Never before has a cycling article taken so long in coming through my fingertips and into the keyboard. I’ve never been so stumped as to just what to write.
Here we are, almost two weeks into the sport’s showcase event and I am struggling to find something to say.
I should amend that – it’s not that I have nothing to say but that, simply, I don’t know where to begin. Like a love-shorn teenager adrift on a broiling ocean of emotions, I am barely keeping my head above the surface.
The more I know about the professional level of this sport – and I say without affectation that it is not an insignificant knowledge that I possess – the less I want to know and the more I fear.
Watching the finale of yesterday’s stage in the local cycling café was not, for me, the celebration of the triumph of human sporting endeavour that it might have been years ago.
Rather, it was as though with each successive pedal stroke from the race leader I was, by increments of a steadily increasing force, getting the air kicked thoroughly from my system.
It was breathtaking and it left me utterly breathless.
At a table in front of me sat several bike industry people and, as Froome crossed the line, they cheered and clapped and hollered.
At my table sat several friends who have been riding and racing for years. It was all we could do to look at each other, unable to take in what we had just witnessed.
And we’d already been through that process three times with each attack.
It was, said Nicholas Roche of Saxo-Tinkoff, “Unbelievable.”
I looked again at the table in front with an envy that surprised me. They believed.
I’d experienced almost the exact same feeling of letting go not too long ago.
The void of feeling in my gut took me right back to the day I fell out of life-long love with Liverpool FC, after the managers and players came out in support of Luis Suarez after he had been found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra of Manchester United.
The same feeling of nausea. Of knowing that something was over and that it would not be the same again.
I realised, too, that it is not the fault of Froome, who, if we are to heed his own words and those of his management, is clean.
I could blame the riders who have gone before. I could wag a finger at the managers who facilitated the doping of years gone by, could rage against the UCI and its presidents, could castigate the race organisers who looked the other way for so long.
I could even blame society with all its attendant pressures and its confusing and contradictory array of signals and codes that besiege us bedraggled humans from all sides, assailing our moral positioning systems.
But right now I am more inclined to turn the dim glow of the yellowed lightbulb onto myself. It is just that I can no longer believe.
The problem resides in me. I lack the requisite faith to make any of what I see worthwhile. The signifiers elicit only one possible meaning, rage headlong to the same inevitable assumption. I want to believe but I cannot. I just can’t make it happen.
Something’s gone, it’s buried, and it ain’t coming back anytime soon.
Lee Rodgers
Expert
Yes thanks Dean, that is the point exactly. How can I say if Froome is doping or not, for certain? But that I've lost the ability to believe it's real does sadden me. But hey I'm a grown up right? And this is a grown up world. And it kinda sucks sometimes.
Biddy
Guest
The more Frooome gains time at every stage the harder it gets not to doubt. Just how much more can the human body keep getting stronger, surely there is a limit without "help".
RobRoy
Guest
I think that is the gist of the article. I want to believe that I am witnessing something phenomenal gained fair and square. But there is that nagging feeling that this may get shattered 5, 10 15 yeas hence a la Lance Armstrong. I hope not but do believe in the basic premise that someone is innocent till proven guilty rather than the current innuendo pervading cycling. He undergoes all the tests an I assume these are continually improved and he has not tested for anything illegal.
Dean
Guest
I don't think the author is saying he thinks Froome's doping, just that he feels bad that he can't be sure that he isn't. In days gone by you could trust enough to believe in superhuman performances, but now it's not so easy. The question I always ask is that if Froome achieved this just from hard work, I'm sure the others are all working hard too. Is Froome working that much harder and smarter?? I just don't know for certain and it's almost impossible to in the current state of things. One way to prove it would be to have the cameras switched on 24/7 during training as well as events, but this would take away almost all privacy. Unfortunately for cycling and Froome, there's a lingering taint that will take a long while to dissipate.
dirk westerduin
Guest
I think it is not fair to be suspicious of Froome's performances.The man is guilty until proven not guilty. Ethics upside down. anybody who has talent, works hard, is disciplined, and performs exceptionally, anybody with these honourable and high level characteristics, is still not allowed to perform, because the crowd thinks they're a doper. I don't think you're really reflecting if you say Froome might dope. You're making a mental shortcut. Cycling is a beautiful sport. Dope has been part of it for 1 century. And dope or no dope, the performances of these guys were exceptional. We're facing a new era now. With new ethics. Shoving a microphone under Froome's nose after winning on the Ventoux, and asking him immediately about dope, THAT makes me nauseous. A stupid, unethical crowd-mentality, like 2000 years ago during Gladiator fights in Rome. Rene Descartes, a famous enlightened philosopher, said: 'Je pense donc je suis', 'I think, therefore I am'. We might change that into :'I perform, therefore I am a doper,' and write a pseudo scientific analysis. Brailsford is right. If Sky published the performance numers of their riders, any idiot would interpret then anyway they wanted. It would only make more noise. I get nauseous because of the acceptance of utterly non-reflective masses. Further, I respectfully think that being a professional cyclist in Asia doesn't necessarily give you the tools to really understand what's going on at that totally different level in Europe, whether you're a European yourself or not. In depth investigations by journalists in The Netherlands tell me more. I repeat: 'respectfully', because I respect Lee Rodgers, for what it's worth, who am I.
kc
Guest
Hope you are well supported if you are ever wrongfully convicted of something mate... no recourse at all eh? Just grin and bear it? "Found guilty" my ass... the guy doesnt even speak English
Trish
Guest
Nairo Quintana was not far behind Chris Froome. Is he under suspicion too?
Snail36
Guest
James, what is Froome's history? I know Wiggins won Olympic Gold & has always been a great time trial rider but where did Froome come from before last year?
Colin N
Guest
So Schleck gaining two minutes on Evans and going solo from a long way out in 2011 isn't suspicious then? Right.
Rugby Fan
Roar Guru
Brailsford has offered to let WADA have full access to the Sky camp. I don't think that sounds like a reckless dismissal. Perhaps full, public disclosure is the only way to build confidence in the sport again. You can't blame Sky for wanting to look at ways they can be transparent without compromising their competitive advantages. If an open invitation to a trusted third party isn't a reasonable proposal, then you have to wonder whether any evidence could be convincing. I dearly hope Sky are a clean team. We need to find some acceptable basis to make that judgement or else, as you say, the sport will never get out of trouble.
Simoc
Guest
What are you on about. Talk about wasting your blog. But I'm not watching this year because I expected, and still do, Froome to win easily. He seems a class above for awhile now, last year as well.
James
Guest
i have faith in froome and wiggins and for that matter usain bolt. they did not come from nowhere and suddenly be great, they were consistently great for years and years.
Lee Rodgers
Expert
True in many ways but it also feels a little like giving in. We stand here at the cliff edge and really have a chance to clean this sport up. For that though we need greater accountability, more responsibility and less reckless dismissals of supporters' fears, a la Brailsford.
Lee Rodgers
Expert
Agreed Steve, it was a denial of guilt by him and a refusal by his team to do the right thing that got me. It wasn't a show of loyalty to Suarez, it was all driven by the fear that if they punished him as he should have been then he' have been off. Cynicism at its best.
lovedawg
Guest
where 2+2=5 it is crowded, but lonely where 2+2=4. you can share your math but often only hear the echo of your own voice...
Gayle
Guest
I guess that over the years of watching the Tdf, we have become used to the physical struggle and the exhaustion to reach the stage end.... when someone rides a mountain stage with such ease we are bound to wonder... We have seen it all before, all too often... Yes, it is hard to believe. How cruel if it were not real...
jonty23
Guest
The epic 2011 tour with Evans and Shleck and co battling to complete exhaustion was rightfully hailed as not only one of the great tours but a line in the sand for professional cycling........then along comes SKY !
Midfield general
Guest
I agree, there was plenty of smoke with USPS before the fire. I remember reading an interview with Wiggo last year where he said the reason he doesn't cheat is that he wouldn't be able to look at his kids in the eye if any retrospective testing come and bite him in the arse in future. The amateur psychologist in me says that Wiggo and Froome don't look to me like pathological liars like you know who.
Tim Renowden
Expert
Lovely piece, Lee. Like you, my own thoughts on this topic took a long time to come out onto the page. I would love to believe, but I've also realised I can't, yet.
Felix Lowe
Expert
I guess the best way to treat cycling is to treat it as a piece of entertainment. Or a piece of gritty fiction. One day, it may be a real-life documentary or a piece of non-fiction. Maybe it is now. But for the moment, we can't tell.