Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

I picked up our new bakfiets last Friday, a customised bakfiets.nl CargoBike Long from WorkCycles, which I wrote back in February.

After a week of biking on the new machine, I'm pretty impressed with it. According to Eloïse , it's "helemaal mooi", so she seems to approve.

Its first real test came a couple of days ago, when I brought back the largest load of groceries from the Albert Heijn that I've ever fetched without a car. It was a huge load and the bike definitely steered more heavily as a result, but it was as solid as a rock and got the job done.

There are a couple of photos of Eloïse showing off the new bike, if you're interested.

Expect to see us as a regular summer fixture in front of Pisa IJs on the Scheldeplein.

Our new bakfiets has been ordered and will be ready by the end of March. In the end, the order went to WorkCycles. The shop is up in Zeeburg, which isn't exactly our neighbourhood, and that's the reason we hadn't already been there to have a look.

However, when Henry, the owner, commented on a recent blog entry of mine, it was the nudge I needed to get on the bike and head over there. I'd already been impressed with the information on his shop's Web site and the knowledge evident from his blog, so I realised we'd actually be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't at least go and have a look.

Henry's a bit of an oddball in the Dutch cycling world, as an American who lives in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, he thoroughly understands the concept of the bakfiets and appreciates even those bicycle parts that are quite uncommon in his fatherland, such as the trusty dynamo.

We'd already decided on a CargoBike Long as our next bike, so we were mostly interested in Henry's customisations. In other words, apart from the promise of excellent service, why buy a bike from him instead of a shop closer to home?

For a start, his bikes look very distinctive. The frames are two-tone, which Henry explained is virtually dictated by practical necessity. He orders the frames pre-coated with an anti-rust layer. Once the top layer has gone on, you can't tell his frames apart from untreated ones. Therefore, the only way he can be sure that they don't get mixed up at the factory -- resulting in his being supplied with untreated frames -- is to order them in unique colour combinations. No other shop orders frames in this style.

Amongst other things, Henry fits an 8 speed internal Shimano gear hub and a riser for the MaxiCosi car-seat. This allows the child on the bench to slide its feet under the riser. The riser does get in the way of the optional second bench, but it can be removed when the child outgrows the MaxiCosi and can be tolerated for incidental use of the second bench.

Bike shops often devise their own method of securing the MaxiCosi car-seat, as there's no perfect solution to the problem of securing the baby, whilst maximising space in the box.

The standard MaxiCosi seat brace takes up so much room in the box, that a second child can hardly fit on the rear bench, never mind a front bench. Many shops therefore reject the idea of the brace, most preferring to simply fit a seat-belt that is then fastened across the base of the car-seat. That's fine, but then there's nowhere for a child on a front bench to put its feet. Henry's riser is a good solution to this problem, even if it's still not ideal.

On the subject of bikes, I bought Eloïse a LIKEaBIKE yesterday. These are lovely, if expensive, wooden bikes from Germany with proper tyres and adjustable saddle height. She seems very happy with it and has already noticeably improved as a rider in the few hours that she's had it.

The search for a new bakfiets has seen us trying out a lot of bikes in recent days.

On the two-wheeler front, I've ridden the CargoBike Long from bakfiets.nl and the Fietsfabriek's model 996. Both bikes are longer than the Fietsfabriek 995 that we currently use.

Deciding which bakfiets to buy is, to a large degree, a question of deciding to what extent one is prepared to sacrifice manoeuvrability for cargo volume. The three-wheelers generally have much larger crates than the two-wheelers, which means that they can carry more children and/or cargo. They're also much more difficult to manoeuvre in a busy, compact city like Amsterdam.

Since a bakfiets is a significant outlay and the desire for a new bike is primarily motivated by the need for more cargo and child space, we owed it to ourselves to test the current crop of both two- and three-wheelers alike.

Starting with the trikes, I've ridden the bakfiets.nl CargoTrike, a Christiania bike (either the Light or the H/Box; I'm not sure), the trioBike Carrierbike and the Fietsfabriek FF16.

A bakfiets is a very personal and subjective experience. One person's ideal bike may prove utterly unusable by someone else, even if the two have similar requirements. I certainly had no problem distinguishing the suitable from the unworkable.

Of the tricycles, I was most comfortable on the Fietsfabriek's FF16. The reason for this is both obvious and simple: its front wheels steer independently of the crate.

Most three-wheelers have handlebars (or a single horizontal bar), a crate and front wheels that do not move independently of one another. This means that one must use the handlebar to push the back of the crate out to the left in order to steer right, and vice versa. This can prove easier said than done, because pushing the steering in the opposite way to the desired direction of travel is very hard to get used to when one has decades of experience with the opposite principle. That's a lot of neural rewiring.

The FF16's independent steering makes the ride much more like that of a traditional two-wheeler, but the wide wheel arches that house the wheels make the bike unbelievably wide; even wider than the traditional three-wheelers with dependent steering.

The best of the traditional three-wheelers was the bakfiets.nl CargoTrike, which, in spite of its dependently steering front wheels, did, at least, have normal dual handlebars. That didn't stop me from lifting off once when sharply cornering, but that's a danger with all of the three-wheelers.

Unfortunately, in spite of the comfortable ride, it's too wide for fast cycling and overtaking on the narrow streets in the centre of town.

The Christiania bike was a bit disappointing to me. It was obviously very well-made (half of Copenhagen rides around on these), but I found the steering bar too awkward to use in daily life. Because of the difficulty involved in pushing the bar far out to the left or right -- once you are about to exceed arm's length, one is required to lean off to the side of the bike to achieve greater reach -- the turning circle is gigantic. It's like trying to turn a passenger coach. The bike is also too wide, in my opinion, for use in the centre of town.

The trioBike, too, was awkward to use, although it has the virtue of having a clever, detachable crate and wheel unit, which then doubles as a rather improbable-looking pram. The whole thing is made of aluminium, too, which makes it much lighter than you might expect. Weight is a serious issue with the three-wheelers in particular.

Unfortunately, in spite of the bike's light weight and engineering ingenuity, its width once again forces me to draw the same conclusion as I did with its brethren: prohibitively impractical on the streets of Amsterdam. I found myself unable to overtake double-parked cars on narrow streets and the turning circle was, frankly, dismal.

So, whilst having a crate the size of those available on the three-wheelers would occasionally be a boon, it's not worth the sacrifice of having to be that wide on every single trip I take. With the difference between a miss and a near-miss in Amsterdam often being measured in no more than a couple of centimetres, increasing my width in traffic is a decision likely to exact an unpleasant toll at some point in the future. It's just not worth the risk.

Some people consider the three-wheelers stabler and therefore safer than the two-wheelers, but I would have to proffer the opinion that it's an illusion in a city like Amsterdam. The ability to cycle at speed, flexibly manoeuvre, rapidly divert one's course, squeeze between two obstacles and not jut out too far to the left all contribute much more to your overall road safety than being able to balance on three wheels.

Yes, a three-wheeler can't fall to one side, but in my opinion, you're much more likely to become involved in a collision whilst riding one. You can't squeeze past cars along the canals. You can't overtake other bikes on separate cycle paths. You can't even be overtaken by other bikers. In short, I would only buy one if I absolutely could not do without the huge cargo and child space that they offer. Otherwise, they seem to offer nothing but a false sense of security to inexperienced expat riders.

It's clear, then, that I pick my winner from the duo of two-wheelers that I tried. The Fietsfabriek's 996 rides very much like our current 995 and is an obvious choice. In fact, we probably would have bought one if this model had existed in 2005, when we arrived back in Amsterdam.

I haven't been entirely happy with our 995, though. Its bench is held in by barrel bolts, which vibrate loose over the course of a few rides). Eloïse 's child seat is screwed onto this bench and has its own safety belt attached. You don't use the belts fixed to the back of the crate until the child is big enough to sit directly on the bench.

Sarah has had a couple of incidents of the bike falling to one side, which caused Eloïse , seat, bench and all to become dislodged and collapse into the crate. If a collision at speed were to occur, the child could easily be propelled into the road, still in her seat. That's because, once the barrel bolts shake loose, there's nothing securing the bench to the bike!

When I confronted the Fietsfabriek about this, I was told by the main man in the workshop that the complaint had been passed on some time ago to the design and marketing part of the business on the other side of the street. He also said that I should have opted to have the bench screwed down instead of retaining the flexibility to remove it, but I was not presented with any such choice at the time of purchase. Sloppy at the very least.

When I made the same complaint in the sales office, my account of the problem received a lot of passive nodding, but not much more than that. I asked why there hadn't been a recall of such units, but didn't receive a proper answer. Instead, I was shown how they now either bolt down the bench on new bikes or put in screws that allow it to hinge upwards and be folded out of the way when not in use.

Great. They've solved the problem for new buyers, but not informed their older customers, even though they still have our contact details on file. I suggested that they yet go ahead with such a recall, as there are still a lot of older model 995 bikes out there, many of which undoubtedly have unsecured benches with child seats on them. I don't have any confidence they will actually do this, though.

Since I didn't even receive an apology from them for exposing Eloïse to such a serious risk, I'm not inclined to purchase there again, even though their designs are innovative, their workshop service is very good and they generally enjoy a good reputation. For me, the primary reason to use a bakfiets is to be able to transport my child(ren) more safely than I can on a normal bike. If the bike cannot be trusted to retain the child in a collision, the thing is useless.

Although they do now have a solution for the problem, the fact that they didn't inform their existing customers of the potential danger and the solution says to me that the people at the Fietsfabriek don't take child safety seriously; and a bakfiets company that doesn't take child safety seriously is not one that I'm going to support with my money.

I had them screw down the bench on our 995, so it's safe now, but the reception my complaint received reeks to me of complacency and apathy. What a shame, since it's a good company in other ways.

That leaves just the CargoBike Long from bakfiets.nl. Even without the bad taste left in my mouth by the 995 experience, the CargoBike Long is a better bike than the equivalent Fietsfabriek model, the 996. And, if you buy a CargoBike at Het Zwarte Fietsenplan, it's a considerably better bike, because they supply each bike with saddle suspension and a hub dynamo. Both of these enhancements make for a more comfortable ride.

You'll also get a sturdier stand than on the 996, seven gears instead of five, and handbrakes instead of a back-peddle rear brake. Opinions are divided, however, on whether this last detail is an advantage. The optional rain cover, too, is more easily mounted on the CargoBike and opens out flat, making it more convenient to store.

Sarah needed to test-ride only one of the aforementioned three-wheelers to conclude that the entire concept wasn't for her. That made it very easy to agree on the CargoBike Long as our next bakfiets. All we have to agree now is the colour, which may take some time. Luckily, our new family member is still some weeks away.

At this point, I'm watching the Tour de France more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. And, I suspect a number of the riders themselves are wondering why they're still taking part in this race.

The day before yesterday, Vinokourov, winner of the 13th and 15th stages, was found to have engaged in blood doping (transfusion) before the start of the 13th stage. As a result, the entire Astana team was asked to withdraw from the Tour, a request that was honoured. So, that was goodbye to not just Vinokourov, but also men like Kashechkin and Klöden.

Yesterday, Vinokourov was found to have tested positive during the 15th stage, too.

There was worse to come, though. During the 16th stage yesterday, it was announced that another rider had tested positive for doping. The name wouldn't be released until after the race.

After the race, it was announced that Moreni, an Italian rider on the Cofidis team, had tested positive for testosterone a few days earlier. The predictable result was that the entire Cofidis team withdrew from the race.

And then, just when you think it can't get any worse, if only because the hour is late enough that most people have retired for the evening and the machinery of the Tour has wound down for the day, the Rabobank team announces that it is withdrawing yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen from the race with immediate effect. The guy who is leading the race and who won the day's stage in spectacular style, the man who looked set to ride to Paris in yellow and walk away with the race victory, is now no longer even in the race.

And what was the straw that broke the camel's back? It turns out that Rasmussen had lied when informing the Danish cycling federation about his whereabouts so that they could conduct out-of-competition testing. He had said that he would be in Mexico, when he had, it seems, actually been in Italy. He had also misinformed his own team about his whereabouts during the same period.

His undoing was that an ex-rider, now a commentator for Italian TV, had seen Rasmussen in the Dolomites in early June. The man had actually spoken to Rasmussen and was sure that it was him. He mentioned this encounter in passing to a Danish journalist, who realised that this was at the same time that Rasmussen was claiming to have been in Mexico.

One thing led to another and, before you know it, Rasmussen is ejected from the Tour and may well never race again. No doubt this will please the UCI, the French press (for whom any victor who isn't French is undesirable) and all of the other people who have been calling for Rasmussen's expulsion from the race over the last week.

In the last twelve hours, I have been hearing words like 'traitor' to describe Rasmussen and it occurs to me that the quest to cleanse the sport is now turning into an inhuman witchhunt.

I, for one, have a lot of sympathy for Rasmussen. Let's not forget that he was tested for doping at least 14 times during this year's Tour de France and found to be negative every single time.

Who knows why he gave incorrect information to the UCI about his whereabouts? Perhaps he had planned to go to Mexico, but later changed his plans and remained in Italy. Even if he deliberately lied, perhaps he felt he had good reasons for doing so. He is known to be a very private man and perhaps he resented being followed around by men in white coats with a syringe in one hand and a test-tube in the other.

As far as I'm concerned, until he is proved to have using doping, the most one can find Rasmussen guilty of is lying; and lying alone should not be grounds for expulsion from competition.

According to UCI rules, receiving three warnings for failure to be available for out-of-competition testing is equivalent to a positive test result. Rasmussen had received only two such warnings, which is why he was still in the race until yesterday. He was ultimately expelled for having lied about his whereabouts to his own team, thereby transgressing the team's internal code of conduct. Neither the UCI nor the ASO had any grounds for taking action against him.

Michael Boogerd, Rasmussen's team-mate, is the only person I've seen show much sympathy for Rasmussen today. He said that he could imagine perfectly how it must feel to be Rasmussen today, that his life is now in tatters, and that he will probably never race professionally again. His career is over, and that without even having tested positive.

In my opinion, Michael Rasmussen had demonstrated himself to be the top rider in this year's Tour de France. He was without a doubt the strongest in the course and it will be a hollow victory for whomever now rides in the yellow jersey onto the Champs-Élysées.

Speaking of the Tour de France, how nice it is to be able to enjoy decent coverage again. The days of Mart Smeets and Jean Nelissen are behind us, but Herbert Dijkstra and Maarten Ducrot are worthy replacements with their interesting insights, dry humour and undisguised irritation. Each stage's commentary is good for a handful of hilarious quotes.

Back in the US, Sarah and I would be forced to watch OLN's coverage via DirecTV satellite. It was really quite bad, but it was all we could get and bad coverage is vastly preferable to no coverage. I remember days when OLN provided no live coverage at all, just highlights at the end of the day. Other major irritations with the coverage were:

• The seriously inopportune ad breaks. Sometimes the coverage would be interrupted in the middle of the final climb of a mountain stage. Upon resumption, you would discover that someone had broken away in the climb to make a break for the finish. What the hell is advertising doing in the middle of a continuous sporting event?
• Commentary that failed to captivate. The permanent commentators, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin clearly aimed their commentary at people who knew very little about the sport. In fairness, this was probably their brief from the station, as cycling wasn't really covered in the US before Lance Armstrong started winning. Paul Sherwin, in particular, was a dull commentator, resorting constantly to the same well-worn clichés (some of which still resonate in my ears).
• Amateur coverage. Often, the French camera would zoom in on some noteworthy aspect of the rider or the bicycle, and neither Phil nor Paul would pass even the slightest comment to enlighten the viewer as to what they were looking at. I think they, themselves, were oblivious to whatever was being pointed out by the cameraman. Similarly, they made virtually no comments about the equipment the riders were using, such as which gears they had mounted for that stage and why, or why someone might be using a closed as opposed to an open wheel. The background detail was conspicuous by its absence, too. For example, when the French director would focus on a particular rider, we'd get no mention from the commentators of how that rider was performing this season, what his victories and other accomplishments had been this year and in previous years, anything about the rider's history or any amusing anecdotes about the region being cycled through, how many times a particular town or mountain had been visited by the Tour, or which other riders had made history here in previous years.
• Partisanship. Dear, oh dear. You would have thought only English-speakers were competing in the race. The intense favouritism for the American riders, particularly Lance Armstrong, was very frustrating to me. It's American television, so one naturally expects daily interviews with the national riders and copious background information on them and their teams, but with OLN it was to the virtual exclusion of all else. If you were lucky, you'd get a snippet of information about Robbie McEwan or Cadell Evans, presumably by dint of their also being English-speakers and therefore more identifiably similar to Americans. An interview with an Italian, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Kazach or a Swiss? Forget it, unless said person also happened to be a member of Armstrong's team.
• Kirsten Gumm, Frankie Andreu and Bob Roll. Oh, Oh, oh! Kirsten didn't know a thing about cycling and was presumably there for an assumed glamour factor. Frankie, a former Motorola rider, was just not a good interviewer. And Bob Roll, another former rider, who's probably a nice guy to share a drink with, but his coverage was like fingernails on a blackboard. He couldn't even pronounce the name of the race, for crying out loud.
• The direction. As with the ad breaks, sometimes the viewer would be whisked away from the live coverage to witness a prerecorded superficial interview with some third-rate no-hoper, just because he was an American. In the meantime, God knows what would be going on in the actual race. Why not split the screen down the middle and continue to show us coverage of the race on one half of the screen? Better yet, show us the interview before or after the race, not at a crucial moment during the live coverage.
• No evening coverage in a separate programme. Consequently, there was no post-stage race analysis from either the commentators or knowledgeable guests (such as ex-riders), no mention of the day's intrigues, no interviews with riders at the finish, no background on the organisation of the Tour de France itself, no analysis of the next day's stage, etc.

Yes, I know I'm very demanding. I should probably relax in my old age. I'll probably die complaining about something. On the other hand, if we all settled for mediocrity, where would that get the human race? :-)

Anno 2007, I have to wonder what the US TV coverage is like now. Armstrong has retired and neither Hincapie nor Leipheimer can make good on the potential they showed in previous years. OK, Leipheimer's currently fourth in the general classification and that's great, but he's not in contention to win. After seven years of Armstrong victories, Americans are used to watching grand spectacle, crowned with a victory.

All of which leads me to expect that viewing figures must be falling over there, aided by the disrepute into which the sport is constantly being brought by doping scandals. I witnessed in my first couple of years in the US how Olympic events were scarcely covered if no Americans were taking part in the event. And if Americans weretaking part, you'd see pretty much only the Americans performing, plus maybe a couple of Russians just for old time's sake, to show that they're still being beaten. And cycling isn't even broadcast across the national networks; you have to subscribe to a cable or satellite package to get OLN or whatever it's called these days.

Anyway, enough about the Tour coverage and back to watching it.

While the Tour de France is tailor-made for watching on MythTV with a time-stretch of 110%, making it 10% faster to watch (and thereby reducing 66 minutes of footage to an hour) without any change in audio pitch, it's hard to take on board the intrigues unfolding in front of my eyes.

The other day, I reported that the German public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF had abandoned the Tour. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that void has already been filled by the German commercial station, SAT1. Nothing bizarre there.

But today, an attempt was made to have to have Michael Rasmussen removed from the race! As we Dutch might say, Het moet niet veel gekker worden.

So, what happened?

The UCI, the Union Cycliste Internationale, is the governing body of all national cycling federations, including the Danish one. It also organises all ProTour races and therefore strives to maintain a closed set of races involving a fixed roster of teams.

The national federations are responsible for carrying out out-of-competition doping tests on all riders that they have licenced to race. In the case of the Danish federation, this includes Michael Rasmussen.

Now, to carry out these tests, the cycling federations need to know where all licenced riders are at all times, so that they can swing by to tap blood and urine at any time.

Here's where it gets interesting. The current yellow jersey, Michael Rasmussen, is married to a Mexican woman, and therefore spends extended periods of the year in Mexico, training. He's also a man who likes his privacy, so he's been pretty lax about announcing his whereabouts whilst overseas.

Now, whether or not the Danish cycling union would, in any case, have bothered to send a man with a test tube to the other side of the world to tap Rasmussen's pee is a pragmatic question that has no place in the world of cycling bureaucracy. Rasmussen wasn't available for testing and that's that.

This happened on several occasions and Rasmussen was issued several warnings. At that point, he should have been penalised, possibly with a one month racing ban or something similar. Instead, however, the Danish union did nothing. In fact, worse than that, they let him take part in the Danish national championship a month ago. In other words, they let the issue slide.

None of this would have mattererd one iota, if the coordinating body of the UCI hadn't today got wind of this and demanded from the Tour management that Rasmussen be removed from the race for failing to have made himself available for out-of-competition testing.

Rasmussen admits that he hasn't always treated the Danish union's demands to be kept abreast of his movements seriously, because they are difficult to comply with. A form has to be filled out before the start of every quarter, detailing the rider's movements over the next three months. Rasmussen failed to complete one such form on time, resulting in an official warning.

However, to demand his removal from the Tour de France after the cycling union, themselves, let Rasmussen race a month earlier is ludicrous. Not only did they let him race, but they performed doping checks on him numerous times when he was available for testing and found him to be completely clean.

The obvious questions are:

• Why did they let Rasmussen race in the Danish national championship?
• Why was he not penalised at the time according to the union's own rules?
• Why did the UCI not approach the management of the Tour de France before the race started?
• Why did the UCI make their demand only today, now that Rasmussen is firmly established in the yellow jersey?

It stinks. Bureaucratic incompetence, political malice or some unholy concoction of the two?

Political malice, if you ask me. The UCI and the ASO (the organising body of the Tour de France) have been involved in a power struggle for some time now, with the UCI trying to enforce a closed circuit of races and cajole independent race organisers, such as the ASO, into allowing only UCI-approved ProTour teams into their events.

As usual, it's not just political power at stake, but money, too. There are huge sponsorship contracts and television broadcasting rights in the pool, so the bald-headed and grey-haired vultures in suits are circling.

None of this has anything to do with cycling whatsoever. The riders, the teams, the fans and the sport as a whole are all victims of this posturing and greed, thinly veiled behind the pretense of seeking to cleanse the sport of drugs. In reality, everyone is looking after his own interests.

Business as usual.

With all of the doping scandals of the last few months, my interest in the noble sport of cycling had reached an all-time low this year. I didn't bother to watch any classics this year and even the nearing of the Tour de France couldn't excite me.

But the Tour's the Tour and so I forced myself to watch the prologue. Of course, once I beheld the spectacle that is the greatest cycling race on earth, I was hooked again, as I am every year. I soon found myself regretting not having travelled to London for the prologue and opening stage, or at least Ghent a few days later. Lame.

The first week of the Tour was pretty dull, really. The prologue is always exciting, but after that, it was the usual array of flat stages ending in mass sprints. This year, however, they seemed even less eventful than usual, perhaps because the strategy is now so well directed from the team leader's car that the riders themselves scarcely seem incapable of making a decision. It all seems so directed and choreographed.

Happily, that changed somewhat in the Alps, when men like Rasmussen dared to go out on a limb and go for yellow. And then there was Juan Mauricio Soler's epic and totally surprising victory. This is the stuff great tours are made of.

Before you know it, though, the D-word is back. Patrik Sinkewitz of T-Mobile is found to have tested positive for an abnormally high level of testosterone during an out-of-competition check back in June. 'Abnormal' is putting it mildly, too, as his testosterone level made Floyd Landis's positive test from last year look like a glass of mineral water. In fact, the level was so high that you have to wonder whether this test was reliable, especially since testosterone doesn't do a cyclist that much good. It's pretty much only useful for recovering from heavy exertion, but this was a rider in training, not in competition. If he was using testosterone, what on earth was he thinking?

That's not the strangest thing, though. German cycling has had a particularly hard time of it over the last few months. Ullrich, Aldag, Zabel, etc. The press conferences had the air of a catholic confessional.

The yellow jersey of Linus Gerdeman a few days ago was therefore a timely blessing for the Germans. At 24 years old, he represents the much-vaunted and already tired concept of new cycling, a man with a clean slate, a man who could wash the German Radsport whiter than white.

And then Sinkewitz happens, another German and, as if that weren't bad enough, a T-Mobile teammate of Gerdeman. You have to feel sorry for Gerdeman, who suddenly finds himself having to justify the entire sport to hordes of sanctimonious German journalists.

But the strangest thing is the response of ARD and ZDF, the German public broadcasters.

As a surprised Sinkewitz was issuing denials from his hospital bed, where he's been since a bad fall a few days ago after finishing the day's stage, yesterday afternoon's Tageschau was announcing that ARD and ZDF have decided to immediately cease their coverage of the Tour de France.

The reason given is that cycling is currently not a credible sport. Therefore, the companies feel they are functioning purely as an advertising vehicle for the various teams. They further claim that to continue the coverage would be to further damage the credibility of the sport, presumably by further exposing the underbelly of the sport in the form of new scandals.

I find this reasoning absolutely bizarre. Yes, there are bad apples in the sport, but it's not the fault of the Tour de France, any more than it is the fault of the thousands of German fans or up-and-coming riders like Gerdeman. Don't these broadcasters have a responsibility to behave like journalists and to refrain from this kind of moral judgement? This doesn't seem like an impartial, unemotional decision to me.

On a related note, what will T-Mobile do? With so many disgraced riders having ridden for that team and having just received the benefit of the doubt for having purged the ranks of old cycling, how will they now react to the discovery that, no sooner is the ink dry on the new cycling charter, than one of the riders who signed it tests positive?

I wouldn't be surprised if T-Mobile now withdraws from the sport entirely. Who could blame them, especially in view of the fact that they now can't even get their shirt logo onto TV screens in their own country?

I don't approve of the decision made by ARD and ZDF. Cycling is a noble sport that is currently struggling to self-cleanse. It needs support and constant publicity to achieve that, not the summary rhetorical judgments of public broadcasters who do the riders and their fans a serious disservice.

If anything, the latest revelation proves that cycling is a credible sport, for it proves that the drug controls work. The irony is that, without controls, no-one would get caught and the German broadcasters would contentedly cover every stage of every race, ignorant to what was going on behind the scenes. And that, of course, is what happened throughout the nineties and in more recent years.

I'm happy that the NOS aren't debating whether or not to abandon the Tour. They have expressed their continued commitment to cover the world's most important bike race, in all of its glory and all of its, hopefully ever decreasing, seediness. After all, that's what journalists are paid to do and to cover a story, you need to be on the spot, reporting the news as it happens. That's not something you can do from a studio somewhere in Germany.