Friday’s Mailbag: DH, doping and a sweet training plan for the holidays

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

I’m personally not fond of being able to smoke and drink at the top of a downhill run and still having no problem making it to the bottom. But there are many very fit downhillers who ride other disciplines and could kick ass on many cross-country riders and roadies. Which leads me to the question, “Why do so many cyclists, try to categorize themselves, and then look down on everybody else?”

I laugh at the mountain bikers who call roadies pansies. I can speak from experience that riding in a crit with 90 other guys on asphalt, going 30 mph in the corners, is pretty scary. On the flip side, I know roadies who scoff at mountain bikers because they don’t ride skinny tires. Hey, cyclists, we are all weird. Most of the general population clumps us all together, yet we have this strange desire to discriminate among ourselves. Give it a rest. If you ride a road bike, mountain bike, downhill bike or a ’cross bike, you are all part of the same group.

Secondly, I never want to hear how mountain biking ruins the forest or the desert. Last year a jackass hunter got lost in the mountains just east of San Diego. He panicked and started a fire so he would get rescued. Two weeks later, 10 human lives and 2200 homes were lost. Not to mention the devastation to wildlife, forests and – you guessed it – mountain-biking trails. It will be decades, maybe a half-century, until these areas look the same.

Has anyone ridden a trail that has not been used in six months? Throw in the runoff from rain and the trails are usually not even walkable. The Forest Service should pay mountain bikers to use the trails. It flattens them out, and usual knocks all the rocks off the trail for the oh-so-friendly hikers. I have no idea why hikers seem to think they own the forest. I say hi to them all the time, and many times they don’t even look up from the trail.

Cyclists, stop bagging on each other and enjoy the ride, whether it’s up or down.

D. Jackson
San Diego, California

Look to the Great White North for a solution
Editor:
The closure of Big Bear is will not solve any problems. Trail-building and abuse will not stop; it will simply go elsewhere, legal or not. Sure, there will be a few who decide to hang up or sell their bikes because it becomes too inconvenient or they just don’t want to break the law. If you had just maxed out three credit cards on a $4500 downhill bike, would you stop riding it because one resort closes down? No, you would adapt and get creative. You might get in trouble with a property owner or you might not. You might cause some environmental damage or you might offend a hiker with excessive speed. In the end, you will want to keep riding.

The debate about freeriding, trail-building, etc., as sparked by the closure at Big Bear has become quite the hot topic here in Utah. Let us not forget the other “extreme sports” like surfing and gravity have waxed and waned under this kind of pressure. They are still around but only the diehards remain.

The solution may lie with our friends in Canada. Properly built, well-maintained, sanctioned trails (and stunts) have attracted hundreds if not thousands of riders to places like Whistler, British Columbia. Somehow they got an okay from their insurance company to build those stunts. What’s stopping us from doing that in the U.S.? Let’s find out and pull out the stops. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can put this pesky problem behind us and get back to riding our bikes.

Aaron Moulton (freerider, XC rider, roadie)
Lehi, Utah

We wouldn’t have to learn French, would we? We have enough trouble with English. -Editor

Would VN readers miss DH if it went away altogether?
Editor:
I have nothing against downhillers or freeriders, I’m sure they love to ride their bikes as much as I love to ride mine. But I’m curious how many VeloNews readers will actually miss this stuff. I’d find it hard to believe that many from the DH set actually read VeloNews. It may be a little too far down the lycra-clad, shaved-leg road for most of these folks.

All I know is when I’m thumbing through VeloNews (print or web) I go right past the DH stuff without a glance. I can imagine the DH’ers do the same with the Euro road stuff.

Maybe you should do one of your web polls to see how many out there really care if they ever see another DH bike again.

Charles O. Jones
Orange County, California

We think you just started a poll of your own, Charles. We can feel the Mailbag swelling like a pan of Jiffy Pop in a hot oven. – Editor

Why penalize businesses for employees’ misbehavior?
Editor:
I totally agree with Rob Kelley’s e-mail (See Wednesday’s Mailbag: “Teams still protected against doping’s costs”). I also suggest that the Dolphins be excluded from playing any NFL games in 2006, the Yankees be told that they are going to have to skip a year and the U.S. track and field team be suspended from all of next year’s major events.

Why? Well, they all have (had) dopeheads on their teams.

Seriously, Rob, today most sports teams are businesses, and in any business some employee can turn out to be a bad apple. If the pro cycling teams didn’t have policies in place to try to avoid these issues – or deal with them when they occur – I could agree with you. But shutting down a business based on a few riders’ mistakes (or ambitions) is too harsh, unless there is some proof that the team ownership/management is involved.

If you want to go down that route, I suggest you start with the general sports environment in the U.S. before pointing fingers at European cycling. At least they do test athletes in Europe.

Niels Andersen
Spanish Fort, Alabama

Training advice for the holidays
Editor:
Over the holidays I learn to unwrap a candy kiss with deadly efficiency.

Chris Thornton
Surry, New Hampshire

We like that workout, too, Chris, but we add a cross-training component: shopping for a larger pair of pants. — Editor

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