I saw the three Pyrenees stages in person last week. Highlights: atmosphere on the cols. Getting wine hand ups as we climb tourmalet, katusha guy on port de bales yelling “push me, push me” for last 2 km at least then whizzing by where I was standing 800 meters (of road) from top hanging off the canondale car, some american kid in the gruppetto yelling, “you took my bottle bitch,” at some other rider as they begin the tourmalet descent. Had no idea who won the stages. No idea about standings. It was hugely entertaining. Just don’t think of it as a sport.
Or MFS at select venues.
This is why the MFS coverage makes so much damn sense.
What’s with the dog thing, though?
Sounds like going to the Carnival. Just don’t think too hard about how they treat the animals and objectify / exploit those on the fringes of society. It is entertainment, after all.
Except they are people who made a decision who suffer because they want to.
Wish I would have known mfs was there. Might have found 'em.
Just like all the patriotic kids who joined the military after 9/11 to go fight Saddam for his role in the attacks and WMD? Or did so because it is still the only opportunity this country gives them to get out of poverty? Which results in a highly disproportionate number of kids below the poverty line going to the front lines to get blown up while the kids of those who sent them go off to university. While we cut public education and other government programs that might actually empower these poor kids to make better life decisions. Can’t do that, someone has to fight Bush’s bullshit war!
“Want to” is a pretty gross oversimplification, especially when you consider those who suffer long term consequences to the short term decisions they made in their youth. Or those who simply die and fade into obscurity. Like the many who died from EPO in the late 80s and early 90s while the enabling team doctors, directors, and soigners kept on collecting that meal ticket year after year. Not to mention the fame that the sponsors claim from the better moments so they can get us to buy their shit. And they still continue to die here and there without the same media coverage as Alberto Contador crashing in Le Tour because his bike might have disintegrated beneath him.
If you can just throw up your hands and dismiss these kids lack of opportunity, poor judgement, and being preyed and manipulated by those who enrich themselves at their detriment, it makes me wonder how aware you are of the real issues at hand, with your head purposefully placed in the sand.
In the meantime, I understand that it is “only entertainment” and most of us are just looking for an opportunity to forget the real world for a bit. But by blindly following it without making demands from the teams and sponsors we directly and indirectly support with our eyes and money, we enable this bullshit. I guess someone has to take a hit so we all can be awed by super human feats and laugh at the absurdity of it all. Someone’s gotta dance so I can forget my woes!
I’m not OK with that. Then again, there are many things in my life I’m not OK with that I have little or no power over to change. But I’m not about to promote ignorance in my life, or tell others to do so, because I can’t handle the truth. I love cycling, and athleticism in general, too much for it to continue being the shit show it has essentially always been. Which is a form of human exploitation.
Wow, that escalated quickly, and needlessly.
I don’t think the analogy holds, if for no other reason than scale of the two populations you speak of, and then likelihood of being killed serving in war vs on a bike team.
Something in the water over in the land of Bring 'em Young (marry 'em often)?
<3 ryan so don’t get all persnickety.
The pulp is starting to condense under its own weight of overproduction.
I could use the NFL for my analogy if you’d like. We focus on the stars, but for every star, there are tons of kids hurting themselves, and/or being manipulated by others, from little league through high school, through college, all the way to the NFL. Cycling is no different. When the doping culture pervades the highest levels of sport, it has a trickle on effect all the way down. For every star we hear about through pulp generated scandal, there are countless kids succumbing to peer pressure. Drugs, concussions, and all the consequences for the rest of their lives.
If you’d read Kimmage or Bassons, and understand what they went through, it paints a grimmer picture than you’re probably currently imagining. They had the benefit of a fall back position, which has allowed them a unique place in which to comment. The fact that their circumstances are the rare exception should speak volumes to anyone paying attention.
The system enables the creation of assholes with more power than God, figuratively speaking. Who we celebrate and excuse because we like to think they’re really just like us and not all that bad. In reality, if they have any super human ability, it is the ruthless pursuit of winning at all costs.
I think our general ability to give a fuck is due to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
With 7 billion people on the planet and growing, if we’re unable to find ways to get a sizable number of our species to understand and make compensations for that inherent aspect of our animal nature, we’re as doomed as the Western Antarctic ice sheet. If we’re unable to care about the injustice within a relatively inconsequential aspect of human existence, that we’re all fairly passionate about, what does that say for those issues we are not passionate about but have much larger consequences for us all?
Fuggit, I guess. Go drink your Michelob Ultra.
Well that is much better analogy.
To be fair, the joining the military to fight in an unjust war analogy is mostly in response to the “want to” reasoning. I’m really not a big fan of that kind of reasoning. There are many things I’ve wanted to do but did not have the maturity, full information, lack of undue peer pressure, and the lack of powerful manipulative desires of others to make a rational decision.
Saying someone chose to do something so they should live with the consequences without my need to feel the least bit compassionate is bullshit, imo.
Nah you’re not convincing me. They’re racing bikes in first world countries not digging up rare minerals in some African mine. Not going to feel as bad for them as people who are actually poor. Don’t insult my intelligence brah. I can almost guarantee I do less harm than you if you want to play that game.
Edit: and it was disingenuous of you to turn me saying I don’t care about the racing as competition to saying that I don’t care if professional sports (among dozens of other institutions) exploits youthful naivete. Your ranting reminds me a bit of that scene at the end of american psycho where Bateman freaks out about third world poverty at an expensive restaurant after having murdered a dozen people. Anyone can talk the talk.
Still not getting it. This isn’t a competition. Exploitation is exploitation in the third world or the first. Being in a relatively more privileged position has nothing to do with it. That’s like saying who cares if we have an epidemic of deaths by cars and guns in this country, there are wars going on overseas and children starving in Africa. Seems like you’re focusing on a narrow aspect of my analogies and missing my point.
This isn’t a whose dick is bigger argument. If you read and understand Dunbar’s number, it is our nature to dismiss things because of our inherent cognitive limitations as a social species. In reality, it all matters. Not an either/or. Both/And. It is the same exploitative mindset that makes injustice possible in the third world as the first. And sometimes by the same people. And with the continued globalization of professional sport, it will only get worse.
If we think the relatively cleaner days we’re supposedly seeing right now, just in cycling, will last, especially without fans outraged and calling for major changes, it will only come back. The same assholes are essentially still in control and looking for the next big thing. It’s not like powerful pharmaceuticals that could potentially enhance performance stopped with the invention of EPO. Or the ability to evade detection ended with the EPO test and the bio passport. And those newer drugs, with their unknown short and long term consequences, will find their way into the hands of more than just the shining examples that make it onto our TV in July. They will be pushed, used, and abused the world over. From kids to raging one nut assholes.
But who cares, I wanna see a dude blast up a mountainside like a rocket ship!
[quote=lukasz]Nah you’re not convincing me. They’re racing bikes in first world countries not digging up rare minerals in some African mine. Not going to feel as bad for them as people who are actually poor. Don’t insult my intelligence brah. I can almost guarantee I do less harm than you if you want to play that game.
Edit: and it was disingenuous of you to turn me saying I don’t care about the racing as competition to saying that I don’t care if professional sports (among dozens of other institutions) exploits youthful naivete. Your ranting reminds me a bit of that scene at the end of american psycho where Bateman freaks out about third world poverty at an expensive restaurant after having murdered a dozen people. Anyone can talk the talk.[/quote]
It is possible that I’ve misconstrued the meaning of your words. If so, I really do apologize. But what we pay for to entertain ourselves, along with other aspects of our modern life, is a subject I’m fairly passionate about. Overwhelmingly so in relation to other Tarckers, so it’s too easy to let my voice get carried away, it seems.
Again, sorry if I’ve taken you out of context.
unsubscribe
Dunbar doesn’t really factor into this as much you think it does. There are plenty of things that we can care about that fall beyond the people we know and hold close. We have different priorities, care about different things to different degrees, and are susceptible to different appeals. Perhaps these analogies work for you, but I can see why they don’t for many others.
It applies in that as a species, we’ve replaced the social favor that comes from grooming with the use of language. Through the things we speak about and relate to each other, we create our interests, passions, and those things that become priorities over others. Which in turn affects how susceptible we are to different appeals. We are still a very tribalistic bunch.
If any of us had spent our life, possibly wasted, in pursuit of an impossible dream like raising ourselves out of poverty to be a star on the world stage, and gone through what many do, almost always foolishly to get there, we may have a different sense of importance regarding this issue. Especially if we came from a backgound that offered very little other opportunity. And affect our ability to suspend disbelief in the face of a sham.
Mine has come through probably reading way too much about the history of this sport and many others.
tldr
fuck me, you’re an anteater?
as someone who played football and also raced bikes
the nfl analogy is terrible. please stop using it.
Anyone have a gif of the lead group skidding under the truck?