The UCI is going to need a "Penal Colony" team.

Dear rbr-ers:
The way things are going, if the UCI gets a load of current pro
riders to 'fess up, they're going to need a "penal colony" team. "Come
clean, implicate the enablers, give up the networks, break the
establishment," and instead of two years out and two years in addition
out of ProTour, you'd get one year out (is that long enough to wash
out the effects of the long-term performance enhancing drugs?) and one
year on the penal colony team. You'll be riding steel frames (NICE
steel frames, but still steel), and racing where you'd normally not
race. Sprinter? Say hello to Mountain Time Trials. Six-Day Race
trackie? You'll experience the joy of disc brakes on every outlaw
North American cyclocross race with really big runups! No Giro, no
Tour, no Vuelta at all, but promoters in Eastern Europe, Asia and the
Americas are going to get LOTS of international backing to add more
four to seven day stage races to the calendar.
What's in it for the riders, besides the display of penance in
public? They'll get a (low) paycheck, and Sports Directors from the
real teams will see how these reformed athletes perform with the deck
stacked against them on a team with one bus for the riders, one bus
for the support staff and TWO busses for the team vampires.
What's in it for the UCI? Maybe more confessions, maybe more
forthright confessions ("I was going to dope but my dog ate the EPO"
is pretty sad), and maybe more riders in the cycling hinterlands
who'll get a taste of that "European Racing Experience" on their own
home roads, tracks and parklands. And if the World Wrestling
Federation can make money of theatrics, then maybe cycling could do
with some bad boys in black jerseys.

in message . com,
') wrote:

Dear rbr-ers:
The way things are going, if the UCI gets a load of current pro
riders to 'fess up, they're going to need a "penal colony" team. "Come
clean, implicate the enablers, give up the networks, break the
establishment," and instead of two years out and two years in addition
out of ProTour, you'd get one year out (is that long enough to wash
out the effects of the long-term performance enhancing drugs?) and one
year on the penal colony team. You'll be riding steel frames (NICE
steel frames, but still steel),

Stop right there. Don't be so ****ing stupid.

There are not that many riders in pro cycling, and, contrary to what you
might think, there are not that many amateurs desperately waiting to turn
pro and accept the discipline and dedication - and sheer physical effort -
that that implies. Furthermore, the riders won't tolerate being treated
like that. If you set out to humiliate them and make their life hell,
they'll go off and find a job which pays better and has better hours -
like stacking shelves in a supermarket.

We're looking at a situtation where probably something between 40% and 80%
of the pro peloton is implicated. If they're all given a year's penalty,
there will be no top level bike racing next year. That might, in fact, be
good for the sport in the long run, but it would be disastrous for the UCI
and for the professional teams, since a significant part of their income
comes from the big races.

The UCI can afford to lose 20% of the pro peloton. Racing could continue.
So so far it's suited them to pick off a few cases and ignore the others.
Now they're being put into a situation in which it's impossible to ignore
the others, and so there is a crisis.

Whatever punishments you've cooked up in your vicious little mind, it isn't
realpolitik. It can't be done. It won't work. What can be done is a total
amnesty for those who come clean now and name their sources, with a
promise that anyone who doesn't come clean now but is caught later will
get a life ban. But you have to come up with a solution which does not
humiliate cyclists and which allows racing to continue. Otherwise, no
matter how wonderfully fair and just your proposed punishments, it just
cannot be done.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; not so much a refugee from reality, more a bogus
;; asylum seeker