New Website ONLINE NOW

While we have enjoyed our time with Blogger, this version of Pappillon seems to be going the way of our WordPress site, and will be integrated into a completely new www.joepapp.com. The bugs are still being worked out of the new site's content, which is incomplete at present, but check there for new blog posts before you click back here. Time will tell to what degree the integrated-blog serves the needs of you, the readers. Stay tuned - but not here.

Blazin' Saddles: The real McCoy? - The LOST Paragraphs

"What was he, a Master of the Universe, doing down here on the floor, reduced to ransacking his brain for white lies to circumvent the sweet logic of his wife?"

Such is the predicament of millionaire bond trader Sherman McCoy, a self-styled Master of the Universe, in the opening chapter of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, a satire on the decaying class, racial and political structure of New York in the 1980s.

In the light of recent developments, you could seemingly replace Alberto Contador for the adulterous McCoy, the doping laboratories and baying media for his wife, while the thing that's decaying is the core of professional cycling and its organisational bodies. As for the white lies, well, they remain white lies - if you believe all the rumours.

Cycling has been riddled with mendacity in recent years. In any walks of life, those in the wrong more often than not don't actually believe they are doing anything bad in the first place. Certainly not in relation to their immediate surroundings. Take Sherman McCoy, for instance. As a Master of the Universe, he is entitled to do as he pleases – especially given the temptations around him.

"Technically, he had been unfaithful to his wife. Well, sure … but who could remain monogamous with this, this, this tidal wave of concupiscence rolling across the world? Christ almighty! A Master of the Universe couldn't be a saint, after all … It was unavoidable. For Christ's sake, you can't dodge snowflakes, and this was a blizzard! He had merely been caught at it, that was all. It meant nothing. It had no moral dimension."

Most would agree that there has been over the years a tidal wave of transgression rolling across a peloton lacking a certain moral dimension. Doping is unavoidable, many say. What's more, it's not a sin as long as you don't get caught.

The minds of many top cyclists snared for their indiscretions appear to mirror that of Wolfe's banker, who sees himself incorrigible, on a different level both ethically (his extra-marital affair) and legally (he mows down and leaves a young boy for dead in the Bronx).

The Contador "situation" means all of the winners of the previous 15 Tours de France – with the exception of Carlos Sastre – have now been associated with (or accused of) doping, have admitted doping or, in one case, have been stripped of their title for doping.

It gets worse. Only this week, convicted doper Bernhard Kohl told an anti-doping symposium in Colorado that it was "impossible to win the Tour de France without doping". The best riders, he inferred, cannot be saints.

It gets even worse: former rider Roy Sentjens, who retired this year after testing positive for EPO, said it was not even possible to reach the Tour top ten without doping (quite how one of his former Lotto team-mates - a staunch anti-doper who finished runner-up on two occasions while the Dutchman was on his squad - feels about this is anyone's guess).

It gets worse still: this week, a 78-year-old Italian anti-doping prosecutor claimed that all professional riders - with no exception - take banned substances.

Such a generalisation is as dangerous as it is patently incorrect (much like the notion that all bankers are b------s) and yet the sad thing is that it may not be as far from the truth as we previously thought.

But let's forget the final outlandish statement and accept, hypothetically, that the first two assertions are true (Saddles isn't going to question the credibility of Kohl and Sentjens in this blog because he'll be here till the Basque cows come home for their daily dose of clenbuterol).

Say they're true, that you can't win or even make the top ten without doping, and you can begin to comprehend why someone like Floyd Landis was so determined to clear his name back in 2006 - or why, for that matter, Contador feels so aggrieved now.

Sure, Landis knew he had doped, but he may have had good reason to believe that those standing either side of him on the podium had done the same. He was clearly adamant (or at least, says he was) that a certain former team-mate had won seven consecutive races using similar preparations.

Landis, like the fictional McCoy and the real-life top bankers who brought the world's financial institutions to a halt with their arrogance and misplaced aura of invincibility, believed himself to be a Master of the Universe. And Masters of the Universe can't be saints.

Sticking to the world of banking, take the example of French rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, who on Tuesday was given a three-year jail term and ordered to pay back the 4.9 billion euros he lost his bank Societe Generale.

Kerviel was no Master of the Universe - he was a mere domestique of the banking world in comparison to Grand Tour contender McCoy; more of a Sentjens than a Landis, if you will.

The trader's lawyer said his client would appeal the "totally unreasonable and unbelievable" judgement. "Kerviel is disgusted," he said, stressing that the court had judged that the bank "was responsible for nothing, not responsible for the creature that it had created."

This is a similar defence made by convicted dopers: they are not to blame, but cycling and its inherent doping culture is. "I have the feeling Jerome Kerviel is paying for an entire system," the lawyer added - something the lawyers of Landis, Ricco, Kohl, any convicted doper could all say.

For once they're caught, dopers are hung out to dry like a piece of beef biltong. And in the cycling food chain, the knives can turn on anyone - even the most cocksure of predators, the Masters of the Universe themselves.

The question we now have to ask is whether Contador is a real McCoy – or if he is a bona fide victim of the freak contamination he claims to be.

Let's look at the evidence. Last week Saddles suggested that Contador's tainted meat excuse was so unfeasible it must have been true; this week, BS would say it seems simply unfeasible.

Many readers gave Saddles beef for overlooking the then latest development in the case - namely that Contador has received a blood transfusion which left plasticizers in his blood as well as clenbuterol - but the blog was written before that angle had been broken in the German press.

At the time, Saddles believed he was in the right in stressing the episode contained more hot air than a cattle farm - but given how things have panned out, BS admits he was perhaps too hasty in coming to Bertie's defence.

While it's natural to presume everyone innocent until proven guilty this whole affair has proved that in cycling the opposite rules must apply: everyone is guilty until proven innocent. And that is a sorry predicament. [What follow are the lost paragraphs.]

The contaminated meat line is now beginning to look almost as much of a chimera as the guff about Tyler Hamilton's unborn twin. The Astana chef's initial line that the beef came from Pau is contradicted by Contador's claim that it was brought for him across the border in Irun by the organiser of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon (a race the Spaniard has won on three of the previous four occasions).

That doesn't even answer the question as to why Contador was eating beef on the rest day in the first place (a practice not usually done in big races). Presumably, the next line will be that the meat was wrapped in cling film made from the same type of plastics found in blood bags. Or that it was accompanied by a plate of boil-in-the-bag rice.

Put simply, today's youth would dismiss the beef excuse is one big epic fail. Saddles wouldn't go so far, but he might suggest that it was a slight red herring.

Contador has known since 24 August that he failed this doping test - and this is the best he can come up with. In the six weeks that passed before the story broke, why had he not traced down where the beef came from, whereby sorting out his defence? And if, as Contador stated, the UCI had assured him it was a case of food contamination - why had the cycling body not further investigated the matter?

The answer, perhaps, is that the story wasn't meant to break. Contador may have been told he should keep quiet about the whole thing - probably to save the flagging reputation of the sport. When the story was reported, both he and the UCI were perhaps caught unawares and with their pants down. Now that would be a decaying structure.

Since being caught in the headlights, Contador has been both contrite (crying into the cameras) and bullish (denying any wrongdoing with all the arrogance of a Master of the Universe).

Pulling the strings, the rider has said he will say no more about the case and has even threatened retirement if a positive resolution is not made within 10 days.

His ex directeur sportif has issued a staunch statement of defence - something he tellingly failed to do when his own rider, Fuyu Li, blamed contaminated meat for a positive test for clenbuterol six months ago.

Contador's principle rival over the French roads in July also came to his sudden defence on Twitter, stressing how he was shocked about the "crazy" news and how he hoped Contador was innocent and would be given the right to defend himself.

Sadly, Blazin' Saddles has it on very good authority - from blood doping specialists with inside information on the biological passports of cycling's top riders who echo the sentiments of Kohl and Sentjens - that the Contador conundrum could well be just the tip of the iceberg.

But given that so much was seemingly done (for whatever reason) to keep the Spaniard's positive under wraps, it's unlikely we'll ever see what is lurking under the surface.

Just pause and think, though. What development would be the worst case scenario for the UCI, the Tour, cycling in general should Alberto Contador be stripped of his title and the yellow jersey awarded to the runner-up who matched his every move but for a slip of a chain?

Towards the end of the Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe's narrator asks: "Who but an arrogant fool would want to be a Master of the Universe - and take the insane chances he had been taking? […] The Master of the Universe was cheap, and he was rotten, and he was a liar."

Let's just hope these similarities with Wolfe's work are all just a coincidence.

Ever since he was bullied by his brothers into watching the Tour de France as an eight-year-old, Blazin' Saddles has been a cycling fanatic. As persistent as Voigt, as fast as Abdoujaparov, as voracious as Ullrich and as accurate as a Festina watch, Blazin' Saddles offers a lighter take on the oft-grave world of professional cycling. The self-styled best cycling-blog pedlar in the business, BS refutes sullied claims of doping levelled by his rivals: these nuggets are powered on Gerolsteiner fizzy water alone. Just ask BS's friend Bernhard Kohl for a reference. An edited version of this post originally appeared at Yahoo! Eurosport.

New Blog to Follow and Something New in the Works Here

Dear Readers, the Pappillon cupboard has been bare of late, owing in large part to the demands of real-life (it's a time consuming process, atoning for participating in a systemic doping program...) and the drain on resources due to a comprehensive redesign of www.joepapp.com. Yes! You heard that right! We'll be moving the Pappillon blog off of the Blogger.com hosting platform and integrating it into a new JoePapp.com website, and are terrifically excited about the chance to recontextualize these musings and centralize their location on the web.

The site redesign is nearly complete, but until it is updates here will be limited. But not to fear - Twitter is proving very useful for maintaining contact with all of you, and to a lesser-degree there remains the option of connecting via FaceBook. But if you're starved for good eatin' and quality cycling-related musing, check out the new Antipodean blog The Cyclingmuse, which is helping everyone Dig a Little Deeper! Their latest post, "Scuttlebutt," is excerpted below:

"Greetings cycling fans, with another blockbuster Giro behind us (one day everyone will wake up to the fact that it has always been more exciting than its bigger Gallic cousin) and as the days get shorter and colder (in my part of the world at least), it only serves to remind me that the Tour de France is just around the corner.

Not to long ago this was a time of joyful expectation, waiting for the evening highlights of a race which was the only cycling event which existed according to mainstream media. Alas things have changed since then and the sport is easily accessible to anyone who might be curious. Well it’s still a time of expectation for me but for different reasons. You see over the years as interest in the sport has slowly increased I have noticed a pattern. I’m waiting, waiting for the next doping scandal to break.

Of course we have already had Floyd Landis finally coming clean (after years of denial) about his doping experiences and consequently slinging mud in every direction to see where it might stick. When the story came out during the Tour of California I started to think why didn’t he wait till before the TDF? Of course soon after the Landis mud slinging Lance Armstrong had a nasty fall and had to abandon the race. According to some conspiracy theorists this was a clever ploy to avoid the media and there was even the suggestion of fake blood capsules being used by LA to feign the bloody facial injuries he received as a result of the crash! Well done to Floyd for finally coming clean, it would have taken a whole lot of guts. I just wish he had have done that from the start, he may have still had a career as a top cyclist if he did..."

Killing the Bicycle Buddha

"Tony Kornheiser is an idiot. And that’s fine, because Tony Kornheiser is paid to be an idiot: He’s a sportswiter and commentator for ESPN, and it’s his business to entertain. I spent many years in radio, so I know entertainment sometimes means provoking people. Kornheiser is pretty good at that. Now and then, he goes too far. These episodes usually culminate in an apology, a slap on the wrist from management, and robust ratings.

I’m really not here to drag Kornheiser through the mud. Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has already taken care of business. He called out the ESPN host, extracting a rather comprehensive mea culpa for a rant last week in which Korneiser went off on cyclists and suggested motorists “run them down.” As a fulltime commuter cyclist — I haven’t driven a car since last June, and rely upon bicycles for transportation — I found Kornheiser’s comments to be repugnant.

Here in the United States, bicyclists and motorists are still learning how to share the road. It’s an awkward and sometimes tense state of affairs. The last thing we need is a broadcaster giving some unstable motorist justification for aggressive behavior when they pass a bike during rush hour..."

What we can learn from a blowhard

But I also found Korneiser’s rant instructive, because it gives us some insight into the unreasonable motorist rage we cyclists sometimes encounter on the road. Washcycle, a DC-based bicycle advocacy group, has prepared a rough transcript of Kornheiser’s remarks. Here are his basic complaints:

* Cars are losing lanes to cyclists in congested areas
* Bicycles have no legitimate place on the road
* Cyclists ride “three or four abreast”
* Cyclists look stupid in their bike clothing
* Cyclists are poseurs
* Cyclists deliberately impede traffic
* Cyclists are deliberately rude to motorists"

Read more of "Killing the Bicycle Buddha," by Chris Baskind,  here.

The Ugly Side of Sports

A well-respected member of the anti-doping community shared his thoughts on a recent blog post (penned not by him, but rather, by some sociopath writing under a pseudonym) in which the author seemed to suggest that I merited torture and sexual abuse (in the form of a most foul and disgusting nonconsensual  act - so foul I won't repeat it here. I also won't post the URL of the site, so as not to encourage traffic to it.). He called it, "The Ugly Side of Sports."

The Ugly Side of Sports

Cyclist Joe Papp, who recently plead guilty of conspiracy to distribute performance enhancing drugs, has drawn criticism and support for his actions. This blog, however, goes beyond the bounds of civility in a blatant attempt to insight violence against Papp. It’s one of those items where you issue a warning to the reader that what you’re about to read will be offensive.

Flemish for Poser

We're all chuffed over here at Pappillon for the resurgent media interest, and the attention of our fellow bloggers - especially when it takes the form seen below, in a screen shot from "Flemish for Poser", the Blog-Formerly-Known-As Doucheblog Cycling.

Burt writes: "As much as I hate to admit it, NY Velocity and DrunkCyclist are the cycling related websites I check out most frequently. Also, you can say what you want about [Joe] Papp, but his blog has become one of the more decent spots for thoughtful cycling related commentary on the old intranets these days. Of course, there are always comments like "Joe, you're such a dickface...bla bla bla." Haters never end, I guess. Just to be fair, I let him scoop me on the header."

Thanks, Burt! Or should we say "Jesus Cristo"? Either way, "Flemish for Poser" was cool enough to let us scoop the headline banner before it went live, which we did in a post here.

Trojan Man!

I finally got a Trojan condom ad on my blog. Thank you, Google!

FBI Trained Hal Turner As An "Agent Provocateur"

HARTFORD — - Internet blogger Harold "Hal" Turner's attorney said today that Turner's background as an FBI informant will be a key part of his defense to charges that he incited violence against two state legislators and a state ethics official.

Superior Court Judge David P. Gold on Tuesday authorized Michael A. Orozco, a New Jersey attorney, to represent Turner. Turner did not appear again in court Tuesday because he remains in federal custody without bail in Chicago, where he is accused of threatening three federal judges.

In asking Gold to allow Orozco to represent Turner, Turner's Connecticut lawyer, Matthew R. Potter, said Orozco has a long-term legal relationship with Turner, plans to bring a complicated First Amendment defense and is familiar with Turner's background as an FBI informant.

That role as an informant for the FBI is a key part of the defense, Orozco said outside court.

Orozco said Turner was trained by the FBI as "an agent provocateur."

"Mr. Turner was trained by the FBI," Orozco said. "He was told where the line was — what he could say."

In his comments on his blog that brought the state and federal charges, Turner did not cross that line, Orozco said.

Orozco said Turner worked for the FBI from roughly 2002 to 2007.

"His job was basically to publish information which would cause other parties to act in a manner that would cause their arrest," Orozco said.

The comments for which he is charged came after he left the service of the FBI, Orozco said.

Turner stopped working for the FBI on his own, Orozco said. He declined to say who the targets of his comments were.

"If you compare anything he said when he was operating, there's no difference" to what he posted on his blog that led to the criminal charges, Orozco said.

He is scheduled to go to trial on the federal charges on Oct. 5. His next court date in Hartford is set for October 19.

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant

The Lance-haters: They are nihilists.

Not only do they have one of the most-pleasurable-to-browse cycling e-commerce sites out there, but Competitive Cyclist absolutely shreds with a pen in their blog:

"...I think it's really and truly a jihad. It's a terror exactly like the one our country is at war against, where the ideology of the "oppressed" can find no satisfaction in this life. The Lance-haters: They are nihilists. What is their purpose of their anger? What endgame, exactly, do they want to see? I have some bad news for them: Everyone who raced the Tour de France in 1999 was on EPO. Do you not understand that? Why the outrage at a fact that no one disputes?

Tell me this: What is Lance's path to penance? Clearly confession isn't the answer. If it were, Jonathan Vaughters wouldn't still be tap-dancing around the issue of his own doping. And if confession reliably earned Christ-on-a-cross-like redemption, Joe Papp and Patrick Sinkewitz could plot their racing comebacks. But, no, a rational path to cleansing doesn't exist for the haters. It's because they're not rational. It's because they're suckers. They're suckers for the would-be eloquence and fashion sense of the preening David Millar. They're suckers for the cuddliness of family man Erik Zabel. The haters think they're la Résistance, but in fact no one has proven more susceptible to the modern-day crafting of character -- where public figures aren't appraised by their deeds, but rather are judged by the packaging job concocted by high-dollar PR firms with their expert media manipulation. Like the fat fuck idiots who run me off the road when I train who honest-to-God believe in "Must See TV": The haters run like rats to their media addictions: The New York Times, Paul Kimmage, "honest" interviews with the spokesmodels of Team Garm*n. Here's what the Tour of California taught me: Lance has no path to penance. Why? It's because there's something the haters hate even more than him: That the world doesn't share their self-righteous outrage. Their capricious use of forgiveness proves that there's no true north for their moral compass.

- Speaking of Paul Kimmage, he of the starry-eyed Team Garm*n worship, let's not forget the fact that in his cri de coeur "A Rough Ride" he makes it clear that he experimented with doping during his own pro days. There's no shame in that. As his book makes clear, life is complicated. It's interesting, then, that he's so eager to play character-assassin to Lance. Stones, glass houses, etc. Why, Paul, why? I have a theory: It's guilt that motivates Paul Kimmage in his splenetic, very public hatred of Lance. He can't stomach the experience of his own personal doping experimentation. It's as though confessing it in his book wasn't enough, and forgiveness can only come through more punishment. Punishment of himself? No way. It's punishment of others who might be guilty of the same.

I can already hear the ripostes of the haters. There's a world of difference, they'll say, between Kimmage's youthful doping dalliance and Lance's methods. I'm sorry, but nary a shred of proof exists of that. In lieu of facts, the haters will compensate with the Great Wall of Vitriol. In the place of due process, they prefer the ease of trial-by-media. I agree that there's a "world of difference" here: It's a talent level that differentiates Paul and Lance. As bike racers. And as effective communicators..."

"...Lance-haters, I appreciate meaningful dialogue. With this in the forefront of my mind, I yield the floor to you, my esteemed colleagues whose second-most prized asset is their David Millar-autographed copies of Rouleur #8 (featuring a glossy full page photo of a freshly-scrubbed, looking-thoughtful DM head-to-toe in Paul Smith at the foot of the Eiffel Bridge in Girona.) Please help me understand: (1) Why the selective forgiveness? I have a soft spot for Kazakh riders. What will it take for you to embrace the no-less-guilty-than-Millar Vinokourov and Kasheckin? And Papp and Sinkewitz? (2) What will cause you to lower your moral crosshairs from Lance? Let's get into the realm of the purely theoretical: If he surrendered his '99 maillot jaune who is the innocent that we'll hand it down to? Jesus, look at that top-15. It reads like death row! How about a Festina rider? A Casino rider? A Mercatone Uno rider? Look at all 141 finishers -- not unlike life, who there is without sin? Let me narrow the questions to this: What is Lance's way to penance? Or would you prefer not to get into that, since forgiveness to Lance would deprive you of your most prized asset, the thing that finally gives you a sense of purpose in life: Your white-hot hatred of Lance."

Full, delicious entry here.

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Thanks, reviewofcuban-americanblogs

Thanks to MaT for writing about what he describes as my "Cuban Odyssey" at his brilliant blog, "Review of Cuban-American Blogs". Definitely check it out.