Santiago de Cuba

The Doping Dilemma

The Doping Dilemma - Game theory helps to explain the pervasive abuse of drugs in cycling, baseball and other sports

By Michael Shermer

"For a competitive cyclist, there is nothing more physically crushing and psychologically demoralizing than getting dropped by your competitors on a climb. With searing lungs and burning legs, your body hunches over the handlebars as you struggle to stay with the leader. You know all too well that once you come off the back of the pack the drive to push harder is gone—and with it any hope for victory.

I know the feeling because it happened to me in 1985 on the long climb out of Albuquerque during the 3,000-mile, nonstop transcontinental Race Across America. On the outskirts of town I had caught up with the second-place rider (and eventual winner), Jonathan Boyer, a svelte road racer who was the first American to compete in the Tour de France. About halfway up the leg-breaking climb, that familiar wave of crushing fatigue swept through my legs as I gulped for oxygen in my struggle to hang on..."

Yum Yum and Cuba Hills

Dinner in Hong Kong, circa 2005

Cuba Hills (copyright Chris Milliman), also 2005

Good Morning

Sun Rising in Santa Clara, Villa Clara, Cuba - 2005

Open for Comments

After locking up this blog out of boredom with the unending stream of pinhead hate mail and unimaginative comments originating from my biggest fans, I've decided to reopen for business. I actually stumbled upon a cache of CD's that I thought I'd lost, which contain digital images from my travels - and guess what? I'm going to post a pic or two or three each day until I get bored of the inevitable comments.

So here are the first pictures...

Aaron Olson and me in Cuba in 2005

Driving the Bus (literally) in Cuba in 2004

No words needed...

Send your letters to the usual address.

Hate Mail

I had the pleasure of receiving this comment through www.joepapp.com from good ol' Cale McAninch:

"Name: Cale McAninch
Email: calemac@yahoo.com
Phone: 417-860-8785

Message body: Dope kills sport! Once a doper always a doper...

Cale McAninch
Springfield, MO"

I responded to Cale, and he sent me a few more gems, including:

"Mental note...never use Blue Archer or any of their associates if you are the kind of individual they would employ...a liar and a cheat..."

and

"Tell that to the poor clean (as in not a doper) son of a bitch that needed one good result to get a ride for the next season but was upstaged by a doper like YOU and now is out of a job. Some decisions you have to live with the rest of your life..."

Hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I realize that there are countless and innumerable haters out there (including quite a few here in Pittsburgh in my old club, the Allegheny Cycling Association), but at the end of the day what is the value in sending me hate mail or talking shit on me to my friends?

It doesn't register on my radar save as a curiosity, and most of the commentators are anonymous or people I haven't seen in five years or more. I'm flattered that I so impacted some people's lives that they feel compelled to remind me of my sins 19 months after the fact, but...keep it in perspective for your own sanity.