The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

---

’Amazing’ is too small a word to describe LeMond
Editor:
In 1986 Greg LeMond made all Americans feel like winners after beating one of the great all-time champions with a knife in his back, put there by his own team.

Back in the day they were skeptical about LeMond’s ability to hang in the tough Euro peleton. They said he liked ice cream and golf too much. But he showed us all that he was in a class by himself when he stole back the greatest Tour win of all time in 1989. Pure class, all the way. I admired him for that.

They said his comments about doping were "sour grapes" at only winning three Tours and two world championships. How crazy is that? He stood by what he said and I respected him for that.

What he did on Thursday was something that I can not even begin to understand. Revealing the awfulness that happened to him to the world must have been beyond pain. Not only did he end the cycle of molestation, he went beyond it and became a champion.

I thought his sporting life was amazing but now that word seems too little to describe it. Thank you Greg.

Bryin Sills
Hagerstown, Maryland

Pelletier shares LeMond’s disappointment with today’s sport
Editor:
Greg LeMond must be aghast at the legacy that now prevails in a sport he helped elevate in the U.S. Unlike today's multimillion-dollar super-teams, he came to this as his own man, just barely. He had no help to get to the top. He just went there and set the stage for others to follow. I can understand his disappointment at the clouds hanging over a sport he brought into the sunshine over 20 years ago.

Greg might upset the current mafia controlling the sport in the U.S., but what have they done to ensure that this in-crowd hanky-panky is banished for good? Probably not much. They blame Greg for being appalled. Which is why the sport is in the unmarketable circular file cabinet today. Nice work, geniuses.

I find the current atmosphere both onerous and disgusting. That riders are still foolish enough to follow this path is nothing short of insane.

No matter how this trial comes out, the damage has been done and done and done and done, over and over again. Get rid of the doctors, the trainers, the radios, the wind tunnels and get back to the basics. A coach and a masseuse. Start all over again there. The names of Conconi, Ferrari, Terrados, etc., and all the riders associated with them, should be struck from any association with the sport for breaking a sacred trust.

David Pelletier
Salem, Massachusetts

Sold: One LeMond Tête de Course
Editor:
Let's hear it for Greg LeMond! It's refreshing that some have the balls to stand up and do the right thing. I heard that Greg might be worried his bike sales may plummet due to him testifying. Don't worry, Greg, you just sold me a Tête de Course, as soon as my local bike shop can get one.

Jeff Kemble
West Lafayette, Indiana

Quit rewarding bad behavior and it will cease
Editor:
In a perfect world, everyone connected to professional cycling — for better or worse — would get what they deserve. In a better world, I will never have to read the names Landis, Basso, Scarponi, Ullrich, Geoghegan, Fuentes, or Hamilton in a magazine, sports page, or website ever again. (Heck, since I'm creating the perfect world here, I'd like to add Mike Tyson, Barry Bonds, Latrell Sprewell, Ron Artest, Terrell Owens, Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson and the entire roster of the Cincinnati Bengals to the list as well, just to be fair.) However, in yet a better world, none of us would actually care about what an athlete does, whether it is good, bad or indifferent. Athletes are paid because because companies want to sell products to consumers and because companies know that consumers want to buy products. What if the public stopped buying products from companies who sponsor athletes that are found cheating? What if the public stopped buying products from companies that pay their athletes astronomical salaries even though their behavior is criminal, dangerous or reprehensible? The answers are simple: the culture of sports would have to change. Sports, at their best, should display the rewards of human effort, sacrifice and dedication. Sports, at their worst, are a model of human greed, hubris, and selfishness.

Simply put, if we don't watch the races, if we don't go to the games, if we don't reward athletes whose behavior we wouldn't tolerate even if they were our own kin, then, well, athletes of this type wouldn't have a job for very much longer. And that would be something worth reading about.

Jeff Hienton
Colorado Springs, Colorado

The good news
Editor:
The relentlessness of the doping revelations is taking a toll on my psychic health. Are there any righteous dudes left in pro cycling? The only uncorrupted sport I’m currently witnessing is my 8-year-old daughter’s swim racing. She strenuously denies doping and swears under intense questioning that she doesn’t know Eufemiano Fuentes. Unlike Oscar Pereiro, however, she has agreed to provide a DNA sample, bless her heart.

Peter Hogan
Phoenix, Arizona

Lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas
Editor:
Reading O'Grady's rant reminded me of one of life's truisms: You can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps . . .

Shawn Fitzpatrick
San Antonio, Texas

Boy, no kidding. You ought to see the crowd O’Grady runs around with. A flea bit one of them once and got rabies. — Editor

And speaking of the rant
Editor:
Damn, but that guy has a way with words. He hit it right on the money with: "Professional cycling has become one extended dirty joke, with crime after crime, outrage upon outrage, obscenity piled atop obscenity; only the art is missing."

Did Floyd dope? I don't know, and even the hearing may not determine that decisively. But pro cycling is a mess, with too much finger-pointing at other parties, and too much denial of responsibility in one's own camp.

Still, Floyd deserves credit for making his fight public. Too much has been handled under the carpet.

Jon Paulos
Madison, Wisconsin

Another dufus heard from
Editor:
Just what cycling needs: another dufus chiming in on a yet-unproven doping charge. LeMond, Pound, McQuaid, O’Grady. Yep, fits right in.

Steve Moore
Alvin, Texas

O’Grady’s not much, but LeMond is
Editor:
I normally don't like Patrick O'Grady's column. But I totally agree with his assessment of who the real champion is. LeMond raced in an era when I didn't follow cycling. How refreshing it would be to have a champion like him today. But I guess we still do ... he's just not riding his bike.

Lyle McLachlan
Doha, Qatar

---

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.