- Must listen: A great podcast with Exercise Physiologist and Skratch Labs founder, Allen Lim discusses Sports Nutrition and Marginal Gains in cycling.The podcast, Marginal Gains is worth taking a dive into, as it has many interesting episodes on cycling performance and technology.
- Living a net zero life has huge benefits for personal wellbeing. An in-depth study found that measures taken to get the UK to net zero would be overwhelmingly good for us.
- Former professional cyclist Geoff Kabush recently wrote an opinion piece for Cycling Tips in response to the six-race Life Time Grand Prix gravel and mountain bike race series. That series opened an application process for 40 (later increased to 60) total athletes who would race for the $250,000 in prizes. The application process and rules of the series have since become a topic of discussion within the gravel and mountain bike communities. Geoff criticized the selection process, which includes an assessment of social media influence and addresses the question of whether there is still room for young cyclists in the sport who have performance goals without follower or subscriber goals.
- Former Federal agent Jeff Novitsky, who investigated Lance Armstrong’s and US Postal Cycling Team’s doping for years, said in a New York Times editorial piece last week that he believed baseball players Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds – who were accused of steroid use during their careers, and whom Novitsky also investigated – should be eligible for nomination to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Novitsky wrote, “I’ve come to this conclusion: Bonds and Clemens played at a time when the widespread abuse of P.E.D.s in baseball was a result of a collective failure – of Major League Baseball, teams, players, the players’ union, the media and even the fans …. a lot of us were complicit in sitting back and …. turning a mostly blind eye. ….. (Clemens and Bonds) and other players wound up bearing the brunt of that collective failure and the selective aftermath, and, unfairly, they still are.” Novitsky seems to minimize individual liability, saying that doping “wasn’t an aberration as much as it was part of a larger culture.” Novitsky goes on, “if we’re going to deny Bonds and Clemens, then there’s something amiss with the integrity of the whole Hall of Fame process and the record of a time when baseball itself didn’t live up to Hall of Fame standards.” Since he was one of the primary U.S. investigators of sports doping, we have to wonder if Novitsky would now promote the same attitude adjustment in cycling. The Outer Line reached out to Novitsky but received no response.
