What Lance Armstrong's Return Means to Amateur Racing

It's not news anymore, but part of the collective cultural consciousness. Lance Armstrong is returning to pro cycling.

You don't have to go far to find speculation about what it means to Armstrong's legacy, doping, Contador's future, the ASO, cancer fundraising, TV ratings, and revenues at Trek Bicycles. It's all out there. You've probably already seen it so I won't bother linking. But if you see a particularly interesting angle, throw a link in the comments.

What hasn't been speculated on, however, is the impact of Lance's return on the most important corner of cycling - our criteriums in industrial parks, time trials on highways open to 60 mph traffic, and yellow-line-ruled road races that are inevitably 2 hour drives from wherever you happen to live. Lance's biggest splash will be in pro cycling, to be sure. But amateur racing will feel the ripples from his return as well. You can argue that a rising tide lifts all boats, but amateur racing may very well be the shoreline subject to slow but inevitable erosion.

Oh man, that was awful. Apologies, The Wrob. And to anybody in marine geology.

Anyway, here's what Lance's return means to us:

• Trek will suffer a success disaster. The 2009 Madone is by almost every account the most gorgeous and thoughtful racing bike ever built. As soon as Lance turns a pedal on one in anger, Trek won't be able to make them fast enough. Good for them, but a shame for those of us who covet the bike. Not because we won't be able to get them - we will, eventually. Instead, the shame will come from everyone else who gets one. The 09 Madone is a pure thorgoughbred racer, and 95% of them will be ridden purchased (at full retail) by inspired and well-heeled fans - a category of cyclists several steps removed from competition. These gorgeous bikes will be subject to inverted stems and uncut steerer tubes to give the maximum amount of handlebar rise, SPD pedals spun on to allow the use of rubber soled cleated shoes purchased for spinning classes, Performance water bottle cages cradling Deer Park sport bottles, and size L seat wedges big enough to hold not just a spare tube, but a spare tire, extra cassette, and two rolls of replacement bar tape (none of which will ever be needed). Even the most respectable and savvy racer who toes the start line on a machine carrying so much cultural baggage will be subject to snickers and jibes, rather than the admiration and knowing nods he anticipated. Better to save your money, buy an unpretentious aluminum CAAD9 and put spokey-dokes on it. At least then you can laugh it off, win or lose.

• 30+ is the new Cat 4. Lance's heyday (which was actually his first comeback, though from near-death rather than retirement) generated a huge spike in racing licenses in the US, largely from first-time racers inspired to choose cycling over some of the other sports with less suffering but greater public glory. This time around, we'll see a similar spike in racing activity. But my guess is that it will be master's racers who have been out of the sport for a few years and are inspired to make a comeback of their own. 30+ and 40+ fields will swell, and Cat 4 and Cat 5 fields will see the average age increase noticeably as well. It may very well be that the 30+/40+ guys will have to hover on BikeReg.com at 11pm when race registration opens just to get a spot, same as the Cat 4s and Cat 5s.

• Your Team Kit will be more expensive. More licensed racers means more teammates, which has its advantages to be sure. But some teams determine kit prices by allocating a percentage of sponsorship revenue towards each team kit. There's no guarantee that sponsorship revenue will increase linearly along with roster size, so more team kits means that the sponsor contribution will be spread over a bigger number of kits. Suddenly your $20 discount on a skinsuit will be only a $15 break. So don't crash in it until late July or early August.

• That giant sucking sound has nothing to do with Ross Perot. Instead, it's the sound made by sponsorship dollars from non-endemic (meaning companies outside of the cycling industry, like banks or car manufacturers) funneling rapidly out of regional racing and into whatever Lance Armstrong is doing. These are companies who don't earn their livelihood by selling to cyclists. Rather, they've learned that marketing to cyclists has some advantages, and they've found various ways to do this. But now, it will be an increasingly harder sell to get them to shell out $10K to have their logo on a flyer for a crit that attracts 300 racers and another 600 spectators, when the same amount can get them enduring placement on a commemorative t-shirt given to all 5000 participants of a 20K charity ride immediately preceding the finish of a stage of the Tour de Georgia that Lance himself is racing in. Pure reach aside, it's a better opportunity for almost any sponsor because they're hanging their brand on whatever attributes they find in racing (sport, determination, healthy lifestyle, etc), but also a willingness to financially support cancer research. I don't know about you, but I'd rather race for pinks against Dave Fuentes than compete mano a mano for marketing budget with the LAF, particularly since whatever a company spends there is a tax deductible contribution to a registered not-for-profit.

So yeah, Lance's return is great for cycling. But that doesn't mean it's good for you.

Comments

[paul]

Keen observations, and certainly more honest than Sally J's hagiography in yesterday's Washington Post.

However, you overlooked a possible second-order benefit of the Madone effect: a glut of great, cheap, second-hand bikes, "never fired, and only dropped once."

[JimmyNick]

You overlook one important prospect of Lance's return, to wit:
We've seen the slick technology of astronomically costly Dura-Ace and Record trickle down to lower groups affordable to us Cat 4s and child-rearing masters racers. Likewise, with Lance's return, I expect we'll see a dope trickle-down.
Armstrong's return will spur a new competition among pharmaceutical witch doctors to concoct a new generation of harder-to-detect versions of EPO-like and HGH-like drugs. With that will come some failure, and some experimentation with corner-cutting -- the pharmacological equivalent of bushings instead of bearings. That is, Lance will get the slick, expensive new drugs. But the bonus to us is that those drugs with side effects that Armstrong might consider unacceptable at his price point -- eyelid lesions, say, or fin growth -- will suddenly become more readily and affordably available for those of us who compete in races with no testing. (No, I don't mean the Olympics.)
Suddenly, at 180 lbs. and age 45, I'll be able to climb with the skinny 24-year-old castrati, provided that my newly grown tail doesn't get caught in anyone's spokes. Sure, there would be the slight increase in risk that my blood might break if I wreck. But those $100 purses would make it worthwhile!

- JN

[CW]

uh, yah... I read the news about Lance and immediately contacted my local vet about prescribing some HGH and EPO "for a stray cat in the neighborhood that could use some help beefing up and needs help catching mice". ...or I might have dismissed the news as "big business attempting to regain market share".

Lance had his day in the sun and if he's realized that running marathons doesn't get the foundation dollar donations that bike racing did, then more power to him on the pro circuit. (Down with cancer! Up with fighting the good fight!) I can't defend Lance from doping allegations (nor would I care to), but does it matter? I don't think he has a third wind in him to genuinely compete with the now-accomplished-youth that just did summersaults through France in July (demonstrably drug-free). ...not at his age. ...not after taking a year off. Really, doesn't this have more to do with the number of Cervelos you see at HP and on the Mt Vernon Trail ridden by 40-somethings with their knees akimbo (but their wrists adorned with yellow wrist-bands)?

Mike, I dream your dream that pro dollars pulled from doping pro teams would find their place in local racing (and I admit freely that I've looked at Felts and Cervelos more seriously of late than BMCs and Treks) but I don't think that Lance's return to cycling will necessarily take that away. In fact, I hadn't noticed those dollars getting here in the one....or was it two....years since Lance and the other dopers old-timers got outta the business.

[Jesse Leifert]

I'm glad he's back, for three reasons:

1) I'm pumped about seeing an Olsen twin in France next year.
2) More press towards cycling, good or bad, is good.
3) I CAN NOT WAIT for someone like Van de Velde to beat him next year.

[Fabrizio Roman]

He is almost exactly my age, and I am not happy to see him come back. I'll admit that I'm also not a big Lance Armstrong fan. I was going to say "Lance fan", but I don't want anybody to get that confused with Lacy.

When I finally decided to get back into this sport, after almost 20 years away from it, was after he had retired. When I was a junior, I raced against the likes of Hincapie, Julich, and Carney, and it was impossible to beat any of them. In fact, I never beat any of them, but rode their wheels to bunches of top 5's. Seeing Lance dominate every Tour was miserable and only reminded me of losing to those guys. It was seeing the Landis Tour, and then the Contador Tour that really got me back into racing. Knowing that anybody could win on any given day. I'm still looking for that win though.

As far as him being good for cycling, I seriously doubt that will be the case at this point, and wonder if he is coming back because Bristol Meyers approached him with a brand new designer drug and they want to sponsor him/use him for advertising their cancer meds. Further, any press is not always GOOD press. What if he gets caught in a doping scandal? Look at how bad things have been already with that. It has been so bad that I even refused to watch most of the Tour this year. Yep, our sport is doing great. Pun intended. How many riders got caught this year at the Tour? Was it 2 big name riders. I think so, and one of the morons is Italian. That hurt even more.

When I was racing the 14-15 age group, there were 50+ juniors at races in the mid eighties, and the same held true in the 16-17 age group in the late 80's. If you didn't line up at the front in those races, you would have one heck of a time getting to the front. Coming back to the 5's and 4's was easy for me, because they reminded me of those junior races. However, watching the junior races nowadays is kind of sad. If there are 20 riders in them I would be surprised. My dad even comments about these junior races when he comes to races with me now. The future of our sport is in the kids, and there aren't enough of them out there racing. What would be better for the sport than Lance coming back, is having kids races at EVERY USCF race. When I say kids, I'm talking about kids between 5 and 10, just to expose them to racing.

Me, I wanted to race bikes since I got my first BMX bike at age 5. At age 13, after the LA Olympics and watching Grewal's gold medal performance, my dad went out and bought me a Trek 560 and I entered my first race that fall. Lacy was there too. Sad thing is that there was blood doping back then too. Do the Olympics seem like they are as big a deal as they were in the 80's?