The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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Biting the hand that feeds you
Editor:
I seldom feel compelled to write letters to the editor any more. I guess over the years I’ve become a little jaded by all of the cynicism and sanctimonious posturing among my brother roadies, but I have finally reached the point where I feel like I must say something in defense of the sport I love.

You guys may think you are doing some sort of public service by attacking doping in the sport, by sitting as judge and jury over Lance Armstrong (and Tyler Hamilton and all the others), but you may actually be doing immeasurable harm to the sport itself.

If you look at the history of cycling in America, you can’t help but notice that for most of the last 75 years, cycling as a sport did not even exist in the mainstream consciousness. Then along came Greg LeMond, an American who could win. I was lucky enough to be participating in our virtually unknown sport at the time and I saw the number of people showing up for bike races explode when he began to get coverage, positive coverage, in the mainstream press. Then he began to lose and that same press began to attack him as fat or lazy. Soon afterward, many of the newbies and most of the major races began to fade away. Cycling once again returned to the dark recesses of the collective sports consciousness.

A few of the newbies stayed, however, and were groomed for the next big peak in cycling popularity, the Olympic cycling program. I remember with joy all of the talk of the "super bikes" and America’s technological superiority. For me, the issue wasn’t national pride; it just meant that soon there would be more people getting involved in cycling again. Unfortunately, that phase came and went without much lasting impact — except for the emergence of the next great American hero. Lance.

Lance Armstrong has done more for road cycling in America than any single person or group of people in cycling history. All of the cycling articles in all of your issues put together have not affected the sport as much as this one man, particularly among previously non-cyclists. And most of those people want to believe in their hero. Tearing him down and tainting his enormous reputation will probably do little good.

Those who are thinking of doping to win are usually those at or near the top of the sport, not the vast majority of Cat. 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s in America. And those who are inclined to break the rules will probably just try to find a way to do it anyway. No, the major impact it seems to be having from my limited perspective is to disillusion the general public and to push cycling back into the dark ages again. I coach cyclists, and many of the aspiring road racers I talk to are already talking about switching to triathlons or just giving up the sport altogether because they don’t want to be associated with a "tainted" sport. It sometimes sounds like they are talking about professional wrestling.

You may feel like you are helping, and I’m sure that fueling the controversy is good for magazine circulation numbers in the short term, but in the long run I’m afraid that you are just biting the hand that feeds you.

Dan Thomas
Raleigh, North Carolina

Meirhaeghe deserves second chance, but not a third
Editor:
Filip Meirhaeghe has just signed a three-year contract with the Landbouwkrediet-Colnago team. He is focusing on the 2008 Olympics, and will be racing both road and mountain bikes.

I’m glad he’s getting a second chance to finish his career on good terms. He’s a cyclist that provokes passion in Belgium and in the world, and has done a lot in mountain biking. I suppose he’s learned his lesson and races clean and we’ll see how he does; the man is his mid-30’s, so we’ll see if the age myth is true or not.

I wish him luck. And if he cheats again, he should be banned forever from cycling.

Julio Silva
La Herradura, Mexico

Dwight’s charmed life makes charming reading
Editor:
Brandon Dwight should be thanking his lucky stars for the charmed life he has. Let's see what he's got going for him:

Super-hot girlfriend that comes to watch him suffer in Belgium and brings him beer when his races are over? Check.

The chance to go to the motherland of cyclo-cross for two weeks and abuse himself while taking in the hospitality of Michel and his family? Check.

An awesome bike shop in Boulder? Check?

Part owner of the top cyclo-cross team in the country? Check.

Thanks, Brandon, for letting me and many others live vicariously through you the last few weeks. Let's hope VeloNews.com will find something else for you to write about this year.

Rob Mundt
Concord, North Carolina

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The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.