I take a few days off to relocate myself in meatspace and the biggest story that surfaces is…motorized doping? Didn’t we already do this? A YouTube video is all it takes to sway you zombies?



Didn’t we already decide that whipping the cranks above 90 rpm (I count 19 pedal strokes in the first 10 seconds of Cancellara’s race-winning Roubaix attack—that’s 114 rpm) removed any assist value?



Wasn’t it clear that that seat tube is too narrow, and the wrong material, and shows no signs of the screws required to secure the motor? Or that the cranks and bottom bracket aren’t compatible with the alleged doping mechanism? And does it bother anyone else that the video resolution is too poor to clearly see the KM to go display, let alone what finger Cance uses to shift?



But hey—if you’re convinced, you’re convinced. Don’t let logic get in the way of a perfectly invalid opinion. Like the UCI, actually, whose official response was to say that motorized doping couldn’t be happening because “the risk is simply too big”. Less than a decade removed from young riders dropping like BP’s stock price from pumping their veins too full of blood cells, and the risk of putting an engine in your bike is too big? How did these people get to be in charge of this sport?



Logic also failed at the Tour of Luxemburg yesterday, where, after three minutes and fifty-one seconds of losing to Jimmy Engoulvent, Lance Armstrong declared his season back on track. Yes, crashes, lack of race days, doping investigations, and another 365 days of wear and tear aside, everything’s A-OK at Camp Armstrong. Why? Because Armstrong says so.



Call me unconvinced. Even if Armstrong finishes well at the five-day event, I don’t think the parcours is sufficient for him to make a decent assessment of his fitness for a race as rigorous as the TdF. Take some lackluster fitness and additional pressure for a good result and Armstrong may be forced to cut some corners in what, in past years, has been impeccable Tour prep.



And with some potentially stepped-up enforcement, cutting corners could be pretty costly this time around. Just ask Alejandro Valverde—these things can have a way of catching up with you.

