Dear Fanboys...

[BikeCentric]

This will not be an "I told you so" thread. All I will state is that this whole gigantic Armstrong fraud that has finally come to an inglorious end could not have happened without fanboys. You know who you are - those of you who needed someone to worship, who needed a fairytale to make life have meaning for you, who attacked mercilessly anyone who questioned the myth. And make no mistake, it was never anything more than a myth and now has been utterly exposed as one of the greatest frauds in history.

And again, it was fanboys who made this fraud possible. So those of you who bought into the myth, I would humbly request that you do some soul-searching and try to learn some critical thinking skills going forward. And if you still want or need a great story to latch onto to make the world as it exists more tolerable for you, then please do the best you can to make sure it is something real. There are plenty of great stories and epic achievements in this world that are real, and they should be celebrated instead of fables.

One last thing: if you still feel the need to blindly hero worship, please find another sport to do it in. Cycling is going to need all the help it can get to fix itself going forward and the last thing we need hanging around is those who are unwilling to ask the hard questions. That is all.

 

[Lukenwolf]

You are beating up the wrong people. Armstrongs story could have been as inspiring as it has been for many of those who became Seventh Win Apologists. Hell, most of us have a favourite driver and cling desperately to the hope that he's one of the few clean ones in the peloton.
No, the reason why the whole Armstrong scheme was able to take off was, because the very people who could have taken it down in its earliest day were complicit. The blame falls squarely to Hein Verbruggen, Phat Pat and their henchmen. They could have taken down Armstrong after the 'roids positive in the 1999 tour. Instead they accepted a falsified backdated prescription, because they WANTED a fairy tale after the Festina scandal of '98.

Don't blame the people, who were mislead and lied to by Armstrong and his cronies. Blame those, who lied and those who covered up their misdeeds.

 

[ElChingon]

There should be an addendum to your categorization of a fanboy to include those that gave money to people who asked for it to support their illegal goals. Not talking about Armstrong in this case, even a fallen hero is not to be worshiped.

 

[red_flanders]

While some of the content here has merit, the overall presentation tells me this isn't headed to a good place.