The miseducation of thebelllap

I'm going to break radio silence and drop some knowledge.  Open your minds.  Be smart, and use your brains.  People.

Lance.  Just saying that name right now will stir up a debate, maybe a fistfight, or even a verbal abuse session that you would not be proud of in Sunday school.  Love him.  Hate him.  Hate to Love him.  Love to Hate him.  I'm sick of it.  Sick of all the ignorance about cycling and cheating and doping and anything that makes people so stupid.  I know who Greg Le Monde is and what he did, but it did not get me on a bike.  Somehow years later the stars where in-line the planet was just right and this brash fellow Texan beat cancer and then Le Tour.  I got on a bike.  No, not a road bike, but a mountain bike.  I can't fully credit Lance with my cycling addiction, but he did have a part in it.

After my transition to becoming a cyclist, every July I was glued to the internet to see how the cycling world was doing.  Time passed and I learned more and more about cycling.  Lance became less and less the center of my cycling universe.  I learned names like Merckx, Hinault, Indurain, Museeuw, and Copi.  Lance kept on winning and I dug deeper into cycling.  Who knew there were other races other than Le Tour?  Spring Classics?  I fell in love with the Hell of the North.  I wanted to know what was up with the yellow and black flags?  The people dressed in orange?  What's a Tifosi?  The more and more I learned of the cycling world and history, the more it seemed to eclipse the Sun that shone of Lance.

Don't get me wrong, I hold a special place in my cycling universe for Lance, but he is by no means the center.  Did he?  Didn't he?  I don't care.  I don't.  You probably don't know this, but it really does not matter.  What he did Clean or Dirty, is still a part of cycling.  Strip him of his titles, he still stood on top of all those podiums, you can't take that away.  Can we just move on?  Can we let this dead horse lie?

We have the most beautiful sport in the world.  It is a sport that is also a lifestyle.  When was the last time you saw someone run a football to work?  Hit a baseball to the grocery store?  It is such a beautiful thing that people who do not participate have to try and break it down... because of sheer jealousy.  Don't let the masses soil a beautiful thing, don't stoop to their level when they ask about cheating and doping.  Remind them how beautiful our sport can be.  Tell them about cobbles, le alp, the Hoy, about your commute to work, the Saturday morning ride, the guy that lost 80lbs because of a bike.  Tell them.

Tell them why you ride your bike.