Exorcising the Demons of Doubt

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | August 6th, 2007 | Trackback

During the last week of the Tour de France this year, as I was going on about how great I thought Mauricio Soler was - a shining example of the new generation of cycling in the midst of a bunch of cheaters - it turns out the husband was harboring doubts. While I was watching Soler produce amazing bursts of speed on the climbs, the husband was being skeptical. While I was marveling as Soler fought back after being dropped, the husband was wondering if it was all for real. And I’m sure he wasn’t the only one.

Then, near the end of the race, when the reports surfaced that Soler might have tested positive for something (reports which turned out to be wildly untrue and based on weird rumors and a press corps just waiting for something else to happen), I was crushed while the husband said, “See? I knew it was too good to be true.” But he wasn’t happy about being “right,” he was crushed, too.

So, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve decided that this is what we need to do, people - we need to exorcise the demon of doubt from any cycling fans who remain fans after so many tumultuous years. Does that mean we should all trust blindly that what these riders say is true? Of course not. It just means that if we see an amazing ride, we can’t let the gremlin of doubt creep into the back of our minds to take away our joy at seeing what looks like an amazing ride. Yes, there will be the days when you are wowed one morning and depressed the next morning when you read that the guy who flew away from the pack turned out to be doping, but unless you keep the doubt from your mind, you’ll be denying yourself any of the joy of watching cycling at all. Then what are you left with? Doubt one day and potential depression the next? What if the guy who rode so well doesn’t test positive for anything? Then what do you have?

Unless we allow ourselves to experience some happiness when we see something that looks fantastic in a bike race, then it doesn’t matter which of the riders is actually cheating. We’re the ones who are really getting cheated.

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