Crib Sheet

Title: Sexe, mensonges et petits vélos (Sex, lies and little bikes)

Author: Willy Voet

Publisher: Calmann-Lévy

Pages: 238

Order: HERE

What is it? A French novel about a young cyclist breaking into big-time cycling and big-time doping.

Strengths: Occasionally good prose; inside details on doping in professional cycling after the Festina Affair.

Weaknesses: Unsympathetic and relatively flat characters; frequently tedious details about doping (dosages, frequency, delivery, etc.).

Rating: ★★ (2 of 5)

A year after his arrest for transporting doping products across the Franco-Belgian border (the event that sparked the Festina Affair), Willy Voet published his tell-all memoir, Breaking the Chain (Massacre à la chaîne), with Calmann-Lévy. A year later, Voet again teamed up with Calmann-Lévy to publish Sex, Lies and Little Bikes. Voet claims that where Breaking the Chain "opened the lid" on doping, this novel "looks into its depths." 

Sex, Lies and Little Bikes follows the evolution of a young French professional cyclist, the twenty-three year old Arnaud Frochet, from his signing with a top-shelf professional team (Prell) at the end of the 1999 season to his tragic "accident" after the 2000 off-season.

As the novel begins, we learn that Arnaud, riding for a small team with an even smaller budget, had come out of nowhere to win the Tour of Lombardy in 1999, attracting the interest of teams with thicker wallets and leading him to Prell. After a series of track races (where he exposes how the events are fixed and what kind of amphetamines some of the riders are on), Arnaud meets up with the entire Prell team at a ski resort for their off-season camp. The last night of the camp, Arnaud is invited into a room where the entire team awaits in order to "baptize" him: a syringe of pot belge is injected into his arm in small doses by every member of the team. After becoming the victim of this ritualized introduction to professional cycling he says, "I was born into a new life."

More on the flip... (contains spoilers)

Continue reading this post »

One of my colleagues (a communications prof. who makes films about extreme sports)  argues here that Lance Armstrong is returning to racing not for charity or even for ego, but to compensate for, or mask, deep-seated inner strife. If it sounds far fetched, consider that Lance essentially says as much in his own book, It's Not About The Bike.

The full article: http://www.thesportsacademic.com/2008/09/end-strong.htm

Tell him what you think...

Louder won an impossibly difficult stage 4 and then beat Caldwell by just enough in the TT in Tooele. His team, BMC Pro Cycling, also won the team competition. Here are the top 10, final GC from the Tour of Utah as reported on KSL.com.

1 Jeffry Louder 141 Salt Lake City, UT USA BMC Pro Cycling Team 13:10:57

2 Blake Caldwell 162 Boulder, CO Garmin/Chipotle presented by H3O 13:11:06 00:00:09

3 Glen Chadwick 153 Denville , NJ Team Type 1 13:11:44 00:00:46

4 Burke Swindlehurst 11 Salt Lake City, UT USA Bissell Pro Cycling Team 13:12:10 00:01:13

5 Brent Bookwalter 142 Santa Rosa, CA USA BMC Pro Cycling Team 13:12:19 00:01:21

6 Chris Baldwin 91 Boulder, CO USA Toyota-United 13:12:29 00:01:31

7 Oscar Sevilla Rivera 44 Ossa de Montiel, SC Spain Rock Racing 13:13:01 00:02:03

8 Peter Stetina* 167 Boulder, CO USA Garmin/Chipotle presented by H3O 13:13:32 00:02:35

9 Darren Lill 145 Santa Rosa, CA BMC Pro Cycling Team 13:14:05 00:03:07

10 Phil Zajicek 6 Boulder, CO USA Team Health Net presented by Maxxis 13:14:28 00:03:31

French daily "Le Monde" has asked its readers if doping should simply be legalized.

Here are truncated translations of a few representative entries:

"Yes . . . Why criminalize a problem in the name of asinine purity and some sporting ideal dictated by people like Prudhomme who are self proclaimed censors instead of opening up a debate where medical questions could be debated and controlled instead of leaving it up to shady charlatans who administer dangerous drugs in the shadows."

"Doping could bring about serious harm to the riders, not to mention it wouldn't help the popularity of the sport."

"Yes. If everyone is on the juice, no one is."

"Yes. These activities (soccer, cycling, tennis) are there to help sponsors and organizers get rich just like in the days of gladiators when slaves were thrown to the lions to strengthen the power of the political class. In any case, the 'people' don't care if athletes are juiced, they want a spectacle and if there is blood, so much the better. So why so many scruples? The people want games, give them games and pull in as much cash as possible along the way."

"No. That would essentially force everyone, even those who currently don't dope, to take something thereby putting all the riders' health at risk."

The full discussion (and a cute cartoon depicting two competing soy beans[?]) can be found here: http://vidberg.blog.lemonde.fr/2008/07/20/faut-il-legaliser-le-dopage

Thanks to my colleague Scott for pointing this site out to me.