4 ms·

I raced bicycles in the 1980s and duathlons in the 1990s. By the 1990s, drug cheating had become rampant at the professional level and was seeping downwards int

I raced bicycles in the 1980s and duathlons in the 1990s. By the 1990s, drug cheating had become rampant at the professional level and was seeping downwards into amateur sports. I have stayed in touch with the sport, and it’s especially filthy amongst the age-groupers. They have no financial motivation not to cheat: They are already well-off and won’t lose a penny of sponsorship money if they get caught. Furthermore, many come from the world of business, where cheating is a fact of life. You do a certain thing, if you get caught, you hire lawyers and fight and/or bargain your way to the least unfavourable outcome. What is the difference between offshoring your tax avoidance and visiting a shady doctor for a prescription? This is especially true when it reaches a certain tipping point where “everybody cheats.” Like many things in life, there are two sets of rules: One for those with a lot of money, who sit on the board of their local club and/or sponsor the racing scene, and another for those who ride purely for fun. For a certain type of middle-aged type-a male, it is about being the “Alpha” in the scene, and that means winning your age group at all costs, having your business’s name splashed over everything in sight, and that means being a part of the power elite within the sport itself. I’m no longer a part of the multi-sport scene, I switched to mountain biking, where I thought I’d find a laid-back outdoorsy California vibe. It is there, if you look past the guys with a “quiver” of six or seven carbon-fibre bikes :-)

nkurz 11y ago
Furthermore, many come from the world of business, where cheating is a fact of life. You do a certain thing, if you get caught, you hire lawyers and fight and/or bargain your way to the least unfavourable outcome. It's not definite from your phrasing, but based on the parallel to sports I'm assuming you view this attitude negatively. Have you managed to find a business niche that isn't prey to this? Have you found a way to make peace with this without feeling that you've given up your sense of morality? This is something I struggle with.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  I find that morality follows a distribution. Of course, the distribution is different in different sectors than in others, but there is still a distribution. This is interesting, because it tells me that no matter how crooked the business sector, there is some company so awful that that puts all the others to shame. And there is another out at the other end that has good people trying to do good things. If you're looking for a job, you can only work for one company, so that provides some hope: You just need to find that positive outlier. And if they are also successful and not crippled by attempts to stay sane in an insane world, you'll be fine. It's much the same as with startups. Lots are absolute nonsense, conceived with the purpose of extracting money from a gullible market for investments in hot technology. But you don't have to work for or with any of them, you just have to find the people who are genuinely trying to make the world a better place in a way that fits with what you have to offer.
beachstartup 11y ago
> laid-back outdoorsy California vibe as far as i can tell this is permanently gone from california. we are now all hyper-capitalists living in a weird socialist-leaning statist bureaucracy. i grew up here but i'm thinking of moving somewhere else. the problem is there are only 3 states on the west coast and washington is basically turning into california 2.0
- Balgair 11y ago
  Don't look at Colorado either, it's all Tebow lovers and overly stoned grass-heads now.

nkurz 11y ago

Furthermore, many come from the world of business, where cheating is a fact of life. You do a certain thing, if you get caught, you hire lawyers and fight and/or bargain your way to the least unfavourable outcome. It's not definite from your phrasing, but based on the parallel to sports I'm assuming you view this attitude negatively. Have you managed to find a business niche that isn't prey to this? Have you found a way to make peace with this without feeling that you've given up your sense of morality? This is something I struggle with.

braythwayt 11y ago
I find that morality follows a distribution. Of course, the distribution is different in different sectors than in others, but there is still a distribution. This is interesting, because it tells me that no matter how crooked the business sector, there is some company so awful that that puts all the others to shame. And there is another out at the other end that has good people trying to do good things. If you're looking for a job, you can only work for one company, so that provides some hope: You just need to find that positive outlier. And if they are also successful and not crippled by attempts to stay sane in an insane world, you'll be fine. It's much the same as with startups. Lots are absolute nonsense, conceived with the purpose of extracting money from a gullible market for investments in hot technology. But you don't have to work for or with any of them, you just have to find the people who are genuinely trying to make the world a better place in a way that fits with what you have to offer.

beachstartup 11y ago

> laid-back outdoorsy California vibe as far as i can tell this is permanently gone from california. we are now all hyper-capitalists living in a weird socialist-leaning statist bureaucracy. i grew up here but i'm thinking of moving somewhere else. the problem is there are only 3 states on the west coast and washington is basically turning into california 2.0

Balgair 11y ago
Don't look at Colorado either, it's all Tebow lovers and overly stoned grass-heads now.