LeMond

Cycling, specifically road cycling, is full of polarizing figures.  Sure you get your Mercxs' and your Coppis' that everyone can just shut up and agree on being legitimately bad ass dudes who were remarkably talented and seemed like stand up people.  But for the most part you don't see that.  Maybe because professional cycling is full of ego maniacal whiny douche-hats that have the personality of a bar rag, maybe because times have changed and people just like to bicker.  But whatever the case it seems like since I've gotten interested in following cycling it's been one nut punch after another in regards to professional cycling and it's "reputation" on the world stage.  I feel like at this point the whole Lance debate is not worth even commenting on.  But no matter what your opinion on the guy it's interesting to see someone who was one of the most iconic cyclists of all time stripped of his titles by a bunch of old turds in an office that Armstrong's legacy has been paying for over a decade.  The point I'm trying to make is that as ridiculous as the macho chest thumping is, it's part of what makes sports like cycling interesting.  What sort of pain people are willing to endure and what kind of trash they talk to stroke their ego and get a paycheck is what makes me want to watch a sea of gangly sweaty guys in spandex with funny names chase each other around on bikes all day.  When officials like UCI and USAC and even USADA start spouting insane regulation from what kind of vitamin water you can drink to what you can openly say about regulating agencies without loosing your paycheck things go down the drain in a hurry.  That said, despite my mixed opinions on Greg LeMond it was cool to hear him speak out against a couple of the main sanctioning bodies in the cycling world today in an online statement telling UCI president  Pat McQuaid to "fuck off and resign," and calling on cyclists to quit racing sanctioned events for a year and reinvent the UCI in a new image.  Cycling should not be the domain of regulators or athletes who just race for the money.  It should belong to cyclists and fans of cycling, and it's important to have pro cyclists speak up advocating on their own behalf and on behalf of their fans rather than cowering and sucking down protein shakes while their managers and sponsors tell them what to do.  Hats off to you LeMond.

Read the whole letter from LeMond that I'm talking about here.