04/25/24
July 26, 2007
Something to warm the heart of cycling fans: 24 hours after what may turn out to be the worst day in the Tour's history. One day ahead of the actual race, aided by his mum and fuelled by jam butties and Coca-Cola, Luke Bream from London is riding the route of the Tour de France. He has completed every stage so far despite getting no takers to join him on his quest.
"Oh no, Luke doesn't take drugs at the best of times, not even an aspirin if he has a headache. He does take some cod liver oil tablets, but apart from that he's doing this largely on Coca Cola and jam butties." Classic.
posted by JJ at 06:09 AM on July 26, 2007
Deadly story JJ. Maybe they could award him an honourary win when he finishes :)
posted by Fence at 08:14 AM on July 26, 2007
Nice link JJ. I quite liked the Tim Moore book, and at least he was open about the corner-cutting! His chapter on the location and story about the death of Tom Simpson was riveting, and something I hadn't known much about.
posted by owlhouse at 08:16 AM on July 26, 2007
Absolutely, owlhouse. The same bit inspired me to read more about Simpson. I also particularly enjoyed his description of finally getting his legs epilated!
posted by JJ at 08:32 AM on July 26, 2007
Thanks for this link, JJ. I needed it too. I was on the verge of crying for most of yesterday evening, feeling a light version of the "dumped-by-girlfriend" feeling.
posted by qbert72 at 09:02 AM on July 26, 2007
Why Legalizing Sports Doping Won't Work
posted by catfish at 12:12 PM on July 27, 2007
Thanks for the link, catfish. The reasoning in the article is very sound. I get the feeling there is no way to actually solve this problem. Whether doping is legal or not, money will always give you an edge: better drugs and/or more successfully hidden drugs.
posted by qbert72 at 12:38 PM on July 27, 2007
Thanks, catfish. I suppose, to use the language of that article, if you remove the draggers, the dragged can do what we want to see (i.e., race each other and see which of them is the best).
posted by JJ at 02:09 PM on July 27, 2007
Ok, but how do you remove the draggers?
posted by qbert72 at 02:41 PM on July 27, 2007
You don't have to legalize sports doping to prevent these kinds of scandal. You just make your testing regimen easier to beat with certain testing during certain pre-scheduled times. That enables a sport to both have a testing regimen so they look symbolically like they are trying to prevent doping, without blowing apart the whole sport to catch all those who might be doping. I definitely prefer that. If the NFL decided to catch all the dopers and my favorite players and favorite teams were being constantly penalized, it would take a lot of fun out of it for me. I know players dope in the NFL, but I don't know who or how many. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
posted by bperk at 02:56 PM on July 27, 2007
I for one was in dire need of something - anything - to make me not abandon this sport, and Luke Bream might just have provided it. The whole thing sounds like a slightly more dedicated effort than the one put in by Tim Moore for his book French Revolutions (an entertaining read, but he did do a fair amount of corner cutting). Having stripped it off Rasmussen, they should give the maillot jaune to this guy.