MartinGT said:
I tell you why I am broke.
I am sick of the totally hypocrisy thats surrounds cycling. I have watched pro cycling since it started on the Channel 4 in the early 80s when I was a bairn. I was naive, loved it, used to go out an emulate the riders, it was ace. Then of course you grown up etc.
I still love my cycling, I visit the races and its amazing Yorkshire have the TDY, I havent missed a stage live yet. I still get that buzz when the peloton passes you and you get the breeze of the wind as they pass and smell of the liniment.
Whilst watching this years Giro on FB I am (was) a member of a group of my local club where we discuss the pro races. The slagging off that Nibali was getting by some people was laughable. He isnt allowed to be super human, yet the Dawg could ride up Ventoux this afternoon and overtake Moto's on his way and he would be god like.
Astana are dodgy as f@ck with Vino, but when has Nibali tested positive? When I asked them for evidence, all they said was 'It's Astana' that's fair do's in my eyes, but when I point out Leiners and Yates et al, I get lambasted and told 'thats not evidence' well its as good as yours!
Then this week I am broken with the ******!T 'doing a Froomey' for riding on his top tube as if it's a f@cking new thing. What next? Sky invented the f@cking bicycle? They said they have been learning on how to catch teams out etc. Brailsford is a politician speaking fraud, trying anyway to pull the wool over any layman's eyes. Yet the media companies totally lap it up and jizz one out over it.
Maybe I should just come off social media, I dunno. What's it like in countries like Italy? Are they as hysterical when Nibs does something?
Don't their minds explode when you ask them why Nibali has to be doping to acheive 5.9 W/kg, while Froome can do 6.3 clean?
Anyway, don't get too hang up on it. You are clearly more intelligent and mentally and emotionally mature than your friends. That's a good thing. Ignorance is bliss, if they believe in Superman, let them. Froome and DB are the ones that deserve justice and while it hasn't come yet, they are part of a world - top level cycling, so marred in corruption and with so many frauds and criminals and bullies, that none of us would want to be a part of. Enjoy the immense frustration it causes them to see their continued failure to be able to persuade more than a handful of people that they are actually clean.
And hold out hope that one day justice will come, one way or another.
And btw, I admire you Martin. You represent almost perfectly, exactly the type of audience DB aims his nonesence at. British, keen cyclist and cycling fan, into the sport for decades, close cycling circle of friends, active in cycling community and on cycling media, middle England (I assume)
But you are one of the few who see past the BS, don't buy into the cheap propaganda and overplayed nationalism. You are strong enough to resist it. We've seen on this forum ppl from your tribe so to speak, like dim and JR Anton, and others, who see and understand that sky cannot possibly be clean, but they just cannot, under any circumstances accept that one of their own could do any wrong and their minds dwelve into deep delusion, as their imaginations explode to try and conjure up an explanation, any explanation they can convince themselves to accept.
You, and a few others like you I know on twitter, give all of us hope.