What Leads A Charge Away From Red Bull? Greenbacks.

 This year's Winter Olympics have just ended.  I have to admit that I didn't pay as much attention to them as I've paid to Olympiads past, though I haven't been living under a big enough rock to not know about the saga of Kamila Valieva.  Whether or not she intentionally took a banned substance, the way her teammates and coach and the Russian sports establishment have treated her is child abuse, pure and simple.  That the International Olympic Committee did nothing to prevent her situation from snowballing--and, if they do anything, they're more likely to discipline her than her team, coaches or the relevant Russian organizations--confirms something that I've long known:  The IOC is, purely and simply, one of the most corrupt organizations in the world. Even if Valieva's tale of woe hadn't unfolded as it did, the fact that this year's games were awarded to Beijing is, for all sorts of reasons, evidence of how avaricious the IOC is.

(As Harry Shearer reminds us, the Olympics are a movement, and we need one--every day!)

As bad as the IOC is, it has at least one other rival for unscrupulousness in the sports world:  the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). (I'd also put FIFA in the same league, if you will.)  The travesty of Lance Armstrong's carrer is, alone, evidence of that.  UCI officials seem to react to doping in one of two ways:  They look the other way until they can't (that's how they acted in the L.A. farce) or they talk about how they're going to do whatever they keep riders from using banned substances and severely discipline those who did, while making some deal or another that sends the exact opposite message.

Red Bull, to my knowledge, isn't banned by any major sports organization.  I've never drunk it myself, but from what I've heard, it gives one of the quickest, most intense, legal bursts of energy.  That is probably the reason why it's so often associated, whether through sponsorship or in other ways, with high-intensity sporting events.

Evie Richards at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Alberstadt, 2021

Such was the case with the Mountain Bike World Cup, the sport's premier UCI event.  Sponsors are selected by the UCI, as they are at other events under the organization's umbrella.  Red Bull is sponsoring this year's edition, as it's sponsored the past ten.  I can't help but to see some UCI official winking while making the deal.

Well, this will be the last time for Red Bull.  For next year's event,  Discovery Sports will be the sponsor.  They're part of the Discovery broadcast network, which broadcasts a wide variety of sporting events.  I don't fault their work, but, given UCI's history, it's hard not to think that the money involved swayed them--and will give the UCI even less incentive than it (or the IOC or FIFA) to act on its stated commitment to fight doping and other forms of corruption in the sporting events they sanction.

He Didn’t Wear Lycra

 Here in the United States, today is Presidents’ Day.

When I was a kid (really, I was!), two separate holidays were celebrated:  the 12th for Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday and the 22nd for George Washington.  That meant two days off from school unless, of course, the holiday fell on a weekend.  In the 1970s, those fetes were eliminated in favor of a Monday holiday in February.

The resulting long weekend gave stores (and, now, Internet retailers) a day to mark down prices on stuff they couldn’t sell for Christmas or other holidays—and customers an excuse to shop.

As I wrote a few years ago, during the 1890s-early 1900s Bike Boom, Washington’s Birthday was Bicycle Day. Bicycle makers debuted new models in splashy shows, and with sales, in much the same way the day would become the occasion to introduce new car models. 

From what I’ve read, that day was chosen because, at this time of year, people sense that Spring was around the corner—and, in the warmer parts of the country, it had all but arrived.  In those balmier locales (and some less temperate), the day also began the riding or racing season.

Our current President, Joe Biden, has been spotted riding with his wife, Jill, on more than one occasion.  His predecessor who shall not be named did everything he could to denigrate bicycles and cyclists.  But Obama, Clinton and both Bushes were at least occasional cyclists. So was Jimmy Carter, until recently.

I don’t think Ronald Reagan ever mounted two wheels while he was in office, though he was known to ride in his younger days.  And another president I shouldn’t name—let’s call him Tricky Dick—is probably the last person in the world I would expect to see on a bike. (Peter Sagal quipped that in San Clemente, he was seen surfing in his dress shoes.  So it’s not surprising to see him cycling in, shall we say, non-cycling attire.

From The Bicycle Story

Is That All They Want?

One thing I notice while cycling is that signs and billboards don't always convey the intended messages. 

I saw an example last week, as I crossed the Northern Boulevard Bridge into Flushing:

Is this billboard telling us that if Morgan & Morgan wins your case, all they want is for you to pay?  I mean, I could understand if they feel that way: I've felt the same way about jobs I've done.  

Or should they reverse the order of "Only" and "Pay?" Somehow I think that would entice more would-be clients:  If the lawyer doesn't win, you don't pay.

One would think that in a firm of lawyers, at least one of them would have thought about how they phrase their pitches.