Polish said:
What took so long?
Yawn.
After all this blows over, the haters will still be haters.
The fanboys will still be fanboys.
And the general public will not care.
I don't think so.
When I'm not racing my bike I have a day job which I hope to quit sometime soon. I work with a bunch of pointy-headed academics and lab coat geeks, and they're your average ESPN sports fan.
Since I'm the "bike racer guy", they always ask me the same questions. Here's how it goes:
"Hey, do you know Lance?". That's
always the first one. "Um, not really. He did swear at me though, twice, in a race. I also ended up on a training ride with him by accident. He didn't say anything to me. He likes to tell dirty jokes and go through stop signs, though.
"So wow, you raced with Lance, what was that like?". "Um, it's like racing with Madonna. There are a lot of people with him at the start and finish. He has a lot of handlers. I didn't see any strippers, but I'll look more carefully next time. Oh, and I totally destroyed him on a climb at Gila".
"Wow, so you're going to beat him at the Tour De France?". Um, no, I'm not going
"Really, why not??" "Um, they said our team was too good and we'd dominate the race. Plus, I'm the only guy on our team with a passport. That makes the logistics really tough".
"
So......do you don't think Lance was doping, do you?"
That last question is ALWAYS asked. It's the one they want to ask first, but want to soften me up and pretend they care about me (they don't, they just want to know about Lance). And, they almost always phrase it that way.
The people on this forum feel one way or another, as do most people in cycling. Armstrong is a transcendent figure, though. He's way bigger than cycling. And the average Joe or Josephine on the street really wants to believe. This is going to be a big deal for a lot of folks, and ultimately a big deal for Lance, who's image at this point has a lot more capital than his bike racing. It looks as though the arrow is pointed downward on both of those things.