Eazy on the E



Dueñas Nevado. Caught for doping



As the sport grows worldwide, it becomes more and more demanding. Demanding riders' performances, time, health and so on. A combination of a demanding Society and the way brands and events position themselves causes competitors to be driven to a point where the athletes find themselves breaking the rules and bending the limits beyond insanity.  All because of what these factors make us THINK is important. We find that more and more professional cyclists as well as other professional athletes are "doping”. The rise of substance abuse among professional athletes is rising immensely and I highly blame society and brand positioning for situations resulting in crises like this.- Then again- You can take the horse to the water, but you can't make it drink. The sad thing about the result of doping is that careers get ended, health gets destroyed, lives get ruined and reputations gat trashed. All for what?  Some cash? A little exposure perhaps? Is winning a race really worth risking it all? With a lot of big organizations putting large sums of money into professional sport, it is not only the athletes whose names and reps get ruined. The organization as a whole gets a negative image. Take for example Team Barloworld- a South African sponsored team who in 2007 achieved who achieved the best results ever by a wild card entry.  www.southafrica.info/. In 2008 they withdrew sponsorship due to Spanish rider Dueñas Nevado being tested positive for EPO (Erythropoietin) It was good that they pulled out, before things got messy. Doping proves to be for the incompetent of mankind. Take a man like Lance Armstrong, he

Lance Armstrong
The Face behind the legend

Ø  Won The Tour de France Seven consecutive times;

Ø  Did so after defeating cancer;

Ø   Started additional campaigns where he went for voluntary testing;

Ø  Was under federal investigation for the whole of 2011(after retirement) and proved innocent

He proved that it’s not impossible without the drugs. 

Questions have been raised, like should doping be legalized? Maybe there won’t be that much uprising. What do you think?

Less Wheels, Less Problems

Broken bikes left the ladies
walking to the finish.

As much as the 2012 Cape Argus Cycle Tour was a huge success it had its dissapointments too.The elite women were seeded in a big pack  as they were joined by the Leading men's Vets and Masters. This resulted in a large and consistent Leading pack throughout the race, as well as causing the pack to be spread out over the whole road. With the group consisting of so many riders it resulted in a nasty crash, injuring over 20 pro riders. this is simply unfair and quite frankly, incompetent of the organisers of the event. The Cape Argus Cycle Tour has a reputation for being the worlds largest individually timed cycle race.

http://www.southafrica.info/about/sport/cycletour.htm
 It's unacceptable that a world class event doesn't raise the standard here, afterall, our other local races don't require that The Elite Ladies Start with two other competitive categories, all racing for the podium. Competitive categories should be seperated to compete strictly with riders of the same capacity- resulting in less riders per group, resulting in less casualties. Sure, falling is part of the sport and "If you havent fallen, it means you can't ride." Another problem was the amount of participants in the overall even, somewhat 36 000 riders- once again causing serious traffic jams amoungst the cyclists. the organisers of this huge event need to restrategise if they still want the turnout to be this strong, either by:

• Providing More ride groups
• Ensuring more time between groups starting
• or require participants to qualify for the Cape Argus Cycle Tour on a more strict basis than just being seeded

For more info on the event, checkout News24 www.sport24.co.za/

You still have to pedal it

With all the money and technology involved in the up and coming industry of cycling, it becomes tough to keep track of who is doing what. New Technology is constantly being developped to maximise the performance of the athlete-machine combination. But I ask, is all this time,money and effort really worth the outcome? How much could it possibly help? Perhaps shaving a few  seconds of your personal best? Will having a R60 000 carbon fibre bike really guarantee that sub-3hr ride you've been longing for? I’m not trying to raise a debate- I merely want to know. Yeah, sure, we all want the latest gear and equipment- it looks good. But I rode my first sub-3hr on a Raleigh Rc3000 year 2005 modelhttp://www.raleighusa.com/, it has a simple 9 speed shimano Tiagra group setting , may I add I was 15 years old. Im not boasting, im just saying that the outcome of this demanding athletic performance is based ten times more on the mental fitness of the athlete  powering the machine than the technical variables-like the bicycle itself. Why I specify mental? Because if you believe you can, you will. Hence: If you believe that a bicycle is going to make you slower, you will be.     



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Either way- you still have to pedal it.