind. You don't take your insulin your kidneys will shut down.

“It's not just about your performance, it's your ability to stay alive. The insulin is absolutely integral to your survival. Without insulin the diabetic cannot survive.”

Bz:

How did it work, did your performance drop after they cut off the insulin? Or did they cut off the insulin when your performance dropped off?

JS:

“One day I just received an email saying I wasn't going to get insulin any more.

“Pretty much I continued to use supplies that I had. I started having problems a couple months after that.

“It wasn’t just the lack of insulin it was also the stress that I was dealing with. I mean, I hadn't been paid, I was living in my car, I didn't know where my next meal was going to come from, I hadn't received any race schedules.

“I think lack of insulin combined with just a ton of lifestyle issues.

“I mean, my performance wasn't great. But, because I wasn't racing I wasn't resting enough. I beat shit into myself training, which was my fault.

“My performance may or may not have decreased. They would never have known, because they never took me to any races.”

“They stopped it (taking him to races – Bz) in 2011 because I never got my visa. You can't be cycling professionally if you don't have a visa to be a professional cyclist.”

Bz:

At what point did the insulin stop?

JS:

“The insulin stopped in March.”

Bz:

How did it work with the visa? Or how was it supposed to work? Do they typically help you get your visa?

JS:

“That was their obligation. I have a contract that states that they're the employer and it's up to them to get a visa.”

Bz:

How did that fall apart?

JS:

“I don't know exactly what happened. But, there was a horrendous delay so that the Visa didn't come till April.

“I was continually being told, it'll come in five days, it'll come in five days, it'll come in five days.

“So, why that happened, I don't know.”

Bz:

In April you finally got the visa?

JS:

“I was on a student visa at UCSD and I went to change to a professional athlete visa and that never came. I took a sabbatical to ride full time.

“In April the visa was approved provisionally. I then had to go back to the United Kingdom to conduct an interview and collect the visa.

“Previously TT1 had told me I'd be able to do that in the U.S., but it turned out you can't do it in the U.S.

“So I returned April 11th, which was the last day I was legally able to remain in the U.S. on my old visa.

“I left the U.S. and came to the UK in order to pick up my visa, thinking I'd be back in a couple of weeks. so I brought one bag of clothes and my bike.

“At that point they terminated my contract.”

Bz:

With TT1's connections to pharmaceutical companies, they would seem to have easier access to doping products through the back door. Were you aware of doping occurring on any level by any rider or with the knowledge or consent of any staff, management or ownership personnel?

JS:

“That's not something I want to comment on right now. I never saw anyone taking any performance enhancing substances. But I don't want to talk about doping on TT1 at the moment if that's ok."

Bz:

I've heard that TT1 is being investigated for insurance fraud, were you aware of that? Have you been contacted about it? Do you have any information about it?

JS:

“I wasn't aware that they were being investigated for insurance fraud.

“It upsets me to read shit about TT1, because I get angry so I try not to.

“Because, I'm torn between really resenting what they did to me, and wanting my friends to do well. And it really upsets me.

“There are individuals who I hugely resent the way they treated me. There are other individuals who are some of my best friends.

“It upsets me when I see my friends cooperating with people who I know have done such horrible things to me. So, I try to avoid any type of interactions with TT1. I just try to keep them out of my life as much as I can.”

_____________

You can also find this and future interviews, plus a lot more cycling related content, at Cyclismas.

James Stout Interview: Part 1: School and Motivation

2011-07-24T20:13:00.004-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Parts 3 & 4, Postscript

James Stout was a twenty-something year old PhD student who also happened to be a bike racer struggling with a form of Type 1 diabetes while studying at UC San Diego.

After a chance encounter at the Tour of California where he met some like-minded individuals who shared his perspective and his struggles, James joined his new soulmates on Team Type 1, a professional cycling team comprised of athletes also suffering from Type 1 diabetes.

For a year or more things went beautifully for James and his relationship with the team.

Then, inexplicably, things fell apart.

This is my discussion with James about his ups and downs during and since that time.

---

Bikezilla:

In an interview with, Ioana Patringenaru, at This Week @ UCSD, you said:

“I used to use diabetes as an excuse for doing badly. Now, it’s a motivation for doing well.”

It sounds like you had some problems before getting into cycling. What kind of problems?

James Stout:

“When I got diagnosed, my doctors told me I had to start playing chess.

“I told them I wanted to be a professional cyclist, they told me to give up.

“I used to get wicked low blood-sugars in races. Or I'd go high and my body would fill up with lactic acid. I would eat the wrong stuff, or eat at the wrong time, I wouldn't know when to take my insulin before a race. Things like that.

“There's no advice, there's nothing out there.

“You go to your doctor and you say, I want to ride bikes, I want to race 200 kilometers (km).

“The first time I said that he said, that's not possible, people don't do that. I told him they did and he just told me I was lying.

“Then I produced evidence to the contrary and he just said, well that's not for you, you can't do that.

“So I fought to overcome that, I guess with trial and error. And I made loads of errors on my way to finding out the right way to do it.

“Definitely turned the page, really. Perhaps more so even now that I'm not with Team Type 1.

“I don't know how much the diabetes thing really means to anyone anymore. I thought it meant a lot to everyone there. Now I know that it means a lot to me and I had to experience some things, like all of these things just recently, in the U.S. especially with the healthcare system.

“I'm just deeply passionate and really involved in showing diabetics that they can do whatever they want and spreading that message. Being something of an example as best I can.”

Bz:

When they told you you had to go play chess, that really had a big impact on you.

JS:

“It really did, yes.

“I think about that every time I get on my bike. That pissed me off.

“If you want me to do something, the best way is to tell me I can't. Because I'll make sure that you get proved wrong. That pissed me off more than I can say.

“I'm prepared to sacrifice an awful lot. I wanted something. I wanted it really badly and someone telling me I couldn't have it, especially that coldly, then laughing about it and saying, well you can go play chess.

“Yeah, every single day I think about that. Every single day I think that guy should fuck off, he's wrong. It made a huge impact on me.”

Bz:

The doctor was laughing when he told you to play chess?

JS:

“Yeah, it was like, ha ha ha. It wasn't like, sorry son. It was like, you're taking a pinch if you think you're going to be a bike racer and you've got type 1 diabetes.

“It was like I told him, hey, I wanna be a hedgehog.

“My little cousine told me once that when she grew up she wanted to be a hedgehog.

“Yeah, it was like I'd just manifestly told him something clearly impossible.

“So I like to think that I'm doing the impossible and proving it's possible.”

Bz:

You rode for both TT1, a professional team, and UCSD, a collegiate team, at the same time?

JS:

“Yes, you can ride collegiate in the U.S. So I rode UCSD in a collegiate capacity and TT1 in all the other races.”

Bz:

How did you handle that schedule?

JS:

“There weren't too many conflicts. The collegiate level was just kind of fun.

“While with TT1 I was studying for my PhD.

“The nice thing about being a history PhD, is you don't have too much of a schedule. You're never massively obliged to be in any one place at any one time. Aside from my teaching (JS was a teaching assistant – Bz) I could set my own schedule.

“That meant I could spend most of my time riding and the rest of the time reading.

“It would seem that I'm very organized, but at eye level I'm really atrociously organized. But somehow I made it work.

“And when I do my research on history, it's on cycling, the history of cycling as national identity here in Catalonia.

“It kind of segued together nicely.

“I had a very supportive set of professors.

“The staff at UCSD, they still check out my Twitter, they look up my race results, they email me when they know I've won a race. They're great.

“I owe them a lot.”

Bz:

You lined up some sponsors for UCSD's cycling team and became the team's "Coordinator of Sponsorship". Was that on your own initiative?

JS:

“The thing about collegiate cycling is that, people aren't sponsoring you because you're The Shit.

“If you're under the impression that they're sponsoring you because you're good, then you're misleading yourself. Because if you're in collegiate cycling, you're not that good.

“No one buys a frame because they saw a dude on a collegiate team riding it.

“But what the sponsors do realize is that, everyone started out as a beginner. And they want to help guys who are just starting, especially when they don't have much money, and if you can support these kids and build a sense of loyalty to your brand, then years to come when they're doctors, dentists, lawyers, then they'll keep buying your stuff.

“So a big deal when I did the sponsorship thing wasn't so much getting a killer deal on 18 mil carbon front wheels. It was getting a killer deal on a $600.00 alloy frame bike that any kid could buy.

“I come from Europe, where I didn't buy a bike until I as 18. Because, I'd go to the club and people would give me bikes, and give me kits, and give me helmets, and drive me to races.

“In America cycling is such a middle class Bourgeoisie sport. It disgusts me that you can be priced out of it.

“So my big goal was that no one was priced out of the sport.

“There was one guy who came to us. He had seen our race one year and he said, I want to be a bike racer. And he brought this bike he put together from stuff he found in trash.

“Different types of wheels and . . . We managed to cobble him together a proper racing bike somehow.

“And that's the biggest achievement for me in collegiate cycling, was getting these kids bikes so they could start racing. Giving them access to the sport.

“I strongly believe that's what it should be about.

“I strongly believe that the U.S. has a really big problem with its cycling culture in that they fundamentally hug the wrong target.

“The target should be people from the age of fifteen to the age of thirty. It should be about getting those people on bikes, getting them racing.

“Not people in the range of thirty-five to fifty, buying bikes that cost more than I earn in a year. Those are people who'll buy bikes anyway if they want to buy bikes.

“It upsets me that there are five Masters categories and no Juniors categories at some races. That's not right.”

Bz:

Did any of that carry over to your time on TT1?

JS:

“Not at all, not as a coordinator. I was able to reach out with a lot of our sponsors and make contact with them directly.

“I would never say I coordinated a sponsorship. But, I was lucky enough that I'd do some product days with our sponsors. I was able to connect with Glacier Gloves, with Hammer Nutrition, with all the guys at training camp, like VSP vision care, like the guys from Shimano. And obviously I did some work with the diabetes industry sponsors. They gave me some great opportunities.

“I remember doing a crit earlier this year in L.A. somewhere and I'm off the front and one of the dudes from Shimano, he's standing in the pit. He comes out and he's holding out his hand like he's going to give me a feed and he just wanted to give me a high-five because he was so stoked to see someone from this team off the front.

“I built some pretty good relationships with sponsors, but I was never involved directly in coordination of that. That was something that went on in some office somewhere.

“I don't like racing around with stuff painted all over my body if I don't know . . . I don't like representing people if I don't know who they are or what they produce. It always meant a lot to me to get to know the sponsors.”

Bz:

You're originally from England and you did your undergraduate studies at Oxford?

JS:

“Yes. I'm in Spain, now. I studied my undergraduate at Oxford, then went to UC San Diego.”

Bz:

You went from Oxford, a very prestigious school, to UCSD, which is anything but prestigious. How did that transition happen?

JS:

“UCSD has one of the best Spanish History programs in the English speaking world. I'd go as far as saying the best in the U.S.

“So, in my small field it was probably the best place to go.

“I had offers from Harvard, Princeton, all those places.

“I wanted to ride my bike. I wanted to enjoy my PhD, and I didn't want to be in an environment that was highly competitive, as I was as a grad student. I worked pretty hard at my undergraduate.

“UCSD has a super supportive, nurturing environment. It's a wonderful place to live.

“So, that's how I ended up there, really.

“They had a great faculty and I revere them for the time they spent with me.”

Bz:

Prior to your time with TT1, when you were attending UCSD and riding only for them, how did you get your insulin and testing supplies? Who helped you with your treatment?

JS:

“That was sketch. My mum shipped me some from home. I saw a doctor who I wasn't able to get UCSD to pay for all the time and he hooked me up with samples.

“I begged, borrowed and stole. I did what I had to do. My control wasn't the best.

“I did what I had to, but essentially my health paid the price.”

Bz:

The demands on your body and how they stress your diabetes riding at a collegiate level must be somewhat less than riding at a professional level.

JS:

“Yes. But cycling or not, if you aren't getting the correct insulin it's not good for you. You will go blind, you will lose limbs, you will have kidney failure. Without it you can’t survive.

“I didn't realize quite the extent of the U.S. health insurance kind of shambles until a bit too late.

“I had to get insulin, where I could get insulin and when I could.”

--

You can also find this and future interviews, plus a lot more cycling related content, at Cyclismas.

Bikezilla's Love and Relationship Advice

2011-07-08T17:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Bikezilla,

Recently my BF of a couple months has started sending me emoticons. He sends them in texts, in emails, he even tweets them to me.

I really love his sexy cycling legs, but, emoticons? Gosh! I just don't know.

Should I be concerned?

Possibly Concerned in Seattle.

Dear Possibly,

Your "man" has gotten in touch with his feminine side.

I'm sure that at first you found this charming, even endearing. But once that five minutes passed you realized that if you wanted to date someone that chickish you could just go lesbo and save yourself a lot of headaches to boot.

At first offense you should have immediately pulled your BF's Man Card for a period of no less than one week.

If, during this probationary period, he refrained from all use of emoticons and had not participated in any other girly activities or mannerisms, he could then have said Man Card reinstated.

However, repeated offenses, such as you have indicated, should (in fact must) be taken as a very clear "coming out of the closet" statement.

If there is any doubt remaining, look for any of these other signs:

Has he started playing golf?

Does he follow curling, no matter how casual he tries to pretend his interest is?

Has he ever had a manicure or a pedicure? Both?!

Does he drink hazelnut coffee?

Does he wear Lampre kit?

If even a single one of these additional signs is present, you should assume that when he leaves you it will be for another man.

Be smart, leave him first.

Hope this helps.

Bikezilla

Bikezilla News

2011-07-07T19:28:00.002-05:00

I have a couple announcements about Bikezilla that I'd like to share with you.

I'm sure you've noticed that my writing production has dropped way off. There are several reasons for that, beyond the fact that I'm stupid and lazy.

First there was a lot of research and writing I had to do for Strickland and Vaughters interviews (and, again, my thanks to both of them for being so cool to the site), then the studying for my state professional license, now there's more.

-- I've been preparing to become a part of a new website. It's a collaborative site, a lot like the original incarnation of The Postgame, which I wrote for as the NFL writer. But this site will be entirely focused on cycling and I'll be the primary interviewer, which is very exciting for me.

The new site is called Cyclismas and it should be live any day now (I'd hoped even today, but there's a lot to get ready).

It's run by . . . well, I'm not sure I'm allowed to give that away just yet, but it'll feature guys like @UCI_Overlord and Dan Wuori (who it's just fine to hate for being funnier than you. I do.) and Joshua Hunt (who it's ok to hate for being more brilliant than you. I do.) and several other most excellent and equally hateable writers.

AND!

-- Bikezilla has just (and FINALLY!) started bringing in new writers. I've been dying to do this for a long time, but when the pay is zero it's hard to find good help.

I know, duh, right?

Eric Bowen, who's worked with the site previously on bike fit related articles, is coming on. He'll be publishing some of the articles that he writes for his VeloFit news letter and website, here. Yay, here!

If we're very lucky maybe we'll get the occasional cycling history article, too, because Eric is a freakin' encyclopedia of that stuff.

Here's Eric's contact info should you require such brilliant, expert service.

Eric Bowen, Owner and Bike Fitting Specialist
VeloFit Revolution
Phone: (858) 414-7093
Web: www.velofitter.com
email: velofitter@yahoo.com

Publisher
The Virtual Musette
web: www.thevirtualmusette.com

Eric, at least I hope, is not the last of the writers who will come on board here at Bikezilla. Cross your fingers for me as I continue contacting writers who I know can expertly support my mission for Bikezilla to be a prime resource of helpful cycling knowledge, especially for beginner and intermediate riders, and writers who can present some edge-of-the-cliff, intelligent opinion writing.

And my time will again be limited by needing to study for work, this time to add "sections" or "parts" to my license.

Thank you all for coming in like you do, for sticking with me and for supporting Bikezilla. You rock.

Tom / Bikezilla

2011 Tour de France, the Most Heavily Doped Race in Years

2011-06-27T19:38:00.000-05:00

Alberto Contador learned his lesson when he got snagged for doping at the 2010 Tour de France. He learned not to use clenbuterol or other "lesser" performance enhancing drugs in the days leading up to drawing blood for later transfusion.

At the 2011 Giro d'Italia Contador dominated like a machine. He humiliated all comers and hardly broke a sweat doing it, giving away stage wins like a king granting parcels of land to favored vassals.

At the elite level of any sport, the difference between levels of excellence is measured in hair breadths, not light-years. Alberto's dominance at the Giro would be expected if someone of his talent were racing against ProConti riders. But against a collection of elites?

Alberto's competitors learned as well, both from Alberto and from UCI.

From Alberto they learned that if they are to stand any chance whatsoever of defeating him in this year's Tour de France, they must be just as skilled and ruthless at doping as he is.

From UCI they learned that they have nothing to fear, regardless of how obviously they dope.

Because just a few months ago we saw the Index of Suspicion, aka The List.

The List was intended for use in targeting the most suspicious riders, those whose biological passport data indicated the highest likelihood of having doped during that season.

But that targeting of the most highly suspect riders never occurred.

Then, during the build up to the Amgen EPO Tour of California USADA was slotted to take over testing from the UCI and ran a three month program of pre-race blood testing leading. They had used that testing cycle to again identify the riders who were most highly suspect and formed their own Index of Suspcion, which we were told would actually be used for its intended purpose.

But just days before the race, in order to prevent just such targeting, UCI removed USADA from the in race testing program and took over those duties itself, tossing all of USADA's work and its List out the window.

Riders are faced with a choice, race clean and be humiliated or dope to the gills and be competitive. Knowing that UCI not only expects them to dope, but tacitly condones it and will take drastic steps to protect dopers, we can expect to see doping at this edition of the Tour de France rise to new heights.

I also anticipate that we'll see some performances that will make the best of Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador (to date) look mundane.

Jonathan Vaughters Interview: Postscript: The Article About the Article

2011-06-10T22:28:00.009-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Postscript

The Interview

Back near the end of Februrary (2011) I was in a multi-tweeter conversation between Jonathan Vaughters, me, and several other people. During that conversation JV invited me to interview him, and he gave me the email to his media rep, Marya Pongrace.

I asked what form JV would prefer the interview to be in, and said that due to the sensitive nature of the questions that I'd be happy to submit it via email to give him a better chance to consider his responses before replying.

That was the option he chose, and so a few days later I emailed Marya a longish interview entirely centered on JV's personal experiences with doping and with his general knowledge of doping within professional cycling.

After two weeks there was no response. I started sending weekly requests to Marya, asking for an approximate response date, or an indication that JV had chosen not to respond.

To each of these emails I received not so much as an acknowledgement. And after each silent "fuck off" I cursed a wicked stream of curses at Marya and at JV and what I perceived as a total lack of courtesy and professionalism.

But at the two month mark there was a glimmer of hope. Marya wrote to say that she could not find the interview email and requested that I resubmit.

Whew. Ok. No big at all. I mean, I can't even keep track of my wallet and Marya undoubtedly handles, directs and keeps track of myriad calls and emails every day.

I almost felt bad for all the mean things I'd thought about her.

Hence the process began again of weeks with no response and no acknowledgement to any of my emails.

I was feeling frustrated and played with. Angry. More curses ensued.

Eventually I asked JV, via Twitter, if he might know when he could reply, or if he could tell me that he'd chosen not to. It ended with another re-submission.

And another round of no responses and no acknowledgments to follow up emails, and so more curses.

I was about to give up and publish the "interview" with questions and background, quotes and links to supporting articles, when, POOF, JV had started following me on Twitter and sent me a Direct Message (DM) to discuss comments I'd tweeted regarding The List.

This conversation ended with him calling me an asshole, but providing his direct email and again telling me to contact him "whenever" for an interview.

That was just before the Amgen Tour of Cali, where JV was going to be playing DS, so I decided to wait until the week after the race.

But when I contacted him about it he seemed reluctant: "You'll just tear me to pieces." he said.

I don't know if he was joking, because I don't know him well enough to tell when he's screwing with me, especially via 140 character blurbs, and when he's serious.

But to sooth his possible concerns, and to quiet the cursing inside my head, I offered to send him an outline / script of the interview, and he was ok with that.

He gave me his phone number and I set things up for that Thursday.

I was leery. When I called, would it be Marya answering? Would she give me a run around? Would I have to play this game on and on regardless how I contacted him?

It was tough to hold back the cursing in my head, but I managed to fight it off.

But, the number he gave me was actually his personal Blackberry number. I was relieved and maybe just a little surprised.

Now I have to say that the interview I ended up doing was not the original interview. It contained the first part of it, but left a lot still on the table. Why? Because I could cover more ground, include more general information, and I could also approach the main subject without jumping right into it and have JV feeling pummeled or ambushed from word one.

And if I'm to be completely honest I also understood that JV didn't really have any reason to trust me with the full original interview, especially considering that I've beat up on him several times on Bikezilla.

So I thought that if I cut things short this time, maybe some time down the road I could get to what I really want to talk about with him either as a subject or a source.

Providing that outline to JV helped out a lot, in the end. Because, since he already knew the content and context of what I wanted to get at, I could simply say, "Ok, I'm at this point in the outline." and then just give him the basic idea of what I wanted to discuss, instead of going over every single word and quote and idea at length. So it helped shorten things up considerably and made it all a lot less frustrating (at least for me).

The outline also kept me focused. As the interview progressed, the conversation and the questions became more sensitive, and I could tell that JV was more on edge, maybe a little defensive. But I didn't have to hem and haw and think about how and where maybe I should back off, or get flustered and start forgetting things. I just had to stay focused on the outline and let it guide me through the discomfort and the tenseness.

As things became more sensitive and tense, JV could have hung up on me at any time, or said, "Dude, you know what, you're just a fucking peon blogger and I don't need to take this shit from you.". But he didn't. He stuck with me and remained focused and respectful.

I was impressed, and again pleasantly surprised.

I wasn't done being surprised.

JV contacted me again via Twitter DM to fill in some info that he left out because "The way you asked that ? made me a little defensive". Then, not once but twice, he called me back. The first time I was certain it had to be an accident, a pocket dial.

But no. He wanted to give me some off the record information that would explain some things and, as he would say, give me "some perspective".

The interview itself was flat on a personal level. There was no real connection there. But I hadn't expected one. It was what I had anticipated.

The process, from late February until completion, was long and more than frustrating. In fact, it had me outright pissed off for weeks at a time.

But it was also rewarding on several levels.

But the phone call (singular, because I missed the call the first time) was different. It felt comfortable, easy, like I was hanging out in the backyard and talking to one of my friends.

Internal Conflict

The post-interview DMs left me feeling a little lost. They weren't officially "off the record", but some of them were sensitive, and because they were in DM and so intentionally not in public view, and not in a common response media like an email, I made an assumption that they were intended to be off limits.

They, plus portions of the interview itself, left me feeling conflicted, and as I've mentioned before, it's tough to honor both the subject and the topic, and tougher when you like and respect the person you're interviewing and not wanting to violate the trust they've placed in you, but not wanting to puss out, either.

Thankfully Twitter has allowed me contact with several people who've done far more interviews than I have, and who've done more "big" interviews.

So I sought advice from one of them and got some great guidance without being told what to do.

That guidance helped me balance my thoughts and obligations as a human vs my thoughts and obligations as a writer. It also gave me the following thoughts on JV and his continued refusal to give an unequivocal, "Yes I used peds".

"I don't need a full accounting from JV. He participated in that doping culture, in that era, got sick of it, left, tried to come back and do it a better way. I don't need him to address
when, how many times, with what, with who.

"I dispute the fact that every sinner must disclose every detail of every sin. Would you?

"Think of the most vile acts of your life, your own part in them, and think of telling not just someone closest to you, but the whole world, having your worst moment of weakness live
on then as your legacy for relatives or grand-grand-grand children who never
knew you to know you by. Not just that you did something wrong -- which I think
is often best to admit -- but the most minute details of how and why and when
and to whom and with what disregard you did it, and how you later lied about
(because we all have), and to find out that you are no longer a human who did
something human and tried to go on from ere, but that you are forever now a
liar, a cheater, an adulterer, whatever."

My Opinion

My opinion of JV hasn't changed. As I've said before, I think he's "a pirate and a good man".

JV provided this:

"Piracy was never solved by the Royal Navy. Corruption prevented solution. Henry Morgan, a pirate, or former pirate, was the single most responsible for the end of piracy in the Caribbean, after he was hired by the Royal Navy."

There are serious issues that raise questions against his ethics and integrity. The two most glaring, for me, are:

1. His SCA deposition, where it seems clear to many people (including me) that he perjured himself with damned near every word he said, at a time when he could have blown Lance Armstrong and doping right out of the water, but chose not to.

CORRECTION:

JV:

"I was never deposed at SCA. Ever. I signed an affidavit saying I had no first hand knowledge of doping in 2005.

I did not have first hand knowledge of doping at usps in 2005. How could I? I was retired and out of the loop.

Never deposed. Never subpoenaed. Had nothing to do with SCA."

2. The Trent Lowe / Matt White issue. The stories never matched up, and JV's own account did not seem consistent, and why he never reported Lowe's irregular blood values to WADA or UCI. There's something ugly swimming beneath the surface, and neither Vaughters nor Lowe nor White is eager for us to learn about it.

I've been asked why those issues weren't covered in this interview. It's simple, either of them could consume an entire interview on its own. I could not have done them justice, here, and they would have been threads off of the path I'd intended to follow.

In short, they just didn't fit.

But, if you take those suspicious issues into consideration, and you look at JV and then at his peers, who among them all would you most readily see in JV's current position of influence? Who would you put the most faith in as our crusader against the evils of doping and the corruption in the system?

Johan Bruyneel? Lance Armstrong? Bill Stapleton? Jim Ochowicz? John Lelangue? Bjarne Riis? Kim Anderson?

If you didn't scream, "FUCK NO!" after every name on that list then I can only assume that you're either one of their mothers, or you're smoking crack as you read this.

I'll take Vaughters over any of them, and breathe a sigh of relief that it's him and not them championing our cause.

If you distrust Vaughters, how far do you take that?

He's sang the praises of Roger Legeay and Legeay's ethics and integrity. Yet Legeay himself was
busted for taking amphetamines in 1974 at Paris - Nice.

Do you erase Legeays credibility, too? Is there an association of dishonor that makes both men doubly damned by their links to each other?

For those of us who have trouble reconciling Jonathan Vaughters philosophy with our own, here's what I see as a great and reasonable evaluation.

To sum that up, JV follows an insiders strategy that is a slow route to change, but one that doesn't risk destroying or humiliating the sport, or scaring away sponsors, to create change.

It's a patient, intelligent strategy, but still leaves JV open to criticisms and concerns regarding his ethics, honesty, integrity and his commitment to anti-doping. And I think all of that is entirely fair.

That is obviously a price he's willing to pay, though just as obviously it's not a price he pays with any joy.

I think that while he accepts that he's left himself open to questions and criticism and he is largely ok with that, there are times when it stings him, hurts him, when it really leaves him bleeding.

In conclusion, I fully believe that JV was a dope sucking weasel during his time at U.S. Postal and when he set the record for climbing Mt Ventoux, that he lied under oath during the Lance Armstrong vs SCA trial, that something smells like rotten fish around the Trent Lowe affair, that the
opening to his personal statement on the Slipstream website is a crock-o-crap and should be amended, and that there are times when he blatantly bullshits us and plays us for fools.

But I also think that he's a good man and genuine, that he is sincere in his desire and efforts to clean up cycling from the inside without tearing it apart first and that, overall, he is worthy of my trust.

Jonathan Vaughters Interview: Part 2: Ethics, Roger Legeay, The List, PEDs

2011-06-08T17:20:00.008-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Postscript

This is Part 2 of my interview with Jonathan Vaughters.

From May 26, 2011.

Jonathan Vaughters:

"Like I said before, did French teams take steps to eliminate doping from their internal culture long before it was de rigeur? Yes, absolutely they did, without a doubt. I was on one in 2000 – 2001, Crédit Agricole.

"It was straight as an arrow.

"To my way of thinking Roger Legeay took a very strict line very early on, and was not overly concerned with whether that affected the performance of the team or not.

"Hat's off to him. I have a huge, huge level of respect for him for doing that. It influenced my life considerably."

Bikezilla:

Could you have gotten where you are without him? Would you have?

JV:

"No. No, absolutely not.

"Roger had a very big influence on me in a lot of different ways. Obviously the wasp sting thing.

"You know, there's all kinds of different stories, but the real story about it is: I got the wasp sting and needed a cortisone injection. I knew the cortisone injection was illegal. But, if you had a knee injury, then it was legal.

"So all we had to do was produce a prescription for a knee injury and I could have continued the Tour de France, right?

"Me? What did I do? I said goddammit, write in my little book that I have a knee injury and give me the injection. I argued with him for hours, and the team doctor.

"Roger was the one who put his foot down and said, 'No, you're not going to do that.'

"And I hated him for months after that.

"But today I see that he made the right choice.

"A lot of people think I said 'no' to the cortisone. No, no, no, no. I wanted the cortisone. I absolutely wanted the cortisone.

"It was Roger Legeay who prevented me from making a wrong decision."

Bz:

Legeay put ethics ahead of performance.

JV:

"Yes. Absolutely."

Bz:

Just yesterday (25 May 11) you re-posted the link to a year old article about your stance on Garmin riders talking about doping.

In it you say:

" (the team is) on the belief in our ability to contribute to changing the sport’s future through a persistent commitment to the present."

". . . we find ourselves at a critical moment in cycling’s evolution: confronting its past."

". . .  we believe it is time for transparency."

"We expect anyone in our organization who is contacted by any cycling, anti-doping, or government authority will be open and honest with that authority. In that context, we expect nothing short of 100% truthfulness – whatever that truth is – to the questions they are asked. As long as they express the truth about the past to the appropriate parties, they will continue to have a place in our organization and we will support them for living up to the promise we gave the world when we founded Slipstream Sports."

On Twitter the same day you said:

". . . .read the statement carefully. I'm not throwing anyone out for being honest about their past with authorities."

And then:

" . . . Oh, just folks getting grumpy about me not being candid about my past with media outlets. Don't consider them 'authorities' sorry.'

Commitment to the present; confronting the past; time for transparency.

Those terms seem to be in conflict.

Your commitment to the present is the team's anti-doping program, but also your personal efforts to achieve reform in the process to make it more effective, more difficult to beat and less corrupt.

JV:

"Yes, absolutely, all those things. You have to deal with the here and now."

Bz:

But "confronting the past" seems to be an exercise in ignoring the past where doping is concerned: Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Like if we just ignore all of that and do the right thing ourselves as we move forward, all will be right with the world.

JV:

"No, no, no. If you ignore it, then you have no capacity to change the future.

"What you say is of very little consequence. It's how you act, how you choose to go forward based on the information in your past.

"Does my past give me an incredible body of information to be able to change the future and the present? Absolutely it does.

"But knowing it is accepting it, living with it, alright, based on what I know and based on my experiences, this is the way forward."

Bz:

This ties into your statement about transparency.

You make it very clear that it's ok for team members to talk, "to authorities" and that it's not only ok, but expected for them to respond in total honesty should "authority" ask.

But only if they're asked.

Those statements seem to imply that riders and team members should not take initiative to offer information on their own, not even to "authority".

JV:

"Nooooo, I don't have a problem if they take the initiative on their own. I don't have any issue with that whatsoever.

"Remember, that (the re-posted link / story – Bikezilla) was written over a year ago. At that point in time it was clear that the FDA was going to be investigating this issue.

"So, my point was, if any of my guys are contacted, here's my expectation.

"I think the more important part of that is that the expectation is, you will be honest: You are compelled by your employer to complete honesty.

"And, by the way, I'm also an employee of Slipstream Sports. So I fall under all that.

"You will be completely forthcoming and honest, and no matter what that truth is, as long as you are truthful, you have a place with us.

"I think that's very clear."

Bz:

So you don't have a problem with employees going to authorities on their own. They don't have to wait for someone to ask them, if they choose to they can just go to Jeff Novitzky or whoever?

JV:

"Yeah, absolutely. No, I have no problem with that at all."

Bz:

It also seems that you're implying, quite strongly, that riders and team members are not to, and not permitted to (or at least very strongly discouraged from), speak to any non-"authority", and that you may very well "throw anyone out" who does speak to a non-"authority".

JV:

"I would never throw anyone out for that. It's just that I'm not going to compel them to speak to the media.

"It's my personal belief that that is not the best way forward.

"If there's an investigation going on, then you should let those investigators do their work the best that they can. If you are asked to be part of it, you need to be honest.

"If you're not asked to be part of it maybe they don't need you. But if you want to go forward, then however you want to play that.

"But I don't necessarily feel that it's productive to coming to the best possible conclusion of an investigation if you're putting things out publicly.

"I feel like there are people that, this is their job, and those people need to have the truth. Period."

Bz:

So they're not forbidden from speaking to the media and there are no punitive measures taken if they do?

JV:

"Absolutely not."

Bz:

When UCI's "Index of Suspicion" for the 2010 Tour de France was leaked, it rated Tyler Farrar a 3 and David Millar a 4 on a scale of 0 - 10 (with 10 being worst – Bikezilla).

When fans saw that, there was a lot of "I knew it!" about Millar and "Holy jeebus please no" about Tyler.

JV:

“Millar is a 4 because of his history. He has very stable blood values. Period.

“Tyler . . . I mean, who knows. Why he was a 3 rather than a 2 or a zero or whatever, I don't know. But what I do know is that, anyone who has worked for a long time in reading hematology knows that there are little variances, and those little variances come and go.

“For instance, there may be a zero in that race, but if you measured him in a race three weeks later he might be a three.

“The point is, there's no problem having a list like that, but if you dealt with a lot of hematology and read these blood records over the years, you'd realize that there is no rider in the entire peloton that has never produced a test that isn't a little bit weird.

“There are enough issues with just the human body and transportation of blood samples, laboratories, so on and so forth, that that's just the way it works.

“But whenever you see an odd blood value . . . there should be a targeting system like this. It just shouldn't be leaked publicly.

“When you see an odd blood value, you say, we need to follow up on this and test the shit out of this guy. And you do it and either you immediately see, ok that was anomalous, no big deal. Or, there's a problem.

“So, there should be a prioritization of the athletes, there. But it shouldn't be leaked to the public, because, I can guarantee you, that if you did that same test and that same compilation a month or two months later with the same group of riders, some of the zeros would be fours, some of the fours would be zeros. It would be very different. That's just the way it works.

“It's ok if someone produces an unusual value. It's ok to prioritize testing them more. That's what you should do.

“But when a list comes out like that and it's misinterpreted, it's out of context, no one is giving everyone the perspective that unexpected performances are part of that.

“Why is Fabian Cancellara a zero? Well, he probably had very stable blood. Good. Perfect. Was him winning the prologue unexpected? No. Not at all. It was very expected.

“How about Geraint Thomas? Geraint Thomas was fifth in the prologue at the Tour de France (2010, :23 – Bikezilla). Was that unexpected? That was very unexpected.

“So, who's Geraint Thomas? Would you not target him? You would.”

Bz:

The people who make this list, does someone give you the courtesy of informing you when blood values are out of line? So you can do something non-punitive on your own?

JV:

“No, not at all.

“This list, the way it's set out, none of us had any idea about it. The first time I saw it was the same time you saw it."

Bz:

Cycling fans are pretty emotional.

Seeing Tyler above a 0 really hurt a lot of people and that came out as anger. Most of that anger was directed at you.

JV:

"And that's fine. But Tyler has never doped, will never dope.

"I don't even know exactly why he's a three. My guess is, he did the Giro that year, the Giro is a very hard race and it's gonna drop your hematacrit considerably when you race in it, because of fatigue. As you rest before the Tour de France it's going to come back up.

"If you look at that on a curve, it goes down, down, down, then it comes back up. So it's like, oh, that's an interesting up and down, we need to follow up on that.

"It really upsets me that that list was even released, because it doesn't give people context.

"I prefer that they just release the raw blood data, rather than release that list. Because now you have this little nugget and you don't know how those numbers were arrived at.

"I think it's just a huge disservice. Whoever released it should be fired.

"To be frank, the custodians of that information, the fact that it somehow filtered its way out, and I don't know if it was intentional or accidental, really need to think about the damage that they inflicted on the reputations of innocent athletes."

Bz:

So when people wonder, why didn't JV pull so-and-so non-punitively, you never had access to the information.

JV:

"No. I have access from the records of what WE do with Catlin's and our program. Yeah, I have access to that."

Bz:

But you didn't have The List and you didn't have the data from that specific round of testing?

JV:

"No. No.

"Eventually they do post those test results. But, they don't say, you're a one or a six or an eight or whatever. They post the raw results on the Biological Passport for each individual rider.

"So, then you can access it. But that's usually weeks and weeks after the fact."

Bz:

Have you ever removed someone from competition because of issues with blood values?

JV:

"I can't comment. If you want to prevent doping, you may have to pull someone out with values that give a 70% chance of having doped.

"But it would be wrong to publicly ruin someone's reputation over a 70% probability, wouldn't it?

"So, if I had, you would never know. But WADA would be informed before the athlete, so they could target."

Bz:

In your "Connect the Dots" blog on CN, you discuss your (former and admittedly incorrect) condemnation of Xavier Tondo, based upon his association with dopers and his proximity to doping.

Many people look at your own association with dopers, your proximity to doping during your career as a rider, and some of your own statements and near or semi-acknowledgments regarding personal use of PEDs for their own "Ah ha!" attitudes about you.

I'm talking about things like the July 25, 2005 IM conversation you had with Frankie Andreu:

"That's when I realized that Lance was really fooling us when he said that everybody was doing as we did... Believe me, as crazy as it may seem, Moreau didn't take anything, his hematocrit was 39."

Or mentioning that you'd never tested above 50% hematocrit (in a race), and when you said you weren't worried about the retested 1999 Tour urine samples because you never took a urine test at that Tour.

"I'd never tested (at a race) above 50 percent, except before the start of the '99 Tour," he said. "I told the team doctor 'don't worry, I've got a certificate, I've got a hall-pass for this (because he was a climber -- Bikezilla)'," he recalled. "But the doctor said it wasn't me they were worried about, it was that the whole team was very close (to the 50 percent limit)."

Then, at least twice, once in your interview with Paul Kimmage, once with Sport24.com / Le Figaro, you've made statements that seem to confirm your personal use of PEDs, but in a way that you could say, "I never said that."

Here's a part of your exchange with Kimmage:

PK: “Okay, fine. You are painting me a picture and I’m reading between the lines.”

JV: “And you’re welcome to read between the lines. I’m completely okay with that.”

PK: “My perception is that you doped.”

JV: “You’re an intelligent person, so your perception is . . . [laughs]”

PK: “I want a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.”

JV: “I know you want a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.”

PK: “I want to know: Did you dope? I want to know: Why did you dope? And I want to know how you felt about doping?”

JV: “And what I will tell you is that people are free to make the judgments they want out of my cycling career,”

PK: “Jonathan, I don’t understand what your problem is here. It’s a valid question. I’m not going to walk away from it.”

JV: “I’m not asking you to walk away from it. I can see that you are trying to establish a background and that’s fine but what I’m saying is that I’m just not going  to talk about it and that’s it. You can take that however you want.”

Which comes across as a deeply hedged admission. It's so close to an admission that it's impossible not to wonder why you didn't just take that one small step further and answer, "yes" to Kimmage question.

Then from your Sport24.com / Le Figaro interview:

-- Question: (Sport24.com / Le Figaro): "One of the problems of cycling is it that most team managers' current runners who were steeped in years of doping?" (restated, Isn't the problem in cycling that most current team managers, themselves, have a history of doping? -- Bikezilla)

Answer (Jonathan Vaughters): "Yes, obviously.

"Myself, I was part of this generation "doped." (I think it should have read ("this 'doped' generation", but this is a translated text -- Bikezilla)

"But if we have the right mindset, good ethics, we are the right people. Because we made these mistakes, we know the inner pain of living with this lie.

"I do not want the new generation do the same thing. It is our responsibility to present a sport where there is no need to make these bad choices.

"I have a ten year old boy. I do not know if he will make the bike but if it becomes cyclist, I will pass on my knowledge because I do not want him to enter the sport as it was before.

"Instead, the best asset in cycling today is to have these people with that experience, because they have good intentions, they can prevent errors.

"Let everyone realize he must take a new direction. It is a battle he must win."

Bz:

That's strong, but it's still as close as you could get to making an admission without actually saying, "I used PEDs.".

JV:

“Just to be very clear on that, the people who need to know the absolute, specific information and truth about my past, those people know that information. And I don't have any problem with that.

"People who I have an obligation to be honest with, my family, my friends, my riders, I am.

"But do I think I need to make a big fuss over what occurred in my past and make me the center of attention and take that away from the riders I have? No.

"In fact, I think it's fundamentally wrong that I create a big hullabaloo about myself. I think that's wrong. I think it distracts from the riders' focus. I think it distracts from the attention placed on the team. It think it's just plain stupid.

"I mean, let's not forget, I walked away from the sport when I was 29 years old, when I had a year left on a contract. I said, yeah, I'm outta here. I had a year left on my contract, I probably had a good five or six years left in my career. That's the story.

"I feel like the decisions I made were the best decisions that I could have made at that point in time. Some of them were wrong, some of them were right. But the point is I lived it, I did it, I have moved on with my life.

"That's just part of becoming an adult, or whatever you want to call it. You just have to go forward with life.

"Do I ignore or not confront the things in my past? No. That's absolutely silly.

"Do I feel that I need to make a spectacle out of it? Absolutely not.

"Because I feel like that is a fundamental disservice to a lot of people."

Bz:

But you've hinted at it and talked around it at least half a dozen times.

JV:

"Well, that's fine, because I'm not going to be dishonest. I mean, if people ask me a direct question I'm not going to be dishonest about it. But, at the same time I'm not going to make a spectacle out of it.

"It's like, ok, here's some problems, everyone knows that I lived through a very hard generation in cycling. And, ok, acknowledged.

"And now it's time to go on to the next step.

"That's not blasé, saying I'm focusing on the future. No, that's saying I acknowledge my past, I'm responsible for all those decisions. I'm responsible for the consequences of those decisions. Every single one of them."

Bz:

Did you use PEDs? Are you one of those who lived (still live) with the guilt that you mention?

JV:

"I'll say the same thing I said in Le Figaro, and the same thing I just said to you, I acknowledge every decision I made in my past. I acknowledge that there are consequences to those decisions and I have to live with that, you don't. No one else does. It's only me."

Bz:

The history and whatnot mentioned above is big, very big, in the reasons casting doubt on your integrity, ethics, the validity of your commitment to anti-doping.  But what spawns the most doubt, for me and for many fans and writers, maybe more than the fact that you've never come out with an unequivocal statement about your own use of peds, is the fact that you've consistently refused to expose the guilty, to give names, dates, times, places.

When you counseled Floyd Landis not to give out that information except to law enforcement officials, it cemented that opinion for a lot of people.

It looks like you're protecting the embedded culture of doping, the poisonous omerta, like you're helping to perpetuate the use of PEDs, all while proclaiming to promote a culture of clean riding both on Garmin and within the greater peloton.

Is it fair that fans and writers connect those dots and draw those conclusions?

JV:

“No, that's absolutely not fair and to be frank it's ridiculous.

“At the end of the day fans and media outlets have no impact, or very little impact in actually changing the internal workings of cycling. There are people who can have a great impact.

“Those people are WADA, those people are potentially federal authorities or police services in other countries.

“Those people have an absolute need for the truth in order to do their jobs properly and in order to enforce the rules of the sport, or the country, correctly.

“Do I think that you have an absolute need for that information? No, I don't.

“And I don't see an ounce of hypocrisy in that.

"I think it's blatantly put out there in that statement. It's straight as an arrow.

"I don't see any issue at all

"Some sort of informational, confessional, I don't see how that possibly changes the life of an eighteen year old up and coming rider that is coming into the sport and that you're trying to prevent him from ever being faced with the decision to use performance enhancing drugs or not.

"End of the day my mission, my focus, is to make sure that that rider never encounters that decision. To make sure that they get the same advice that Roger Legeay gave me.

"The rest of it, I see it as a waste of time and my effort is going to be placed in young riders, making sure that they have good choices put in front of them."

Bz:

You're inserted deeply and broadly within professional cycling. You're success as a cycling professional off the bike has easily surpassed your success as a professional on it, and far exceeds anything that Lance Armstrong can claim.

With a growing number of important insiders (Landis, Tondo, Hamilton, Hincapie(ish)) coming forward, exposing themselves at considerable personal risk for the sake of truth and of cycling, will you be joining their ranks? Do you think it's wrong of them to do that?

JV:

"No, I don't think it's wrong. I think that the choices they made are perfectly acceptable to me. That's their choice and that's fine. But I'm allowed to choose my path, as well.

"I'm allowed to do what I think is the most effective way of making sure that doping does not occur in this sport from here forward. I'm allowed to choose what I think is the best path forward, as well.

"And I'm sure that those guys are doing what they think is best. And that's fine. I have no problem with that at all. But I think that I'm also allowed to do what I think is best."

Bz:

You don't think you could make a greater difference than they do in the same way? By exposing the things that you know?

JV:

"Like I said, I feel there are people, WADA and other authorities that have an absolute need for specific information in order to improve anti-doping and enforce the rules going forward. I don't think that CBS news or whoever need that.

"I've been in contact with WADA for many, many years regarding improving anti-doping.”

Bz:

At least three times Bikezilla has had visitors from the DOJ and FDA, on searches based on doping or Lance Armstrong. Twice, including 23 May 2011, those searches concerned you. The most recent was from the USDOJ "Lance Armstrong Jonathan Vaughters doping".

Have you been contacted by any law enforcement agency seeking information you might have regarding doping, either within professional cycling in general, specifically at U.S. Postal or regarding Lance Armstrong?

JV:

“I have not appeared in front of a Grand Jury at this time. I fully expect that at some point I will, or that I'll be asked to.

As of here and now, today, that hasn't happened."

Jonathan Vaughters Interview: Part 1: 'Burns, Fans, Journalists, French Teams

2011-06-03T23:19:00.006-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Postscript

This is Part 1 of my interview with Jonathan Vaughters, the greatest societal menace since Jack the Ripper.

From May 26, 2011.

Bikezilla:

What's the status of the Shave the Burns Fund, because I know a lot of people would like to see those go.

Jonathan Vaughters:

(Laughing) “I tried to get some kind of little thermometer graphics on the website. Our web designer rolled his eyes and kind of grumbled off.

But last I heard we were around 3 or 4 thousand dollars away. It went really fast initially and then kind of slowed down. I guess one of these days I need to reinvigorate the campaign to get us over the edge.”

Bz:

What specifically are those funds going to be used for?

JV:

“It's just travel funds for the U23 team.

The U23 team and the Continental team, it's a little different from the Pro team the way we run the budget. The way we run the budget is the guys just go to race, go to races, go to races. Then all of a sudden some time in August or thereabouts they run out of money and that's it.

This year they got an invitation to do the Tour of Purtugal, which is in August.

I figured, wah, it's a little expensive. It's almost a two week stage race and a little bit more of an undertaking than we typically deal with on the Conti team. So I figured, let's see if we can raise the funds to send the guys there; Plane tickets, rooms, food and gas.

That's pretty much it. It's kind of an X factor in Continental team budget.

You can't run a Pro team until it runs out of money. But with a Continental team you can as long as you continue to pay your staff and whatnot. But the travel funds . . . you hope to get a little more if you can, to help run the season a little bit longer.”

Bz: How do you split your time running two cycling teams?

JV:

“I don't really run the Continental team. I oversee it. I fund raise for it. I'm the rah-rah guy.

Chan McRae runs the program. I help him out a little bit here and there. He runs it, I go and try to find money so he can run the program."

Bz:

In a 2005 CyclingNews interview you said:

"A poker face is perhaps the greatest asset of a director."

You extend that to your dealings with fans and detractors. In fact I've seen it commented that you're nearly unflappable. Paul Kimmage said, "His calm is unnerving.".

When you speak in a public forum, you're pretty good at maintaining that, even when you're being heckled and badgered.

But your answers are very careful and often very general.

JV:

“I keep it under the surface, that's for sure.

If the riders on a team feel that you're stressed out about something, then they're going to get stressed out and they'll perform at a lower level. So it's important to always be, just dead calm and make decisions the best way you can.

I'm actually, underneath it all, a pretty emotionally fired up person. But, I always do my best to make sure that that fire and that passion gets directed in a very long term and positive way. And it isn't just unleashed in a fury that isn't necessarily productive and doesn't really accomplish what I want.

So, it's a real discipline to, when you get fired up about something, to keep it calm and say, 'Ok, I want this to change, and the way for me to make it change is X, Y and Z. That's gonna take longer than me just screaming and yelling for the next ten minutes.'”

Bz:

I've noticed that the times you really seemed to get riled publicly, are the times that something is centered on one of your riders.

JV:

“Yeah, it's usually not about me. I'm very defensive about my riders, that's for sure. That'll upset me."

Bz:

You take it very personally. Almost like they're family members instead of merely employees.

JV:

“Yes. Absolutely.

"More than anything else, when I read stuff that just is not a correct account, or it just doesn't show a certain deep understanding of the situation, I sometimes get upset about (fans and media – Bikezilla) jumping to conclusions.

"Most of the time I keep my little Paul Kimmage Zen-like facade.”

Bz:

Except for the last couple of weeks, when you speak to the public you're pretty good at maintaining that, even when you're heckled and badgered.

JV:

“Most of the time if you actually want people to hear you, you can't start yelling at them. If you're yelling at someone, occasionally you do have to take it up that notch, but most of the time that means you've already lost the battle."

Bz:

But while you talk to a lot of people on all different levels of and connection to cycling, you don't reveal very much.

It seems that your major focus is not to disseminate information, but to put out fires, to manage public opinion, to calm shrieking, angry fans. You invest significant time and effort toward that, and you're very good at it.. But why is that effort important to you when you have so much else going on?

JV:

"More than anything else I think I try to make sure people have a correct perspective.

A lot of times, just shooting out information, that UCI list that was leaked is a great example, that information was not in context. So you're right, I never give out information that's not in context. Because not everyone is going to have enough perspective to make heads or tails of it.

People jump to conclusions and they make assumptions, and I don't like that. So, you're right, I'm more focused on getting their perspective correct than I am in disseminating information.”

Bz:

You're more available and available to a larger cross-section of people than any of your peers. It's not just journalists, but even schmo fans – like me. It's unprecedented.

JV:

“There's an importance to that. I feel like right now cycling is at a real crux moment, and people are either going to understand everything that's transpired in the last 20 years and understand how it can go forward, or they're not and they going to come to the wrong conclusions and be destructive about it.

The way I see it is, if the core has a good, positive way forward, you have to have as many knowledgeable fans, people who really do understand the ins and outs as possible.

So if you understand a little bit better than your mom or your grandpa, or your Uncle Willy or whoever, for instance the issues of the past couple weeks, when they say, 'Aw, this sport that you like, Tom, everyone is a crook in it and what the hell is this?', then you can say, 'Whoa, wait a minute. Actually, X, Y and Z.” And you can explain it to them.

And at that point and time maybe you can do that with five people, so the way it multiplies is huge, and eventually your broader public understands everything a little bit better than just what gets blasted out to them.

I go on the theory that an educated consumer is my best friend.”

Bz:

So even though you have yourself spread far and wide throughout professional cycling, talking to fans and bloggers and whatnot is an investment you make. You're not just doing it for fun, there's a purpose behind it.

JV:

“Absolutely. It's not a strategy, per se. I've been accused of that, 'Oh, there's a specific PR strategy.' But not really. If you read my Twitter feed you'll find it's not that specific a strategy.

I just figure, like I said, an educated consumer really is my best friend. I feel that that's important.

I like reading comments when I see people really understand the sport.

In places like in Belgium, in Flanders, people really understand the sport.

But the Anglo-Saxon body of cycling fans, well, there's been a huge influx of cycling fans since about 2000 . A lot of them came into the sport watching Lance (Armstrong) win the Tour de France.

Watching Lance win the Tour is, nine guys go to the front, they throttle it on every hill and the race is won and that's that.

Where as now they're watching races like Paris – Roubaix and the tactics are really complicated. And there's multiple really complicated things going on in the sport.

So you have the huge body of fans that really looove the sport, and they want to understand it, but they didn't grow up with these highly nuanced races. They grew up with, “This guy (Lance) kicked ass and isn't that awesome. So, now they're being forced to look at the sport in a very highly nuanced way, and I think it causes confusion, a little bit of anger. People don't always like it.

I figure, the more people you can get to understand what's really going on, the better. Because then they're going to stick around a little bit more. They won't feel alienated by all this stuff going on, all these tangential items.”

Bz:

Compared to sports like American football or baseball, cycling has a lot more going on, a lot more to learn, a lot more to know.

NFL football, for instance, in some ways it's made to be easier to follow.. You have a team, that team is linked to a certain city, it's there for decades, the players have constant numbers, the numbers represent certain positions.

Cycling doesn't have any of that. You can't count on a sponsor, and so a team, being around for more than 2, 3 maybe 5 years if you're lucky.

JV:

"I just did an interview with Flammecast where I was explaining that people need to understand that cycling is a team oriented sport and come to be fans of teams as opposed to individuals, and that actually benefits the athletes as much as it benefits the team.

"Sponsors want long term fan appreciation, they want the fans to be aware of them, they want long term fan loyalty. In order to get long term fan loyalty to a team, as opposed to an individual, the sport first has to be perceived as a team sport.

"If you're a Fabian Cancellara fan and he goes around to three or four different teams, you'll just be a fan of whatever team he goes to. Conversely, if you're a Saxo Bank fan or a Leopard fan, then its irrelevant where Fabian Cancellara is going, what's important is that you're a supporter of that team.

"I think cycling has to get there if it wants financial stability.

"You're absolutely right (about sponsorship duration – Bikzilla), but how do you get sponsors to stick around longer? Because I can tell you that none of us are pushing the sponsors away. We want the sponsors to stick around longer. But, the only way you make sure they stay for a long time is if you have fans that are like, 'Listen, I'm a Garmin fan, dammit, and I'm always gonna be a Garmin fan and I'm always gonna buy Garmin products.” and you get that fan loyalty going. Then all of a sudden sponsors will be around for ten or twenty years.”

Bz:

In your CN blog, "Connecting the Dots" you talk about internet pundits, bloggers, twiterati, you say:

"It’s not a winnable battle. If you withhold information, you’re hiding something, if you make information public; it’s picked through and placed out of context unfairly by people who aren’t experts on the topic. At times I think it’s not only an unwinnable battle, but an unwinnable war. Twitter becomes my Waterloo."

"“Unfair” “unjust” “unfounded” all seem to be at the tip of my thoughts every day. And “poor me” slowly leaks its way into my being. I was being picked on by gossip bullies! These evil purveyors of internet untruths are clearly not sentient beings, but indeed sub human, downright demonic rumor spreaders. I, instead, see myself separate as a knight armed with ethical objectivity and logical thought, who was being tarnished by such misguided vigil-antism. Clearly."

And, of course, you're right, people on the internet seem to be a lot harder on you than cycling's "real journalists". On the other hand, shouldn't it be those "real journalists" asking you the questions you get from bloggers and twiterati? Shouldn't those "real journalists" be doing the badgering, the accusing? And if they did, wouldn't that pretty handily take the wind out of internet pundits' sails?

JV:

“Yeah. That's because the difference is, with real journalists I sit down in my living-room with them and I talk to them. They get to know me as a person.

At 140 characters at a time you're never going to get to know me. All I am is this distance talking head.

Journalists know that I've got a dog and a back yard and a little kid. It's a totally different interaction.

With a journalist you can convey what you're trying to say and you can get them to basically say, 'shit, I believe you, I like this, I buy into it.' And then they write in the tone of what they feel about the person they sat down with. They see me as a human being.

There's no way I'm going to be able to sit down with a hundred thousand bloggers.

My thought before was try to communicate through the journalists, because you can convey who you actually are to them and then let them put it forward.

I still believe that's a good way to go about it. But, then I've also been interested, 'You know, maybe I need to try better to convey who I am through the broader social media.

I don't know. It's much more difficult. It's just hard.

People just don't always see me as human. They see me as a talking head. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Bz:

I think that part of what people get frustrated with, is that they'll read an article and there's a question or an inconsistency that should have been followed up, but no one asks anything, they don't say a word.

JV:

“Right. You know, a lot of the time . . . well, like that interview I did with Paul Kimmage.

Paul Kimmage sat in my living-room and got very upset with me and said, “Why won't you answer this question?' And he had every right to be (upset).

I told him, 'I understand why you're asking the question, to be frank I'm not going to answer that. You have the right to, and I understand why and it's a totally acceptable question. But, I'm just not gonna go there right now.'

So, a lot of times I think people get frustrated with those interviews thinking that the question hasn't been breached, but that's not necessarily the case.

A lot of times, just like with Paul Kimmage, I just don't answer it."

Bz:

So a journalist may have asked a question, but because they don't include your non-answer in the write up it may seem that they haven't pursued something when they have?

JV:

“Obviously people are very curious about my 1999 past with U.S. Postal, but the fact of the matter is, that has nothing to do with Slipstream Sports."

Bz:

The perception that the “real journalists” are not badgering, accusing, following up or asking questions is not always accurate?

JV:

“No, it is not always accurate. But, you know, they can't force an answer out of you.

Most of the journalists in cycling are pretty hard-hitting.”

Bz:

French teams, who have the largest representation in the professional, elite level peloton, don't perform to the level of their numbers. You've said that you believe French teams struggle because they're cleaner. The recently leaked "secret list" would seem to confirm that.

JV:

“You have to remember that the numbers on that list had a performance component, too. There was a performance component, and an unexpected performance component, and a when your most recent test was component AND the blood component. So, if you have a very low performing rider AND you have a very flat-line blood value, you're going to be a zero.

David Millar is the best example; he's a four (on the list – Bikezilla). David Millar has very, very stable blood values. Why is he a four? David is a four because David has a previous doping infraction. So, he's always going to be targeted. And I've always been told that, from the beginning; 'This rider will always be targeted no matter what.'

Ok, well that's fair. I don't see a problem with that.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that less necessarily is totally reflected.

Did French cycling take very strong steps to clean up its own act well in advance of it becoming popular on a broader scale?

Yes. Absolutely, they did.

Does that account for all of the performance discrepancies between French teams and other teams? No. Absolutely not.

I think there are a number of factors at play in French teams.

One is, I'm an American team, how many Americans do I have on my team?

There's also a component of, they have a lot of teams and they have the Tour de France in their home country.

You said it's the largest component the Tour de France peloton. Yeah, you're right, it is. So, it's a little bit easier if you're a good French rider to get on a team, than it is if you're a good American rider or you're a good Australian rider.

A lot of your Americans and Australians and other countries, they have to fight, they have to claw tooth and nail to get a contract.

So the winning and athletic level tends to be a little bit higher (on non-French teams – Bikezilla). Go to the U23 ranks, go to the Junior ranks. Who's winning World time trail championships? Who's winning World road championships? It's Americans, it's Australians, it's British. It has not been French for a little while. With the exception recently of Romain Sicard winning the Tour de L'Avenir (2009 – Bikezilla) and Jerome Coppel doing well in the World Championships (U23 Time Trial: Bronze 2006 & 2007 – Bikezilla) a few years back.

So, my point is, you cannot draw the conclusion that it's totally because these teams are doped and these teams aren't. That's taking certain data points and taking them out of context and not putting other data points in the equation.

Chris Carmichael, the Ignored Lance Armstrong Connection

2011-05-25T18:55:00.007-05:00

This linked article was written for Flammecast and is one of the first meaningful articles pointing to trainer Chris Carmichael as one of the most significant antagonists in the Lance Armstrong saga.

It think that many Armstrong detractors have long held Carmichael in contempt, feeling on a gut level that he was one more cog in the Armstrong Miasma Machine. But where to start in our examination?

Flammecast shows us exactly where: With the athletes that Carmichael "allegedly" doped without their knowledge, and with guys like Greg Strock who sued coaches Carmichael and Rene Wenzel, along with trainer Angus Fraser for the equivalent of athletic date rape.

Carmichael settled out of court and had the result sealed. To me the fact that Carmichael made a payoff and that he desperately does not want the details revealed, resounds as a powerful admission of guilt.

Carmichael's connections to guys like Michele Ferrari and Eddie Borysewicz (aka Eddy B) serve to cement the belief in his guilt.

Here's the other article that Flammecast pointed us toward, the 60 Minutes II piece from July 11, 2001.

Another athletic date rape victim mentioned in the 60 Minutes II article, is Erich Kaiter. Just to point out that Strock wasn't a lone victim and that this is a pattern of behavior.

The "alleged" rape of athletic charges was a gang undertaking, with coaches Carmichael, Wenzel and trainer Angus Fraser all "allegedly" taking turns violating their riders. All three were part of the lawsuit filed not only by Strock and Kaiter, but also Gerrik Latta and David Francis. More evidence that this is not just a single incident, but an ongoing pattern of behavior.

Like Strock, Kaiter also settled out of court. Another brick in the wall of Carmichael's "alleged" guilt.

Notice how USA Cycling, which Jim Ochowicz presided over, is once again in the doping limelight. Though Ochowicz didn't take over until 2002 (through 2006). What was his role with the organization prior to 2002?

Kendra Wenzel is a partner, along with Renee, in Wenzel Coaching. According to Wikipedia, Kendra Wenzel is now a board member of USA Cycling.

NOTE: Adam Myerson says:" Kendra Wenzel should get left out of that. She came after, and then divorced Rene. Kept his name and the biz, but not him."

Ernie Lachuga (Ernie Lettuce?) was a rider on the same team as Lance Armstrong, Strock and Kaiter. He was stricken with the identical form of cancer as Lance Armstrong.

Here's a long conversation about riders who've suffered health issues that they believe are directly related to doping during their careers.

Here's an interview with Strock where he discusses his suit against Carmichael and Wenzel, though the terms of his settlement forbid him from mentioning Carmichael.

Here's information on the suit, and Carmichael's out of court settlement, rumored to have been $250,000.

I haven't forgotten the sinister Thomas Weisel. I just don't have any more time to write.

NOTE:

Sandy wrote in to say:

"I understand that the training team (Carmichael, et al) fed/injected the athletes "unknowingly" but even I at age 17 knew to ask my doctors what I was being given. Wouldn't an athlete get at least a bit suspicious that his performance increased so dramatically from a vitamin shot/pill? I think the lawsuit happened because the athletes got sick and I can't believe that they had no idea at all that they were being given something more than "vitameatavegimins" (I love lucy reference) during their whole time with Carmichael."

Bikezilla:

You're right, they should have asked more questions. But 1. they were minors, so lacked even the legal right to decide for themselves if they could or could not be given injections of anything by team coaches and trainers, and Carmichael "allegedly" failed to ask or inform their parents in any way 2. kids are taught not to question their coaches, to trust them (trust them as adults and as coaches), to let them lead and guide 3. Carmichael "allegedly" violated his position of trust and authority

How do you merge the notion of personal responsibility with those issues? There does need to be some personal responsibility, but how do you weight it and where does it fit vs Carmichael's "alleged" actions?

George Hincapie's Confession

2011-05-22T21:28:00.002-05:00

This week's big news was hearing that George Hincapie, Lance Armstrong's bestest best buddy, had ratted him out to the feds.

The first reaction from many people was, "George never fell under a cloud of suspicion!"

Really? Have you all been high for the past 12 years?

I get that George is well liked, that he works his ass off, that he's always been selfless in his riding. I get that he's admired by a lot of cycling fans.

But did any of you REALLY believe he was clean or that he wasn't protecting Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Hein Verbruggen, UCI and professional cycling's mafioso culture of doping?

You believed in your heart of hearts that the entire U.S. Postal team was dirty . . . except Big George?

Are you daft?

The second reaction to Hincapie's testimony before the Grand Jury was, "He's doing the right thing."

If by, "the right thing" you mean, "He's avoiding going to prison on perjury charges.", then, yes, he did the right thing.

But his betrayal of Lance Armstrong and his confession of his own use of PEDs had no element of altruism to it. He was just saving his own neck.

If it was left to George, he'd have gone to his grave protecting his own reputation and Lance Armstrong.

Hincapie has no problem at all with omerta, nor with continuing to protect cycling's systemic but hidden culture of doping and those like Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong who would gleefully perpetuate its existence.

Hincapie will not lift one finger, waste one breath, excrete one drop of sweat in an effort to rid the sport of its doping vermin.

He just doesnt' give a shit, and I get the sense that he actually feels disdain, even disgust toward those who do give a shit.

Hincapie is not cycling's White Knight. He's no one's savior but his own.

Real Life (and Stuff)

2011-05-17T21:49:00.000-05:00

Studying for State License, looking for new apt, packing, selling, throwing away, moving.

Plus researching for another interview.

So not much writing to be done for a little while.

My apologies, especially to my Kindle readers.

The List

2011-05-14T10:52:00.000-05:00

For not strictly being cycling journalists, the guys at L'Equipe dig up a lot of really big stuff. Unfortunately that "really big stuff" almost always focuses on doping and is almost always an embarrassment to the sport on some level.

They recently published a secret UCI list (henceforth known simply as The List) intended for use in targeting the most suspect riders found through use of the biological passport.

The problem is that UCI seems to be turning a blind eye on almost all of them.

According to the article:

"Those in categories six and above (6-10) showed "overwhelming" evidence of some kind of doping, due to "recurring anomalies", "enormous variations" in parameters, and even the "identification of doping products or methods""

The riders in categories 6-10, again as pointed out in the article, number 42. That's approximately 1/4 of the total Tour de France starting field of 198 riders.

So far "targeted" riders have responded by basically saying the list is a bunch of hooey.

Garmin - Cervelo's David Millar was recently interviewed by Bicycling magazine's Bill Strickland. Millar is a "4" according to the list.

Millar claims that since his suspension for doping that his entire perspective on his career has changed, that now he rides simply for the joy of it.

This is a a link to the related video of the Millar statements about The List.

He and Garmin team owner, Jonathan Vaughters, both explain his "4" rating as a response to his past indiscretions.

Garmin's Tyler Farrar ranks "3" and this is explained to me by Vaughters:

" . . . remember, its performance and blood value based. Tyler has never doped and never will."

Those may be true and valid points. But AIGCP's public response (remembering that AIGCP, the team's "union", is also lead by Vaughters) is so defensive that it makes many fans think they (AIGCP) have something to hide.

It may not be fair and it may not be true, but once you view things in that light the next logical step is to wonder if there is collusion between UCI and AIGCP in the protection of doped, or apparently doped, riders.

During the upcoming AMGEN EPO Tour of California the USADA was supposed to take over doping controls from UCI.

USADA in fact did run a three month long pre-race anti-doping program and, based upon that data, came up with a list similar in nature to the secret list published by L'Equipe.

Based on that list, USADA intended a targeted anti-doping program to be performed by them during the Tour of Cali.

UCI refused to target the most suspect riders based on its own list during the 2010 Tour de France. In order to prevent the targeting of the most suspect riders found in the USADA's pre Tour of Cali testing program, UCI has ousted USADA from the in race testing. UCI will instead run that testing program themselves, again avoiding the most suspicious riders, just like they did during the 2010 Tour.

The Vaughters/ AIGCP response condemning that action, is at least reassuring.

Here is the "Index of Suspicion" from L'Equipe, breaking down the ratings by teams and countries.

CAS president John Coates says that the "Suspicion Index" doesn't indicate suspicion of any rider.

Which must make The List utterly useless, explaining why a list created for the sole purpose of targeting the most suspicious riders isn't actually used to target those riders for testing.

So what IS The List used for? Obviously it's most useful purpose is in formulating exactly how much each rider should have to pay McQuaid for burying the inconsistencies and excessively high values of their biological passports.

I feel a little irritation with Vaughters and other team managers and owners for getting angry over this leak. Because many of them have their own histories in and around professional cycling's culture of doping, yet they've always refused to reveal what they know and expose those involved.

Why was The List leaked to begin with? Because someone on the inside finally got sick of UCI's cover ups, their favoritism of certain riders, their accepting of bribes to bury results, their lies about the absence of team run and sponsored doping programs, their collusion in the entire corrupt mafioso system.

If UCI had not been protecting suspected riders, there would have been no need for the leak. Leaking The List is someone's response to being sick and tired of UCI corruption and protection of doping riders and the doping culture.

If guys like Vaughters, Bjarne Riis, Johan Bruyneel, Jim Ochowicz, John LeLangue and their peers would have stepped forward over the years and opened up to the authorities (even if they chose to keep the press out of it) regarding names, places, times, days and dates, doping would already be in its final death throws. It's at least partially because of them and people like them that Pat McQuaid and UCI are even able to run their perpetual anti-doping bait and switch.

It's hard to accept that the very guys with the most power to expose and destroy doping, can be the same guys complaining about the problems created by doping, including the leaking of The List.

Vaughters rightly points out that leaking a list like this could give offenders a heads up. But a heads up is only meaningful if there's a serious potential for prosecution. It's obvious from The List that such potential does not exist, so exposing The List and UCI's refusal to pursue suspensions is just and right.

Pirates and Good Men

2011-05-11T17:15:00.000-05:00

There's something I've noticed over the past few months that I find interesting and perplexing.

Fans of professional cycling are so sick of and sickened by the stream of dopers and doping enablers that they spend a lot of time looking for and hoping to find, the "good people".

But the string of disappointments has been so long, and so compounded by the complicity of teams, managers and UCI, that it has left most of us so jaded that we exclude anyone with the slightest smudge against them.

We've stopped looking for "the good people of cycling" and focused on finding the perfect people.

We've set a standard that can only lead us to disappointment.

I'm going to regurgitate what I still find to be one of the most profound movie lines ever, from the first "Pirate of the Caribbean".

"Now as long as you're just hanging there, pay attention. The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day. And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy? So, can you sail under the command of a pirate, or can you not?"

We've forgotten that all of us have our own battling "pirate and a good man" and that the heroes we seek are going to have some portion of both, as well.

For instance:

Jonathan Vaughters.

On one hand his career as a professional cyclist was tainted by an association with doping, and he's at least twice hinted at his personal use of PEDs. On top of that he's never come out and named names, dates, times, places, so he seems to be protecting dopers and perpetuating professional cycling's doping culture.

And, oh yeah, he's not above bullshitting us when it suits his needs.

On the other he does more to promote professional cycling, to unite teams, to gain some measure of equality for them in their own governance, to restructure anti-doping controls so that they're fair and meaningful, to promote a culture of anti-doping, than any other player in the game, and he does most of it for no remuneration at all.

But instead of balancing that and damning him where he deserves to be damned and applauding him where he deserves applause, we bitch slap his azz every chance we get.

There is not a shortage of reasons to question and berate JV, but we tend to see him as all "pirate" and totally lacking in "good man".

In doing so we deny ourselves the very thing we're looking for, the identification of a guy who is overall a pretty decent human being in addition to being good for professional cycling more often than not.

Or what about Paul Kimmage?

True, his passion is so often untempered that he goes overboard in his pursuit of witches. But why is he really so distained? Because he dared to question Lance Armstrong, because he saw the truth and had the guts to say so out loud, and because we were so busy worshiping Lance that we allowed him to vilify Kimmage in our minds.

And it turns out that Kimmage was right all along, yet he's still tainted by Lance's damnation of him.

Then there's Greg LeMond.

Again we have a guy who saw something wrong and who had the courage to tell us about it openly, though he had nothing to gain from it and quite a bit to lose. Again we have a guy damned and tainted by Lance Armstrong's malice against him,and we don't seem to give a damn that AGAIN we have guy who was RIGHT.

Or how about Bill Strickland.

I can completely understand the view many hold that he wasn't honest with us about his knowledge of Lance Arstrong's career long love of PEDs, especially for those who disagree with my conclusion that he didn't lie to us, but instead was misguidedly trustful.

But just like with Vaughters, Strickland isn't damned where he deserves damning and praised where he deserves praise. Just like Vaughters he's taken to be entirely "pirate" with no "good man" in him at all.

He isn't seen as wrong, or stupid, or misguided, but as evil, lying and conniving.

Our standard is not merely one of goodness, but of perfection. We're desperate to find the good men of professional cycling, but we constantly cheat ourselves because we refuse to see beyond the pirate inside of them.

No one deserves a free pass, especially no one in a position of power and influence. But we shouldn't allow our judgments and prejudices to keep from us that thing we constantly strive to find.

The question has been asked, "How do you / we decide who's really evil and who's just a good guy with some unpleasant shit?".

Well, it's hard to set absolutes, but here are some basic guidelines.

They like meringue, or if you prefer, meringue. Right, that disgusting stuff made of egg whites and sugar.

They do not love Oreos.

They like brussel sprouts, lima beans, boiled onions, liver, biscuits.

They are my ex wife.

They do not love Dr Pepper.

They think their pie crust is as good as or better than my Nan's.

They have names like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Pat McQuaid, Hein Verbruggen and Patti.

They . . . never mind, too much information and this all just gets too hard to follow. But you get the basic idea.

Thoughts on Stuff

2011-05-10T19:40:00.002-05:00

-- Greg LeMond is exactly what cycling needs exactly because he's outspoken and not afraid to say what needs saying, even at his own expense.

Just one more reason that Lance Armstrong is a douchebag.

-- Ladies Day at the Seaotter Classic.

I get why Crouch started his Mens Rights thingy. It's become fashionable to take a dump on the male half of our society, especially in cases of divorce.

But defending mens rights shouldn't require crushing efforts to uplift and encourage women, and to uplift their position in sport.

Being pro mens rights should not also mean hating women or the promotion and elevation of women.

Crouch seems more like a bitter loveless douchebag (anyone see a theme, here) than a mens rights champion.

-- Back to Lance Armstrong, the multi-organization case against him has has asked French authorities for investigative help.

Is the Armstrong case just like the Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens cases?

"This case isn't like Bonds and Clemens," said one person familiar with the investigation, bringing up pitcher Roger Clemens' upcoming trial on perjury charges related to alleged use of PEDs. "Those were about lying. This is about corruption to the core."

-- Hmmmmmm, this kid sounds like the Second Coming of Lance Armstrong, except he got caught

and oh my, look at that, HGH can cause heart enlargement, just like Lance's!

-- You'll enjoy this interview even if you hate David Millar and Bill Strickland.

Probably.

-- Damn, Strickland is the new Jonathan Vaughters; He's everywhere.

That link takes you to his CNN interview about Wouter Weylandt and the adequacy of safety measures in professional cycling.

-- Hermitblogger on on Wouter Weyandt's death.

A Conversation With Bill Strickland:Postscript

2011-05-06T19:05:00.005-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

This is Part Final; The article about the articles.

But more than that, what came before this was my conversation with and interview of Bill Strickland. That ended with Part 5: The Damning Question.

This is my conversation with you, my readers.

Before I began talking to Bill Strickland I'd had a couple disappointing experiences with interviewing cycling professionals or cycling celebrities.

Jonathan Vaughters, owner of Slipstream Sports and Garmin Cervelo invited me to interview him, then blew me off (and going on 2.5 months he's still blowing me off).

Then I was invited to interview Greg LeMond, but my interview happened to reach him just as he was preparing to take a long trip out of the country, along with his wife, Kathy, to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

That one, of course, is entirely understandable. But, damn, talk about frustration.

It was starting to feel like the Universe had set in motion this evil plot against me, where no one I contacted ever got back to me. The maintenance crew here at my apartment complex got in on it, the Realtor I wanted to talk to got in on it. Even the loan guy I tried to contact got in on it.

Then this opportunity came up and I was thinking, "Ok, great, another hotshot blowing smoke up my ass."

I fully expected to, again, be blown off.

It's not paranoia if they're really trying to get me, right?

-- Bill Stickland's access to Lance Armstrong has brought him a lot of success. It's also the originating point for a lot of the grief he endures. Because, it looks like he's betrayed the truth and forgotten his obligations as a journalist on behalf of that access.

One thing that helped me sympathize with Bill, though it didn't sway my opinion, is the idea of access vs no access and how when you don't have it, it's no big deal, but when you do have it, it quickly comes to matter.

Being close to someone big can soften your view, or your willingness to present or pursue the topic aggressively.

I have those two big (that is, big for me) interviews going (though it's been an excruciating lesson in patience). The one with JV and the one with Greg LeMond that I've already mentioned. Then this interview / extended chat with Bill.

You come to like and respect them more, partially for the access, partially because you've gotten to see and understand more of them.

In the (planned) interview with Jonathan Vaughters there are things that I specifically wanted to ask him about, things that were the entire point of wanting to do the interview (which is about doping and his history in and around it). But once the opportunity was there . . . "Damn, if I ask this, will he tell me to get fucked?".

I was surprised that I found myself in a debate with myself over whether or not I should be so bold regarding what I knew were very sensitive but also critically important issues. Should I ask what I really needed to ask?

Again, with the LeMond interview. Once I was able to send the questions I wanted to ask, that I thought and still think need to be asked, I wasn't sure that I should.

In both cases I had read and researched and found out certain things that required questions. But once I had the access to ask those questions I had to push myself at times not to be softer where things were potentially contentious, ugly or unpleasant. It's hard to be fair to both the subject and the topic.

You'll have to be the judge as to weather or not I'm successful at that.

It's a lot different writing about real people when you're actually exchanging words and thoughts with them, than when you're simply analyzing this and that about them independent of their input (as I frequently do in writing Bikezilla).

It's easier to be courageous and "in your face" when you have nothing to lose, nothing at stake.

I first emailed Bill about our interview the Friday before Easter. I didn't expect so much as an acknowledgement until at very least the following Monday.

But Bill got back to me that night. Not his secretary. Not his assistant. Not his media rep. Him.

He thought he would even be able to get started on our interview by Saturday. When he couldn't he wrote me to let me know that he got tied up with other obligations, and that he'd reply to my thoughts within a couple days.

I was shocked. I was impressed. And expecting "a couple days" to drag out to a couple weeks, or even a couple months.

But he was true to his word.

That set of circumstances went a long way toward building my impression that I could trust him, and toward leaving my mind open to the possibility that he wasn't lying about what he knew about Lance Armstrong and when he knew it.

I wasn't even close to belief, but I felt I had reason to leave that door open.

I was even more impressed because my writing about him, and my initial conversation with him on Twitter were antagonistic, even belligerent.

He as easily could have told me to piss off. Or just ignored me entirely.

His level of courtesy, consideration, professionalism and respect by themselves reduced the level of irritation and distrust I felt toward him.

He never spoke to me as if I was just some pissant blogger (which I am) and he was an important magazine editor (which he is). Just the opposite. It was almost as if I was the important writer and I was doing him a favor by writing about him. He was that polite, considerate, respectful and available. Seriously. No exaggeration.

It was the antithesis of my experience with Jonathan Vaughters.

Bill never knew and never asked what my intent was with this interview, nor with any individual part of it. He didn't ask or know where the narrative was going or how it would get there. He had no information until each part went up. Just like you.

Early on, Bill let me know that certain things he told me would be off the record. Some of those things were sensitive, but most of them were because he doesn't feel that it's right for a writer to debate his writing with his readers. It's a quirk of his, and one I had to work with or around.

That made the writing interesting and difficult at times.

At some point during almost every part of the interview series I ended up pushing those "off limits" boundaries.

There were times when I simply leaned hard against that invisible line. There were others where I not-to-stealthily tip-toed across it.

Only once, when I knew that the ground I wanted to tread was especially sensitive and forbidden, did I write him to discuss what I wanted to do.

As a courtesy, and so he would not feel that I'd ambushed him, after publishing each part I always gave him a heads up about where I pushed things and how. But except for that once, I didn't ask ahead of time. He never wrote and said that he wanted to see something prior to it going up. He never chastised or berated me for my choices and decisions.

That one time when I did write to discuss using "off limits" material, he responded by expressing his reluctance, but still giving me more than what I'd requested.

In every instance Bill handled things graciously, even generously.

He'd told me from the beginning that he trusted me to be fair, and he never backed away from that.

-- As I was putting the parts of this series up I heard some great comments and had some interesting conversations about peoples' thoughts on Bill.

I finally came to the realization that no matter how I objective I am, or no matter how lopsided I might instead choose to be, that people feel so strongly about Bill, about his failure to admit or realize that Lance Armstrong is a doper, or their view that he betrayed Lance, that I won't be changing any minds in either direction.

I'm ok with that. I never wanted to tell you that you should or shouldn't believe Bill. I wanted to give you the information. You can use and interpret it the way that best satisfies you.

But I did begin the interview series with a definite mindset: Bill was a liar and I wanted to "hear" him tell me the truth.

Really, that was the one driving force and regardless of my opinion at any specific point in the interview that never changed. I wanted one unequivocal answer. No hedging.

But, I wrote most of the series with mixed feelings. On one hand, I got my unhedged, unequivocal answer. On the other, I couldn't use it. It was "off limits".

You have no idea how many times I muttered "shitshitshitshitshit . . ." under my breath as I went over things with the knowledge that I couldn't include that one all important piece of information.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Going in to the interview, I felt like Bill thought of me, and of readers in general, as fools, suckers, like he could play us and we wouldn't notice it because we were too stupid. I resented that. A lot.

Though it was difficult to understand, to "get my head around", as I think I mention during the interview series, I did eventually come to accept that he honestly believed, or at least that he tried and wanted to believe, that Lance had raced clean.

He wasn't trying to cheat us, he wasn't lying to us, he really believed.

I presented some of what convinced me already, throughout the interview, and I won't waste time going over it again, here.

A great big part of the rest, and maybe even more of an influence, was realizing that Bill STILL believes, really in his gut believes, some things that just make no sense to me.

He still believes that Lance rode clean during his first Tour, and that even Lance's most critical detractors believe that, too.

I believe that Lance doped from as early as 13 and that THAT, in fact, was the cause of his cancer. I also believe that it's almost impossible for a thinking person to see it differently.

Yet, Bill does.

He also believes that Lance rode Comeback 2.0 clean.

I think Lance just knew how to beat the system and did so with microdoses of EPO and with undetectable autologous blood transfusions, and with some help form UCI (for instance, during the 2009 Tour de France, Astana was always tested last, UCI once delayed testers for 45 minutes when they were already with Astana, and Astana members frequently stalled testers). Again, it seems to me that no thinking person could possibly believe differently.

Yet again, Bill does.

-- During the interview, one thing Bill never did was tell me that I was wrong. And he never said or implied that I was stupid, nor that I didn't know what I was talking about.

He always acknowledged that my views were every bit as valid as readers who believed him, readers with opposite views, and his own.

In short, he was never defensive and he never gave me reason to be defensive or feel like I needed to guard or protect my views and opinions. That made it easier to honestly evaluate and consider his views and opinions.

-- When I found myself believing him, it caused me a problem.

I began this interview with a certain intent and in a certain frame of mind. What's more, the majority of my readers were already attuned to my way of thinking and my way of presenting things.

It would not make sense, nor would it be credible, if I were to write this series from the standpoint of belief. It just wouldn't work.

But, accepting that he didn't lie didn't change that I don't "get" how he can still believe some things. And, even in my previous angry state I had resolved to write as objectively as possible, to try to present not only my side of the debate, but Bill's.

I wanted to do both in a way that was respectful of my subject, but that still honored the topic and that didn't force any view or opinion down readers' throats. I want to allow them (you) to make their own decisions and choose to believe what they would.

I decided to present the interview in an approximation of my own journey from angry and accusing to perplexed understanding and reluctant belief.

I didn't come to accept that Bill was misguided but truthful and that Bill didn't lie to us about what he knew, all in a breath. I couldn't go into the writing assuming that my readers would accept it any more readily than I did. Why should they, just on my word, especially when the last thing they knew was that I was not a fan of Bill's version of journalistic integrity or ethics?

I had been incredulous (at very least) until very deep into my conversation with Bill. So that's how I would go about revealing everything to my readers.

It wasn't that hard. Because my feelings were already laid out in the questions and statements of the interview. I just had to be true to them.

-- If there was one great difficulty with this interview, it was the conversation style and tone.

It would have been easier to edit a straight Q & A piece, with related sections all neatly clumped together and flowing one into the other.

But the way this interview was done I had to match things up and then shuffle them around so that they would make sense.

I've said that I wish I could share everything with you, so that you'd get to see and evaluate all the information that I had available to me. Purely as a matter of discovery that's true.

But from a writing perspective that was a bad idea. There's a lot of gabby junk in there, a lot of asides and rambling, from both of us, that would make a piece this long and involved drag on mercilessly (and some of you may think that it already has).

What made it in is a majority of the most readable stuff, the most interesting bits, the most accessible relevant thoughts.

It doesn't have the full breadth and depth of the entire exchange, but it's a lot easier to follow and understand than if I'd posted the uncut and unedited content of all our emails.

There will always be things that I wish I was able to include, or that I wish I could have shown you in a different way. But what came out is pretty close to what I'd hoped it might be.

And of course, I'm happy, because in the end I was able to not only have, but print the equivocal statement that drove me throughout the interview.

True, it wasn't the identical statement that I was chasing when things began, but it explains the same thing; what Bill Strickland really believed about Lance Armstrong and Armstrong's history of doping.

I accept it to be the truth.

A Conversation With Bill Strickland: Part 5: The Damning Quote

2011-05-05T06:59:00.003-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

This is possibly the one quote that is most fervently believed to indicate that Bill Strickland had specific and unequivocal knowledge that Lance Armstrong doped, but that Bill buried that information to protect his connections and access to Armstrong, and to enrich himself and further his career.

It's from "Tour de Lance" on page 10.

Bill Strickland:

"And I’d sat on some more serious revelations, things Bruyneel told me about the inner workings of the sport but also things I’d heard from team directors, riders, coaches, and other people who assumed that because I was close to Bruyneel I must have already known what they were talking about. I was surprised to ﬁnd out that this information was even easier to keep to myself. I knew things to be true that I wished I’d never been told. I knew many more things that could never be proved true or false, and I wanted even more to never have been told those. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about such matters, and so it was that Bruyneel trusted me."

His thoughts on that passage, from the Podium Cafe interview: (Again, I recommend that you read the full PC interview. It's much more extensive than this conversation.)

"You know, it's been interesting how many people have read that passage as a not-so-veiled reference that I have the keys to pro cycling's secret palace of doping. I knew that some of the surmising about the secret stuff would focus on doping but how quickly and intensely the field of vision narrowed to wonder almost exclusively about doping surprised me - though I guess it shouldn't have.

The contract I signed (to co-write "We Might as Well Win" -- Bikezilla) includes a confidentiality agreement ... I can tell you what Johan and I didn't talk about, though. We never talked specifically about doping.

From time to time we had some exchanges about how the system worked, or how directors might deal with certain riders. Sometimes after a positive was announced, I would ask him if he thought other riders or other directors knew this guy or that guy had been doping, and he gave me what I considered authentic answers.

Most of the off-limits stuff he told me was, for instance, something that might embarrass someone who didn't deserve it on such a wide scale, or maybe harm someone's reputation for no really good reason, or be acceptable in one-on-one talk but if fixed in print would come across as gossipy or catty.

One example of the sort of thing he told me were some hilarious, crude initiation rites that established riders put rookies through on some of his old teams, and how certain riders reacted the opposite of what the fans would expect, whether it was the tough, stoic guys wigging out or the seemingly mild-mannered ones standing up.

Sometimes he might tell me about agreements on the road between teams or riders, and in some instances that was really dispiriting. We all know it happens, and I think it's a fascinating part of the sport and integral in its way, but some of the exchanges I wish I hadn't heard about. I enjoyed thinking of the races the way I'd seen them."

What I grabbed onto from that was "Most of the off-limits stuff" and that he was specifically addressing only information that was given to him by Johan Bruyneel. This seemed to ignore that there was other information and that some of it came from sources other than Bruyneel.

What I saw was more hedging, more obfuscating.

This is a link to a defense of Strickland by "Shakes133 at Velociped Salon. Bill says the guys name is Chris and that he used to work for Bicycling magazine.

Shakes133 / Chris:

" . . . he never saw a single questionable thing. He had the inside stories, he was in the rooms after/before races, he was there weeks before on training rides. He was around for casual banter, heard hushed whispers. Imagine having unprecedented access to RadioShack (Astana -- Bikezilla), with Contador and Lance for months, being there during the tour, and despite countless rumors in the media, never once seeing a shred of evidence?

No....Bill believed Lance was clean. No doubt in my mind. Exact same way Loren Mooney believed Floyd Landis was clean. He looked her in the eyes over a glass of whiskey and swore on his family.

And let's face it, at one point we all thought the same thing."

Bikezilla:

I interpret that as saying, "Yes, Bill heard things, private things, indicative things, things that none of us have ever heard and probably never will. But there was never any PHYSICAL evidence, and without physical evidence, he wasn't going to judge Lance a doper."

Is that an accurate interpretation? That you heard things, from Lance, from Johan, from others, that indicated that LA doped, or may have doped, but that you would not make that judgement without physical evidence?

If so, it's something that I can understand in one sense, but that goes against all logic in another sense. Right there is where the "willful" or "feigned" ignorance would come in, especially if any of those stories came from LA, Johan or their inner circle.

I mean, ok, if you're Lance's friend, that's pretty much the ultimate friend thing to do, believing in your friend beyond reason, until his wrong-doing is literally in your face.

Bill the Friend of Lance can get a pass on that. But Bill the Journalist?

It's tough to get my head around that enough to accept it.

Bill Strickland:

"I am not friends with Lance. He’d laugh if I ever described myself that way.

He knows me. I know him."

And:

"I understand that you think this kind of clarity is something that needs to be, or at least ought to be, said. But from years of being in this muck, I can tell you that public explanations of my methods or of my experiences doing the book almost never change the mind of anyone set in their beliefs about me, Armstrong, doping, whatever. I no longer expect it to.

Anyway, I’m sure there’s nothing to be gained from saying this, and I wouldn’t offer it on my own, but you keep asking — like a good dogged journablogger — so, here it is.

From all of the riders, staff and people otherwise associated with or remotely involved with the team at the time I followed them, without fail I never did hear one snippet that Lance had doped. I never saw one shady thing involving him. When I (or someone else who happened to be there as I observed) would even come close to broaching the subject, it was refuted in a way that it wasn’t when the topic of some other riders came up. I heard some awful stories, poisonous stuff about [OTHER RIDERS — Bikezilla].

But whenever the subject edged toward Lance, all I got was admiration for his physical ability and willpower, and adamant disavowal that he doped. Either they knew and lied to me, or themselves didn’t know. Either way, it tells me just how closed that final, inner circle would have to have been.

So it wasn’t that I heard suspicious things from the main characters themselves but dismissed them until I could get physical evidence; it was that I felt a personal obligation to be absolutely certain, without even one percent of doubt, whether that would come from physical evidence, a confession, a legal judgment, separate corroborated accounts, or whatever that something is that finally tells you a thing you really don’t want to believe.

For those who are reading this who have ever been cheated on in an ongoing way, it’s sort of like that: you’re suspicious, you convince yourself you’re crazy, you deliberately go along not knowing, then you might really not know for a bit, then even though you know you still want that thing, so you go mad and you look for the phone call in the log, or try to piece together the faded distintegrated note you found in the washing machine, or you hide in the shrubs across the street from someone’s house.

Betsy Andreu compared it to finally admitting you know Santa Claus isn’t real, which I thought was a good parallel in a lot of ways. I was going to use that in my story at one point. But my daughter still believes — this is about her last year, I bet — and I didn’t know if she’d read the story or not."

That's about as plain it'll ever get.

For many readers even that will not be enough. For some the only thing that will ring true, the only statement that will be accepted from Strickland is something along the lines of: "Ok, yeah, I got it. I figured it out. I knew what was what. But I sold it all a different way, because that's what was in my best interest at the time."

Because it's so damned hard, in fact for some it's even impossible, to understand how we can reach a conclusion with our limited information, yet Bill can honestly reach a different conclusion with greater information.

The statement above, that he never "heard one snippet that Lance doped" and "never saw one shady thing involving him" is as much as there is right now. It's likely as much as there will ever be.

It's left up to us, the readers, fans and haters, to accept or reject, to believe Bill or to continue thinking he's a liar.

If you've read his philosophy on the nature of the writer / reader relationship, you know that he's genuinely ok with whatever conclusion we come to.

Anonymous Sources Tell Me:

2011-05-04T19:27:00.001-05:00

-- "Pat McQuaid left Osama bin Laden's digs just minutes before the raid."

Huh. We almost had a twofer.

-- "Jonathan Vaughters' "Shave the Burns" fund is actually being used to bribe Hein Verbruggen to help with the 'race radio thing'".

-- "When Pat McQuaid heard about the "Shave the Burns" fundraiser he instantly called Hein Verbruggen. Together they planned to have Hein contact JV, suggest that for, omg, $12,000, Hein might be persuaded to "work a little magic" on AIGCP's behalf.

But all along Pat and Hein were planning to split the cash and have Hein tell JV, 'Sorry, I really tried, but it just didn't work out.'"

Shit. We'll never get those damned sideburns shaved off, now.

-- You wonder why Bill Strickland couldn't bother to dress it up a little for his big video about Bicycling magazine's makeover?

"That IS Bill "dressing it up"".

-- "Pat McQuaid keeps Lance Armstrong's cancerous testicle ~~in his mouth~~ in a jar of alcohol beside his bed."

A Conversation With Bill Strickland: Part 4: Conflict

2011-05-03T07:37:00.004-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

After Bill gave me permission to email him and he provided the addy, I sent him a long "train of thought" letter, outlining my (and some of your) gripes with his Lance Armstrong coverage, opinions, beliefs, ethics and integrity.

Our exchange really was more like a conversation between two people who are passionate about the same subject, than a Q & A session.

This is a portion of his first response, and it outlines my email to him.

Bill Strickland:

"Here is a simplified collation of your critical opinion of me and my work about Armstrong. (I recognize that also in your critique are some complimentary opinions.

1. “The vast majority of fans” don’t resent my support of Armstrong but my “willing ignorance/naivety.”

2. When it comes to that ignorance, “ ’Feigned’ is a better word than ‘willing.’ ”

3. The average cycling fan figured out that Armstrong likely doped, so, given my closeness to the subject, I “in fact knew beyond any doubt long ago.”

4. So I am not, as I said in that Bicycling story in the May issue, not so much “finally realizing or understanding it, as finally admitting it publicly.”

5. I could not have believed that he didn’t dope, “but it was profitable on several levels to behave, or at least speak,” as if I did.

6. It’s impossible for you (a reader) to believe that I was “incapable of seeing and accepting the fact” that he doped.

7. This lack of acceptance is an “intentional insult to the intelligence of [my] readers.”

8. You (and I suppose that “vast majority of fans”) also resent me for my “presentation of fantasy as fact.”

9. You (the fans you speak for) believe this fantasy was delivered not “out of hopefulness and misplaced trust, but as a deliberate and self-serving ruse.”

10. I “never tried to distinguish the good from the bad,” and I “pushed a single bill of fare and told us that everything on it was equally wonderful.”

11. “Despite the fact that there was plenty of material to balance, you presented an entirely lopsided view.”

12. This time, speaking not just for the vast majority of fans, but, in fact, ALL of them, you tell me that “There isn't anyone who doesn't understand that LA was your cash cow, your meal ticket. To go against him was to lose your access. To lose your access is to lose prestige, wealth and power.”

13. One of the things you resent is that I believe you [the readers] “to be empty-headed cattle, stupid, unthinking beasts.”

14. You're even angrier at me “because rather than say, ‘Yeah, I took the offered silver. On some level I always knew it was wrong. But it was what I felt like I needed to do at the time. I don't regret it. It's done now and I'm moving on from it,’ [instead I] keep playing us [readers] for fools.”

15. Readers who think the opposite of what you do — that I have wrongfully accused him of doping, or that I am too hard on him — actually share “the same sentiment,” which is “that something odd has happened and that it hasn't been explained honestly and unambiguously.”

16. What readers want is a “full, honest, unambiguous disclosure. Not spin. Not taking a statement or a question and flipping it with a ‘yeah but.’ Just open, unvarnished truth.”

I think that’s a deep, passionate response to my writing, but I don’t see the sense of trying to argue you out of your opinions of me, many of which are founded on ideas that don’t exist in my writing. And, given that you think I’m a liar, I don’t see how anything I say to you could be taken as legitimate information, or in the way I intend it. (I am using “you” specifically in these examples but more so as a stand-in for readers here. Please don’t read this as an anti-Tom tirade.). You discard words or ideals in my writing that don’t agree with the point of view you’re committed to. I’m not criticizing you; I’m just pointing out that that’s how you’re reading my stories. And, remember, I think that’s perfectly within your privileges as a reader — you can do whatever you want with the story."

In fairness, he does mention plainly, both in "Tour de Lance" and in "Endgame" that he doubted through the years, to various degrees, that Lance was clean. He mentions the "mountain of circumstantial evidence". He gives us a survey of the podium at each of Armstrong's Tour wins, and shows us how most of those who shared it with him either admitted doping, were suspended for doping, were convicted of it in court, or paid a fine to have doping charges settled. Also that two others were linked to doping investigations then cleared or never charged and just one, Fernando Escartin, had no direct connection with doping.

I (and me speaking uninvitedly for "we") of course noticed Bill's multiple admissions of his lack of objectivity and his fandom and support of Lance. Those admissions could be taken as "full disclosure" and a nod to journalistic integrity and ethics.

Instead, I / we take them as evidence to support my / our conclusion.

It's like he's waving them (his admissions) in our faces to taunt us. "Ahhhhh, yes, I knew! I knew all along that Lance was a dope sucking cheat! But I will be damned if I admit such to the scabby likes of you!".

The fact remains that my opinion that Bill lied to us, that he is in fact a liar, makes it tough to present an objective view.

And there is where I want to turn things outward, toward readers (including me).

Let's look at a few uncomfortable (for me in my assuredness of my own right conclusion) "what ifs".

Having already asked Lance once, face to face, if he had doped, and being given a solid, "no" as an answer:

What if Bill failed to pursue the truth with further questions because it seemed like a fruitless endeavor? Maybe because, knowing Lance, he knew that future answers would be an assaultive spin against the charges? What if, having acknowledged that he is a Lance Fanboy, his wall of denial didn't (and in some cases still doesn't) allow him to believe what to many of us is a glaring set of truths?

Having already acknowledged that his form of journalism (story telling) and his strength is not investigative journalism, and that he lacks the skills to be a true investigative journalist, what if:

He didn't see the point in investing time and energy in an endeavor that he isn't suited to?

What if he's pretty good at note-taking, at hanging around and noticing details and capturing them, and then putting that stuff into nice sounding sentences and paragraphs, and at structuring a story. But he also never wanted or intended to be an investigative reporter?

What if he was put into the position of writing about Lance simply because of proximity and his history with Johan Bruyneel and he honestly did his best with it?

What if true investigative journalism, poring over documents, endless discussions with the guys in legal to find out what he can and can't source, are a dreary, boring waste of time to him? What if he's driven instead to be out and experiencing something that would allow him to write a great story regarding that experience? What if he doesn't have the patience, or the type of patience, to do true investigative journalism?

What if, although I require a plain-spoken, unambiguous answer, he can't give it to me because it is, or at least he honestly perceives it to be, a messy and thoroughly ambiguous situation?

Those "what ifs" don't come easy to me. But I have to be open to them. I'm not sure I can be, but I'm trying to be.

After reading our full exchange (which I wish I could share in its entirety with all of you) I was finally able to say, "Mmmmmmmmm . . . well . . .maybe. Maybe it was unreasoning hopefulness, rather than an intentional deceit.", but really, it's something that's hard to make fit. It's hard to feel the rightness of it, hard to wrap my head around it.

Bill is an intelligent man. Extremely intelligent. He didn't get where he is and stay there for so long because he'll believe any pretty story, no matter how inspirational that story may be.

He thinks critically, and he has to. If he didn't he'd quickly develop a reputation as a chump and not long after that he'd be relegated to writing race reports and straight news stories that don't require him to do much beyond gathering basic facts. He'd never have had the opportunity to reach his current lofty perch.

That makes it even more difficult to get my head around his "willing ignorance" or "willing hope".

Bill eventually labels himself as having been an agnostic rather than a believer, not sure what to accept or which way to go.

I can believe his frustration in hearing stories from men who lack the guts and integrity to allow those stories to go on the record. But that doesn't stop me from feeling my own frustration in HIS unwillingness to prove his claims by exposing them.

At the same time I understand my own hypocrisy in at once accusing Strickland of a lack of journalistic ethics and integrity, and also damning him for maintaining both in order to abide by the wishes of his sources.

Here's one more thought from Bill:

Bill Strickland:

"I think, further, that because I was unsure of my judgment throughout the years, because I went back and forth in my belief, and because I admit to both liking him and thinking he doped, I might be speaking mostly to and for a large group of fans in the middle who are themselves trying to make sense of it all — who are torn, like I was, between their hope and their acceptance of what happened.

"Or maybe not."

Now let's take the "outward turning" one more step.

It's plain that regardless of my (or your) view regarding Strickland's relationship with Lance Armstrong, that there are a large number of people with an opposite view. It's also plain that those people are just as passionate, indignant and angry as I am, and that they also feel betrayed by Bill Strickland.

Those facts keep throwing one thought against the "big screen" of my mind:

If Bill is equally offending, irritating and angering two groups of people who occupy opposite poles of the same argument, is that evidence that he has struck a balance in his writing, and maybe in his evaluation of the truth, that is actually far more fair than the considerable majority of us are willing or able to admit?

Bill Strickland's NPR Interview

2011-05-01T14:33:00.005-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

I'm not using this in the "Conversation" that some of you are following, here. But I thought you might like a chance to listen to it.

Here's the radio interview with Bill Strickland on NPR from 12 April '11 . It's been edited down to just the Strickland chat, but includes a link to the full piece.

A Conversation With Bill Strickland: Part 3: Cycling Journalism & Cycling Journalists

2011-05-01T09:05:00.007-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

-- On cycling journalism, and about asking and getting answers to difficult questions:

From our conversation:

Bikezilla:

Cycling journalism in general seems to shy away from confrontation with sources and subjects. Possibly the single most frustrating thing I see every day is an obvious question or follow up that's completely ignored.

For instance with Jonathan Vaughters regarding the Matt White / Trent Lowe situation.

Even in places that Vaughters' answers seemed shady, or when his version of the details changed, it was simply let go, ignored.

Why don't cycling's real journalists ask and dig and probe and search in places and at times when it seems obvious that they should?

Paul Kimmage remarked about how professional cyclists themselves were beginning to open up after LA's 2005 retirement.

Which means that if the big boys won't talk, that there are other routes that can be taken to get the same information.

I've wondered if you were the guy who lead the others to and down that path. Are they hesitant to risk losing access or sources because they've followed your lead? "This is how BS does it. This works for him. He's at the head of us all. So this is the way we need to do it."?

Cycling seems to have fans who are more aware of the sport's politics and periphery than most other sports, so they're less blind to sugarcoated, soft-pedaled or dumbed-down journalism.

You have a more in tune readership and they require more and better. But they aren't getting more, they aren't getting better. They're getting half-hearted, phoned-in, soft-shoe (sorry, but I'm really loving the hyphens right now) journalism. And it pisses them off.

If there's a change needed in writer relationships, it isn't the relationship with fans that needs modifying. It's the relationship with sources and subjects.

Bill Strickland:

"I think you might be attributing a widespread journalism practice unfairly to cycling writers. It is not just in our sport, but throughout many topics that the subject has learned to control the message.

Celebrity interviews used to be penetrating, and some of the greatest journalism we have. Witness “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” or “Naked Lunchbox.”

Today, the celebrity won’t grant an interview to the magazine unless the topic is approved, a publicist is allowed to come along or at least guide the piece, and, sometimes, if approval over photo use is granted or a cover guaranteed. Some magazines have done wonderful things within these restrictions — Esquire is among the most inventive in how they write within these new requirements. Politicians control the message — press conferences, statements, videos, rehearsed interviews rather than grilling sessions."

"I had an extended bit about journalists in that Podium interview. I don’t think cycling is doing too bad, really.

"We’re a tiny sport but, if you compare us to the dedicated journalists for, say, football or baseball or track and field, I would say that Walsh or Ballestier or Kimmage equal or at least exceed the investigating/crusading writers you’d find there. We don’t have as many lyrical guys as running does (not track and field, but running), which I find odd, since we spend so much time practicing our sport. Maybe it’s that running is more lonely?"

"In general, our beat writers are what you’d expect from a small sport (or any small subject matter). It’s always the outside investigative writers who come in and blow something wide open, once it gets big enough — reporters who are trained or have a natural affinity for that kind of work."

"I don’t think you’re quite right about journalists being loathe to ask the tough questions — not the experienced ones, anyway. It certainly is like that when you start, but as you work year after year asking awkward uncomfortable questions, you just get used to it."

"I think showing up a press conference and asking the question is pointless in terms of substance but useful in terms of theater. You might get a nice scene to write up, but you’re not going to get to the bottom of something like doping at a press conference. What it will finally take is a reporter or investigator who knows how to access an avalanche of public records, private accounts, book-keeping, discovery materials at trials, etc."

". . . the job isn’t the glamourous, confrontational interview — the journalistic equivalent of Tom Cruise breaking Jack Nicholson on the stand -- “You’re goddamn right I ordered the Code Red!!” -- but instead is about hours and hours and hours of poring through documents. Confrontation gets you Kimmage and Armstong trading barbs in California. Investigative journalism, phoning sources over and over for months or years, and plowing through every document you can find, that gets you the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or Sports Illustrated breaking big news. There is a difference, and it might not play as well to the public, but it’s there. The big work is the quiet work that’s going on right now. Asking difficult questions doesn’t get you the authentic answers; uncovering the truth does."

"I’m not the guy to do that. I don’t have that skill."

From his Podium Cafe interview:

"Investigative journalism is not the same as cycling journalism - it's one part of all the different types of reporting and writing that center on cycling, which itself exists not only as a sport but also as a lifestyle and a health/fitness discipline.

It seems to make sense that investigative cycling journalism does suffer from the compromises when writers and riders become close. But I'm not so sure that intimacy affects us so much as the reality that our sport is like many other niche subjects: we just don't have that many high-level, investigative journalists native to our field.

. . . we certainly do have some investigative journalists who merit respect - the reporting team at L'Equipe . . . David Walsh. Whether you agree with those guys or not, you have to admit they're doing serious, complex, openly sourced, long-term investigative work.

But the reality is that it's rare for any highly talented, professional investigative reporter to work for a publication targeted on narrow subject matter . . .

For the most part, the journalists with the ideal skill set and the necessary experience are on bigger beats . . . or are specialists in the investigative process itself rather than a specific subject. Those reporters are materially different than, say, the feature writers, or the opinion piece writers, or the humorists or the play-by-play writers or whatever.

I think that if you're unhappy that say, John Wilcockson didn't write his Lance book the way David Walsh did, you're starting with an incorrect premise. They're different kinds of journalists, and they set out with different aims. I want to see what both of them have to say, what material each of them unearthed.

. . . I find it hard to say that cycling journalism as a whole is in a compromised state or suffering as an art form. We have some amazing storytellers and reporters. We don't have the same level of investigative reporters, but I'm not convinced that lack occurs because David Millar is friendly to us.

Being a beat reporter, having to produce cogent copy within hours after race ends, filling a news hole every day - that is tough, grinding, unending work that doesn't leave much time for an artsy-fartsy perspective. Those guys just have to hit the deadline. It's so much a matter of survival that in the press room you see guys sharing quotes, helping each other fill in this date or that time, correcting a fact for someone from a rival publication.

I've had to do that kind of work, and I'm not great at it. I'm not good at, on the spot, being able to assemble a play-by-play account of a race . . .

I don't think cycling journalism is very different from any other kind of subject-specific journalism. There are some of us who are better reporters than writers, and some who rely on their writing ability, fewer who put both skills together, and a good number who aren't very good at either but know how to hit deadlines - never to be underestimated in this business - and thus find steady employment, and a bunch of in-and-outers who just aren't suited for the whole thing.

I love the whole array of cycling bloggers, not just the ones I personally like to read but also just the fact of the existence of all the strident viewpoints and the peeks into the subcultures and strange-to-me ways of expressing an identity as a cyclist."

I'm certain that he meant to say, "Especially Bikezilla", there.

A Conversation With Bill Strickland: Part 2: Writer / Reader Relationship

2011-04-29T21:46:00.009-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

Bill objects to making a defense of his writing and thinks that it is good and right that any reader should interpret his writing either in a manner that brings him praise or in a manner that damns him.

And of course, readers who feel either way tend to believe that most or all readers surely feel as they do.

Here's are some of his thoughts from our conversation, discussing his philosophy regarding the writer / reader relationship.

Bill Strickland:

"I have come to found a big part of my understanding of writing on the belief that the compact between writer and reader is simple: The writer puts the words together, then shows it to the public, and from then on the story belongs to the reader, who individually and without obligation to the writer or to the writer’s intent (or the story’s intent), can think anything about it he wants, can perceive in it what he wants, can absorb or discard the parts of it he wants. To me, anything the reader comes up with is fair enough.

I mean, who’s to say that readers don’t finally know what a story is about better than the writer does? For me, at least, putting a story together is a mysterious and uncertain process, and readers — at least the ones who tell you what the story is about — seem to interpret with much more certainty than I create.

I’m interested in all the various opinions and ideas a story generates in readers (so keep those cards and letters coming, folks -- Bikezilla). I like to hear them, and think about their substance, try to figure out what it is in the writing that led to that specific opinion.

I try to understand how, for instance, X in writing generates Y in a reader, and if X is somehow useful to me as a technique or if it was accidental and won’t work that way again. I try to figure out if an opinion was created because the reader reacted to Z or missed Z, and why some readers miss Z while others react to it so strongly that as soon as they read it they cannot fully absorb the rest of the paragraph.

This kind of input is extremely valuable to me from a technical point of view. It makes me better — or at least I use it to try to become a better writer."

-- Here's an interview that Bill Strickland did with Podium Cafe.

Throughout the remainder of this series I'll be presenting occasional quotes from that PC interview. But I need to make a confession, first.

That Podium Cafe interview if far more in depth than what I'm doing with this series. Though I quote it several times, some of them long, I've only taken the passages or portions of passages that mesh with the discussion that I had with Bill Strickland myself.

If you have serious favorable or unfavorable interest in Bill Strickland and his writing, you should read the full Podium Cafe piece.

I have not intentionally altered the intent or meaning of any quote, but I have not quoted completely.

All emphasis is mine.

On the sport of cycling:

Bill Strickland:

"Maybe I'm romanticizing the sport. I am horribly prone to that as well."

That particular quote should be kept in mind as you read through later portions of this series.

On why his book with Johan Bruyneel, "We Might as Well Win" barely mentioned doping, and didn't even touch on the topic of Michele Ferrari and Manolo Saiz.

Bill Strickland:

"Johan's choice - it's his book. I mean, that's rich material for sure but not even close to the point of what he wanted to accomplish with the book.

He took some unfair hits for not addressing that, but the whole idea was to create a collection of the lessons he'd learned through racing and directing. If he'd set out to write a complete biography, or a reputed tell-all, and not even mentioned them, then I think the criticism would be warranted (and I don't think I'd have stayed on to help him).

As a storyteller, looking at the structure, in that particular book those subjects were not omitted but simply didn't fit."

Is that an adequate explanation? Is it a believable explanation? Or is it merely a shield for both Bruyneel and Strickland?

On Lance Armstrong's peronsality:

You can see from the Podium Cafe interview that there's a lot more to the Bill Strickland story than just his relationship with Lance Armstrong. But Lance Armstrong and doping are the parts that really irk most cycling fans, whether they worship Lance or loathe him.

Bill has a perspective on this that you will either find to be reasonable and fair, or obstructionist and frustrating. In fact, you're likely to see most of what I present here, entirely in one light or the other.

From the Podium Cafe interview:

"I've concluded that he derives nearly equal energy from the time that, say, his sixth-grade teacher teased him and the time L'Equipe accused him of doping.

It's kind of binary for him: either you're in his way or you're not, you harmed him or you didn't, you believe him or you don't. He seems not to care much about the nuances, if the barrier in front of him is a single brick or a wall forty bricks high and forty bricks deep: he's going through it if he can.

(I think of it as the kind of determination or drive that, existing in people with different sorts of skills and gifts, ends up giving us Steve Jobs, or maybe Winston Churchill, or Mother Teresa, or Bernie Madoff or Atilla the Hun.)"

From Tour de Lance, p. 230-231:

"He’s not a naturally funny person. Even his close friends say his humor tends to be corny and repetitive. He’s best described not as clever or smart but as cunning.

And for as moneyed and as cultured as he has become, he is still in essence, as I was told by a person who was employed by one of Armstrong’s sponsoring companies and worked closely on him with several projects, ‘the kind of guy who would be happy putting his car in a ditch every weekend.’ . . . He became exposed to the idea of appreciating art (and architecture) during his first trips to Europe in his pre-cancer era . . .today, he likes to reference artists in his Twitter posts . . . [and] the walls of his home have displayed Michael Gregory, Bettie Ward, Barry McGee, Tony Berlant . . . It’s an impressive collection, yet there’s a dissonantly competitive spirit to Armstrong’s pursuit of it all, as if when he understood that art was something sophisticated people should enjoy, he set out to be the best at enjoying it.

Someone who worked with him on an extended commercial project told me that ‘When Lance found out I was a visual person, he took me around his house to see his art collection, and we had to stand before each one and dutifully appreciate it. And we couldn’t move on until he felt he’d accomplished the appreciation.”

How should those descriptions be taken? As evidence that Strickland in fact has a sober view of what Armstrong is really like? They aren't flattering, but they aren't damning, either. Are they too little, too mild, to ho-hum in relation to Strickland's long delayed admission or realization that Armstrong was (is?) a career doper?

----

This series will be at least 5 parts long, maybe as long as 7.

Part 3 should be up in 2 - 3 days, again.

Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland

2011-04-29T01:05:00.006-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

The short:

Emma O'Reilly was a soigneur for Lance Armstrong in 1999 when he received a prescription for an ointment to relieve saddle sores. That prescription contained corticosteroid, which Armstrong failed a doping test for.

O'Reilly has stated that that prescription was back-dated and only received AFTER the doping pos.

The long:

In Bill Strickland's "Lance Armstrong's Endgame" article, Joe Lindsey contributed the line, “At this point it’s Armstrong’s word against O’Reilly’s. Unless other witnesses corroborate her story, Armstrong wins this one.”

She was angry and responded on Bicycling magazine's website.

I understand Ms O'Reilly's anger and frustration. But I think she may have misinterpreted the intent of that line.

I don't think that Lindsey, or Bill Strickland, were making a judgement that O'Reilly's word was inherently less valuable than Lance Armstrong's.

Here is what I think was intended by that line, and how I interpreted it when I first read the story:

The burden of proof generally lies with the accuser, at least to a legal standard. And there's good reason for that. It helps prevent sending the innocent to prison.

So Armstrong "wins" vs Lindsey not because his word is inherently more valuable than hers, but because she is the accuser and so it is left to her to prove her case vs Armstrong.

So unless someone else finally has the guts to step forward on this specific issue, O'Reilly is left dangling. She is an island, with no companion to help her weather the storm beating against her shores.

However, that IS the legal standard, not the social or commonsense standard. And on those levels there is a growing mass of cycling fans and interested outsiders who are thankful for the stand that O'Reilly took and who appreciate her courage in the face of Armstrong's malice and cruelty.

On those levels people can and do look at the mass of evidence, real, circumstantial and anecdotal, which includes O'Reilly's testimony regarding that prescription, and the balance shifts clearly and strongly in O'Reilly's favor.